Math Skills Survey Shows U.S. Lags Behind

3l1za writes "The New York Times reports that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has released its results (pdf) for a test of mathematical skills given to 15 year olds in 40 different countries. A few apparent anomalies: The US kids rated 28th of 40 (so in the bottom third) while the Czech Republic, which spends in education 1/3 of what the US spends, ranked in the top 10. Further, only about 1/3 of US kids reported that they did not feel as though they were good at math, whereas about 2/3 of Koreans reported this--and the Koreans ranked in the top three. 'Mr. Schleicher said that students in countries that emphasized theorems and rote learning tended not to do as well as those that emphasized the more practical aspects of mathematics.'"

Comments

Laziness

[moronicidiot]

We = Lazy. Leave us alone and quit picking on us :)

Re:Laziness

[bigpat]

" Laziness is the mother of invention."

Or maybe I should have said.... Laziness is the father of invention.

Could you display results in a USA Today graph?

[geoffrobinson]

All those numbers in the post are hurting my head.

Yabbut...

[russotto]

Our American Football programs are still tops!

Re:Yabbut...

[Overzeetop]

But the folks who choose who plays for the national championship still can't count higher than two. (Though, in their defense, they seem to grasp numbers in the billions, as long as there's a dollar sign in front of the first number)

Barbie said it best

[cephyn]

Math is hard.

Re:Barbie said it best

[Pxtl]

Einstein sent this reply, along with a page full of diagrams, to a 15-year-old girl who had written for help on a homework assignment: "Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can assure you that mine are much greater."

My wife's studying to be a math teacher - she loves that one.

Re:Barbie said it best

[chialea]

Let me tell you, shopping is much harder. Let's do cryptography!

Lea

With Bush in office its no surprise

[fanboy19]

"Rarely is the question asked, "Is our children learned"."

Re:It's COOL to suck at math

[Jucius Maximus]

"In this country, there's a huge stigma attached to being good at math. If you are good at math, you're a nerd, where as all the cool kids suck at math, and are proud of that fact. Change the perceptions, and you'll go a long way toward improving the scores."

Bart Simpson is clearly to blame for this.

Toddler math

[saddino]

The New York Times reports that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has released its results (pdf) for a test of mathematical skills given to 15 year olds in 40 different countries

Um, according to these figures the average age of these "children" in each country was barely five months old (15/40 = .375 years old). Something's fishy here.

Re:Statistically invalid samples

[Orgazmus]

You didn't win? They MUST have cheated!

No child left behind

[Dark Bard]

He doesn't appear to be missing many. They seem to be failing in unison. At least Bush got them working together.

Don't worry about it.

[2names]

How can we possibly trust a statistical study that was conducted by Americans anyway?

*ducks*

More money is not the answer...

[digitalamish]

The answer is to outsource our math tests to an offshore company. There we can not only raise the averages, but do it at a fraction of the cost (which they will be able to calculate for us).
--
"Me fail English? That's unpossible." - Ralph Wiggum

Holy shit, they're right

[computational super]

change chanting "2 times 2 equals 4"

Damn, dude - you should know by know that it's two plus two that equals four... no wonder we're behind in math, with this sort of disinformation wandering the internet...

Re:Holy shit, they're right

[UserGoogol]

Pfft. I don't know what sort of half-baked school you went to, but I learned that 2^2 = 4