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

It's not an anomalie

[mindstormpt]

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.

It's not an anomalie, eastern european countries have great education systems, even if "cheap". I live in Portugal and we get a load of imigrants from Ukrania an several other countries of the area, trying to earn some money. They mostly end up in the construction business, but they're all college graduates, management, economy, engineering. And they're well-formed people.

Egalitarian? Who are you kidding?

[Pi_0's don't shower]

The US is pretty egalitarian in our education system, compared to your typical poor country.

Hold on a second. Now, I grew up in New York City, and attended public school there until age 17. I taught High School in inner city Los Angeles, and I'm currently living in Gainesville, FL, where I get a good look at the school system. My little brother went to High School in Centreville, VA. Can I tell you how different these four experiences were? I was branded a nerd growing up because of my success in math, but it wasn't a horrible stigma. It wasn't like I couldn't play baseball or basketball because of that. It wasn't like I got beaten up every day. And I got a lot of encouragement from people all around me -- even from some of my peers. My brother, who lives in a Virginia suburb, goes to a high school where the average SAT score is over 1200. Success at math is not only not "uncool", it's actually the norm. Meanwhile, where I taught high school, in a school with ~500 HS juniors, NO ONE in the school even managed a 700 on the math, and only a handful achieved a 600 or better. There is a HUGE socioeconomic stratification in terms of education in this country. The question is, what can we do about it? The first step is admitting we have a problem (which we do), that there's no reason why we should be lagging behind ANYONE! Now, what's the solution?

Re:Very Telling Indeed

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The Czech Republic has universal education until the age of 16.

And it most definitely isn't fair not to have universal education. The government has a duty to provide the best conditions possible for the happiness and welfare of the people, and a way to do this is to provide education for everyone. In fact, the responsibility to do everything possible for happiness and welfare is a moral imperative. Governments that would ignore the education needs of the people would be exactly like a father that ignores the education needs of his children. A father that raises his children in ignorance isn't any kind of man at all, and a government that doesn't provide for the basic education needs of the people is morally deficient.

Even worse in minority communities

[Lord Kano]

Chris Rock once said that "Nothing makes a nigger happier than to not know something"

Imagine being a nerdy black kid. I was. The black kids sometimes though that I was "trying to be white" because I was good at math. The white kids often resented that I was "showing off" that I was good at math.

LK

Re:Laziness

[TheKidWho]

engineers, mathematicians, physicists, chemists, bioligists, you know those guys that make new tech for us.

Re:Statistically invalid samples

[aralin]

I am from Czech Republic and live in US and there was a lot of news about this survey too on czech web sites. Mostly they take it as "we are only good in math, while US prepares kids for life". So it seems every country takes the negative part out of it.

BTW Trust me that all the schools are tested, not just the top rated. I am product of one of the special math school in Czech Republic and what we had in math in high school is more than you get from frist two years of community college here in US. If they took survey in just the elite math schools, it would leave everyone trailing way behind.

Re:It all comes down to the parents.

[alcourt]

Tell me about lazy kids and schools not being accountable. I just came today from a meeting with my son's school teachers about his math program. My son wants to do more advanced math work, has been ready for it for some time. The school's response was to claim that the ability to perform arithmetic on paper has little to do with mathematics and then deny him access to ability appropriate mathematics. So a child who has been doing full multi-digit addition and subtraction with carrying and borrowing is asked to do single digit addition with answers no higher than 15 as the most advanced math they will offer him.

Part of it is the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has allegedly endorsed a program that deemphasizes pencil and paper arithmetic to the point that some of the more extreme advocates of this program have proposed banning traditional algorithmic arithmetic until close to fourth grade.

The listed criteria that the school has identified as necessary skills are available at the NCTM website.

This list may look initially acceptable, but the application of it at least in my son's school was to claim that arithmetic is not even a significant part of math, at least not a standard algorithmic understanding of how to do the standardized problems. Instead, an emphasis on "strategies" is supreme to the point that if a problem cannot be done in one's head, it isn't worth doing.

The other issue is the "No Child Gets Ahead Act". It requires teachers to bring up to minimal standard as many students as possible and ignore those students who meet the minimum requirements without trying. This approach discourages advanced work in all too many cases that I have seen.

There are often problems with lazy students, but that is not the whole of the situation, overly rigorous school programs are just as much to blame.