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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.'"
All those numbers in the post are hurting my head.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Math is hard.
Moo.
Perhaps instead of demanding more money, schools should evaluate how they are spending the money they already get.
HINT: I bet Czech schools don't spend millions of dollars (or preferred local currency) on state-of-the-art sports facilities and equipment.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
"Rarely is the question asked, "Is our children learned"."
The US School system needs a f'en major overhaul. The money is there (we're #2 in the world in public funding per student behind Sweden).
The system is just horseshit. No responsibility, teachers can't teach, kids are a bunch of bastards, and the parents are taking absolutely no responsibility for the kids.
But of course the answer is more money!
You didn't win? They MUST have cheated!
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
I have three kids that will be starting school soon (one of them being in Montessori preschool already). Do I want them to feel good about themselves? Sure, as long as it's because they're doing so well in the classes that they're working hard to excel in. If my kid's flunking math because he won't apply himself, then I want her to feel embarrassed about her performance and not proud of the fact that the school would probably advance her to the next grade anyway.
There are some cripplingly serious problems with the American educational system. A severe overemphasis on underserved self esteem is high on that list.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Everyone = Lazy. It's common to humanity as a whole; that's not the problem. The problem is summed up here:
"'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.'"
Exactly. People need to feel that what they're being taught is relevant to them; otherwise, they'll never learn it. I can attest to this, as I'm sure can most people here.
The goal should be to make the children see *relevance* to what they're being taught. That's why I support programs that give kids hands-on reason to use what they learn - for example, ameteur rocketry to get them to learn physics, simple robotics competitions to learn electronics and mechanics, programming competitions to learn computer skills, etc. We need to make being a geek *fun* for kids.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
This is mostly a cultural issue, not an education system issue. As evidenced by data wherein poor countries outperform the US despite our larger budgets.
Kids, and many of their parents don't care about school or education. They will get what they want. They resist teachers and throw up roadblocks. Many parents simply won't help when a teacher explains that their child needs it. That's what's putting our education system in the toilet.
The only case of education system failure is in misapropriation of money (also a cultural issue). Sometimes a wacko or two in high places decide to fund a pet-project instead of math/reading...
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
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.
I was surprized the first time I came to know that you folks are allowed to use calculators in high school exams!! And can even use programmable graphing calculators in university.
Tell ya somthing. ditch those calculators, and you'll solve half of the problem!
PS: In India, calculators are banned from exams/classes till high school. In university exams/classes you're only allowed to use at max non-prgrammable scientific calculators!
- mritunjai
I am a "Yank" that has lived, worked, and traveled throughout much of Europe, including Eastern Europe.
The "East Slobovia"'s of Europe are indeed poor, but they have high standards for educational performance and student behaviour accross the board, not just for the "educational elite". Indeed, in the US, it is financial status which is often the most important factor in determining access to quality education: either you earn enough money to buy a home in a school district with good public schools or you are able to pay for private education. Most countries, even poor ones, have a far superior educational system.
*ducks*
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
I did study mathematics in US and Russia and I can compare the qualtity of education. It seems that teachers in Russia (and probably the rest of europe) emphasize the understanding the underlying concepts of mathematical theories rather than methods of solving a particular problem. The american students were expecting that the problmes given on the exam are exactly the same that were covered in class, and were always complaining when the professor made even trivial changes in the problems. It could've been the quailty of the students in my particular university, but now I am working at the major government research organization and we get a lot of students coming for the internship in the summer, and it seems that people from europe are much better at solving problems that they never seen before. In these days ability to solve a known problems has almost zero value because it is something that could be done by a simple shell script. Although, sometimes I see US students who are very good at mathematics, those studends usually come from the better schools like MIT and Rice, but they tend to be self taught and usually say that they pretty much skip most of their classses regarding them as the complete waste of time, and I can't say that I disagree with that. This applies
And it's been doing an admirabe job at that. The problem is, a working class in America is now defined less and less as industrial/manufacturing/agricultural based and more an information/knowledge based.
Our primary schools are by design not capable of churning out intellectuals. The intellectuals who make it are either going to private schools or just smart enough to survive public education.
That's right: you don't receive a public education, you survive it.
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
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's not just that.
Look at our society's overall fascination with athletics. When a school needs a quarter million to build a new stadium, they find the money. When a school needs five thousand dollars to buy a new set of microscopes, they have to hold a bake sale or something, and kids end up sharing because they only raised half of what they need.
I have nothing personally against athletics. But when it replaces academics as the highest pursuit in our nation's schools, when parents spend their Saturdays watching their kids' football games, but won't bother to take them to the libray or planetarium or the science museum, then there's something wrong with our priorities.
We're becoming a nation of used-car salesmen who dreamed of being pro-sports stars. The rest of the world will eat our lunch.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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...
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
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.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
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.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire