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Topic: US Science and Math Education almost as successful as Abstinance Based Sex Ed. (Read 612 times) |
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US Science and Math Education almost as successful as Abstinance Based Sex Ed.
« on: 2008-03-14 02:19:39 » |
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New report ranks U.S. teens 29th in science worldwide
Why this information could be a useful tool in improving science education.
[i] [ Hermit : I have no idea how we missed this one ]
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Authors: Amanda Paulson (Staff writer, The Christian Science Monitor)
Dated: 2007-12-05
The United States lags behind most other developed countries when it comes to science education.
That, at least, is one conclusion of a major report released Tuesday by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It measures student literacy in science, math, and reading (focusing this year on science) among 15-year-olds, and is an often-cited reference for policymakers sounding the alarm bells about the state of education in the United States and its implications for the ability of Americans to secure jobs in a global economy.
Finland emerged at the top of 57 countries in science, according to the 2006 survey results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The US ranked 29th, behind countries like Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein, and ahead of just nine other OECD countries.
"What once was the gold standard [for international education] is now not even at the OECD average, which shows you how much the world has changed," says Andreas Schleicher, who helped write the report. The US is average in the number of students at the highest levels of scientific literacy, but has a much larger pool – nearly 1 in 4 – at the bottom, Mr. Schleicher notes. "We have stand-alone studies that suggest these kids have grim prospects in the labor market," he says.
That worry has energized education advocates and reformers, who see the test as a useful tool to catalyze public opinion behind the need for fundamental change in how America educates.
"To most policymakers there's almost a believed connection between how well our kids do in school and how well our economy does in the global economy," says Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. "To the extent that you have first-class bulletproof studies saying this over and over, it provides some powerful ammunition... to make the kind of investments in our schools that we really have to make."
Not everyone sees PISA as bulletproof. Comparing something as different as educational systems in countries with different cultures and populations is fraught with complexities; some experts say the rankings are not as straightforward as they might seem.
"People love to cite bad stories," says Clifford Adelman, an associate with the Institute for Higher Education Policy, noting that after each PISA release, experts tend to bemoan America's poor showing. The truth, he says, is more complicated. The US, for instance, typically has a large proportion of students taking the test in a language other than their native one. Some countries track lower performing students into vocational schools where they will not be tested. Other countries are just smaller and more homogenous.
"The question is how you account for that statistically," says Mr. Adelman. In these tests, "I'm comparing [the US] a country of 300-odd million people, a nation of immigrants, that is incredibly diverse with, in the example of Finland, a country of [just under] 6 million people."
Others dismiss such concerns as excuses. "At the end of the day, that young person is going to have to go compete head to head for a job with someone in another country," says Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. Rather than focus on America's relatively low standing, he and others would like to see policymakers learn from other countries that have managed to improve their PISA scores, despite large immigrant populations and socioeconomic challenges.
"The lesson from PISA is that it's not enough to test; you have to have the support and strategy to take advantage of what you learn from those tests," says Mr. Wise. "Every community is not wired to the world, and every child needs to have an education that looks good not compared to the county next door, but internationally."
Science performance scores: selected countries
Finland: 563
Hong Kong-China: 542
Canada: 534
Estonia: 532
Croatia: 493
United States: 489
Russia: 479
Turkey: 424
Mexico: 410
Brazil: 390
Krgystan: 322
Average score: 500
Source: OCED PISA 2006
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:US Science and Math Education almost as successful as Abstinance Based Sex Ed
« Reply #1 on: 2008-03-14 02:47:09 » |
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Math + test = trouble for US economy
First-of-its kind study shows US lags many other nations in real-life math skills.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Authors: Gail Russell Chaddock (Staff writer, The Christian Science Monitor)
Dated: 2004-12-07
For a nation committed to preparing students for 21st century jobs, the results of the first-of-its-kind study of how well teenagers can apply math skills to real-life problems is sobering.
American 15-year-olds rank well below those in most other industrialized countries in mathematics literacy and problem solving, according to a survey released Monday.
Although the notion that America faces a math gap is not new, Monday's results show with new clarity that the problem extends beyond the classrooms into the kind of life-skills that employers care about. And to the surprise of some experts, the US shortcoming exists even when only top students in each nation are considered.
"It's very disturbing for business if the capacity to take what you know ... and apply it to something novel is difficult for US teenagers," says Susan Traiman, director of education and workforce policy at the Business Roundtable.
Grim results on such international tests helped build political support for higher standards in US schools in the 1990s, and especially for more consistent testing and tougher accountability measures in the No Child Left Behind Act, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic program in his first term.
The president campaigned to extend that testing regime into US high schools in his second term. The new test results are likely to be Exhibit A as the Bush administration prepares a new round of education reforms aimed at US high schools.
The tests also give educators some clues about teaching programs that are successful and might be transplanted to the US.
"These tests are enormously instructive to the US, especially when we look at the instructional programs in other countries to see what works," says Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools.
A key to the success of students in other nations is a very focused curriculum, maintained over time, he adds. "We can't do it nationally," because the US is a vast, diverse country with little appetite for a national curriculum. "But we can do it in cities, and we are."
The international survey was done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2003, testing 15-year-olds.
But PISA, unlike previous international assessments, is measuring not just whether students have learned a set math curriculum, but whether they can apply math concepts outside the classroom. In the US, 262 schools and 5,456 students participated in the two-hour, paper and pencil assessment. Most answers were constructed responses, not just the multiple choice format.
In one question, students are asked to calculate the number of dots on the bottom face of six dice, given the rule that the total number of dots on two opposite faces is always seven. Only 63 percent of US students got it right, compared with 68 percent of their peers in OECD countries. (This question was ranked Level 2, out of three proficiency levels.) Other problems involved constructing simple decision tree diagrams for a lending library, figuring out which gate is stuck closed in an irrigation system, and generating graphics on computers.
The survey comes a week before another set of results of global math performance, which could also cast the US as faltering. The results of the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), to be released next week, will report on fourth and eighth graders' proficiency in science and math.
Where the TIMMS test has been done before, in four year intervals, PISA's math testing began in 2003.
Of the 41 nations participating in PISA 2003, 25 ranked higher than the US average, including Korea, Japan, the Czech Republic, as well as Hong Kong and Macao in China. Only eight ranked measurably below the US: Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, Serbia and Montenegro, Uruguay, Indonesia, and Tunisia.
Most striking are the wide disparities in the US data among student groups:
• Black and Hispanic students scored significantly below whites, Asians, and students of more than one race in mathematics literacy and problem solving.
• Even the highest US achievers in mathematics literacy and problem solving were outperformed by their peers in industrialized nations. This contrasts with PISA results in a reading test done in 2000, where the US had a greater percentage of students at the highest level than the OECD average.
• Males outperformed females in mathematics literacy in the US and two-thirds of the other countries, but there were no measurable differences in problem-solving scores by sex in 32 out of 39 countries, including the US.
These results track findings that most US high school students don't know enough mathematics to do well in college courses or the work force. "Only 40 percent of high school graduates are prepared to earn a C or higher in a college level course, and these are also the same skills needed for the workplace," says Ken Gullette, a spokesman for ACT Inc. in Iowa City, a college entrance exam.
The study also comes amid heated debate over whether the US has enough skilled workers for the high-tech industry. At the urging of US business groups, Congress expanded the number of H1-B visas - designed to let US companies hire technology-proficient workers from other countries - by some 20,000 in 2005. The measure is included in a spending bill heading to President Bush this week.
"At a time when many companies can hire talent all over the world, there's a choice about whether to hire in the United States [or] go where the talent is. So it's absolutely essential for young Americans to leave high school prepared for college or the work world," says Ms. Traiman of the Business Roundtable.
"The PISA results are a blinking warning light," said US Secretary of Education Rod Paige in a statement. "It's more evidence that high standards and accountability for results are a good idea for all schools at all grade levels."
Math + test = trouble for US
US 15-year-olds scored measurably better than their counterparts in only 3 of 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in a new test of problem-solving in math. Below are results for 10 of the nations.
| Country | OECD average Score | | S.Korea | 550 | | Japan | 547 | | Canada | 529 | | France | 519 | | Czech Rep | 516 | | Germany | 513 | | Spain | 482 | | USA | 477 | | Italy | 470 | | Mexico | 384 | OECD average
Scor | 500 |
Source: OECD Program for International Student Assessment, 2003
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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