Posted on 11/14/2007 12:23:57 AM PST by Pharmboy
American students even in low-performing states like Alabama do better on math and science tests than students in most foreign countries, including Italy and Norway, according to a new study released yesterday. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that students in Singapore and several other Asian countries significantly outperform American students, even those in high-achieving states like Massachusetts, the study found.
“In this case, the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science,” said the study’s author, Gary W. Phillips, chief scientist at the American Institutes of Research, a nonprofit independent scientific research firm.
The study equated standardized test scores of eighth-grade students in each of the 50 states with those of their peers in 45 countries. Experts said it was the first such effort to link standardized test scores, state by state, with scores from other nations.
Gage Kingsbury, a director at the Northwest Evaluation Association, a group in Oregon that carries out testing in 1,500 school districts, praised the study’s methodology but said “a flock of difficulties” made it hazardous to compare test results from one country to another and from one state to another. “Kids don’t start school at the same age in different countries,” he said. “Not all kids are in school in grade eight, and the percentage differs from country to country.”
Because of such differences, Dr. Kingsbury said, it would be a mistake to infer too much about the relative rigor of the educational systems across the states and nations in the study based merely on test score differences.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping to smart freeper list...(wait a minute-—that’s everybody on this site)
whoa there. not everyone is taking the same test
Do you think the NYT could give even the tiniest credit to NCLB for the increase in standardized test scores?
No. The words “No Child Left Behind” do not appear in the article. Apparently the scores went up by themselves.
This study is comparing apples with oranges, imo. If the standard to meet "proficiency" is lower in California than in Israel, of course more students in California will be ranked as "proficient."
Either way, I can tell from personal experience that the U.S. public education system, by and large, does not thoroughly prepare students for the rigor and intensity of mathematics, the hard sciences, and engineering, at the University level.
And, regardless of my comments, Singapore has a 22-point lead over our apparently top performing State, Massachusetts. And I doubt that Singapore has lower standards than any State in the U.S.
Well, I want to know how well Arkansas did!!!
Aren't there a lot of Arabs in Israel?
Where’s Germany?
Test the adults and see what happens.
We have different objectives for our children in HS.
Germany does not appear in the report.
OK, I made one of those up.
They must have seen BJ Clinton sit down with a few racks of ribs.
They need to compare kids using the same test.
Also what cannot be tested and at which we have no peers - our creativity. We beat out the Asians in creativity and innovation all the time.
Thanks Pharmboy.
Which is why I don't take this article at face-value. Israel is at the forefront of every high-tech endeavor...so how can this be true?
Further breakdown by class or race would have been interesting and given far more useful indications.
At least we know that Alabama is not a lost cause. They have at least one smart person, but where do they hide him?
Good eye!!!
What’s that percent score mean? Also, math is taught right in Russia, but if math and science were important to American careers anymore be sure Americans would be studying the stuff somewhat.
I wondered about that too.
I just got this link on Israeli tech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeVvMJdvEX8
"In math, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York students were roughly equivalent with each other and with their peers in Australia, the Netherlands and Hungary."
I'm inclined to think that NY beats all of them in diversity, FWIW. Combine that with the spoiled kids of the native born baby boomers. IMHO, we have a problem: schools that want to placate the teacher's unions, minimumly qualified teachers and kids that don't want to learn the harder subjects.
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