Full story
American science, math teachers flunk
test - study
05:38 p.m Dec 03, 1998 Eastern
By Michael Kahn
WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - American
students lag behind much of the world in math and
science because their classes are boring, unfocused
and incoherent, researchers said on Thursday.
Educators, parents and politicians were shocked
earlier this year when an international study showed
American children score worse than the rest of the
world in the two subjects.
The Third International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMSS) ranked U.S. 12th-graders, aged 17
and 18, 18th out of 21 countries -- far behind
Sweden and the Netherlands and ahead only of
Lithuania, Cyprus and South Africa.
But William Schmidt, an applied statistician at
Michigan State University, and colleagues say pupils
are not to blame.
''The U.S. curriculum appears not only to have been
unfocused but highly repetitive, lacking coherence,
and providing little rigorous challenge during the
middle years, particularly when compared to those of
other TIMSS countries,'' they wrote in the journal
Science.
The TIMSS study measured general math and science
literacy in third, fourth, seventh, and eighth graders
and at high school seniors in the U.S. and more than
40 other countries.
Schmidt took a closer look at the results, released
earlier this year.
''This tries to put it all together and paint a larger
picture,'' said Schmidt, who is also the U.S. national
research coordinator for the TIMSS study.
One of the key findings after an analysis of more than
1,500 textbook and curricula frameworks from about
50 countries was that Americans tried to teach too
much, Schmidt said in a telephone interview.
For example, U.S. math textbooks for 8th graders
cover about 35 topics compared to an average of
seven in Germany and Japan, he said. U.S. curricula
also covered more topics than in those of virtually all
other TIMSS countries.
This can be a problem because it gives teachers little
time to spend on each topic and textbooks often
repeat familiar ones, Schmidt explained. This fails to
challenge students and causes them to lose interest.
''This is the mile-wide, inch-deep curriculum we are
talking about,'' he said.
Schmidt said American students are studying simpler
subjects, like fractions and earth sciences, at the same
age as children elsewhere are beginning algebra,
chemistry and physics, he said.
''Our students are not now being taught on par with
students from other countries,'' he said, calling for a
national programme.
States now set their own curricula.
Glen Cutlip, a spokesman for the National Education
Association, which represents most teachers, agreed
there are problems with U.S. curriculum and said his
group was concerned about the performance of
American students.
But it would be expensive to change because it would
require new textbooks and expanded teacher training.
''If students can learn more than we are teaching then
we would see that as a problem,'' Cutlip said. ''But
we have to decide how important it is to us as a
society, if we are willing to devote the resources it
would take to make those changes.''
W. Virginia Williams, spokeswoman for the National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics, agreed there are
ingrained problems with the U.S. curriculum and said
studies like this can help draw public attention to the
issue.
''The things that Schmidt has pointed out are not at all
anything our council has disagreed with,'' Williams
said in a telephone interview. ''If we continue to ask
our students lower-level questions, they won't rise
beyond that.''
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited |
