U.S.
teens rate below average in math
Tuesday, December 07, 2004 • BY BEN FELLER
• Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Fifteen-year-olds in the United States
don't have the math skills to match up to peers in many
other industrialized nations, test scores released yesterday
show.
The latest international comparison also underscores an
achievement gap in America: White U.S. students scored above
average, while blacks and Hispanics scored below it.
Overall, U.S. students scored below the international
average in total math literacy and in every specific area
tested, from geometry and algebra to statistics and
computation.
Known as the Program for International Student
Assessment, the test measures math, reading and science
literacy among 15-year-olds every three years. This time,
the main focus was math.
The test is not a measure of grade-level curriculum, but
rather a cumulative gauge of skills learned inside and
outside school -- and how well students apply them to
real-life problems. It also aims to give the United States
an external reality check about how it is doing.
Among 29 industrialized countries, the United States
scored below 20 nations and above five in math. The U.S.
performance was about the same as Poland, Hungary and
Spain.
When compared with all 39 nations that produced scores,
the United States was below 23 countries, above 11 and about
the same as four others, with Latvia joining the middle
group.
"If we want to be competitive, we have some mountains to
climb," Deputy Education Secretary Eugene Hickok said at a
news conference yesterday. "The good news is, we know that.
This report goes into great detail to give us the facts. The
challenge is, what are we going to do about it?"
In New Jersey, efforts are under way to improve math
skills, according to education officials.
Education Commissioner William Librera recently
announced that a task force will examine the math curriculum
and figure out why math scores lag far behind language arts
scores.
Acting Gov. Richard Codey is expected to sign an
executive order appointing the task force, which may begin
to meet as early as next month, said Department of Education
spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth.
Individual districts also are re-evaluating their math
programs. Among them is Montclair, which has also tracked a
disparity between the scores of white and African-American
students. On the high school proficiency test in 2003, for
example, the percentage of white students passing math was
92.7, compared with 59.1 for African-Americans.
The international test is run by the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based
intergovernmental group of industrialized countries. The top
math performers included Finland, Korea, the Netherlands,
Japan, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and New Zealand.
Compared with peers from the OECD countries, even the
highest U.S. achievers -- those in the top percent of U.S.
students -- were outperformed.
U.S. scores held steady from 2000 to 2003 in the two
math subject areas tested in both years. But both times,
about two-thirds of the major industrialized countries did
better.
Less clear is why, officials acknowledged.
Hickok cited two likely factors: insufficient
qualifications and knowledge among many U.S. math teachers,
and not enough effort to engage students in math at an early
age.
Private researchers and the federal government will help
reveal some underlying lessons for the United States by
doing more analysis of the numbers, said Robert Lerner,
commissioner of the Education Department's National Center
for Education Statistics.
Among other U.S. highlights compared with 2000, when the
test was last given:
- There was no measurable change in the reading
performance of U.S. students, either in the nation's
average score or in its average standing alongside other
OECD countries.
- In science, there was no significant change in the
performance of U.S. students. But the U.S. score in
science, which was average in 2000, fell below average in
2003.
Star-Ledger staff writer Bev McCarron contributed to this
report.
© 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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