February 25, 1998, New York Times

U.S. High School Seniors Among Worst in Math and Science

By ETHAN BRONNER

The most comprehensive and rigorous international comparison of schooling ever undertaken reveals American high school seniors, even many in advanced classes, to be among the industrial world's least prepared in mathematics and science, prompting educators and political leaders, including President Clinton, to call for a reexamination of the nation's approach to teaching quantitative skills.

Particularly devastating, the American officials said, was the bleak performance of the best American students in advanced subjects. In physics and advanced mathematics, not one of the countries involved -- even less well-off nations like Greece, Cyprus and Latvia -- scored lower than the United States.

"This study has burst another myth," said William Schmidt, an educational statistician from Michigan State University who coordinated the American portion of the study. "Our best students in mathematics and science are simply not world class. Even the very small percentage of students taking advanced placement courses are not among the world's best."

The results seemed particularly jarring given the ongoing dominance of the United States in a global economy based increasingly on information and technology. Some wondered whether U.S. colleges and universities were making up for the gaps.

The data, released Tuesday, come from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, which in the spring of 1995 tested samplings of fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders. More than 40 countries participated in the eighth-grade portion and about half that number on each of the other two sections. The Asian nations, traditional high performers, did not take part in the high school portion.

The fourth-grade results, released last June, showed the United States to be above the international average and were hailed as evidence that the attention of recent years to improving American schools was starting to pay off.

The eighth-grade results, released seven months earlier, had raised some concern because Americans dipped below the international average in mathematics although they scored above it in science.

But the latest results, for high school seniors, are being greeted with shock and dismay by large numbers of educators and officials who see them as evidence of a fundamental national failing.

"There is something wrong with the system and it is our generation's responsibility to fix it," Clinton said. "You cannot blame the schoolchildren. There is no excuse for this."

Education Secretary Richard Riley said the results confirmed what the administration has been saying, that the country needs clearer and firmer academic standards and far better-prepared science teachers.

Conservative lawmakers have opposed the national tests on grounds that they would represent a centralization of education, which they view as more properly a local and parent-controlled industry.

While earlier versions of the international study, in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, produced equally poor results for American high schoolers, they were largely discounted because of perceived societal and educational differences between the United States and other countries. This time, officials say the differences have narrowed, and those that remain were statistically accounted for.

Those who carried out the study said there were no clear or simple explanations for the low level of American performance. "It is not class size or homework or social life or television," said Ina V.S. Mullin of Boston College, co-deputy director of the study. "Around the world, everybody watches television."

The examination given to the 12th-graders consisted of four separate parts testing general mathematics, which includes fractions and percentages, graphics and some algebra; general science, which includes earth science, life science and physical science; advanced mathematics, which includes calculus, geometry and equations, and physics.

Students were selected to represent their respective nations, with 23 countries participating in some part of the exam. To account for margins of error, the results were clustered into groups.

In general knowledge of mathematics, American 12th-graders did better than those in only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa. Students in four countries, Italy, Russia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, performed at the same level as those in the United States. Fourteen countries outperformed America, led by the Netherlands and Sweden. The results were similar for general science.

The advanced mathematics assessment was given to students who had taken or were taking pre-calculus, calculus or advanced placement calculus, and the advanced physics assessment to students who had either taken or were taking physics or advanced placement physics. In advanced mathematics, 11 countries outperformed the United States and no country performed more poorly; in physics, 14 countries did better than the U.S. and none did worse.

One ray of light was performance by American students who took advanced placement calculus. When these students -- about 5 percent of the nation -- were separated out and measured against students abroad in advanced mathematics, they did slightly better than the international average. But in physics, when the same statistical exercise was done, Americans were still below the international average.

One of the nagging problems worldwide seen in the study is a gender gap favoring males in math and science. Males outperformed females in all but one of the 21 countries testing in mathematics and science literacy. The gender gap in the United States was among the narrowest in both math and science.

Pascal Forgione Jr., the U.S. commissioner of education statistics, said that previous explanations for the United States' comparatively poor performance no longer hold true. In the past, he said, other countries tended not to keep the less academically oriented youngsters in school whereas the United States did, meaning different populations were being tested. Moreover, the American high school population was seen as more diverse, including more immigrants and minority members. Because of these differences, the international studies were often dismissed as a comparison between apples and oranges.

Now, he said, "the gap between our kids finishing their schooling and those of other countries has closed. And the level of diversity in other countries now matches that of ours."

Many experts argued that American pupils start out ahead of their foreign peers in elementary school but as they move through middle and high school are challenged less and less because the curriculum tends to be repetitive. In other countries, the curriculum in middle school enters more advanced fields like geometry and chemistry.

"It's now time for school officials to bite the bullet and devise the kind of rigorous and clear standards that permit you to devise rigorous and clear curricula, starting in the early grades," Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said.

Only a handful of American states require mathematics or science through all four years of high school. Last year, the New York state Board of Regents toughened graduation standards, requiring students planning to graduate in 2005 and beyond to take three years each of mathematics and science and to pass college preparatory exams in five subjects.

New York City schools have started a number of programs to prepare students for the more rigorous standards, including weekend and evening tutoring in math and science.

Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy and co-director of the New Standards Project, said he was shocked but not surprised by the international study because of the different ways curriculums are defined here and abroad.

"In most other countries, you have a ministry of education which sets a national curriculum," he said. "There is a clear sense of progression from year to year and it establishes a common set of expectations for parents, teachers and kids.

"In this country, curriculum is constructed not by ministries or state departments of education but by textbook publishers who send salesmen around to talk to teachers and ask them what should be in the books. It is a kind of additive process and since they want to sell textbooks with the largest appeal, they put everything in in a kind of smorgasbord approach. We have the fattest textbooks in the world."

The study released Tuesday was sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, an international cooperative of research centers based in Amsterdam. Each country provided its own funding for the national implementation of the study.