Why Students in Slovenia and Russia Do Better Than Ours in Math and Science
Did you know that our eighth grade students do worse in math than students in eight other countries and in science, ten countries? Even worse, the scores for our high school students are near the bottom.
The U.S. has never been near the top and there are no signs this will be any different when our kids are tested next spring for the Trends in International Math and Science Study.
While many cite kids in other countries spend more time in school and with homework, we need to also look at the fact that other countries teach five to seven concepts per grade, while we teach 35-50.
Our children’s standard of living may decline
Students in other countries spend more time in school than U.S.
True, many of our kids will not choose to become scientists or mathematicians but these low scores will impact them regardless because jobs will be leaving the United States, and not just jobs in math and science but jobs in areas of our economy that are growing. As the talent accumulates abroad, U.S. companies will do more in those countries.
“If the next great technological advances in energy, the environment, medicine, and information are made elsewhere, American workers will have a much tougher time earning good pay in those key industries, said Geoff Colvin in a recent Fortune article. “A stagnant living standard has terrible consequences, one of which is that the country eventually stops attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest, triggering a downward spiral that grows ever harder to break.”
“The scariest part of it,” says Roger Bybee in The Bent of Ta Beta Pi, “is that our students have the highest aspirations, but we are near the lowest in terms of problem-solving skills. Our skills are not commensurate with aspirations.”
So why do our students do so poorly compared with other countries? There are many opinions as to why this is but two key differences between our schools and that of other countries is the number of concepts studied each year in U.S. schools compared with that of other countries and the amount of time kids in other countries spend studying.
Curriculum a mile long and inch deep, repeated year-after-year
“The countries that we compete with teach six or seven major ideas per grade. We teach something like 75.” says Roger Bybee in The Bent of Ta Beta Pi, an engineering journal. It’s the one variable that’s consistent across all the countries that beat us in math and science. A typical U.S. eighth-grade math textbook deals with about 35 topics. A Japanese or German math textbook, for example, has only five or six topics for that age.
Skip Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and professor of education at McDaniel College in Maryland, says, “In my job, I get to hear the frustration of elementary classroom teachers around the country.
Math texts in the U.S.(left) cover almost 7 times more topics than other countries (right)
“In 49 of 50 states, there are state curriculum frameworks, and their requirements are all over the place. They have 20 to 30— and sometime hundreds—of objectives. This sends a signal to a fourth-grade teacher who may not have a degree in math that all these 100 objectives are equally important. But they’ve never been equally important.”
“If you look at U.S. textbooks, you’ll find topics early and then they repeat them year after year, according to the authors of an article in the American Educator. “To make matters worse, very little depth is added each time the topic is addressed because each year we devote much of the time to reviewing the topic.”
In addition, our content is not very demanding by international standards. This is especially true in the middle-school years, when the relative performance of U.S. students declines. During these years, the rest of the world shifts its attention from the basics of arithmetic and elementary science to beginning concepts in algebra, geometry, chemistry, and physics.
A stark difference in how much time spent studying
While students in other countries have fewer concepts they need to learn, they spend a great more time learning them. The length of the school year in most other countries is longer than our 180 days, with the longest in Japan at 243 days. And the amount of time spent studying each day is also longer.
PTA guideline for homework in the U.S. is 10 minutes each night per grade
“At the Chinese Middle School where I taught the day was much longer,” says a U.S. teacher in English Plus.
“Classes began at 8:00 a.m., though students had to be present at 7:30 for morning cleanup. There were two hours for lunch, since most students went home for lunch. Students were back at 2 p.m. for afternoon classes until 5 p.m.
There were two hours for dinner and then students had to return to school at 7 p.m. and stayed until about 8:30 p.m., twelfth graders until 9 or 9:30.” The students in this community returned after dinner to do their homework at school because many lived in small homes with little privacy or work space. Staying at school gives them a chance to do their work.
In Singapore, while the school year is about the same as the U.S. in terms of number of days, about 59% of eighth graders in Singapore said they spent more than three hours on homework each night compared with only 22% of American eighth graders, according to a study done by Boston College.
School days in Korea are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., but many stay later into the evening. After 5 p.m. students have a short dinner at home, or eat at school, before study sessions or other activities begin in the evening. Students attend school Monday to Friday with a half-day class every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday of the month. Many middle school students also attend after-school academies, known as hagwon, and some receive extra instruction from private tutors. The core subjects, especially the cumulative subjects of English and math receive the most stress.
The homework guideline in the U.S., endorsed by the National PTA and the National Education Association, says kids should get 10 minutes of homework a night per grade. A first grader would have 10 minutes of homework each night; a fifth grader 50 minutes.
What is the answer?
“I say this as a high school valedictorian, national merit scholar, soon to be PhD student. They are covering math and science I didn’t see until my first and second years of college! I attended one of the best schools in the state and received one of the finest educations available, but I wouldn’t be able to compete with the average high school student in a rural village in China,” said a commentator in an online discussion at Education in Review.
Is the answer a longer school year in the U.S.? More homework? The debate is now raging with strong opinions on both sides. However, given our focus on 35-50 concepts for each grade versus the five to seven in other countries, maybe the question should begin with not how much we’re studying, but are we studying the right things.
What do you think?
(Source: Trends in International Math and Science Study, Fortune, The Bent of Ta Beta Pi, English Plus, American Progress.org, American Educator, South Korea educational system, Education in Review, Wikipedia, photo credit)
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by Pat in Parenting
11 Responses to “Why Students in Slovenia and Russia Do Better Than Ours in Math and Science”
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October 23, 2010
[...] Even Students in Slovenia and Russia Do Better Than Ours in Math … There is math physics, geometry and statistics all within the context of the game. Teach them how to investigate history within the context of the game. If you have done a good job, by the time the student gets done with high school, they would know, by the methods taught if they are . Education is a target rich environment, one that has historically been painfully unaware of it's failures and the opportunities out there. There is too little science in education. [...]
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Thank you for your comments. Just wanted to point out that sources are listed throughout the article as well as at the end. The rankings come from Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) conducted by the National Center for Education and Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. A link is provided within the text and at the end of the article if you want more information about the study itself.
I do agree with you that education does not have the priority it needs to have in our country and good education is certainly not an equally accessed resource. I also agree that we need to teach smarter not harder or longer which is why we need to take a serious look at the number of concepts we’re expecting teachers to teach and children to learn in a given school year.
Oh for heaven’s sake. Articles like this are mere proof of America’s lack of education and development of critical thinking.
No sources are cited. Rankings are reported as fact that have no source data: who conducted theses studies, what was measured, what was the population etc.
Without real credible writing that cites sources and allows us to assess the underlying data this is just junk. If it is just a matter of fewer concepts and forcing CHILDREN to give up their childhood in order to pursue some idea of a utopian economic competitive edge then how do you account for the Finnish example?
Plus absolutely no mention is made of the appalling conditions many pupils in the United States function under. Education is not a priority and certainly not an equally accessed resource.
This is yet another simplistic piece of fluff about how Asians are better. It never questions for a second what kind of quality of life is appropriate for children, nor does it consider the changes and rumblings of rebellion that are occurring in such Asian societies and the cost to health etc. such enormous pressure and conformity demand.
As a scientist and mathematician I say this article has nothing to do with science and is an example of the ills we suffer from.
If you want better educated children, you first have to value education over, say, football, prioritize it, make it accessible to all levels of society, teaching has to become a function of real understanding and research and not a political game, and critical thinking has to be a priority both as a concept in the education process and as requirement throughout society. We are lazy thinkers in this country. We need to teach smarter not harder or longer.
Then perhaps with a reasonably sensitive foundation of reality, we can then work on generating some some new science that gives some valid progress in the realm of social relation that can serve the individual, and not just the rich or power endowed. The problem with manipulative domination is that its deceptions and controls actually harm even those so ‘benefited’ when compared to a fully free society. Where there should be a healthy conversation, there is little to no real conversation at all; to the detriment of the whole system confounded by the lack of ‘truth seeking’. People will put up with a lot of problems as long as reality’s limiting allowances in this world are the real cause, and the burdens are reasonably shared.
It would be interesting if there was a game like approach to science and math. Take actual history and use the actual ‘discoveries’ made to make clear the functional importance of getting a grasp on an understanding about reality. Include errant and non-productive paths also. As a greater grasp of reality is acquired by ‘your people’ they can build a better, safer healthier and typically longer useful life to the benefit of all. If you are going to touch warring behaviors, you better include a valid estimate of the wasted lives and resources that occur. Along with a valid representation of the psychological and substantive (such a resource limitations from the waste, etc.) resistances that come with dictatorial and oppressive systems of governance.
No problem.
I found your blog while searching for 8th grade algebra and your post regarding Even Students in Slovenia and Russia Do Better Than Ours in Math and Science | Amigram (Free Online Announcements) Blog looks very interesting for me.
Wouldn’t you mind if I place a link to this post on my_site?
Hi, thanks for your comment. Would it be possible to put it in English so more people can react to it?
Thank you for your very thoughtful comments, Jim.
A few thoughts on the the subject. The Chinese model is one that obviously has no respect for the individual or freedom. I think it would be interesting to see what happens to those kids who do not fit in. My guess is they would be hard to find. The government would not want them seen. When kids are in school that long, you have to ask, why did the parents have them? There is little time to form a meaningful relationship w a schedule like that.
As hard as it may be to imagine, I don’t think time is the real issue with our studies. I think the real issue is relevance. I think in general, people tend to remember the things that have some impact on our current lives. When we learn things that we have little use for, it is forgotten and lost. That is the most expensive part of education, the things we learns and then forget.
We are going to school, getting degrees, learning things that we have no intention of doing anything with because we think we should.
Some suggestions.
Tie sports w academics. If someone wants to be a football player or a basketball player, teach them how to analyze the game. There is math, physics, geometry and statistics all within the context of the game. Teach them how to investigate history within the context of the game. If you have done a good job, by the time the student gets done with high school, they would know, by the methods taught if they are college or pro players. If they are not, they would know how to analyze and research a subject. Something they could take with them to any subject.
In higher education, allow more focused study, and create a system which facilitates easy entering and exiting of the educational system. The 4 year degree as a concept is failing students. It is more designed to weed out then it is to teach. It is packed full of bloat and courses that keep professors employed, but provide little value to the student.
Lastly, a focus on the rate of learning is what should be emphasized vs what a child knows. Without getting into much detail, focusing on rate of learning would enable 2 kids of equal intelligence who had different “starting places” to be challenged and push to their limits vs the current system of only measuring achievement. No child should feel like an educational failure because they had a bad start.
Education is a target rich environment, one that has historically been painfully unaware of it’s failures and the opportunities out there. There is too little science in education.