Hey Norm
Some of your commentary touched a nerve with me. I don't know the evidence
personally, but I jar a bit when I read of teachers "sabotaging"
improvements to the curriculum. That reads like a licence for administrators
to stamp all over whatever remains of educators' discretionary autonomy.
The UK has, in recent years, and in keeping with the so called "New Public
Management", undergone great centralisation and standardisation, with
dubious educational results (nominally improved, but with diluted curricula
what would you expect?) and all too predictable consequences for teachers,
whose criticisms are systematically ignored or ridiculed as the typical
outpourings of a vested interest, or, worse, the rantings of
politically-motivated militants. However true some of those charges MIGHT
be, the very lack of professional participation in the "reform" of education
is sufficient to indicate the nature of what is going on.
I rate use of the internet as a panacea to educational woes way below
providing more money both for teachers' remuneration and to pay for more
teachers (thereby increasing their status and reducing class sizes) as well
as improving the infrastructure in which the very same teachers must
operate. This is no substitute for a complete overhaul of a disgusting
system, but it serves in the interim.
Michael K.
Norm wrote:
yoshie, you touched a nerve here because i follow U.S. secondary
math-science performances and am aware that the U.S. scored in the lowest
1/3 on the FIMSS, SIMSS, & TIMSS (first, second and third international math
and science surveys).
it's a good example of a highly decentralized U.S. institution, unlike the
more highly centralized educational institutions of the competing countries
that performed well on those exams.
i could go into a long dissertation of the whys and wherefors of these low
scores, but will spare the posters that pain.
however, these scores lead us right back to centralized vs decentralized
decison-making in the U.S. and societies in general, a subject that is right
up the alley of PEN-L posters.
for example, in the U.S. we publish a math textbook series (U. of Chicago)
that was designed to remove the math deficiencies that showed up on the
exams, but few schools want it because "it is too different", so teachers
sabotage the curriculum when the book is attempted. that's one of the
"benefits" of decentralization.
with respect to science, i demonstrated to my ETS AP/IB chem, phys, bio,
envsci posters how the separation of the sciences was extremely inefficient
(i won't provide the details unless asked), how they can be integrated with
each other in modular fashion a la math and integrated with the math for a
more efficient math-science education. however, those ideas didn't sit well
with the math and science profs because it would upset the present elite
math-science university departmental structure and their respective textbook
writers who are more interested in protected their respective fiefdoms,
turfs and rice bowls rather than "the public interest".
my hope is that more progressive educators who are not bound by the U.S.
bricks-and-mortal, medieval-type educational culture will use better
teaching methods with the internet to improve our math-science scores. hey,
i can dream too, can't i?
inevitable question: if our secondary schools teach math and science so
poorly, why is the U.S. tops in science, math, technology and noble prizes?
answer: in the U.S. we push almost ALL young people through the system all
geared to high college achievement and in Darwinian fashion the strongest
survive and thrive. the others fall by the wayside and are left to take the
low-paying jobs. there's a a better way, i say.
norm
-------------------------------------
Apparently, formal rationality has yet to penetrate American
education too deeply:
***** The New York Times
December 6, 2000, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 1; National Desk
HEADLINE: Worldwide Survey Finds U.S. Students Are Not Keeping Up
BYLINE: By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Dec. 5
Four years after American fourth-grade students scored high on an
international test of science and math, their performance declined
markedly when they reached the eighth grade, a second survey shows.
The survey results, released here today, indicate that the changes
some educators had suggested were responsible for the fourth graders'
success were insufficient to produce results as they advanced in
school.
The survey was based on the results of tests that 180,000
eighth-graders in 38 nations took last year. It showed American
students, over all, performing worse in math and science than
students in Singapore, Taiwan, Russia, Canada, Finland, Hungary, the
Netherlands and Australia. They did better than students in some
less industrialized nations, including Iran, Jordan, Chile,
Indonesia, Macedonia and South Africa.
"American children continue to learn, but their peers in other
countries are learning at a higher rate," said Richard W. Riley, the
outgoing secretary of education....
The report, known as the Third International Math and Science
Study-Repeat, came as a letdown to a number of educators.
It confirmed the declines over time in student performances that the
initial 1995 survey of students in the United States and 42 other
nations indicated.
That study showed American fourth-grade students among the leaders in
science and at the international average in math. In the eighth
grade, though, American students hovered at less than the
international average in math and at the average in science. And in
the twelfth grade, they lagged far behind students in most other
nations in both subjects....
..."You would like to see the U.S. a leader not just in research and
Nobel prizes, but in how our little kids perform," she said....
In 1995, American fourth-grade students did better than the
international average on the science exam. Of the nations
participating in both the 1995 and 1999 exams, American scores were
exceeded only by those of South Korea and Japan.
But the results from 1999 showed that by the eighth grade, American
students fell below the international average in science, with
students in Australia, the Czech Republic, Britain, Slovenia, Canada
and Hungary and five other nations doing better.
In math, American fourth graders in 1995 outperformed students in
Canada, Britain and Cyprus, among others. But by the eighth grade,
the report showed, they were on a level with students in Latvia,
while those in Canada and Australia advanced.
Several industrialized nations that took part in the 1995 study --
including Switzerland, France, Austria and Germany -- did not
participate this time....
...It found that most nations tend to employ math teachers certified
in math. On average, 71 percent of students internationally learned
math from teachers who majored in mathematics in college, but only 41
percent of American students did.
Nations with higher rankings teach subjects like geometry, chemistry
and physics before high school, giving students more time to absorb
the concepts, said William H. Schmidt, executive director of the
Third International Math and Science Study Research Center at
Michigan State University.
"As they get to high school, students in those countries can get much
more challenging mathematics or science," he said. Only 25 percent
of American high school students, he added, ever take physics. *****
Yoshie
