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America Flunks Maths Tests.
Ties with Botswana. Hah Hah Hah
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U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers By SAM
DILLON<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/sam_dillon/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
Published:
April 14, 2010
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- k <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/education/15math.html#>
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<http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/education&pos=Frame4A&sn2=576aac90/bd1e4ba4&sn1=81060a9e/6d0e9a89&camp=foxsearch2010_emailtools_1225557c_nyt5&ad=Cyrus_120x60_01.25&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fcyrus>
America’s future math teachers, on average, earned a C on a new test
comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries,
significantly outscoring college students in the Philippines and Chile but
placing far below those in educationally advanced nations like Singapore and
Taiwan.
Enlarge This
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Answer: AB=2 cm; AM =square root of 3 cm; BM=1 cm
Testing the Prospective Testers A sample from the test given to future
middle school math teachers.
The researchers who led the math study in this country, to be released in
Washington on Thursday, judged the results acceptable if not encouraging for
America’s future elementary teachers. But they called them disturbing for
American students heading to careers in middle schools, who were outscored
by students in Germany, Poland, the Russian Federation, Singapore,
Switzerland and Taiwan.
On average, 80 percent to 100 percent of the future middle school teachers
from the highest-achieving countries took advanced courses like linear
algebra and calculus, while only 50 percent to 60 percent of their
counterparts in the United States took those courses, the study said.
“The study reveals that America’s middle school mathematics teacher
preparation is not up to the task,” said William H.
Schmidt<http://ed-web2.educ.msu.edu/researchprofiles/search/profileview.asp?email=bschm...@msu.edu>,
the Michigan State
University<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/michigan_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>professor
who was its lead author. To improve its competitiveness, Dr.
Schmidt said, the nation should recruit stronger candidates into careers
teaching math and require them to take more advanced courses.
The 52-page report provides the first international comparison of teacher
preparation based on a test given to college students in a significant
number of countries, he said.
In the study, a representative sample of 3,300 future math teachers nearing
the end of their teacher training at 81 colleges and universities in the
United States were given a 90-minute test covering their knowledge of math
concepts as well as their understanding of how to teach the subject.
There were two distinct tests, for those preparing to teach in elementary
schools and for candidates for middle school.
The same tests, developed by an international consortium, were given to
college students in 15 other countries, including advanced nations like
Germany and Norway as well as underdeveloped ones like Botswana.
On the elementary test, students from Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan
scored far above their counterparts in the United States. Students from
Germany, Norway, the Russian Federation and Thailand, scored about the same
as the Americans, and students from Botswana, Chile, Georgia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Poland and Spain scored well below, the report said.
On the middle school test, American students outscored students in Botswana,
Chile, Georgia, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, the Philippines and Thailand, the
study found.
The study found considerable variation in the math knowledge attained at
different American colleges, with students at some scoring, on average, at
the level of students in Botswana, the study said.
“There are so many people who bash our teachers’ math knowledge that to be
honest these results are better than what a lot of people might expect,”
said Hank Kepner, professor of mathematics education at the University of
Wisconsin<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_wisconsin/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
Milwaukee, who is president of the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics. “We show up pretty well here, right in the middle of the pack.”
Gage Kingsbury, a senior research fellow at the Northwest Evaluation
Association, which administers math tests in many states and in 60
countries, called the study ambitious but faulted it because of the limited
number of advanced countries that participated.
“They don’t have most of Europe,” Dr. Kingsbury said. “And to suggest that
you can’t be a good middle school math teacher unless you’ve taken calculus
is a leap, because calculus isn’t taught in middle school. So I think they
overreach a bit.”
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