By now, you've read the bad news from the quadrennial Program for International Student Assessment (PISA): the math skills of American 15-year-olds are sub-standard and falling, compared to their international peers. In fact, the U.S. is outperformed by almost every developed nation, beating only poorer countries such as Mexico and Portugal. This is depressing enough, but if you look closely at the results, things get worse. The achievement gap between whites and minorities persists, and a full one-quarter of American students performed at the lowest possible level of competence or below - meaning they are unable to perform the simplest calculations. (Scores for reading and science were better, but still below average, while scores for "problem-solving" were worse than those for math.) No doubt, this is a disaster for industry, which is panicked by the thought of having to deal with future employees who are mathematical dolts. (Attention Bangalore: here come the jobs!) On NPR's Marketplace, one businessman said he thought of this problem "in apocalyptic terms," while Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable called for a "Sputnik-like" urgency to tackle the problem of declining math skills. Keep an eye out for the TIMSS report next week and Fordham's upcoming State of State Math Standards in January, both of which look likely to add additional bad news to this report on K-12 math expectations and achievement.
"Economic time bomb: U.S. students among the worst at math," by June Kronholz, Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2004 (subscription required)
"In a global test of math skills, students behind the curve," by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, December 7, 2004
"U.S. students fare poorly in international math comparison," by Sean Cavanagh and Erik W. Robelen, Education Week, December 7, 2004
"Johnny can't do the numbers," Marketplace on NPR, December 7, 2004 (audio link)
