William H. Schmidt et al.
2001
Do you really want to squeeze the TIMSS data for insights into elementary and secondary schooling? Here's a book for you. William H. Schmidt of Michigan State, who was one of the leaders of American participation in TIMSS, joined with 6 colleagues in writing a 400-page technical explanation (and it IS technical) of what accounts for the different results of participating countries. You won't find the actual country-by-country league tables here. (You've probably seen them elsewhere.) In the authors' words, "Comparative status...says little about learning. Learning is change and growth....If we wish to know what is effective in enhancing learning, we must...examine what produces changes and gains in achievement." In this volume, they don't look at the variables that are hard to change, such as culture and socio-economic status but, rather, at things within the control of schools and education policy. Specifically, they fix on the school curriculum as a key determinant of student learning. Given that perspective, you will not be surprised that they conclude that academic standards matter, that textbooks matter and that teaching matters. So does the extent of commonality of standards within a country. Here's one of the main places where the United States could stand to learn from other countries, particularly as we embark on a new, federally-mandated effort to spell out academic standards and bring every child to "proficiency" vis-??-vis those standards. Can we have a national perspective on standards without undue federal control of schooling? The authors say yes. To me, their most tantalizing insight is this: "The setting of content standards-relative priorities-is typically a national task and represents a national vision. That is not so in the United States. However, unlike what we might have naively assumed about other countries, setting priorities at a national level is not tantamount to national control of the school system. Many other countries have regional, religious, and even local control of schools but only a national control of relative priorities involved in content standards. This is a much narrower sense of national control than most in the United States fear and one that may well be more tolerable politically." There's lots more here. The ISBN is 0787956848. The publisher is Jossey-Bass, which you can find on the web at www.josseybass.com. You can also call them at (888)378-2537.
