Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics released a report that ought to serve as a rallying cry for all Americans concerned with the steady decline in academic achievement over the last several decades.
The report, called the “2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA),” compares the performance of American 15-year olds against their counterparts in 38 other countries in the areas of mathematics literacy and problem solving. The results, as you might imagine, are not pretty.
| Ranking No. 24 out of 29 among these countries wouldn’t be all that bad if the subject was soccer, but this is math and science we’re talking about. |
The program, administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and conducted every three years, measures the reading, math and science capabilities of 15-year olds from industrialized countries throughout the world.
In the combined area of mathematics literacy and problem solving, the U.S. finished 24th out of 29 OEDC countries, just behind Spain, Hungary and Poland, and ahead of only Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Mexico.
In the area of science literacy, the U.S. also scored below the OECD average. Only in reading literacy were we above the OECD average, and then only by one point (i.e., 495 vs. 494).
Why should this concern us?
Well, because what we are seeing is a glimpse of our economic future. Ranking No. 24 out of 29 among these countries wouldn’t be all that bad if the subject was soccer, but this is math and science we’re talking about.
I know. I know … the cynics among you are saying that many of the best and the brightest of these international kids will eventually come to the United States to seek their fortunes anyway, and perhaps there’s some comfort in that fact.
But what if they don’t? What if the U.S. ceases to be a magnet for the technologically-gifted from around the world? What if these kids decide to stay home, making their discoveries and building their fortunes far away from American shores? Can we hold our own against the competition from the other OECD nations?
I wouldn’t bet on it.
Why? Because we’ve lowered our standards over the past generation and, unless we start requiring more from our students, we’ll never catch up.
For you boomers out there, remember when we had to take four years of math, science, English, social studies and a foreign language? Remember when schools used to offer Latin? Nowadays, only expensive private schools and affluent suburban public schools offer that kind of rigorous academic program … and then only because the parents demand it. State boards of education sure don’t.
For those school districts that base their academic requirements on the minimum state standards for high school graduation, a student can often graduate never having taken a foreign language. Math? Two years is more than enough, don’t you think? Science? Gee, that’s pretty hard, so let’s limit that to only a year or two as well.
You think I’m kidding? Check with your state department of education and find out for yourself what the minimum requirements for graduation are. You’ll be amazed.
One thing I do know for certain is that kids are kids, and if we don’t begin requiring them to take more of these “hard” courses, we’re going to continue as a country to fall farther behind the rest of the world.
If we don’t do something now, does anyone want to bet that either Greece or Turkey passes us by in math three years from now when the next PISA study is released?
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