The tests, called the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP), were administered by the Educational Testing Service, which also runs the SATs. The first IAEP, in 1988, included only six countries; in this second test, 20 participated. (Notable nonparticipants: Germany, which didn’t want to spend the money it cost each country to administer the test, and Japan, which dropped out when South Korea joined.) Other international tests have been criticized because of the difficulties of comparing students from different cultures. A major complaint has been that other countries test only their very best students, while the United States tests a representative sampling. IAEP officials say the 175,000 students they tested last year were as comparable as possible.
In math, the gap between the American and Asian youngsters was especially wide. Nine-year-old Americans got an average of 58 percent correct; the top scorers, the Koreans, averaged 75. For 13-year-olds, the American average was 55, the Koreans’ 73. Advanced curriculum helped. “Most of the countries that did well emphasized geometry and algebra, where our kids are still learning arithmetic,” says Diane Ravitch, under secretary of education.
Even the very best American students didn’t measure up. The range of scores received by the top 10 percent of Americans was much greater than that of the top 10 percent of Asian students. For example, in the math test, the highest-scoring 10 percent of 13-year-old Koreans got 96 to 100 percent of the questions right; Taiwan’s top 10 percent got 97 to 100 percent correct. But America’s top 10 percent got only 83 to 97 percent of the questions right.
There was one small bright spot, in science. Nine-year-old Americans came in third, after Korean and Taiwanese children. On average, American 9-year-olds got 65 percent of the questions correct, compared with 68 percent for Koreans. This doesn’t necessarily mean that U.S. schools do a job of teaching science to young children. Test organizers say they believe American kids may have done better because the 9-year-olds’ science test concentrates on life sciences rather than physical sciences, and survey results indicate that American teachers are more comfortable with biology than physics or chemistry. As they get older, U.S. kids fall way behind. Among 13-year-olds, Americans were again near the bottom in science (chart).
The tests’ organizers say the results don’t indicate any particular recipe for success. Our school year is shorter than that of many other countries, but our school day is longer. American students actually spend more time in school than Koreans. Quality of time, not quantity, matters most, says Ravitch. “A lot of time in American classrooms is interrupted, with announcements about band practice or whatever.” The countries with high scores used a wide range of teaching methods, from the highly structured to the progressive. Some (Israel, the United States) devoted a lot of money to education; others (China, Spain) spent less. Use of spare time was closely correlated with academic success, however. Students who read and did a lot of homework scored better than those who came home and plopped down in front of the TV for hours every day. Attitudes toward intellectual achievement are also important. In Asia, scholarship is admired. “In the U.S., we call our best students nerd or dweeb,” says ETS president Gregory Anrig. “As a nation, I think we have conflicting feelings about people who are smart, and as parents, we send conflicting messages to our children about being smart.”
Despite the results, Education Secretary Alexander says he hasn’t given up on American kids. Last week he announced that about $2 billion currently in the budgets of various federal agencies will go to math and science education, with the emphasis on retraining teachers. Ravitch says the program will be bigger and broader in scope than a similar initiative launched after Sputnik 1 in 1957. The national goal then was to be first on the moon. That, too, was once considered Mission: Impossible. Science Project
On the science test for 13-year olds, Americans got an average of 67 percent correct; Koreans were first with 78 percent correct. SOUTH KOREA 78% TAIWAN 76% SWITZERLAND 74% HUNGARY 73% SOVIET UNION 71% SLOVENIA 70% ITALY 70% ISRAEL 70% CANADA 69% FRANCE 69% SCOTTLAND 68% SPAIN 68% UNITED STATES 67% IRELAND 63% JORDAN 57%
