The Nation - News from Feb. 29, 1988
The scores of American students from elementary through high school on international science tests “paint a dismal picture of science education in the United States,” a National Science Foundation expert said in Washington. American students placed in the middle, at best, and more often landed at the bottom among test takers around the world, the study showed. Twenty-four nations participated in the Second International Science Study in which various tests were given to 204,308 students in 7,581 schools. The NSF released the preliminary results from 17 nations that took part in the study. The preliminary report of the study showed 10-year-olds from Japan, Korea and Finland bunched at the top, with U.S. fifth-graders eighth among students from 15 nations.
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