Study Faults U.S. Science, Math Courses

Trying to figure out why U.S. students lag behind their counterparts in many other countries in math and science, a new international study criticizes American instruction in those fields as “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

Based on an analysis of 1,000 textbooks and teaching guides used in 45 countries, the study by the National Science Foundation found that U.S. schools teach too many math and science concepts--and cover them too superficially.

These deficiencies stem, in part, from an overreliance on wide-ranging textbooks, which--in the absence of a national curriculum--exert profound influence on teachers and instruction, the study found.

“There is no one at the helm of U.S. mathematics and science education. In truth, there is no one helm,” concluded the report, the first comprehensive examination of math and science teaching around the world. “No single coherent vision of how to educate today’s children dominates U.S. educational practice.”

The study, released in Washington on Tuesday, comes in the midst of a fierce debate in California over how to improve math and reading education. One camp of math educators has lobbied for a return to basic skills instruction while another calls for using less drilling in favor of teaching students the general process of problem-solving.

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But the study suggests that both sides neglect the overriding need to prune down a U.S. math curriculum that is now too inclusive and hurried, said Phil Daro, who co-chaired the California Mathematics Task Force for the state Department of Education last year. “Our teachers go three pages a day. Japanese teachers spend three days on a page,” Daro said, arguing that the focus in the United States, as well, ought to be on teaching key concepts deeply.

American students’ deficiencies in math and science have been well documented in a number of studies. One of the more recent surveys, by the National Research Council, showed American students placing dead last in math achievement behind Korea, four Canadian provinces, Spain, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Some such rankings have been criticized in the past on the grounds that they unfairly compared top students in other nations with a much more varied student population in the United States.

The new study did not include any such rankings, though the National Science Foundation has promised to release them in another report next month. In the report released Tuesday, however, the researchers noted that they required each participating country to study textbooks and curriculum guides from a nationally representative sample of schools--not just those serving elite students.

The National Science Foundation project, called the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, took four years and cost $5 million. It compared curriculum guides and textbooks in the United States to those in dozens of other countries, including Japan, Germany, China, France and Sweden.

The study found greater deficiencies in U.S. instruction in math than in science. One of the chief findings that should concern American educators, the report said, is that the advanced math often reserved for the top few students here is considered basic knowledge in many other nations.

“What is basic from a world point of view is algebra and geometry,” said William Schmidt, the Michigan State University education professor who coordinated the international research for the study. “That puts us at odds with the what the rest of the world does.”

A typical Japanese textbook for seventh grade math, for example, has a six-week chapter on the algebraic concept of variables, Daro said. But the typical American curriculum scatters two- or three-day lessons on the concept throughout the elementary years, and holds off the most thorough exploration of the topic until the 11th grade.

Similarly, researchers for the National Science Foundation found that the five topics most emphasized by eighth-grade math teachers in the United States accounted for less than 50% of the instructional year, whereas in Japan the key topics accounted for 75% of the year’s lessons.

The U.S. curriculum emphasized fractions and decimals, while the Japanese curriculum dwelt more heavily on geometry and algebra.

“We’re still talking about arithmetic, but other countries have moved past that,” said Schmidt. “The U.S. tends to rely much more on simple knowing and the doing of routine procedures than a lot of other countries do. We don’t get into the problem-solving and mathematical reasoning. . . .”

Although finding that science teaching in the United States more closely matches that in other countries, it too was faulted for focusing on too many topics rather than a strategic few.

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David Kukla, a North Hollywood High School chemistry teacher involved in efforts to change science teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District, agreed that teachers, particularly those new to the profession, try to cover too much--a problem he said stems from overreliance on textbooks written for the widest audience.

“If a new teacher comes along and says ‘What am I to teach?’ he is given the textbook and the presumption is to teach it all. That is a disservice to the student and the teacher.”

The report says that simply asking teachers to teach fewer subjects in greater depth is not going to solve the problem of American students’ low achievement in math and science. Though giving few specific recommendations, the document says upgrading American youngsters’ performance will require rethinking instruction to focus on a limited number of important concepts. But the decentralized nature of American education makes wholesale change difficult, it notes.

Traditionally, states and local districts set curriculum, in contrast to countries such as England and France, where the standards are set by the national government.

Marshall Smith, acting deputy secretary of education for the U.S. Department of Education, said a national curriculum is not a reality in this country, and that educators should instead support efforts at the state level to forge a consensus about what students need to learn in math and science.

“The U.S. has a more diverse population than many of these countries [in the international study],” he said. “The report shows the need for strengthening state decision-making, not a national curriculum. We have 50 opportunities to succeed.”