An F in Math, an F in Science

In 1995, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study tested fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders in developed nations. Last year it released results for U.S. fourth-graders, who scored above the international average, and before that for U.S. eighth-graders, who dipped below the average only in math. Relief all around. But this week the 12th-grade results were released and the dip turned into a slide. Americans ranked in the lower third among 21 nations in math and science; in physics and advanced mathematics, U.S. students scored at the very bottom.

A comparison of curricula in the top-scoring countries and in the United States illuminates the failure of U.S. high school science and math courses to get kids to think scientifically. Instead of mastering intellectual concepts and moving ahead, experts say, most U.S. high school students memorize facts and review lessons from earlier grades.

American physics primers ask students to learn the forgettable: Who outside the science professions remembers or cares about the resting mass of an electron? Texts in the top-scoring nations go for more memorable impressions, for instance that areas of emptiness are interspersed similarly throughout the universe, so the space between a nucleus and electron is in proportion to that between a star and a planet.

What does this mean for the back-to-basics movement? Its emphasis on memorization is often valuable and appropriate in the earlier grades, but test results like these are forging a consensus that more analytical learning is essential in upper grades.

Unlike top-scoring nations, whose textbooks are based on national standards specifying which concepts should be mastered at a given grade level, U.S. textbooks are constructed to please a wide range of regional school districts. They end up as big, unfocused smorgasbords.

The ideal solution would be national teaching standards, which won’t get past a Congress sensitive to states’ rights. Efforts to mandate standards in California have been similarly unsuccessful. Last month, legislators defeated a bill that would have required all high school graduates to take one year of algebra and of geometry and two years of lab science.

As a fallback, school districts should adopt standards similar to those in the defeated state bill. And the Clinton administration should go beyond its rhetorical commitment to teacher training and lobby for workable solutions, like expanding the National Science Foundation’s teacher training initiative.