Comment

The results of the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) demonstrate the power of outstanding teaching and curricula and, by way of contrast, the weaknesses in the U.S. education system, which ill serves American society as a whole and its children in particular. Of the many failings, the quality of the textbooks is, evidently, the most severe. In terms of social institutions, the components in greatest need of redress are funding streams and assessment programs. From a procedural perspective, American educational ills stem, in no small part, from a complex K-12 infrastructure that has lost sight of the content that must be taught.

TIMSS

William H. Schmidt's study analyzes the decline of U.S. TIMSS results from fourth to eighth to twelfth grades and concludes that the causes of America's uniquely poor performance must lie within its education system. On the repeat test TIMSS-R, for example, American eighth graders were about at the international average. In contrast, 46 percent of all students in first-place Singapore were among the top 10 percent of students worldwide; only 9 percent of American youth were in this category. Three-fourths of Singapore's eighth graders placed among the top 25 percent of all students, whereas the United States had 28 percent who scored this well. Singapore had a whopping 93 percent of their students place among the top half of all test takers worldwide, while the United States had 61 percent. Only 1 percent of the students in Singapore placed among the bottom 25 percent of all students worldwide, as opposed to 22 percent for the United States. Moreover, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Flemish Belgium all had performances that were far beyond the achievement levels representative of the United States.

These are astonishing differences, and they are all the more remarkable because Singapore is a heterogeneous society with several different native languages and lessons are taught in yet another language—English. Although its society is far more orderly than that found in the United States, the majority of American classrooms are not so unruly that learning is materially reduced. This is not to deny the existence of horrific problems in some inner-city schools and serious problems of educational inequity. The point is that the lower-quality educational offerings that are endemic to many—but not all—of the low socioeconomic status (SES) schools cannot explain the mediocre performances of students at all achievement levels, the decline by grade level, or the astonishing performance differences between U.S. students and those from Singapore.

Schmidt's study explains that the twelfth-grade TIMSS questions concerned content matter that was, on average, at a grade level of 5.7. On this basic test, American students were at the bottom of the industrialized world; they managed to outperform only South Africa and Cyprus. On the more specialized advanced math test, they placed next to last; even Cyprus scored far better than the United States. The consequences are many.

Does Poor Performance Matter?

Former deputy secretary of education and Xerox chief executive officer David Kearns has estimated that corporate costs resulting from America's low-quality K-12 education system are more than $50 billion per year. Others have put forth a more conservative estimate of $30 billion.

In any case, corporate America has been relying on large numbers of foreign workers to meet the need for highly skilled math, science, and technology experts. These days, much of America's Yankee ingenuity is imported. The United States should have an education system that prepares far more Americans—including those of low socioeconomic status—for such jobs. At present, the public school system is failing to meet this challenge. The education provided is often far too weak to allow U.S. graduates to take advantage of these opportunities.

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