US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27442541

by NickPollard • 12 years ago

60 92 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

noobermin5• 12 years ago

I think the thing that distresses me the most is that any attempt that has been made to alleviate the situation (like the common core) has been stamped "big government" by people who seem to _not_ understand the urgency of this situation.

I'm out of ideas. What do we do?

EDIT: added a not. Wow did that change what I meant to say.

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

Have you read through common core? That crap is confusing.

yonran2• 12 years ago

What? I just looked it up[1]. The common core math standard looks very readable and reasonable, and it’s not even very big (93 pages). Is there anything in particular that you found confusing, inappropriate, or overly prescriptive?

For example, in Grade 7, there are about 50 requirements, one of which is “Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems. Examples: simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and commissions, fees, percent increase and decrease, percent error.” That sounds like an appropriate thing to learn in 7th grade.

Edit: In fact, most of the time when I am reading the standard I just nod and think “yep, that’s probably about when I learned that concept” when I grew up in California, although in a few cases (e.g. using scatterplots and proving Pythagorean theorem in 8th grade) I don’t think I learned them until high school.

[1] http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

relaytheurgency5• 12 years ago

Common Core is much more legible than the prior standards. That being said, it is a framework and not a solution that should be applied blindly at any opportunity.

baddox• 12 years ago

Objective standards that come down from on high probably create perverse incentives and do more harm than good.

wil4214• 12 years ago

I think its our job to teach our own kids, if the govt cant do anything because of all the naysayers and doubters then its left to upon the parents.

My parents challenged me in Math at a young age and I was always a step ahead in school.

Also as a nation we need to stop putting everyone on the same playing field. Students will always be left behind lets start focusing on programs that will help the smart and the challenged, not one program for all.

Jtsummers4• 12 years ago

not one program for all.

It wasn't "one program for all" in any of the public schools I attended in the US. Admittedly, we send everyone to high school (well, offer it, some students fail out early, some are failed by their teachers, others by their family). But once in high school, all 4 states (VA, NC, GA, NV) I'm familiar with (admittedly dated, 90s) had different tracks and graduation requirements. At least two tracks, usually 3 (college prep, honors, vocational; the first two could be considered the same track with honors as a specialization given the overlap in courses).

anigbrowl5• 12 years ago

That's not helpful for any kids whose parents are bad at math. You're condemning them to a lifetime of ignorance because of their parents' deficiencies.

jstalin• 12 years ago

One size fits all is surely the answer.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 12 years ago

"One size fits all" is the only possible answer when you have multiple, mutually contradictory goals.

The idea that even just one child out of millions might be left out means no answer that treats the problem on an individual, child-by-child basis can ever be considered.

It also rules out anything where one child might get "more" than another. (Never mind that many people are perfectly happy and comfortable despite having gotten less than others.)

noobermin5• 12 years ago

The whole point of the common core, from my understanding was to be vague enough to let local governments decide how best to implement it. They were trying to avoid "one size fits all."

Having everyone in the same page with regards to an overall standard seems good in my book.

anigbrowl5• 12 years ago

Mathematics is one of those few areas where there is only one right answer to most problems. You can have different methods of arriving at that answer, but in many cases one method is optimal and can be proven as such.

Mathematics isn't cultural. Numbers and the laws that govern them aren't going to change in response to how people feel about them or who is teaching them. I fail to see the benefit of working without objective criteria in this domain.

esbranson8• 12 years ago

This standard isn't one size, its a system of measuring sizes. The size or sizes chosen to fit the particular purpose is an implementation detail. Your argument is like calling all shoe sizes "one size" because there is a standardized, limited range of choices.

gph2• 12 years ago

It'll really require a culture shift, starting with the parents. I don't know much about school systems in other parts of the country, but going to school in Maryland there wasn't a lack of mathematical support and teaching. The kids who excelled and wanted to push themselves got all the support they needed. And usually it was kids with intelligent parents that pushed the importance of education and mathematics on them that did well. I'd bet the top performers in American schools are basically on par with top performers in other countries. The will and determination to push kids into that top performer bracket isn't there, even amongst the well-off.

You can force stricter math curriculum onto students, but all it will accomplish is more students failing and their parents complaining that they are pushing the kids too hard. And a lot of those parents have good paying jobs that don't require them to even remember algebra... so they probably don't have any respect for the subject. That type of mentality is endemic in America. Naturally it's going to get passed on to the kids.

noobermin5• 12 years ago

It depends on when you start to force it down their throats :) The earlier in their education that they are pushed to reason more rigorously (again, within reason) the easier it will be for them to accept mire rigorous education earlier. Still, I really agree with you though that a cultural shift will be best, but I'm not sure how this ever will happen.

Pxtl• 12 years ago

Part of the problem is that a subset of the right wing wants privatization. In order to encourage privatization, you actually want the public sector to be as bad as possible so there's greater outcry for subsidized privately-run alternatives.

cafard• 12 years ago

A fair-sized proportion of the right wing (loosely defined to include libertarians also) favors privatization. It is fair to say that some of them want to believe that the public sector is as bad as possible. It is unlikely that any are deliberately making it worse.

josephschmoe2• 12 years ago

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have both a school that performs on par with Sweden and another that performs on par with Turkey.

What does this mean? Things are way worse for the poor here than this study even acknowledges. If you're poor in America, your best chance at a good education is by raffle.

aurelian5• 12 years ago

Could this be explained in part by people who are good at math tending to make more money than people who are bad at math?

http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2...

mikegioia4• 12 years ago

It has nothing to do with that. Wealth in this country is in no way correlated to math ability.

psychometry• 12 years ago

If that's a component, it's a relatively insignificant one. Regression to the mean would likely take care of that advantage across generations.

at-fates-hands3• 12 years ago

I totally agree and am depressed that places like inner cities have such a hard time getting more charter schools and competition that would give these kids and their families a shot at a decent education.

Is it politics? Teachers unions? Getting good admin people? What's holding back these places from getting ahead?

As a comparison, my sister lives on the outskirts of a large metro area and their school has been teaching STEM for almost 10 years now.

mikegioia4• 12 years ago

Honestly, the problem is a collection of so many problems that it's very difficult to really even assess the situation properly. It could be the overemphasis on standardized testing. It could be the lack of support teachers get in inner cities and the fact that they have to babysit 50% of the time. It could be the public school system's unwillingness to adapt. It could be the unions fighting tooth and nail to prevent more charter schools from opening. It could even be the charter schools not actually working!

Personally, I think the problem is that the public school system can't work well enough in poor areas. I think those children need a completely different education system to work for them (longer hours, after school programs, school uniforms!, etc).

Jtsummers4• 12 years ago

I'm curious what you mean by "teaching STEM", do you mean a particular emphasis on STEM? Because most schools at least cover the science and math part, with varying degrees on the technology and engineering (often limited by teacher availability and financial resources). If they don't cover those things then they aren't really covering any state's high school curriculum.

relaytheurgency5• 12 years ago

What's holding back these places from getting ahead?

There is no motivation for someone to teach in inner cities beyond a sense of civic duty. I live in a city with terrible (unaccredited) schools. Students in those schools are often openly hostile to teachers and faculty. Administration is often on the verge of a breakdown due to the pressure to "turn things around." Why would anyone want to teach there? I know I didn't want to.

If you think it's a travesty that talented and bright teachers want to avoid inner cities then you should do it yourself. That's what I say to anyone who brings this up. Often I will be told, "But that's where you're needed!"

"So are you," is my response.

zaphar2• 12 years ago

All of the above.

Politics is involved through school boards where an understanding of education is not really considered a job requirement. And at state and national levels it's difficult to fix problems that are uniquely local.

Teachers Unions can create the wrong incentives in a district.

Good Admin people are hard to find and bad ones make the working environment unplatable for good teachers.

Add in money as well for some districts.

Florin_Andrei• 12 years ago

Yeah, let's robo-blame the unions, that will inject some magic Ayn Rand juice into things and make everything better real quick. Sure.

noobermin5• 12 years ago

I think the interesting thing was even middle class kids demonstrated poor performance too. The problem us spread wider across the distribution rather than abysmal performance by a minority such so that it pulled down the average (to me, that never really made sense in my intuition).

josephschmoe2• 12 years ago

I definitely agree. There are some high-performing schools but they're a minority. There's also a minority of very, very low performing schools.

What makes us unusual is how wide the spectrum is, even if the average is bad.

stillsut• 12 years ago

Having gone to school in MA, I know educational spending ($/student) here is inversely correlated with performance.

But I'm not really worried about national average, state average, even school average: there just needs to be the opportunity to succeed for individual students, wherever they're located.

noobermin5• 12 years ago

I think it is very much worth caring where the average is. This average person will grow up to become a voter and taxpayer and we need intelligent citizens to vote in competent representatives. Philosopher kings never happened, otherwise, just making sure the smartest get smarter would be okay; we have a democracy and the only way to make it work is to have informed citizens.

vraid• 12 years ago

Incidentally, both Sweden and Turkey are ranked below the US average. Swedish education is in a sorry state at the moment, dropping fast in the rankings and already well below the level of any other nordic country.

jmzbond• 12 years ago

I'd be curious to see what others think about this question:

There are so many articles that preach the wonders of international math education in Asian countries, and just as many that attempt to mortify with the Asian system of rote memorization that kills any creativity or true problem-solving. Which effect do we think is greater?

Because if the latter, then perhaps focusing just on math is as myopic as focusing within a country.

marknutter2• 12 years ago

UK 'in denial' over pluralization of the word 'math'.

SixSigma2• 12 years ago

It's not a plural, it's a contraction of mathematics.

Curiously I think Americas still say they study physics.

Jtsummers4• 12 years ago

Apparently physics comes from the Greek φυσικός (phusikos) [1] so it's not an abbreviation at all. Compare to math and maths which are abbreviations of mathematics which comes from the Greek μαθηματικός (mathematikos) [2]. We do still say mathematics in the US, the difference is just in the abbreviation.

(I copy/pasted the Greek versions, so hopefully they're correct. They look correct to my inexperienced eye.)

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/physics

[2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mathematics

marknutter2• 12 years ago

Do you take Econ 101 in England or Econs 101?

relaytheurgency5• 12 years ago

I taught high school physics for a semester and the math abilities of these students (many considered top students) were abysmal. Somehow several of these students had received As and Bs in Algebra 2 but were unable to transform f = ma into a = f/m. They also had a very flawed understanding of how to solve quadratics.

I later realized that the issue is that mathematics is often taught as procedural. Students are taught a process (a set of steps to follow) that will take you from A to B. This works very well when you can remember all of the steps but if you forget one step you will always get the wrong answer. Almost none of these students could reason abstractly about the nature of the equations they were looking at. They could only refer to prior experiences following a sort of algebra recipe.

alanlewis• 12 years ago

Well, surely more standardized testing will fix that right up.

relaytheurgency5• 12 years ago

Standardized testing isn't a meant to teach skills. It is meant to assess skills. No one is proposing that more standardized testing will teach students how to do mathematics.

neurobro• 12 years ago

If there is a better way to evaluate educational systems and educators, then it should become the minimum standard. I.e., it would still be "standardized testing". I don't know why that phrase became a thought-terminating cliché.

Balgair2• 12 years ago

I remember when I 'got' algebra. I was in 10th grade in Chem class. We were using mols = (mols/Volume)*Volume. For weeks, I had no idea what was going on. I just plain did not understand algebra whatsoever. But finally, at the end of a lab class where we actually mixed things and then found the concentrations and volumes, I finally figured out that these algebraic equations actually tied back into the real world. This was not for lack of trying on my part, my teacher's part, or the schools. I just plain did not understand. I think it was a developmental issue for me. I wasn't ready to chemo-mentally, therefore I just muddeled along frustrating everyone including myself.

I say this because I went on to get a BS in physics from a UC. Obviously I learned math very well later on. But in 9th grade, I was unable to learn anything harder than long division. I was a 'left-behind' child due to my brain. Nothing, I believe, could have helped me. Not all the tutoring in the world. My brain wasn't old enough then.

relaytheurgency5• 12 years ago

I was also a very poor math student in HS that went on to get a physics degree. I can say that it was the method of instruction as well as my own lack of motivation. Classes were boring and easy to pass even if you did not know the material. In my state you needed a 2.0 GPA to get into a state school. This is generally doable for even the worst students.

The lack of real consequences for not studying and doing homework played a huge role in my childhood academic experiences. I am often baffled when I hear reports of students who are over stressed by the requirements of high school academics. The standards seem now to be even lower than when I was in school yet students constantly complain that they can't keep up. It's mind boggling.

skywhopper2• 12 years ago

I don't dispute the general findings of the study summarized by the article, but who's choosing the images that go along? The article opens with a mention of the "deep South" and is accompanied by a photo of a rusted bus in a field?

The middle picture with the caption "There is a complacency about mainstream US education standards" shows an anonymous residential street. And the final picture captioned "Massachusetts has high results by international standards" shows a gleaming, gated, gold-domed building [Update: turns out its the Massachusetts State House--that's a fair comparison with a rusty bus in a Mississippi field].

So kids in Mississippi attend school in rusty old buses, whild kids in Massachussetts go to pristine palatial academies, I guess? Also, it turns out there are streets with houses in the US.

esbranson8• 12 years ago

I think your comment is a case of rational irrationality.

The theory of rational irrationality holds that people often choose—rationally—to adopt irrational beliefs because the costs of rational beliefs exceed their benefits. In this case, the cost of admitting (including to yourself) that the article's surmise makes a valid point is greater than you are willing to accept. (Likely related to the denial that the article discusses.) So you are being irrational, attempting to impeach the article by drawing ludicrous conclusions from its incidental and irrelevant choice of picture aids.

Simply: you are being absurd.

zaphar2• 12 years ago

Only slightly related to the article actually but when did the pluralized term maths become a thing. I feel like it had to be recent but I've been noticing it everywhere lately.

pessimizer2• 12 years ago

Commonwealth people generally say maths.

http://www.word-detective.com/2011/05/math-vs-maths/

nickff2• 12 years ago

Not in Canada.

graeme2• 12 years ago

It's a british thing.

hactually• 12 years ago

It's not a British thing, it's a standard English thing. I understand it's a difficult language but sometimes we contract words rather than lopping parts off.

It's interesting that you guys chose to keep Physics, did Physic sound too weird? :D

skywhopper2• 12 years ago

There are some major issues with this article, the more I look at it. The general tone is quite prejudiced--using Turkey, Chile, and Mexico as obviously terrible comparisons we should be ashamed of. The article also fails to mention that the two countries the US is ranked between are Sweden and Spain.

There's also no indication of the variation between #1 and #34 on the country rankings. Are the kids in Mexico 50% dumber than South Koreans? Or 5%?

Finally, is it a shock that there's variation in test results between US states? To whom?

There's plenty that can be critiqued about American education, but this article shows a lot of good ways not to do it.

esbranson8• 12 years ago

Its a news article, not a research paper. And just because it lacks the depth of a research article does not necessarily impeach it. A better question would be "would this information be included in, or be reasonably drawn from, a good article?"

I think this information would be conclusions that could be reasonably drawn from a good research article, and therefore I disagree that "this article shows a lot of good ways not to do it."

And while I agree the general tone is quite prejudiced (using the South as representative of the US is akin to using Eastern Europe as representative of the EU) those countries are not terrible comparisons. Most Americans would admit those countries are not good to be similar to in way of education achievements, and yet the author does make a good argument that America is similar to them, and in doing so impeaches Americans view of the success of their educational achievements.

cheshireoctopus• 12 years ago

What percentage of the current US workforce actually draws on advanced (even intermediate) mathematical skills on a day-to-day basis?

I'd wager a guess that most developers on HN don't even touch the stuff.

tzs• 12 years ago

Not very many. You might enjoy the essay "What is Mathematics For?" by Underwood Dudley [1].

[1] http://www.ams.org/notices/201005/rtx100500608p.pdf

baq• 12 years ago

don't confuse math skills with arithmetic skills. maths teaches you to think and reason about what you've got. arithmetic is just a way to apply your reasoning.

unless of course you're taught to follow steps without thinking and use a calculator all the time so your working memory isn't trained enough to reason about more complex problems.

qwerta• 12 years ago

I think US education system is basically broken. Instead of fixing problems you are arguing who is more privileged. Texas versus California illustrates it well.

voidlogic2• 12 years ago

According to this article it doesn't sound broken in the north. I'm opposed to nationwide changes as I am fearful it will just mess of the good things we have going on here.

tokenadult• 12 years ago

I read all the comments kindly posted here before mine, and then I read the fine submitted article. Here I will link to the study "Not Just the Problems of Other People's Children: U.S. Student Performance in Global Perspective"[1] that underlies the news report submitted here. The full study report will of course give you details that a brief news report has no space to provide. It's good to read a news report from British journalists about education issues here in the United States, as the British journalists are less likely to hand-wave away concerns about United States educational performance.

As a response to some comments here, I'll note that I have lived in east Asia (I am a proficient speaker and reader of Chinese as a second language, and have lived in Taiwan during two three-year stays since I became an adult) and can verify that the schools there generally do a better job teaching mathematics (and also second languages) than the schools in the United States, at less expense per student. That efficiency in primary and secondary education lets both students who go on to higher education and students enter the workforce after secondary education achieve more in their adult pursuits than many Americans. Children there have childhoods with play and fun, but then they get to grow up to be adults with actual skills for advancing themselves.

For comparative rankings of different countries, showing how many more students in some countries reach high levels of mathematics achievement by eighth grade, see the very well constructed data chart "Distribution of Mathematics Achievement" for eighth graders in Exhibit 1.2 of Chapter 1 of the TIMSS report from the 2011 testing round.[2]

This issue is familiar to Americans like me who have lived overseas and have learned the local language of another country and have read the math textbooks available there. Better instruction can produce better educational results--and for less money besides. The top student issue is illustrated also by results from the International Mathematical Olympiad[3] and other international academic competitions. The United States has a huge population base, and it has many families in which the children are brought up by parents who are first-generation immigrants who received their own primary and secondary educations in other countries. (Such children do conspicuously well in academic competitions in the United States.) And the United States is wealthy, a heritage from the good governance structure set up by the United States federal Constitution. But even at that, the United States national team can be beat at the International Mathematical Olympiad by countries that have many fewer people and much poorer economies. Some countries have a very impressive group of top students.

[1] http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG14-01_NotJust...

[2] http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2011/downloads/T11_IR_M_Cha...

[3] http://www.imo-official.org/

GeneralMayhem• 12 years ago

While I am fully aware that the American public education system is far from excellent, I am always skeptical of reports that laud China, Korea, and Japan as paragons of math and science instruction. What exactly is being measured here? Arithmetic and the ability to solve word problems of a few known formats is not mathematics. I do not want my future children to be calculators, I want them to be thinkers. There is creativity and beauty in math, and what worries me is not that it does not exist in the current implementation, but that it does not exist in the ideal implementation.

Of course, I'm also one of those people who doesn't particularly care whether a college education prepares me for a job, because that's really not the point.

See also: Lockhart's Lament (pdf at http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsL...)

contravert• 12 years ago

This report is based on PISA test results, and you can find some sample questions here: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test/

I think these questions are quite fair at testing the mathematical abilities of students. These questions don't simply test mechanical calculations, but also require applications of mathematical knowledge and insight towards problem solving.

If you disagree, then can you provide examples for better questions to test students at their mathematical skill level?

voidlogic2• 12 years ago

Education is not under Federal control, I live one of those "high performing" states. Painting this as a US issue is as silly as painting an issue solely controlled at the national level as an EU issue. I think the BBC's choice of portraying the US as a rusty bus is offensive as, again, this regional not a national issue.

I also think the areas named of poor performance often have poor performance across the board, that is not limited to the subject of mathematics specificity.

esbranson8• 12 years ago

I disagree that the article painted the issue as a national issue. To the contrary, this is the rare occasion that I see a recognition on the part of Europeans that the US is composed of 50 states, and that making conclusions about the EU based only upon information from Romania, Croatia and Poland is probably ill-advised. It recognizes that states like California are big (being more populous than all of of Canada). And it recognizes what many Americans already know: the South is America's Eastern Europe.

graycat• 12 years ago

Once again, over again, one more time, beat up on the US over its "rotten" 'education'. Graduate/professional school? Nope. They're talking K-12. Then they are talking 'averages'. Yup.

This beating up on the US is mostly just fun from public flogging, a scam, a way to get headlines.

The US tried hard, poured in lots of money, bricks, mortar, etc., and it didn't work. Details:

Frontline video on efforts of Michelle Rhee in the DC public schools:

     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education-of-michelle-rhee/

Transcript

     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education/education-of-michelle-rhee/transcript-35/

If the Asians are so good at teaching math, then let them fix the DC public schools. Wait: Rhee is Asian. Oh, well, try the backup plan.

Okay: 'Control'. Control on country of origin.

I'll put it to you in blunt terms: Essentially the worst schools in the US do better than the schools in west Africa and Mexico. Some people won't like that point.

So, I'll give another point: How do the students in Minnesota of Norwegian descent do compared with the students in Norway?

That is, are we talking "US schools" or country of origin?

Next, for "US math", I have a right to be torqued and offended and I am: I'm a native born US citizen educated only in the US and hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the best research universities in the world for my research accomplishments in applied math, complete with theorems and proofs. I've done just fine in "math", thank you.

For math in Asia? From nearly all I've seen, math in Asia is not so good. I can think of some good work from Japan, but otherwise, no. For South Korea, one of their better college math majors came to the US for math grad school and right away had to conclude that they had learned no 'math' at all in college in South Korea and, instead, had just done some rote memorization with zero understanding. Then as a grad student they had to start over essentially as a freshman college math major.

But articles like the OP keep talking about K-12 'math' where likely they mean mostly just simple arithmetic; not a biggie.

US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

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