Why Our Kids Are Behind in Math and Science

By Patricia Oaklief

Did you know that our eighth grade students do worse in math than students in eight other countries and in science, ten countries? Even worse, as they get older, the scores decline even more. The U.S. has never been near the top and there are no signs this will be any different when our kids are tested next spring for the�Trends in International Math and Science Study.�

Our children's standard of living may decline

True, many of our kids will not choose to become scientists or mathematicians but these low scores will impact them regardless because jobs will be leaving the United States, and not just jobs in math and science but jobs in areas of our economy that are growing. As the talent accumulates abroad, U.S. companies will do more in those countries.�

"If the next great technological advances in energy, the environment, medicine, and information are made elsewhere, American workers will have a much tougher time earning good pay in those key industries, said Geoff Colvin in a recent �Fortune article. "The scariest part of it," says Roger Bybee in The Bent of Ta Beta Pi "is that our students have the highest aspirations, but we are near the lowest in terms of problem-solving skills. Our skills are not commensurate with aspirations."�

Our school curriculum - a mile long and inch deep, repeated year-after-year

The countries we compete with teach fewer ideas per grade. A typical U.S. eighth-grade math textbook deals with 35-50 topics. A Japanese or German math textbook, for example, has only five or six topics for that age.�

Skip Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and professor of education at McDaniel College in Maryland, says, "In my job, I get to hear the frustration of elementary classroom teachers around the country.� In 49 of 50 states, there are state curriculum frameworks, and their requirements are all over the place. They have 20 to 30- and sometime hundreds-of objectives. This sends a signal to a fourth-grade teacher who may not have a degree in math that all these 100 objectives are equally important. But they've never been equally important." ��

"If you look at U.S. textbooks, you'll find topics early and then they repeat them year after year,�according to the authors of an article in the American Educator. �"To make matters worse, very little depth is added each time the topic is addressed because each year we devote much of the time to reviewing the topic."

"I say this as a high school valedictorian, national merit scholar, soon-to-be PhD student. They are covering math and science I didn't see until my first and second years of college! I attended one of the best schools in the state and received one of the finest educations available, but I wouldn't be able to compete with the average high school student in a rural village in China," said a commentator in an online discussion at Education in Review.��

Right now there's a raging debate across the United States about increasing the length of our school year and amount of homework. Given our focus on 35-50 concepts for each grade versus the five to seven in all the other countries beating us in science and math, maybe the question should begin with not how much we're studying, but are we studying the right things.

For more information and links to article sources, see Amigram

Pat Oaklief is a co-owner of Amigram. com Life's Happy Announcements, a website for free online announcements including engagements, weddings, babies, pets, graduations, anniversaries, birthdays, businesses and promotions, and any fun or special announcement. Private or public, users can insert their personal message, photos, video, and space for visitor comments.

Share your happy news with friends and family. Visit http://www.amigram.com/ today.

Pat also writes the Amigram blog for mommas, nannas and families.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patricia_Oaklief
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Our-Kids-Are-Behind-in-Math-and-Science&id=5028172