U.S. trails other countries in advanced math

When it comes to the percentage of students testing at the advanced level in math, the United States ranks only 30th out of 56 countries, way behind the top four countries — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Finland — says a new report from Harvard University called “U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective.”

New York State and New York City don’t fare much better, ranking 29th and 37th, respectively, when compared to the countries in the study.  

The report’s authors, Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson and Ludger Woessmann, found that the United States, New York State and New York City may also be behind in the percentage of students scoring at advanced levels in science and reading.

The researchers compared the percentage of advanced math students from the graduating class of 2009 in U.S. public and private schools with the percentages of high math achievers in 56 other countries.  Test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress  exam administered to 8th-graders in 2005 were used to measure American achievement and were compared with results from the Program for  International Student Assessment, which were used to measure math achievement in foreign countries.  

The poor showing of U.S. students held up even when minority and immigrant students were eliminated from the analysis.  Among Caucasians, only 8 percent of U.S. students and 7.7 percent of New York State students from the graduating class of 2009 were at the advanced level in math.  When advanced math students from families where one parent has a college degree were examined, rankings improved from 30th to 19th for the United States and from 29th to 24th for New York State.  

The study did not look at income, an indicator associated with student achievement. The United States might have fared better in an income analysis because in many foreign countries poor children aren’t educated or tested, leaving only the wealthiest children in the school system.

The researchers hypothesize that our poor results are due to “problematic elements” in our school system and anti-educational pressures from the entertainment and media industries.  The No Child Left Behind Act is also blamed because its primary focus is student proficiency, not advanced achievement.