Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Comparing States to Nations
For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you’ve heard me say many times that America’s youth are falling behind in terms of education on the international stage as compared to other countries like Japan, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Finland and China. The American Institute for Research (AIR) confirms this in their recent study, “Chance Favors the Prepared Mind: Mathematics and Science Indicators for Comparing States and Nations.”
The main finding in this report is that the highest achieving states in the United States are performing significantly below the highest achieving countries.
As ED in ‘08 prepares to bring our message to the remaining primary states, I wanted to take a moment and share with you the reports findings as it evaluated Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Carolina.
With a score of 38, Pennsylvania’s math performance fell behind countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands. Indiana’s math performance fell behind Hungary and Estonia with their score of 35. Finally, North Carolina received a score of 22, which puts them behind Slovenia and Russia.
These results should wake America up as to the steps we need to take to get our education system back on track. We need comprehensive education reform that will increase our current education standards, provide our children with effective teachers in every classroom, and finally give our youth more time and support for learning.
The NATIONAL MATHEMATICS ADVISORY PANEL REPORT: FOUNDATIONS FOR SUCCESS offers clear recommendations. Please watch the upcoming webcast discussion: http://www.connectlive.com/events/deptedumathpanel0308/
Posted by: concerned | Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 10:25 PM