Why America Has the World's Dimmest Bright Kids 2/26/98 By CHESTER E. FINN JR. [US 12 graders rate low on TIMSS in science] Banish forever the consoling thought that, however mediocre the educational attainments of the average U.S. child,"our best students are still the best in the world." That's the way many in the school establishment have explained away a ton of evidence of meltdown in American primary and secondary schooling. But they've just lost their excuse. It turns out that U.S. high school seniors - including the best and brightest among them - are the worst in the industrial world in math and science. It also turns out that the U.S. is the only country where kids do worse the longer they stay in school. Today the U.S. Department of Education officially releases the damning data, which come from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, a set of tests administered to half a million youngsters in 41 countries in 1995. But the results have trickled out. We learned that our fourth-graders do pretty well compared with the rest of the world, and our eighth graders' performance is middling to poor. Today we learn that our 12th-graders occupy the international cellar. And that's not even counting the Asian lands like Singapore, Korea and Japan that trounced our kids in the younger grades. They chose not to participate in this study. Twenty-one countries took part in the 12th-grade tests of general knowledge of math and science; 16 took part in advanced math and physics. They comprise the industrialized Western world (Western Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), plus Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Slovenia and South Africa. The general-knowledge tests were not ultrasophisticated: Questions were "designed to measure general knowledge and skills necessary for citizens in their daily life." A typical math problem looked like this: "Experts say that 25% of all serious bicycle accidents involve head injuries and that, of all head injuries, 80% are fatal. What percent of all serious bicycle accidents involve fatal head injuries?" The student had to choose between four possible answers. Only 57% of U.S. students got the right answer, vs. an international average of 64%. On general math knowledge, the U.S. placed 19th, surpassing only Cyprus and South Africa. In science, our high school seniors came in 16th, with Italy, Hungary and Lithuania also trailing. The results for advanced math and physics were even worse. In these categories the test-taking population was the cream of the crop. Just 14% of American seniors even qualified for the math test; they had to have taken (or be taking) pre calculus or calculus. The U.S. came in second-worst, besting only Austria. Likewise, in physics, only 14% of American youngsters qualified. They came in dead last among 16 nations. Narrow the test-taking population further, down to the most advanced science students (in the U.S., those taking Advanced Placement physics), and performance improves a bit. Three nations trailed us. But as the study's report explains, such students "represent a much smaller proportion of the age cohort in the United States than ... in most of the other countries." (Barely 1% of all U.S. high school students take AP physics.) The public school establishment is already at work concocting excuses: They will blame parents, or leaky school roofs, or inadequately equipped labs or a shortage of "certified" teachers. They will demand more money and propose more programs. No doubt the Clinton administration will use these results to press for some of its pet projects. But the failings revealed by the Third International Mathematics and Science Study cannot be explained away by lack of resources or corrected by more of the same. The U.S. has been "reforming" its " schools for the better part of two decades. We've tried a hundred different programs and a thousand gimmicks. We've poured countless billions of dollars into the schools. Yet it's now clearer than ever that none of these nostrums has worked -- and a lot of them have made matters worse. The public school system as we know it has proved that it cannot fix itself. It is an ossified government monopoly that functions largely for the benefit of its employees and interest groups rather than that of children and taxpayers. American education needs a radical overhaul. For starters, control over education must be shifted into the hands of parents and true reformers -- people who will insist on something altogether different rather than murmuring excuses for the catastrophe that surrounds us. Mr. Finn is a fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former assistant secretary of education.

Why America Has the World's Dimmest Bright Kids 2/26/98

By CHESTER E. FINN JR.

Banish forever the consoling thought that, however mediocre the educational attainments of the average U.S. child,"our best students are still the best in the world." That's the way many in the school establishment have explained away a ton of evidence of meltdown in American primary and secondary schooling. But they've just lost their excuse. It turns out that U.S. high school seniors - including the best and brightest among them - are the worst in the industrial world in math and science. It also turns out that the U.S. is the only country where kids do worse the longer they stay in school.

Today the U.S. Department of Education officially releases the damning data, which come from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, a set of tests administered to half a million youngsters in 41 countries in 1995. But the results have trickled out. We learned that our fourth-graders do pretty well compared with the rest of the world, and our eighth graders' performance is middling to poor. Today we learn that our 12th-graders occupy the international cellar. And that's not even counting the Asian lands like Singapore, Korea and Japan that trounced our kids in the younger grades. They chose not to participate in this study.

Twenty-one countries took part in the 12th-grade tests of general knowledge of math and science; 16 took part in advanced math and physics. They comprise the industrialized Western world (Western Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), plus Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Slovenia and South Africa. The general-knowledge tests were not ultrasophisticated: Questions were "designed to measure general knowledge and skills necessary for citizens in their daily life."

A typical math problem looked like this: "Experts say that 25% of all serious bicycle accidents involve head injuries and that, of all head injuries, 80% are fatal. What percent of all serious bicycle accidents involve fatal head injuries?" The student had to choose between four possible answers. Only 57% of U.S. students got the right answer, vs. an international average of 64%. On general math knowledge, the U.S. placed 19th, surpassing only Cyprus and South Africa. In science, our high school seniors came in 16th, with Italy, Hungary and Lithuania also trailing.

The results for advanced math and physics were even worse. In these categories the test-taking population was the cream of the crop. Just 14% of American seniors even qualified for the math test; they had to have taken (or be taking) pre calculus or calculus. The U.S. came in second-worst, besting only Austria.

Likewise, in physics, only 14% of American youngsters qualified. They came in dead last among 16 nations. Narrow the test-taking population further, down to the most advanced science students (in the U.S., those taking Advanced Placement physics), and performance improves a bit. Three nations trailed us. But as the study's report explains, such students "represent a much smaller proportion of the age cohort in the United States than ... in most of the other countries." (Barely 1% of all U.S. high school students take AP physics.)

The public school establishment is already at work concocting excuses: They will blame parents, or leaky school roofs, or inadequately equipped labs or a shortage of "certified" teachers. They will demand more money and propose more programs. No doubt the Clinton administration will use these results to press for some of its pet projects.

But the failings revealed by the Third International Mathematics and Science Study cannot be explained away by lack of resources or corrected by more of the same. The U.S. has been "reforming" its " schools for the better part of two decades. We've tried a hundred different programs and a thousand gimmicks. We've poured countless billions of dollars into the schools. Yet it's now clearer than ever that none of these nostrums has worked -- and a lot of them have made matters worse.

The public school system as we know it has proved that it cannot fix itself. It is an ossified government monopoly that functions largely for the benefit of its employees and interest groups rather than that of children and taxpayers. American education needs a radical overhaul. For starters, control over education must be shifted into the hands of parents and true reformers -- people who will insist on something altogether different rather than murmuring excuses for the catastrophe that surrounds us.

Mr. Finn is a fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former assistant secretary of education.

EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE