U.S. students' math scores fell sharply between 2019 and 2023 for fourth- and eighth-graders, according to new results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as TIMSS. Some countries improved, passing the U.S. in international rankings, writes Erica Meltzer on Chalkbeat.
The declines were "steep" and "devastating," said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. While high achievers held their own, low-performing students lost the most, widening achievement gaps.
"One in five U.S. eighth graders scored below the low benchmark, meaning they lacked even basic proficiency," Meltzer writes. That's way up from earlier years.
The drop in science scores was less extreme, but U.S. fourth-graders now score worse in science than they did in 1995.
Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan topped the rankings. Poland, Sweden and Australia made the greatest gains, passing the U.S. “We have countries leapfrogging over us,” Carr said.
It's not clear whether school closures, which lasted longer in the U.S. than in Europe or Asia, led to more learning loss. But one of the countries that raised achievement, Sweden, didn't close elementary schools or mandate masks. TIMSS now ranks Sweden 14th in math achievement, while the U.S. is ranked 24th.
"American students’ scores actually started to decline before the pandemic for reasons that are not entirely clear," writes Meltzer.
"The U.S. is failing to meet the challenges of academic recovery," Stanford economist Thomas Dee told Kevin Mahnken. "Nearly three decades of math achievement growth" evaporated in a few years.
Before the pandemic, federal accountability laws were weakened, notes Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. That may have hurt students who were already behind, he speculates.
Every mistake American education made regarding phonics vs whole language, it’s about to make again with math instruction," tweets Daniel Buck. "And once again a handful of gurus and education professors are about to make millions off of miseducating kids based on pseudoscientific theories and vibes."
He's talking about groups of students struggling with problems -- standing up and with white boards! -- instead of listening to a teacher's explanation first. That's not how they do it in Singapore.