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.
No one is discussing how tech has changed how math is taught. One cannot really assigned grade homework anymore because there are websites where a student can enter a math problem and every step on the solution is shown. So teacher either try to teach methods of solution in class or have students to drills without a smart phone or lab top.
One wonders at the demographics.
But one suspects.
The Bell curve is real.
Singapore, like other East Asian jurisdictions (I taught in South Korea for seven years), has external exams with high stakes for the pupils, unlike the U.S., whose leaders posed high stakes for their public schools, and later their teachers: when I was teaching at Locke High School, in Los Angeles, some youth would design funny faces out of their state tests' multiple-choice answer sheets, following which President Obama's education secretaries wanted teachers to lose their jobs as a consequence, an abuse of power from which America is still suffering, since so many fewer qualified teachers are now willing to pursue careers in troubled communities like Watts as a result of America's unjust systems.
Looking at that graph... The iPhone was released in 2007.
Middle school is approximately age 12 to 14.
In 2015, 41% of 12-year-olds and 59% of 14-year-olds had a smartphone.
In 2021, 71% of 12-year-olds and 91% of 14-year-olds had a smartphone.
In 2024, 92% of 13- and 14-year-olds had access to a smartphone.
Correlation is not causation, but gee...
As a side note, chronic absenteeism in some states has reached 40-50% of students
enrolled, so the school district gets per pupil funding for each student, regardless
if they are actually present or NOT...
Also, for a modern country, it has been shown that during elementary school, students
in the US pretty much hold their own against their peers in other nations, but when they
hit middle (usually grades 6-7-8) and high school (grades 9-12) they lose a LOT of ground
to students from other nations.
Many states have removed their exit exams, with Mass. being the most recent state to
do so, so students are learning to do the minimal amount possible to get through
and get a diploma…