U.S. High School Seniors At Bottom In Math, Science World Study Finds It’s All Downhill For American Kids After Fourth Grade

The most comprehensive and rigorous international comparison of schooling ever undertaken reveals American high school seniors to be among the industrial world’s least-prepared in mathematics and science.

The tests, given in the 1994-1995 school year, also found that even this country’s top high school seniors - those taking advanced math and science courses - were outperformed by similar students in most other countries.

“There is no excuse for this,” President Clinton said bluntly as he called on Congress to join him in renewed efforts to improve the nation’s public education system.

“These results are entirely unacceptable,” added U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, who cited a shortage of qualified teachers as one of the reasons for the poor showing by U.S. students. As an example, he said a recent government survey found that about half of physics teachers lack a major or minor in that subject.

The new test data are the final installment of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.

Previous results found that U.S. fourth-graders did particularly well in science and were above average in math. Among eighth-graders, however, U.S. students did not fare nearly as well - they ranked in the middle of the pack in science and below the international average in math.

The results for the three grades combined - in which American children do relatively well early on, begin to tail off and then do very poorly at the 12th-grade level - replicate the findings of earlier international comparisons.

The previous test results played a key role in raising concerns about the quality of U.S. schools, and contributed to the Clinton administration’s desire to mount a national testing effort to closely measure how individual states and school districts do in math and reading against the international benchmarks. That effort, however, has been stymied by opposition in Congress. Conservative lawmakers say national tests represent a centralization of education, which they view as more properly a local and parent-controlled industry.

The data released Tuesday showed that:

In a 21-nation test of general high school math skills, U.S. 12thgraders ranked 19th, outperforming only Cyprus and lowest-ranking South Africa.

In a similar 21-nation test of general high school science knowledge, U.S. 12th-graders ranked 16th, outperforming Italy, Hungary and Lithuania, in addition to Cyprus and South Africa.

In a 16-nation test of advanced high school math students - those who took precalculus or calculus before the test or were enrolled in either course at that time - U.S. 12th-graders ranked 15th, outperforming only Austria.

Advanced science students in the United States ranked last in a similar 16-nation physics test.

Seniors from Holland ranked first in the general mathematics category, followed by seniors from Sweden then Denmark. In the general sciences, Swedish seniors ranked first, followed by those from Holland and Iceland.

Among the 16 nations that participated in the advanced math test, French seniors ranked first, followed by students from Russia then Switzerland. And in the similar physics exam, Norwegian students ranked first, followed by seniors from Sweden and Russia.

None of the Asian nations that have finished at the top of the math and science tests given to fourth-and eighth-graders participated in this one.