Bill Costello visits the National Museum in Phnom Penh.
» TestingBill Costello visits the National Museum in Phnom Penh. The South Korean education system produces students with some of the world’s highest test scores in math and science. According to the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, their eighth graders ranked second in math performance when compared with international peers from 58 countries. In science, they ranked fourth. Singapore students are among the best in the world at math according to the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). First administered in 1995, the TIMMS has assessed the science and math performance of fourth- and eighth-grade students from several countries every four years. In 1995, 1999, and 2003, Singapore students in [...] According to the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the world’s best fourth-grade math students were from Hong Kong. Here are the top five performers: Hong Kong SAR (607), Singapore (599), Chinese Taipei (576), Japan (568), and Kazakhstan (549). In eighth-grade, students from Hong Kong were the world’s fourth best in math. [...] A new study by the American Institutes for Research compared the math performance of third graders from the highest performing country (Hong Kong) with their peers from the highest performing state (Massachusetts). It concluded that “exposure, in Hong Kong, to mathematics problems that are computationally more difficult and/or cognitively more complex than those in Massachusetts at [...] Public schools in Pittsburgh—like most U.S. public schools—are failing to prepare students to compete in the increasingly global economy. One-third of high school graduates from the Pittsburgh region lack proficiency in basic reading and math skills. Harold D. Miller, adjunct professor of public policy and management at Carnegie Mellon University, writes: We wouldn’t expect a business to thrive if one-third [...] The U.S. is falling behind the world in math. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “We are lagging the rest of the world, and we are lagging it in pretty substantial ways.” A special analysis put out by the National Center for Education Statistics found that the math performance of U.S. high schoolers was in the [...] Recently I was invited to observe classes at two public elementary schools in Taiwan: Dan Fong Elementary School and Affiliated Experimental Elementary School of Taipei Municipal University of Education (ESTMUE). Dan Fong Elementary is located in Taipei County. With more than 2,000 students, it’s considered a middle-sized elementary school in Taiwan. Some Taiwanese elementary schools—such as Kuanghua [...] The good news is that reading scores for 9- and 13-year-olds are the highest ever according to results recently released from the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The bad news is that boys trail girls in reading performance at all age levels. The gap at age 9 is 8 points, at age 13 is 8 [...] New math results on the most important nationwide math test show only 39 percent of fourth graders and 34 percent of eight graders scored at or above the proficient level. Most students do not have the knowledge and skills commensurate with their grade level. These results aren’t surprising considering the fact that many U.S. schools are [...] On international assessments of educational performance, Japan is one of the top performing countries in science and math. The two primary international assessments that examine the performance of students in science and math are the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The former assesses science and math [...] |
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