Questions about U.S. rankings in math and science.

[magellan01]

I saw a local TV show discussing math and science educations and the research puts us at 21 out of 30 and 25 out of 30 (though I forget which was which) on an international scale. I looked online trying to find trends over the past 10, 20, 30 years, but can’t seems to find numbers where I’m comparing apples to apples. So, two questions: 1) what is the most reliable ranking system today for math and science today? 2) If I wanted to look at how the rankings trend over 30 years or so, is there a study that is done every year?

Thanks.

[kjckjc]

I don’t know where we rank, but the “out of 30” part gives me hope in keeping up with international news. Discounting the other 160ish countries makes it easier.

[The_wind_of_my_soul]

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/

TIMSS stands for Trends in International Mathematics and Science

[The_wind_of_my_soul]

I had to go to a meeting when I posted that link, which is why I didn’t provide any commentary.

I did some editing back in 2008 for TIMSS, but the results from that study placed the United States further up in the ranking than the figure you heard on TV. According to the TIMSS math factbook, the U.S. tested fourth and eighth graders, and average scores placed American 4th graders as 11th out of 36 countries, and American 8th graders as 9th out of 48 countries.

I can’t find much information on science, but it looks like American 4th graders tested 8th out of 36 countries in terms of their science education.

All this information is from 2007.

[magellan01]

@The_wind_of_my_soul

I had to go to a meeting when I posted that link, which is why I didn’t provide any commentary.

I did some editing back in 2008 for TIMSS, but the results from that study placed the United States further up in the ranking than the figure you heard on TV. According to the TIMSS math factbook, the U.S. tested fourth and eighth graders, and average scores placed American 4th graders as 11th out of 36 countries, and American 8th graders as 9th out of 48 countries.

I can’t find much information on science, but it looks like American 4th graders tested 8th out of 36 countries in terms of their science education.

All this information is from 2007.

The 21 and 25 numbers are mentioned in February 2008 press release, here:

“The President’s budget boosts funding for basic research at NSF, but doesn’t make education a priority – Robert Noyce scholarships and Math and Science Partnerships to train STEM teachers and students are underfunded by more than $100 million and $60 million, respectively. The President noted in his State of the Union address that U.S. math scores among some students were up. However, according to the most recent indicators, U.S. high school students rank 25th out of 30 developed countries in math and 21st out of 30 in science. There is more work to be done – and underfunding COMPETES initiatives doesn’t help in that effort.”

But there isn’t a cite for the study being used. The math number is used also here:

Once a leader in math and science education, the United States now is far behind other countries. Out of 30 industrialized nations, America ranks 25th in math and 21st in science. The United States also trails at least 19 countries that produce more scientists and engineers.

I guess my Google-Fu is weak, as I can’t seem to hunt down that study, other than to learn that it is called the "Strong American Schools analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. ".

[Mops]

I suspect the mentions of 21th and 25th places refer to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

2003/Mathematics: US in 24th place
2006/Science: US in 21th place

The difference between the 25th place as per magellan01’s cites and 24th place as per Wikipedia can possibly be explained by Wikipedia’s note on 2003/Mathematics: “UK disqualified from data analysis.”, i.e. by the UK ranking better than 25th but the data being excluded from the league table due to some irregularity.

[magellan01]

@tschild

I suspect the mentions of 21th and 25th places refer to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

2003/Mathematics: US in 24th place
2006/Science: US in 21th place

The difference between the 25th place as per magellan01’s cites and 24th place as per Wikipedia can possibly be explained by Wikipedia’s note on 2003/Mathematics: “UK disqualified from data analysis.”, i.e. by the UK ranking better than 25th but the data being excluded from the league table due to some irregularity.

Thanks, tschild. The discrepancy may also be due to 2003 numbers as opposed to 2006, no? Also, it’s interesting that India isn’t even on the list. I find that quite surprising, unless they were omitted from the test for some reason. And this may be even worse than the numbers intially indicate, as according to your cite, “Western countries generally performed better in PISA”.