U.S. School Performance, through a Glass Darkly (Again)

Abstract

I suppose we must expect gloomy predictions about schools from those who have vested interests in depicting them as ruinous, but we shouldn't expect to see such from a place like the American Institutes for Research (AIR). But that's what we get from AIR's Gary Phillips and John Dossey of Illinois State University, authors of Counting on the Future: International Benchmarks for American School Districts (www.air.org). The report, like so many similar reports, begins with false premises and closes with an illogical conclusion. The premises are these: Large corporations locate their business in U.S. cities; foreign students attend U.S. schools; and U.S. businesses export goods and services to foreign Large urban need to know how their students stack up against peers in the nations with which the U.S. does business. This is especially important for students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The students in these fields will allow our future generation [sic] to remain technologically innovative and economically competitive. (p. 4) It's hard to imagine a shorter paragraph containing more misinformation. Did BMW build a plant in South Carolina, Mercedes a plant in Alabama, and did Nissan move its U.S. headquarters to Tennessee because of these states' high math scores? Hardly. They built and moved because they got enormous tax breaks, no unions, and cheaper labor. Second, this report compares average scores in the U.S. and selected U.S. with average scores in other Such comparisons tell us nothing. Reports such as AIR's concentrate on the supply side of skills and ignore the demand side. Does the market demand more scientists and engineers? Hardly. The U.S. has three new native-born or permanent-resident scientists and engineers for every new scientific and engineering position being created. What the market wants is cheap scientists and engineers, which is no doubt why 65% of new graduates leave science and engineering within two years (Lowell and Saltzman 2006). Third, the recent Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009 from the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranks the U.S. #1-again. Japan's kids were acing tests when A Nation at Risk was published 25 years ago and they continued to ace tests even as that nation sank into 15 years of economic recession and stagnation. The link between test scores and a nation's economic health simply isn't there. Does anyone--anyone!--think low test scores created the current crisis? If so, it would have to be the low scores of business school graduates on ethics tests. Phillips and Dossey use a linking technique that permits one to estimate how students from other nations would perform if they sat for our NAEP tests. The report first summarizes the U.S. generally against other nations participating in the math segment of TIMSS. Among the 25 nations participating at 4th grade, the U.S. is sixth with an estimated 37% of its students proficient or better on the 2007 NAEP. At 8th grade, the U.S. is 10th of 44 countries with 31% proficient. These rankings are the seeds of crisis? Interestingly, only four nations have a majority of students proficient at the 4th-grade level, only five manage it at 8th grade. Singapore is tops in both grades with 66% proficient at 4th grade, 73% proficient at 8th grade. At 8th grade, 14 nations have 5% or fewer proficient. Norway has 9%, Italy 18%, Sweden 21%, Scotland and New Zealand 22%. These countries are generally considered competitor nations. For four nations, including Saudi Arabia, the percent proficient rounds down to zero. The report then considers results from the TIMSS nations held up against large urban cities that had participated in the 2007 NAEP. Some that are often cited as horrible examples take their lumps here. Chicago has only 16% proficient at 4th grade, 13% proficient at 8th grade--but that's better than Norway's 9%. …