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International Math Study Doesn't Add Up Review finds study comparing U.S. math achievement with other countries misleading and deceptive Contact: Teri Battaglieri EAST LANSING, MI. (Jan. 11, 2011) –While a recent report asserts that U.S. students are far behind students in most other developed countries in mathematics achievement, a new review of the study finds that it makes deceptive comparisons and exaggerates small differences, rendering the study useless in helping educators improve U.S. students' math performance. U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by Jeremy Kilpatrick, Regents Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Georgia. Professor Kilpatrick has extensive background and expertise in national and transnational testing of student mathematics achievement. The review was produced by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education, with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective, published by the Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance and by the journal Education Next, compares the performance of high-achieving students domestically and internationally, using data from the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The NAEP is administered domestically, to a sample of 8th grade students throughout the U.S.; PISA is administered internationally, to a sample of 15-year-olds in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries and partner countries. The study compared the percentages of U.S. students in the 50 states and 10 urban districts who performed at an advanced level in mathematics on the 2005 NAEP with estimated percentages of students in other countries who would have reached that same level had they taken the NAEP 2005 mathematics assessment. Samples of U.S. students in the graduating class of 2009 had taken NAEP 2005 when they were eighth graders and the PISA 2006 when they were tenth graders, so a statistical procedure could be used to calculate the PISA mathematics score that was presumed equivalent to scoring at an advanced level on NAEP. It was thus possible to estimate what percentage of students in each of the 57 countries in PISA 2006 would have attained that advanced NAEP level. The report indicates that most of those countries had far greater percentages of high achievers than the United States did. In his review, Kilpatrick finds six areas of concern:
Kilpatrick doesn't argue with the report's claim that relatively few students in the U.S. score at advanced levels in math. "What is misleading is that the percentages of advanced-level students in countries, states, and districts can be put on the same scale so that they can easily be compared," he writes. Moreover, such misleading comparisons aren't necessary, according to Kilpatrick: "At the website of the National Center for Education Statistics, state and urban district policymakers can obtain ample data on how their students at all levels of proficiency have been performing in NAEP mathematics. Those policymakers do not need, and should avoid, this flawed effort to enter their high-performing graduating seniors of 2009 into a mock international horse race in which they did not participate." Find Jeremy Kilpatrick's review and a link to U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective at: The Think Twice think tank review project, a project of the National Education Policy Center, provides the public, policy makers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected think tank publications. The project is made possible in part by the generous support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. The review is also available on the National Education Policy Center website at: ### |
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