In December 2000, the New York Times and other papers reported on how poorly U.S. students did on recent TIMSS international testing. TIMSS which stands for the Third International Math and Science Study, gives an international test of multiple choice and open-ended questions in math and science. Countries from around the world participate, and the results show how U.S. students do compared to their peers, internationally. When the U.S. participated four years ago, American fourth graders did appreciatively better than American eighth and twelfth graders.

So, for the most recent TIMSS testing, U.S. educators welcomed the opportunity to participate because many were hopeful that their successful group of fourth graders would fare well four years later as eighth graders. There was high expectation that American eighth graders would place extremely well.

Unfortunately, it was not so. The New York Times reported that “(f)our years after American fourth-grade students scored high on an international test of science and math, their performance declined.” U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley commented that American children are learning, but children in other countries are learning at a “higher rate.” Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan were the leading countries.

The American results were especially disappointing when it was learned that some high scoring European countries that participated four years ago----like Switzerland, France, Austria and Germany----did not participate in the latest TIMSS. Some developing countries----like Philippines, Morocco, Chile and Indonesia----joined TIMSS and pulled the average down with their low scores. What this means is that not only did the American students’ relative performance drop, but when one considers that the sample of students included more low scoring countries and less high scoring European countries, the comparative rankings of American children really declined further than the statistics indicate.

The differences between students in the high scoring countries and in the U.S. were significant. For example, in math, 9% of American eighth graders reached the highest levels compared to close to half the eighth graders in Singapore.

American educators and journalists were quick to come up with explanations like these . . . . On average 71% of students in other countries had math teachers who majored in math in college, while only 41% of American students did. Teachers in other countries have more professional development and preparation time. Nations with higher rankings teach subjects like geometry, chemistry and physics before high school. American students use calculators and computers far more than their international peers. American schools “abide by” lower standards than European and Asian schools.

But the bottom line remains, American students did not do as well on international mathematics testing as American educators expected them to do. As Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation that funded the study, said, it’s “a little bit depressing.”

Historically, Americans have been very concerned with international comparisons, and seminal events have brought the issue squarely into the public eye. Most recently, besides the results of international testing mentioned above, the issue was raised in conjunction with the vote in the U.S. Congress to significantly increase the number of visas for foreign engineers and other like foreign professionals to work in this country. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, about 843,000 skilled jobs in technology went unfilled out of nearly 1.6 million jobs because of the lack of qualified workers. The United States does not produce enough technically trained citizens to fill technical positions, and the real fear is that the jobs will go to those countries who prepare their citizens for careers in math and science,

But this issue of international comparison and national panic over the preparation of American students has been raised before. Going back to 1957 when Sputnik was launched, Americans were very fearful of being outsmarted by Russian mathematicians and scientists---- and that was during the height of the cold war, only a little more than a decade after the close of World War II. It was a time when Americans understood that engineering and technical prowess could lead not only to a man in space, but to weapons that might save democracy as they knew it.

Following Sputnik, numerous international comparisons were made, but one of the most memorable was in 1983, during the Reagan Administration, when “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform” was issued by The National Commission on Excellence in Education. The report discussed the serious problems of ill-prepared, ill-educated American students. It noted how poorly American students did on international testing, how gifted American students were not challenged, and how the “(a)verage achievement of high school students on most standardized tests is now lower than 26 years ago when Sputnik was launched.”

The report essentially blamed lower standards, “homogenized” classrooms and lack of teacher training. Challenging the country's gifted students played a prominent role in the solution to American educational woes, along with increased challenge and content for everyone. The authors noted that in California, “a study of individual classrooms found that because of poor management of classroom time, some elementary students received only one-fifth of the instruction others received in reading comprehension.” The report concluded with specific recommendations for content, standards and expectations, time spent in school, teaching practices and training, leadership, and fiscal support.

A decade later, in 1993, these issues were again raised in a well publicized report by the U.S. Department of Education called “National Excellence: A Case For Developing America's Talent.” Its point was that for America to compete globally, it must challenge its top students. The report noted that compared to students in other industrialized countries, America's top students perform poorly on international tests, are offered a less rigorous curriculum, read fewer demanding books, do less homework and leave high school less prepared. This report suggested that American classrooms and standards match those of high performing countries (including teacher training), that children learn more advanced materials at their own pace, that gifted programs for disadvantaged children be added, and that access to early childhood development be increased.