Math Scores Dropped Globally, but the U.S. Still Trails Other Countries

In a global exam for 15-year-olds, only a handful of places, including Singapore, Japan and Australia, kept math performance high through the pandemic.

The math performance of U.S. teenagers has sharply declined since 2018, with scores lower than 20 years ago, and with American students continuing to trail global competitors, according to the results of a key international exam released on Tuesday.

In the first comparable global results since the coronavirus pandemic, 15-year-olds in the United States scored below students in similar industrialized democracies like the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany, and well behind students in the highest-performing countries such as Singapore, South Korea and Estonia — continuing an underperformance in math that predated the pandemic.

The bleak math results were offset by a stronger performance in reading and science, where the United States scored above average internationally.

About 66 percent of U.S. students performed at least at a basic level in math, compared with about 80 percent in reading and science, according to the exam, the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/us/math-scores-pandemic-pisa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FU0.gdCH.yjbq4RSm6pyN&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share

PISA: How did our 15-year-olds do?

Here is the report for the United States on the 2012 international exams sponsored by the Programme for International Student Assessment.
Some highlights:

While the U.S. spends more per student than most countries, this does not translate into better performance. For example, the Slovak Republic, which spends around USD 53 000 per student, performs at the same level as the United States, which spends over USD 115 000 per student.

Strengths

• Reading data directly from tables and diagrams – requiring students only to understand a short text and read single values directly from a representation provided such as a table or a bar diagram

• Simple handling of data from tables and diagrams – requiring students to understand a short text, read two values from a given representation, and then perform some straightforward operation such as adding or comparing the values

• Handling directly manageable formulae – requiring students to use a formula provided, e.g. inserting numbers for variables, and do some easy calculation. The formulae can be used directly, without any re-structuring.

Weaknesses

• Use of the number π (pi) – requiring students to make explicit use of the number π (pi) in a calculation

• Substantial mathematization of a real-world situation – requiring students to establish a mathematical model of a given real-world situation in the form of a term or an equation with variables for geometric or physical quantities, before further actions (especially calculations) can take place. Students have to understand the situation and activate and apply the appropriate mathematical content

• Genuine interpretation of real-world aspects – requiring students to take a given real-world situation seriously and properly interpret aspects of it

• Reasoning in a geometric context – requiring authentic reasoning in a planar or spatial geometric context by using geometric concepts and facts

• U.S. students have particular problems with mathematical literacy tasks where the students have to use the mathematics they have learned in a well-founded manner. Given that even in more demanding tasks some basic skills are nevertheless needed, an implication of the findings is that much more focus is needed on higher-order activities, such as those involving mathematical modeling (understanding real world situations, translating them into mathematical models, and interpreting mathematical results), without neglecting the basic skills needed for these activities

PISA 2012 Results US(1) by freestategal

PISA 2012: Compare Your Country

Want to compare the U.S. PISA results with results from other countries?  Here you go.

Finn-ished

From The Economist, December 7, 2013.  To read the entire article and see a comparative country results chart go here.  The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test results are here.  Want to try the PISA math test questions?  Go here.

WHEN the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests to focus on maths results were published a decade ago, Finland’s blue-cross flag fluttered near the top of the rankings. Its pupils excelled at numeracy, and topped the table in science and reading. Education reformers found the prospect of non-selective, high-achieving and low-stress education bewitching.

Every three years since then, 15-year-olds have sat PISA tests in maths, reading and science. In 2012 fully 500,000 heads were bent over desks for the exam in 65 countries or cities. The results, published on December 3rd, doled out a large helping of humble pie to Europe’s former champion. Finland has fallen by 22 points on its 2009 result, with smaller falls (12 points and 9) in reading and science. “The golden days are over,” lamented the Finnbay news website.

And:

As Finns argue about how to retain their pre-eminence, many other countries in the West still envy it—as well as the progress of rapid improvers such as Estonia and Poland. France and Germany, in contrast, have flatlined. America’s dire showing led Arne Duncan, the education secretary, to decry “a picture of educational stagnation”, with Americans being “out-educated” by the Chinese. Some hope for a motivating shock like that delivered in 1957 by the Soviet Sputnik launch.

Get me into orbit

More important than individual country scores are the underlying trends. Asian systems are clearly no longer just hothouses for swots. Their best performers have briskly extended opportunity to children of poorer families, narrowing the achievement gap. Chinese officials say other big urban centres will emulate Shanghai’s stellar results by 2029.

Andreas Schleicher, who runs the PISA tests on behalf of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a Paris-based think-tank for rich countries, notes that well over half of Shanghai’s pupils had a “deep conceptual knowledge” of maths, as opposed to around 13% in middling countries like Britain. That pertained even for those from disadvantaged backgrounds: “a remarkable performance”, concludes Mr Schleicher.