Math Skills Survey Shows U.S. Lags Behind 1528
3l1za writes "The New York Times reports that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has released its results (pdf) for a test of mathematical skills given to 15 year olds in 40 different countries. A few apparent anomalies: The US kids rated 28th of 40 (so in the bottom third) while the Czech Republic, which spends in education 1/3 of what the US spends, ranked in the top 10. Further, only about 1/3 of US kids reported that they did not feel as though they were good at math, whereas about 2/3 of Koreans reported this--and the Koreans ranked in the top three. 'Mr. Schleicher said that students in countries that emphasized theorems and rote learning tended not to do as well as those that emphasized the more practical aspects of mathematics.'"
First Post (Score:2, Funny)
Laziness (Score:4, Funny)
Could you display results in a USA Today graph? (Score:5, Funny)
Yabbut... (Score:5, Funny)
Barbie said it best (Score:5, Funny)
With Bush in office its no surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's COOL to suck at math (Score:5, Funny)
Bart Simpson is clearly to blame for this.
Toddler math (Score:5, Funny)
Um, according to these figures the average age of these "children" in each country was barely five months old (15/40 =
Re:Statistically invalid samples (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Post (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First Post (Score:3, Funny)
Re:With Bush in office its no surprise (Score:2, Funny)
Corrected Subject: With Bush in office it's no surprise.
Corrected Text: "Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning?'"
No child left behind (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Barbie said it best (Score:5, Funny)
My wife's studying to be a math teacher - she loves that one.
Re:Yabbut... (Score:4, Funny)
If you're not part of the solution... (Score:2, Funny)
Something fishy. (Score:2, Funny)
Only your math skills.
Don't worry about it. (Score:5, Funny)
*ducks*
More money is not the answer... (Score:5, Funny)
--
"Me fail English? That's unpossible." - Ralph Wiggum
Re:First Post (Score:2, Funny)
Quiz of the day: a third of fourty is.... (Score:3, Funny)
And you would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those damn SlashDot readers!
Sample Word Problem (Score:3, Funny)
Holy shit, they're right (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, dude - you should know by know that it's two plus two that equals four... no wonder we're behind in math, with this sort of disinformation wandering the internet...
Re:Ditch those funky calculators!!! (Score:2, Funny)
To ensure success next year, they've also volunteered to tabulate the scores from all countries.
So don't worry, starting next year, the US should occupy the top three positions, followed by its closest allies. France, China and Russia will be lucky if they make it in front of Iraq.
Re:Laziness (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe I should have said.... Laziness is the father of invention.
Re:Barbie said it best (Score:4, Funny)
Lea
Statistical Error (Score:2, Funny)
Think about that one without making your head explode.
Re:Laziness (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Holy shit, they're right (Score:3, Funny)
for very large values of 2!
I have a .375 year old... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Holy shit, they're right (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Holy shit, they're right (Score:5, Funny)
Reasons... (Score:3, Funny)
A tap broke in the flat of a professor of maths. He called a plumber. The plumber arrived, in 15 replaced a pipe and charged the professor 1/4 his monthly salary.
"My god! So much? But it didn't look difficult at all! You must earn quite a bit more than I do!"
"Sure, just become a plumber and you'll earn as much as me. No, seriously, there is demand, and the job isn't really hard..."
So the professor became a plumber. He started repairing leaking taps etc, earning a lot of money for very little work. And it lasted until one day when the union decided all the plumbers need to know at least basics of maths, so there will be a training...
So, the training starts, the maths is extremely simple, just like for kids. And then the teacher calls our professor to the blackboard and asks him to write the formula for the field of circle.
And professor, in terror realizes, he forgot.
"Okay, no panic. I'm a math professor, I don't remember the formula but I can derive it."
So he starts calculating the formula, splitting the circle into infinitely many pieces, filling whole blackboard with calculations, integrals, derivatives... finally comes up with minus pi r squared.
"No, that's wrong. Field can't be negative. There must be a mistake somewhere." So he checks his calculations once, twice, can't find the error. And whisper arises in the classroom filled with a crowd of plumbers. Finally he starts recognising the words in the whisper, and everyone in the room whispers "Exchange limits of the integral! Exchange limits of the integral!"
Re:Holy shit, they're right (Score:3, Funny)
lol
Re:Barbie said it best (Score:3, Funny)
Liebchen
...and it's stupid to be cool.... (Score:3, Funny)
And steal our milk money, too.
Re:Holy shit, they're right (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Don't worry about it. (Score:2, Funny)
Bunch of liberal propaganda, 40 doesn't even divide by three.
Re:Yeah, but how fast does Linux boot? (Score:2, Funny)
What do you call... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Holy shit, they're right (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Very Telling Indeed (Score:3, Funny)
I think the most useful thing would be to test schools and group them regardless of country so we can try to figure out the common elements among them. Insisting that all the educations in the United States are as similar as all the educations in Monaco is ludicrous.
This is a superset of your idea, which I think is a good one.
Re:I know the exact moment math became (Score:3, Funny)