ED812 The Governance of Educational Institutions
Reaction Paper #1
ARE INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS VALID AS A NATIONAL GOAL?
Course Tutor: Dr. Bev Enns
Learner Documentation:
ABSTRACT
The role of the federal government regarding the nation's public education system has been controversial at best. Although the Constitution relegated majority control to the states, federally mandated funds and programs with their accompanying regulations and employees have had a significant impact. The setting of national education goals was first addressed in 1989 and, by 1994, came to be known as Goals 2000: Educate America Act. One of these goals was that America should be number one in the world in math and science. The question is whether or not this is a worthy goal. Is it possible to adequately compare America's education with other systems in the world? Why do we need to be number one? Perhaps Goals 2000 should be re-evaluated and the inclusion of international studies be dropped as a part of the national framework for education reform. Baker (1997) may, in fact, be correct when he states that the only valid interpretation of the results is for broad political purposes as well as a possible kick-start to generate the institutional energy necessary for change.
Historically, the federal government's involvement in education has not provided an adequate framework for state and local districts to adopt viable education reform programs. Carnine and Meeder (2000) state that "federal requirements are effective at ensuring minimum compliance, not at energizing high-quality results" (p. 117). They suggest, instead, that federal resources be used to strengthen the capacity for local decision making.
In 1989, the nation's governors met to discuss education and pledged to set up a working set of national goals that were to be achieved by the year 2000. When Bill Clinton became President, he took up the challenge of education reform. The result was the passage of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, passed in March, 1994 and then modified in 1996. It was designed, in part, to "…promote coordinated improvements in the nation's education system at the state and local levels" (Joyner, 1998, p. 3). Its objectives were to provide "a system by which school districts and States can establish very high national standards but have more flexibility school by school, district by district, to decide how to meet those standards" (Clinton, 1997, p. 77).
One of those goals concerned the emergence of America as number one in the world in math and science. Several authors (Baker, 1997, Bracey, 2000, Callahan, 2000) have questioned the validity of incorporating international comparisons into federal guidelines.
Bracey's article shows us once again the problem of fixating on national achievement as some sort of educational Olympiad, regardless of where the U.S. really scores. With every new international survey, there will be some attention paid to country rankings, and perhaps this is useful in a limited way. But this should not be the main focus, particularly among researchers. International studies are most useful scientifically and politically when they are used to shed light on how and why a country produces a particular pattern of achievement. (Baker, p. 16)
Baker (1997) does, however, mention that these international achievement debates that fuel education crises "often generate the institutional energy required for change" (p. 16). Perhaps that was why, ultimately, Goal #5 was implemented. Certainly ex-president Bill Clinton remembers its inclusion as more of an afterthought rather than something deliberately planned as he relates the story in a speech to the First in the World Consortium in Chicago.
When we were writing these goals -- I remember it was about 2:30 in the morning -- we got to this thing, 'What are we going to say about math and science?' And somebody said, 'Well, we're going to be -- we're going to be first in the world in math and science in the 21st century.' And another person said, 'Well, that will never happen. Now, how can we set a goal we know we can't meet?' So they looked at me and said, "What do you think, Bill?' And I said, 'Well, okay, suppose we just say our goal is to be third in the world.' … There was no more discussion. We wrote the goal. Our goal was to be first in the world. (Clinton, p. 80).
Be that as it may, many are frustrated by the nation's continued mediocre rankings against other countries. Myers, senior instructional designer for NASA's Classroom for the Future suggests that we do not perform well because of the lack of definitive national standards as well as a different value system. "'When you look at the value systems that drive education in other parts of the world, could it be that education in the U.S. is driven by something else other than being first in math and science? As a culture, I don't think we really want to be number one'" (Curriculum Administrator, p. 10).
Menon (2000) agrees with Myers that there is a different value system in many countries with regards to education. He offers five reasons for the success of Singapore's students in the Third International Mathematical and Science Study (TIMSS).
Students regularly practice taking standardized examinations. "…since most standardized exams generally favor the … practiced, algorithmic response, it shouldn't come as a surprise that countries that practice procedural learning usually do better on these exams" (p. 345).
Parents see education as a means to upward social mobility and "pay between $150 to $650 (in U.S. dollars) a month for their children's private, non-subsidized, extra academic coaching" (p. 345).
Schools are publicly ranked and rewarded for excellent performance.
The Curriculum Division of the Ministry of Education provides a centralized curriculum that includes teaching material.
All teachers must have a math credential in order to begin a teacher education program. Generally speaking, "the content of mathematics in Singapore high schools is on a much higher level than the content of mathematics in high schools in the United States" (p. 346).
And, finally, there is an organized professional development program that mandates approximately 100 hundred hours of in-service work within a specified number of years.
Callahan (2000) observes that critics have dismissed results of international studies because "a general population in the U.S. is being compared to a select and an elite group in other countries" (p. 787). However, the TIMSS offered very specific data on different groups of students that allows more specific comparisons to be made. For this reason, the TIMSS is used as a benchmark in comparing international and American results. Even given the meticulous research that went into both the organization of and dissemination of the study, complaints are still made regarding the efficacy of employing international comparisons in national policy.
A potential area of concern is the quality of exit exams. Many countries offer their older high school students a curricula that is externally and/or internally tested at the end of the program. Generally speaking, these examinations take place in May and June of their last year and are known to be rigorous. However, Americans believe that the Advanced Placement examinations are comparable. They, unfortunately, are not. In addition, the majority of U.S. students do not take these exams; however, students in other countries are often required to take the examinations and most will pass.
We have long behaved as if we believed that the best way to meet the learning needs of advanced high school students is through a series of Advanced Placement courses. While the content of these courses is undeniably more rigorous than the content of many other available options, … [s]everal studies of curricula and examination in other countries have led to the conclusion that the AP exams in the U.S. are not as rigorous as exams … given college bound students in England and Wales, France, Germany, and Japan, but approximately one-fourth to one-half of students leaving high school in those other countries take the exams -- and a majority pass. In 1995 in the U.S. only 8% of our students took the exams, and only about 5% passed. (Callahan, p. 789)
This lack of rigor can be directly related to the quality of our courses which has been characterized as "a mile wide and an inch deep" (Callahan, p. 790). Other countries tend to focus on fewer concepts and to examine these concepts in greater depth. Part of the TIMSS was an intensive videotaped survey of 231 eighth-grade mathematics lessons in the United States and Japan. "The purpose of gathering this information was to understand better the process of classroom instruction in different cultures to improve student learning in our own schools" (Geist, p. 180).
Although American educators are certainly aware of good teaching practices, it would appear that many teachers are constrained by having to cover too much material in a short amount of time. In a survey of international students, House (2001) found that students who indicated their teachers explained rules and definitions and allowed the students to solve samples related to new topics tended to receive higher achievement scores. However, the videotapes clearly indicated that this is not happening in American classrooms.
In the videotape of the eighth grade geometry class in the United States, more than one hundred geometry questions were asked and answered in rapid succession. When students were given time to do problems in class, they were given more than forty problems to complete in just twenty minutes. By contrast, the Japanese class worked on only two problems for the entire fifty minute class period. The students were given ample time to think about, and experiment with, different methods of achieving a solution. For homework, the students were also given only one problem, which was derived from the discussion during the class. (p. 180)
In addition to less rigorous exit examinations and curricula that is known to cover superficial coverage of a variety of topics, Bracey (2000) illustrates more reasons to question the validity of international comparisons. Among other points he suggests American students are disadvantaged because of differing age levels, number of high school years, outside employment, and, finally, motivation. As he indicates, international students usually take their final examinations in May and June, the results of which will determine their university placement. On the other hand, seniors in America generally know where they will be attending university by the spring of their senior year and are thus de-motivated to perform on any external examination that is of no personal consequence.
Significantly, Bracey (2000) points out that, with regards to the TIMSS, the U.S. did not conduct the test-curriculum matching analysis. In fact, even though many of the students had not been exposed to some of the topics on the examination, the specific questions were accepted to "see how the kids could handle them" (p. 8). In fact, the United States was one of only a few countries to accept all test items.
Only the United States and Austria accepted all 82 items of the advanced mathematics test as being addressed by their curricula. Other countries judged between 62 and 81 items as congruent, with an average of 72. The United States and Austria also accepted all of the items on the physics tests as addressed by their curricula. The 10 other nations accepted between 38 and 78, with an average of 66. The scores reported in the Final Year Report, though, are based on total scores. For the record, the United States also accepted all items in mathematics and science at Grades 4 and 8 as addressed by its curricula. It was usually the only country to do so. (Bracey, p. 8)
In other words, the U.S. chose to have "50% of its test takers sit for an exam where a quarter of the items covered material that they had not studied" (Bracey, p. 7). That America would be capable of successful international results has been proved feasible by the collaborative effort (Hawkes and Kimmelman, 1997) involving the Department of Education, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study and local businesses and community members in organizing a consortium of 20 suburban Chicago districts who set out to pursue Goal #5 of the Goals 2000 program.
On 22 January, 1997, President Clinton and Secretary Riley announced the consortium's eighth-grade TIMSS results. In mathematics, only students from Singapore significantly outperformed students from the consortium. Scores of eighth graders in the consortium proved statistically equivalent to scores of students in six of the top seven countries. In science, no countries significantly outperformed the students in the consortium. Scores of eighth graders in the consortium were statistically equivalent to the scores of the top eight countries. Composite scores for the nation as a whole ranked the U.S. 28th -- slightly below the international average -- out of 41 countries in math and 17th -- slightly above the international average in science. (p. 31)
Countries such as Singapore (Menon, 2000) acknowledge that their success is due to a number of factors including: societal mores, a government that regards education as important, a centralized curriculum, examination practice, teacher training programs that emphasize mathematics training, and extensive after-school tutoring programs. If America cannot agree to this type of program, it would be more appropriate that the federal government, in accepting its role as "one of support and facilitation to improve all schools for all children" (Hawkes and Kimmelman, p. 380), adopt more realistic education goals.
As a federal framework upon which states and local districts will base their programs, the goals should reflect the "personal characteristics of pupils, … their social characteristics, … and the environment in which learning takes place" (Lassibille and Gomez, p. 12). Characteristics of the schools, qualifications of the teachers, student/teacher ratios, and teacher training programs should all be incorporated into the Goals 2000: Educate America Act and, certainly, some of them already are part of this framework. However, the use of international standardized test comparisons to establish the United States as number one in math and science is inappropriate given the inequities of the comparisons.
Baker (1997) is absolutely correct when he states that if the international comparisons are used as an impetus to generate educational programs that will benefit all American children, there is no problem. Using them as the basis for achieving a national goal, however, is a problem.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
(February, 2001). Experts: Poor Scores in the TIMSS Report Highlight Problems in U.S. Education, Curriculum Administrator, 37(2), 10-12.
Baker, D.P., (April, 1997). Good News, Bad News, and International Comparisons: Comment on Bracey, Educational Researcher, 26(3), 16-17.
Bracey, G.W., (May, 2000). The TIMSS Final Year Study and Report: A Critique, ER Online, 29(4), 1-12.
Callahan, C.M., (June, 2000). TIMSS and High-Ability Students, Phi Delta Kappan, 81(10), 787-781.
Clinton, W.J., (January, 1997). Remarks to the First in the World Consortium in Northbrook, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, 33(4), 74-81.
Geist, E.A., (November, 2000). Lessons from the TIMSS Videotape Study, Teaching Children Mathematics, 7(3), 180-186.
Hawkes, M., and Kimmelman, P., (September, 1997). Becoming 'First in the World' in Math and Science, Phi Delta Kappan, 79(1), 30-34.
House, J.D., (2001). Relationships Between Instructional Activities and Mathematics Achievement of Adolescent Students in Japan: Findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), International Journal of Instructional Media, 28(1), 93-106.
Joyner, C.C., (November, 1998). Goals 2000 - Flexible Funding Supports State and Local Education Reform, FDCH Government Account Reports, 1-14.
Lassibille, G., and Gomez, L.N., (February, 2000). Organisation and Efficiency of Education Systems: Some Empirical Findings, Comparative Education, 36(1), 7-20.
Menon, R., (February, 2000). Should the United States Emulate Singapore's Education System to Achieve Singapore's Success in the TIMSS?, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 5(6), 345-348.
Ravitch, D., Ed., (2000). Brookings Papers on Education Policy, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Riley, R.W., (Spring, 1995). Reflections on Goals 2000, Teachers College Record, 96(3), 380-389.