Weber & American 8th Graders (was Re: Weber and rationality)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Ricardo says:

> Every human in
> every culture is rational in this practical sense, and some cultures
> did indeed develop formally rational institutions, as exemplified by
> the Chinese bureaucratic state and its system of examinations. W
> would insist however that, in the West, formal rationality came to
> penetrate every sphere of live, including the economy as
> symbolized by double-bookkeeping.

Apparently, formal rationality has yet to penetrate American
education too deeply:

*****   The New York Times
December 6, 2000, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 1; National Desk
HEADLINE: Worldwide Survey Finds U.S. Students Are Not Keeping Up
BYLINE:  By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Dec. 5

Four years after American fourth-grade students scored high on an
international test of science and math, their performance declined
markedly when they reached the eighth grade, a second survey shows.

The survey results, released here today, indicate that the changes
some educators had suggested were responsible for the fourth graders'
success were insufficient to produce results as they advanced in
school.

The survey was based on the results of tests that 180,000
eighth-graders in 38 nations took last year.  It showed American
students, over all, performing worse in math and science than
students in Singapore, Taiwan, Russia, Canada, Finland, Hungary, the
Netherlands and Australia.  They did better than students in some
less industrialized nations, including Iran, Jordan, Chile,
Indonesia, Macedonia and South Africa.

"American children continue to learn, but their peers in other
countries are learning at a higher rate," said Richard W. Riley, the
outgoing secretary of education....

The report, known as the Third International Math and Science
Study-Repeat, came as a letdown to a number of educators.

It confirmed the declines over time in student performances that the
initial 1995 survey of students in the United States and 42 other
nations indicated.

That study showed American fourth-grade students among the leaders in
science and at the international average in math.  In the eighth
grade, though, American students hovered at less than the
international average in math and at the average in science.  And in
the twelfth grade, they lagged far behind students in most other
nations in both subjects....

..."You would like to see the U.S. a leader not just in research and
Nobel prizes, but in how our little kids perform," she said....

In 1995, American fourth-grade students did better than the
international average on the science exam.  Of the nations
participating in both the 1995 and 1999 exams, American scores were
exceeded only by those of South Korea and Japan.

But the results from 1999 showed that by the eighth grade, American
students fell below the international average in science, with
students in Australia, the Czech Republic, Britain, Slovenia, Canada
and Hungary and five other nations doing better.

In math, American fourth graders in 1995 outperformed students in
Canada, Britain and Cyprus, among others.  But by the eighth grade,
the report showed, they were on a level with students in Latvia,
while those in Canada and Australia advanced.

Several industrialized nations that took part in the 1995 study --
including Switzerland, France, Austria and Germany -- did not
participate this time....

...It found that most nations tend to employ math teachers certified
in math. On average, 71 percent of students internationally learned
math from teachers who majored in mathematics in college, but only 41
percent of American students did.

Nations with higher rankings teach subjects like geometry, chemistry
and physics before high school, giving students more time to absorb
the concepts, said William H. Schmidt, executive director of the
Third International Math and Science Study Research Center at
Michigan State University.

"As they get to high school, students in those countries can get much
more challenging mathematics or science," he said.  Only 25 percent
of American high school students, he added, ever take physics.   *****

Yoshie