We're Number...?

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Published : August 18th, 2011
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FOLLOW : Hong Kong Singapore
Category : Crisis Watch

 

 

 

 


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Hold on...let me start with the fingers on my left hand...one, two, three, four, five...now on to the other ...six, seven, eight, nine, ten...and then to my right foot...eleven, twelve, thirteen...aw, forget it -- we're just too far down the list to matter.


Didn't we used to need only one hand -- or just a few fingers -- to figure out where we stood in comparison to everyone else?


"Can the US Compete if Only 32 Percent of Its Students Are Proficient in Math?" (Christian Science Monitor)


Among the top-scoring places in the world that participated in a recent exam, math proficiency of 15-year-olds was well above 50 percent. One US state, Massachusetts, cleared that mark, barely.


Jeremy Kennefick leads an eighth-grade science class at Normandin Middle School. New Bedford, Massachusetts in 2008.


What do Massachusetts, Switzerland, and Singapore have in common? Their students are among the top performers in the world when it comes to mathematical proficiency.


As for the rest of the United States, the comparison is more bleak, according to a new report: The US ranked 32nd out of 65 countries (or cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong) that participated in the latest international PISA, an exam administered to representative samples of 15-year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.


To researchers who authored Wednesday’s report – “Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?” – it’s yet another cause for alarm about the ability of the United States to compete on the global economic scene.


“This is an urgent problem.... We cannot continue to ignore the mathematical education of the next generation if we expect to be a ... highly productive society,” said Paul Peterson, a professor of government at Harvard and co-author of the report, in a live webinar Wednesday morning.


How times have changed.


Michael J. Panzner 

 

 

 

 

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Michael J. Panzner is a 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the author of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes, published by Kaplan Publishing.
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If I was getting a photo taken of my hands I would ensure that my nails were clean! SW Read more
S W. - 8/19/2011 at 3:25 AM GMT
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