VOX – Libby Nelson
“American students aren’t good at math compared with students around the world. But it’s still possible to overstate just how bad they are — as Nicholas Kristof did this week in the New York Times. Kristof argues that American eighth-graders’ math skills are humiliatingly bad, citing examples of problems that students in Ghana, Iran, Indonesia, Armenia, Turkey, and Palestine can solve and American eighth-graders can’t. Kristof’s basic point is correct: American students really are bad at math, particularly at applying what they’ve learned in the real world. Math teachers and elected officials from both parties are right to be concerned. But American kids aren’t really worse than students in Ghana or Armenia. And Kristof’s method — cherry-picking problems from a test on which American students, on average, do pretty well in comparison — actually undermines what he’s trying to argue.”(more)