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How do U.S. students compare with their peers around the world? Recently released data from international math and science assessments indicate that U.S. students continue to rank around the middle of the pack, and behind many other advanced industrial nations.
One of the biggest cross-national tests is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which every three years measures reading ability, math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries. The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science.
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Younger American students fare somewhat better on a similar cross-national assessment, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. That study, known as TIMSS, has tested students in grades four and eight every four years since 1995. In the most recent tests, from 2015, 10 countries (out of 48 total) had statistically higher average fourth-grade math scores than the U.S., while seven countries had higher average science scores. In the eighth-grade tests, seven out of 37 countries had statistically higher average math scores than the U.S., and seven had higher science scores.
Another long-running testing effort is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a project of the federal Education Department. In the most recent NAEP results, from 2015, average math scores for fourth- and eighth-graders fell for the first time since 1990. A team from Rutgers University is analyzing the NAEP data to try to identify the reasons for the drop in math scores.
The average fourth-grade NAEP math score in 2015 was 240 (on a scale of 0 to 500), the same level as in 2009 and down from 242 in 2013. The average eighth-grade score was 282 in 2015, compared with 285 in 2013; that score was the lowest since 2007. (The NAEP has only tested 12th-graders in math four times since 2005; their 2015 average score of 152 on a 0-to-300 scale was one point lower than in 2013 and 2009.)
A Bankrupt Concept Of Math': Some Educators Argue Calculus Should Be Dethroned
Looked at another way, the 2015 NAEP rated 40% of fourth-graders, 33% of eighth-graders and 25% of 12th-graders as “proficient” or “advanced” in math. While far fewer fourth- and eighth-graders now rate at “below basic, ” the lowest performance level (18% and 29%, respectively, versus 50% and 48% in 1990), improvement in the top levels appears to have stalled out. (Among 12th-graders, 38% scored at the lowest performance level in math, a point lower than in 2005.)
NAEP also tests U.S. students on science, though not as regularly, and the limited results available indicate some improvement. Between 2009 and 2015, the average scores of both fourth- and eight-graders improved from 150 to 154 (on a 0-to-300 scale), although for 12th-graders the average score remained at 150. In 2015, 38% of fourth-graders, 34% of eighth-graders and 22% of 12th-graders were rated proficient or better in science; 24% of fourth-graders, 32% of eighth-graders and 40% of 12th-graders were rated “below basic.”
These results likely won’t surprise too many people. In a 2015 Pew Research Center report, only 29% of Americans rated their country’s K-12 education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (known as STEM) as above average or the best in the world. Scientists were even more critical: A companion survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that just 16% called U.S. K-12 STEM education the best or above average; 46%, in contrast, said K-12 STEM in the U.S. was below average.
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Note: This is an update of a post originally published Feb. 2, 2015. It has been updated to include more recent data.
About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.‘A Bankrupt Concept of Math’: Some Educators Argue Calculus Should Be Dethroned A course critics say is outdated, inaccessible and not needed for success in humanities — or STEM — is still seen as critical to college
Successful completion of high school calculus has long been an unofficial must-have for those seeking admission to the nation’s top colleges: The course has, for decades, served as a signal to admissions officers that a student’s coursework has been robust.
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But some in education say it’s time to reconsider this de facto requirement: Many schools — particularly those serving large numbers of Black, Hispanic or low-income students — don’t offer the course. And even when they do, it’s of dubious value, they say.
Alan Garfinkel, professor of integrative biology and physiology and medicine at UCLA, said high school calculus “is a complete waste of time and a form of torture” for students.(UCLA)
“High school calculus is a complete waste of time and a form of torture, ” said Alan Garfinkel, professor of integrative biology and physiology and medicine at UCLA. “The view … that math is a bunch of symbolic expressions, and you bang on them with tricks to get other symbolic expressions, is a bankrupt concept of math, dating from the 19th century.”
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The course, as it’s often taught at the high school level, is inaccessible and often perceived as irrelevant to students’ interests, critics say. Just 16% of high school graduates earned credit for calculus in 2019, according to data culled by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a statistic no doubt shaped by its unavailability.
Only 52% of schools with high student of color enrollment offered the course in 2017-18 compared to 76% of schools with low student of color enrollment, according to a 2021 report from the Learning Policy Institute.
Melodie Baker, national policy director at Just Equations, said taking calculus in high school is not a predictor of college success. (Just Equations)
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The study, which analyzed data primarily from the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection, found the course was also scarce in more impoverished communities: Just 45% of high schools enrolling a high proportion of students from low-income families offered the class compared to 87% of high schools with a low proportion of these students.
In addition to its uneven availability, some say calculus isn’t entirely relevant to college-level studies and that other classes, including those in statistics and data science, should be considered just as worthy.
“There is a perception that calculus is required for admission to selective colleges, regardless of the fact that only about a handful of higher ed institutions in the U.S. actually require the course for all students, ” said Melodie Baker, national policy director at Just Equations, an organization that promotes math policies that support equity in college readiness and success.
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The push for calculus, said Dave Kung, director of policy at the Charles A. Dana Center, harkens back to an earlier era in U.S. history: It was all about producing physicists and engineers to beat the Soviets in various ways. Other mathematics, includingstatistics and linear algebra, took a back seat, he said.
Dave Kung, director of policy at the Charles A. Dana Center, said the focus on calculus harkens back to an earlier era in U.S. history: It was all about producing physicists and engineers to beat the Soviets. Other mathematics, including statistics and linear algebra, took a back seat. (Charles A. Dana Center)
“The fact that calculus is the default college math pathway is an artifact of a time that’s now long gone, ” he said. “Other branches of mathematics have risen in importance in the digital age, but our curriculum hasn’t been updated to reflect that change.”
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Sarah Spence Adams, professor of mathematics at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, said she understands why high school counselors place such power in the course: College admissions officials had come to rely upon it, perhaps unfairly.
“Without that stamp of approval, it may be seen as harder and more labor intensive to determine if college applicants have pushed themselves academically, ” said Spence Adams, who also teaches electrical and computer engineering.
“I am rightfully worried that the disproportionate focus on calculus is unfairly excluding students, particularly students who come from backgrounds that have been historically excluded — and are still being excluded — from STEM majors and the well-paying careers that can follow, ” she said.
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Access to the course varies across the country, influenced by race and wealth. Only 27% of New York state high schools with high student-of-color enrollment offered calculus compared to 81% of schools with low student-of-color enrollment, The Learning Policy Institute found. In New Jersey, the organization reported, the difference was 50 percentage points: It was 49 percentage points in Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Those who question calculus’s importance are not just considering students who wish to pursue the humanities: They say it might not be a necessity for those who
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