Seventy-five percent of the countries involved in the study cram fewer topics into math curricula than the US does. A typical US eighth-grade math class serves up 35 topics. Pressure to get through them all within the school year forces some teachers to rush, critics charge, which can leave many students baffled. Japanese students, by contrast, will study only five to 10 concepts in eighth grade, but will learn them in much greater depth. Then they move on, building on those ideas.
American schools tend to repeat concepts in many grade levels.
But Asians think the opposite. They believe less is more. Another weak point of US curricula appears to be too much focus on arithmetic over too long a period of time. Most US students don't tackle algebraic concepts until ninth grade, at which point they are a year to a year and a half behind many of their peers in other countries. Not only did the tapes allow them to examine how extensively Japanese and German eighth-graders grappled with more challenging material, but they also provided a glimpse of the more carefully crafted lessons particularly evident in Japanese classrooms, where lessons are polished over years.