The differences between students in the high scoring countries and in the U.S. were significant. American educators and journalists were quick to come up with explanations like these . . . . Teachers in other countries have more professional development and preparation time. Nations with higher rankings teach subjects like geometry, chemistry and physics before high school. American students use calculators and computers far more than their international peers.
American schools abide by lower standards than European and Asian schools.
But the bottom line remains, American students did not do as well on international mathematics testing as American educators expected them to do. As Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation that funded the study, said, it s a little bit depressing. Most recently, besides the results of international testing mentioned above, the issue was raised in conjunction with the vote in the U.S. Congress to significantly increase the number of visas for foreign engineers and other like foreign professionals to work in this country. As reported in the Wall Street Journal , about 843,000 skilled jobs in technology went unfilled out of nearly 1.6 million jobs because of the lack of qualified workers. The United States does not produce enough technically trained citizens to fill technical positions, and the real fear is that the jobs will go to those countries who prepare their citizens for careers in math and science, But this issue of international comparison and national panic over the preparation of American students has been raised before.