From the perspective of curriculum, national and cross-national studies give somewhat different answers. National trend studies suggest that U.S. schools are doing a better job of addressing long-standing inequities in the mathematics and science preparation provided to students in different demographic groups. Compared with the late 1970s and early 1980s, higher proportions of male and female students now complete the core college preparatory courses in mathematics and science, and more black and Hispanic students do so as well. On the other hand, as recently as 1994, a significantly larger fraction of white than black and Hispanic students completed advanced courses in mathematics and science, and more male than female students completed physics. Therefore, there are still substantial inequities to be overcome.
International comparisons suggest that U.S. curricula are lacking in depth and focus.
But relative to science curriculum documents and textbooks in other countries, U.S. schools provide too much repetition, too many topics to be learned, and too little coverage of core science topics. These limitations are even more characteristic of the mathematics curriculum. There are indications as well that at least the eighth grade mathematics curriculum is pitched at a lower level than in other countries. U.S. curriculum guides and textbooks emphasize topics related to whole numbers and fractions while in most other countries, students are studying more topics in geometry and algebra. Cross-national observations of what takes place in eighth grade mathematics classrooms confirm these findings.