In a 1998 analysis of state standards, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation gave only six states top marks for having standards that were sufficiently specific when it came to content. People want to use standards and benchmarks, but they want to know what works. Unfortunately, the textbooks that most schools rely on, especially in middle and high schools, have not been revamped to emphasize these new methods. Schmidt and his colleagues analyzed 491 curriculum guides and 628 textbooks from around the world to get a picture of how the U.S. taught math and science as compared to other countries. The German and Japanese textbooks have five topics in them and the international average is 20.
Science has big theorems, but the way it's conveyed to U.S. students is like a large laundry list.
The fundamental lesson is about alignment. Some new curriculum is being developed to correct this problem. States typically contracted to universities or other outside groups to set up teacher development programs, introduce new curriculum, and try to measure success. The average elementary school teacher has taken only one college course in science. Although the publisher provided training for 10 local teachers, who were then paid to provide workshops for other teachers, only 59 percent of the district's teachers attended even a single workshop.