U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers
By SAM DILLON
Published: April 14, 2010
Enlarge This ImageAmerica’s future math teachers, on average, earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries, significantly outscoring college students in the Philippines and Chile but placing far below those in educationally advanced nations like Singapore and Taiwan.
Answer: AB=2 cm; AM =square root of 3 cm; BM=1 cm
Testing the Prospective Testers A sample from the test given to future middle school math teachers.
The researchers who led the math study in this country, to be released in Washington on Thursday, judged the results acceptable if not encouraging for America’s future elementary teachers. But they called them disturbing for American students heading to careers in middle schools, who were outscored by students in Germany, Poland, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan.
On average, 80 percent to 100 percent of the future middle school teachers from the highest-achieving countries took advanced courses like linear algebra and calculus, while only 50 percent to 60 percent of their counterparts in the United States took those courses, the study said.
“The study reveals that America’s middle school mathematics teacher preparation is not
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