Education Commons^™

Incentives For Learning: Why American High School Students Compare So Poorly To Their Counterparts Overseas, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The scientific and mathematical competence of American high school students is generally recognized to be very low. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that only 7.5 percent of 17 year old students can "integrate specialized scientific information" (NAEP 1988a p.51) and 6.4 percent "demonstrated the capacity to apply mathematical operations in a variety of problem settings." (NAEP 1988b p. 42) There is a large gap between the science and math competence of young Americans and their counterparts overseas. In the 1960s, the low ranking of American high school students in such comparisons was attributed to the fact …