Children with Technology but Not Smarts

Everywhere you look you see children with technology products. They carry them everywhere, their school rooms are filled with them and so are their homes. Our children are incredibly technology literate. They seem to be able to do more with computers than most adults. Yet something is very wrong with how we educate our children. How do we know this, beyond looking at their grades in school and competency in using hi-tech products?

We know this by looking at the results of the new report from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science project. It presents 2007 data on how fourth- and eighth-graders in the US compare to similar students around the world. For fourth grade, 36 countries participated, and for eighth grade 48 countries did. More than 20,000 American children in 500 public and private schools participated in the study. The results should concern all of us in these dire economic times when it could not be clearer that our future economic success will depend greatly on having extremely smart younger professionals running our nation's government and economy. And being smart for the future means having excellent skills and knowledge in science and math.

Here is a sampling of the new data. US fourth-graders had an average science score of 539 on a 1,000 point scale, which placed them below students in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong. For US eighth-graders their average science score was an unimpressive 520, which placed them below students in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, England, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hong Kong and Russia.

Nearly the same lineup of countries was above US eighth-graders when it came to math scores. For grade four, there were ten countries above the US, and for grade eight there were eight countries above us.

Are all the better performing countries spending more money on their children's' education? Unlikely. To the contrary, the US undoubtedly spends much more money per student than virtually all other countries, and surely American kids are using as much technology in their daily lives than children around the world.

Here is another way of looking at the results. In 2007, 10 percent of US fourth-graders and 6 percent of US eighth-graders scored at or above the advanced international benchmark in mathematics. In 2007, 15 percent of U.S. fourth-graders and 10 percent of U.S. eighth-graders scored at or above the advanced international benchmark in science. These are not impressive results. We need more than a small fraction of our nation's children having the best math and science knowledge. We need more to succeed in the global market.

The same study was conducted in 1995. The good news is that there were some improvements since then. In math, the average score among fourth-graders increased 11 points to 529, but students in Hong Kong got an average score of 607. And American eighth-graders did 16 points better in math in 2007 (for a score of 508) than in 1995, but still lagged behind kids in many countries. For science, however, there were very slight differences between 1995 and 2007 scores.

You probably have heard a lot about the nation's No Child Left Behind law and the nationwide program of measuring educational performance. But these new data clearly show that America's children are being left behind by the education systems in many other countries that we have to compete against in the global economy.

So let us not be deceived by the appearance of heavy technology use among American children. We can fill homes and pockets with advanced technology and computer products, but that is not the same as filling their minds with math and science smarts. Parents need to understand that buying technology products for their children does not offset a poorly performing education system. If they want their children to get the best jobs, then they need to face reality. It should be clear that the quality of our education system is far less than the quality of technology products, nearly all of which are manufactured in other countries and increasingly also designed there.

When the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story on these new study results their headline was "U.S. students still test as mediocre." What should concern all of us is this: Has America become a meritocracy based on mediocrity?