The state of high school education is a hot topic among some of my friends and colleagues. I have heard older people say that the US high school education, especially mathematics and sciences, has declined considerably over the past fifty years. I've also heard people who received high school education from a different part of the world and also experienced indirectly the US system, either through their children going through it, or through their contact with graduates of the system, that the level of US mathematics and sciences education is not as high as in other countries.

The counter argument of course is that when such generalized statements are made, they are only anecdotal and are not backed up by statistics or any kind of research data.

I went on the internet (of course the internet knows it all) in search of any evidence that will support either side of the argument. Alas, I couldn't find any concrete evidence either. But I did find the following items:

• A US documentary film named Two Million Minutes that followed six high school students in the United States, China, and India
• Some Chinese high school mathematics tests. This is a district wide midterm for the first semester of High-3. (The Chinese system goes E1-E6, M1-M3 and H1-H3, so H3 is roughly equivalent to 12th grade in the US)

I haven't see the documentary myself, but am fascinated by some of the discussions on their blog, especially by the contrast between the reactions from ordinary people and those from US educators.

As for the Chinese high school mathematics test, here is one of the problems translated into English:

(16) (This problem is worth 13 points)

Given the function f(x) = x + 4 / x ².

(I) Find the interval over which f(x) is monotonically decreasing;
(II) Find the maximum and the minimum of f(x) when x ε [1, 4].

Keep in mind that this is part of a 120-minute test consisting of 20 problems worth a total of 150 points. So the students have about 10 minutes to finish the problem.

• Can your high school senior correctly solve the problem in the allotted time?
• Is this problem on par in difficulty with the ones your high school senior get from school?
• What if you are not from the US or China? Is the problem easier or harder than your typical assignments?
• What if you are from way back when? 50's? 60's? 70's? 80's? 90's? Is this comparable to what you have to go through?

Responses[3]

Posted by Weiqi Gao on March 18, 2008 7:20:22 PM CDT #