by Jamie Corey and Amanda Yanchury
In a debate on ABC news on August 19th, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said the following:
“…you know we are 29th in the world in math and science. We need to have 100,000 new math and science teachers. We have to be number one again.”
Is he correct that the U.S. lags far behind other nations in math and science education?
From our research, we found no study for K-12 education that encompasses all countries; this is not surprising, given that some nations do not have full secondary education systems, and others do not test or keep records in the same way developed nations do. We found a fairly comprehensive, authoritative source in the “Trends in Mathematics and Science Study” by the National Center for Education Statistics. All of the studies on the group’s web site include limited numbers of countries for their collection of data.
According to an NPR article on how the U.S. measures up in math and science, the data do not match up with Richardson’s claims. The article explained that a team of experts compared American students’ rates of success in math and science to that of students in other countries. According to the study, in math and science, “American students are no worse, and often score better, than students from many leading countries.”
Another report on how the United States measures up in math and science, this one written by the Urban Institute, reaches a similar conclusion. The two researchers, Salzman and Lowell, found that, “the United States is one of only a handful of nations that maintained or improved test performance in all subjects, grades, and years tested.”
Lesson: We found statistics that conflict with Gov. Richardson’s claim about education in the U.S. We tried to contact the campaign for information on where Richardson obtained his data, but the campaign did not respond to repeated inquiries. For now, the evidence for his claim mixed and inconclusive.
Update: FactCheck has posted an article on Richardson's claim that the U.S. is 29th in the world in math and science. The claim is debunked in the article, with ample evidence. Check it out!
