U.S. Students behind in math, science

A new report published last week shows that American students are lagging behind in math and science and trailing countries like Canada, Czech Republic and China, the National Center for Education Statistics concluded.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says that American kids are not getting smarter nor dumber but that may not be good enough to compete on an international scale. A special analysis put out last week by the National Center for Education Statistics suggests that U.S. students are falling behind other countries, according to CNN. This study compares 15-year-old students with other students from countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Development. It found that students in the US are below average in math and were placed in the bottom quarter of countries that participated and trail nations such as Estonia, China and Finland. In science, the U.S. trailed Canada, Japan and the Czech Republic. While other countries have improved, the United States has remained stagnant. The results were not comparatively different from 2003 in a report from The Washington Post in 2004. Fourth and eighth graders have improved their average scores in math science compared with European nations but still lager behind Asian countries. "We are lagging the rest of the world, and we are lagging it in pretty substantial ways. "I think we have become complacent. We've sort of lost our way," said Arne Duncan in front of a room filled with science and math experts from the National Center for Education Statistics. The secretary stated, "It has huge implications. think as a real economic imperative we have to educate our way to a better economy." The organization released a statement, "Simply being a teacher of a hard-to-staff subject does not equate with effective instruction, and therefore, should not be rewarded in-and-of-itself through a salary differential."