An interesting new report cross references international math test data with the results from 11 US cities including Austin. Although Austin did slightly better than US national average (34% vs. 31% proficient at 8th grade), this should not be surprising given our concentration of highly educated parents, but this is not good enough to exceed the average European country (much less Japan or Singapore). “At Grade 8, two districts (Charlotte and Austin) performed similarly to the average of the 12 OECD countries that participated in the international study.” I also see that compared to European countries we do ok in 4th grade, then slightly worse in 8th grade, then slightly worse in high school.
With a strong focus on Math and Science, I hope that St. Dominic Savio can help our children gain the math skills necessary for the jobs of the 21st century.
USA Today ran a story on this report (with a more upbeat tone than I would have used): http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-10-22-math-cities-international_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
The full report can be found at: http://www.air.org/news/documents/Counting%20on%20the%20Future.pdf and is long, but interesting reading.
