<p>At least, it seems that Georgia is TRYING to improve its system of education. A few years ago, they negotiatated with The College Board to offer free SAT help to every student via an access to the SAT online tool. While I do not know the extent of the proposed changes, it'd appear that most everything that is offered abroad should be a stop in the right direction.</p>
<p>In general terms, few people know --or care-- about the extent of our failure at teaching math in K-12. Utopians believe that our best students do better than the best students abroad (not true) and that our worst performers still do better (not true.) Unfortunately, while the US is a bit better than average in elementary school, the scores start slipping in middle school, and the performance for the 15-17 years is simply horrendous as we barely edge third-world countries in international assessments. The same apoligists who try to find "excuses" for our failures typically try to pretend the tests are rigged or that the samples do not represent the entire student body. This is again not true. </p>
<p>The reality is that examples of better instruction abound abroad. The good performance of Asian countries are well known, but it's hardly unique. Even better performances on tests such as PISA are routinely logged by the Flemish in Belgium or the Netherlands --not France, if that matters. Of course, students in the flat land countries do benefit from a combination of a well designed Realistic Math program (see Freudenthal) and the strength of a religious instructional system that is mostly offered by private catholic schools. Indeed, one another example of the horror of well designed school choice plans in countries where school freedom is a constitutional right of all citizens! /sarcasm </p>
<p>This said, not all reforms are better. In a small country such as Belgium, the French speaking system jumped on a leaky boat called Modern Math developed by a group a French and Belgian mathematicians (including a ficititious character.) Two generations later, the educators are still trying to undo the overall damage and reduce the gap with the rest of the country. </p>
<p>Again, the United States should be able to find programs worth emulating. However, the biggest challenge will remain finding the teachers who not only would be qualified to teach the material or merely understanding it. Few of the international books come with the crutches known as Teachers' Edition. It's a lot harder to grade papers and teach without someone spotting you the answers! </p>
<p>On the issue raised by the OP, here's one small description of the differences between US and Japanese standards:</p>
<p>
[quote]
From How</a> does a Japanese math lesson differ from the Conventional U.S. math lesson?</p>
<p>How does a Japanese math lesson differ from the Conventional U.S. math lesson?</p>
<p>As a result of relatively poor showings on international tests of Math and Science, there has been a clamor to improve instruction. The most well known of these tests is commonly referred to as TIMSS (Trends in International Math and Science Study). This isn’t a new phenomenon, the National Council of Teachers of Math (NCTM) made this claim back in 1989 when they first published the Standards and it is one of the underlying reasons for the No Child Left Behind legislation.</p>
<p>In their book, The Teaching Gap James Hiebert and James Stigler describe the typical lesson design in the United States, Germany and Japan. They did a video study of the three cultures to see what they could find out about how math is taught. They studied eighth grade classrooms. What they discovered is that there is a significant difference in the way Math is taught. In the United States, the typical lesson today remains very much today like the same lesson design you probably experienced as a student.</p>
<p>What do U.S. mathematics lessons look like? </p>
<p>One of the most exciting aspects of TIMSS is the opportunity to learn more about teaching in other countries. Some preliminary findings from the TIMSS video study into which we will want to inquire further are the following:</p>
<p>The structure of U.S. mathematics lessons is similar to lesson structure in Germany, but different from that in Japan.</p>
<p>The study reports that eighth-grade lessons in Germany and the U.S. emphasize acquisition of skills in lessons that follow this pattern:</p>
<pre><code>1. Teacher instructs students in a concept or skill.
2. Teacher solves example problems with class.
3. Students practice on their own while the teacher assists individual students.
</code></pre>
<p>In contrast, the emphasis in Japan is on understanding concepts, and typical lessons could be described as follows:</p>
<pre><code>1. Teacher poses complex thought-provoking problem.
2. Students struggle with the problem.
3. Various students present ideas or solutions to the class.
4. Class discusses the various solution methods.
5. The teacher summarizes the class' conclusions.
6. Students practice similar problems.
</code></pre>
<p>The expectations in our lessons differ from those in both Japan and Germany.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, U.S. lessons concentrate on skill acquisition, with 95 percent of the lessons including practice on procedures--in contrast to 42 percent of the Japanese lessons. But many Japanese students practice skills in paid tutoring sessions after school. In contrast, 44 percent of the Japanese lessons assign problems in which students have to invent new solutions or procedures that require them to think and reason. This finding was bolstered by the analysis of lesson summaries done by a group of mathematics professors in which they found little mathematical reasoning expected in the U.S. lessons.
[/quote]
</p>