US withdraws from international study comparing math and science students

[Jim Warren]

"You can't lose when you don't compete" Homer Simpson

Newsweek Aug 9, 2007
The United States has quietly withdrawn from an international study comparing math and science students.

So why did the federal government quietly decide last year to drop out of an international study that would compare U.S. high-school students who take advanced science and math courses with their international counterparts?

The study, called TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) Advanced 2008, measures how high-school seniors are doing in algebra, geometry, calculus and physics with students taking similar subjects around the globe. In the past, the American results have been shockingly poor. In the last survey, taken in 1995, students from only two countries—Cyprus and South Africa—scored lower than U.S. school kids.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20205125/site/newsweek/

[NMMNG]

1. What,

They wanted to get out before we were in last place?

[Igel]

2. Perhaps. Or perhaps it was too small-potatoes.

"Mark S. Schneider, the commissioner for the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, says the decision was made after a number of other countries—Australia, Germany and Finland—also decided not to participate. That left Armenia, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden in the study."

Granted, it would be embarrassing to come in under Armenia. On the other hand, being 1 of 10 countries in a global, international, world-wide affair seems to be not so important.

So I wonder why Germany, Australia, and Finland decided to bail.