El diario The New York Times informa sobre los resultados de un reciente estudio liderado por el profesor William H. Schmidt de la Michigan State University destinado a medir el desempeño de futuros profesores de matemática de enseñanza primaria y secundaria (inferior).
Los estudiantes chilenos ocupan invariablemente los lugares inferiores entre los 11 países participantes, en las diversas medidas aplicadas por este test internacional. En la prueba destinada a los futuros profesores de enseñanza primaria, el rendimiento de los estudiantes chilenos muestra niveles similares (en el mejor de los casos) pero en general inferiores a países como Polania, Malasia, Botswana y Filipinas, superando solo a Georgia. En la prueba destinada a los futuros profesores de enseñanza secundaria (inferior) los estudiantes chilenos obtienen los puntajes más bajos entre los 11 países, con menos de 25% de respuestas correctas en las pruebas de álgebra, geometría y números.
Bajar el informe completo aquí 10,7 MB (57 pp.).
Título del estudio: BREAKING THE CYCLE: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OF U.S. MATHEMATICS TEACHER PREPARATION
THE CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
CONTRIBUTORS
JACQUELINE BABCOCK
PHILIP BABCOCK
JEAN BUHLER
JENNIFER CADY
LELAND COGAN
RICHARD HOUANG
NEELAM KHER
JEANNIE PATRICK
KAMILA ROSOLOVA
WILLIAM H. SCHMIDT
KATHY WIGHT
INITIAL FINDINGS FROM THE TEACHER EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT STUDY
U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers
By SAM DILLON, The New York Times, April 15, 2010
America’s future math teachers, on average, earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries, significantly outscoring college students in the Philippines and Chile but placing far below those in educationally advanced nations like Singapore and Taiwan.
The researchers who led the math study in this country, to be released in Washington on Thursday, judged the results acceptable if not encouraging for America’s future elementary teachers. But they called them disturbing for American students heading to careers in middle schools, who were outscored by students in Germany, Poland, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan.
On average, 80 percent to 100 percent of the future middle school teachers from the highest-achieving countries took advanced courses like linear algebra and calculus, while only 50 percent to 60 percent of their counterparts in the United States took those courses, the study said.
“The study reveals that America’s middle school mathematics teacher preparation is not up to the task,” said William H. Schmidt, the Michigan State University professor who was its lead author. To improve its competitiveness, Dr. Schmidt said, the nation should recruit stronger candidates into careers teaching math and require them to take more advanced courses.
The 52-page report provides the first international comparison of teacher preparation based on a test given to college students in a significant number of countries, he said.
In the study, a representative sample of 3,300 future math teachers nearing the end of their teacher training at 81 colleges and universities in the United States were given a 90-minute test covering their knowledge of math concepts as well as their understanding of how to teach the subject.
There were two distinct tests, for those preparing to teach in elementary schools and for candidates for middle school.
The same tests, developed by an international consortium, were given to college students in 15 other countries, including advanced nations like Germany and Norway as well as underdeveloped ones like Botswana.
On the elementary test, students from Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan scored far above their counterparts in the United States. Students from Germany, Norway, the Russian Federation and Thailand, scored about the same as the Americans, and students from Botswana, Chile, Georgia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland and Spain scored well below, the report said.
On the middle school test, American students outscored students in Botswana, Chile, Georgia, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, the Philippines and Thailand, the study found.
The study found considerable variation in the math knowledge attained at different American colleges, with students at some scoring, on average, at the level of students in Botswana, the study said.
“There are so many people who bash our teachers’ math knowledge that to be honest these results are better than what a lot of people might expect,” said Hank Kepner, professor of mathematics education at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, who is president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “We show up pretty well here, right in the middle of the pack.”
Gage Kingsbury, a senior research fellow at the Northwest Evaluation Association, which administers math tests in many states and in 60 countries, called the study ambitious but faulted it because of the limited number of advanced countries that participated.
“They don’t have most of Europe,” Dr. Kingsbury said. “And to suggest that you can’t be a good middle school math teacher unless you’ve taken calculus is a leap, because calculus isn’t taught in middle school. So I think they overreach a bit.”

Comunicado de prensa de la institución responsable del estudio
MSU study: U.S. needs better-trained math teachers to compete globally
Published: April 15, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Math teachers in the United States need better training if the nation’s K-12 students are going to compete globally, according to international research released today by a Michigan State University scholar.
William Schmidt, University Distinguished Professor of education, found that prospective U.S. elementary and middle-school math teachers are not as prepared as those from other countries. And this, combined with a weak U.S. math curriculum, produces similarly weak student achievement, he said.
The Teacher Education Study in Mathematics, or TEDS-M, is by far the largest of its kind, surveying more than 3,300 future teachers in the United States and 23,244 future teachers across 16 countries. Schmidt led the U.S. portion of the project.
“We must break the cycle in which we find ourselves,” said Schmidt, who presented his findings at a Washington news conference.
“A weak K-12 mathematics curriculum in the U.S., taught by teachers with an inadequate mathematics background, produces high school graduates who are at a disadvantage. When some of these students become future teachers and are not given a strong background in mathematics during teacher preparation, the cycle continues.”
More rigorous K-12 math standards, which are part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, will be completed soon by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State Officers. The standards are expected to be adopted by a majority of the 48 states considering them.
But the new standards will require U.S. math teachers to be even more knowledgeable, Schmidt said. His study found that while nearly all future middle-school teachers in the top-achieving countries took courses in linear algebra and basic calculus, only about half of U.S. future teachers took the fundamental courses.
To attack the problem, Schmidt laid out a three-fold approach:
• Recruit teachers with stronger math backgrounds.
• Implement more rigorous state certification requirements for math teachers.
• Require more demanding math courses in all teacher preparation programs.
Schmidt studied the performance of 81 public and private colleges and universities. He said the real issue is how teachers are prepared – the courses they take and the experiences they have. The quality and type of programs in the United States varies widely by state and by institution.
The study revealed that differences in middle school teacher certification programs, for example, have a great impact on math-teaching capabilities. Future teachers prepared in programs focused on secondary schools (grades 6 and above) had significantly higher mathematics knowledge scores than those prepared in other types of programs, including those focused only on middle school teacher preparation.
“Teacher preparation curricula are critical, not only for our future teachers, but also for the children they will be teaching,” Schmidt said. “The problem isn’t simply the amount of formal math education our future teachers receive. It also involves studying the theoretical and practical aspects both of teaching mathematics and teaching in general.”
TEDS-M expands on previous research to include elementary teachers and draw comparisons across more countries. The international headquarters for the project also is MSU, with Maria Teresa Tatto, John R. Schwille and Sharon Senk serving as principal investigators in collaboration with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
The U.S. study is funded by Boeing Co., Carnegie Corp. of New York, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the GE Foundation.
The full report, Breaking the Cycle: An International Comparison of U.S. Mathematics Teacher Preparation, is available at http://usteds.msu.edu.
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Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.