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SubscribeSchmidt in Education Week: Are U.S. math teachers measuring up?
Last month, Education Week raised an important issue in its special publication, Quality Counts: Are U.S. math teachers receiving enough teacher training? For insight, Education Week consulted William Schmidt, a University Distinguished Professor of education and statistics at Michigan State University.
Schmidt said that U.S. middle school mathematics teachers and students perform significantly lower on math examinations than those in several other countries.
“Middle school teachers are coming out to teach math nowhere near the level of mathematics as those in countries where students perform highly,” Schmidt said.
His expertise draws largely from the Teacher Education Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M), which examined teacher preparation among 16 countries. According to the study, several international middle school math teachers scored highly on mathematical-content knowledge and pedagogical-content knowledge examinations, while U.S. teachers did not. Additionally, TEDS-M found that U.S. middle school math teachers had taken an average of two fewer advanced-mathematics courses than their international peers.
While Schmidt and his fellow researchers continue to discuss solutions and causes of this phenomenon, Schmidt said that most U.S. teachers’ colleges still have a long way to go when it comes to teacher preparation, as well as the state bodies that regulate them.
