UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 1, Page 5
September 3, 1992
Student math skills suffer from summer vacation
Three-month-long summer vacations are traditional in the U.S.
educational system. But two University economists have just completed
a study that suggests this practice is holding U.S. math students
back. They recommend lengthening the school year by three weeks and
assigning required summer math homework similar to summer reading
programs.
College of Business and Economics professors Kenneth A. Lewis and
Laurence S. Seidman, with their research assistants Helen Erickson and
Tony Stilt, spent the better part of a year compiling data about the
classroom and study habits of eighth grade mathematics students from
17 nations. Seidman said he believes it is the only study of its kind.
The economists wanted to learn whether there is a direct
correlation between high scores and the time spent on math.
"When we started the study, we were surprised to find educators
who said the amount of time devoted to math doesn't matter," Lewis
says. He was referring specifically to The Underachieving Curriculum,
a 1987 study based on the results of the 1982 math test given to
13-year-old students in 18 nations by the International Association
for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
Of the 18 nations and 20 school systems tested, students in Japan
scored the highest. The United States was 14th. "Even at the top, U.S.
students aren't competing with Japanese students," Seidman said.
The researchers arrived at this conclusion by computing
individual student scores for the whole exam and for each of five
subjects: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, descriptive statistics and
measurement.
They then broke those down into quartiles and into the top 5 and
10 percentages. In each case, both for the entire test, and in four of
the five individual subjects, U.S. students tested behind Japanese
students at every level. Only in arithmetic did the gap close.
The Underachieving Curriculum dismissed the lack of time spent on
math study in the U.S. as a reason for this nation's poor showing.
The report ranked Japan number one in achievement but 13th in
time devoted to math while the U.S. ranked 14th in test scores but
third in math-time.
This influential work dismisses the time factor as insignificant
and urges intense concentration on curriculum to close the gap.
"The report jolted us. The claim that Japan was a low math-time
nation and the U. S. high math-time ran against our information,"
Seidman said. These influential leaders in their field made a mistake,
he added.
Lewis explained that these researchers had confined their time
calculations to math studied in school during the seventh grade. "It
turns out that the Japanese only put their seventh graders in math
class three times a week. So, when you measure time that way, the
researchers are right."
Because they are economists who work with theories of human
capital, Seidman and Lewis reasoned that the acquisition of
math-capital is cumulative. To accurately assess time against test
scores, they said requires an examination of all hours devoted to math
over the student's elementary school career, not just the flow in the
year of the test.
When Lewis and Seidman computed the cumulative math time from the
data, they found that Japanese elementary school children devote more
time to the study of math than does any other nation. In fact, with
just three exceptions-Finland, Hong Kong and British Columbia
(Canada)-all nations testing higher than the U.S. spent more
cumulative time studying math.
But the contrast between the United States and Japan was most
striking. By the sixth grade, Japanese students had spent as much time
studying math as had eighth graders in the U.S. By the end of eighth
grade, Japanese students had compiled 1,370 hours of math study
compared to U.S. students' 1,054 hours.
Even more telling were figures representing the after-school
hours Japanese and American students devote to math. Japanese
math-time was 238 percent higher than that of American students.
The Japanese devoted 269 hours to math work after school, in
sharp contrast to 80 hours for the U.S. Students from both countries
spent about the same time in class.
Lewis and Seidman found another glaring difference-summer
vacation.
Of all the nations studied, the United States was just above
Hungary in the amount of math time lost due to summer break.
"We found summer deterioration does matter, " Lewis said.
A study conducted by the New York Board of Regents found that an
average of four weeks is needed each new school year to review math
forgotten during the 12-week summer break.
Japan has a six-week summer, but students are required to do math
homework every weekday. When they return to school, Japanese students
do not need to review.
Lewis and Seidman said they want this study to prompt educators
to question The Underachieving Curriculum's dismissal of the time
factor in educational reform.
Focusing on summer vacation, they calculated that if U.S. schools
add three weeks to the school year and require 10 minutes per day of
summer math homework, summer deterioration would decrease by one-third
and the U.S. could rise from 13th place to 8th in math scores.
"People will say, 'You're right, but I don't want my children in
a school building in July.' Because Americans are so wedded to the
summer break, the question is how can we structure summer math to make
it work?" Seidman asked.
To find out, Lewis and Seidman jointly created a summer math
pilot project with the University's Center for Economic Education.
The five-week program is voluntary to encourage parent
participation. Packets of non-traditional math problems were sent to
students in the sixth grade at Bayard Elementary School in the
Christina School District. McDonald's offered to reward students who
finish weekly assignments with various treats at its restaurants. At
least, 81 students had signed on. The assignments are turned in at
three centers in the county where high school students are available
to help.
All Lewis and Seidman are hoping during the first year is that
students complete the assignments and that less review time is needed
in the fall.
They are convinced that the United States will not be competitive
in the future unless it increases its accumulation of math-time
capital.
-Barbara Garrison.