Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): A new report finds that U.S. students’ financial literacy is only average compared to students worldwide. American students also don’t do any better on other international tests which assess math, reading and science skills.
What can be done to improve the performance of our schools?
Education correspondent John Merrow has our report.
JOHN MERROW (NewsHour): It’s testing day for at Baltimore City College High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Students won’t arrive for another hour, but the adults in charge are already here, including Jill Morgan of CTB/McGraw Hill, the company that administers and scores the tests.
JILL MORGAN, CTB/McGraw Hill: The test is math, science and reading. It’s a continuous test and it’s approximately two hours’ times, and then it’s followed by a 35-minute questionnaire.
JOHN MERROW: At first glance, it looks like a typical multiple choice exam, the kind that federal law requires every third through eight grader and 10th grader to take in math and reading.
It’s a test Jack Dale, former superintendent of Fairfax County, Virginia, Public Schools is very familiar with.
JACK DALE, Former Superintendent, Fairfax County Public Schools: Typically, in our Virginia Standards of Learning test or the Maryland, it tends to focus more on what we call giving back information, regurgitation of facts and figures.
JOHN MERROW: American students are already the most tested in the world. Do schools really need another one?
PETER KANNAM, America Achieves: The value of this is 15-year-olds across the globe can take this, and so you can take it and see how your school is doing against Singapore, Finland, and Spain.
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