The International Gap

A few weeks after being in the class room I knew I was not in favor of the mathematics curriculum in New York State. After further research, I began to support the need for a national curriculum and learned about the international gap. The international gap shows the United States falling behind other countries in mathematics, mainly due to the lack of a national curriculum. In addition, the curriculum in the United States has a unique set up compared to high achieving international countries. The following is my reaction to Coherent Curriculum: The Case of Mathematics, by Schmidt, Houang, & Cogan in 2002.

Analyzing 41 top achieving international countries shows that their curriculum increases in the level of difficult as the grade increases. Also, the topics covered in the A+ curriculum are taught during a condensed time period with the average length of a topic spanning over 3 years.

This is vastly different than the majority of state curriculums in the United States. Research shows that topics are covered for a longer span on time, resulting in repetition over the years. Thus, each topic is briefly touched upon at each grade and overall instruction on a topic lacks depth. This curriculum is identified as ‘a mile wide, an inch deep’. In addition to the repetition the curriculum displays incoherence, or inconsistency in the order of teaching the mathematics topics.

A major set back causing the international gap between the United States and the A+ countries is that the students do not have the appropriate requisite background to fully understand a particular topic because of the lack of order seen in the states’ curricula. Due to the lack of depth within each topic, some students do not attain enough knowledge to build upon. Therefore, students tend to fall more and more behind at the introduction of a new topic. According to Hirsch, the widening of the international gap can be attributed to this occurrence. Even more so, Hirsch believes the lack of previous knowledge and the process of falling behind due to an incoherent curriculum is the cause of the achievement gap between privileged and underprivileged students within the United States.

At this point in the article, I get frustrated and stop reading. Closing the achievement gap between minorities and their peers in the United States is the motive that keeps me going in the education field.

I am in agreement that the lack of a national curriculum is a disadvantage to the teachers and students in the United States. I am hopefully that changes will be reinforced; however, I know that the effects of the change will not be immediate. If the curriculum was altered, it would be a long process, but well worth the wait!