By: Michelle Hu <[email protected]>

Senior Daniel “Dan” Stamer’s eighth period class has only 4.5 percent of the entire student population. This course is multivariable calculus, the highest mathematics course this school offers. This low percentage may be an indication of troubled times to come.
According to a 2006 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average science score of American 15-year-olds placed 17th out of 30 nations. The average mathematics score placed even lower: 25th out of 30. Nations whose 15-year-olds scored higher than American teenagers included Hungary, the Czech Republic, Japan and New Zealand, just to name a few.

This trend certainly is not a novelty; in fact, math teacher Kathie Freed said that in all the years she has been teaching, which is over three decades, the United States has been falling behind the rest of the world.

“We have never been as strong as other schools,” Freed said. “Now, we can make excuses for that, and there are lots of factors that go into that. One of the factors I think you have to look at is that in the United States, we educate everyone. We’re not selective. And in many of those schools, they have magnet schools where they’re focused strictly on math and science. They don’t test the numbers of people that we test.”
Neil Ahrendt ’07, Carmel High School graduate, was featured in a documentary titled “2 Million Minutes,” which compared two American students with two others, each from China and India.

The title is symbolic of the two million minutes each American student spends while in high school, and how each one allocates that time in comparison to students from two other nations. Ahrendt said that this film is significant in the sense that American high schools typically do not compare themselves to secondary schools from around the world.

“The fact of the matter is, we as a school, as a nation, only compare ourselves within our own nation,” Ahrendt said.

“We rank our schools based on how they’re doing against other nearby schools, when in reality, once you get out of that high school, you’re not just going to be competing against the school across town,” Ahrendt said. “You’re going to be competing against kids from the schools across the world. Until we start comparing that, we’re not really going to see how we’re really measuring up.”

However, even though the general trend shows that America is falling behind other schools in the world, this school tries to maintain a certain level of excellence. In fact, on average, Freed’s AP Calculus BC students score 4.2 to 4.4 out of 5 on national AP exams.

“One of the things (this school) has done in the wake of (America falling behind) is we still have maintained our honors programs in math and science and continued to add courses and opportunities for students to pursue their interests in this area,” she said.

Freed also said that one of the reasons why Carmel excels is because of the large amount of AP courses offered in terms of math and science. In fact, Carmel offers every single AP math or science class possible.

“Lots of schools don’t have the money or the public support to do that,” she said.

Stamer said that he enjoys the fact that talented students have so many opportunities.

“There’s always at least one higher class that you can take by your senior year,” he said.
However, Freed said she attributes the small percentage of students in higher level math or science courses to a society that focuses on a liberal arts education.

“I feel that, possibly, students are being pulled in so many different directions now that they’re not as focused on math and science as maybe they once were,” Freed said. “Our students today tend to be more well-rounded and more educated and more talented in all the areas and not just specifically in one.”
She also said that part of the reason schools are not focusing on just math or science is due to the No Child Left Behind Act. Because of this act, American schools must aim to meet a set of standards for all students.

Freed said, “When a school is focused on doing something like that, they’re not as likely to be able to focus on challenging the upper levels. The upper levels often are pulled down and don’t get to advance as quickly.”

The fact of the matter is, America is unique in its educational program.

“You have to justify the United States’ education, because kids around the world, if you’re not ‘super good’ in primary school, you never go to secondary school. You go to a vocational school,” Stamer said. “But in this community, basically everyone is going to our secondary school. So, you’re comparing everyone (here) versus the best and the brightest (around the world).”

Compared to other nations, America has extremely high graduation rates. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, states such as Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wyoming graduate 92 percent of their high school students. In India, only 62 percent of children still remain in school after the age of ten, according to a 2006 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report.

Ahrendt said that the lagging behind of American students in science and math is due to the lack of interest in education; students here, he said, tend to focus on other activities such as sports or social lives.

“America has a lot of different focuses that aren’t really related to education,” Ahrendt said. “We have priorities like, we expect kids to have social lives, we expect them to have part-time jobs, be involved in sports, be involved in extracurriculars and after that is all done, kids study in school.”
In comparison to other nations, he said that American students’ top priorities are foreign students’ leisure time activities.

“Whereas, in other countries, you do schoolwork first above all,” Ahrendt said. “That’s the most important priority. Yeah, you can still play sports for recreation, for fitness or whatever. You can still hang out with friends, but that’s all secondary to education. That’s not how we do it here.”