国际学生评估美国被数学拖了后腿

Fifteen-year-olds in the United States score in the middle of the developed world in reading and science while lagging in math, according to international standardized test results being released on Tuesday.

据上周二发布的国际标准化测试结果显示，在发达国家中，美国15岁学生的阅读和科学成绩位居中游，而数学成绩较为落后。

While the performance of American students who took the exams last year differed little from the performance of those tested in 2009, the last time the exams were administered, several comparable countries — including Ireland and Poland — pulled ahead this time.

美国学生去年的成绩与2009年（上一次考试时间）相差无几，但包括爱尔兰和波兰在内的几个类似国家这次却大有进步。

As in previous years, the scores of students in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea put those school systems at the top of the rankings for math, science and reading. Finland, a darling of educators, slid in all subjects but continued to outperform the averages, and the United States.

与往年一样，上海、香港、新加坡、日本和韩国学生的成绩依然让这些学校系统位居数学、科学和阅读榜单的前列。一向被教育工作者视为宠儿的芬兰在所有学科榜单上均有所下滑，但继续高于平均值，以及美国。

The Program for International Student Assessment, commonly known as PISA, was administered to 15-year-olds in 65 countries and school systems by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that includes the world's wealthiest nations. Just over 6,100 American students took the exams.

国际学生评估项目（Program for International Student Assessment，简称PISA）由总部位于巴黎、成员包括全球最富裕国家的经济合作与发展组织（Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development，简称OECD）负责组织实施，其评估对象为65个国家和学校系统的15岁学生。6100多名美国学生参加了这项测试。

In the midst of increasingly polarized discussions about public education, the scores set off a familiar round of hand-wringing, blaming and credit-taking.

在公共教育大讨论日益呈现两极化的大背景下，美国学生的表现掀起了另一轮熟悉的反应：焦虑、指责和邀功。

"The United States' standings haven't improved dramatically because we as a nation haven't addressed the main cause of our mediocre PISA performance — the effects of poverty on students," Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, said in a statement.

“美国的位次并没有显著改善，这是因为我们国家还没有解决学生PISA成绩平庸的主要原因——家境贫困对学生的影响，”美国最大的教师工会全国教育协会(National Education Association)会长丹尼斯·范·容克尔(Dennis Van Roekel)在一份声明中如是说道。

Some scholars warned that the lagging performance of American students would eventually lead to economic torpor. "Our economy has still been strong because we have a very good economic system that is able to overcome the deficiencies of our education system," said Eric A. Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University. "But increasingly, we have to rely on the skills of our work force, and if we don't improve that, we're going to be slipping."

有学者警告说，美国学生的滞后表现最终将导致经济陷于停滞。“美国经济依然强劲的原因是，我们有一套非常好的经济体系，它目前还能够克服教育体系的不足之处，”斯坦福大学(Stanford University)经济学家埃里克·A·哈努谢克(Eric A. Hanushek)说，“但我们必须越来越多地依赖劳动力的技能，如果我们不改善这一点，美国经济就将滑落。”

The United States' underperformance was particularly striking in math, where 29 countries or education systems had higher test scores. In science, students in 22 countries did better than Americans, and in reading, 19 countries.

美国学生的数学成绩劣势尤其引人侧目，有29个国家或教育系统的数学分数高于美国；22个国家的科学成绩超过美国；在阅读方面，19个国家排在美国前面。

The results painted a slightly different picture from tests administered to fourth and eighth graders in 2011 through the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Those results indicated that the United States was about on par with international averages.

这些成绩描述的图景，与国际数学和科学趋势研究中心（Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study，简称TIMSS）2011年面向四年级和八年级学生的测试结果略有不同。TIMSS的测试结果显示，美国与国际平均水平大体一致。

But both exams showed that the percentage of students who scored at the highest levels in math and science was much greater in several Asian and European countries.

不过，这两项测试均显示，几个亚洲和欧洲国家的高分学生比重显然比美国高得多。

In the United States, just 9 percent of 15-year-olds scored in the top two levels of proficiency in math, compared with an average of 13 percent among industrialized nations and as high as 55 percent in Shanghai, 40 percent in Singapore, and 17 percent in Germany and Poland.

在美国，仅有9%的15岁学生在数学测评中获得两个最高的精通层级，远低于工业化国家的平均比重(13%)，而上海学生的这一比重高达55%，新加坡为40%，德国和波兰为17%。

Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, noted that American students from families with incomes in the highest quartile did not perform as well as students with similar backgrounds in other countries.

美国国家教育统计中心(National Center for Education Statistics)专员杰克·巴克利(Jack Buckley)指出，家庭收入位居最高四分位数的美国学生的表现不如具有类似背景的其他国家学生。

Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the liberal Economic Policy Institute and a fellow at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said he put little stock in the PISA results. He said educators and academics should "stop hyperventilating" about international test rankings, particularly given that students are already graduating from college at higher rates than can be absorbed by the labor market.

自由派智库经济政策研究所(Economic Policy Institute)副研究员、加州大学伯克利分校法学院(University of California, Berkeley School of Law)研究员理查德·罗斯坦(Richard Rothstein)表示，他不大信任PISA测评结果。他说，对于国际测试排名，教育工作者和学者“没必要倒吸一口冷气”，特别是鉴于目前的大学毕业率已经超过了劳动力市场的吸收能力。

Others criticized recent efforts to reform public education by using measures like student test scores to evaluate teachers. Such policies "contribute to an environment in which young people who are making decisions as to whether they can go to work at a place like Google or the school down the street simply won't consider going into teaching," said Marc S. Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a nonprofit think tank.

其他人批评近期用学生考试成绩等指标评估教师的公立教育改革措施。这样的政策“促成了一种环境，使得那些正在做出就业决定——究竟是去谷歌(Google)这样的公司，还是去街上那所学校上班——的年轻人根本不会考虑从事教学工作，”非营利性智库美国国家教育经济中心(National Center on Education and the Economy)总裁马克·S·塔克(Marc S. Tucker)这样说道。

An increasingly vocal group of parents, teachers, union leaders and others have also objected to a focus on standardized tests at the expense of values like creativity.

家长、教师、工会领导人和其他人也越来越直言不讳地反对学校以牺牲创造力等价值为代价，一门心思地提升学生的标准化考试能力。

"The question is, can we walk and chew gum at the same time?" said Michael J. Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy group. "There's no reason why we can't keep the creativity that we value while also teaching kids how to do math better."

“问题是，我们能不能一边走路，一边嚼口香糖？”保守派教育政策智库托马斯·B·福德姆研究所(Thomas B. Fordham Institute)执行副总裁迈克尔·J·彼得里利(Michael J. Petrilli)说，“我们为什么不能继续培养我们珍视的创造力，同时又教会孩子们如何提高数学成绩呢？”