Arithmewhat?

Here at Harvard, where a 750 SAT math score is a skeleton to be locked firmly in the closet, one might be forgiven for thinking math is pretty easy. Yet beware! For amongst you—in every pore of the social fabric—lurk the mathematically disinclined. A recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) survey serves to remind the forgetful just how awful Americans are at math. The U.S. came in 24th out of the 29 OECD countries ranked.

We suspected all along that those Finns were pretty clever—they came in tops with an average score of 544. A mere 61 points and 23 countries later, America’s 15 year olds failed to edge out the Spanish by only two points. And, moreover, America’s national test scores continually improve while America drops in comparison with its peer countries. Was this just some fiendish European plot to make its American neighbors look like blockheads with a screwed-up educational system?

No. The U.S. actually has a screwed-up educational system. Having examined the questions of the PISA test used, we are confident that even Brick from Anchorman could have answered them. Some might allege that the use of the confusing and irrational “metric system,” which appeared in many questions, might have been easier for students who know that a centimeter isn’t long and wriggly. Perhaps the use of this metric system helped the Spaniards outpace America’s future—the children are, after all, our future, even if our future can’t add that well—but Americans would do well to admit that they have failed to teach math to an entire generation.

The problem is clearly not a question of the bulk spending of money—according to the OECD study, America outspends the Czechs by three to one, yet the Czechs still beat the U.S. by 33 points in math—but it couldn’t hurt. The benefits of being a math teacher, of course, could not possibly compare with the benefits of the numerous other options open to those with the necessary mathematical knowledge. Ironically, these options are made possible only by the incredible flourishing of the sectors requiring the very math skills that our students seem to lack.

While President Bush has never acted as though he were concerned by inequality within America, his administration’s under-funded and ill-wrought educational policy is doing more for the redistribution of global wealth than the pinkest of bleeding-heart liberals ever could. Kids who get Cs in math might still be president, but in a global marketplace they can’t be too much else. However, if our children have to be poor, our hearts are warmed by the fact that they will be poor so that formerly struggling regions might be prosperous. Pass the standardized tests.