Miss Anne's Adventures as a Kumon Instructor

‎78% of USA parents report that their children's math performance is in the top 20 percentile!!! Why is it that less than 50% (much lower in New Mexico) of our children meet college readiness standards? Please read the below article and share your thoughts with me. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

USA Today
December 7, 2010

Report: U.S. parents overconfident about kid's math
By Dan Vergano

U.S. parents look out of touch in helping their kids with math, a report suggests, in comparison with one top education nation.In the "Parent Perceptions and Practices Regarding Math Education During the Middle School Years," report, sponsored by technology firm Raytheon, an Eduventures, Inc., research team compared U.S. parents to those in Singapore and the United Kingdom. The technology firm, "relies on a talented engineering workforce," the report says, so it wanted a look at why only 43% of U.S. high school graduates met "College Readiness" standards for mathematics.

"U.S. parents may be overly confident or lacking in the use of accurate metrics around math performance and college preparedness. For example, 78% of U.S. parents report their children's math performances are in the top 20% compared to peers in school," finds the report. Among the findings:

More parents in Singapore (51%) receive teacher advice on their helping with math homework, compared to U.S. and UK parents (25%).
More parents in Singapore (42%) use math tutors for their middle-school age children, than U.S. parents (10%).

More Singapore students (92%) receive out-of-school math teaching than U.S. or U.K. stuedents (less than 50%).

In general, the report concludes that U.S. parents place less emphasis on math skills than Singapore's parents, while for their children, "the employment world into which they graduate will continue to have increased needs for those with science, technology, engineering, and math expertise."

A recent National Academies of Sciences report echoed this concern, saying U.S. science education has "worsened" in the face of increasing international competition.
However, a number of observers have pointed to a lack of jobs, rather than shortfalls in U.S. education, as the driver behind U.S. science education graduation rates. A Georgetown and Rutgers University study found that the best U.S. students left technical fields for better-paying jobs in finance, medicine and law in recent decades.