National Science Foundation
Six BILLION per Year BOONDOGGLE!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the public believes is false". --The late, arguably suicided, William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence's 1st address to his staff in 1981
Not Even Physics Homework Helps American NSF "Phizzling Physics Students"
The dumbing down of those selected to participate in NSF
physics is working just as planned. Compared to NSF physics students who are
assigned physics homework once or twice a week (who score 455), students in
Switzerland and Canada who aren't even taking physics score almost as high, if
not higher (452 and 463, respectively). And students in Austria, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden,
and Switzerland, who are assigned physics homework less than once a week, score
from 20 to 140 points higher. And NSF physics students who are assigned homework
3 or more times per week, and score 505, score lower than students who are
assigned physics homework less than once a week, like Australia (by 24 points),
Canada (by 30 points), Germany (by 2 points), Norway (by 94 points), Russia (by
49 points), Slovenia (by 54 points), and Sweden (by 64 points). We might say
that because NSF students who are assigned physics homework 3 or more times per
week score 50 points higher than those who are assigned it only once or twice
per week, that this additional homework helps. The problem is that these
coddled, dedicated NSF physics students are outperformed by just about every
other country at most of the four different classifications of homework
assignment.
A search of the NSF web site for the report "TIMSS Physics Achievement Comparison Study", a study which THEY funded, produces zero results. Not even the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education web site, which hosts innumerable studies praising itself, contains a single reference to this study. A Google search produces only ONE copy of this study, so the following two web sites have now had this study posted for time immemorial:
http://fathersmanifesto.net/TIMSS_NSFPhysicsStudy99.pdf
http://eaja.net/Documents/TIMSS_NSFphysicsStudy99.pdf
Once you understand just how unbelievably poorly NSF students do in the physics achievement portion of this study you will know why it has been disappeared.
By what process could our education system, between 8th and 12th grade, reduce math skills of the average American boy by 58 points and of girls by 104 points while performance of boys in Norway *increased* 82 points and of girls in Norway by 22 points. This 186 point swing in the difference in math skills between Norwegian boys and American girls represents two or three standard deviations, on top of the 8 point difference which already existed at the 8th grade level.
References
http://modeling.asu.edu/Evaluations/TIMSS_NSFphysicsStudy99.pdf
http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/21055409/TIMSS-Physics-Achievement-Comparison-Study
The Original NSF Standard Grant which funded this study.
Table 3
The less than 140 girls in the NSF Physics program who participated in 12th grade TIMSS performed very poorly in TIMSS physics: 41 points lower than the *average*12th grade girl in Cyprus, 34 points lower than the *average* girl in Greece, 13 points lower than Latvian girls, 68 points lower than Norwegian girls, 52 points lower than Russian girls, 62 points lower than Swedish girls, 19 points lower than Australian girls, 28 points lower than Danish girls, and 32 points lower than Slovenian girls. And of course compared to boys from all countries (*except* the US whose boys scored 9 points lower than NSF girls) they scored significantly lower than all others: 40 points lower than boys in the NSF physics program, 44 points lower than Canadian boys, 96 points lower than Cypriot boys, 59 points lower than Czech boys, 15 points lower than French boys,60 points lower than German boys, 70 points lower than Greek boys, 54 points lower than Latvian boys, 132 points lower than Norwegian boys, 109 points lower than Russian boys, 131 points lower than Swedish boys, 64 points lower than Swiss boys, 69 points lower than Australian boys, and 69 points lower than the international average.
Table 4
Overall, the less than 300 NSF physics students who were selected in the US to take the TIMSS Mathematics and Science Literacy test DID score 39 points higher than the average US physics student (and 116 points higher than the average US student), but they scored 7 points lower than Canadian physics students, 4 points lower than German physics students, 71 points lower than Norwegian physics students, 77 Sweden, 31 Swiss, 23 Australian and Danish, and 5 points lower than the international average.
Iow, the average physics students from most European nations (and certainly ALL Asian nations, not one of which was represented in 12th grade TIMSS) outperformed our very BEST NSF students, both male and female, by HUGE margins. Physics students from only a few countries scored lower than our very best top (less than) 300 NSF physics students: Cyprus scored 66 points lower, the Czech Republic scored 5 points lower (but this is not statistically significant), Austria scored 20 points lower, and Slovenia 24 points lower.
Table 5
However, as low as it is, a score of 587 in "mathematics and science literacy" and 595 in "science literacy" is proof that the NSF physics students HAVE been taught the subjects, DO understand the terms, and SHOULD have been able to apply the principles to solving physics problems like those on "electricity and magnetism" where NSF physics students scored only 446, lower than any other country whose students took a physics course. It's significant that in this age of the semiconductor, sudents in Sweden score 124 points higher, in Norway 119 points higher, and in war-torn Slovenia 63 points higher (while our top NSF female physics student scores another 20 points lower).
Our very best NSF physics student, and in particular our very best female NSF physics student, can’t even begin to compete with the WORST physics students from more than a dozen Western European nations, and can barely keep up with a war-torn Slovenian who hardly has time to worry about physics instruction. It’s not like we have not been trying—our average physics student already takes between 3 to 5 hours of physics instruction per week, while students in the Czech Republic (with an equivalent score), Germany (43 points higher), Latvia, Sweden (116 points higher), and Switzerland (70 points higher), take less than 3 hours per week. Notably, the 43% of the NSF physics students who report that they take more than 5 hours of physics instruction score 26 points LOWER than the 6% of the NSF physics student who takes 3-4 hours per week AND than the 45% who take 4-5 hours per week. Clearly the NSF has selected not the best students, but possibly the worst, and attempted to make up for it by cramming physics down their throats, and failed worse than miserably.
The NSF could raise its average physics score by 26 points simply by eliminating almost half (42%) of the students from the program who evidently study endlessly but never are able to learn. If these half were replaced by Swedish students (two thirds of whom take less than 3 hours per week of physics instruction but score 579), not only would they raise their average score by 55 points (plus 26 points), but they would eliminate many frustrated teachers.
In relation to the amount of physics homework assigned to students, the lowest scoring NSF student is one who is assigned homework once or twice a week and scores 455, a score 8 points lower than a Canadian student and equivalent to a Swiss student who is not even taking physics.
Table 10
How can it be explained that all of this additional, expansive, expensive, exhaustive, complete NSF physics instruction does nothing but produce students whose physics knowledge and skills aren’t even on par with so many non-physics students in so many other countries? Why would the 28% of NSF students who report that they are asked to apply science to everyday problems in *every* physics lesson score only 487, lower than students who are never asked to apply science to everyday problems in more than half the TIMSS countries, 78 points lower than Norwegian students who never do, and 110 points lower than Norwegian students who apply this only to “most lessons”?
Not only was the US score very low, but we were one of the Countries Not Satisfying Guidelines for Sample Participation Rates (See Appendix B for Details), evidently because we were unable to test 85% of our 12th graders as TIMSS requires. Had we done that, our 12th grade girls’ low physics score of 405 would have been even lower, perhaps even lower than 360.
“Although countries tried
very hard to meet the TIMSS sampling requirements, many
of them encountered resistance from
schools, teachers, and students, and thus did
not have the participation rates –
85% or higher for schools and for students both,
or a combined rate of 75% – specified
in the TIMSS guidelines. Obtaining a high
participation rate for secondary school
students is particularly challenging when
participation is voluntary, because these
students have many demands on their time.
Also, their educational situations may make testing
difficult; for example, in some
countries students are engaged in on-site
vocational training. The eight countries
shown in the second category in Table
1.1 followed procedures but were unable to
meet the TIMSS guidelines for sample
participation. Beyond the difficulty of encouraging
students to attend the testing sessions,
the five countries in the remaining two
categories encountered various obstacles in
implementing the prescribed methods
for sampling schools or students
within schools, usually because of the organization
of the education system. Because
Israel did not clearly document its procedures for
sampling schools, its achievement results
(unweighted) are presented in Appendix
D. Appendix B includes a full discussion of the
sampling procedures and outcomes
for each country.”
Fait Accompli
|
Question Number |
Multiple Choice? |
Percent Above Guess |
Statistically Significant? |
Boys Greater Than Girls by |
Statistically Significant? |
|
G1 |
yes |
0.0% |
no |
2.5% |
no |
|
2 |
yes |
34.8% |
31.8% |
10.1% |
7.1% |
|
3 |
yes |
25.5% |
22.5% |
-3.0% |
no |
|
4 |
yes |
-3.4% |
-0.4% |
9.0% |
6.0% |
|
5 |
yes |
30.0% |
27.0% |
12.7% |
9.7% |
|
6 |
yes |
23.0% |
20.0% |
17.9% |
14.9% |
|
7 |
yes |
-6.7% |
-3.7% |
8.8% |
5.8% |
|
8 |
yes |
-9.1% |
-6.1% |
3.3% |
0.3% |
|
9 |
yes |
-7.5% |
-4.5% |
-4.7% |
-1.7% |
|
10 |
yes |
-4.7% |
-1.7% |
4.5% |
1.5% |
|
11 |
no |
4.3% |
1.3% |
1.7% |
no |
|
12 |
no |
8.1% |
5.1% |
10.5% |
7.5% |
|
13 |
no |
7.3% |
4.3% |
9.2% |
6.2% |
|
14 |
no |
1.6% |
no |
5.7% |
2.7% |
|
15 |
no |
2.4% |
no |
7.2% |
4.2% |
|
16 |
no |
2.9% |
no |
1.0% |
no |
|
17 |
no |
12.3% |
9.3% |
-1.4% |
no |
|
18 |
no |
1.1% |
no |
1.4% |
no |
|
19 |
no |
0.0% |
no |
1.1% |
no |
|
H1 |
yes |
17.0% |
14.0% |
-4.1% |
-1.1% |
|
2 |
yes |
13.9% |
10.9% |
-0.4% |
no |
|
3 |
yes |
-2.4% |
no |
3.3% |
0.3% |
|
4 |
yes |
-2.2% |
no |
19.8% |
16.8% |
|
5 |
yes |
10.3% |
7.3% |
-2.8% |
no |
|
6 |
yes |
4.0% |
1.0% |
9.2% |
6.2% |
|
7 |
yes |
-15.7% |
-12.7% |
10.6% |
7.6% |
|
8 |
yes |
-10.3% |
-7.3% |
3.6% |
0.6% |
|
9 |
yes |
-5.5% |
-2.5% |
8.2% |
5.2% |
|
10 |
yes |
-14.1% |
-11.1% |
7.3% |
4.3% |
|
11 |
yes |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
12 |
no |
6.2% |
3.2% |
9.9% |
6.9% |
|
13 |
no |
3.5% |
0.5% |
6.5% |
3.5% |
|
14 |
no |
1.3% |
no |
1.3% |
no |
|
15 |
no |
6.8% |
3.8% |
-0.3% |
no |
|
16 |
no |
1.8% |
no |
-0.5% |
no |
|
17 |
no |
0.8% |
no |
1.5% |
no |
|
18 |
no |
0.1% |
no |
1.4% |
no |
|
19A |
no |
6.0% |
3.0% |
5.5% |
2.5% |
|
19B |
no |
33.9% |
30.9% |
0.1% |
no |
