It’s a cycle that begins with weak math teachers in first grade, continues with a weak kindergarten to 12th grade math curriculum taught by teachers with an inadequate math background, he said during the news conference.

“Those people graduate from high school and go to college and some become future teachers,” Schmidt said. “They receive then relatively weak by international standards teacher preparation and they go back and teach the next generation of eighth-graders. And so the cycle continues.”

Schmidt’s study — which surveyed more than 3,300 future teachers in the U.S. and 23,244 future teachers across 16 countries — was the first to look internationally at the preparation of future teachers, he said.

The research showed that between about 80 percent and 100 percent of potential middle school teachers from the highest-achieving countries took advanced math courses. In the U.S., about 50 to 60 percent of potential teachers took such courses.

Leland Cogan, an MSU professor who was involved in the research, said previous research has revealed American students do not fare as well in math and science as students in other countries. At the same time, the curriculum utilized in the U.S. is underachieving, he said.

Cogan said the research released Thursday is the “next step.”

“We know that some countries have a very challenging and rigorous curriculum in place,” Cogan said.
“The question becomes, how does a country get teachers to teach that really challenging curriculum? Looking at what countries are doing to teach that outstanding curriculum and following them into the classroom — that was sort of the motivation for this particular study.”

New math curriculum standards — which will be more rigourous — are being completed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers and are expected to be implemented by a majority of states.

Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, spoke after Schmidt at Thursday’s conference. Wilhoit thanked Schmidt for his knowledge and said it will lead to more conversations about the issue and how it can be handled.

“I do think we can do a much better job of attracting young people with solid backgrounds into teaching, but I think we have to do better job of graduating students with math and science backgrounds,”
Wilhoit said.

Schmidt said the cycle of inadequately prepared math teachers can be broken if teachers with stronger math backgrounds are recruited, more challenging math courses are required in teacher preparation programs and more state certification requirements are enacted for math teachers.

The cycle could be broken within five years, he said after the conference.

“It could turn around with new curriculum in place and the knowledge we now have about teacher preparation,” Schmidt said. “Think of it this way: To change 50 states and 16,000 local districts, that’s a harder task than to change some 1,400 teacher preparation programs — a much more manageable task.”