American Students

THE LATEST news about how well American students match up with their international peers is decidedly mixed. According to one study released this week, American eighth-graders are doing better in math than they did nine years ago. But fourth-graders have stagnated in math and regressed a little in science. During the same period, students in other countries improved even more, causing the United States to slip in the overall rankings. Another survey released last week showed that 15-year-olds in the United States are not as good at solving real-life math problems as their counterparts in other industrialized countries, including Finland, South Korea, Japan and Canada.

Prescription drugs aren't the only things that have Americans looking outside the country's borders for lower prices. College textbooks also cost less in some parts of the world, and Web shoppers scouring the globe for better deals have publishers scrambling to keep foreign books out of American classrooms. American students spend an average of almost $900 a year on new textbooks and supplies, according to a Government Accountability Office report released late last month. Because textbooks are developed primarily for U.S. classrooms, Americans must bear the brunt of development costs for new textbooks, publishers told the GAO. "The cost of preparing textbooks is high," said Bruce Hildebrand, a spokesman for the Association of American Publishers.

This year Baltimore 5th graders will study African and black American history and culture for the first time as a formal part of the curriculum. Actually, the term "Afrocentric" is a bit of a misnomer, and that could be spreading a misimpression. The aim of reform is not so much to "center" instruction on Africa as simply to include more information about Africa's authentic contributions to world civilization as a regular part of the standard curriculum -- contributions that were systematically denigrated during two centuries of European colonial domination.

TRUE BLUE POINT, Grenada - It was a tiny, offshore medical school thrust into the middle of the Cold War when U.S. troops stormed this island nation in 1983 for what the Reagan administration billed as a rescue of American students from the threat of an unstable government. Back then, St. George's Medical School was little more than a cluster of trailer-style buildings tucked into a lush tropical hillside, a haven for aspiring American doctors who couldn't get into a stateside program.

WE CAN WEATHER an oil shortage. The more dangerous problem is that we're running low on brain power. Doubt that? Then pay attention to two separate but related items:First, Congress is en route to changing the immigration law to ease the entry of foreign scientists and engineers to fill vacancies in industry and education. The change is inspired by spot shortages of specialists and declining enrollments of American students in scientific and technical studies. The drop has led to numerous forecasts of impending shortages in the professions that underpin our high-tech society.

Studying abroad broadens horizons The Sun's editorial "Sticking to the rules" (Aug. 13) pointed out well the need to expand our student exchange programs. The good news is that the number of American students studying abroad is actually higher than the figure given in the editorial. The Institute of International Education's annual survey of American students who receive academic credit for study abroad reports that there were 191,321 in the 2003-2004 school year, rather than the 175,000 cited in the editorial.

Don't be shocked if you overhear the language Crofton Woods Elementary School fifth-graders are using these days when they address their teachers."Bonjour, madame," for example, or "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez?"They're just practicing for the first ever French-American elementary student exchange in the county this spring.With the approval last week of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education, about 10 fifth-graders from Crofton Woods will visit France for three weeks in the spring and attend French schools.

If Vasily Felinsky had his way, he would take back only one souvenir from his stay in the United States."The Washington Memorial would be nice," the 16-year-old from St. Petersburg, Russia, said. "I'd put it in my backyard."Vasily and 29 other Russian students will have to settle for memories of their three-week stay with families in Arnold.The students, who were in the United States for a month as part of an educational program, are to be guests today at a farewell party at Sandy Point State Park before they leave for home tomorrow.

TWO APPARENTLY unrelated stories that appeared in newspapers on the same day are in reality not nearly as unrelated as they might seem. One story appeared under the headline, "High School Students Debate Steroid Ethics." The other story had the headline: "Economic Time Bomb: U.S. Teens Are Among Worst at Math." We have known for a long time that teenagers in Japan scored much higher on international math tests than American teenagers. But did you know that teenagers in Poland, the Slovak Republic, Iceland, Canada, and Korea -- among other places -- also score higher than our teenagers?

THIS SUMMER, 15 students from North County High School participated in a three-week German Exchange Program with the Rotteck Gymnasium, a high school in Freiburg, Germany. From June 17 until July 9, the NCHS German students traveled to Germany, lived with families there and attended classes at the high school. The students participating in the program were Gary Brown, Jennifer Brown, Christina Crook, Jill Davis, Brad Faley, Lisa Fol- derauer, Christina Krantz, Thomas Krueger, James Metzger, Angela Moritz, Vonzella Parker, Kristina Robinson, Brandy Thompson, Ashley Vogelsang and Kevin Webber.