William H. Schmidt

Schooling matters. The authors' professional pursuits for over twenty-five years have been focused on measuring one key aspect of schooling: the curriculum - what students are expected to study and what they spend their time studying. This documents their conviction that schools and schooling play a vital and defining role in what students know and are able to do with respect to mathematics and science. This research examines seventeen international studies of mathematics and science to provide a nuanced comparative education study. Whilst including multiple measures of students' family and home backgrounds, these studies measure the substance of the curriculum students study which has been shown to have a strong relationship with student performance. Such studies have demonstrated the interrelatedness of student background and curriculum. Student background influences their opportunities to learn and their achievements, yet their schooling can have even greater significance.

Schooling matters. The authors' professional pursuits for over twenty-five years have been focused on measuring one key aspect of schooling: the curriculum - what students are expected to study and what they spend their time studying. This documents their conviction that schools and schooling play a vital and defining role in what students know and are able to do with respect to mathematics and science. This research examines seventeen international studies of mathematics and science to provide a nuanced comparative education study. Whilst including multiple measures of students' family and home backgrounds, these studies measure the substance of the curriculum students study which has been shown to have a strong relationship with student performance. Such studies have demonstrated the interrelatedness of student background and curriculum. Student background influences their opportunities to learn and their achievements, yet their schooling can have even greater significance.

Based on a major international teacher education research project—the Mathematics Teaching in the 21st Century Study (MT21)—this book investigates the pre-service preparation of middle school mathematics teachers in the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Bulgaria, and Mexico. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the participating countries. William Schmidt (co-author of the influential TIMSS study on student test results in science and math) and Maria Teresa Tatto (director of the Teacher Education and Development study or TEDS-M) led a collaborative team of international researchers in this study. Using the results of more than 2,500 surveys, the authors examine the differential contribution of the six countries’ teacher-education models to the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of their future mathematics teachers. Case studies and detailed analysis of the teacher education curriculum across the participating countries provide rich contextual information to explain the survey findings. This study is the first to examine the resource allocation and economic support in teacher education vis-à-vis other mathematics-related professions, and shows that differential investment patterns are consistent with the level of teaching knowledge found in each country’s new teachers. The book includes a chapter on policy implications, with a special focus on teacher preparation in the United States.