malcolm gladwell and minnesota exceptionalism

malcolm gladwell recently posted a confirmatory update regarding the superior math performance of asian students.

In my new book "Outliers," I spend a chapter trying to explain why Asian schoolchildren perform so much better at mathematics than their Western counterparts. The principal source of data on international math achievement is what's called TIMS--which is a standardized test adminsitered to kids around the world every four years. At the time of writing, the results of the 2007 TIMS were not yet in. But now they are, and they reaffirm what I was trying to address in Outliers. The gap between the Japan, South Korean, Hong Kong, Tawian and Singapore--and the rest of the world--is enormous and growing...

A more modest gap between Asian and the rest of the world could, I think, be safely explained with conventional arguments about differences in pedagogy, or school funding or some such. But 40 percent versus 5 percnet? Differences of this magnitude require more fundamental explanations, which is why I felt it necessary to make such a strong cultural/historical claim in my book.*

at the risk of oversimplification, mr. gladwell argues that the asian math advantage can be traced to centuries of full-year labor-intensive rice-growing (which engenders diligence) and more efficient and easily-learned number-naming systems (which makes it easier to count). before going too far down this cultural and historical road, however, we might examine the state-specific 2007 TIMSS results. here's diane ravitch in forbes:

If we want to see genuine improvement, we should pay attention to Minnesota's dramatic ascent over the past decade. That state adopted a coherent, focused, grade-by-grade math curriculum developed by a team of Michigan State University scholars and led by Professor William Schmidt. Minnesota competed in the TIMSS study and saw its scores jump from mediocre to world-class.

While the U.S. continues to rank well below the top-performing nations, Minnesota now ranks fifth in the world, behind only Hong Kong, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and Japan. While U.S. fourth-graders saw a gain of 11 points, Minnesota's students had a gain of 38 points. Schmidt commented, "Minnesota had more than three times the gain indicated for the United States as a whole. They have left the U.S. behind."

Any state could do what Minnesota did. All it requires is implementing a well-designed, coherent curriculum in mathematics and science. Teachers need to know what is expected and should have the appropriate training and resources to enable their students to reach world standards.

as a school reform advocate, mr. gladwell would surely attribute minnesota's recent improvements to changes in curriculum (or, perhaps, instruction) rather than, say, native ojibwe rice-gathering traditions. heck, minnesota might offer the ultimate test-case for societies lacking a tradition of full-year farming and efficient counting. for there are two things everybody knows about minnesota: (1) it is way too cold to farm year-round up here; and, (2) as senator frankencoleman will tell you, we're very slow counters.

* yes, as a matter of fact i did notice the typos in mr. gladwell's post. it just seems too snarky to draw attention to them with a [sic] and too presumptuous to correct them from my li'l glass house.