This is a talk given by Gary Philips, Acting Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, on December 5th, 2000. In it he highlights some of the intial findings of the TIMSS-R released on that day, including the following:
"U.S. eighth-grade students outperformed their peers in 17 nations, performed similarly to their peers in 6 nations, and performed lower than their peers in 14 nations in mathematics in 1999. In science, U.S. eighth-grade students outperformed their peers in 18 nations, performed similarly to their peers in 5 nations and performed lower than their peers in 14 nations in 1999.
The report also reveals that U.S. eighth-grade students performed above the international average in 3 of the 5 mathematics content areas: fractions and number sense; data representation, analysis, and probability; and algebra."
