Americans tend to believe that more is, well, more – certainly when it comes to education. Every few years there’s a new initiative to lengthen the school day or the school year to boost student achievement.

But lately some curious statistics seem to call such efforts into question. Indeed, they might be taken to demonstrate that less is more when it comes to time spent on school work.

The troubling numbers emerged from international data about math teaching. They show that in countries where they receive more math instruction students score no higher on math tests than they do in countries that generally offer less.

The same applies to homework. In fact, the findings are more paradoxical: in countries where students are assigned more homework they tend to have lower math test scores than they do in countries that generally assign less.

What gives? Is less really more when it comes to learning math?
Tom Loveless decided to take a closer look at the numbers. Was the volume of instruction and homework in some nations really causing poorer achievement – or might schools in some countries be responding to low nationwide test scores by investing more time in the subject? In other words, poor achievement could be causing schools to spend more time on math, rather than the other way around.

Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, Loveless examined data on math instruction and achievement in various countries collected by the Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey.

He investigated whether countries that increased instruction or homework time between 1995 and 2003 also saw an increase achievement. For most of the 20 nations he considered, the answer was: yes. According to his analysis, adding ten minutes of math instruction each day can boost average test scores by around 19 points.

Loveless’s findings suggest that spending more time on math, in most countries, is a response to poor achievement rather than the cause of it. Countries that increased the time spent on math generally improved their student’s test scores. Reassuringly (or not, depending on one’s convictions about the relationship between knowledge and wisdom!) more was still more.

To read the whole report, which also includes research findings on American students’ achievement in various subjects and private school enrollment, see, ”How Well Are American Students Learning” by Tom Loveless, The 2007 Brown Center Report on American Education published by the Brookings Institution, December 2007, Volume 2, Number 2.