The study is about comparative data, and I can well believe (having lived in another country) that there are countries where a larger percentage of adults than in the United States can use commonplace technology of today. The math literacy (numeracy) advantage for other countries I absolutely believe, as I have read the textbooks from other countries (I am an American who can read Chinese), and the textbooks are simpler better in other countries than they are in the United States.
I think part of the issue is the corporate lobbying culture that exists in America.
I read an article a while ago about what goes into selecting textbooks in American schools apparently textbook companies lobby the education departments to use their brand of books so rather than getting the best textbook schools get the book from whichever company "bribed" the officials the most. Because it all goes through politicians they can push their own agendas into textbooks hence you get books trying to teach kids intelligent design or whatever.
From someone like me outside of America it seems absurd.
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about better textbooks for university, but high school textbooks are even worse. Total nonsense[1]. It's a shame. Hopefully OER can improve things a bit...
> But a spokesman for McGraw-Hill said the publisher received no payments from companies whose products appear in the book. ''We have no commercial or promotional arrangements to use particular brands,'' said the spokesman, Neal Allen. One of the book's authors said that the well-known products were included simply to make the math problems more relevant to sixth graders.
[...]
For example, the 1995 edition, still in use in many places, introduces a decimal division problem as follows: ''Will is saving his allowance to buy a pair of Nike shoes that cost $68.25. If Will earns $3.25 per week, how many weeks will Will need to save?'' To the right of the text is a full-color picture of a pair of Nikes.
Another word problem, this one in the 1999 edition, gives a plug to Oreos, made by Nabisco: ''The best-selling packaged cookie in the world is the Oreo cookie,'' it begins. ''The diameter of an Oreo cookie is 1.75 inches. Express the diameter of an Oreo cookie as a fraction in simplest form.''
textbooks themselves are the problem. If you've ever wanted a reductionist, watered down way of memorizing terminology, study from a textbook. During my time in undergrad, I learned the best way to learn is by paying attention in lecture and conversing in a subject. Subjects should be mentally digested by working with the concepts, not by merely reading about them.
Thanks for the follow-up question. Here is a link to a LONG article about Russian textbook that I learned about from a fellow HN participant years ago.
