Quality: U.S. v. British

The Northern Ireland town of Bangor and the Ohio town of Sandusky are simi lar in size and economy (tourism and shipping). They were thus suited to be among some 30 paired communities used in a two-year study of the quality of grade-school education in the U.S. and Britain. A team of University of Toledo educators, headed by Professor Robert L. Gibson, gave pupils in the paired towns identical achievement tests in English usage, arithmetic and read ing. The findings, first factual evidence on a much debated question, show that U.S. children start slower than British kids but edge ahead in the end.

British first-graders topped their American peers in all areas tested. This, the study suggests, is because most British children start learning to read and write at five in "infant schools," the British equivalent of kindergarten. The British keep their advantage in second and third grades. But by fourth grade the Americans have begun to catch up.

By the sixth grade the U.S. students are out in front in arithmetical reasoning, grammar and reading comprehension, are tied in vocabulary, and lag slightly in computation and spelling.

What gives the U.S. sixth-graders the advantage, Professor Gibson specu- lates, is the "possibly higher level of training of U.S. teachers," combined with more sophisticated audio-visual aids and teaching techniques. Moreover, "students can only learn so much by a certain age," and the head start the British get in reading and writing makes no difference by the time children reach the sixth grade.

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