Probably this disclosure should come first: I degenerated into journalism at least in part because my skill in math and science - subjects in which I had some real interest - was similar to the late Chris Farley's aptitude for pole-vaulting.
So I have great sympathy for American 12th graders who have taken so much heat recently for their ridiculously poor showing in the Third International Math and Science Study.What they know about math and science, apparently, you could - with room to spare - put in a 2-liter bottle, which as you know holds several kiloliters of your favorite beverage.
Just to remind ourselves of the results: In both "General Mathematics" and "General Science," Cyprus and South Africa were the only nations whose students scored significantly lower than students from the United States.
And as we all know, folks in Cyprus have been busy fighting Greeks and Turks, while South Africans have been - until recently - fighting themselves. No wonder they can't convert millimeters into grams very well.
In "Advanced Mathematics," the U.S. score was 442, compared with an international average of 501. So right there you can see our kids were 82 percent behind the average.
And in physics our pupils did even worse, scoring a full 49 points lower - 423, compared with an international average of the same 501. American kids must have bought a theory I may have mentioned to you before, one proposed by my eighth-grade buddy, David Case: All laws of physics can be duly explained by magic.
Well, there has been lots of pontificating and speculating about why American kids do so poorly. Some have blamed the teachers, some the kids themselves, some the curriculum, some the textbooks.
Even President Clinton - for whom two plus two often yields "I can't comment on that while this investigation continues" - weighed in with the notion that "there is no excuse for this."
At the risk of seeming unpatriotic and soft on knuckleheads, I beg to differ. I have read some of the sample questions, and I would argue they are so poorly and ambiguously written as to make success more a matter of luck than of skill or knowledge.
For instance, let's look at this question: "A car moving at a constant speed with a siren sounding comes toward you and then passes by. Describe how the frequency of the sound you hear changes."
Two sample correct answers are given this way: "The pitch is higher as the car comes closer and lower after it goes by." And: "When the car approaches, the wavelength of the sound is shorter than it is when the car moves away."
This is outlandish. How is this question allowed to be part of this test? In the first place, no car with a siren sounding ever moves "at a constant speed." Police and fire vehicles and ambulances always zip and dart and jump around as if on drugs. The whole premise of the question is goofy.
Next, if you're an average 12th grader, cars with sirens screaming don't pass you by. They're almost always after you. Beyond that, 12th graders almost never hear sirens at all. Their car radios are on so loud they couldn't hear a Scud missile land in the lane next to them.
Maybe kids in other countries have other experiences, but in America hardly any kid can relate to this question and is, thus, bound to get it wrong.
If the Third International Mathematics and Science Study wanted to find out if our 12th graders know numbers, they should have asked them what cable channel carries MTV and how to speed dial Pizza Hut.