Study Compares States’ Math and Science Scores With Other Countries’


The study’s contribution is the high-level perspective it offers on the nation’s education system, a bit the way a satellite image highlights the nation’s topography, said Thomas Toch, a co-director of Education Sector, an independent policy group.

“It shows we’re not doing as badly as some say,” Mr. Toch said. “We’re in the top half of the table, and a number of states are outperforming the majority of the nations in the study. But our performance in math and science lags behind that of the front-running Asian nations.” - New York Times

But we're just as good as Estonia and Slovakia! (At least some of our states are.)

This stuy is a good reminder that the United States is really an amalgam of many different educational systems. Even my own county - ranking near dead last in spening per pupil but somehow managing to have its students consistently score in the top 10% of the state - provides a different quality of education than my old county, which was 25 times as large an had a dreadful educational system overall but one of the top public high schools in the country (accoring to Newsweek).

There are very high performing students in the USA. I would bet a steak dinner that Asian students here are on a par with students in the Asian countries mentioned by the article. Are cultural differences playing a role?

I am sure that cultural differences play a part. But then consider where the US would rank if we removed the scores of the Asian students in the US. It certainly wouldn't raise us above where we are with them.

In either case, the bottom line is what the educational system produces, regardless of the reasons. I am sure that Italy blames Sicily for lowering its scores, France the Algerians, and Spain the North Africans. All this did was to compare the product of the different school systems.