“The inability of U.S. students to perform on par with the majority of other developed nations should cause alarm, given its implications for America’s global leadership. Instead, while other countries take their K-12 education seriously, American leaders are satisfied with pumping more money into an outdated system that continues to fail students and produces mediocre results.
Here’s the sad truth. Twenty-five
countries outperform U.S. K-12 students. Those leading the way are China, Hong Kong, Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Canada. China’s students not only place first overall, but they dominate each individual subject as well. U.S. students straggle in at 33rd in math, 23rd in science, and 17th in reading.
Of course, you wouldn’t learn this listening to the rhetoric coming from our political and educational leaders. Instead, they tout data that ranks U.S. students against other American students, states boast about their performance relative to other states, and school districts flaunt two percent gains in graduation rates.”
While 25 other nations outperform U.S. K-12 public school students academically, we tout data that ranks our students against other American students. States boast about outperforming other states.
www.discovery.org
