‘In the academic Olympics, the American superpower is a mediocrity’
The scores are in from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, which, every three years, tests 15-year-olds from the world’s most advanced countries.
For the United States, the report card is dismal. The U.S. ranking has fallen to 17th in reading, 21st in science and 26th in math.
Florida, one of America’s diverse mega-states, competed separately in the PISA exam and scored below the U.S. average.
In the academic Olympics, the American superpower is a mediocrity.
Ranked one through seven in test scores in reading, science and math were Shanghai-China, Singapore, Hong Kong-China, Taiwan, South Korea, Macau-China, Japan. Also well ahead of the United States is Vietnam.
By and large, Western Europe has moved out in front of us, and our close competitors are the Slovak Republic and Russian Federation.
Fifteen-year-olds in two ex-Soviet republics, Estonia and Latvia, also posted grades in math and science superior to those of America’s young.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls the PISA test scores a “brutal truth” that “must serve as a wake-up call” for the country.
Excuse me, but how many wake-up calls do we need?
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