Education Next, where I'm an executive editor, just published a powerful new study by Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann. It finds that the United States trails thirty other countries in the percentage of students scoring at an advanced level on the PISA math exam. While we're used to hearing that American students perform poorly on average, this is the first report to look at cross-national achievement for students at the top. And no, our lackluster results aren't just because we're ?diverse,? with a lot of poor or minority students bringing us down. The results for white students and students with college-educated parents weren't much better. Read it and weep:
Because of our huge size, we produce more advanced students, in the aggregate, than anyone else.
The percentage of students in the U.S. Class of 2009 who were highly accomplished is well below that of most countries with which the United States generally compares itself. While just 6 percent of U.S. students earned at least 617.1 points on the PISA 2006 exam, 28 percent of Taiwanese students did. It is not only Taiwan that did much, much better than the United States. At least 20 percent of students in Hong Kong, Korea, and Finland were similarly highly accomplished. Twelve other countries had more than twice the percentage of advanced students as the United States: in order of math excellence, they are Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, Macao-China, Australia, Germany, and Austria.
Pretty sobering, huh? To me, it's a clear indictment that our education system isn't making the education of our most gifted students a top priority (an issue we've been concerned about for quite some time now).
But here's a riddle: If even our top students are doing poorly by international comparison, how is it that the U.S. continues to be such a global leader, especially in high-tech fields? I think I might have found an answer; look at the figure below, which shows Hanushek et al's results multiplied by the student population of each country. Suddenly the picture appears much better?and much brighter.
So yes, the U.S. has a lower proportion of kids scoring at an advanced level, but because of our huge size, we still produce more advanced students, in the aggregate, than anyone else. Well?anyone else that takes PISA. If India and China participated, this picture might look different yet.
?Mike Petrilli
