Yes, it turns out that students in the USA are not number one in those International mathematics comparison tests. However, it also turns out that USA students have never been number one, and in fact, are doing better now than they were decades ago, relative to other countries.
This is a story that has been making the rounds of blogtopia, but it does not turn up on "search" here, and it should. I'll provide a brief description of the study's results, and some relevant links below the fold. (though I'm wondering if the old rules for brief intros still apply? Is there still a "fold"?)
Anyway, the story comes from a "metastudy," a study of studies, entitled The 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education , by Tom Loveless, posted on the Brooking Institute website.
There is a link to the original pdf report at that site (at the first link above). On page nine of that pdf, you'll find a table that compares scores on the First International Mathematics test (given in 1964) with the math scores on the Trends in International Math and Science Study (given in 2007). It also includes scores from the Programme for International Student Assessment (given in 2009) for comparison purposes.
This table, by the way, can be seen separately here on Kevin Drum's blog , where the story first caught my attention, and where Kevin posts some thoughts of his own that are worth considering.
What it shows is that the United States then, as now, achieves middling scores relative to the countries surveyed on the First International Mathematics Test. These countries are (in addition to the USA) Israel, Japan, Belgium, Finland, Germany, England, Scotland, Netherlands, France, Australia and Sweden.
However, its score relative to that pack of countries has actually increased over the years, and not decreased at all. So, yeah, relative to those countries, our scores have trended upwards.
The point, of course, is that somehow the USA seems to have held its own in the international economic and military competitions (whatever that means) all the while having middling average scholastic test scores, which, by the way, are improving relative to our "competitors."
This study also has a lot of interesting statistics comparing different states in the USA in our own "race to the top," but that is perhaps best left for another day, another diary.
I can't finish this diary, of course, without noting my own lack of faith in test scores providing meaningful measures of educational outcomes, particularly in areas such as creativity, leadership, independent thinking, etc. etc. etc. Perhaps this comes from working in a country (China) with college students who can solve higher math problems on tests that most of us can only dream about, but they still have difficulties rearranging classroom seats to make discussion groups in class.
Be that as it may, if you do want to give credence to test scores, then you can't ignore that this study shows that the USA is not falling behind from where it was previously, and in fact is edging up in the competition. Which makes one wonder why the schools are so constantly painted as falling further and further behind, and not producing the kinds of products (students) needed for the economic outcomes we've had since World War II.