Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math

Re:Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math by roasm on Wednesday December 12, 2012 @10:34AM (#4910510)

Sheer size has to play a major factor here. Comparing the US to city-states like Hong Kong and Singapore or relatively tiny countries like Finland is really suspect because there is so much difficulty in the managing and improving an education system as large and diverse as the US has.

Unfortunately, there isn't a great country to compare to: the countries with the closest populations are Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. and comparisons there have other problems. I'm guessing the best possibly comparisons are probably Brazil or China.

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Re:Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math by joshuahedlund on Wednesday December 12, 2012 @11:06AM (#4910730)

I would love to see a comparison of individual states with these European and Asian countries instead of just the "US". It's statistically difficult for a group of 50 country-sized states, with its high outliers and low outliers, to have an average that beats all of the high outliers of other countries.

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