The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, which represents 34 countries, today released the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment which reports that fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. ranked 25th among peers from 34 countries on a math test. US teens scored in the middle in science and reading, while China’s Shanghai topped the charts. This raises some serious concerns that the U.S. isn’t prepared to succeed in the emerging global economy.
China leads the US in international test scores
The OECD test, first administered in 2000 and given every three years, aims to measure skills achieved near the end of compulsory schooling. In the U.S., 165 public and private schools and 5,233 students participated in the two-hour paper- and-pencil assessment, given in September and November 2009. The test consists of multiple-choice and open-response questions.
In all, 470,000 students worldwide took the exam. The test also measured countries and regions outside the OECD, or a total of 65 countries and economies. Asian countries and regions, including South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, all outpaced the U.S., as did Finland.
Fifteen-year-olds in the US had an average score of 487 in math on a 1,000-point scale. Students in Shanghai scored 600, Singapore, 562; South Korea, Hong Kong, 555; Finland, 541. The average U.S. science score of 502 ranks 17th in the OECD nations, which were led by Finland, Japan and South Korea.
Why Shanghai is #1
China’s overwhelming success in Shanghai results from the government’s abandonment of a system of “key schools” for elites and the institution of “a more inclusive system in which all students are expected to perform at high levels,” the OECD said in the report.
China has also raised teacher pay and standards and reduced rote learning, while giving students and local authorities more choice in curriculum. Something that has failed to take root in the US.
Why is the US Behind?
The U.S. faces educational challenges from its immigrant and heterogeneous population, an OECD report said. In contrast with the U.S., Finland benefited from relative homogeneity, according to the report.
While the U.S. is wealthier than most of its OECD peers and its parents are better educated, the country fails to put the most-talented teachers in the most-challenging classrooms, Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the test for OECD, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg news.
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates recently urged top U.S. public- school officials to overhaul teacher pay, saying that instructors should be rewarded for results rather than seniority or advanced degrees. Gates also believes the U.S. may find merit pay by increasing class size. Asian countries will often have as many as 40 or 50 students in a classroom, Schleicher said.
Asian countries and regions also benefit from a cultural emphasis on education, investments in teacher quality and equitable funding of schools regardless of family income, said Andreas Schleicher.
The results show that U.S. students must improve to compete in a global economy, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a Monday telephone interview. President Barack Obama’s administration is promoting national curriculum standards and a revamping of teacher pay that stresses performance rather than credentials and seniority.
“The brutal fact here is there are many countries that are far ahead of us and improving more rapidly than we are,” Duncan said. “This should be a massive wake-up call to the entire country.”
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Mark Kantrowitz, the nationally recognized financial aid expert and publisher of 
