Less of the Best: U.S. Students Outperformed in Math

On the most recent international student assessment from the OECD, the United States had fewer high-performing students and more low-performing students on all three subjects: reading, science and especially math. In fact, only about six percent of US students were able to answer the most complex questions on the math assessment while more than a third of Singapore’s students could. Conversely, nearly a third of US students scored at the lowest levels of the mathematics assessment, compared to eight percent of Singapore’s students. According to Marc Tucker, “Not only have many formerly illiterate countries caught up with us on basic skills, but a whole host of other countries have zoomed right by us, like Singapore. Not satisfied with catching up with us on basic skills, they, like Singapore, are far exceeding us on advanced skills.” Read about what the U.S. can learn about education reform from Singapore in Marc’s blog Education Research: Does the U.S. Have the Right Model?