A couple of my readers have been suggesting that the problem with American student achievement is actually only a problem with our poorest and lowest-performing students, whose weak scores are dragging down the averages. I don't think that’s the case, and I want to present some data on this question, because it’s an important one.
I’m looking at the 2009 international assessment scores (from the Programme for International Student Assessment, which are available online). Now, test-scores don’t tell you everything, of course, but when you need a blunt comparative instrument, they’re a good one. According to the data from these exams, high-performing US students are indeed more competitive with high-performing students from other countries than low-performing US students are with low-performing students from other countries, but there’s still plenty of room for concern.
