Although we’ve more than doubled our spending on education in the last thirty-four years, NAEP reports that reading scores of students in the United States have stayed pretty much the same. From 1995 to 2009, our rate of improvement has been merely average.
Compared to the school systems of other developed countries, ours is the rich kid - the rich kid who’s been getting mysteriously poor grades.
A standardized test given to 15-year-olds in several different countries ranked the United States 36th in Math, 25th in Reading, and 28th in Science. In all categories, we’re below the OECD average for developed countries - except in the category for average expenditure. We’re spending more money per student than most of the countries ranked above us for actual quality of education.
I wonder, though, whether this takes into consideration the tracking done in many other countries, which starts at a relatively early age?
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