Test reveal "the brutal truth"

In the United States students are continuing to trail their peers from other nations in high school classes testing, according to results from a key international assessment. Scores recorded from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment released Tuesday reveal that 15 year old students in the U.S. are performing about average in reading and science, and below average in math as compared to their counterparts in many other nations. Out of 34 other nations the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math. Those scores are all higher than those reported in 2003and 2006, but show that we have a long way to go to catch the highest scoring countries. The highest scoring countries include South Korea, Finland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada. U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan said that, "this is an absolute wake-up call for America, the results are extraordinarily challenging and have to deal with the brutal truth. We have to get much more serious about investing in education."
The PISA exam is only one of a handful of test that compare educational levels across nations, but it is considered the most comprehensive. te exam focuses on how well students apply their knowledge of reading, science, and math to the real- life situations. Some 470,000 students took the exam in 2009 in 65 countries worldwide. The test were administered in poor undeveloped nations as well as the most wealthy nations. In today's global job market student performance on international assessments is considered extremely relavant, where highly skilled workers are in increasing demand.
Our mediocre scores show that we need to improve our high school education systems which is being pushed by the Obama administration. Clearly the previous administration's policy of, no child left behind let us down.The tests show that a number of countries have made significant improvements while the U.S. has made only incremental advances in it education policy. So I ask is our education system still broken in your opinion?


Armario, Christine Associated Press as reported in the Wisconsin State Journal Wed., 8 Dec., 2010