Occupy Underground

They are easily discoverable, from many years and show the clear results.

U.S. Students Still Lag Globally in Math and Science, Tests Show
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/education/us-students-still-lag-globally-in-math-and-science-tests-show.html?_r=0

Fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States continue to lag behind students in several East Asian countries and some European nations in math and science, although American fourth graders are closer to the top performers in reading, according to test results released on Tuesday.

Fretting about how American schools compare with those in other countries has become a regular pastime in education circles. Results from two new reports, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, are likely to fuel further debate.

South Korea and Singapore led the international rankings in math and fourth-grade science, while Singapore and Taiwan had the top-performing students in eighth-grade science. The United States ranked 11th in fourth-grade math, 9th in eighth-grade math, 7th in fourth-grade science and 10th in eighth-grade science.

In the United States, only 7 percent of students reached the advanced level in eighth-grade math, while 48 percent of eighth graders in Singapore and 47 percent of eighth graders in South Korea reached the advanced level. As those with superior math and science skills increasingly thrive in a global economy, the lag among American students could be a cause for concern.

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/ide/
In 2011, more than 60 countries and other education systems, including the United States, participated in TIMSS. More than 20,000 students in more than 1,000 schools across the United States took the assessment in spring 2011, joining almost 500,000 other students around the world who took part in TIMSS. Because the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) was also administered at grade four in spring 2011, TIMSS and PIRLS in the United States were administered in the same schools to the extent feasible. Students took either TIMSS or PIRLS on the day of the assessments.

In addition, to address the interest in states benchmarking to international standards, NCES is initiating a new effort to link the states scores from the national assessment—NAEP-- to TIMSS. The 2011 NAEP-TIMSS Linking Study is designed to provide all states with estimates that compare their own students’ performance against international benchmarks. Read more about the 2011 NAEP-TIMSS Link here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trends_in_International_Mathematics_and_Science_Study