International comparisons, it seems, rarely yield cheerful news for U.S. educators. But a new study of member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) did contain some hopeful data. OECD collected data on 16 indicators from the United States and other member nations, which include most developed countries. (Not all countries provided data on each indicator.)
For the first time, data on mathematics proficiency of 13-year-olds in the United States was broken down to compare individual U.S. states with other nations. Taiwan posted the highest score, followed by Iowa and North Dakota. Korea was fourth, followed by Minnesota, the Soviet Union, Switzerland, Maine, New Hampshire, and Hungary. The high rank of some states is good news for U.S. educators, who are frequently scolded because American students don't "measure up" to students in other nations. The performance of the United States as a whole, unfortunately, was more sobering: the United States ranked next-to-last of the 14 countries participating in this portion of the study.
The United States appeared better on other indicators, however. For example, the school-completion and college-attending rates of U.S. students were significantly higher than those of most other OECD nations.
For a copy of the study, "Education in the States and Nations: Indicators Comparing U.S. States with OECD Countries in 1988," contact the U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954. The report is stock no. 065-000-00621-9 and costs $9.