How well-educated are U.S. children compared with children in other industrialized nations? What are some factors that are responsible for this?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: In international studies of reading, mathematics, and science achievement, young people in China, Korea, and Japan are considered top performers. Among Western nations, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are also in the top tier. But U.S. students typically perform at or below the international averages.
Researchers have identified numerous reasons why U.S. students fall behind in academic accomplishments. According to international comparisons, instruction in the United States is less challenging, more focused on absorbing facts, and less focused on high-level reasoning and critical thinking than in other countries. A growing number of experts believe that the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act has contributed to these trends because it mandates severe sanctions for schools whose students do not meet targeted goals on achievement tests—initially, student transfers to higher-performing schools; and ultimately, staff firing, closure, state turnover, or other restructuring. Furthermore, countries with large socioeconomic inequalities (such as the United States) rank lower in achievement, in part because low-SES children tend to live in less favorable families and neighborhoods. But the United States is also far less equitable than top achieving countries in the quality of education it provides low-SES and ethnic minority children. U.S. teachers, for example, vary much more in training, salaries, and teaching conditions.