US school students don't count in international class

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — School students in the United States think they are just great at mathematics: but by the age of 14 they are two years behind the level in other industrialised countries and overall come 24th in a class of 29.

The causes are perplexing. But a central factor that has to be corrected is a climate of low school standards, low expectations and not enough exams.

So says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in a survey on Tuesday of underlying policies and trends in the US economy, against a background of recent warnings that emerging countries such as China and India, are producing more engineers than the United States.

The OECD stressed that the higher education system is still a world leader and that overall spending on...