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December 4th, 2013
12:18 AM ET

Are U.S. students lagging behind the rest of the world?

A new exam given to 15-year-olds around the world found American students scores were average in science and reading and below average in math. What's also troubling is America saw little or no gains in the last decade while other countries raced ahead. Anderson discussed what all of this means with Fareed Zakaria, host of Fareed Zakaria GPS and Amanda Ripley, author of "The Smartest Kids in the World–and How They Got That Way." 

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Filed under: Education • Fareed Zakaria
soundoff (3 Responses)
  1. Frank Atkinson

    just look at the makeup of the professions, Asians, east Indians, Chinese. mostly because school means more to them than to American kids. Our kids have no push to be engineers, doctors, programmers, scientists, etc. Part of it are the schools, teaching to a test, part of its the parents, part of it is the students, part of it is the professions themselves.Everybody needs to show the students what they can accomplish, not some of the stupid career books we now use. We need summer camps for techies, internships, get students to do actual research projects in school, and much more..

    December 4, 2013 at 2:46 pm |
  2. Kevin

    There are so many factors involved with education as to make these comparisons worthless. Poverty rates, single parent homes, and the fact that in the east (China for instance) only the top 10% of students even make it in school to that age, just to name a few. Socioeconomic factors play such an important part in a child's ability to learn and be successful. The incentivized break down of the family unit here places us at a disadvantage. Take all this into consideration and we actually do quite well.

    December 4, 2013 at 1:26 pm |
  3. Andrea

    I attended schools in Japan and South Korea as a kid, then high school in the U.S. and hated school here. The teachers do a lot more engaging activities in the Asian countries and involve students to start making books and writing, do a lot of oral presentations, etc, while in the U.S. the students are shown Disney movies during class, and lectured to death. Schools are missing the mark when it comes to engineering careers, computer science technology, entrepreneurship, instead they love football and music band, where are the good careers there? Women can't join the NFL and it's proving to cause brain damage. Asian schools aren't wasting time with football.

    December 4, 2013 at 1:21 am |

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