Student achievement data 'sobering'

The reality concerning U.S. student achievement is "sobering," former New York City school chancellor Joel Klein writes over at TIME.com.

Only the top quarter of America’s K-to-12 students are performing on par with the average students in Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, Taiwan, and South Korea. International comparisons of advanced achievement in math are even more depressing: 16 countries now produce at least twice as many advanced math students per capita as we do, an important predictor of how many engineers and scientists we'll have in the future driving economic growth. Last year a Harvard report by Erik A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson and Ludger Woessmann placed U.S. math performance 32nd among 65 nations -- all this as the U.S. continues to spend more on schools than many wealthy nations do as a share of GDP.