Dumb and Getting Dumber

Despite having a large portion of our population extensively educated in terms of years and certificates, the United States lags in educational achievement. This is especially true among younger Americans. Such, at any rate, is the conclusion of a new study, some of the results of which are discussed in this NYT article.

In the United States, young adults in particular fare poorly compared with their international competitors of the same ages — not just in math and technology, but also in literacy.

More surprisingly, even middle-aged Americans — who, on paper, are among the best-educated people of their generation anywhere in the world — are barely better than middle of the pack in skills...

In all three fields, Japan ranked first and Finland second in average scores, with the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway near the top. Spain, Italy and France were at or near the bottom in literacy and numeracy, and were not included in the technology assessment.

The United States ranked near the middle in literacy and near the bottom in skill with numbers and technology. In number skills, just 9 percent of Americans scored in the top two of five proficiency levels, compared with a 23-country average of 12 percent, and 19 percent in Finland, Japan and Sweden.

We also exhibited a wide disparity between our most and least educated citizens.

Of course this was cooked up by the OECD, most of whom are a bunch of Euro-Commies anyway, so if you live in Oklahoma, Texas, or some other place that knows that evolution, global warming, math, and physics are just lefty plots, sleep soundly.

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