RANKED 25th IN WORLD IN MATH, U.S. STUDENTS GLAD TO âBE IN TOP 10â³
A key academic assessment released today ranked Americaâs high schoolers 25th in the world in math, a showing that pleased U.S. students who figure that at least keeps them in the top 1O. âThis is awesome,â said San Antonio high school junior Keegan Russell as he looked over the results. âBy my count, youâve only got China at 1, Finland at 2, and Latvia at 33, ahead of us.âThe exam, given in 2009 by the Vienna-based Program for International Student Assessment, tested 470,000 students in 65 countries in math, reading, and science. Aside from math, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, and 17th in science, numbers that alarmed U.S. educators.âThe results are extraordinarily challenging to us and we have to deal with the brutal truth,â said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. ââThis is an absolute wake-up call for America.ââYeah wake up America, your kids are the shizz!â said Brendan Halerty, a sophomore in Las Vegas. âThatâs the truth. Brutal.âPresident Obama, who has long criticized the decline in U.S. academic standards, said the results show America is at serious risk of falling behind China and the rest of the world. Students, however, say they donât understand the pessimism.âOK, this year we finished at number 25, and last time we finished 26th, so we fell five places, but weâre still really strong,â said Florida 10th grader Samantha Wenger. âI know the President is better at math than me, âcause he can reduce a deficit by adding to it, but honestly, lighten up.âAs for the other test scores, students conceded their generation has some work to do.âWe got ranked 17th in science, but thatâs a prime number, or a negative number, so I canât talk about that because we havenât covered those yet,â Wenger said. âBut in reading we came in 14th, so weâre next-to-last out of 65, which is bad.âHalerty, however, pointed out that the PISA test, while considered âstandardized,â was in fact weighted against U.S. students. âIf you think about it, this really isnât a fair comparison,â he said. âLike the Chinese students, they took the test in Chinese. We had to take it in English. Way harder.â