By Caroline Kitchener (The Daily Princetonian, Princeton University)
"Top Test Scores from Shanghai Stun Educators.”
On Tuesday, that was the title of the most viewed article on The New York Times website. I stared at my computer screen, baffled by the verb choice.
Stunned? Really?
We have been talking about falling behind China since the 1980s. Thomas Friedman said it in his book “The World is Flat,” President George W. Bush said it when promoting No Child Left Behind, and, most recently, director David Guggenheim said it in his newest documentary, “Waiting for Superman.”
Here are the “stunning” statistics: Out of the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States now ranks 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading on the Program for International Student Assessment. Shanghai, however, ranks first across the board.
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