CNBC – Luke Graham
“Asian countries have topped the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s ranking of school performance across 76 countries, according to a report released on Wednesday. The high-profile report, which ranked countries based on 15-year-old students’ average scores in mathematics and science, placed Singapore in first place. The U.K. was ranked in 20th place, while the U.S. came in 28th, below countries including, Hong Kong, Canada and Vietnam…The report claimed 24 percent of students in the U.S. had not acquired basic skills, making it the second-worst high-income country in the world on this measure, after Luxembourg. The OECD argued that if the U.S. could ensure all students reached this baseline, over $27 trillion dollars would be added to the national economy over the course of the students’ working lives.”(more)