If you take a closer look at the data released by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) you will find that the US is actually tied (with Latvia) for 28th in math and ranks 30th in problem solving.
This information is being reported in the news and you have probably seen the TV ad recently by Strong American Schools, a non-partisan public awareness and advocacy effort supported by the Gates Foundation, where it shows a boy raising all the flags of the countries that are ahead of the United States.
The ranking of 25th comes from only OECD member countries. There are other countries that are not a member of the OECD which performed better than the United States.
This shows that the US is falling farther and farther behind the rest of the world in math, science and problem solving skills. We need to do better to ensure our future leaders have the skills to compete with the rest of the world. As I have told many of our parents, when your child graduates they are no longer competing for jobs with graduates from around the US, they are competing for jobs with graduates from the around the world.
This fact is specifically why my wife and I opened Math Monkey of Leawood. I want to give our students the confidence they need to be able to go out and fight for the jobs they want. Math and problem solving abilities are going to benefit students throughout their lifetime. They don't have to be a statistician or get a PHD in mathematics. What they need is the ability to look at a problem or situation, come up with the best approach to solve that problem and have the confidence to know they are correct.
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