The article is a bit long, but it actually doesn't do what you claim. It uses one standardized test called PISA (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ http://www.oecd.org

The article is a bit long, but it actually doesn't do what you claim. It uses one standardized test called PISA (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ http://www.oecd.org/pisa/) that is given to students around the world. In particular, it looks at math scores. If I were to challenge the results, I would ask 1) Is the test reasonable? 2) How aligned is US education with the test compared to the rest of the world? For example, perhaps in the US students are taught subjects by grade, so may be less familiar with algebra when tested than a student in a country that gradually teaches many subjects. 3) How seriously do the students in a given country take the test? For example, if there are no consequences or questions of national pride, maybe US students simply don't care as much about the test. But, if we assume that the answers to these questions are not enough to explain the differences, the US has a serious problem. There is usually a mythology in the US that if you look at our "best" schools, they are competitive with the rest of the world. What this study does is to look at the results of PISA broken down by the educational achievements of the students' parents (which may also serve as a proxy for wealth). Here, it finds interesting patterns within the US (for example, Texas is one of the best states in the US for students whose parents have a low level of educational attainment, whereas MA is where you want to be if your parents have a high degree of educational attainment)--it also finds that even in the top performing state (MA) that if you look at students whose parents have the highest level of education, they do not compare favorably with the best in the world.