Your Child Left Behind
For years, poor performance by students in America relative to those in other countries has been explained away as a consequence of our nationwide diversity. But what if you looked more closely, breaking down our results by state and searching not for an average, but for excellence?
(by Amanda Ripley)
Imagine for a moment that a rich, innovative company is looking to draft the best and brightest high-school grads from across the globe without regard to geography. Let’s say this company’s recruiter has a round-the-world plane ticket and just a few weeks to scout for talent. Where should he go?
Our hypothetical recruiter knows there’s little sense in judging a nation like the United States by comparing it to, say, Finland. This is a big country, after all, and school quality varies dramatically from state to state. What he really wants to know is, should he visit Finland or Florida? Korea or Connecticut? Uruguay or Utah?
A Matter of Degrees
U.S. universities are still on top, but Asia is rising.
(by Emily Quanbeck)
America’s high schools may be struggling, but its institutions of higher learning remain the destinations of choice for college and postgraduate degree-seekers the world over—for now, at least. In the 2010–11 rankings of the world’s universities by Times Higher Education in London, U.S. schools earned the top five slots (in order): Harvard, Cal Tech, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton. Of the top 20 schools, the United States held 15 slots, the United Kingdom three, and Switzerland and Canada one each.
But American college and university presidents are keeping an eye on up-and-coming competitors in Asia. When The Atlantic recently asked a group of 30 American university and college presidents which countries are, in the next 10 to 20 years, most likely to attract students who would otherwise attend an American university, 24 of them named China. Sixteen named India, 15 said Singapore, 10 said Hong Kong, and nine said South Korea.