Shanghai Kids Lead in Education

Count your lucky stars that you can read if you're American. Shanghai teens topped a worldwide education survey released Tuesday, with U.S. students lagging far, far behind—at 36th out of the 65 countries surveyed, and far below the average. The Chinese city led in math, reading, and science for 15- and 16-year-olds in the survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Singapore ranked second, followed by Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Macau. British teens came out ahead of Americans (must be all that Harry Potter at a young age), ranking 26th. But there’s bad news all around for math: Around 60 percent of pupils from the 64 countries that previously participated performed at the same level or worse in the subject than 2012, and nearly a third of all students tested in the lowest band for math.