With constant standardized tests, sports meetings nearly every day after school and relentless encouragement to study, it seems impossible that America is trailing behind so many countries in terms of our educational system.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is given every three years to students throughout the world fifteen years of age. In 2012, compared to 34 countries, American students ranked 17th  in reading, 31st in math and 21st in science. These scores are worse since 2009, when the test was last administered. Then, we scored 14th in reading, and 17th in science. Only 9% of American students were considered top performers, compared to the 55% of students in Shangai-China that were said to be top performers. Even the top American students fall far behind other countries.
Not only are we trailing behind in academic scores, we have lower graduation rates than twenty countries. It is surprising to know that we have more standardized tests, not only to test the student but also to test the teachers. An interesting phenomenon is that U.S. teachers do not generally have remarkable academic records themselves as compared to teachers in Finland. It is very competitive for an individual to become a teacher in Finland where only one in ten applicants will be accepted to teachers’ college. The profession is highly respected in Finland, a county that scored extremely well on the PISA.
There may be other factors that contribute to America’s poor score on the PISA that has more to do with social and economic factors. Our country’s child poverty rates are rapidly increasing. More and more families are living at or below the poverty level contributing to an overall diminished academic performance of the children in these families. Also, the extreme emphasis on athletics in the U.S.  contribute to an exhaustion and single-minded focus of the athletes that  can often leads to poor academic performance.
In order to improve our scores, we have to observe what other countries are doing. We need to choose reasonable ways to improve our student’s attention and academic abilities. This could be done by decreasing the emphasis on sports, and minimizing standardized tests to focus more on everyday classroom skills. We do not need to change our entire system, just understand what is working well for other countries.
