Among the 34 OECD countries, the US performed below average in mathematics and is ranked 27th, according to The Program For International Student Assessment (PISA) [2].
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While the U.S. spends more per student than most countries, this does not translate into better performance (e.g. the Slovak Republic, which spends around $53k per student, performs at the same level as the US, which spends over $115k per student).
PISA adds that students in the US have particular weaknesses in performing mathematics tasks with higher cognitive demands, such as taking real-world situations, translating them into mathematical terms, and interpreting mathematical aspects in real-world problems. But there is good news - a silver lining they offer - "a successful implementation of the Common Core Standards would yield significant performance gains."
However, they may have to rethink that after looking at the following...
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