…researchers asked nearly 250 colleges whether they used SAT or ACT scores as a cut-off for admission. Of those that accept the SAT, 1 in 5 said they used particular scores on the test as a “threshold” for admission, at least in some cases; among those using the ACT, 1 in 4 described similar cut-offs.

The good news for most applicants, or at least those whose scores are not stellar, is that more than three-quarters of the colleges report using such scores “holistically.” That usually means the tests are mixed into a stew of many factors being evaluated, including the rigor of applicants’ curriculums; their grades; their activities; their teacher recommendations, and their essays.

Universities like to say that they look at the whole student–and most probably do–but it doesn’t take a master’s degree to figure out that SAT and/or ACT scores carry an inordinate amount of weight in the admissions process–something educators unfortunately need to keep in mind as they prepare students for college life. Should we begin teaching toward the test? Hardly. A strong curriculum will prepare students well for the two tests. However, prudence dictates that some time be devoted to strategies and practice, especially given that a few points can be the difference between going to the school of one’s dreams and second-best.

Only about one-third of U.S. students could read and do math at current grade levels on national tests in 2007, the most recent figures available. That means millions of kids are a long way from reaching the ambitious goal of former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law — that every student read and do math on grade level by 2014.

And the high school dropout rate is dismal — 1 in 4 kids.

But it’s all made to look worse than it is by international comparisons, which at best tend to be misleading and at worst are deeply flawed.

Well, let’s take a look.

The United States has a much bigger and faster-growing population than the other countries that participate in global assessments; China and India do not take part at all. Unlike many global competitors, the U.S. is growing ever more diverse, with a large share of children who are learning English.

Undoubtedly demographics can play an important role in assessing tests scores; consequently, they cannot be dismissed. Flood Singapore with a relatively large percentage students who do not speak Mandarin or English, and you’ll see falling test scores. That would not necessarily indicate that the education system is failing, and it doesn’t necessarily in the U.S. either.  However, it does indicate that a chunk of the future work force could be hobbled, and that is a problem.

Obama says the rest of the developed world is passing America by. “Our schools continue to trail other developed countries and, in some cases, developing countries,” he told the National Academy of Sciences on April 27. “Our students are outperformed in math and science by their peers in Singapore, Japan, England, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Korea, among others.”

That is not the whole story.

The U.S. does trail the most high-achieving countries, mostly developed nations in Asia such as Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.

But the U.S. holds its own in the group that comes next, a group of developed countries that, depending on the test, includes England, Germany and Russia.

In fact, the U.S. has gained on some of its toughest competitors since 1995, making bigger strides in math than Singapore and Japan, and in science than Japan.

That is according to the most recent international tests, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, the study Obama was citing. A lead TIMSS researcher took issue with the idea the U.S. is trailing.

“Certainly, our results do not show the United States trailing the developed world by any stretch of the imagination,” said Ina V.S. Mullis, a Boston College research professor and co-director of the study.

“The Asian countries are way ahead of the rest of developed countries, but mostly the developed countries are relatively similar,” Mullis said. “And the United States might be one of the leaders of that group, depending on whether you’re talking about math or science in the fourth- or the eighth-grade.”

“Our children are competing for jobs against children in India and China today, and those children are going to school 25, 30 percent more than us,” Duncan said at Brookings this past week.

Obama himself said in March: “Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea every year. If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America.”

The president is in luck: The U.S. already is doing it.

South Koreans do have a longer school year, measured in days. But Americans actually spend more time in school. The average U.S. eighth-grader has 1,146 instructional hours a year, compared with 923 hours a year in South Korea.

Not true, if you take into account the hours Korean students spend in after-school hagwons (academic extracurricular programs). While living in Korea, I witnessed first-hand how students would leave school and go directly to hagwons for additional math, science, language and/or music practice. Based on my observations, every student whose parents can afford it are doing it. Now, you could argue that U.S. students are getting extra time also in after-school sports programs, real-life jobs, and clubs, but academically the time spent in class is not even close. Are the students as well rounded as American students? Hardly. But we’re not discussing holistic education; we’re talking about test scores and academic time, in this case.

In fact, the U.S. has more instructional hours than many better-performing countries, though that raises a separate question about how well American schools spend classroom time.

As for Duncan’s comparison, the department says there isn’t reliable data on how much time Chinese or Indian children spend in school.

Helping more students finish college is a priority among the many philanthropies that work on education issues. In a December speech at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., the [Bill] Gates said the U.S. problem is acute.

“In the case of college education, we were No. 1 in the world 20 years ago in the percentage of young adults with a postsecondary credential. Now we’re number 10 and dropping,” Gates said.

…

But those figures are misleading for several reasons, said Cliff Adelman, a former Education Department researcher now at the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

_They are based on entire populations, not on what actually happens to students who enter college in a given year. Graduation rates in a large, growing country such as the U.S. will not look as good as those of a smaller country whose population is declining.

_Countries have different definitions for who is counted; for example, some exclude noncitizens, while the U.S. includes them.

_Since 2000, many European countries have switched to three-year degrees from four-to-six year degrees, making their rates look better than before.

These are all good points which should be taken into consideration.

Quaid concludes:

What about high school? There again, international comparisons present similar problems. Other countries have more complex systems with many different types of high schools and can limit who is admitted.

No one disputes that the U.S. high school dropout rate, 1 in 4 kids and worse among minorities, is awful.

But as with other international comparisons, measuring the U.S. against the rest of the world is like comparing apples and oranges.

Quaid makes several good arguments in the piece but ultimately does not persuade that our international test scores are not indicative of serious problems within our education system. There are, of course, a multitude of factors not addressed in a test score, and the U.S. continues to lead the way in invention, inventiveness, ingenuity and creativity; however, if we continue to let our primary and secondary schools slip, our leadership will not continue for long.