Unpacking claims that US dropped from 1st to 24th in education worldwide since 1979

In the aftermath of U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order to begin closing the Department of Education on March 20, 2025, the claim that the U.S. had dropped from first to 24th in education worldwide since 1979 — when then-President Jimmy Carter founded the Department of Education — made its rounds on the internet.

One X post (archived) featured an image of Carter with the caption: "In 1979 I created the Department of Education. Since then America went from 1st to 24th in education."

In November 2024, tech billionaire Elon Musk posted the same image (archived), and wrote: "Not exactly great value for money!"

There are two parts to this claim: whether the U.S. currently ranks 24th worldwide in education and whether it ranked first in 1979.

In short, there is no single definitive scale that determines the ranking of nations' education quality worldwide, though several organizations have published their own assessments. Snopes was unable to track down an assessment that found the U.S. specifically ranked 24th worldwide. The claim also did not specify several key items, such as which year the U.S. was in 24th place or which assessments the claim referred to.

As of this writing, does the US rank 24th worldwide?

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Small, yes ( smaller than New York City in terms of population ), but homogeneous? Not really.

Your's is a very USA-centric view of "diversity."

Singapore does indeed have the racial breakdown you state. BUT its schooling (the topic here) is very specifically HOMOGENOUS, to ensure racial harmony and meritocracy.

All students are Singapore-born (except for a very small amount of foreign expats, usually at international schools). They are not cycling through thousands of illegal migrants from across the world.

from 1987 onward, the Singapore Govt mandated that core curricula are taught in English only. They have standardized schedules, standardized tests, standardized textbooks etc. - to ensure Singapore's famous meritocracy is preserved. By high school, students may choose one course for mother tongue instruction (much like US students can study Spanish, French, German) purely out of interest.

Singapore has licensed six madrassas for Muslim students (a very small percentage of students) who want extra religious study, but their core curriculum is the same as everyone else and is taught in English. The government ensures there is no specific racial or ethnic focus in these schools - although the majority tend to be Indian/Malay/Arab students. Even the madrassas are such that a Chinese student could enter and feel they belong there.

Starting in the early 1990s, Singapore Government created strict controls over Islamic studies, and who teaches it for thes specialized schools.

So again, unlike US schools in different states and locales, Singapore schools are extremely homogenous in their content, learning and social/civic education.

There are people who claim that China’s city of Shanghai is actually doing this.

Yes, this is 100% true. NO ONE shows up in China and says "I want to do a large and comprehensive survey of your education system and students, OK?" Any such surveys are conducted 100% on Chinese Government terms, with outcomes they plan in advance.

Once the CCP, after a lot of political consideration and internal debate, decides to participate in such an international survey, they will select who participates. They will certainly choose the best areas and best schools of a city like Shanghai or Beijing. Nothing is left to chance.

And groups like the UN or Intl NGOs go along with it, because 1) they are stupid, 2) have political groupthink, and 3) their job is to go along with any expected results.

Did we not just have an article that points out many college students cannot even do elementary Math? This one fact demonstrates the expert metrics are worthless. Cursive writing as a metric, anyone? It is clear our education system has utterly failed. Still not convinced? Take any high school test from the 1900s to the 1960s and administer it to today's students. Most will fail, a lot of college graduates would also fail. Our teachers do everything but teach! But that's another soapbox discussion.

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