Posted on 11/18/2025 10:43:10 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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."
(X account @AlphaLiger)
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.
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On the other hand, a report by WorldTop20 — a project associated with New Jersey Minority Educational Development, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group cited by the World Population Review (visible upon clicking the U.S. on the world map at this link ) — found that, in 2024, the U.S. ranked 31st worldwide in education.
Other studies offer a more-detailed assessment broken down by subject and parameter and compared to other countries of similar wealth, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries. For example, according to the average scores of 15-year-olds from 37 member countries in 2022, the U.S. ranked above average in science and below average in mathematics.
America was #1 in the world in education before the department of education
I would necessarily trust the metrics of this. Much of it is comparing apples to oranges.
For example, comparing the the huge and diverse USA to Singapore, which is a highly advanced and homogenous, but relatively small city, is not a good comparison.
Neither is comparing USA to China. China will never allow any foreigner to interview, survey or deeply analyze any part of its society. Data from China should be suspect.
Even a comparison to Germany may not be accurate, as by high school Germany has already segregated and separated kids by testing and career path.
REGARDLESS, by our OWN standards, kids in the USA are certainly worse than 40 years ago.
We imported a lot of the 3rd world since 1979
It’s the mandate that everybody must get a high school diploma at the same time that is destroying America, and Western, education.
“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.”
Typical lying and parsing by snopes. The PISA assessment is an international assessment measuring 15-year-olds’ skills in reading, math, and science.
They said “we can’t find an assessment in which the US is ranked at 24.”
Yeah, because the US ranked 34th.
A real seasoned expert you've got there!
gen z can't answer most basic questions
Rocks are smarter than some of these young people.
Yeah, because the US ranked 34th.
Given the wall-to-wall dumbasses that we are afflicted with these days, I was going to say that I was surprised that the U.S. ranked that high, and lo and behold it didn’t. Even 34th seems generous.
No other number better illustrates how the anti-American left and their “go along to get along” RINO enablers have absolutely destroyed this country.
When you have Ivy League universities passing out A’s to C and D students, by unscrupulous professors trying to save their jobs, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. This sort of thing trickles down to all of the “education” system. Add politics to the equation, and you have a perfect template for disaster.
Rocks are smarter than some of these young people.
And unfortunately, they’re allowed to vote. Of course, ignorant and stupid people have always been allowed to vote, but even the uneducated of our historical past usually tried to vote for what was good for the country. These younger generations are beyond the pale.
I think 1979 was the year that Critical Thinking was outlawed in the US
America was #1 in the world in education before the department of education
—
Then they stopped teaching Latin, Greek, and renamed History to Social Studies. Still later, teaching basic math was an exercise in who felt good about their answer. Later still, every one got As or A+s.
DOE’s great accomplishment is to move our national educational system from excellence to equity.
That equity has come at the tremendous cost to excellence.
As we all know, it all depends the metrics used: what is being measured; how it is weighed; what is left out, etc.
Part of the U.S.’s “problem” is that we still have the “everybody needs to go to college” thing operating. This is a cash grab scam run for the benefit of the educationist blob, but that’s the frame of measurement we use. Much of the rest of the world tracks early and effectively.
The second big question is whether we are assessing for inputs or educational outcomes. The U.S. educrats, with scattered exceptions, have deemphasized educational rigor in favor of participation trophies and a dozen other ancillary social engineering goals.
A measurement that relies, even in part, on measuring inputs is also inherently suspect. The U.S. system is superb at wasting money doing irrelevant and sometimes harmful things. It is failing at getting lower income students to grade level performance. And the DEI mania translates directly into a hostility to anything that measures differential performance because of its social correlates.
I am quite confident, however, that we still lead the world in tampon dispensers in the boys room and women with penisis in the girls locker room. And our non-teaching/administrative staff to student ratio is almost certainly unmatched.
The thing is “how do other countries measure their education results”. What if every student in America is measured but other countries only measure from their very best schools? I do believe that education has fallen off in America since I was in school but I find it hard to believe that we are that bad relative to the rest of the world.
RE: America was #1 in the world in education before the department of education
That is what this particular article is questioning…
RE: … Singapore, which is a highly advanced and homogenous…
Not sure what you mean by homogeneous.
Singapore’s ethnic makeup is 75.5% Chinese, 15.1% Malay, 7.6% Indian, and 1.8% Eurasian/Other. Because of this diversity, Singapore is NOT considered a homogeneous country; instead, it is officially recognized as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural society.
Small, yes ( smaller than New York City in terms of population ), but homogeneous? Not really.
RE: What if every student in America is measured but other countries only measure from their very best schools?
There are people who claim that China’s city of Shanghai is actually doing this.
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