U.S. Education Slips In Rankings

Annual Study Finds Other Nations Zoom By U.S. In Student Achievement

(AP)  In all levels of education, the United States spends $11,152 per student. That's the second highest amount, behind the $11,334 spent by Switzerland.

"The very best schools in the U.S. are extraordinary," McGaw said.

"But the big concern in the U.S. is the diversity of quality of institutions — and the fact that expectations haven't been set high enough."

The Bush administration says the 2002 federal law known as the No Child Left Behind Act is fueling higher achievement among all students — particularly poor and minority kids — by holding schools accountable for progress.

But the international data, mostly gathered in 2003, are not recent enough to confirm that the law is producing results, McGaw said.

Higher education in the United States remains strong, and the nation continues to hold an advantage in innovation based on research conducted at universities, he said.

The report also underscores that women continue to get paid less than men.

Women in the United States who are 30 to 44 and who hold a university degree — meaning a bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctorate or medical degree — make only 62 percent of what similarly qualified men do.

That's a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for which numbers are available. The nations with greater inequity in pay are Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.