Summary
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, has claimed again and again U.S. students, from kindergarten through 12th grade, are ranked 29th in the world in math and science. He claims they used to be No. 1, too. But none of that is true.
The two leading international assessments of student achievement rank U.S. students better in all cases, and in most cases much better, than Richardson claims. Furthermore, neither of them even tries to cover all grades K through 12.
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