No they aren't.

I was in the trendy year at school where they stopped teaching grammar rules. It was the same year where they taught us to chant tables answers rather than tables (9,18,27). As a result I had to use google for the 5 year olds homework because I didn't know what the grammatical terms ment.

And the years where phonics weren't taught but whole language.

National curriculum is all well and good, but that does not mean a child is going to learn the same way another child learns. Poor social economic areas are usually going to do the worst.

Stats are all well and good, but they never tell the real story.

And they always will. A large percentage of the lowest achievers don't even seem to understand why they are low achievers, and that without support and encouragement their children will also be low achievers. As often as not, both parents and children see education as pointless because any one item learned at school is likely irrelevant in adulthood (I enjoyed chemistry, but still haven't found a use for my knowledge of the Haber process! ), but that a broad K-12 education is the foundation for most successful careers and occupations. Without that you're probable sçrewed and you're another generation condemned to poverty. ,

How do you define someone as having 'graduated' UK high school though? Stayed till 16? Stayed till 18? Got 5 GCSEs?

....and something called ITA, which allegedly left kids with a southern (english) accent)

Precisely. That, and teachers saying, "Oh they're poor, what do you expect ?" Bring back the grammar school system, the greatest tool for social mobility the UK ever invented.

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I understand the point you're trying to make, but honestly - when you have to illustrate it by showing that (irrespective of the US's positions) the UK is still only 29th in mathematics and 16th in science, honestly I'd not have bothered myself.

Utterly woeful for both countries, who should be in the top 3 (along with Germany) in both.

And I'd like to compare the cohorts who are actually participating in PISA. We know the Chinese etc load the rankings by their selected best. What do we do ?

I wish I had the answers but it's still depressing to see it in print.

What did we do in the early 1900s when the US, UK and Germany basically ruled the sciences? Whatever it was, that's the answer, I suppose

It would be a nice bragging point, but IMO nothing more. It is how the top, say, 20% fair in each subject/ discipline that would make a difference. Not everyone can be a multilingual Nobel prize winning Olympic gold medal athlete, but nurturing those with language, science, and sporting abilities (as well as other areas) would be most beneficial in any/ every country.

Doing that would essentially level the playing field, which would be better in the long run since global science output would rise as a whole.

Eradicating religions and all other forms of non-evidence based living would certainly be a step in the right direction

Oh well, at least the UK still produces the best musicians, with the US a close second

Yes nothing like promoting science. We need more nuclear weapons, drugs like thalidomide, oil spills in the gulf, and all those good things

There have been no good bands since Led Zeplin btw