> I would think to try somehow to look at what is different about
> educational system, social structure, or psychology or pedgagy to
> produce these wildly different results. I do not have the impression
> that youth from the countries where math performance outranks that in
> the US are any less enamored of video games or the teaching staff
> necessarily more brilliant, but I would like to know where the
> differences in performace come from.
Well, for one thing American kids are way more likely to be taught by people with little or no teacher training than kids in the higher ranking countries (including, e.g, Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia). Teachers who are trained tend to have fewer years of education, and teacher pay is substantially lower relative to the social average. Linda Darling-Hammond has done a lot of work on this - from a quick Google I just found this from a talk to the House education committee in 2007, but you can find more detailed stuff if you get her journal articles. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2007/09/darling-hammond-to-miller-on-nclb.html
Mike Beggs