Has the US fallen from first to 24th in education worldwide since 1979?

Claim:

Since the creation of the Department of Education in 1979, the U.S. has fallen from first to 24th place worldwide in education.

Judgement:

On November 11, 2024, owner of X Elon Musk posted one image (archived) from former US President Jimmy Carter with the caption: “In 1979 I created the Department of Education. Since then, America has gone from first to 24th in education.”

Musk wrote in his postwho had gathered over 64 million views and 613,000 likes at the time of writing: “Not exactly good value for money!”

president-elect Donald TrumpWHO appointed Musk to serve as co-commissioner of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, has stated his plan to do so on several occasions closes the U.S. Department of Education.

There are two parts to this claim: whether the US currently ranks 24th worldwide in education, and whether it ranked first in 1979.

In short, there is no one definitive scale that ranks the education quality of countries worldwide, although several organizations have published their own ratings. Snopes was unable to locate a rating showing that the US specifically ranked 24th globally. Musk’s post also did not specify some key points, such as what year the US ranked 24th or which ratings the claim was referring to. We have therefore assessed this claim as unfounded.

Snopes has reached out to Musk and the Department of Education seeking evidence regarding the claim and will update this story if we receive a response.

At the time of writing, is the US ranked 24th globally?

Different organizations have come to different conclusions, but Snopes found no significant study, report, or analysis showing that the U.S. ranked 24th globally in education in 2024.

For example American news put the US first in the much-cited 2024 Best Countries report, which reportedly surveyed the views of “nearly 17,000 global citizens.”

(usnews.com)

On the other hand, a report Through WorldTop20 — a project related to New Jersey Minority Educational Development, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization quoted by the World Population Review (visible by clicking on the USA on the world map at this link) – found that the US ranked 31st globally in education in 2024.

Other studies provide a more detailed assessment, broken down by topic and parameter, and compared with other countries of similar prosperity, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Developmentan intergovernmental organization with 38 member states. For example, according to the average scores of 15-year-olds from 37 Member States in 2022, the US was above average in science and below average in science. mathematics.

(OECD, PISA 2022)

In the 2024 OECD findingsthe USA in 20th place out of 41 countries in education in general. In 2015, results by the International Student Assessment Program – which tests 15-year-olds in dozens of countries every three years the US 38th out 71st countries in math and 24th in science.

Was the US ranked first in education worldwide in 1979?

There was also no evidence that the US ranked first globally in education in 1979, which could be partly because the international rankings were rudimentary at the time. However, one report from 1992 published by the National Center for Education Statistics (part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences) discovered that afterwards administer science and math tests up to 10-, 13- and 14-year-olds from the 1960s through 1988 in six to eighteen countries (depending on subject and grade level), the evidence generally suggested that:

Students from the United States have done quite poorly on these assessments, with (their) scores lagging behind those of students from other developed countries. This finding is largely based on analyzes of average performance scores and related rankings of countries participating in each survey.

One analysis from 2022 thought that average student achievement in the US increased between 1971 and 2017. The report, conducted by Paul E. Peterson of Harvard University and M. Danish Shakeel out the University of Buckingham has collected data from 7 million tests taken by American students born between 1954 and 2007.

The analysis found that the overall trend in math and reading since 1971 was upward across the board, with black, Hispanic and Asian students progressing “much faster” than their white classmates in elementary, middle and high school. secondary school.

(Analysis by M. Daniel Shakeel and Paul E. Peterson)

Finally, the effect of the Ministry of Education itself on improved education averages and global rankings is unclear. The department started as a means of collecting national data and that is what it now is primarily responsible to distribute and monitor federal financial aid, set financial aid policies, and collect data on U.S. schools.

In short…

There was no evidence to support the claim that since Carter established the Department of Education in 1979, the U.S. has fallen from first to 24th place worldwide in education.

Instead, one report found that U.S. students’ scores “lagged behind” those of students from other developed countries between the 1960s and 1988, and another analysis found that on average Student achievement in the US had increased between 1971 and 2017.

At the time of writing, rankings vary, and there is no definitive source confirming the current US position. It is also unclear what effect the existence of the Department of Education has had on the US position education compared to other countries.