American education has problems, almost everyone is willing to concede, but many think those problems are mostly concentrated in America's large urban school districts. In the elite suburbs, where wealthy and politically influential people tend to live, the schools are assumed to be world-class. Unfortunately, what everyone knows is wrong. Even…

In 1996, about 750 randomly selected 4th graders, a similar number of 8th graders, and nearly 1,000 12th graders from 19 Chicago-area schools took the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey test as a separate country. Results were impressive and reinforced the good reputation of First in the World Consortium schools, located mostly in…

This paper examines the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for the United States and South Korea. Eighth-grade mathematics scores for the two countries were studied as a function of school level variables and student level variables using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Urban settings were found to be…