Although there was much to read about the test results of various countries–and their explanations of why they they were good or bad–I think I got a pretty clear picture of what has happened and why. Today I will do my best to explain the international student testing situation as I see it.
In the first place, I must tell you that I gave very little attention to small countries with few schools because their situations are not normal. For the most part they are able to teach and test only a fraction of their young people, and those are likely to be the wealthiest or the best situated ones. So my examination was only of the large or wealthy countries with many schools that accepted students of all backgrounds.
Secondly, almost all the articles I read included only the opinions of the writers and quotes from important people in various countries. For that reason I tried to eliminate them entirely and consider only factual information such as the differences in numbers of students or school sizes, test scores comparisons, school restrictions on types of students accepted, and the influence of individual, family, area or country wealth.
What this all came down to was my focus on England, China , and the United States and their reports of factual information.
TO BE CONTINUED—IF I LAST THAT LONG
The Treasure Hunter 
This is an important project and you are the right person for the job. Let me know if I can help. My wife employees Alpha women from all over the world and I have a lot of friends who are teachers in Switzerland. My knee-jerk response is that teachers need to be flexible–rural kids from different countries have more in common than rural kids and urban kids from the same country. But every rural kid in Switzerland is 45 minutes from a city by public transport and kids in KY and Montana can turn grey before they see a state capital. Big difference.
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I am looking forward to your observations, Joanne. Thank you for doing this.
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