Looks pretty dismal, huh? Well, take a look at this re-plotted version of the test score chart from Chad’s blog, which has been normalized on a scale of zero to one, as many physicists prefer. (Note that the original test score chart only ranged from 500 to 600.)

Okay, that doesn’t look so bad. Now which should we believe? Is there evidence here for an international crisis in American science education?

This time, I actually did go all the way back to the original source, “Highlights From the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2003.” Surprisingly enough, despite all of the media teeth-gnashing, there was nothing in the report that actually defined how significant or relevant the differencesvbetween the test scores might be. The Atlantic chart accentuated the differences, and Chad’s normalized chart de-emphasised the differences.

More investigation is in order. I’m going all the way back to the original reports to see what I might find out. Stay tuned…