<p>A provocative piece by Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria: Singapore's students do brilliantly in math and science tests. American kids test much worse but do better in the real world. Why?</p>
<p>This is an old article. And it's as unbalanced in its analysis as it was when it was first published. The best Singaporeans are doing just fine, but they are mostly living over here in the United States by the time they make their mark. When I used to live in Taiwan, I heard a lot of Taiwanese people say that they thought Americans are more creative than they are. But in fact Taiwanese people have plenty of creativity, only that most of them express it the most after they immigrate to the United States. The United States has, as its biggest advantage, SIZE so that the very best can get very well rewarded. It also has immigration, which increases its diversity year by year and means that it doesn't have to depend only on native-born talent. But none of the advantages of living in the United States as an adult mean that United States schools couldn't learn quite a bit from schools in countries that formerly were much poorer than the United States but have long had better academic achievement.</p>