Today's students face more and stiffer competition than ever before. Those entering the job market must now compete with well educated rivals from India, China, and Korea in addition to those from their own community, state, and country. The rapidly growing markets of the past quarter century have created a booming global economy and very real international competition. No longer is it enough to hold students to isolated standards with no notion of what they will be expected to do in the global job market; educators must also teach with an eye to the international benchmarks of success.

Unfortunately, nearly every international assessment shows that American students typically fall short of their counterparts in other countries. Thirty years ago, the United States was the world leader in the quantity and quality of both high school and college graduates, but those numbers have not improved over the years. Meanwhile, many other countries have experienced rapid growth and raised the bar significantly above where the United States stands. Whereas today's 55- to 64-year olds-those who typically would have graduated in the 1960s-led the world in percentage of high school graduates, current 25- to 34-year-olds rank a distant 10th. The current U.S. graduation rate has fallen to 18th of 23 industrialized countries. The United States has remained similarly stagnant in the attainment of higher education degrees.

However, the issue is not solely one of numbers. International assessments of student proficiency show that American high school students' performance in math, literacy, science, and problem solving is mediocre to poor across the board. With subpar proficiencies, anemic growth, and intensifying global competition, international benchmarking reveals the need for serious concern about America's ability to remain competitive in the future.