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For example, Education in States and Nations reports that U.S. states tend to have a higher proportion of young people in their populations than do the OECD countries: Those aged 2 to 29 comprised more than 40 percent of the population in 46 states, while this was true in only 10 of the 22 OECD countries included in the report.
Among the population aged 25 to 64, the United States had by far the highest proportion of secondary-school and university graduates. Although there were some differences, all U.S. states had higher levels of education attainment than most of the OECD countries.
The variation in average mathematics proficiency across states was similar to those across countries. Average proficiency for public school 8th graders in 1992 ranged from 246 scale points in Mississippi to over 280 in Iowa, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Similarly, average scores for 13-year-olds in 1991 went from a low of 246 in Jordan to over 280 in Taiwan and Korea.
The percent that states and nations spent on education as a percent of their economic resources was quite similar. Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Denmark, Finland, and Norway all had the highest levels of education expenditure as a percentage of gross product-6.0 percent or higher. The lowest levels of 3.5 percent or lower were found in Spain, Nevada, and Japan.
The report includes an explanation of what each indicator measures, why it is important, and key results from a comparison of countries and states. Comparisons are most often made among like-size entities: the United States to other large, relatively wealthy countries and individual states to individual countries, including the smaller, relatively less wealthy ones.
Copies of Education in States and Nations are available from GPO for $9, stock number 065-000-00621-9.
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