Last week, the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) results were released. TIMSS tests 4th and 8th graders from over 35 countries. On the surface, the news looked promising.

As former U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics Mark Schneider notes in Education Week, “U.S. students scored higher on average than most nations’ students, our scores are increasing, and we have two to three times as many students doing math at the advanced level than the international median.”

Digging deeper, we find the glass really is half empty.

First, the TIMSS “average” comprises scores from highly-industrialized countries like the U.S. and Hong Kong alongside emerging markets like Morocco and Romania. The other major international student assessment, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is given to 15-year olds from OECD countries may be a better benchmark for the U.S. On the 2006 PISA test of scientific knowledge, the U.S. ranked 26th out of 57 countries, performing 24 points below the OECD average and lagging well-behind our economic peers—Hong Kong, Canada, the UK, and Australia among others.

Second, the TIMSS unmasks disturbing performance trends within the U.S.

As Schneider reports:

• “The difference separating the average performance of black and white students on TIMSS is almost the same size as the distance between the United States and Hong Kong, and the difference between students in the most-affluent American schools vs. those in the least-affluent is almost 50 percent larger.

• The distance the United States is lagging behind Hong Kong is even larger than the distance separating Massachusetts, the highest-performing state in NAEP, and the nation’s lowest-performing state, Mississippi.”

The take-away for Washington State? Just to ram home President-elect Barack Obama’s message: “If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow, we have to out-educate the world today.”