Everyone one of those countries have restrictive immigration laws (and citizenship laws, for that matter). It's no coincidence their education system(s) are better.
RE: Well, if those other countries were to import 1M(or more) children every decade (illegally) and if they had a permanently privileged class of minorities who were are told everyday that someone owes them something, then I suppose they too would be struggling to educate their kids.
Countries like the Netherlands has a huge and growing Muslim population. They still score higher than our kids on average.
Are home schooled students tested as well or do they fall between the cracks in such rankings?
In other nations where a sizeable percentage may not even attend school, I doubt that they test those who are not schooled.
Sort of works both sides of the equation against the US.
Wrong, at least with respect to the European countries. They import large percentages of Mooselims every year and those that are there are breeding like bunnies and spreading their “culture”.
Mooselims as a whole are less interested in learning (and working) than our illegals. Doubt me? Ask a German. Frenchman, or a Swede, for example. I would also point out that most of the countries are much poorer than we are and spend less on education.
We score badly because of our government school system and its entrenched educational pathologies (whole language, “Reform” math, “invented spelling”, multiculti everything, sodomite acceptance and promiscuity studies, etc.). Most of the countries that do better have some form of school choice. The element of choice has prevented the idiocy that prevails here from getting the same stranglehold on education.
BTW, I wouldn’t place much importance on the reading scores. Comparing reading ability across languages is very difficult - unlike math and science. It is, for example, comical that they think that they could compare the reading skills of Americans and Taiwanese in a study like this.