The USA to improve must first bring in universal single payer medicare, raise the minimum wage, get rid of RTW states, move tons of money from the burbs to the inner city and rural poor areas, focus far more on what the poor need to succeed.

The American rich middle class and even working class do as well as any country. It is the American poor kids who drag down the avg because everybody else does a better job with their poor kids.

Canada has far less people to educate than the US does.

I’m not saying this stops the United States from doing better, but it is a large difference in dynamics. The US cannot use Canada as an example. The US cannot use China as an example. The US has to figure it all out on its own.

Imagine the American political culture if there were no southern reps in H of R or the Senate. Toronto is our most racially complex city at 10% black but 25% asian.

The political demographics of Canada mitigate against the right so much that the centre left has 2 parties. We have a large conservative party but it is not nearly so far right as the Republicans. We have no “Tea Party”. We consider them to be political ‘crazies’.

Canadian politics is dominated by Ontario and Quebec. This is like politics 2/3 dominated by NY state to Americans. The dominant ethos is liberal-social democrat. The social democratic party is now #2 in parliament and therefore the conservative government cannot go too far right.

In Canada in many cities, the poorer the school the more resources and the smaller the classes. Canadians are strong believers in compensatory education.

The crime rate in Canada is a tiny fraction of the USA rate and falling. It is much harder to get a gun. We don’t believe citizens have a “right to bear arms”.

Canadians look to Finland as a model to continue to close the gap. There is testing but it is increasingly unpopular and may not last.

There is an overwhelming political opinion that no public money should go to vouchers or charters although many big cities have “public alternative schools” but they are totally controlled by the school board.

I give the simplest of examples – accepting frequent external administrative interruptions to lessons. This was shown in the TIMSS video study to be detrimental to teaching, common place in the US and anathema in Japan. American teachers don’t even think twice about the damage this does to their efforts.