A person needs to be able to read before learning other skills.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (click here) is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy. PISA also includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies, such as problem solving. PISA emphasizes functional skills that students have acquired as they near the end of compulsory schooling. PISA is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries and is conducted in the United States by NCES. PISA was first administered in 2000 and is conducted every three years. The most recent assessment was in 2012....

U.S. Performance in Reading Literacy (click here)

• Percentages of top performing 15-year-old students (those scoring at level 5 or above) in reading literacy ranged from 25 percent in Shanghai-China and 21 percent in Singapore to nearly 0 percent in 3 education systems. In the United States, 8 percent of U.S. 15-year-old students scored at proficiency level 5 or above, which was not measurably different from the OECD average of 8 percent. The U.S. percentage was lower than 14 education systems, higher than 33 education systems, and not measurably different than 12 education systems. The percentage of top performers in reading in the United States overall (8 percent) was higher than the state of Florida (6 percent), but lower than Massachusetts (16 percent) and Connecticut (15 percent) (figure R1a, table R1b)....

Sports is different from Physical Education. Sports is a long term commitment by a student that takes them into extra-curricular activity and removes them from study and homework.

...the USA was ranked 24th in reading, 28th in science, and 36th in mathematics. (click here)

1. There is almost no sports in the best schools in the world: Although all of these countries love sports and excel at some, sports is separate from school. It is not a part of the core mission of school. The problem is that sports can sometimes, if you don't constantly keep it contained, eat away at the mission of school, which is supposed to be education.

2. Although the systems and the structures are quite different in each country, the one thing that's true, with respect to the countries which produce the best education systems, is there's a psychology that says school is hard. You have to spend a lot of time at it. You have to work hard. You have to succeed. It's almost exactly the same attitude many of us take toward sports, which they take toward academics. There is a big contest at the end, not everyone is going to win — to get better, critically, you have to practise and work harder.

NERDS ROCK !!!