School authorities often claim that American children do poorly in school because they watch too much television or because they have working mothers. But these excuses don’t hold water, either. Studies have shown that Japanese fifth-graders watch as much as or more television each day as American kids do.
Also, while an average of 35 percent of American mothers work, so do 30 percent of mothers in Japan, 33 percent of mothers in Taipei, and 97 percent of mothers in Beijing.18 Since Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese children consistently outperform American children on standardized tests, these excuses don’t explain why American kids do so poorly in school.
