OECD: International Education at a Glance 2012

The OECD Education at a Glance 2012 report is out; the Huffington Post leads with

while the U.S. boasts high education attainment levels overall, it lags behind other countries that are increasing attainment levels at a higher rate.

TechCrunch, however, says "who cares?". Why It’s Never Mattered That America’s Schools ‘Lag’ Behind Other Countries | TechCrunch

The scorecard for the U.S. is not pretty:

• The U.S. ranks 14th in higher education attainment at 42% of 25-34 with a degree, 20 points behind the leader, South Korea.
• The U.S. ranks 26th in early childhood education (69%)
• The U.S. is the 6th worst in terms of high school graduation, with 23% failing to attain a diploma

“Based on these trends, the U.S. may find that an increasing number of countries will approach or surpass its attainment levels in the coming years,” reads the U.S. report card.
However, the report implies that education translates into gainful market skills, an assumption not found in the research. For instance, while Chinese students, on average, have twice the number of instructional hours as Americans, both countries have identical scores on tests of scientific reasoning.

The author here thinks that maybe we shouldn't be trying to do what the other guys try so hard to do; it's not worth doing. He cites a 2008 article in Nature, responding to very similar international comparisons: Making the grade:

To produce leading-edge technology, one could argue that it is the numbers of high-performing students that is most important in the global economy.
These are students who can enter the science and engineering workforce or are likely to innovate whatever their field of study. Remarkable, but little noted, is the fact that the United States produces the lion's share of the world's best students (see graph).

TechCrunch, and commenters at Slashdot, also comment on the importance of immigrants. So maybe we should combine those, and build on established American strengths; maybe local schools like Hamilton Central should work on what they offer to the top students (hey, we need a robotics team!) and try to ease budget pain by appealing to a reasonable number of international students, as some other NY schools have done...even to the extent of selling empty classroom seats abroad.
Or then again, maybe not.