We sent Bush’s claim to a few education experts and asked whether they had any concerns about the PISA evaluations or Bush’s interpretations of the data.
"Unfortunately (for the country), he is dead right," said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University and co-author of a book that includes a discussion of how such international test results are related to economic growth. "I am convinced that it is a good index of important skills, particularly the math and science scores."