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| - On Nov. 11, 2024, X owner Elon Musk posted an image (archived) of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter that was captioned: "In 1979 I created the Department of Education. Since then America went from 1st to 24th in education."
President-elect Donald Trump, who appointed Musk to serve as co-commissioner of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, has stated on multiple occasions his plan to close the U.S. Department of Education.
There are two parts to this claim: whether the U.S. currently ranks 24th worldwide in education and whether its ranked first in 1979.
In short, there is no single definitive scale that determines the ranking of nations' education quality worldwide, though several organizations have published their own assessments. Snopes was unable to track down an assessment that found the U.S. specifically ranked 24th worldwide. Musk's post also did not specify several key items, such as which year the U.S. was in 24th place or which assessments the claim referred to. Therefore, we have rated this claim as unfounded.
Snopes contacted Musk and the Department of Education seeking evidence regarding the claim and will update this story if we receive a response.
As of This Writing, Does the US Rank 24th Worldwide?
Various organizations have reached different conclusions, but Snopes did not track down any significant survey, report or analysis that found the U.S. ranked 24th worldwide in education in 2024.
For example, U.S. News ranked the U.S. as first in its widely-cited 2024 Best Countries report, which reportedly surveyed the views of "close to 17,000 global citizens."
(usnews.com)
On the other hand, a report by WorldTop20 — a project associated with New Jersey Minority Educational Development, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group
Other studies offer a more-detailed assessment broken down by subject and parameter and compared to other countries of similar wealth, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries. For example, according to the average scores of 15-year-olds from 37 member countries in 2022, the U.S. ranked above average in science and below average in mathematics.
(OECD, PISA 2022)
In the 2024 OECD findings, the U.S. ranked 20th out of 41 countries in education overall. In 2015, results from the Programme for International Student Assessment — which tests 15-year-olds across dozens of countries every three years — placed the U.S. 38th out of 71 countries in mathematics and 24th in science.
Was the US Ranked 1st Globally in Education in 1979?
There was also no indication that the U.S. ranked first globally in education in 1979, which could be in part because international ranking was rudimentary at the time. However, one 1992 report published by The National Center for Education Statistics (part of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences) found that, after administering science and math tests to 10-, 13- and 14-year-olds from the 1960s through 1988 across six to 18 countries (depending on the subject and grade level), the evidence suggested, in general, that:
Students from the United States have fared quite poorly on these assessments, with [their] scores lagging behind those of students from other developed countries. This finding is based largely on analyses of mean achievement scores and related rankings of countries participating in each survey.
One analysis from 2022 found that average student achievement in the U.S. increased from 1971 through 2017. The report, conducted by Paul E. Peterson from Harvard University and M. Danish Shakeel from the University of Buckingham, pulled data from 7 million tests taken by U.S. students born between 1954 and 2007.
The analysis found that the general trend in math and reading was upward across the board since 1971, with Black, Hispanic and Asian students improving "far more quickly" than their white classmates in elementary, middle and high school.
(Analysis by M. Daniel Shakeel and Paul E. Peterson)
Lastly, the effect of the Department of Education itself on improved education averages and global ranking is unclear. The department began as a means to collect nationwide data and today is primarily responsible for distributing and monitoring federal financial aid, establishing financial aid policies and collecting data on U.S. schools.
In Sum …
There was no evidence to support the claim that since Carter founded the Department of Education in 1979, the U.S. has dropped from first to 24th worldwide in education.
Rather, one report found that U.S. students' scores were "lagging behind" students from other developed countries from the 1960s through 1988, and another analysis found that, on average, student achievement in the U.S. had increased between 1971 and 2017.
As of this writing, rankings vary, and there is no definitive source to confirm the U.S.'s current standing. It is also unclear what effect the existence of the Department of Education has had on the standing of U.S. education relative to other countries.
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