Mass Kids Smarter than Scottish Schoolchildren, Slightly Dumber than Singaporeans

This Globe story has surprisingly made a splash beyond Massachusetts' borders: despite much ballyhoo over U.S. students' worryingly mediocre performance in subjects like math and science, Mass. students recently tested well above other nations like England and Taiwan on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a 4th-grade exam. Overall, Mass. students scored 571 out of 800 on the test, compared with 500 for Scotland (the lowest scoring country), 548 for Japan and 528 for Germany. (Singapore came in first by a wide margin, at 587.) According to the Globe, Mass. paid $600k for the privilege of participating as its own "nation." According to Bostonist, these bragging rights are well worth it.

Unfortunately, the US as a whole still lags behind at 539, which could mean that while we won the race to the Moon, even Latvia could beat us to Mars. Here's hoping that with a sitting president in office who values math (read: won't insist on manipulating data to suit his needs) and science (read: doesn't believe that humans and dinosaurs shared caves back in the old days) these scores will improve. Until then, Reddit readers may continue to vote this story up as proof that the liberals of Massachusetts are, in fact, smarter than the rest of the country.