[quote=Eugene]Asians in the U.S. traditionally scored slightly lower than whites on school-level tests except in mathematics. They caught up a couple of years ago.

Does anyone know what the literacy rate was in Korea during the 19th century? It strikes me that the bulk of variation in these test results can be explained by 19th century literacy rates (as a proxy of the strength of natural selection towards higher intelligence) plus migration patterns in the last century. Finland, for example, was one of the most literate countries of the world by 1800. But I’m not sure about Korea, it could be a major outlier.[/quote]

Interesting article in this week’s Bloomberg Business Week. The Koreans are thinking of moving from a 6 day class week to a 5 day class week like most of the rest of the world, but some parents are objecting:

“The Koreans don’t want to repeat the experience of Japan, which cut the school week to five days in 2002. In 2009, the Japanese reversed course after their students began sliding down the OECD’s rankings. Between 2000 and 2006, Japanese high school students slumped from 1st to 10th in math, 2nd to 6th in science, and 8th to 15th in reading comprehension.”