Are our fourth graders smarter than a Russian fourth grader?

In a story on a global reading survey, The Associated Press reports that U.S. fourth graders, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, scored the same on an international reading test as they did in 2001, despite all that emphasis on reading comprehension brought to us by No Child Left Behind.

In 2001, the AP says, only three countries were ahead of the U.S. Now our kids scored lower than students in Hong Kong, SIngapore, Luxembourg, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia and Russia.

Russian fourth graders can read better than American fourth graders. Was the Cold War for naught? Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave.