T he conventional wisdom is now firmly established: American students can't hold their own against their peers in other nations. They can't read, they can't do math, they are abysmally ignorant of science. That has been the message of countless stories in the media, supposedly backed up by international data. And this poor performance, we have been told, is responsible for the economic woes the United States has experienced in recent decades. But global comparisons show no such thing: American students look better in international tests than the critics would have us believe, and the schools have little to do with the "competitiveness" of the economy. For decades, the media have uncritically reported unfavorable comparisons of educational performance, often based on dubious research, and have slighted more positive findings. The result is that an inaccurate picture of total national failure dominates educational policy and politics. American schools do need improvement. But the crux...