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Paul Peterson, a Harvard University professor, took a similar view. "Our younger population should be doing better than our older population," he said. "The older population is better educated. And the younger population is entering the workforce."

Americans trail adults in other countries in math, literacy, problem-solving.
The results are "quite distressing," says Harvard University's Paul Peterson, co-author of Endangering Prosperity, a recent book on education and international competitiveness. "Other countries have been catching up for some time," he says. "At one time, we had a really significant lead, but those people are disappearing from the workforce."

In today’s Education Next book club, Mike Petrilli speaks with all three authors—Eric Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann—about the evidence they bring to bear in Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School.

Those are among the questions asked by three of the world’s leading education scholars in a groundbreaking new book hitting bookshelves on September 3rd, just in time for the new school year.

In Endangering Prosperity, scholars from Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Munich shows just how far American students are falling behind their global counterparts and how the looming failure of our education system imperils our economic future.