> Real education superpowers are those with top UNIVERSITIES which in turn produce economic gains/growth/etc.
Why is your metric considered more apt than the article's? Good student performance consistently correlates with higher-paying jobs and higher quality of life. At the nation level, this correlates to higher Human-Development Index, which is generally considered a pretty good thing to have...
> If canada was a true economic superpower, we'd see them producing Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.
That is utter nonsense. What does this have to do with education at all? Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and Steve Jobs were all college dropouts. They simply had the right idea at the right time. Their economic success has very little to do with the U.S. education system.