I was put off by 'tokenadult's first post (no part of it seemed well argued; it also started out by citing Twain to argue that school board members were "dull"). And as always I appreciate your commitment to rational debate.

But even Asian Americans reliably outperform other ethnicities in American schools, placing in the top 5 in math performance worldwide despite American schools, it does not necessarily follow that American schools are performing adequately.

For instance, Asian families can obviously be supplementing education through private tutors, additional study and demands at home, &c.

It also doesn't follow that just because this system "works" for Asian Americans that it's a reasonable system to apply nationwide. Perhaps Asian families manage this because they're economically advantaged. Perhaps Asian families make unreasonable sacrifices in other areas of their life (by a measure of "reasonableness" along the lines of "benefit to child ends up being worth the cost to the family").

Also worth mentioning, but perhaps not worth dwelling on, that TIMSS includes private schools. How much more likely are Asian Americans to attend private schools than (say) Latino Americans?

Finally, I think this particular debate may be besides the point. We have the ethnic and socioeconomic mix that we have. We do not have the option of being South Korea. So the question is, does the education system we have serve the best interests of mix of students we have today? That's the question this WaPo story is addressing.