Just because of team america theme song.

'Superpower' is an exciting word that will draw readers, while 'Decline' is a bit of a downer (pun intended). Plus, I suspect the author will spend as much time pondering a potential Chinese superpower as he does scrutinizing the Decline Myth. Regardless, looking forward to reading!

There are millions of India graduates of Holly Cow Dung Institute of Technology in Bombay.
They will be glad to tutor Americans kids for 99 cents/hour to help improve SAT score. And beat back these bad bad chinese
We Indians speak King’s English properly & very smart , and are all natural Techie Guru, of course.

Millions of Chinese students are now taking the SAT -- of course the reading scores are going to fall (if millions of Americans began taking Chinese, German or French college entrance exams those scores would fall too).

The US has numerous strengths, including a world-class system of universities. Falling SAT scores are actually a testament to America's draw for non English speakers in East Asia and elsewhere.

A nation's decline should not be compared with the rise of another nation. Just because China and India are rising doesn't necessarily mean the US is declining.

That said, I think US is in a decline. The test scores don't matter as much as the decline of standard of living in America. A few generations ago, people without college degrees could easily afford a nice home and rise a few kids with the wife staying home. Today, even highly educated, dual income families often cannot afford a decent home in a good neighborhood let alone to have and educate multiple kids. Compared to the past, the average American today could afford less. Their lifestyle and standard of living have regressed. That to me is a sure sign of decline.

another measure of decline: difference between what leaders say (promise) and do (actions) - media or someone should be tracking political and financial and religious leaders words/promises vs actions, to monitor consistency, honesty, dependability, reliability, truthfulness, or deceit and lying and treachery and cunning.
Another measure is to monitor closely leaders personal change before and during and after entering public office : assets, wealth, bank accounts, real estate holdings, etc... to see if it matches their official public servant income or not. If not, pursue legal action, bar them forever from public service, since public service is supposed to be service and not beign served.
These measures could be compared to other countries indicators - and would reveal which countries leadership is truly leading and consistent.

When people discuss possible American decline I don't think they are rigorous enough in separating relative decline from absolute decline. Relative decline in power and influence was bound to happen as Asia became richer and thus more powerful. I would score America's relative decline since the peak in the mid-1990s 2, or possibly even 1 on the scale introduced here. America's problems making either allies (Israel, Europe, Pakistan if you consider that an ally) or non-allies like China, follow its lead has dropped unimaginably in the 16 years since 1995. America's absolute decline, in living standards, military power, infrastructure etc, is perhaps a 3, although "carry on" should be replaced by "can certainly be fixed if the will is there."

Falling SAT scores are not sufficient evidence to conclude that American education is on the decline. On the contrary, the percentage of American students who are being actively encouraged to apply for college, and are therefore obliged to sit for standardized tests, has ballooned in the past several years. This more or less guarantees falling average scores as lower-performing students who would not have taken the test at all previously are now included in the sample. In fact, one should expect that average scores would fall even in the face of mild real improvements in American education.

Moreover, the SAT was never designed to be a long-term trend assessment test; Collegeboard has in the past specifically warned against comparing scores from year to year because question formats, difficulty, and (more subtly) wording are changed frequently.

A better measure of national educational performance, at least as standardized tests go, is the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)'s Long Term Trend Assessment, which was developed by the Department of Education specifically to be a fair measure of progress across generations. Scores on this assessment have been slowly but steadily increasing since the test was first administered 35 years ago. Moreover, in a comparison of the last two tests available (2008 and 2004) students of both genders and of all races/ethnicities have been improving, with Blacks, Native Americans, and students of Hispanic origin making the strongest gains.

"... that English scores, in particular, are falling can be attributed to increasing national diversity and the fact that parents from around the world still want to raise their kids in the United States. The New York Times reports that "27 percent of the nearly 1.65 million test-takers last year came from a home where English was not the only language, up from 19 percent a decade ago.""

Which points out two issues, the drop in fertility rates caused by Feminism is resulting in a population shift to mostly foreign born. This will only continue as the new Americans are in turn sterilized.

Secondly, a lower comprehension and higher math skills means a bunch of technically competent social morons. Just what every dictator and evangelist could ever hope for .

America's problems making either allies (Israel, Europe, Pakistan if you consider that an ally) or non-allies like China, follow its lead has dropped kindle fire review unimaginably in the 16 years since 1995. America's absolute decline, in living standards, military power, infrastructure etc, is perhaps a 3, although "carry on" should be replaced by "can certainly be fixed if the will is there."