Thirty-two countries outperformed Utah when it came to the percentages of students scoring at advanced levels in math, according to a new report released today by Education Next in conjunction with Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance. Utah appeared to outperform nine countries and was most similar in its performance to Israel, Italy, Latvia, Portugal and Turkey.

The report compared Utah and other state's scores on the National Assessment of Educational progress administered to 8th graders in 2005 with the results of the PISA, an international assessment, administred one year later to students at the age of 15.

Top performing countries include Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Finland and Switzerland.

From the executive summary, regarding the nation's performance: "Unfortunately, the percentage of students in the U.S. Class of 2009 who were highly accomplished in math is well below that of most countries with which the U.S. generally compares itself. No less than 30 of the 56 other countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) math test had a larger percentage of students who scored at the international equivalent of the advanced level on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests."

To see the full report go here.