This article describes the grim sentiments from the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, when reviewing the poor results from the U.S. performance on the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). He noted a straightforward and stark picture of educational stagnation--that fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. today are average in science and reading literacy, and below average in mathematics, compared to their counterparts in other industrialized countries. Secretary Duncan continued the "educational challenge in America is not just about poor kids in poor neighborhoods, it's about many kids in many neighborhoods." The test results underscore that educational shortcomings in schools in the United States, when viewed from a global perspective, seem to do as badly teaching those from better-educated families as they do teaching those from less well- educated families. The authors present graphical details from the U.S. and individual states and conclude that the United States has two achievement gaps to be bridged--the one between the advantaged and the disadvantaged and the one between itself and its peers abroad.