This Sounds Almost American

According to the latest news from Japanese schools:

A team led by Agata questioned a total of 1,692 students aged nine to 13 in three different surveys from June 2001 to June 2004.

In one survey of 720 pupils, 27 percent did not know that the Sun sets in the west, while two percent explained the Moon's waxing and waning by choosing the explanation "the Moon has many shapes".

In another sample, out of 348 students asked to circle the correct statement to describe the Earth's orbital relationship to the Sun, 42 percent circled "the Sun goes around the Earth", while 56 percent picked the correct answer.

Only 39 percent correctly answered that the Moon orbits the Earth in the same way as man-made satellites.

If this happened in America, it would be used by one part of the political spectrum as a reason to spend more on education, by another part of the political spectrum as a reason to impose national standards, and by yet another part of the political spectrum as a reason to use eugenic immigration restrictions.