In math performance, Florida students are a step behind their peers in often-lauded Massachusetts, but a couple steps behind the kids in Hong Kong and Singapore, according to a recent report from the American Institutes for Research.

Using an international grading index that he created, an AIR researcher gives Florida’s fourth graders an “international grade” of C+ and an estimated mean score that’s just slightly above the mean for developed countries. Florida’s eighth graders, meanwhile, earn a C and a mean score that’s slightly below the mean for developed countries. In both cases, Florida’s grade is the same as what the researcher gives the U.S. as a whole.

Who sets the bar? Stateside, it’s Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Kansas at grade four (they all earned B’s) and Massachusetts at grade eight (which earned a B-).

Internationally, it’s Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR and Japan. Those countries “consistently perform at the B+, B, and B- level and are learning mathematics not just at a higher level than the United States, but at a quantum leap higher level than the United States,” the report says.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter