U.S. PISA Test Scores Continue to Move Up in the Rankings Among Other OECD Countries

Before I provide readers with the breathless headlines about the latest U.S. international student test scores in reading, math, and science, allow me to present three charts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the outfit responsible for the PISA tests.  

Take a few moments, please, to examine how U.S. student scores compared to the average among all the other participating OECD countries.

 

 

Now anyone who follows education politics knows that both the New York Times and the Washington Post can be counted on present U.S. public schools in the worst possible light, all the while amplifying the doom-shrieking corporate education mavens from neocon and neolib sludgy think tanks such as Margaret Spellings and Rick Hess. 

And so the recent release of the latest results of PISA international test scores offers the latest fear-mongering opportunity for the editorial boards of the Times and Post to bury the news with scary headlines:

U.S. Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

 Five sentences into the Times story comes the required finger wagging by W's former Education Secretary and co-creator of the toxic No Child Left Behind debacle:  

“Our kids are going in the wrong direction on the skills that are absolutely essential for their — and our — success. Period. The end,” said Margaret Spellings, a former education secretary under President George W. Bush. She called for “urgent action at all levels.”

The Washington Post headline is even scarier: 

U.S. students' scores on international test reach lowest point in 2 decades.

Not-quite-as-gloomy headlines can be found elsewhere in the education media. For instance, Chalkbeat, a non-profit focused solely on education issues, leads with this headline, which can't bear to leave the reader with an impression that U.S. students might have done anything praiseworthy by raising their standing among other OECD countries' students: 

U.S. moves up in PISA test score rankings because other countries are doing worse.

Yes, indeed.  In fact, U.S. student ranking among the 91 other OECD countries has improved steadily since 2015 (full analysis here):

31st in 2015

25th in 2018

18th in 2022

16th in 2025

So how are these continuing U.S. improvements in world test score rankings reflected by U.S. media headlines?  Here's my favorite worst headline, which comes from Newsweek, whose media ranking over the past decade has moved steadily in the opposite direction of U.S. student PISA scores: 

Kids’ Test Scores Hit Record Lows . . .

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Let me offer a couple of observations about the context for the overall direction of PISA scores in recent years.  Since 2012 or thereabouts, test performance has moved downward at the same time that digital phone and computer screen time have increased and student alienation from others and the natural world have increased. Covid has not helped, nor has the continued demonization of students and teachers among media elites eager to sell copy and to amplify misleading and self-serving corporate messaging related to education.