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 . . .

_______________________

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. 

   

 

 

Books Return to Swedish Schools; Achievement Goes Up

 Surprise, surprise!  From the BBC:

Schools in Sweden are returning to more traditional learning methods - such as reading from physical books - after seeing their reading standards drop while ipads and laptops were used.

There is now a focus on using more printed textbooks, handwriting and less screen time in early education. Experts say reading levels are getting better because of this.

Some teachers have said students are asking for more books and paper based learning in schools, saying they learn more quickly and retain information better than using a laptop. 

This isn't a total ban on technology in the classroom and digital devices are still used, but the government is spending millions buying physical textbooks, and library books. . . .

Korea's Test Scores High Despite Schools and Teachers

by Michael Horn for Forbes:

In my travels throughout Korea, in virtually every meeting I heard a variation of the same theme. “Why does President Obama think that Korean schools are good?”

Although there are disputes about how much Obama or Education Secretary Arne Duncan like Korean schools—see here and here, for example—there is no question that Korea’s students’ consistently high PISA scores and schools attract some praise from not only Obama, but also many others in America and worldwide. In particular, Obama has praised the role that Korea’s teachers play in society—and many note that Korea’s top students become teachers unlike in the United States. Obama has also discussed the longer hours that Koreans spend in school.

So are these the reasons Korea’s students succeed?

As I explained to those with whom I spoke, I think Americans who praise Korea’s schools misunderstand the realities on the ground. My sense is that Korean students have high educational achievement not because of Korea’s schools, but often despite them. Students sleep routinely through their classes. The lecture style that teachers employ is not effective enough to keep them awake. It’s hard to imagine that the teachers are so talented that they can cause their students to learn through osmosis.

Students do spend long hours in self-study after school, which helps undoubtedly, but for many, they tend to excel because their parents spend huge sums to send them to hagwons after the self-studying, in which students do their “real” learning, teachers, parents, and school leaders told me again and again. The educational experience is far from efficient.

And there is a real societal price to pay, as students are sleep-deprived and unhappy, employers question how ready they are for life and work after leaving school—the College Scholastic Aptitude Test incentives memorization at the expense of thinking because of its structure and time limit—and the birth rate has declined markedly in Korea at least in part because of how expensive it is to have children. . . . 

MIT Researchers: Higher Test Scores Do Not Translate into Higher Levels of Thinking

MIT Researchers: Higher Test Scores Do Not Translate into Higher Levels of Thinking http://t.co/edCbAClW1g

— Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch) December 17, 2013

MIT Researchers: Higher Test Scores Do Not Translate into Higher Levels of Thinking via Professor Diane Ravitch

What Does the PISA Report Tell Us About U.S. Education?

When the OECD releases the PISA report every three years, many people use the ranking to claim public education in the U.S. is failing and push their corporate education reform agenda. But looking at the data, lessons that can be learned from the highest performing countries point in a completely different direction. For more information: http://go.aft.org/pisa #ReclaimIt

PISA Day: Two Charts, No Comment

Michelle Rhee Is Now Lying About Other People's Test Scores

The corporate education reporters have been working overtime to downplay Rhee's big lie that she has been repeating for years about the miracle test scores of children at the Baltimore school where she taught in the early 1990s.  It makes one wonder if they will notice that she has now moved on to add to her repertoire of extreme fabrications.

Jay Mathews will probably say that we cannot be sure if Rhee, now secure in her role as the Sarah Palin of corporate ed reform, knows that the lies she's telling now are lies.  Hey, she could just be repeating fake facts that she has been handed by the same gofers to the Oligarchs who supplied the fake facts for Guggenheim's not-nominated-for-an Oscar, Waiting for Superman.  What do we know?!

With so many dollar to raise (a billion of them) before the 2012 elections, who can blame her for pulling lines out of her broomstick to spice up the slick ads for potential donors. Here is a recent fabulous fabrication that Michelle offers during a staged discussion led by Rupert Murdoch's chief advisor on education, Joel Klein:

"When I travel around the country talking about these issues, I inevitably come up against, you know, wealthy folks in the suburbs who say, 'Well, but my kids are fine,'" Michelle Rhee, a former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor, said during a recent gathering at The Daily.

"I say, 'Did you know that the top 5 percent of kids in America, the top five — the ones that are going to Choate and Andover and all these great places, they are 25th out of 30 nations, compared to their global counterparts?''

Could Rhee have gotten her numbers from Klein's researchers over at Fox News, where they simply make it up when the facts don't support their agenda? Michelle certainly did not get them from the most recent international test comparison (PISA) published by OECD, which has been all over the media since early December.

As reported by the NYTimes, the Program for International Student Assessment shows the only slight improvement overall to the mediocre U. S. results in 2006.  In Math in 2009, the U. S. was placed 31th of 32 nations; in Reading, the U. S. finished 17th; in Science, 23rd.  So what's wrong with Rhee's averaging out sort of to get 25th?

Rhee's claim is that the top 5% of students have these low scores, when, in fact, they do not.  Not even close.  OECD disaggregates scores based on percentile rankings, and here are the results below, for reading, math, and science. Contrary to Rhee's lie, our top students 10% (90th percentil of students outscore any nation and the Chinese city-state, Shanghai.  When you look at the top 5% of American students (95th percentile), these kids leave the rest of the world in the dust in reading, math, and science. Click any of the charts to enlarge.

In reading, top-scoring Shanghai scored 556.  As you can see, our top 25% bested that score.

 

In math, top-scoring Shanghai scored 600.  Our top 10% of students beat this score by 7 points, and our top 5% of students, Ms. Rhee, beat the best in the world by 37 points.

 

Shanghai, again, was top scorer in science, too, with a score of 575.  Our top students, again, leave these scores in the dust.

Unfortunately, the U. S. is tops in another category, and that is in the percentage of students living in poverty--21.7%.  And as this other chart below from Highlights From PISA 2009 shows, poverty levels are directly correlated to PISA scores, here in reading:

And so, we come back to what it would take to make the U. S. #1 in international test scores.  Rather than tearing down our public schools in urban America and replacing them with penal pedagogy testing camps, we would be much better served all round to use our resources to get our bottom quintile of children out of poverty.  This would do more to raise their test scores and hopes, along our nation's moral standing, than any increasingly-stupid  and outdated corporate education reform that can be pounded into place by the hard white fists of reactionary reformers.  The hacks and has-beens who make up these lies to promote the takeover of our schools by anti-democratic corporate swindlers should be ashamed.  Then they should be tarred and feathers and ridden out of town on rail, or at least a broom.

For further analysis, go to this piece by the NAASP.  Here are some facts that should be introduced the next time you get a chance to hear Michelle Rhee start spouting her vitriolic falsehood:

·      Of all the nations participating in the PISA assessment, the U.S. has, by far, the largest number of students living in poverty--21.7%. The next closest nations in terms of poverty levels are the United Kingdom and New Zealand have poverty rates that are 75% of ours.

·      U.S. students in schools with 10% or less poverty are number one country in the world.

·      U.S. students in schools with 10-24.9% poverty are third behind Korea, and Finland.

·      U.S. students in schools with 25-50% poverty are tenth in the world.

·      U.S. students in schools with greater than 50% poverty are near the bottom.

PISA Scores Show U.S. Should Export Poor Children

The following post, "It's the Poverty Not Stupid," from the Principal Difference should be required reading for every education writer in the country and every politician who is likely to be approached by one of the self-serving corporate leeches out to destroy public schools and get fat in the process.

The release of the 2009 PISA results this past week has created quite a stir and has provided ample fodder for public school bashers and doomsayers who further their own philosophical and profit-motivated agendas by painting all public schools as failing. For whatever reason, these so-called experts, many of whom have had little or no actual exposure to public schools, refuse to paint an accurate picture of the state of education. 

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, should be providing the nation with a proper vision and focus for public education. He knows our challenges all too well. He confirmed that he gets it when he recently wrote me saying, "We must build a culture nationally where great educators ... choose to work with children and communities who need the most help." I believe his message is sincere and heartfelt and it is spot on. However, overstating a problem in order to increase the sense of urgency around school improvement is just as bad as understating the problem. 

This week, Duncan had a golden opportunity to use the PISA results to provide focus for our education efforts and to point us in the right direction. Instead, he dug himself deeper into the pseudo-reformers' hole--more charter schools, more reliance on competition and free-market strategies, more testing, more use of test scores to evaluate teachers, more firing of principals and teachers, more closing of low-scoring schools--when he said, "the PISA scores released this past Tuesday were "a massive wake-up call," because the scores show American students holding relatively steady in the middle of the pack of the developed nations taking the international exam.

There is, however, someone who recognizes that the data is being misinterpreted.  NEAToday published remarks from National Association of Secondary School Principals Executive Director, Dr. Gerald N. Tirozzi, that have taken "a closer look at how the U.S. reading scores on PISA compared with the rest of the world’s, overlaying it with the statistics on how many of the tested students are in the government’s free and reduced lunch program for students below the poverty line." Tirozzi pointed out, “Once again, we’re reminded that students in poverty require intensive supports to break past a condition that formal schooling alone cannot overcome.” Tirozzi demonstrates the correlation between socio-economic status and reading by presenting the PISA scores in terms of individual American schools and poverty.  While the overall PISA rankings ignore such differences in the tested schools, when groupings based on the rate of free and reduced lunch are created, a direct relationship is established. 

 

Free and Reduced Meal Rate	PISA Score
Schools with < 10%	551
Schools with 10-24.9%	527
Schools with 25-49.9%	502
Schools with 49.9-74.9%	471
Schools with >75%	446
U.S. average	500
OECD average	493

With strong evidence that increased poverty results in lower PISA scores the next question to be asked is what are the poverty rates of the countries being tested?  (Listed below are the countries that were tested by PISA along with available poverty rates. Some nations like Korea do not report poverty rates.)

Country	Poverty Rate	PISA Score
Denmark	2.4%	495
Finland	3.4%	536
Norway	3.6%	503
Belgium	6.7%	506
Switzerland	6.8%	501
Czech Republic	7.2%	478
France	7.3%	496
Netherlands	9.0%	508
Germany	10.9%	497
Australia	11.6%	515
Greece	12.4%	483
Hungary	13.1%	494
Austria	13.3%	471
Canada	13.6%	524
Japan	14.3%	520
Poland	14.5%	500
Portugal	15.6%	489
Ireland	15.7%	496
Italy	15.7%	486
United Kingdom	16.2%	494
New Zealand	16.3%	521
United States	21.7%	500

Leveling the playing field

A more accurate assessment of the performance of U.S. students would be obtained by comparing the scores of American schools with comparable poverty rates to those of other countries. 

Schools in the United States with less than a 10% poverty rate had a PISA score of 551.  When compared to the ten countries with similar poverty numbers, that score ranked first.  

Country	Poverty Rate	PISA Score
United States	<10%	551
Finland	3.4%	536
Netherlands	9.0%	508
Belgium	6.7%	506
Norway	3.6%	503
Switzerland	6.8%	501
France	7.3%	496
Denmark	2.4%	495
Czech Republic	7.2%	478

In the next category (10-24.9%) the U.S. average of 527 placed first out of the ten comparable nations. 

Country	Poverty Rate	PISA Score
United States	10%-24.9%	527
Canada	13.6%	524
New Zealand	16.3%	521
Japan	14.3%	520
Australia	11.6%	515
Poland	14.5%	500
Germany	10.9%	497
Ireland	15.7%	496
Hungary	13.1%	494
United Kingdom	16.2%	494
Portugal	15.6%	489
Italy	15.7%	486
Greece	12.4%	483
Austria	13.3%	471

For the remaining U.S. schools, their poverty rates over 25% far exceed any other country tested.  However, when the U.S. average of 502 for poverty rates between 25-49.9% is compared with other countries it is still in the upper half of the scores

Mathematically Speaking

The results of the latest PISA testing should raise serious concerns.  However, the overall ranking of 14th in reading is not the reason to be concerned. The problem is not as much with our educational system as it is with our high poverty rates. The real crisis is the level of poverty in too many of our schools and the relationship between poverty and student achievement. Our lowest achieving schools are the most under-resourced schools with the highest number of disadvantaged students. We cannot treat these schools in the same way that we would schools in more advantaged neighborhoods or we will continue to get the same results. The PISA results point out that the U.S. is not alone in facing the challenge of raising the performance of disadvantaged students.

U.S. % Poverty	Other Countries	PISA Score
U.S. (<10%)		551
	Korea	539
	Finland	536
U.S. (10-24.9%)		527
	Canada	524
	New Zealand	521
	Japan	520
	Australia	515
	Netherlands	508
	Belgium	506
	Norway	503
U.S. (25-49.9%)		502
	Estonia	501
	Switzerland	501
	Poland	500
	Iceland	500
U.S. (Average)		500
	Sweden	497
	Germany	497
	Ireland	496
	France	496
	Denmark	495
	United Kingdom	494
	Hungary	494
	Portugal	489
	Italy	486
	Slovenia	483
	Greece	483
	Spain	481
	Czech Republic	478
	Slovak Republic	477
	Israel	474
	Luxembourg	472
U.S. (50-74.9%)		471
	Austria	471
	Turkey	464
	Chile	449
U.S. (over 75%)		446
	Mexico	425

Additional observations from PISA results:

·      Shanghai, China topped the list with 55

6 but is not included in this analysis because Shanghai is a city not a country and because only 35% of Chinese students ever enter high school and because "when you spend all your time preparing for tests, and when students are selected based on their test-taking abilities, you get outstanding test scores."

·      Of all the nations participating in the PISA assessment, the U.S. has, by far, the largest number of students living in poverty--21.7%. The next closest nations in terms of poverty levels are the United Kingdom and New Zealand have poverty rates that are 75% of ours.

·      U.S. students in schools with 10% or less poverty are number one country in the world.

·      U.S. students in schools with 10-24.9% poverty are third behind Korea, and Finland.

·      U.S. students in schools with 25-50% poverty are tenth in the world.

·      U.S. students in schools with greater than 50% poverty are near the bottom.

·      There were other surprises. Germany with less than half our poverty, scored below the U.S. as did France with less than a third our poverty and Sweden with a low 3.6% poverty rate.

·      Having recently listened to Sir Michael Barber talk about the amazing progress of the reforms in the United Kingdom, I was absolutely shocked to see that the UK, with 25% less poverty, scored below the U.S. average.

The Real Meaning of PISA: It's Poverty Not Stupid

If the so-called experts would have honestly and responsibly reported the PISA results, we might now be on the road to responsible school improvement instead continuing down the road of "reform de jour."

President Bill Clinton is famous for his campaign slogan, "It's the economy stupid!" When it comes to student achievement and school improvement, it's poverty not stupid! Researchers report that perhaps the only true linear relationship in the social sciences is the relationship between poverty and student performance. While there is no relationship between poverty and ability, the relationship between poverty and achievement is almost foolproof. To deny that poverty is a factor to be overcome as opposed to an excuse is to deny the reality that all educators, human services workers, law enforcement officers, medical professionals and religious clergy know and have known for years.

PISA reports average scores. The problem is that the U.S. is not average. While the U.S. is the top country in global competitiveness, we also have the highest percentage of students living in poverty and, regretfully, poverty impacts test scores.

To Secretary Duncan, poverty is not an issue that educators must address. At least he won't admit it in public. Apparently, he wants to take away all the excuses from teachers and principals. When I met with Duncan, I asked him if he had read the book or seen the movie, Blind Side. He indicated that he had and that he had enjoyed it very much. I reminded him of the pride and sense of accomplishment felt by the teachers in the private school attended by Michael Oher. In their minds, they had performed a miracle. I pointed out that, in high-poverty schools, a Michael Oher is the average student. In schools like ours we have hundreds of students like Michael Oher who depend on our school for everything including food, clothing, and emotional support.

The Bottom Line

School improvement is not an event. It is an ongoing process that has no end. As a principal, parents and community members would repeatedly ask me, "When can we stop our comprehensive school-wide literacy initiative? I would answer, "We will stop emphasizing reading, writing, thinking and speaking when our parents repeatedly complain that their children are reading too fast with comprehension that is too high and when our students' writing skills are so superior that they are regularly winning Pulitzers and other literary awards." Smiles would erupt throughout the audience. They got it. They understood that literacy skills can always be improved and so can our schools.

There are three compelling reasons why we must improve our schools:

1. We have a moral and ethical obligation to provide every student with the best education, the kind of education that we would want for our own children.
2. In a knowledge economy, the country with the best-educated populace will have the highest standard of living.
3. Every dropout as well as every graduate who is not prepared for at least some post-secondary education and training is and will continue to be an economic and social burden on their local community and on this nation for their entire life.

The challenge of ensuring that each and every student is a life-long learner prepared to contribute in a global community is daunting enough. We don't need more hyperbole, particularly from those education insiders who should know better. For those of us who are deeply committed to improving the performance of every student, this rhetoric is counterproductive because it seriously erodes our ability to hire teachers, obtain resources, and gain the confidence and support of our communities.

We count on our leaders to provide focus and direction. Sadly, our education leaders don't trust us enough to tell us the truth. The problem is that we will never solve a problem that our leaders refuse to admit even exists. The comparison of PISA scores by poverty clearly identifies our strengths and challenges as a nation. Our schools with less than 50% poverty) are some of the best in the world. Our extremely high-poverty schools, with over 50% poverty, are among the poorest performing internationally. 

Instead of labeling all schools as failing, we must find a way to raise the performance of our students in under-resourced schools. Instead of looking to low-poverty countries like Finland for direction, we should be looking to take what we already know about educating students in high-performing, high-poverty schools like our Breakthrough Schools and scaling up their successes across the nation. We continually look for gold in other countries when, all along, we are sitting on Acres of Diamonds.

Truthfully, you and I know all too well that Secretary Duncan, who led schools in Chicago, is aware of the relationship between poverty and student achievement, but he doesn't trust us enough to tell us the truth. He is afraid that we will use poverty as an excuse and that we will forget about our disadvantaged students. Ironically, by not acknowledging poverty as a challenge to be overcome, Duncan is forgetting about our disadvantaged students. Duncan needs to deliver the message that all our students deserve not only access to an education, but access to an excellent education. He needs to repeatedly remind us that, when it comes to school improvement, it's poverty not stupid.

Posted by Mel Riddile