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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Basics: U.S. Students Score About Average in OECD Testing Program

Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development carries out its Program for International Student Assessment, PISA. The 2009 edition covered 65 countries and focused on reading, but included test results for math and science as well. PISA tests students who are 15 years, 3 months old to 16 years, two months old to
assess the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies (PISA Results, Volume I, p. 19)
 In addition to the 34 OECD member nations, a further 31 "partner countries" take part. Some of these partners, such as Shanghai, were among the top performers, despite lower education budgets than in the OECD and wide socioeconomic disparities within them. In fact, Shanghai topped the list in all three categories (see below).

The U.S. scores on the high end of average in reading and science, and just below average in math. As the table below shows, America scores better than a few countries often thought of as more "socially advanced," such as Sweden. Though there is obviously room for improvement (and the PISA report discusses improved scores in countries as diverse as South Korea, Poland, Germany, and Brazil), the sky is not falling on U.S. education just yet.

In future posts, I plan to take up more education-related issues. Here, I wanted to show that the U.S. is not starting from as bad a baseline as it does, for example, in health care. Without further ado, here are the PISA scores for the top 50 countries:


Country
Reading Math Science





Shanghai-China
556 600 575
Korea
539 546 538
Finland
536 541 554
Hong Kong-China
533 555 549
Singapore
526 562 542
Canada
524 527 529
New Zealand
521 519 532
Japan
520 529 539
Australia
515 514 527
Netherlands
508 526 522
Belgium
506 515 507
Norway
503 498 500
Estonia
501 512 528
Switzerland
501 534 517
Poland
500 495 508
Iceland
500 507 496
United States
500 487 502
Liechtenstein
499 536 520
Sweden
497 494 495
Germany
497 513 520
Ireland
496 487 508
France
496 497 498
Chinese Taipei
495 543 520
Denmark
495 503 499
United Kingdom
494 492 514
Hungary
494 490 503
Portugal
489 487 493
Macao-China
487 525 511
Italy
486 483 489
Latvia
484 482 494
Slovenia
483 501 512
Greece
483 466 470
Spain
481 483 488
Czech Republic
478 493 500
Slovak Republic
477 497 490
Croatia
476 460 486
Israel
474 447 455
Luxembourg
472 489 484
Austria
470 496 494
Lithuania
468 477 491
Turkey
464 445 454
Dubai (UAE)
459 453 466
Russian Federation
459 468 478
Chile
449 421 447
Serbia
442 442 443
Bulgaria
429 428 439
Uruguay
426 427 427
Mexico
425 419 416
Romania
424 427 428
Thailand
421 419 425





Source: OECD, PISA 2009 Database



http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932343342



5 comments:

  1. Unclear why this is in any way constructive given that the US spends far more on education than any other nation per pupil, much as it spends far more on health care per person.

    Equally the PISA methodology is difficult to reconcile with statistically significant behavior differences especially in reading comprehension. If the tests are in fact in the native language, the composition of reading tests is a huge issue, one which likely affects the science category as well (math being relatively immune).

    Equally so the choice of testees is another item of huge methodological significance. Countries which restrict education at the higher levels would clearly be selecting for better students than countries with compulsory education at those same levels.

    I'd strongly suggest looking more closely through the details of PISA before making any sweeping judgements.

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  2. I thought China was a whole country not one industrialized city.

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  3. Notice Hong Kong and Shanghai are cities, not countries. I'm sure the researchers had good reason for singling out these two cities but not others. But I'm too dumb and lazy to guess. Can someone tell me why.

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  4. China is, of course, an entire country. Hong Kong has only been part of the PRC since 1997 and remains a special administrative zone. I think the simple answer to why only Shanghai and Hong Kong were tested is because it would overwhelm China's administrative resources to try to test in the vast, and vastly, poorer parts of the country. But remember, Shanghai and Hong Kong have populations that exceed those of the smaller OECD countries.

    I'd certainly be interested in seeing citations on critiques of the PISA methodology. Looking at the table, though, it seems that the math scores are pretty highly correlated with reading and science, so I'm not sure how much force there is to your comments about the composition of reading tests. I look forward to more suggestions on these points.

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  5. How are testees selected? Are they ONLY public school students or both public and private? Is this true in ALL countries? Why are the states of the USA not looked at as individual states as well as part of a nation?

    Many questions regarding validity and reliability of this test.

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