School Board News

The 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results were released today and since there was a ton of data to go through BoardBuzz asked our own Center for Public Education to give their take on how U.S. 15-year olds compare to their peers in other countries in reading, math, and science.

Here is what the Center found:

Across each of the three subjects the results were quite positive. In reading the U.S. outperformed the majority of OECD countries. In math and science the U.S. made significant improvements. However, the U.S. needs to maintain or accelerate these gains to catch up the highest performing countries like Korea, Finland, and Canada.

Reading Literacy

• U.S. 15-year olds compare favorably to their international peers in reading literacy.
  • The U.S. outperformed or performed as well as all but 6 OECD countries in reading literacy. These countries include Korea, Finland and Canada.
  • The U.S. outperformed 13 OECD countries and performed similarly to 14 other OECD countries.
• The U.S. scored no different in their overall reading literacy score from the average of the 34 OECD participating countries.
  • The U.S. did score above the OECD average in the Reflect and Evaluate subscale.
  • The U.S. scored no different than the OECD average on the other two reading literacy subscales—Access and Retrieve and Integrate and Interpret.
• Although U.S. students compare favorably to their peers there as been basically no improvement over the past decade.
  • There were no significant differences in reading literacy scores between 2000 and 2009 or between 2003 and 2009.
  • However, more than half the OECD countries that participated in PISA in both 2000 and 2009 saw their scores decline over this time period including high performing countries like Canada (-10), Finland (-10), and Japan (-2).
• U.S. has a similar percentage of high performing readers.
  • 30 percent of U.S. 15-year olds scored at PISA’s level 4 or above which is similar to the OECD average.
    • PISA states that level 4 is the level at which students are “capable of difficult reading tasks, such as locating embedded information, construing meaning from nuances of language and critically evaluating a text.”
  • Only 7 countries had a higher percentage of high performers
  • 14 countries had a lower percentage and 12 had a similar percentage.
• No other country has a significantly smaller female-male reading literacy gap than the U.S.
  • In the U.S. females outscore their male counterparts by 25 points while in Canada the gap is 34 points, in Japan it is 39 points, Korea is 35 points, and Finland had the largest gap at 55 points.
• Results show large disparity among different student groups with the U.S..  
  • White student’s average score was 525 which is similar to the average score in Canada.
  • Black student’s scored just 441 which is similar to the average score in Chile.
  • Hispanic student’s scored just 466 which is similar to the average score in Turkey.

Mathematics Literacy

• The U.S. has improved its performance significantly.
  • From 2006 to 2009 the U.S. improved its performance by 13 points.
    • Improvement was made by students across all achievement levels, both high, low, and average achieving students.
  • Only 4 countries made greater gains during this time period (Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Czech Republic).
  • Nearly half of all OECD countries scored lower in 2009 than in 2006.
  • Top performing Japan, Korea, and Canada didn’t have any significant changes in their scores.
• However, U.S. students do not compare favorably to their international peers on their overall mathematics literacy.
  • The U.S. overall mathematics score was below the OECD average.
  • U.S. 15-year olds were outperformed by 17 of the 33 other OECD countries including Korea, Finland, Japan, Canada, Germany, and France.
    • The U.S did outperform 5 OECD countries
    • Eleven OECD countries performed similarly to the U.S.
• The U.S. has a lower percentage of high performing students than the average OECD country.
  • In the U.S. 27 percent of students scored at or above PISA’s level 4 compared to the OECD average of 32 percent.
    • PISA defines level 4 as the level at which students can complete higher order tasks such as “solving problems that involve visual and spatial reasoning…in unfamiliar contexts” and “carrying out sequential processes.”
  • Sixteen OECD countries had a higher percentage of students scoring at level 4 or above.
    • Korea had the highest percentage at 52 percent while Canada had 43 percent and Japan had 49 percent.
  • Five OECD countries had a lower percentage and 12 OECD countries had a similar percentage.

Science Literacy

• The U.S. has improved its performance significantly.
  • From 2006 to 2009 the U.S. improved its performance by 13 points.
    • Improvement was made by average and below average performing students while higher performing students’ scores remained steady.
  • Only 4 countries made greater gains during this time period (Italy, Korea, Portugal, and Turkey).
  • Nearly half of all OECD countries scored lower in 2009 than in 2006 including Canada (-5), Finland (-9), and the United Kingdom (-1).
• The U.S performance improved from below the OECD average in 2006 to similar to the OECD average in 2009.
  • U.S. 15-year olds were outperformed by 12 of the 33 other OECD countries including Korea, Finland, Japan, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
    • The U.S did outperform 9 OECD countries
    • 12 OECD countries performed similarly to the U.S.
• The U.S. has a similar percentage of high performing students as the average OECD country.
  • In the U.S. 29 percent of students scored at or above PISA’s level 4 compared to the OECD average of 32 percent.
    • PISA defines level 4 as the level at which students can complete higher order tasks such as “selecting and integrating explanations from different disciplines of science or technology and linking those explanations directly to…life situations.”
  • 13 OECD countries had a higher percentage of students scoring at level 4 or above.
    • Finland had the highest percentage at 50 percent while Canada had 38 percent and Korea had 42 percent.
  • 11 OECD countries had a lower percentage and 9 OECD countries had a similar percentage.

For more information about PISA and other international assessments of student achievement check out the Center’s More than a horse race: A guide to international tests of student achievement.