China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Test struggles
Math scores of American teens drop while science and reading remain flat.
years once again affirms our belief that the US would be well served to take a hard look at the strategies used by the top-performing education systems and adapt lessons learned from them to fit theUS context and needs,” says Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. “It is critical to look not only at their average high performance, but also at the strategies they use to achieve much greater equity across and within schools compared to the United States.”
Other findings
Globally, gender differences in science tended to be smaller than in reading and math. But, on average, in 33 countries and economies, the share of top performers in science is larger among boys than among girls. Finland was the only country where girls were more likely to be top performers than boys.
Across OECD countries, on average, the gender gap in reading in favor of girls narrowed by 12 points between 2009 and 2015.
Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico participated as international benchmarking systems and received separate scores from the United States. Massachusetts’s average scores were higher than the US and the international average scores in science, math and reading. North Carolina’s average scores were not statistically different from the U.S. average scores for all three subjects. And Puerto Rico’s average scores were lower than both the average US scores and the international average scores for all three subjects.
About the test and comparisons
The PISA test is conducted every three years. Schools in each country are randomly selected, and OECD says the selection of schools and students is kept as inclusive as possible so that student samples are drawn from a broad range of backgrounds and abilities.
Another international test, known as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, had similar international comparisons with Asian countries solidly outperforming American students. That test, though, administered every four years to a random sampling of younger students in dozens of countries, had eighth graders in the US improving their scores in math, up nine points. Scores for science, however, were flat. In fourth grade, scores were unchanged in math and science.