The United States Ranks #36 in PISA Worldwide Testing!

The United States has fallen from the top, we no longer top of the charts for education. In fact, we aren’t even close to the top, for math we don’t fall into the top 25 for reading we aren’t in the top 15. Over all, we fall at #36! These numbers were derived from “The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy” (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/). 
So what does this mean? Here is a break down of the results from educationbythenumbers.org

• The United States has a below average share of top performers in mathematics. Only 2% of students in the United States reached the highest level (Level 6) of performance in mathematics, compared with an OECD average of 3% and 31% of students in Shanghai, the top performing entity in this year’s PISA test.

• Students at the 90th percentile in the United States — the very top — are below the average student in Shanghai. Top U.S. students scored 600 in math. The average score in Shanghai was 613. (Click on chart at the top right of the page to see this in more detail).

•  Massachusetts, the top performing state in the nation, did not come close to the top 10 in math. Their 15 year olds scored a 514 in mathematics, placing the state even with Germany at number 16. (To put this in context, Germany is alarmed by how low its PISA scores are.) Massachusetts did prove better in reading. Only three education systems scored higher.

•  Poverty rates alone do not explain low U.S. test scores. In a telephone briefing, Andres Schleicher explained that the OECD attempted to adjust test scores for income and put all the students of the world on a level playing field. It turns out that the US has slightly lower poverty and diversity than other OECD countries on average. The average U.S. test score dropped after making this adjustment.

• There is also a problem at the bottom end in the United States. The scores of low-income Americans are exceedingly low. The U.S. has a higher percentage of kids that can’t even hit the lowest levels on the math tests than other OECD countries do on average. So, it is true that the scores of poor U.S. students are dragging the average down. Still, absent poor students, U.S. scores would still be low

Many people believe that our test scores are brought down by our low income Americans. Although these students are bringing the average down they are not our reason for falling to #36. There is an achievement gap and the low income students are not performing well, even our top performing students are not ranking well. 

To find read more information:

http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/top-us-students-fare-poorly-international-pisa-test-scores-shanghai-tops-world-finland-slips_693/

http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/top-us-students-fare-poorly-international-pisa-test-scores-shanghai-tops-world-finland-slips_693/