U.S. Students Slide on International Measure
Joy Pullmann, The Heartland Institute
The latest international test scores, released Tuesday, show U.S. students sliding further behind their global counterparts in math, reading, and science.
On the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test administered every three years, U.S. students came in 20th in reading in 2012. In 2009, they were tenth. On math, U.S. students ranked 30th this year. In 2009, they ranked 24th. And in science, U.S. students were 23rd of the more than 65 countries tested, four below their 2009 ranking.
The results generated a raft of concerned statements.
“With all the available resources and innovation that occurs within the United States, it’s inexcusable that we have not yet embraced the necessary reforms to significantly boost student outcomes,” said Kara Kerwin, president of the Center for Education Reform (CER).
“Our kids trail…most of the industrialized world and lag far behind countries like Germany, Korea, Canada, and Australia, to say nothing of the broad grouping of East Asian countries at the top,” said Paul Peterson, who directs the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. “This embarrassing performance, unchanged even as politicians and citizens profess a keen interest in improving our schools, bodes poorly for the future economic security of the United States.”
Overall, U.S. students were at about the international average in reading and science and below-average in math. Connecticut, Florida, and Massachusetts chose to separate their results. Massachusetts and Connecticut ranked above average when compared internationally, while Florida was at the U.S. average.
High Spending, Mediocre Results
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development administers PISA to fifteen-year-olds across the world. OECD also found that the United States spends more than every country on K-12 education except for four. This means nearly all the countries whose students perform better than U.S. students spend less to get better results.
OECD’s report notes that the Slovak Republic performs at the same level as the United States, but spends an average of $62,000 less per student from age 6 to 15. The U.S. spends nearly $13,000 per K-12 student per year.
“Korea, the highest-performing OECD country in mathematics, spends well below the average per-student expenditure,” the report notes.
“This drop represents not only a threat to our economic competitiveness but also demonstrates that the system as it has been functioning for decades is no longer viable,” Kerwin said.
Choice and Information
Kerwin recommended that policy makers quickly give families more information and choices in education, reforms proven to improve student outcomes.
The results show “the dire need to entertain more radical changes in our stagnant schools: more choice, more performance pay, and more local decision-making,” said Eric Hanushek, a Hoover Institution senior fellow. “Each of these will help America’s kids, however, only if there is also a good system of standardized testing that identifies failing schools and holds them accountable. Then, when the next round of international test scores is released in 2016, we may finally have some genuine good news.”
