The Amazing Truth about PISA Scores

USA beats Western Europe, ties Asia

An interesting discussion on demography and America's international standing in education...

This from SuperEconomy:

...once we correct (even crudely) for demography in the 2009 PISA scores, American students outperform Western Europe by significant margins and tie with Asian students...

...We all know that Asian students beat Americans students, which "proves" that they must have a better education system. This inference is considered common sense among public intellectuals. Well, [except] for the fact that Asian kids in the American school system actually score slightly better than Asian kids in North-East-Asia!

So maybe it’s not that there is something magical about Asian schools, and has more to do with the extraordinary focus on education in Asian culture, with their self-discipline and with their favorable home environment...

The simplest thing to do in order to get an apples-to-apples comparison is to at least correct for demography and cultural background.

SuperEconomy takes issue with Libertarian claims that the United States public school system (which has more than 90% of all US students) is a disaster. They blame this on government control and on teachers unions. However...top scoring Finland has government schools and strong teacher unions, just like California. He takes shots at on Euro-minded Liberals too.

New Study Shows Selective Use of Data and Political Bias in International Test

This from the Brookings Institute:

A new report from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution finds serious flaws in a prominent international test and concludes that the test should not be used as a benchmark for state assessments.

The report zeroes in on an international testing program known as PISA, short for the Programme for International Student Assessment, which is administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Although the United States participates in PISA, Tom Loveless, senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy and author of the new study, said it has generally "flown below the radar" in this country. That may soon change, however, as the National Governor’s Association, backed by other powerful groups in Washington, pushes for states to use PISA as an international benchmark of student performance. Loveless concludes that without major reform, serious deficiencies in PISA’s approach to student assessment make it "inappropriate for benchmarking against U.S. tests." ...

The report aso finds encouraging progress in big city districts, despite continued achievement gaps

Assessment Standards Deja Vu ....All Over Again

Early in 2001 when NCLB was beginning to unleash its "new and improved" assessment requirements on our nation's schools, I expressed my fears to the Herald-Leader this way:

Richard Day, principal of Cassidy Elementary School in Fayette County, fears another test will create a "crazy quilt of assessment.""I would like to see a seamless, comprehensive testing system that flows from local to state [to] federal levels; that doesn't interfere with each other," Day said. "I'm afraid that what we're going to get instead is just another test layered on top of what we already have."

So please forgive me for reacting to this lead from an Education Week (subscription) story this week.

Is it possible that Kentucky's assessment problems might be improved, in part, by international standards?

Benchmarks Momentum on Increase
Governors’ group, state chiefs eyeing international yardsticks.

No longer content with the patchwork quilt of assessments used to measure states’ K-12 performance, top policy groups are pushing states toward international benchmarking as a way to better prepare students for a competitive global economy.

The National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and
the standards-advocacy group Achieve are working both independently and together to examine how well states are doing compared with other countries and to weigh which yardsticks would prove most useful. It remains to be decided whether states would participate in well-established international tests such as the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, or would measure their academic standards against those of other countries...

The PISA covers math, science, and reading literacy, is given to 15-year-olds in 69 countries, and focuses on problem-solving and work- & college-ready skills. In 2006, American students ranked lower 17th out of 30 in science and fifth from the bottom in math.

• NGA wants to present the case for international benchmarking to the governors this summer.
• NGA & CCSSO are recruiting states for participation in PISA.
• 32 states presently work with Achieve to align with international standards.
• Some fear that comparisons based on international standards would be overly sensitive to poverty in a state rather than the quality of its teachers.
• International workforce competitiveness is a concern for governors who see big jumps in the number of post-secondary degrees in other countries.
• Former Kentucky Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit is now the executive director of the CCSSO.

But with many parents, teachers and legislators suffering from assessment fatigue already, as demonstrated by passage of Senate Bill 1, the idea of international standards might cause a political meltdown.