The release of the latest test results from the Program for International Student Assessment is big news overseas as most nations consider how well their teenagers are performing scholastically. The news has been a little quieter here in the US, perhaps because our 15 year olds perform below average on two of the three areas tested. You can get full coverage at the National Center for Education Statistics site where the measures, spread, and various percentages are cut open for examination but the big picture is not a very optimistic one. The Results by country or regional (some regions were assessed independently) ranking looks something like this:
1 Shanghai
2 Singapore
3 Hong Kong
4 Taiwan
5 S. Korea
6 Macau-China
7 Japan
8 Lichenstein
9 Switzerland
10 Netherlands
11 Estonia
12 Finland
13 Canada
14 Poland
15 Belgium
16 Germany
17 Vietnam
18 Austria
19 Australia
20 Ireland
As you can see, there’s a strong Asian, then European domination of the top 20, with Canada being the only country represented from the Americas. The US ranked 36th overall. Within the US, several states were assessed independently, with Florida scoring below average on 2/3 areas also though Mass did a little better. Just looking at OECD countries, the US ranked 26/34 on Math. Sobering, is how some are describing it. Or as one way on the Washington post comments section noted ‘at least we’re tops in football’….I’m fairly sure he did not mean soccer.