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What International Test Scores Tell Us

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Abstract

Thirty years of warnings have not been realized that American students’ low performance on international tests threatens U.S. economic growth . Average national scores on a single test in a single year are inaccurate guides to educational policy. They hide differences in the social class composition of national samples and differences in how disadvantaged and advantaged students in each country perform over time. Further, in a large country such as the United States, where states are in charge of educational systems, performance by students of similar social class background on international tests varies greatly among states. Our examination of international test results finds that U.S. relative performance would seem to be better if U.S. social class composition were similar to that of comparison nations; that U.S. performance on international tests that are aligned with the U.S. curriculum is superior to performance on unaligned tests; and that disadvantaged students in the U.S. have been making more rapid gains than disadvantaged students in nations with higher score levels. All this should make policy makers cautious in jumping to conclusions about the shortcomings of U.S. schools and how to improve them. ᅟ

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Notes

  1. The present article was prepared by the authors in August, 2013 for Society. PISA was again administered in 2012, with results scheduled for release in December, 2013, too late for us to describe policymakers’ reactions, or to analyze the scores themselves, for inclusion here.

  2. Full reports on this examination can be found in Carnoy and Rothstein (2013), and Carnoy and Rothstein (2014).

  3. The actual breakdowns for books in the home are: Group 1: 10 or fewer books; Group 2: 11–25 books; Group 3: 26–100 books; Group 4: 101–200 books; Group 5: 201–500 books; Group 6: more than 500 books.

  4. Throughout this article, we consider changes of less than 8 points on the PISA scale, and less than 7 points on the TIMSS scale to be too small to be considered meaningful.

Further Reading

  • Baker, N. 2013. “A Fourth State of Matter. Inside South Korea’s LCD Revolution.” The New Yorker, July 8 & 15.

  • Cameron, S. V., Heckman J. J. 1993. “The Nonequivalence of High School Equivalents.” Journal of Labor Economics 11 (1), pt. 1, January, 1–47.

  • Carnoy, M. Rothstein R. 2015. (forthcoming). What Do International Tests Really Show about U.S. Student Performance and about State Variation in that Performance? Washington, D.C.: The Economic Policy Institute.

  • Carnoy, M., & Rothstein, R. 2013. What Do International Tests Really Show about U.S. Student Performance? Washington, D.C: The Economic Policy Institute.

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  • Friedman, T. 2009. “Swimming without a Suit.” The New York Times, April 22. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/opinion/22friedman.html.

  • Hanushek, E. A., Jamison, D. T., Jamison E. A, Woessman L. 2008. “Education and Economic Growth.” Education Next 8 (2), Spring: 62–70

  • McKinsey and Company. 2009. Detailed Findings on the Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools. April. http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/detailed_achievement_gap_findings.pdf.

  • OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), & Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). 2010. PISA 2009 Results. What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics, and Science (Vol. I). Paris: OECD.

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  • Rothstein, R. 2004. Class and Schools. Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. New York: Teachers College Press. http://www.epi.org/publication/books_class_and_schools/.

  • Rothstein, R. 2013. For Public Schools, Segregation Then, Segregation Since. Education and the Unfinished March. Washington, D.C.: The Economic Policy Institute. http://www.epi.org/publication/unfinished-march-public-school-segregation.

  • Summers, L. H. 2013. “Forward.”. In E. A. Hanushek, P. E. Peterson, & L. Woessmann (Eds.), Endangering Prosperity. A Global View of the American School. Washington, D.C: The Brookings Institution.

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Correspondence to Martin Carnoy.

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Carnoy, M., Rothstein, R. What International Test Scores Tell Us. Soc 52, 122–128 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-015-9869-3

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