The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which oversees the Program in International Student Assessment (PISA), has released a lengthy study comparing the nations that take the PISA test.

 

The conclusions of the report confirm what almost everyone knows: the students with the lowest test scores are those who live in poverty, those who have an immigrant background, and those who live in a single-parent home (which is usually a female parent, who usually lacks the income to support the family). These findings are not surprising.

 

How does the US compare? Apparently there have been no changes in reading scores since 2003—despite No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and their heavy emphasis on reading and math. There were some gains in science, which is surprising since science was not a priority subject for either of the  big federal programs.

 

 

So how does the U.S. stack up when it comes to low-performing students? Here are the results from the 2012 PISA exam – the most recent date it was administered:

 

In math, 26 percent of students were low performers compared with the OECD average of 23 percent.
In reading, 17 percent were low performers compared with the OECD average of 18 percent.
In science, 18 percent were low performers compared with the OECD average of 18 percent.
And 12 percent were low performers in all three subjects compared with the OECD average of 12 percent.
Notably, the share of low performers in math and in reading in the U.S. has not changed since the 2003 PISA test, but the share of low performers in science decreased by about 6 percentage points between 2000 and 2012….

 

Internationally, the study found that:

 

The probability of low performance in math, for example, is higher for students if they are socioeconomically disadvantaged, female, have an immigrant background, speak a different language at home from the language of instruction, live in a single-parent family, attend school in a rural area, have not attended preschool, have repeated a grade or have enrolled in a vocational program.

 

 

What conclusions does Andreas Schleicher, the director of PISA, reach?

 

 

One facet could be increasing access to early childhood education, through which “countries have been able to really make a big difference,” Schleicher said. Other policies that have had a big impact on student achievement include improving training and professional development for teachers and boosting the rigor of academic standards.

 

“The U.S. recently adopted the Common Core,” Schleicher said of the academic benchmarks being used in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. “That has happened in many countries, and we can actually see a big impact on this.”

 

In what way will the increased “rigor of academic standards” help low-income students who are already far behind? How will it help students who live in single-parent homes, or homes where no one speaks the local language? Will Common Core reduce poverty or change the circumstances of children’s lives? I wish he would explain his logic.