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By Dr. Harry Tennant
Tuesday, December 7, 2010 In The News: International Student Assessment Results Released My posts have been pretty heavy on accountability and standards development of late. Now, for international developments. Today, The Department of Education at Ed.gov addressed the results of an international test administered every three years to 15-year old students in many countries. The number of countries participating (see the map at the bottom of this post) has grown each testing cycle. Other such international assessment administrations and/or comparisons are growing in prominence as well. Notice the ones mentioned at the bottom of the introduction to PISA. I intend to review a number of those here on this blog in the coming months. As we have come to anticipate, on such international measures the United States ranks a solid mediocre. On this one, typically between 22nd-24th in the world. Incidentally, my next post after this will be my first ever re-post. It was a November 11th post I titled: "Ranking American Schools Internationally." See what you think. Obviously, opinions (comments) are welcome! Below is the entire news release in the name of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  So, that led me to find out more about the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. To quote: PISA assesses the application of knowledge in reading, mathematics, and science literacy to problems within a real-life context (OECD 1999). PISA uses the term “literacy” in each subject area to denote its broad focus on the application of knowledge and skills. For example, when assessing reading, PISA assesses how well 15-year-old students can understand, use, and reflect on written text for a variety of purposes and settings. In science, PISA assesses how well students can apply scientific knowledge and skills to a range of different situations they may encounter in their lives. Likewise, in mathematics, PISA assesses how well students analyze, reason, and interpret mathematical problems in a variety of situations. Scores on the PISA scales represent skill levels along a continuum of literacy skills. PISA provides ranges of proficiency levels associated with scores that describe what a student can typically do at each level (OECD 2006). The assessment of 15-year-old students allows countries to compare outcomes of learning as students near the end of compulsory schooling. PISA’s goal is to answer the question “What knowledge and skills do students have at age 15?” In this way, PISA’s achievement scores represent a “yield” of learning at age 15, rather than a direct measure of attained curriculum knowledge at a particular grade level. Fifteen year-old students participating in PISA from the United States and other countries are drawn from a range of grade levels. Sixty-nine percent of the U.S. students were enrolled in grade 10, and another 20 percent were enrolled in grade 11 (table 2). In addition to participating in PISA, the United States has for many years conducted assessments of student achievement at a variety of grade levels and in a variety of subject areas through the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). These studies differ from PISA in terms of their purpose and design (see appendix D). NAEP reports information on the achievement of U.S. students using nationally established benchmarks of performance (i.e., basic, proficient, and advanced), based on the collaborative input of a wide range of experts and participants from government, education, business, and public sectors in the United States. Furthermore, the information is used to monitor progress in achievement over time, specific to U.S. students. To provide a critical external perspective on the mathematics, science, and reading achievement of U.S. students, the United States participates in PISA as well as TIMSS and PIRLS. TIMSS provides the United States with information on the mathematics and science achievement of 4th- and 8th-grade U.S. students compared to students in other countries. PIRLS allows the United States to make international comparisons of the reading achievement of students in the fourth grade. TIMSS and PIRLS seek to measure students’ mastery of specific knowledge, skills, and concepts and are designed to broadly reflect curricula in the United States and other participating countries; in contrast, PISA does not focus explicitly on curricular outcomes but rather on the application of knowledge to problems in a real-life context. The above description of PISA is contained in this 72-page pdf document, as is the map below: Highlights From PISA 2009: Performance of U.S. 15-Year Old Students In Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy in an International Context. The complete results for the 2009 PISA (in six volumes) are available on the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development website here:  This map shows which countries participated in the 2009 PISA.  Posted at 1:48 PM Keywords: International Assessment , Assessment 0 Comments |