U.S. test scores stagnant.

Posey, Lee

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Every three years, a half million students in 65 countries take an academic test called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The 2012 scores were recently announced, and overall, the U.S. results showed little change from 2009. The exam looks at math, science and reading skills and is given to a sample of 15-year-old students across the country. Only Connecticut, Florida and Massachusetts chose to participate as separate education systems and received comprehensive state-level results.

Fourteen countries and various parts of China had higher average scores in all three subjects than the United States: Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong-China, Ireland, Japan, Liechtenstein, Macao-China, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, Shanghai-China, Singapore and Switzerland. Only 2 percent of American students reached the highest levels of math achievement, while 26 percent of American students scored below standard in mathematics. "We're running in place and other countries are lapping us," says Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The U.S. performance does not necessarily reflect a lack of resources for education. Only Austria, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland spend more per student on education than does the United States.

One bright spot from the test results for the United States is that the achievement gap between high and low socioeconomic groups narrowed slightly between 2009 and 2012. And strong PISA scores by Brazil, Mexico and Turkey show that improvement is possible, even in countries with fewer educational resources. Overall, 40 countries improved their scores.

Andreas Schleicher of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which administers the test, says countries can do well in both educational excellence and equity. In fact, educational systems that invest their resources most equitably perform best, he says. Ultimately, the most important factor seems to be a commitment to universal achievement.

New Hampshire Representative Mary Stuart Gile (D) says she is interested in exploring how the highest-performing countries handle assessments. Many have only three assessments during a student's career (although they are high stakes), in contrast with the current movement in the United States to test students annually in grades three through eight and once in high school. She questions if so many tests are necessary in a time of limited resources.