Strong Performers And Successful Reformers In Education Lessons From Pisa For The United States

This volume combines an analysis of PISA with a description of the policies and practices of those education systems that are close to the top or advancing rapidly, in order to offer insights for policy in the United States.

This report compares the performance of 15-year-olds in the United States in PISA against the global patterns and trends.

This volume combines an analysis of PISA with a description of the policies and practices of those education systems that are close to the top or advancing rapidly, in order to offer insights for policy in the United States.

This report presents a summary of the trends in Mexico’s performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and considers them in relation to the PISA target established by the Mexican government.

Andreas Schleicher - initiator of PISA and an international authority on education policy - offers a unique perspective on education reform.

This report presents the best current evidence about what can make teacher-oriented reforms effective and points to examples of reforms that have produced specific results, show promise or illustrate imaginative ways of implementing change.

The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role. This report notes that while the United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, its students are ill prepared to compete with their global peers. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science every three years, U.S. students rank fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. The lack of preparedness poses threats on five national security fronts: economic growth and competitiveness, physical safety, intellectual property, U.S. global awareness, and U.S. unity and cohesion, says the report. Too many young people are not employable in an increasingly high-skilled and global economy, and too many are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have an inadequate level of education. The report proposes three overarching policy recommendations: implement educational expectations and assessments in subjects vital to protecting national security; make structural changes to provide students with good choices; and, launch a "national security readiness audit" to hold schools and policymakers accountable for results and to raise public awareness.

This report presents examples that might be useful for Japan from other countries with consistently high-performing education systems.