By Justin Hsieh
American students’ performances in reading, math and science have not improved in over a decade, showed an international exam designed to compare student abilities worldwide. The results have sparked alarm and debate among educators and politicians over the apparent failure of a decade of educational reform in the U.S.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is administered every three years by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to test students’ abilities in reading, math and science. The results of the PISA 2018, which was given to 15-year-old students in 79 countries and regions and had an emphasis on reading, were released last month.
The test placed American students slightly above average in reading and science, and below average in math. The key findings, however, were that the United States had no significant change in its reading, math and science scores since 2000, 2003 and 2006, respectively.
The results of the PISA 2018 were preceded several days earlier by the release of scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the biennial test conducted by the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. The NAEP showed declines in both eighth- and fourth-grade reading levels since 2017, and no significant difference in eighth-grade scores between 2019 and 1998.
The NAEP also saw low-achieving students hit disproportionately hard by score decreases, with students in the bottom, middle and top 10 percent of the results losing a respective average of six points, three points and one point on the test since 2017.
Together, the results of the NAEP 2019 and PISA 2018 have caused students, parents and educators alike to express concern about American education and search for causes of the disappointing scores.
Readers of the New York Times attributed the scores to overuse of technology, insufficient teacher pay, lack of support for families’ home environments, an inability to hold back failing students, uneven funding for public schools and an overemphasis on standardized testing.
Others saw the scores as indictments of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the bipartisan effort to strengthen and unify nationwide education standards introduced in 2010. The plan was adopted by over 40 states, but was rolled back or rebranded in many states after backlash from parents and criticism from both the left and right.
Still others, however, have argued that the PISA is not an all-encompassing or even valid measurement of educational quality or ability. Critics charge that the test has serious methodological flaws, and that reactionary policies will not benefit education systems.
