American students are slogging along in the middle of the pack compared with their contemporaries around the world, according to test data released Tuesday by the U.S. government’s National Center for Education Statistics.
Among fourth-graders tested for reading literacy, 14 countries of 45 that participated scored higher than the United States, including Hungary and Bulgaria. Math results were more dire. Among 15-year-olds in 30 developed countries, the U.S. scored sixth-worst, ahead only of a handful of countries in southern Europe, and Mexico.
“Today’s report is another wake-up call that our students are treading the waters of academic achievement while other countries’ students are swimming faster and farther,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.
On most of the tests, American students showed neither great gains nor sharp declines in the past eight years.
Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore and parts of Canada lead the world in reading at the elementary level, while Korean students earned top marks at the high school level, according to the report, which is a periodic supplement to the U.S. Department of Education’s annual “Condition of Education.”
The study compiles the results of three independent tests in reading, math and science, given to students around the world in grades three and eight, and at the age of 15.
The highest math and science scores were earned by students in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Finland, while American students scored in the bottom third in science among 30 developed countries.
Russ Whitehurst, a former director at the U.S. Department of Education, now with the Brookings Institution, said that “to the extent that we’re low compared to other countries, there’s reason for concern.”
But he cited shortcomings of international tests and comparisons, including an inability to disaggregate the data.
“A problem with international comparisons is that there is no common vocabulary for race and ethnicity and socio-economic background,” he said. “If we could separate out immigrant students and longtime families, for example, what would the results look like then?”
Educators also point out that subjects taught in each grade vary by country, making it hard to determine if students don’t know something simply because they haven’t been introduced to it.
Duncan, who was the superintendent for Chicago Public Schools at the time of the tests used in the study, used the uninspiring results to call for reforms pushed by the current administration.
Warning of “long-term economic security at risk,” he supported the development of national standards “that will help put our students’ performance on par with other top-performing countries.”
That initiative, which has preliminary support from most states, has hit roadblocks in the past when officials from Kansas to Massachusetts have found little to agree on over topics such as evolution.
