U.S. students still trail global leaders
Associated Press By CHRISTINE ARMARIO
December 7, 2010
-- United States students are continuing
to trail behind their peers in a pack of higher performing nations, according
to results from a key international assessment.
Scores from the 2009 Programme
for International Student Assessment to be released Tuesday show 15-year-old
students in the U.S.
performing about average in reading and science, and below average in math. Out
of 34 countries, the U.S.
ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.
Those scores are all higher than those from 2003 and
2006, but far behind the highest scoring countries, including South Korea, Finland
and Singapore, Hong Kong and
Shanghai in China
and Canada.
"This is an absolute wake-up call for America,"
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated
Press. "The results are extraordinarily challenging to us and we have to
deal with the brutal truth. We have to get much more serious about investing in
education."
The PISA
exam is one of a handful of tests that compare educational levels across
nations, and is considered to be the most comprehensive. The test focuses on
how well students are able to apply their knowledge in math, reading and
science to real-life situations. Some 470,000 students took the test in 2009 in
65 countries and educational systems, from poor, underdeveloped nations to the
most wealthy.
Student performance on international assessments is
considered especially relevant as today's high school graduates enter a global
job market, where highly skilled workers are in increasing demand.
The United States'
mediocre scores on the PISA
exam have repeatedly been highlighted by the Obama
administration and others pushing for education reform. A number of countries
have made significant improvements in recent years, while the U.S. has made
only incremental advancements.
Between 1995 and 2008, for example, the United States slipped from ranking second in
college graduation rates to 13th, according to the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Paris-based organization that
develops and administers the PISA
exam. Of 34 OECD countries, only 8 have a lower high school graduation rate.
Responding to the grim figures, President Barack Obama has set a goal for
the U.S.
to have the highest proportion of students graduating from college in 2020.
"We live in a globally competitive knowledge based
economy, and our children today are at a competitive disadvantage with children
from other countries," Duncan
said. "That is absolutely unfair to our children and that puts our
country's long term economic prosperity absolutely at risk."
The impact of improving math, reading and science scores
could be radical: A recent OECD study with Stanford University projected that
if the U.S. boosted its average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20
years, there would be a gain of $41 trillion in the U.S. economy over the
lifetime of the generation born in 2010.
The 2009 exam had an extra focus on reading, and looked
at how factors such as family background, equity of resources, and governance
influence educational outcomes.
The top performers in reading were South Korea, Finland,
Hong Kong and Shanghai in China, Singapore,
Canada, New Zealand, Japan
and Australia.
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