Advance Readings for the Nov. 8, 2012 discussion of
“U.S. educational system compared to those of other countries”
Education Week's Published Online: January 9, 2012
Published in Print: January 12, 2012, as Complex Policy Options Abound Amid International
Comparisons
U.S. Education Pressured by International
Comparisons
Concern over American students' middling scores on high-profile tests vies
with caution about cultural and political factors that shape school
improvement
By Sean Cavanagh
Americans learn a bit more every year about the strengths and shortcomings of the education
systems in other countries, thanks to a steady raft of international test data, academic scholarship,
and analysis arriving from home and abroad.
Sometimes, what they learn inspires them. Sometimes, it confuses them. And sometimes, to
judge from the collective angst on display, it alarms them.
Today, elected officials of all political stripes and advocates for a range of school policies
scrutinize the results from international exams and comparisons with the intensity that, a decade
ago, would have been reserved for state and local test scores. U.S. policymakers and researchers
also study the teaching methods, curricula, and academic programs of high-performing countries
for lessons that can be applied to American schools—and the influence of those foreign-born
ideas can be seen in many nationwide, state, and district policies.
Many U.S. leaders say that the performance of American students on a handful of high-profile
international tests and measurements—while mixed—underscores the weaknesses of the
American education system, and foreshadows the serious economic challenges the country will
face if it does not improve the skills of its future workforce. Those results show the following:
• American 15-year-olds scored at the international average of industrialized nations in science
and reading and below the international average in math on the most recent Program for
International Student Assessment, or PISA, released last year.
• Although students in the United States scored above the international averages in both 4th and
8th grade math and science, they performed well below high fliers such as Japan and Singapore
on the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, which compares
developed and nonindustrialized nations.
• U.S. 4th graders topped 22 participating jurisdictions, and were outscored by just 10 of them,
on the most recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, or PIRLS, though American
students' literacy marks stagnated from the previous exam.
• Americans account for more than a quarter of the college-educated workforce among nations
that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Group of
Twenty, or G-20—the largest representation of any such country by far, according to OECD data
released last year. But the United States' share of the global college-educated population fell
from about 36 percent among 55- to 64-year-olds to 21 percent among 25- to 34-year-olds, partly
because of the surging college attainment in foreign countries, such as China.
Driving the Debate
Such numbers dismay many American policymakers, who say the country needs to raise its
performance, or risk becoming a less prosperous, less productive, and less innovative nation.
"It is an undeniable fact that countries who outeducate us today are going to outcompete us
tomorrow," President Barack Obama declared at a White House event in September. "If we're
serious about building an economy that lasts—an economy in which hard work pays off with the
opportunity for solid middle-class jobs—we've got to get serious about education."
Elected officials and advocates routinely cite the United States' mediocre standing, and what they
know of the educational practices of high-performing nations, to gird their arguments for their
favored changes to American education—from encouraging greater parental involvement to
revamping school curricula and standards to paying teachers more.
But analysts and researchers caution that while self-examination is a good thing, American
elected officials and educators need to take a nuanced approach to interpreting test scores and
lessons from abroad, one that considers the full basket of educational, societal, and cultural
factors that shape school practices in top-performing nations, and in the United States.
"Education is a complex system," says James Stigler, a professor of psychology at the University
of California, Los Angeles, who has studied teaching methods in Japan. "You can't take one
element or one variable out of a system and expect it to work. We need to understand how
different countries are producing results, but we need to be sophisticated in how we interpret
those results."
Still, frustration with the United States' lackluster showing on international tests is widespread
and bipartisan. Elected officials at all levels routinely point to high scores turned in by such
nations as Finland and South Korea—and economic growth in countries such as China and
India—as evidence of American complacency, and the urgent need to improve.
"[O]ur nation is falling behind," said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., in arguing in 2010 in
favor of legislation designed to strengthen K-12 and college math and science. The goal, said the
former U.S. secretary of education, is "to preserve America's brainpower advantage, so our highpaying jobs don't head overseas to places like India and China."
Using Global Comparisons
Those states indicating that they used international comparisons often cited a need to align
student preparation with the demands of a global economy and learn from ”best practices“ in
high-achieving nations. In describing the specific ways in which they use data from other
nations, states most frequently pointed to the role of international indicators in comparing student
achievement and developing academic-content standards.
Of the 29 states using international comparisons for specified purposes:
•
•
•
•
•
18 are comparing student data
12 are developing academic content standards
9 are improving assessments and accountability systems
8 are identifying support structures for current and future teachers
5 are establishing performance standards for state assessments
Source: EPE Research Center, 2012
Specific policies in high-performing nations are also held up as worthy of emulation. Both
President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, for instance, have noted that South
Korea has a significantly longer average school year than the United States does, and have
argued that American students' academic skills tend to wither during long summer breaks.
At a forum on international education held last year, Duncan said that while U.S. officials should
be selective in weighing the merits of high-performing countries' education systems, they also
should be aggressive consumers of what works well abroad.
"Every nation, of course, has unique characteristics of its teaching profession, culture, and
education system, which may not be directly analogous to the U.S.," the secretary said at the
event, sponsored by the National Center on Education and the Economy, in Washington. "But to
the extent that the U.S. can copy or adapt, and beg, borrow, and steal, successful practices from
other nations, we should do so."
In one sense, American policymakers' interest in other countries' education systems is easy to
understand, because the comparison with those nations—at least on a superficial level—is as
easy as looking at a test score.
Concerns about American students' performance on the international stage date back decades.
Over time those worries have become increasingly intertwined with a belief that mediocre scores
on nation-by-nation comparisons point to a loss by the United States of its overall economic
edge.
That belief has roots that can be traced back at least as far as the Soviet Union's launch of the
Sputnik satellite in 1957, and it echoed through the 1983 publication of the influential report "A
Nation at Risk," which famously warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity" in American education
that threatened "our very future as a nation and a people." The theme resounded with the 2005
release of "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," a report published by the congressionally
chartered National Academies that argued that U.S. economic growth would depend in large part
on the capabilities of the education system. That report was widely circulated on Capitol Hill and
in the business community.
'Decline' Dispute
Yet the "nation at risk" rhetoric has always struck some educators as unduly pessimistic, given
the relatively modest changes in the arc of U.S. performance on international measures over
time. To the extent that the United States' educational standing has slipped, it is largely because
less-populated nations and countries that are surging economically have made faster gains,
according to many analysts' reading of those results.
From a statistical standpoint, "there is no decline on any measure that we have for the United
States," says Andreas Schleicher, the head of education indicators and analysis for the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based group that
administers PISA. The issue, he says, is that "the rate of improvement in other countries, in terms
of getting more people into school and educating them well, is steeper."
For instance, the percentage of Americans who have completed at least a high school education
has risen over time to 88 percent from 78 percent, according to the "Education at a Glance"
report released last year by the OECD. The report compared the attainment of adults born
between 1975-84 and those born a generation earlier, between 1933-42. But the data also show
that while the United States has improved in that category, countries that were once behind now
meet or exceed the U.S. standard. Some of them, such as Finland and South Korea, have
"transformed themselves from countries where only a minority of students graduated from
secondary school to those where virtually all students do," OECD officials noted in the report.
The United States, in fact, has a history of performing poorly on international comparisons,
which belies the notion that the skills of the country's students have eroded, says Tom Loveless,
a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in Washington. In 1964, three decades before the
inaugural TIMSS, the United States participated in the First International Mathematics Study,
along with 11 other nations, including Australia, England, Finland, and Japan. The United States'
13-year-olds finished 11th out of 12 countries taking part, beating only Sweden, according to an
analysis by Loveless, who examined those results in a report published in 2010.
The idea that the United States has slipped educationally from a position of global dominance is
a "myth," he says. Much of the press coverage following the release of the 1964 math results
carried the same worried tone that TIMSS and PISA inspire today, notes Loveless, who went
back and read those stories.
"People assumed our schools were number one, and they weren't," says Loveless. Unimpressive
test scores periodically trigger American anxieties about educational atrophy, he argues,
particularly when the U.S. leaders and the public feel challenged—as they did after the launch of
Sputnik, or during Japan's rapid economic expansion of the 1970s and 1980s. The tendency is "to
look at the American school system, and say, 'Something's wrong'," Loveless observes.
Reason for Worry
Others say there are clear reasons to be worried about the United States' uninspiring international
test results and their potential implications for the economy.
Economists have long seen a connection between the strength of nations' education systems and
their long-term economic prosperity. While myriad factors, including the stability of a country's
economic, political, and legal institutions, can contribute to national productivity, researchers
say, an educated workforce is widely regarded as critical to producing innovations and allowing
businesses to make use of them.
Importing Ideas
Policymakers in the United States have become increasingly keen on the lessons that American
schools can draw from foreign nations, particularly those that outperform the United States.
Some foreign-born strategies and practices have already worked their way into the American
education system, on a small or large scale.
Lesson Study
Since the 1990s, U.S. schools have used or experimented with Japanese “lesson study,” a
strategy designed to help improve teachers’ instruction. Known in Japan as jugyou kenkyuu—
roughly translated as “lesson research”—the practice asks teachers to plan together, observe each
other’s classes, and work to continually test, refine, and improve teaching methods. Florida is
supporting schools’ use of lesson study through its $700 million award in the federal Race to the
Top competition.
Singapore Math
Originally developed by Singapore’s Ministry of Education, this curriculum has taken hold in
many American school districts. It emphasizes extensive coverage of a relatively small number
of concepts at early grades, compared with many U.S. math textbooks, and integrates math
concepts, such as algebra and geometry, in secondary grade levels. A commercial developer,
SingaporeMath.com Inc., says its materials are used in more than 1,700 schools in the United
States.
Reading Recovery
This intensive one-to-one tutoring program, which focuses on the lowest-achieving 1st graders,
originated in New Zealand in the 1970s and took hold in the United States in the 1980s. An
estimated 63,000 students in 1,500 school districts per year receive Reading Recovery, and an
estimated 2 million have been served over time, according to the Reading Recovery Council of
North America.
Montessori Schools
These schools, which typically group students by age rather than grade, shun formal testing, and
encourage students to progress at their own pace, were the creation of Maria Montessori, an
Italian physician who founded the first school in Rome in 1907. The concept migrated to the
United States, where interest surged, by some accounts, in the 1950s. Known mostly as a private
school program, the Montessori concept has spread to public education.
International Baccalaureate
This demanding, college-prep curriculum, which places a heavy emphasis on international
language and culture, was founded in 1968 in Geneva, Switzerland. Today the program, which
has expanded to elementary and middle schools, is in place in about 1,300 schools in the United
States and is the best-known alternative to another college-prep curriculum, the College Boarddirected Advanced Placement program.
School Inspections
Some U.S. districts, including those in New York City, Charlotte, N.C., and Sacramento, Calif.,
have recently experimented with the use of formal school inspections to help gauge academic
quality. National inspection systems have long been in place in some nations, including England,
the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Singapore.
Source: Education Week
Over the past few years, some scholars have sought to draw a specific link between the kinds of
academic skills that can be measured on international tests and nations' economic growth.
One of those researchers is Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, at
Stanford University. While the average number of years of education has often been cited as an
indicator of a country's "human capital," Hanushek and others have found cognitive skills in
math and science have a stronger effect on a nation's economic growth rate in later years,
particularly if the country has a relatively open economy.
By Hanushek's calculation, if the United States managed to boost its math performance by 40
points on PISA, to reach roughly the level of Canada, it would add between 7 percent and 11
percent, on average annually, to the nation's gross domestic product over the next 80 years.
Projected over that time period, the increased productivity would amount to pumping an
additional $75 trillion into the U.S. economy, as measured in present value, or the current worth
of the future additions to GDP. The United States' current annual GDP, by comparison, is
roughly $15 trillion.
"We face very, very different economic futures, depending on how our schools develop,"
Hanushek says. "Other nations are investing in the education of their populations, and they're
doing other things to make their economies better. We're no longer going to be able to assume
we're at the forefront of the world, in terms of our economy."
Others, such as Hal Salzman, an economist at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, N.J., say
there's little evidence that economic growth of that magnitude would result from improved
educational performance. The link between the educational and economic prowess of nations, as
measured by tests like TIMSS and PISA, says Salzman, is tenuous at best. The intense focus on
that connection among U.S. business and political leaders in recent years "leads to a certain
distortion about where to focus" efforts to improve education and workforce skills, he says.
"If the reason we're concerned about education is economic competition," Salzman says, it's
worth noting that "a large portion of those high-ranking countries are economic train wrecks."
Salzman and Lindsay Lowell, of Georgetown University, in Washington, are the authors of
research arguing that, despite concerns that the United States' K-12 system is not producing
students with sufficient skills, specifically in math and science, American schools are in fact
meeting and exceeding the current need of the U.S. labor market in that area. They examined
data going back to the 1970s and concluded that the flow of students with math- and sciencerelated skills who are choosing and staying in those fields is strong and has gotten stronger over
time.
The exception was among high-achieving students, who appear to be choosing other careers—
not because they lack the necessary skills, but because they seem to regard math- and sciencefocused careers as less attractive than other options, such as business, health care, and the law,
the authors conclude.
Some observers suggest the United States is not keeping pace with the earlier educational
standards it set, which proved so essential to its economic prosperity. In the 2008 book The Race
Between Education and Technology, Harvard University economists Claudia Goldin and
Lawrence F. Katz argue that for most of the 20th century, advances in technology boosted the
demand for educated American workers, and U.S. education kept pace, resulting in strong
economic growth, shared across income groups.
But beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, educational attainment, as measured by high school and
college completion, began to lag behind technological advances in that "race," they say, which
led to reduced economic growth and to rising inequality. Among the factors contributing to that
imbalance: large number of high school dropouts, students graduating from the secondary system
without the preparation to succeed in college, and increased financial barriers to college, Goldin
explains.
When the workforce cannot keep up with demands for skills, "those who can make the
adjustments as well as those who gain the new skills are rewarded," Goldin and Katz write.
"Others are left behind."
One of the persistent questions American policymakers ask: Should the United States be more
concerned about raising the performance of high achievers than with raising the achievement of
the vast pool of students performing at relatively low levels, by the measure of tests like TIMSS
and PISA?
But some of the countries and jurisdictions that outperform the United States on various
measures, such as Canada and Japan on the PISA reading scores, also have smaller gaps between
their highest- and lowest-performing students, suggesting that their education systems do a better
job in challenging students at all levels. The takeaway is that "you don't have to compromise
equity to achieve high levels of success," says Schleicher, of the OECD.
Hanushek, who has described the question as a debate over "rocket scientists" vs. "education for
all," has done research suggesting that improving the skills of students at the basic level and
improving those of elite achievers are equally important to economic growth.
The Role of Culture
One of the most common mistakes that policymakers make in interpreting international test
results is focusing on one aspect of high-performing nations' school systems and assuming it can
be replicated wholesale in American schools, many analysts say.
Loveless, of the Brookings Institution, sees that tendency in the view that national standards are
driving high performance in high-achieving countries, when in fact many low-scorers have
national standards, too. Advocates of various policies tend to "seize on one country, one policy,
and say that's why the test scores are going up, when in fact it was a dozen things," Loveless
argues. "You have to look at policies over the full distribution of countries, if you want to get
lessons."
Any single-policy analysis also fails to take into account how great a role cultural norms play in
shaping the effectiveness of educational strategies in high-performing nations, others say. For
instance, when U.S. officials look at teaching methods in Japan, they're often surprised by the
extent to which educators in that country allow students to struggle with problems, rather than
help them, says Stigler, of UCLA. Americans look at those methods and wonder why U.S.
instruction isn't modeled on that tough-love approach.
But it's not that simple. Japanese cultural norms—transmitted by parents and others—create
different expectations for what goes on in the classroom, Stigler says.
American students "aren't socialized to struggle hard," says Stigler. "They're socialized to put
their hands up and say, 'I don't know.' " While a Japanese parent would be inclined to tell a
child's teacher, "Thank you for helping my kid struggle," Stigler suggests, an American parent
might be more inclined to say, "Why are you torturing my kid?"
Education, he says, "is a cultural system, and cultural systems evolve over time to satisfy the
needs of a whole range of forces."
Shared Traits
Even so, some researchers see a number of shared characteristics among top-performing
education systems. For example, high-scoring countries tend to recruit and retain talented
teachers and help them continually improve their classroom skills; they also combine clear,
ambitious academic standards for all students with a strong degree of autonomy at the local
school level, argues Schleicher, basing his analysis on OECD data.
By looking at those characteristics, "you can actually go pretty far in understanding what makes
education systems succeed, at least in the policy area, and derive a lot of lessons from them," he
says.
Where, then, should U.S. policymakers direct their attention in gleaning lessons from abroad?
Some say that the most important educational lessons are found at home, in Massachusetts and
Minnesota, which have participated as individual states in the TIMSS and scored exceptionally
well. Those states have roughly the population of high-performers like Finland and Singapore,
those observers argue, and focusing on them removes many of the cultural and political variables
across countries.
Others say that one of the keys to understanding the success of high-performing countries is not
to focus on specific policies, but on the quality of the work the United States puts into
implementing policies that fit within its educational, political, and cultural context.
A number of scholars who have studied Asian nations' educational success, for example, say
those countries do a much better job than the United States of improving and revising their
policies in curriculum, instruction, and other areas, rather than simply focusing on the immediate
results they bring.
"They really worry about quality and implementation," says Alan Ginsburg, a retired director of
policy and program studies at the U.S. Department of Education, who has examined Asian
education systems. "That's time-consuming. We don't do that. …We worry much more about
outcomes than about how to get there."
Stigler, the UCLA researcher, agrees. He cites the effect of an "improvement culture" that
infuses Japan's education system—one that requires patience and attention to detail in putting
new policies in place.
"The story of education reform in our country is that things get rolled out very quickly, and
there's a lot of variability in how [they] get used," Stigler says. American school leaders "are on a
short time frame. They want to know that it will improve results at the end of the year. It takes
time and [patience] for that to happen."
Ginsburg says one lesson from high-performing jurisdictions is that U.S. policymakers and
researchers should look to new approaches to building core math and science skills among a
much broader swath of the student population, rather than just designing and implementing
curriculum and instruction for students who are already on a college track.
American schools could do more to integrate algebra, geometry, statistics, and other core
competencies across the curriculum—especially in such course areas as career-and-technical
education—and give struggling and average performers more time to master those concepts, he
argues. That approach would give students an understanding of the practical application of
academic work, he says, and it would provide students, especially those who don't go to a fouryear college right away, stronger workforce skills.
Too often, U.S. schools promise to make students "career- and college-ready," Ginsburg says,
but they end up not ready for either one.
Goldin, the Harvard economist, says gauging what kinds of skills will prove most valuable to
U.S. students is difficult, if not impossible. But evidence suggests that students need a strong
educational foundation, without "breaks in the chain," from early education through college, she
contends.
It also seems likely that demand will continue for skills that are not easily replaceable, such as
analytical faculties, and the ability to think abstractly across disciplines, she says.
Such skills, Goldin points out, are not always easy to test, internationally or domestically—or to
develop in the classroom.
"It's much easier to teach with a textbook," she says. But "life is not about answering questions
correctly. That's why it's difficult to teach it right."
Alan Ginsburg, Hal Salzman, and James Stigler all served on Education Week's advisory board
for the 2012 edition of Quality Counts.
Vol. 31, Issue 16, Pages 6-10
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Programme for International Student
Assessment
PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic
performance on mathematics, science, and reading. It was first performed in 2000 and then
repeated every three years. It is done with view to improving educational policies and outcomes.
The data have increasingly been used both to assess the impact of educational quality on incomes
and growth and for understand what causes differences in achievement across nations.[1]
470,000 15-year-old students representing 65 nations and territories participated in PISA 2009.
An additional 50,000 students representing 9 nations were tested in 2010.[2]
The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in
International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) by the International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement are similar studies.
Framework
PISA stands in a tradition of international school studies, undertaken since the late 1950s by the
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Much of PISA's
methodology follows the example of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS, started in 1995), which in turn was much influenced by the U.S. National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP). [Craig: This is the test that shows Massachusetts is number 1
in the country.]The reading component of PISA is inspired by the IEA's Progress in International
Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).
PISA aims at testing literacy in three competence fields: reading, mathematics, science.
The PISA mathematics literacy test asks students to apply their mathematical knowledge to solve
problems set in various real-world contexts. To solve the problems students must activate a
number of mathematical competencies as well as a broad range of mathematical content
knowledge. TIMSS, on the other hand, measures more traditional classroom content such as an
understanding of fractions and decimals and the relationship between them (curriculum
attainment). PISA claims to measure education's application to real-life problems and lifelong
learning (workforce knowledge).
In the reading test, "OECD/PISA does not measure the extent to which 15-year-old students are
fluent readers or how competent they are at word recognition tasks or spelling". Instead, they
should be able to "construct, extend and reflect on the meaning of what they have read across a
wide range of continuous and non-continuous texts"[3]
Development and implementation
Every period of assessment focusses on one of the three competence fields reading, math,
science; but the two others are tested as well. After nine years, a full cycle is completed: after
2000, reading is again the main domain in 2009.
PISA is sponsored, governed, and coordinated by the OECD. The test design, implementation, and data
analysis is delegated to an international consortium of research and educational institutions led by the
Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). ACER leads in developing and implementing
sampling procedures and assisting with monitoring sampling outcomes across these countries. The
assessment instruments fundamental to PISA's Reading, Mathematics, Science, Problem-solving,
Computer-based testing, background and contextual questionnaires are similarly constructed and
refined by ACER.
Method of testing
Sampling
The students Pen15 tested by PISA are aged between 15 years and 3 months and 16 years and 2
months at the beginning of the assessment period. The school year pupils are in is not taken into
consideration. Only students at school are tested, not home-schoolers. In PISA 2006, however,
several countries also used a grade-based sample of students. This made it possible also to study
how age and school year interact.
To fulfill OECD requirements, each country must draw a sample of at least 5,000 students. In
small countries like Iceland and Luxembourg, where there are less than 5,000 students per year,
an entire age cohort is tested. Some countries used much larger samples than required to allow
comparisons between regions.
Test
Each student takes a two-hour handwritten test. Part of the test is multiple-choice and part
involves fuller answers. In total there are six and a half hours of assessment material, but each
student is not tested on all the parts. Following the cognitive test, participating students spend
nearly one more hour answering a questionnaire on their background including learning habits,
motivation and family. School directors also fill in a questionnaire describing school
demographics, funding etc.
In selected countries, PISA started also experimentation with computer adaptive testing.
Results
The official reports only contain domain-specific scores and do not combine the different domains into
an overall score. The final scoring is adjusted so that the OECD average in each domain is 500 and the
standard deviation is 100.
All PISA results are broken down by countries. Public attention concentrates on just one outcome:
achievement mean values by countries. These data are regularly published in form of "league tables".[
In some popular media, test results from all three literacy domains have been consolidated in an
overall country ranking. Such meta-analysis is not endorsed by the OECD. The official reports
only contain domain-specific country scores. In part of the official reports, however, scores from
a period's principal testing domain are used as proxy for overall student ability.[9]
Comparison with other studies
The correlation between PISA 2003 and TIMSS 2003 grade 8 country means is 0.84 in
mathematics, 0.95 in science. The values go down to 0.66 and 0.79 if the two worst performing
developing countries are excluded. Correlations between different scales and studies are around
0.80. The high correlations between different scales and studies indicate common causes of
country differences (e.g. educational quality, culture, wealth or genes) or a homogenous
underlying factor of cognitive competence. Western countries perform slightly better in PISA;
Eastern European and Asian countries in TIMSS. Content balance and years of schooling explain
most of the variation.[13]
China
Education professor Yong Zhao has noted the PISA 2009 did not receive much attention in the
Chinese media, and that the high scores in China are due to excessive workload and testing,
adding that it's "no news that the Chinese education system is excellent in preparing outstanding
test takers, just like other education systems within the Confucian cultural circle: Singapore,
Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong."[15]
India
Of the 74 countries tested in the PISA 2009 cycle including the "+" nations, the two Indian states
came up 72nd and 73rd out of 74 in both reading and maths, and 73rd and 74th in science. The
result of these differences may be linguistic. 12.87% of US students, for example, indicated that
the language of the test differed from the language spoken at home. However, 30.77% of
Himachal Pradesh students indicated that the language of the test differed from the language
spoken at home, a significantly higher percent [16] The poor result was greeted with dismay in the
Indian media.[17] The BBC reported that as of 2008, only 15% of India's students reach high
school.[18]
Finland
The stable, good results of Finland have attracted a lot of attention. According to Hannu
Simola[23] the results are due to a paradoxical mix of progressive policies implemented through a
rather conservative pedagogic setting, where the high levels of teachers` academic preparation,
social status, professionalism and motivation for the job are concomitant with the adherence to
traditional roles and methods by both teachers and pupils in Finland`s changing, but still rather
authoritarian culture. Others have suggested that Finland's low poverty rate is a reason for its
success.[24][25] It has been suggested that the Finnish language plays an important part in Finland's
PISA success.[26]
An evaluation of the 2003 results showed that countries that spent more on education did not
necessarily do better. Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, South
Korea, New Zealand and the Netherlands spent less but did relatively well, whereas the United
States spent much more but was below the OECD average. The Czech Republic, in the top ten,
spent only one third as much per student as the United States did, for example, but the USA
came 24th out of 29 countries compared.[citation needed]
Another point made in the evaluation was that students with higher-earning parents are bettereducated and tend to achieve higher results. This was true in all the countries tested, although
more obvious in certain countries, such as Germany.[citation needed]
China
In 2010, the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results revealed that
Shanghai students scored the highest in the world in every category (Mathematics, Reading and
Science). The OECD described Shanghai as a pioneer of educational reform, noting that "there
has been a sea change in pedagogy". OECD point out that they "abandoned their focus on
educating a small elite, and instead worked to construct a more inclusive system. They also
significantly increased teacher pay and training, reducing the emphasis on rote learning and
focusing classroom activities on problem solving."[28]
OECD has also noted that even in rural China results approached average levels for the OECD
countries: "Citing further, as-yet unpublished OECD research, Mr Schleicher said, 'We have
actually done Pisa in 12 of the provinces in China. Even in some of the very poor areas you get
performance close to the OECD average.'"[29] For a developing country, China’s 99.4%
enrolment in primary education is already, as the OECD puts it, “the envy of many countries”
while junior secondary school participation rates in China are now 99%. But in Shanghai not
only has senior secondary school enrolment attained 98% but admissions into higher education
have achieved 80% of the relevant age group. That this growth reflects quality, not just quantity,
is confirmed clearly by the OECD’s ranking of Shanghai’s secondary education as world number
one.[29] According to the OECD, China has also expanded school access, and moved away from
learning by rote.[30] "'The last point is key: Russia performs well in rote-based assessments, but
not in Pisa,' says Schleicher, head of the indicators and analysis division at the OECD’s
directorate for education. 'China does well in both rote-based and broader assessments.'"[29]
United States
Two studies have compared high achievers in mathematics on the PISA and the U.S. National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Comparisons were made between those scoring at
the "advanced" and "proficient" levels in mathematics on the NAEP with the corresponding
performance on the PISA. Overall, 30 nations had higher percentages than the U.S. of students at
the "advanced" level of mathematics. The only OECD countries with worse results were
Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico. Six percent of U.S. students were "advanced" in
mathematics compared to 28 percent in Taiwan. The highest ranked state in the U.S.
(Massachusetts) was just 15th in the world if it was compared with the nations participating in
the PISA. 31 nations had higher percentages of "proficient" students than the U.S. Massachusetts
was again the best U.S. state, but it ranked just ninth in the world if compared with the nations
participating in the PISA.[31][32]
Comparisons with results for the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS) appear to give different results—suggesting that the U.S. states actually do better in
world rankings.[33] The difference in apparent rankings is, however, almost entirely accounted for
by the sampling of countries. PISA includes all of the OECD countries, while TIMSS is much
more weighted in its sampling toward developing countries.
• How many U.S. schools and students participated in previous PISA cycles?
Assessment
year
2000
2003
2006
2009
Number of
participating
students
3,700
5,456
5,611
5,233
Number of
participating
schools
145
262
166
165
School response rate
(percent)
With
Original
substitute
Schools
schools
56
70
65
68
69
79
68
78
Overall student
response rate
(percent)
85
83
91
87
NAEP: A Common Yardstick
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative
and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas.
Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts,
civics, economics, geography, U.S. history, and beginning in 2014, in Technology and
Engineering Literacy (TEL).
Since NAEP assessments are administered uniformly using the same sets of test booklets across
the nation, NAEP results serve as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts. The
assessment stays essentially the same from year to year, with only carefully documented
changes. This permits NAEP to provide a clear picture of student academic progress over time.
As NAEP moves into computer-based assessments, the assessment administration will remain
uniform, continuing the importance of NAEP as a common metric. Read more about the future
of NAEP assessments.
What NAEP Does—and Doesn't—Report
NAEP provides results on subject-matter achievement, instructional experiences, and school
environment for populations of students (e.g., all fourth-graders) and groups within those
populations (e.g., female students, Hispanic students). NAEP does not provide scores for
individual students or schools, although state NAEP can report results by selected large urban
districts. NAEP results are based on representative samples of students at grades 4, 8, and 12 for
the main assessments, or samples of students at ages 9, 13, or 17 years for the long-term trend
assessments. These grades and ages were chosen because they represent critical junctures in
academic achievement.
There are two NAEP websites: one dealing with the different components of the NAEP
assessment and one presenting the results. When NAEP results are reported, they become part of
"The Nation's Report Card." To find results from a particular assessment quickly, use the table at
The Nation's Report Card website. Now, you can see NAEP results even on the go—download
the NAEP Results Mobile App, for Android and iOS.
Who Runs NAEP
The Commissioner of Education Statistics, who heads the National Center for Education
Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education, is responsible by law for carrying out the NAEP
project. The National Assessment Governing Board, appointed by the Secretary of Education but
independent of the Department, sets policy for NAEP and is responsible for developing the
framework and test specifications that serve as the blueprint for the assessments. The Governing
Board is a bipartisan group whose members include governors, state legislators, local and state
school officials, educators, business representatives, and members of the general public.
Congress created the 26-member Governing Board in 1988. The NAEP assessment operations
are carried out with assistance from contractors.
Average ACT Scores by State
Maximum composite score is 36.
Percent of
Graduates
Tested
52
86
35
35
88
25
100
27
14
Average
Composite
Score
21.1
20.3
21.2
19.7
20.3
22.1
20.6
23.8
22.6
Average
English
Score
20.5
20.3
20.3
18.6
20.0
21.6
19.9
23.9
22.3
32
19.7
70
52
27
67
100
32
63
81
100
100
9
21
23
100
74
100
75
61
78
34
19
20
19.8
20.7
21.3
21.6
20.9
22.3
22.1
21.9
19.8
20.3
23.4
22.1
24.1
20.1
22.8
18.7
21.6
22.0
22.0
21.3
23.8
23.4
State
National
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of
Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
21.1
19.6
21.3
20.3
20.0
22.8
20.5
23.8
22.4
Average
Reading
Score
21.3
20.7
21.8
19.7
20.6
22.1
20.7
23.9
23.0
Average
Science
Score
20.9
20.1
20.8
19.5
20.1
21.5
20.8
23.2
22.1
19.0
20.0
20.0
19.2
18.9
20.1
20.5
21.0
20.5
21.7
21.6
21.3
19.5
20.4
23.5
21.6
23.9
19.3
22.1
18.6
21.4
21.1
21.8
20.5
23.6
23.1
20.0
20.6
21.9
21.3
21.0
22.5
21.7
21.8
19.4
19.9
23.3
22.2
24.5
20.1
23.0
18.3
21.1
21.9
21.7
21.4
23.7
23.9
20.5
21.0
21.2
22.1
20.7
22.6
22.5
22.3
20.2
20.4
23.7
22.3
24.2
20.0
22.9
18.9
21.9
22.6
22.3
21.6
24.2
23.4
19.3
20.5
21.1
21.4
20.8
21.9
22.2
21.7
19.8
20.1
22.7
21.7
23.2
20.4
22.7
18.7
21.5
22.0
21.9
21.1
23.3
22.6
Average
Math Score
Percent of
Graduates
Tested
State
National
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
52
75
29
20
100
71
80
38
18
13
57
81
100
39
97
28
25
21
68
71
100
Average
Composite
Score
21.1
19.9
23.3
21.9
20.7
21.8
20.7
21.4
22.4
22.9
20.2
21.8
19.7
20.8
20.7
23.0
22.4
22.9
20.6
22.1
20.3
Average
English
Score
20.5
19.0
22.7
21.0
19.6
21.1
20.4
20.6
22.0
22.9
19.5
21.0
19.6
19.6
20.0
22.6
22.1
22.3
20.6
21.5
19.2
Average
Math Score
21.1
19.6
23.7
22.3
21.0
21.5
20.1
21.6
22.7
22.7
20.2
21.8
19.1
21.4
20.3
22.9
22.3
23.1
19.6
22.0
20.2
Average
Reading
Score
21.3
20.3
23.4
22.2
20.7
22.1
21.3
21.8
22.7
23.5
20.4
22.1
19.9
20.8
21.3
23.3
22.7
23.3
21.3
22.1
20.5
Average
Science
Score
20.9
20.0
23.1
21.4
20.9
21.8
20.6
21.3
21.9
22.3
20.1
22.0
19.6
20.8
20.8
22.6
21.9
22.4
20.5
22.1
20.6
========================
Mean 2011 SAT Scores by State
. States are listed by total 2011 SAT Scores
The maximum score possible in each subject is 800.
.Rank
State
.1
.2
.3
.4
.5
.6
.7
.8
Illinois
Minnesota
Iowa
Wisconsin
Missouri
Michigan
North Dakota
Kansas
Critical
Reading
599
593
596
590
592
583
586
590
Math
Writing
Combined
617
608
606
602
593
604
612
595
591
577
575
575
579
574
561
567
1807
1778
1777
1767
1764
1761
1759
1752
Participation
Rate
5%
7%
3%
5%
5%
5%
3%
6%
.9
.10
.11
.12
.13
.14
.15
.16
.17
.18
.19
.20
.21
.22
.23
.24
.25
.26
.27
.28
.29
.30
.31
.32
.33
.34
.35
.36
.37
.38
.39
.40
.41
.42
.43
.44
.45
.46
.47
.48
Nebraska
South Dakota
Kentucky
Tennessee
Colorado
Wyoming
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Utah
Mississippi
Louisiana
Alabama
New Mexico
Ohio
Idaho
Montana
Washington
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Oregon
Arizona
Vermont
Connecticut
Virginia
California
Alaska
West Virginia
New Jersey
Maryland
Rhode Island
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Indiana
New York
Nevada
Delaware
Hawaii
Florida
Texas
Georgia
585
584
576
575
570
572
568
571
563
564
555
546
548
539
542
539
523
523
513
520
517
515
509
512
499
515
514
495
499
495
493
493
493
485
494
489
479
487
479
485
591
591
572
568
573
569
570
565
559
543
550
541
541
545
539
537
529
525
527
521
523
518
513
509
515
511
501
516
502
493
508
501
501
499
496
490
500
489
502
487
569
562
563
567
556
551
554
547
545
553
546
536
529
522
517
516
508
511
509
499
499
505
513
495
499
487
497
497
491
489
474
479
476
476
470
476
469
471
465
473
1745
1737
1711
1710
1699
1692
1692
1683
1667
1660
1651
1623
1618
1606
1598
1592
1560
1559
1549
1540
1539
1538
1535
1516
1513
1513
1512
1508
1492
1477
1475
1473
1470
1460
1460
1455
1448
1447
1446
1445
5%
4%
6%
10%
19%
5%
5%
6%
6%
4%
8%
8%
12%
21%
20%
26%
57%
77%
89%
56%
28%
67%
87%
71%
53%
52%
17%
78%
74%
68%
67%
73%
68%
89%
47%
74%
64%
64%
58%
80%
.49
.50
South Carolina
Maine
District of
Columbia
482
469
490
469
464
453
1436
1391
70%
93%
469
457
459
1385
79%
.51
.
.Source: College Board
The German Education System
German public education makes it possible for qualified kids to study up
to university level, regardless of their families' financial status.
The German education system is different in many ways from the ones in Anglo-Saxon countries, but it produces
high- performing students. Although education is a function of the federal states, and there are differences from
state to state, some generalizations are possible.
Efforts have been made in the postwar years to make the system more democratic, though some feel that the
changes don't go far enough. It's nevertheless possible for a child with the right academic ability to study right up to
the university level regardless of the financial status of the family.
Among the charges is that it is decided too early, after completion of the 4th grade, whether a child is bound for the
universities, and hence for the more prestigious and better paying careers. This rule has been modified somewhat,
and it is theoretically possible for a high achieving student to get back on the university track at a later stage. This is
not a frequent occurrence though.
Children in Germany start school at the age of 6, and from grades 1 through 4 attend elementary school
(Grundschule), where the subjects taught are the same for all. Then, after the 4th grade, they are separated
according to their academic ability and the wishes of their families, and attend one of three different kinds of
schools: Hauptschule, Realschule or Gymnasium.
The Hauptschule (grades 5-9 in most German states) teaches the same subjects as the Realschule and
Gymnasium, but at a slower pace and with some vocational-oriented courses. It leads to part-time enrollment in a
vocational school combined with apprenticeship training until the age of 18.
The Realschule (grades 5-10 in most states) leads to part-time vocational schools and higher vocational schools. It
is now possible for students with high academic achievement at the Realschule to switch to a Gymnasium on
graduation.
The Gymnasium (grades 5-13 in most states) leads to a degree called the Abitur and prepares students for
university study or for a dual academic and vocational credential. The most common education tracks offered by
the standard Gymnasium are classical language, modern language, and mathematics-natural science.
Grundschule teachers recommend their students to a particular school based on such things as academic
achievement, self confidence and ability to work independently. However, in most states, parents have the final say
as to which school their child attends following the fourth grade.
The Gesamtschule, or comprehensive school, is a more recent development and is only found in some of the
states. It takes the place of both the Hauptschule and Realschule and arose out of the egalitarian movements in the
1960s. It enrolls students of all ability levels in the 5th through the 10th grades. Students who satisfactorily
complete the Gesamtschule through the 9th grade receive the Hauptschule certificate, while those who
satisfactorily complete schooling through the 10th grade receive the Realschule certificate.
No matter what kind of school a student attends, he/she must complete at least nine years of education. A student
dropping out of a Gymnasium, for example, must enroll in a Realschule or Hauptschule until nine years have been
completed.
Beyond the Haupschule and Realschule lies the Berufsschule, combining part-time academic study and
apprenticeship. The successful completion of an apprenticeship program leads to certification in a particular trade
or field of work. These schools differ from the other ones mentioned in that control rests not with the local and
regional school authorities, but with the federal government, industry and the trade unions.
German children only attend school in the morning. There is no provision for serving lunch. There is a lot more
homework, heavy emphasis on the "three R's" and very few extracurricular activities.
A free higher education could lie beyond a German Abitur. No tuition is charged at Germany's hundred or so
institutes of higher learning, but students must prove through examinations that they are qualified.
There are several varieties of university-level schools. The classical universities, in the tradition of Alexander von
Humboldt, provide a broad general education and students usually attend them for six and one-half years. The
Technical Universities (Technische Hochschulen) are more aimed at training students for specific careers and are
usually attended for four and one-half years. There are also Hochschulen for art and music.
The whole German education system, including the universities, is available at no charge to the children of bona
fide expatriates. The catch, of course, is that the classes are conducted in German, which is usually all right for
school beginners but becomes more and more of a problem as the children get older.
Posted at 4:27 PM ET, 12/ 7/2010 Blog of Washington Post
Hysteria over PISA misses the point
By Valerie Strauss
Finland is so over. Now it’s all about Shanghai.
The 2009 results released today from the Program for International Student Assessment, known
as PISA, caused consternation in the United States today when American students racked up
generally average scores in reading, science and math. Where they’ve been for years.
Today’s big news: Students from Shanghai, participating for the first time in the program, came
out on top in all three areas out of about 65 countries and other education systems.
Here come the Chinese, or, rather, the Shanghainese.
You’d think it would be the Finns who would be beside themselves: They lost their top literacy
ranking to South Korea; the United States was 17th. In math, Sinagpore was second in math; the
United States, 31st. In science, Finland, was in second place; the United States, 23rd.
Reaction here was swift, sharp and sometimes hysterical.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan: “For me, it’s a massive wake-up call.”
U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee: “
.... Average won’t help us regain our global role as a leader in education. Average won’t help our
students get the jobs of tomorrow. Average is the status quo and it’s failing our country. This is
clearly an issue we need to tackle in the next Congress ... ”
And then there was Chester E. Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education and president of
the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who wrote on his Flypaper blog:
“On Pearl Harbor Day 2010, the United States (and much of the rest of the world) was attacked
by China.
“Too melodramatic? Maybe you’d prefer 'Sixty-three years after Sputnik caused an earthquake
in American education by giving us reason to believe that the Soviet Union had surpassed us,
China delivered the aftershock.'
“It came via yet another wonky study, The PISA 2009 Results: What Students Know and Can Do,
reporting that on a test of math, reading and science given to fifteen year olds in sixty-five
countries in 2009, Shanghai’s 15-year-olds topped those in every other jurisdiction in ALL
THREE SUBJECTS. What’s more, Hong Kong ranked in the top four on all three assessments ....
“... Will this be the wake-up call that America needs to get serious about educational
achievement? Will it be the Sputnik of our time? Will it stir us out of our torpor and get us
beyond our excuse-making, our bickering over who should do what, our prioritizing of adult
interests and our hang-ups about the very kinds of changes that China is now making while we
dither?"
Well, maybe.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
Shanghai is not representative of the entire Chinese population, and China makes no pretense of
trying to educate the entire populace, as we do. Hong Kong, of course, is not ruled by Beijing.
But it is a test-driven society (an educational culture that Finn himself did not find when he
attended Exeter Academy), which actually is right in line with today’s American school reform
philosophy.
But our high-stakes standardized test obsession, the ones mandated by No Child Left Behind,
have, apparently, done nothing to improve the reading, science and math literacy of American
15-year-olds … if, that is, you put a lot of stock in the results of one international testing system.
And even if you don't.
For nearly a decade, public schools have been test-obsessed, and charter schools have abounded.
Those who hold test scores as important measures of progress should face the obvious: NCLB
didn't work.
And that is something Congress should seriously consider when it decides whether, and how, to
change No Child Left Behind.
Some details from the PISA report on the performance of U.S. students:
• U.S. 15-year-olds had an average score of 500 on the combined reading literacy scale, not
measurably different from the OECD average score of 493. Among the 33 other OECD
countries, 6 countries had higher average scores than the United States, 13 had lower average
scores, and 14 had average scores not measurably different from the U.S. average. Among the 64
other OECD countries, non-OECD countries and other education systems, 9 had higher average
scores than the United States, 39 had lower average scores, and 16 had average scores not
measurably different from the U.S. average.
• U.S. 15-year-olds had an average score of 487 on the mathematics literacy scale, which was
lower than the OECD average score of 496. Among the 33 other OECD countries, 17 countries
had higher average scores than the United States, 5 had lower average scores, and 11 had average
scores not measurably different from the U.S. average. Among the 64 other OECD countries,
non-OECD countries, and other education systems, 23 had higher average scores than the United
States, 29 had lower average scores, and 12 had average scores not measurably different from the
U.S. average score.
• On the science literacy scale, the average score of U.S. students (502) was not measurably
different from the OECD average (501). Among the 33 other OECD countries, 12 had higher
average scores than the United States, 9 had lower average scores, and 12 had average scores that
were not measurably different. Among the 64 other OECD countries, non-OECD countries, and
other education systems, 18 had higher average scores, 33 had lower average scores, and 13 had
average scores that were not measurably different from the U.S. average score.
World University Rankings 2011-2012
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/
Rank
1
2
2
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
22
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Institution
California Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Stanford University
University of Oxford
Princeton University
University of Cambridge
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Imperial College London
University of Chicago
University of California, Berkeley
Yale University
Columbia University
University of California, Los Angeles
Johns Hopkins University
ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zürich
University of Pennsylvania
University College London
University of Michigan
University of Toronto
Cornell University
Carnegie Mellon University
University of British Columbia
Duke University
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Washington
Northwestern University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
McGill University
University of Texas at Austin
University of Tokyo
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Karolinska Institute
Country /
Region
United States
United States
United States
United Kingdom
United States
United Kingdom
United States
United Kingdom
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
Overall score change
criteria
94.8
93.9
93.9
93.6
92.9
92.4
92.3
90.7
90.2
89.8
89.1
87.5
87.3
85.8
Switzerland
85.0
United States
United Kingdom
United States
Canada
United States
United States
Canada
United States
United States
United States
United States
United States
Canada
United States
Japan
United States
Sweden
84.9
83.2
82.8
81.6
80.5
78.4
77.4
77.4
77.0
76.5
76.2
75.8
75.5
74.9
74.3
74.2
73.1
Rank
Institution
33
34
35
36
37
38
38
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
49
51
52
University of California, San Diego
University of Hong Kong
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of Edinburgh
University of Melbourne
University of California, Davis
Australian National University
National University of Singapore
Washington University in St Louis
University of Minnesota
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
New York University
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
London School of Economics and Political Science
University of Manchester
Brown University
Peking University
Pennsylvania State University
Kyoto University
53
Pohang University of Science and Technology
54
55
56
57
58
59
59
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
Boston University
University of Southern California
King's College London
Ohio State University
University of Sydney
University of Pittsburgh
École Normale Supérieure
University of Zürich
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
École Polytechnique
University of Massachusetts
McMaster University
University of Bristol
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Utrecht University
Country /
Region
United States
Hong Kong
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
United States
Australia
Singapore
United States
United States
United States
United States
Germany
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
United States
China
United States
Japan
Republic of
Korea
United States
United States
United Kingdom
United States
Australia
United States
France
Switzerland
Hong Kong
France
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Belgium
Netherlands
Overall score change
criteria
73.0
72.3
72.1
72.0
71.9
71.2
71.2
70.9
70.5
70.0
69.3
69.0
67.6
66.3
66.0
65.7
65.6
65.6
64.9
64.8
64.6
64.2
64.0
63.2
63.0
62.4
62.0
62.0
61.9
61.7
61.5
61.1
61.0
60.9
60.8
60.4
Country /
Region
69 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Germany
70 Vanderbilt University
United States
71 Tsinghua University
China
72 Rice University
United States
73 Universität Heidelberg
Germany
74 University of Queensland Australia
Australia
75 Emory University
United States
75 Wageningen University and Research Center
Netherlands
77 University of Colorado Boulder
United States
77 Tufts University
United States
79 Leiden University
Netherlands
80 Lund University
Sweden
81 University of Rochester
United States
81 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
United States
83 Durham University
United Kingdom
84 Université Pierre et Marie Curie
France
85 University of St Andrews
United Kingdom
86 University of California, Irvine
United States
87 Uppsala University
Sweden
88 Technische Universität München
Germany
89 University of Notre Dame
United States
90 Dartmouth College
United States
91 University of Helsinki
Finland
92 University of Amsterdam
Netherlands
93 Case Western Reserve University
United States
94 University of Maryland, College Park
United States
Republic of
94 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Korea
96 Michigan State University
United States
97 University of Arizona
United States
98 Purdue University
United States
99 University of Sussex
United Kingdom
100 University of Alberta
Canada
150 Brandeis University
United States
195 Boston College
United States
Rank
Institution
Overall score change
criteria
60.3
59.6
59.5
59.0
58.7
58.6
57.4
57.4
57.3
57.3
57.0
56.9
56.8
56.8
56.4
56.0
55.7
55.4
55.2
55.1
55.0
54.9
54.8
54.7
54.6
54.5
54.5
54.4
54.2
54.0
53.9
53.7
46.7
42.4
The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly the International Baccalaureate
Organization (IBO), is an international educational foundation headquartered in Geneva,
Switzerland and founded in 1968.[1][2] IB offers three educational programmes for children aged
3–19. The IB is a non-governmental organization (NGO) of UNESCO and has collaborative
relationships with the Council of Europe and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
(OIF).[18] The IB's alliance with UNESCO encourages the integration of its educational goals
into the IB curriculum.[19] The United States has the largest number of IB programmes (1,477 out
of 3,998) offered in both private and public schools.
Programmes
•
Primary Years Programme (PYP)
•
Middle Years Programme (MYP)
Diploma Programme (DP)
•
Curriculum
Group 1: Language A1
•
Group 2: Second language
•
Group 3: Individuals and societies
•
Group 4: Experimental sciences
•
•
Group 5: Mathematics and computer science
•
•
Extended essay (EE)
Theory of knowledge (TOK)
•
•
Group 6: The arts
Creativity, action, service (CAS)
Diploma Programme curriculum outline
Extended essay
The extended essay is an independent, self-directed piece of research, culminating in a 4,000word paper. As a required component, it provides:
•
practical preparation for the kinds of undergraduate research required at tertiary level
•
an opportunity for students to engage in an in-depth study of a topic of interest within a chosen
subject. The subject can come from any of the six groups (Areas of Knowledge).
Emphasis is placed on the research process:
•
•
•
•
formulating an appropriate research question
engaging in a personal exploration of the topic
communicating ideas
developing an argument.
Participation in this process develops the capacity to:
•
•
•
analyse,
synthesize, and
evaluate knowledge.
Students are supported throughout the process with advice and guidance from a supervisor
(usually a teacher at the school).
Theory of knowledge (TOK)
Theory of knowledge (TOK) is a compulsory subject all IB diploma students are obligated to
take. It intends to give students a broader understanding of the interactions between their
different school subjects as well as creating greater open-mindedness among students. It is based
on a system of Ways of Knowing and Areas of Knowledge, each of which is discussed in detail.
Ways of Knowing (WOK):
•
•
•
•
•
Sense perception
Reasoning
Language
Emotion
Several other WOK which are discussed in less detail
Areas of Knowledge (AOK):
•
•
•
•
•
•
Natural sciences
Human sciences
Arts
Mathematics
Ethics
History
The subject is assessed by a recorded presentation and a 1500 word essay, the final score,
together with the extended essay, influences 3 points of the overall 45 possible total score.