International Comparisons: An Excuse to Avoid Meaningful Educational Reform

The singularly important finding of PISA and TIMSS: We don't have a _public school system as we know it._ We have two. One is for poor and minority students; the other is for the rest of us.

By Gerald W. Bracey

Add to the list of international comparisons that won't lead to significant or appropriate education reform the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. And that is too bad, because it could. First the facts: Conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, PISA tested 15-year-olds in 28 OECD nations and four other countries: Brazil, Latvia, Liechtenstein, and the Russian Federation. ( "U.S. Students Rank Among World's Best and Worst Readers," Dec. 12, 2001.)

On the surface, the news from PISA is ho-hum. On tests of reading "literacy," mathematics "literacy," and science "literacy," American students were strictly average among the OECD nations, and slightly better than average with the four other countries included. (The OECD affixed the word "literacy" in an attempt to convey that the tests did not measure the students' mastery of school subjects, but their capacity to apply that knowledge to "real life" problems.)

According to The New York Times, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige greeted the results with "dismay." The press release from the Department of Education quoted Mr. Paige as saying, "Unfortunately, we are average across the board compared to other industrialized nations. In the global economy, these countries are our competitors—average is not good...