Most Nations Fall Short of NAEP Proficiency, Analysis Finds

Outside of a handful of Asian nations, the typical 8th grader in many foreign countries would not meet “proficient” levels on U.S. tests of mathematics and science, according to a reanalysis of international achievement data being published today. Then again, the study also shows, neither do most American students.

Scheduled to be posted today on the Web site of the American Institutes for Research, a Washington-based research organization, the new analysis comes from AIR’s chief scientist, Gary W. Phillips. Mr. Phillips’ idea was to statistically “link” scores from two well-known testing programs: the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, which is given every few years to students in more than three dozen countries, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated program known as the “nation’s report card.”

“I wanted to re-express the TIMSS results in terms of a set of standards that U.S. policymakers would be familiar with,” said Mr. Phillips, who was acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, the data-gathering arm of the U.S. Education Department, from 1999 to 2002. “It’s a lot like looking at world poverty levels. It’s impossible to get your head around it until you...