Printing Errors Invalidate U.S. Reading Scores on PISA

Reading scores for the United States on an international assessment of student skills have been invalidated because of major errors in the printing of the test, in what a top federal education official called an “embarrassment” for government officials and the private contractor responsible for administering the exam.

The results of the reading section of the Program for International Student Assessment , or PISA, were ruined when printing errors in the test booklets directed students to the wrong pages for information related to specific questions.

Mark S. Schneider, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, the arm of the U.S. Department of Education that oversees U.S. participation in the exam, said today that his agency bore some responsibility for not catching the printing problem before the tests were given to...