Study Puts Results of International Tests on Common Metric

U.S. student performance lags behind top nations'.

International tests known by odd acronyms like PISA and TIMSS have become fixed in the American educational and political vernacular. Newspaper editorial writers and elected officials at all levels hash over U.S. students’ scores on those nation-by-nation exams with a zeal and frequency they once reserved for the release of state and local test results.

Now an American researcher has attempted to make those comparisons more meaningful to the public, by comparing the performance of students in U.S. states and cities against that of their foreign peers using a well-understood metric: letter grades.

A new study, “The Second Derivative: International Benchmarks in Mathematics for U.S. States and School Districts,” shows students in almost all U.S. states and cities performing at a C+ or C level. That is below the B grade that the study’s author contends should be the international target for American students, and which is achieved...