American students gained ground on their international counterparts in reading and math, according to results of an internationally benchmarked exam – but only because other countries’ declines were so much more precipitous.
The results of the Program for International Student Assessment – the first assessment to examine the academic progress of students in math, reading and science in dozens of countries since the outset of the pandemic – marked historic setbacks for children globally.
“These results are another piece of evidence showing the crisis in achievement,” said Peggy Carr, head of the National Center for Education Statistics, an office of the U.S. Education Department. “Only now can we see that it is a global concern.”
In math, the average international score fell by 15 points – roughly equal to three-quarters of a year of learning – and by 10 points in reading – roughly equal to half a year of learning. Students hadn’t recorded a change of more than five points in either subject since the exam was first administered in 2000. The average score for science did not change significantly.
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The test was administered in 2022 to 15-year-olds in 37 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, plus 44 other partner countries. The COVID-era setbacks spared none, affecting wealthy countries and poor countries and even those long recognized as academic powerhouses.
In the U.S., scores actually fell in all three subjects, even though it rose in international rankings since the last time the PISA test was administered in 2018: from 29th in math to 26th, from eighth in reading to sixth, and from 11th in science to 10th. The slumping scores among American students largely mirror results seen on national assessments in recent years.
A handful of countries saw unprecedented drops, including a 69-point drop in math for Albania, a 39-point drop in math for Jordan, a 36-point drop in math for Iceland, a 33-point drop in math for Norway, a 30-point drop in reading for Finland and a 27-point drop in math for Poland.
“The whole world is struggling with math, and we are not immune from that,” Carr said. “Everyone had struggles during the pandemic. What we’re seeing here is we had less.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Singapore, which has long been seen as an education powerhouse, notched the highest scores in every subject, followed by a handful of high-performing countries, including Japan, China, Estonia, Canada and Ireland.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said that if it weren’t for the unprecedented injection of emergency COVID-19 aid for K-12 schools, which were used for things like tutoring, summer programming and hiring additional teachers, children in the U.S. would have fallen even further behind. That funding infusion followed the administration of former President Donald Trump, during which school districts across the country closed their classrooms in favor of remote learning – a move that still divides the Republican Party.
“Here’s the bottom line,” Cardona said in a statement. “At an extremely tough time in education, the United States moved up in the world rankings in reading, math, and science – all three categories PISA measures – while, unfortunately, many other countries saw declines.”
“If President Biden hadn’t fought for the single largest investment in education in our nation’s history – and delivered it in the form of the American Rescue Plan – we’d be in the same boat as other countries, who didn’t make those investments, and saw their rankings fall,” he said.
