US reading scores fall -- but others do even worse
"The reading scores of American 15-year-olds have fallen sharply since 2022," and math scores are low, on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which is taken by students around the world, reports Sarah Mervosh in the New York Times.
Yet, "U.S. students score well above average in science and reading," compared to other developed countries, write Matt Barnum and Erica Meltzier for Chalkbeat. "Math scores, long America’s weakest subject, are now on par with other developed countries." That's because other countries' scores are falling even faster.
Technology may be to blame for global declines, say analysts. Around the world, students are reading less and attention spans are shorter. More students are "hasty readers," skimming texts and guessing at the answers.
The East Asian countries top the rankings once again. "Just 8 percent of American teenagers scored at the highest levels in math on the PISA, compared with 37 percent in Singapore, 23 percent in Korea and 22 percent in Japan," writes Mervosh. It was 54 percent in China, which only tests students in its wealthiest provinces.
"In reading, American students performed about as well as students in Australia and Canada," and in science, where scores did not decline, "American students competed with students in Switzerland and Finland," she writes.
A larger share of U.S. 15-year-olds failed in reach basic competence in reading and math. Top-scoring Asian countries have much narrower achievement gaps, said PISA's Andreas Schleicher.
“In the U.S. if you make a choice between a better teacher and a smaller class, you typically choose a smaller class,” he said. “In these (Asian) countries, they save on the class size, but they get the best people to become teachers.”
He added that schools in the West use AI to “make things easier for kids,” while in top Asian countries AI is used by teachers “to make students think harder, work harder.”
The reading recession isn't all about screens, writes Carl Hendrick. "Singapore has among the highest smart-phone saturation in the world but also the highest reading scores." The decline in reading scores started well before the pandemic, and haven't recovered.
One of the few developed countries to do well is England, he notes. "Reforms based on systematic phonics, a knowledge rich curriculum and explicit instruction have yielded strong results in reading." By contrast, scores in Scotland and Wales, which adopted progressive policies, have fallen.
England now outperforms Finland, once the darling of education tourists, writes Greg Ashman. "Nobody should bang on any more about how teachers in Finland have masters degrees and there’s no standardised testing."
"Nonsensically," he writes, Labour education minister Lucy Powell wants to undo the successful reforms. “Education should be about what you can do, and not what you can’t do,” she writes, adding, "I'm not bringing back stupid."
England's school reforms worked remarkably well, writes Iain Martin. Students in Scotland and Wales have been "betrayed by devolved elite idiocy."
When England's education minister decided students should memorize their times tables, Stanford's Jo Boaler predicted increasingly anxious students would "turn away" from math, , recalls Chad Aldeman. She cheered Common Core's push to "de-emphasize the rote memorization of math facts."
"A decade of international exams now show" England's math scores have held steady or improved, while U.S. scores have fallen, Aldeman writes.
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