Major Reanalysis of International Tests Show Achievement Gaps in All Countries, Big gains for US [View all]

[HiPointDem]

Richard Rothstein and Martin Carnoy, both highly accomplished scholars, have reanalyzed the international test score data and arrived at some startling and important findings.

Their study is titled “International Tests Show Achievement Gaps in All Countries, with Big Gains for U.S. Disadvantaged Students.” It includes not only their major analysis of international test scores, but critiques by the leaders of OECD and PISA, and their response to the critiques.

This important study should change the way international tests are reported by the media...In every nation, students from the most affluent homes are at the top of the test scores, and students from the poorest homes are at the bottom. In other words, there is an “achievement gap” based on social class in every nation.

"The share of disadvantaged students in the U.S. sample was larger than their share in any of the other countries we studied. Because test scores in every country are characterized by a social class gradient—students higher in the social class scale have better average achievement than students in the next lower class—U.S. student scores are lower on average simply because of our relatively disadvantaged social class composition.” In other words, we have more poverty than other nations with which we compare ourselves, and thus lower scores on average.

*They discovered that “the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged children is actually smaller in the United States than it is in similar countries. The achievement gap in the United States is larger than it is in the very highest scoring countries, but even then, many of the differences are small.”

The U.S. scores on PISA 2009 that so alarmed Secretary Duncan were caused by a sampling error. “PISA over-sampled low-income U.S. students who attended schools with very high proportions of similarly disadvantaged students, artificially lowering the apparent U.S. score. While 40 percent of the PISA sample was drawn from schools hwere half or more of students were eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, only 23 percent of students nationwide attend such schools.”*If the PISA scores are adjusted correctly to reflect the actual proportion of students in poverty, the average scores of U.S. students rise ...Instead of 25th in mathematics, the U.S. is 10th. “While there is still room for improvement, these are quite respectable showings.”

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/01/25/good-news-major-re-analysis-of-international-tests/