Globally, the private school share of enrollment increased from about 14 percent in 2000 to about 18 percent in 2019. We estimate the systemic effect of private enrollment share on learning outcomes. Estimates of the systemic effect of private school enrollment capture any competitive effects as well as any differences between public and private…

The reading literacy skills of Australian adolescents, as measured in successive PISA waves, have declined since 2000. Literacy achievement is not low by international standards, but it is lower in Australia than it is in Anglophone countries with which we compare ourselves, e.g. Canada. Using PISA 2018 and PIRLS 2021 data, we investigated both…

Gender differences in math-related professional achievements have been identified as a worldwide problem. Academic achievement assessments, however, have repeatedly revealed gender similarities. The observed gender similarity might be due to biased assessments that heavily rely on reading skills, which favors girls. The current study analyzed 29…

Has the achievement of U.S. students improved over the past half century? Have gaps between racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups widened or narrowed? These and similar questions provoke near-constant conversation. But answers are uncertain, partly because research to date has yielded inconsistent findings. In this article, the authors bring…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

Australia and New Zealand have participated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment since 2000. Reading literacy was the main focus of the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000, and at that time both countries' students generally performed well above the…

Gender differences in reading seem to increase throughout schooling and then decrease or even disappear with age, but the reasons for this are unclear. In this study, we explore whether differences in the way "reading literacy" is operationalised can add to our understanding of varying gender differences in international large-scale…

Education is recognised across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a moral imperative and a strategic priority to secure future prosperity and human flourishing. Policymakers have set ambitious targets to join the ranks of the best performing education systems in the world in order to deliver economic success and secure a place on the world…

This article outlines the complexity of reading with understanding, what is required for full and deep comprehension, the state of affairs with regard to reading comprehension in developed countries, possible etiologies for low performances, and suggestions for instruction in specific skills and strategies to improve students' demonstrated…

Each country's education system is intricate and unique, underpinned with different policies and priorities. International Large Scale Assessments (ILSAs) provide valuable insights into how a country's education system is performing. These studies gather in-depth contextual information about systems, schools, teachers and students; and explore the…

The importance of reading competence for both individuals and society underlines the strong need to understand the gender gap in reading achievement. Beyond mean differences in reading comprehension, research has indicated that girls possess specific advantages on constructed-response items compared with boys of the same reading ability. Moreover,…

As is the case in most OECD countries, boys in Norway are more likely to have lower levels of academic achievement and attainment than girls. While this phenomenon is not recent, it has become increasingly pronounced in recent years and, as a result, is attracting considerable attention from policy-makers in many countries. This paper develops…

This paper describes a secondary analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores by gender. Data were national public 4th- and 8th-grade reading scores from composite and subscales for 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013. Twelfth-grade scores for composite and literary experience from 2005, 2009, and 2013 and gain…

Drawing from a range of secondary data sources, this paper succinctly overviews patterns of access to good-quality education in Turkey over the last 15 years. It also maps the policy context within which issues of access, quality and equity are examined. As a result of effective supply and demand side strategies, enrolment ratios beyond the…

Background: Political devolution occurred in the UK in 1998-99, following many years in which some degree of policy administration had been devolved to the four nations. Since devolution, all four countries of the UK have pursued increasingly divergent education policies. This is true in England in particular, where diversity, choice and…