This article describes the grim sentiments from the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, when reviewing the poor results from the U.S. performance on the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). He noted a straightforward and stark picture of educational stagnation--that fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. today are average in…

The "Comparative Indicators of Education" report series has been published on a biennial basis since it began in 2002, although this year's is the first to expand its focus to the G-20 countries, having previously been focused on the G-8 countries. "Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-20 Countries:…

In this publication, the authors compare the salaries of primary (Grades 1 to 6 in most countries) and secondary school (usually Grades 7 to 12) teachers with the salaries of people in mathematics-oriented professions, such as engineering, scientific fields, and accounting. Their analysis centers on a number of developed and developing countries.…

Educational development in a country should reliably predict the level of wealth and its distribution. Undeveloped societies tend to have highly inegalitarian distribution functions. The development process accelerates this tendency by rewarding wealthy segments of the population that are in a position to invest in the growing economy. Finally, in…

This third Innocenti Report Card presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey so far of teenage birth rates in the industrialized world. And it attempts at least a partial analysis of why some countries have teenage birth rates that are ten or even fifteen times higher than others. The starting point is a new league table of teenage birth…

Compares unemployment, employment, and related labor market statistics in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Introduces employment-to-population ratios by sex and discusses unemployment rates published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and…

Noting that injuries are the leading cause of child death in all the world's more developed countries, this report is the second in a series of "Innocenti Report Cards" designed to monitor the performance of industrialized nations in meeting the needs of their children. The report focuses on child death by injury in the member countries…

Compared to most countries assessed in 1994, the United States had a greater concentration of adults who scored at the lowest literacy levels across prose, document, and quantitative literacy domains. However, it had one of the higher concentrations of adults who scored at or above level 4 on the prose scale. The proportion of adults who scored at…

An investigation compared the demographic profiles of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and LEARN respondents to explore whether people who telephone Canadian literacy groups are representative of the full range of people with literacy needs. (LEARN is ABC Canada's media campaign to link potential learners with literacy groups.)…

This paper presents an analysis of the number of university students attending institutions outside of their country of origin, focusing on the changes in such attendance between 1980 and 1990. Five tables present information on: (1) foreign students by region of origin; (2) percentage distribution of foreign students by region of origin; (3)…

Information from the International Indicators Project of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Center for Educational Research and Innovation is used to compare completion rates of secondary and higher education in the United States with those of other highly industrialized countries, namely, Canada, France, Germany, Italy,…

Since the 1960s, the United States has participated actively in international projects that are designed to provide key information about the performance of the U.S. education system compared to other countries. These projects include the Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…

This report examines data and data quality on vocational education and training available from the seven highly developed countries that make up the G-7: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Following an introduction, chapter 2 describes the nature of vocational education and training opportunities at…

Convergence theory, which explains changes in social systems, predicts that student-teacher ratios will become more similar worldwide under the impact of economic accumulation, technological utilization, industrialization, location and growth of the student-age population, enrollment expansion, and changes in each society's relationship to the…

This report summarizes the latest available statistics on international achievements in registering each child at birth; immunizing all children; assisting adolescents, particularly girls; and addressing homelessness in wealthy nations. Each of the report's sections contains a commentary, related statistics, and a discussion on progress and…