Massive population shift is a current global reality--especially given some of the latest development on European shores; some are calling it a humanitarian crisis. Although the United States (US) receives a large number of immigrants (documented and not) and about 70,000 refugees each year, it is certainly not the only nation to do so.…

Results from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) garner considerable attention in the media, academia, and among policy makers. Although there is widespread recognition that ILSAs can provide useful information, there is debate about what types of comparisons are the most meaningful and what could be done to assure more sound…

Secretary of Education Duncan (2010) lamented the state of U.S. education in 2010 after the release of the results from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). He wrote: "Unfortunately, the 2009 PISA results show that American students are poorly prepared to compete in today's knowledge economy. President Obama has…

Background/Context: Two key uses of international assessments of achievement have been (a) comparing country performances for identifying the countries with the best education systems and (2) generating insights about effective policy and practice strategies that are associated with higher learning outcomes. Do country rankings really reflect the…

Understanding how well English education performs compared with other countries is a valuable exercise, particularly because the information can help England and other countries learn from successful systems. The most recent international league tables of pupil performance differ considerably. England languishes well down the list in PISA 2009,…

The release of the latest results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) garnered all the usual headlines about America's lackluster performance and the rise of competitor nations. To be sure, the findings--that America's fifteen-year-olds perform in the middle of the pack in both reading and math--are disconcerting for a…

In most PISA-participating countries and economies, the average socio-economic background of students who attend privately managed schools is more advantaged than that of those who attend public schools. Yet in some countries, there is little difference in the socio-economic profiles between public and private schools. Why? An analysis of PISA…

The purpose of this paper is to identify school effects on student performance for tertiary entrance in Australia, taking into account student-level predictors using longitudinal data from the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. It finds that aspects of schooling, such as positive attitudes to school and disciplinary…

It is established that the socio-economic status (SES) of individual students is strongly associated with academic achievement but less is known about this relationship when both student and school socio-economic status are considered. To examine these associations at a finer grain, with the intent of informing educational funding policy, we…

This paper raises some methodological concerns about the conduct, analysis and interpretation of results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. While in many respects PISA represents an advance on previous attempts at international comparative assessment studies, it retains certain problematic aspects. The article…

School systems aspire to provide equal opportunity for all, irrespective of socio-economic status (SES). Much of the criticism of recent school reforms that introduce accountability, autonomy, and choice emphasizes their potentially negative consequences for equity. This report provides new evidence on how national features of accountability,…