What Students
Really Need
to Learn
Top-performing nations set their instructional sights
on far more than basic reading and math skills.
Lynne Munson
tudents in the United States rank
17th in the world in reading,
23rd in science, and 31st in
mathematics on the 2009 Pro-
gramme for International Student
Assessment (PISA). Our betters
in math include Slovakia, Hungary, and
Poland. Meanwhile, our economic competitors
turn in performances that rank them at the top
of global student achievement tests. We’re far
behind China, Singapore, Canada, Australia,
and Japan—and we’re increasingly aware of it.
Most U.S. researchers have reacted to these
scores by zealously examining the country’s
education structures. Studies and reports
abound on such topics as standards and
testing, class and school sizes, and professional
development. Both our data systems and our
professional development do need improving.
But such structural improvements alone appear
unlikely to reverse the course of the United
States’ education decline.
When Learning Expands
We at the nonprofit research organization
Common Core (not to be confused with
the Common Core State Standards) spent a
year looking into whether the United States’
mediocre standing on international comparison
tests is due to differences in the content that
various nations teach (2009). We concentrated
on nine nations that consistently outrank the
United States on PISA: Finland; Hong Kong
(a territory); South Korea; Canada; Japan;
New Zealand; Australia; the Netherlands;
and Switzerland.
