A lot of what PISA results reflect is countries desire to score a certain way. The Asian countries want to score highly for prestige reasons and run the tests in schools with above average students. On the other hand countries like the US or Germany who used low scores as a justification for domestic reform.
Here’s a table sorted for math. The US is 37th out of 78 on the list, below Spain and above Israel; the tiers are “rich Asian city-state”, “small country in Asia or Europe”, and then “large country in Europe or less impressive small country,” and the US is low-ranked in that third tier. (The difference between Japan and the US is smaller than the difference between the US and Mexico.)
The US does pretty badly in the world tables for school performance in math especially considering its GDp/capita. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-results_ENGLISH.png
A lot of what PISA results reflect is countries desire to score a certain way. The Asian countries want to score highly for prestige reasons and run the tests in schools with above average students. On the other hand countries like the US or Germany who used low scores as a justification for domestic reform.
Here’s a table sorted for math. The US is 37th out of 78 on the list, below Spain and above Israel; the tiers are “rich Asian city-state”, “small country in Asia or Europe”, and then “large country in Europe or less impressive small country,” and the US is low-ranked in that third tier. (The difference between Japan and the US is smaller than the difference between the US and Mexico.)