Governor Walker's budget, arriving in the depths of winter, leaves Wisconsin perched,

teetering, like a neophyte ski jumper, ready to follow states like Michigan and Florida off
into a full scale, publicly funded, for-profit alternative to its local schools. It is past time
to examine the myths that brought us here. One of the most potent of these myths is that
American schools are failing.
Market based school reform advocates present America's educational challenge as being
made up of two separate issues. The first is the very real problem of the educational
outcomes of the poor. The second has to do with a postulated more general failure of the
entire American school system, as demonstrated by low scores on the PISA and TIMSS
international tests. This disaggregation allows reformers to assert that it is appropriate to apply marketbased reforms across the whole school system.
The PISA test is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEDC).
It tests a sample of fifteen-year-olds in its 34 member countries and several others, in three subjects.
The TIMSS test is for fourth and eighth grade students in 65 countries in math and science.
Reform advocates invariably display PISA data as rankings on a bar graph showing an array of
countries above the US. But three of those usually listed higher are not countries at all, but cities in
China. No one expects China's performance to approach this level when the whole country is tested in
2015. Also high on the list are two wealthy city-states, with impressive performance, but low
population. In fact American students' performance is very close to the average of the best performing
34 countries, out of 193 countries in the world.
It is a common phenomenon that test scores tend to be clustered
close to the mean. In this chart of the OEDC countries on the
2012 test, it appears that the U.S. is performing much better in
reading than the international average. But the difference
between the two is only two points on a test with over 600 points,
or, in practical terms, about 1/3 of a point on a hundred point test.
The US percentage score is identical to the average score, as are
all the scores in between the two. So are many of the scores of
countries listed higher on the chart.
US performance in PISA reading and science is statistically not
different from the developed country average. We are below
average in math on the PISA test, but above average on the
TIMSS.
After decades of thwarted advocacy for curricular reform by
mathematicians and math teachers, we still teach the subject very
differently than PISA tests it. An impediment to change seems to
be parental panic at not understanding their child's math
homework. The TIMSS is, from an American perspective, a
more conventional test.
Harvard professor Tony Wagner
explains our problem with PISA math here.

Note the scores of Finland and Sweden

on this chart. Although frequently cited
Reading 496 math 494 Sci 501 by American school reformers, Finland
498
481
497 has in fact instituted none of the
483
478
485
programs that reformers advocate. The
524
519
545
Finns have adopted a system of strongly
supported public schools. Sweden is the
TIMSS math 2011 (500 is the average score)
only country in the OEDC that has
US 4th Graders
541 ( 8 countries are higher)
adopted reforms stressing competition
US 8th Graders
509 (11 countries are higher)
and privatization. Under the privatized
regime Swedish math scores fell from
510 in 2003 to 478 in 2012; reading scores fell from 516 to 483. US scores have been essentially stable
over the period.
PISA 2012
OEDC average
USA
Sweden
Finland

In 2012, PISA, for the first time, reported scores from three US states. In an analog to Finland and
Sweden, we can compare one of the least privatized states (MA) with one that has enthusiastically
embraced privatizing reforms (FL). The average math score of Massachusetts' students was 514;
Florida's was 467. In reading, it was Massachusetts' 527 to Florida's 492.
To many Americans, being average is in itself a crisis. It is unclear why they think that we should do
exceptionally well. Our culture admires wealth more than educational attainment. Our popular culture
teaches students that sports or entertainment is the route to satisfaction and success, and that academic
accomplishment is an inconvenient necessity. As with Hobbits, a love of learning is far from
general among them.
In spite of this, students from schools that do not have a high percentage of poor students do very well
on the international tests. Analysis by the PISA testers themselves, by the National Association of
Secondary School Principals, and by the Education Trust, all find that, simply put, American students
of adequate means perform within the range of the top countries.
This chart shows the average composite PISA
scores of American students who attend schools
where the percentage of students receiving free or
reduced price lunch is as shown. Included are the
scores of countries with similar poverty rates.

Below 10 percent - 551

10 to 24.9 percent - 527
25 to 49.9 percent - 502
50 to 74.9 percent - 471
75 percent or more- 446

(Finland 536)
(Canada 526)
(Estonia 501)
(Turkey 464)

The lesson is clear, America has only one

educational crisis. It is our failure to educate students living in poverty. Emphasis on the PISA
rankings simply impedes the application of resources where they might do the most good.
Sweden's problems are described here.
Finland's education system described here.
A history of Finnish educational reform.