Achievement and Attainment
The United States is currently devoting considerable attention to establishing high standards for student achievement. The performance of students in other countries can provide valuable information toward establishing these standards. During the past several years, international assessments have been conducted in reading, science, geography, and mathematics.
U.S. students perform well in comparison with their peers in other countries in reading (Indicator 7). They perform less well in science and geography (Indicators 8 and 9). Their weakest area relative to students in other countries is mathematics on a mathematics assessment. Both 9- and 13-year-olds scored lower than their counterparts in the vast majority of participating countries (Indicator 8). Only about 10 percent of U.S. 13-year-olds scored as well as the top 50 percent in Taiwan, the highest performing country (Indicator 8).
When interpreting the results of international assessments, it is important to remember that there is always variation in student performance within countries. Compared with other participating countries, this variation in the United States is generally relatively large. For example, whereas 9-year-olds in the United States performed relatively well on average on the science assessment, scores of the students in the bottom 10 percent were lower than those of the bottom 10 percent in many countries (Indicator 8).
Also, test performance is the ultimate result of many factors, and test score differences should not be interpreted as direct indicators of differences in school quality. They may also reflect differences in time spent on subjects, the match between curriculum and test items, and differences in curricular styles. For example, the Second International Mathematics Study of 1982 (SIMS) found that the U.S. eighth grade mathematics curriculum was devoted largely to arithmetic, while in Japan the focus was on algebra. Also, while mathematics content areas tend to be divided among several grades in the United States, instruction in major content areas is concentrated in a single grade in France and Japan (see the sidebar entitled Curricular requirements: mathematics).
A countries' educational accomplishments can also be compared by looking at the educational attainment of adults. On these measures, the United States consistently compares favorably with other countries. For example, the United States had one of the highest concentrations of adults scoring at the highest levels of literacy (Indicator 10). Adults ages 25-64 in the United States have completed higher levels of schooling than adults in most other countries. The United States and Canada stand out particularly for the high percentage of their populations in this group who have completed higher education (Indicator 11). However, as in all the other countries reported, females ages 25-64 are underrepresented among higher education graduates in these two countries (Indicator 13). This is not true, however, for females ages 25-34. The percentage of males and females in this age cohort who have completed higher education is very similar (see supplemental table 3). Examination of the upper secondary level completion rates of different age cohorts suggests that attainment of this level is increasing in all countries (Indicator 12). Science and engineering degrees comprised a smaller percentage of all university degrees awarded in the United States than in most other countries in 1992 (Indicator 14).
[Indicator 6]
[Indicator 7]