High and Low Performers

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Figure R1a. Average scores and 10th and 90th percentile scores of 15-year-old students on the PISA reading literacy scale, by education system: 2015

* p<.05. Score gap is significantly different from the U.S. 90th to 10th percentile score gap at the .05 level of statistical significance.
NOTE: This table shows the threshold (or cut) scores for the following: (a) 10th percentile- the bottom 10 percent of students; (b) 90th percentile- the top 10 percent of students. The percentile ranges are specific to each education system's distribution of scores, enabling users to compare scores across education systems. Education systems are ordered by score gap from smallest to largest. The OECD average is the average of the national averages of the OECD member countries, with each country weighted equally. Scores are reported on a scale from 0 to 1,000. Italics indicate non-OECD countries and education systems. B-S-J-G (China) refers to the four PISA participating China provinces: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. Results for Massachusetts and North Carolina are for public school students only. Although Argentina, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan participated in PISA 2015, technical problems with their samples prevent results from being discussed in this report. This figure corresponds to figure 3 in Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Science, Mathematics, and Reading Literacy in an International Context (NCES 2017-048).
SOURCE: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2015.

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Table R1b. Average scores and 10th and 90th percentile scores of 15-year-old students on the PISA reading literacy scale and percentile score gaps, by education system: 2015
	Percentile
	10th			Average			90th			90th to 10th
Education system	Score	s.e.		Score	s.e.		Score	s.e.		Score gap		s.e.
OECD average	364	0.8		493	0.5		613	0.6		249		1.0
Algeria	258	4.1		350	3.0		443	4.8		185		6.3
Vietnam	393	4.9		487	3.7		580	5.3		187		7.2
Indonesia	300	5.1		397	2.9		495	3.3		195		6.0
Mexico	321	3.6		423	2.6		523	3.9		202		5.3
Kosovo	243	2.8		347	1.6		447	2.6		204		3.8
Costa Rica	326	3.5		427	2.6		530	3.8		204		5.2
Thailand	308	3.3		409	3.3		514	4.9		206		5.9
Tunisia	257	4.7		361	3.1		467	3.6		209		5.9
Macau (China)	399	2.6		509	1.3		610	2.8		212		3.8
Turkey	322	4.9		428	4.0		535	5.9		213		7.7
Hong Kong (China)	412	4.5		527	2.7		632	3.1		220		5.5
Dominican Republic	250	3.8		358	3.1		471	5.1		220		6.4
Latvia	374	3.4		488	1.8		595	2.5		221		4.2
Ireland	406	4.1		521	2.5		629	2.8		222		5.0
Spain	379	3.9		496	2.4		603	2.9		224		4.9
Denmark	383	4.3		500	2.5		608	3.4		225		5.5
Estonia	404	4.0		519	2.2		630	2.9		226		5.0
Russian Federation	381	3.9		495	3.1		608	3.5		227		5.3
Chile	342	3.7		459	2.6		572	3.5		229		5.1
Poland	386	3.7		506	2.5		617	3.5		231		5.1
Peru	281	3.2		398	2.9		514	4.5		233		5.5
Buenos Aires (Argentina)	354	8.6		475	7.2		588	9.1		234		12.5
Colombia	308	4.4		425	2.9		542	3.1		235		5.4
Croatia	367	4.2		487	2.7		603	3.3		237		5.4
Japan	391	5.8		516	3.2		629	3.7		238		6.9
Canada	404	3.6		527	2.3		642	2.7		238		4.5
Slovenia	382	2.7		505	1.5		621	3.4		239		4.3
Finland	401	4.7		526	2.5		640	2.6		239		5.4
Portugal	374	3.7		498	2.7		614	3.1		240		4.9
Chinese Taipei	371	4.2		497	2.5		611	3.8		240		5.7
Jordan	281	5.4		408	2.9		522	2.9		242		6.1
Italy	359	4.2		485	2.7		602	2.9		244		5.1
Montenegro, Republic of	304	2.5		427	1.6		549	2.8		245		3.8
Romania	310	5.4		434	4.1		555	5.4		245		7.7
Lithuania	347	3.5		472	2.7		593	4.4		246		5.6
United Kingdom	372	4.0		498	2.8		621	3.6		249		5.4
Albania	279	5.2		405	4.1		528	5.2		250		7.3
Korea, Republic of	386	5.6		517	3.5		637	4.3		251		7.0
Moldova, Republic of	289	3.7		416	2.5		541	4.1		252		5.6
Uruguay	311	3.1		437	2.5		563	4.6		252		5.6
Switzerland	360	5.0		492	3.0		614	3.6		254		6.1
Hungary	338	4.2		470	2.7		593	3.2		255		5.3
Norway	381	4.0		513	2.5		636	3.0		255		5.0
Greece	334	8.2		467	4.3		590	3.7		256		9.0
Iceland	350	4.3		482	2.0		607	4.0		256		5.9
Singapore	400	3.7		535	1.6		657	2.6		257		4.5
Macedonia, Republic of	222	3.3		352	1.4		480	3.3		258		4.7
Germany	375	5.3		509	3.0		634	3.4		258		6.3
United States	364	5.4		497	3.4		624	3.8		259		6.6
Brazil	279	2.8		407	2.8		539	3.9		260		4.9
Sweden	364	4.6		500	3.5		625	3.6		262		5.9
Netherlands	368	4.6		503	2.4		630	3.1		262		5.6
Czech Republic	352	4.8		487	2.6		614	3.5		262		5.9
Belgium	360	3.9		499	2.4		623	2.5		263		4.6
Austria	347	5.1		485	2.8		611	3.0		265		5.9
Australia	365	2.7		503	1.7		631	2.2		265		3.5
Georgia	266	4.2		401	3.0		533	4.5		268		6.1
Cyprus	305	2.7		443	1.7		573	3.4		269		4.4
Trinidad and Tobago	291	3.2		427	1.5		561	3.5		270		4.7
Slovak Republic	312	4.6		453	2.8		583	3.2		271		5.6
New Zealand	368	4.5		509	2.4		643	4.3		274		6.2
United Arab Emirates	295	3.9		434	2.9		572	3.1		277		5.0
Luxembourg	336	2.9		481	1.4		616	2.5		279		3.9
B-S-J-G (China)	346	7.2		494	5.1		630	6.3		283		9.6
Qatar	256	1.8		402	1.0		547	2.2		291		2.8
France	344	5.7		499	2.5		637	3.0		293		6.4
Israel	326	5.8		479	3.8		621	4.3		295		7.2
Bulgaria	277	6.6		432	5.0		578	5.0		300		8.3
Lebanon	203	5.8		347	4.4		503	7.0		301		9.1
Malta	284	4.9		447	1.8		595	3.1		311		5.8
U.S. states and territories
Massachusetts	400	7.4		527	6.0		644	6.6		243		9.9
Puerto Rico	287	9.5		410	7.1		537	10.8		250		14.4
North Carolina	373	6.4		500	5.4		624	5.4		251		8.4

Score gap is larger than the U.S. percentile score gap at the .05 level of statistical significance. Score gap is smaller than the U.S. percentile score gap at the .05 level of statistical significance. NOTE: This table shows the threshold (or cut) scores for the following: (a) 10th percentile- the bottom 10 percent of students and (b) 90th percentile- the top 10 percent of students. The percentile ranges are specific to each education system's distribution of scores, enabling users to compare scores across education systems. Education systems are ordered by score gap from smallest to largest. The percentile score gap for each education system is the difference between its 90th and 10th percentile cut scores. The OECD average is the average of the national averages of the OECD member countries, with each country weighted equally. Scores are reported on a scale from 0 to 1,000. Standard error is noted by s.e. Italics indicate non-OECD countries and education systems. B-S-J-G (China) refers to the four PISA participating China provinces: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. Results for Massachusetts and North Carolina are for public school students only. Although Argentina, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan participated in PISA 2015, technical problems with their samples prevent results from being discussed in this report. This table corresponds to Figure 3 in Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Science, Mathematics, and Reading Literacy in an International Context (NCES 2017-048). SOURCE: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2015.