After the American Century
Pisa rankings have been developed, based on extensive
testing in 65 countries. Students
at age 15 were tested in math, reading and science. When taking all three tests
scores into account, the first forty nations are ranked as shown in the list
below. Note that the first three scores are for cities, not nations. Impressive
as they are, they cannot easily be compared to entire countries. South Korea and
Japan have high scores for a much larger sample, including a cross-section
of the entire population.
In general, the
top twenty are improving, in some cases remarkably. But most of those
with composite scores below 1520 are not improving or only improving a
little. Geographically, Asia leads, followed by Eastern
Europe, and then Western Europe plus New Zealand and Australia. Well
below the middle
one finds the United States. There is a dismal tie between Latin America
and the
Moslem World for the weakest showing. The real last place may be
somewhere in Africa, which
was not included in the study.
score in 2009 improvement
1. Shanghai 1783 1731 52
Above 1600
2. Singapore 1666 1630 - 36
3. Hong Kong 1661 1637 - 24
4. South Korea 1628 1623 - 5
5. Japan 1621 1588 33
6. Taiwan 1606 1558 48
Above 1550
7. Finland 1588 1631 - 43
8. Estonia 1578 1541 37
9. Liechtenstein 1576 1555 21
10. Macau-China 1568 1523 45
11. Canada 1566 1580 14
12. Switzerland 1565 1552 13
13. Poland 1562 1503 59
14. Netherlands 1556 1556 no change
Above 1500
15. Vietnam 1547 n.a.
16. Germany 1546 1530 16
17. Ireland 1534 1489 45
18. Australia 1534 1556 22
19. New Zealand 1528 1559 21
20. Belgium 1519 1528 - 9
21. United Kingdom 1507 1500 7
22. Czech Republic 1500 1473 27
23. Austria 1502 1503 1
Above 1475
24. France 1499 1491 8
25. Slovenia 1496 1496 no change
26. Denmark 1494 1497 -3
27. Norway 1488 1501 -13
28. Latvia 1482 n.a.
29. United States 1476 1489 -13
From 1422-1469
30. Italy 1469
31. Luxembourg 1468
32. Spain 1468
33. Portugal 1464
34. Hungary 1459
35. Lithuania 1455
36. Iceland 1454
37. Croatia 1447
38. Sweden 1446 1486 - 40
39. Russia 1443
40. Israel 1422
Latin America
(selected scores)
Chile 1309
Costa Rica 1277
Mexico 1252
Uruguay 1236
Brazil 1206
Argentina 1190
Colombia 1178
Peru 1125 (last place in all categories)
Moslem World
(selected scores)
Turkey 1386
Unit. Arab Emirates 1324
Tunisia 1190
Jordan 1188
Qatar 1148
Indonesia 1153
(next to last place overall)
With the notable exception of Finland (which declined from a high position), the Nordic nations
made a poor showing. They have collectively fallen toward the bottom of the
league table. If their decline continues, within another decade one of
them might be relegated and formed to move en masse to Argentina.
Decline in education may well be a predictor for a decline in economic development a generation later.
Decline in education may well be a predictor for a decline in economic development a generation later.
