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US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

nytimes.com

11–20 of 22 posts

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#11
post #6

It will be interesting to see the race-wise results. On 2022, those show US Asians at number 1 for Reading and Science and 4 (behind Singapore, Macau, Taiwan) in Mathematics; with US White close behind; and then a steep drop off for other races until US Black at number 35, 43, 52. There’s a large gap in subpopulations which means change in population blend causes the total population to show change without an underly…

It would be interesting to see how US born black people's scores differ from black immigrants from Africa who tend to value education much more.

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Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#12
This is a friendly reminder that for about 10 years, "sightwords" (rote memorization) displaced phonics in an attempt to show off a younger reading age.

(Plot twist: You can get kindergarteners to "read" via sightwords, when they might otherwise only be intellectually-mature enough to do so (for real) starting in 1st-2nd grade... but the shortcuts catch up with folks when they hit ~4th-5th grade reading comprehension).

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#13
post #6

It will be interesting to see the race-wise results. On 2022, those show US Asians at number 1 for Reading and Science and 4 (behind Singapore, Macau, Taiwan) in Mathematics; with US White close behind; and then a steep drop off for other races until US Black at number 35, 43, 52. There’s a large gap in subpopulations which means change in population blend causes the total population to show change without an underly…

I'm curious what the trend for whites in the US is over time. That would be a good first approximation on how much of this decline is due to culture or the educational system (including COVID disruptions) and how much is demographic change/immigration.

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#14
post #9
post #8

Somewhat related but I saw this tweet that claims the SAT and ACT has been significantly relaxed to produce higher scores. The competition is to try to make an easier test so more people use that test and pay the fees. The post was from someone selling an alternative, so it should be taken w a grain of salt. But if you look at Harvard, the median SAT score is 1550 today, much higher than before. Another post gave an…

>Another post gave an example of a real SAT question, which I will present below: As other X users have noted, it might just be a "easy" question and not reflective of the entire test. Also from a test perspective it makes sense to have "easy" questions, so the scores have proper scaling. If you're designing a test to judge science ability, but all the questions are about quantum physics, then you'll have a bunch of…

Aktually scoring a zero would mean they all knew something about QM

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#15
post #6

It will be interesting to see the race-wise results. On 2022, those show US Asians at number 1 for Reading and Science and 4 (behind Singapore, Macau, Taiwan) in Mathematics; with US White close behind; and then a steep drop off for other races until US Black at number 35, 43, 52. There’s a large gap in subpopulations which means change in population blend causes the total population to show change without an underly…

What's your source for the 2022 difference?

PISA itself doesn't publish data broken down by racial subgroup. Back in 2018, the NCES public download included a RACETHC variable (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2021/data/2021019_rawdata.zip).

But the most recent file on the NCES PISA 'data products' page is from 2018: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/publications.asp

(At the time of writing if you expand 'Data Products' the first file is 'Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 Public Use File (PUF) NCES Number: 2021019 Release Date: July 8, 2021')

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#16
post #3

TIL: B-S-J-Z (China) in the rankings means Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Instead of testing mainland China as a whole, the OECD allows these four specific provincial-level jurisdictions to represent China in the triennial PISA rankings for 15-year-old students.

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Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#17
post #6

It will be interesting to see the race-wise results. On 2022, those show US Asians at number 1 for Reading and Science and 4 (behind Singapore, Macau, Taiwan) in Mathematics; with US White close behind; and then a steep drop off for other races until US Black at number 35, 43, 52. There’s a large gap in subpopulations which means change in population blend causes the total population to show change without an underly…

What's your source for the 2022 difference? PISA itself doesn't publish data broken down by racial subgroup. Back in 2018, the NCES public download included a RACETHC variable ( https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2021/data/2021019_rawdata.zip ). But the most recent file on the NCES PISA 'data products' page is from 2018: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/publications.asp (At the time of writing if you expand 'Data Products' the…

Rahim, you know this data better than me, but this purports to be it. Is it not real or is this somehow subtly different from what I would read it to be? It calls itself the reading results from PISA 2022 by race. You’d have to set a new dependent variable to get the other two. I don’t know how to get it to show all 3 at once.

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/idepisa/report.aspx?Lang=10...

If you can’t load it for some reason (that’s a direct link to the report and it launches a query) see here: https://imgur.com/a/gOnTJQZ

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your source for the 2022 difference? PISA itself doesn't publish data broken down by racial subgroup. Back in 2018, the NCES public download included a RACETHC variable ( https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2021/data/2021019_rawdata.zip ). But the most recent file on the NCES PISA 'data products' page is from 2018: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/publications.asp (At the time of writing if you expand 'Data Products' the…

Rahim, you know this data better than me, but this purports to be it. Is it not real or is this somehow subtly different from what I would read it to be? It calls itself the reading results from PISA 2022 by race. You’d have to set a new dependent variable to get the other two. I don’t know how to get it to show all 3 at once. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/idepisa/report.aspx?Lang=10... If you can’t load it for so…

Thanks, Roshan. I didn't know this interface existed.

I had thought the only way to access the data was via downloadable data files (no longer published) or the PDF reports.

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#19
post #3

TIL: B-S-J-Z (China) in the rankings means Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Instead of testing mainland China as a whole, the OECD allows these four specific provincial-level jurisdictions to represent China in the triennial PISA rankings for 15-year-old students.

Why is China constantly allowed special treatment like this?

I bet if the US only submitted scores from select wealthy Massachusetts and NoVA counties you’d see some crazy numbers.

Re: US Reading Scores Plummet on Global Exam

#20
post #3

TIL: B-S-J-Z (China) in the rankings means Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Instead of testing mainland China as a whole, the OECD allows these four specific provincial-level jurisdictions to represent China in the triennial PISA rankings for 15-year-old students.

Why is China constantly allowed special treatment like this? I bet if the US only submitted scores from select wealthy Massachusetts and NoVA counties you’d see some crazy numbers.

It will only amount to 3% of the US population. China’s cut out amounts to 13% percent. A 1.41 billion is a lot of people and I understand they don’t want to skew the results. If just taking account that slice, which a quick search says it’s 180 million people, that reading is more than half of the US population. It’s a matter of scale. I’m sure they can add some other provinces to total the US population and still have a higher score.
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