Building Bridges Between Home and School Library : What's New - Newest Additions To Our Handpicked Articles and Teacher Resources

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PISA-What Do The National Education Scores Really Mean PISA Main Site From OECD - Good Starting Point - by OECD
This is the OECD's main site for PISA information. A good starting point about the program, and from here you can find the latest reports, data, and interesting interpretations of the results. new (Views So Far 92 )

Key PISA Findings For 2012 - by OECD
The most recent PISA results, from 2012, direct from OECD. Contains some indepth reports and profiles of specific countries. From here you can also access enlightening indepth reports in PDF format. new (Views So Far 66 )

PISA 2012 Results: What Makes Schools Successful? - by OECD
PISA isn't just about national rankings. In this incredible indepth report, weighing in at 500+ pages, the data is presented and analysed, and the OECD presents its findings on what makes schools successful. A virtual goldmine. new (Views So Far 63 )

The PISA 2012 scores show the failure of 'market based' education reform | Pasi Sahlberg | Comment is free | theguardian.com - by Pasi Sahlberg
In this opinion piece out of England, the writer explains why the most recent results from the 2012 PISA suggest that the market economy approach to education is a failure. new (Views So Far 83 )

'Wake-up call': American Reactions To The 2009 Scores - by CHRISTINE ARMARIO
Americans and President Obama react to the finding that the USA trails countries, much poorer countries, in student scores in math, science and reading. new (Views So Far 75 )

How public opinion about new PISA test scores is being manipulated - by Richard Rothstein and Martin Carnoy
Must read for Americans. Essentially a critique of the PISA scores, and that simple analysis will always be misleading. Good for context. new (Views So Far 111 )

Key PISA test results for U.S. students (2012 Summary) - by VALERIE STRAUSS
Summary of the key findings for the USA on PISA scores. A good way of getting a handle on the data in smaller bites. new (Views So Far 99 )

NEA Weights In: What Do the 2012 PISA Scores Tell Us About U.S. Schools? - by NEA
The NEA weighs in on what they think the meaning of the 2012 PISA scores are. Bear in mind that the NEA, as is the case with many organizations, has its own biases. new (Views So Far 72 )

PISA Results: Canada Students High-Level Achievers But Math, Science Scores Dip - by Lauren La Rose
PISA scores in a Canadian context. new (Views So Far 100 )

PISA: Poor academic standards 2013 and an even poorer test - by Martin Stephen
A partisan political commentary out of England on their poor education test scores. Included here because it offers up several criticisms of the PISA tests. new (Views So Far 79 )

Are PISA scores really that important? - by Jeremy Fox
"Do PISA scores matter?" was the introductory topic on BBC's December 5 edition of Question Time. All three politicians on the panel concurred that they do, along with that self-important purveyor of prejudice Nick Ferrari (formerly of Fox News, deviser of Topless Darts and the News Bunny - you get the picture). Professor Mary Beard, sole educator on the panel, found herself alone in questioning the validity of PISA scores; but though she was clearly the most knowledgeable of those present, she was also the least articulate, possibly because she was less accustomed than her fellow-panelists to the soundbite world of instant opinion. Even though her intervention may have lacked impact, however, its thoughtfulness provoked me to dig a little deeper into international educational comparisons. new (Views So Far 67 )

Critique On The Usefulness of PISA Scores - by ANDREW CAMPBELL
There is a growing body of academic evidence that PISA test scores aren't accurate reflections of student learning. Cambridge statistician David Spiegelhalter expressed "...fairly serious concerns..." about PISA's 2012 testing methods and data analysis, while University of Copenhagen's Svend Kreiner calls PISA results "useless". Prof. Kreiner also demonstrated that in PISA's 2006 test, Canada could have placed "anywhere from second place to 25th" using PISA's methodology. Other prominent academic statisticians call PISA results and methods "utterly wrong" and "problematic". new (Views So Far 76 )

Florida students happy at school despite lagging PISA scores - by DAVID SMILEY
This is just plain weird. Don't know what to make of this one, whether it's an example of an odd American culture, but the reactions to the PISA results are...well, a little odd. new (Views So Far 74 )

Education Experts Divided on PISA Scores Showing U.S. Teens' Flat Performance - by Karyn M. Peterson
The reaction of education professionals and other thought leaders to the data has been decidedly mixed. Some stakeholders are beginning to use the findings to champion the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)--which 45 states, the District of Columbia, four U.S. territories, and the Department of Defense have adopted--as the solution to dramatically improving the problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills that U.S. students lack. However, some say the PISA findings actually prove that the emphasis on testing U.S. students in recent years has hindered their learning progress, and therefore should not be the way to move forward with the CCSS and other reforms. Others note, above all, that international comparisons do little to paint an accurate picture of U.S. schools and their varied demographics. For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)--which issued a report that explores the PISA data and its methodology and highlights relative NCES findings on specific states--the latest findings show that U.S. education "lags behind" the world. "While we're standing still, other countries are making progress," ... new (Views So Far 67 )

temp How Do High-Performing Nations Evaluate Teachers? | NEA Today - by NEA
Who decides if a teacher is effective and how is that determination made? School systems across the United States are struggling to answer that question as they try to design and implement teacher evaluation systems that are fair and accurate. It's no easy task and is not limited to public schools in this country. School systems around the world are tackling the same issue and are finding consensus among education stakeholders to be elusive. new (Views So Far 121 )

Merit Pay and High-Performing Nations. Does Pay For Performance Work? - by NEA
In February, Education Next released a report that seemed to credit performance pay with the success of countries who ranked high on the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment survey (PISA). Merit pay proponents hailed the study as proof positive that these measures are necessary if the United States is to improve student achievement. Case closed. Not so fast, according to the National Education Policy Center (NPEC). The Education Next report, called "Cross Country Evidence on Teacher Performance Pay" and written by Ludger Woessmann of the University of Munich, went unchallenged in the media until the NPEC published an analysis of the findings and concluded that the report was based on "unreliable and invalid" data and made too many broad assumptions to be useful as a policymaking guide. new (Views So Far 69 )

New Study: Merit Pay Does Not Boost Student Achievement | NEA Today - by NEA
Yet again, researchers have determined that paying teachers a bonus based on student performance does not improve the achievement of those students. A pay-for-performance study released by Vanderbilt University and the RAND Corporation followed nearly 300 Nashville Public Schools fifth- through eighth-grade teachers from 2007 to 2009. The result? No overall effect on student achievement across the entire treatment group. "We sought a clean test of the basic proposition: If teachers know they will be rewarded for an increase in their students' test scores, will test scores go up?," said Matthew Springer, executive director of Vanderbilt's National Center on Performance Incentives. "We found that the answer to that question is no." new (Views So Far 103 )