Larry McQuillan (202) 403-5119, LMcQuillan@air.org

New System Measures State, District Performance With Countries Around the World
In Today’s Global Economy, only a Handful of States Score Favorable ‘Letter Grades’ on International Benchmarks

Full Report Available at
http://www.air.org/news/documents/AIRInternationalBenchmarks2009.pdf

See How Your State Compares to Other Countries at
http://assessment.air.org/Psychometrics_Chart.aspx

Washington, D.C. – A new international grading index that provides states,
school districts and policymakers with a way to determine where their students
rank in comparison with their peers around the world finds that U.S. elementary
school students show average performance, at best, in mathematics and are
widely outperformed by their counterparts in several Asian countries, including
Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR and Japan.

This new approach to benchmarking simplifies international comparisons by
grading the countries, states and school districts with a comparable system
that is more familiar to policymakers – grades of A, B, C, D, or BD (below a
D). The study assumes that the international benchmark, against which we
should calibrate our expectations and monitor our success, is a grade of B.

The report, issued today by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), based
on international performance benchmarks in math for 4th and 8th grade students
concluded that only 4th graders in a handful of states – among them
Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Kansas and Vermont – are
learning at B or B- levels when compared with students internationally.

At Grade 8, only Massachusetts achieves a grade of B.

“The Second Derivative: International Benchmarks in Mathematics for U.S. States
and School Districts, is the first national report that captures the essence of
what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and others have mentioned about
international benchmarking,” said report author Gary Phillips, a vice
president and chief scientist at AIR. “This grading index achieves the
important goal without adding any significant additional costs for states or
the federal government.”

The study was sponsored by AIR, a non-profit, non-partisan research
organization, as part of its mission to provide relevant research to
policymakers and practitioners seeking to improve school performance.

Phillips, who also served as the acting commissioner of the National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education from 1999
to 2002, and is nationally known for his expertise in large-scale assessments
and complex surveys, said the grade of B was chosen as the benchmark because it
is statistically equivalent to the pro cient level recommended by the
National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as
the level of performance we should expect from our students.

“These Asian nations consistently perform at the B+, B, and B- levels,”
Phillips said. “Their students are learning mathematics not just at a higher
level than students in the United States, but at a level that is a quantum leap
higher.” The math proficiency average for U.S. students is C+ in grade 4 and C
at grade 8.

“United States’ students mathematics proficiency average is at the C+ level at
grade 4 and C at grade 8,” the report found, suggesting, “The typical student
in the United States is learning mathematics at a relatively mediocre level
when benchmarked against global expectations.”

In an increasingly competitive global economy in which skills are a pathway to
opportunity, the report averred, the findings are cause for concern, recounting
President Obama’s belief that “the countries that out-teach us today will
out-compete us tomorrow.”

“The highest achieving countries are so far ahead of us, we will never catch up
if we run at the current pace,” said Phillips. “Our states and school
districts should no longer be comparing themselves to their neighbors. They
will be competing for jobs and innovations with students around the globe.”

“The race to the top starts with knowing where we stand and how high the bar is
over which we need to jump,” he added. “Establishing state or national bars
uninformed by what is happening around the world is flying without radar.”

In rating the performance of states and school districts, the AIR report found
even more cause for concern, noting “a general tendency among the states and
districts to drop in performance from grade 4 to grade 8.”

By Grade 8, for example, five major school districts (Los Angeles, Chicago,
Atlanta, the District of Columbia and Cleveland) had fallen from C grades to
the D+ level. Previously only the Washington, D.C., school system held this
unfortunate distinction.

Similar drops do not occur among these high-performing Asian nations.

“To get a feel for how far ahead these countries are, we compared the 4th grade
students in the highest achieving country, Hong Kong, to those in the United
States,” explained Phillips. “The difference is comparable to the difference
between the highest achieving state (Massachusetts) and the lowest achieving
state (Mississippi). That is a huge achievement gap.”

The report cites several reasons why the international grading system employed
by AIR is a good choice for comparing educational outcomes within the context
of a global educational environment.

• The grading system is a familiar metric and is intuitively understandable to
the public and policymakers.

• The grades are connected to rigorous international benchmarks. This is
indicated by the fact that only a few high-achieving countries and states
received a B grade and no country or state received an A.

• The international benchmarks that underlie the grades were established
through an international consensus process and have a scientifically based
criterion-referenced interpretation.

• The grading system is comparable across Grades 4 and 8, across years of
administration, across countries and now, as a result of the AIR report, across
states and school districts.

One especially disturbing finding the report cited was “that there are a
relatively large number of countries in which the students are performing at
the BD (below D) level of proficiency.” A few countries do a good job of
teaching mathematics to the overall population of students, but in many
countries the average student is not learning much mathematics.

“No one believes international benchmarking is a silver bullet that will solve
all the problems with American education,” the report concluded. “But it
certainly should be at the front of the list of strategies for making
improvements.”

About AIR

Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American
Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization
that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical
assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health,
education, and workforce productivity. For more information, visit www.air.org.

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