Nation needs major reforms in education - The Oakland Press Opinion: The best place for news in and around Oakland County

By WALTER WILLIAMS

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparison of 15-year-olds conducted by The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and problemsolving ability. In 2006, U.S. students ranked 25th of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science. McKinsey & Company, in releasing its report “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools” (April 2009) said, “Several other facts paint a worrisome picture. First, the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth-grade reading, math, and science, U.S. students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15, these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.”