U.S. Performance Across International Assessments of Student Achievement

This Special Supplement to The Condition of Education 2009, for the first time, pulls together the evidence from the most recent international assessments taken by nearly a million students from 85 countries worldwide. This includes three internationally benchmarked exams -- the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)--to reveal how the United States compares with other countries across all three core subjects (math, science, reading) at the elementary, middle and high school level in terms of students' average scores and the percentage of students reaching internationally benchmarked performance levels. It also examines trends in U.S. student performance and the range of performance for the highest- and lowest-scoring students in each country.
The executive summary with major findings as well as links to the full text of the report is available here: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/analysis/