Indicator V.1 indicates, the United States finds itself reasonably close to the company of Finland and Japan.
Here we again find Japan and Finland doing extremely well, with the United States and Italy producing less promising results. The Japanese mean results are 14 points higher than the results for Finland and a remarkable 40 points higher than those for the United States (and 48 points higher than the results for Italy). Results for students in the United Kingdom are virtually indistinguishable from those for the United States, while results for France and Germany are eight to ten points higher that those for the United Kingdom and the United States. Results for Canada are almost identical to those those for Finland.
These results suggest that American students score, on average, 12 points behind students from Finland, but 36 points ahead of French students (and 13 points ahead of students in Italy and Germany). In examining Indicator V. 1, it is important to note that the results for Japan, which did not participate in PIRLS, are imputed, based on the top reading ranking of Japanese students among 15-yearolds on the PISA assessment. It is possible, but highly unlikely, that Japanese students were poor or moderate readers in fourth-grade but then vaulted to the top of the reading charts by age 15. As a nation, China participated
School Completion Rates Every year, students graduate from American high schools in the late spring aware of classmates required to complete additional classes to obtain their high school diplomas. By the standards of “on-time” completion, these students would be considered by many to be failures. This is so, even though many of them receive diplomas at the end of the summer and some enroll in two- and four-year colleges in the fall. A more meaningful completion rate would include
in neither the PIRLS or PISA assessments. Although a
graduates who finished school within a reasonable time of
handful of wealthy, urban, subnational jurisdictions such
their on-time rate. A completion rate calculated on the
as Shanghai did report PISA findings, these findings have
basis of “on-time plus two years” seems a reasonable
been shrouded in controversy.24
proxy. Fortunately OECD collects such data as displayed in Indicator V.3. Here, as elsewhere in Dimension V,
Secondary School Reading
Japan is in such solid shape that its on-time graduation
The positive findings for U.S. students in fourth-grade reading are not repeated among U.S. 15-year-olds on the PISA reading assessment, as revealed by Indicator
V.2.25
rate, which is displayed here, exceeds the “on-time plus two years” benchmark of the other eight nations. Germany and the United States follow Japan in terms of school completion as defined here, with Finland and Canada close behind. France, the United Kingdom, and Italy report almost identical rates around 80 percent. The Chinese figure may in fact overstate the “completion plus two” rate since this figure, like the Japanese figure, is taken from a different statistical series. OECD reports in a different series on school completion rates at “age specific” years for each nation, with the year defined as the age of students beginning their final year. For example, United States’ students are counted in the !33