Creativity has fascinated scholars for generations, and its identification as one of the key 'twenty-first century skills' necessary for economic growth has led to renewed interest. This creates two challenges for the OECD: its flagship Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) does not directly measure creativity. Secondly, the…

The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are large-scale measurements about teaching and learning. There is a link between TALIS indicators and PISA results. We investigated which countries are effective according to TALIS indicators as inputs and PISA 2015 mathematics,…

This paper quantifies the learning gain that accrues to 15-year-old students over one year of schooling in 18 countries and economies, where the cohort eligible to sit the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)ISA test overlaps with two distinct school cohorts. School-entry regulations are used as an exogenous source of…

This paper compares the learning gain over one year of schooling among 15-year-old students in Austria and Scotland (United Kingdom). Common metrics for reading, mathematics and science learning, as established by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), are used. In order to overcome the limitations of a cross-sectional,…

In this chapter, the authors analyse and discuss conceptual and methodological issues related to international benchmarking and its effect on educational policy and practice in selected European countries. Benchmarking is viewed as a process of comparing educational outcomes in schooling systems, identifying strengths and weaknesses and serving as…

This study examines key school reform policies and outcomes of the USA and Korea over the past three decades from comparative perspectives. Since the two nations' unique educational problems brought divergent educational reform paths--standardization versus differentiation, high-stakes testing versus individualized assessment, and centralization…

Education is recognised across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a moral imperative and a strategic priority to secure future prosperity and human flourishing. Policymakers have set ambitious targets to join the ranks of the best performing education systems in the world in order to deliver economic success and secure a place on the world…

As states struggle with the notion of international competitiveness, the quality and rigor of academic content standards has come into question. While Ohio's content standards are well regarded, the state initiated a process to revise the standards and eventually joined with the majority of states in adopting a voluntary set of national…

This report provides an overview and discussion of the past decade of academic evidence on the causal effects of resources in schooling on students' outcomes. Early evidence lacked good strategies for estimating the effects of schools resources, leading many people to conclude that spending more on schools had no effect. More recent evidence using…

Setting international benchmarks for education systems of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is one of the goals of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, some countries are not able to participate in PISA, despite their desire to set international benchmarks for their…

ACT examined the international competitiveness of college and career ready standards in the policy research report, Affirming the Goal: Is College and Career Readiness an Internationally Competitive Standard? In this study, ACT performed a linking analysis to identify the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) scores in reading and…

This report examines how performance standards in reading and math on PLAN[R], the organization's college and career readiness assessment for 10th graders, compare to performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a worldwide assessment of 15-year-old students' academic achievement. The results show that the performance…

Recent months have brought an ever-louder drumbeat in support of state-level participation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), with a weaker chorus calling for states to participate in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Despite the growing infatuation with international comparisons of…

The watchword of this year's Brown Center Report is caution--caution in linking state tests to international assessments--"benchmarking" is the term--caution in proceeding with a policy of "algebra for all eighth graders," caution in gleaning policy lessons from the recent progress made by urban schools. State and local budget…

In 1999, Ministers responsible for school education agreed to the new set of "National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century," with the aim of providing high quality schooling in Australia which would secure for students the necessary knowledge, understanding, skills and values for a productive and rewarding life. As a…