Background/Context: Scholars have attributed the underperformance of U.S. students relative to students in other high-income countries to unequal access to high-quality educational environments. Poor students are presumed to do disproportionately worse on international achievement tests and, consequently, to pull down the U.S. average. Conversely,…

In this paper, the authors begin by classifying the arguments that assert American schools are relatively inefficient into two categories: the "long-term trend argument" and the "international comparison argument." Their focus herein is on the latter of these two. They then describe two frameworks for approaching either of…