This paper examines the development of international education-policy indicators and some conceptual and methodological issues that shape how cross-national comparisons may be made. During the late 1980s representatives of education ministries and departments of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states initiated the Indicators of Education Systems Project (INES), the first system of comparative education policy indicators on education. The INES Project represents the single best source of international policy indicators today. The paper identifies issues in comparing states and nations, which include different locuses of policy decision making, variation among the study populations, and different contexts of educational environments. Factor analysis was used to examine the social context of American states and European nation-states with more centralized education policies. The data found a common social context characterized by violent death among youth, youth poverty, and teenage births. The American states were found to be more different than alike on the social context of education, and some eastern states appeared to be more like European countries than other states. The paper recommends that member OECD countries commit to complete reporting of at least the core education indicators. One figure and two tables are included. (Contains 27 references.) (LMI)