Test scores across U.S. reveal ‘heartbreaking’ pandemic declines, with math hit hard
The United States is the only country with a graduation rate that is not rising in 2019, according to a new study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which released its annual survey of education performance earlier this month. (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – https://en.odcu.org/)
Meanwhile, students’ graduation rate in Japan is at the high end of the OECD’s graduation rates.
A total of 1.8 million seniors failed to graduate from high school last year in the United States, with an average of 25% failing. By contrast, 6.0 million seniors failed to graduate from high school in Japan, with an average of 37% failing to complete the 11-year program.
The United States was the only country not to meet its 2019 goal to graduate every high school senior, with a graduation rate of just 10.4% – one of the lowest in the OECD.
The U.S. has the eighth- or ninth-highest school graduation rate in the OECD – countries with high school graduation rates in the range of 74 to 80% perform significantly better than U.S. high school graduation rates.
Education has become a high-stakes issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. Donald Trump has criticized students who don’t graduate from high school as “losers” and pledged to create 30 million jobs for those “who can’t get jobs.”
In the U.S. alone, the OECD reports, more than 2 million students have dropped out of high school over the past four years – more than twice as many as in the previous four years combined.
The OECD was founded in 1961 by 18 wealthy countries. It has produced the now-standard index for evaluating education performance, the OECD PISA test.
Here is the OECD report:
For more about the PISA, here is the press release:
The OECD released the latest edition of the global education research report today (June 2) in advance of the annual meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which launches today in Buenos Aires. OECD chief Joao Pedro de Albuquerque says, “Education is the new motor of human development, and no society is complete without an educated population.”
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