Study Shows US Students Not Gaining On International Peers

Education NewsTuesday, July 24th, 2012

Although improving academic outcomes of American students compared to their international peers has been the focus of educational efforts of the last two presidential administrations, according to a new study released by Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, the efforts haven’t yet produced encouraging results. Over the past two decades, the American education reform movement gave birth to voucher programs, school choice, charter schools and new teacher evaluation systems that link student test results to tenure and salary decisions, but the PEPG study conclusions seem to indicate that none of these measures have had an impact on student achievement.

On top of the bad news for the US, which the study ranks at about the middle of the pack out of the 49 countries covered by the researchers, the data shows that students from countries both above and below the US are improving at double — and sometimes triple — the rate of American students.

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