Today marks the release of the PISA 2009 assessment results. And just what is PISA:
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardised assessment that was jointly developed by participating economies and administered to 15-year-olds in schools.
Tests are typically administered to between 4,500 and 10,000 students in each country.
And just what does PISA look at?
PISA assesses how far students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society. In all cycles, the domains of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy are covered not merely in terms of mastery of the school curriculum, but in terms of important knowledge and skills needed in adult life.
PISA, has absolutely become the World Cup of education excellence. Over the last three years I have spoken to, hosted, and toured groups from around the world who specifically came to British Columbia to understand our high results. Of course, the interest in Finland can also be traced directly to these assessments. Finland has become education’s equivalent of soccer’s Brazil.
On the previously released results, Canada, and in particular Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, have performed among the very top performing jurisdictions in the world alongside Finland, Hong Kong and Korea (here is a summary of 2006 results). Since education is under provincial jurisdiction in Canada, our results are further broken out by province, while other jurisdictions are typically by country. The PISA results are the often used antidote against those who question the quality of education in British Columbia and Canada. We have a system looking to improve, but we are improving from a place of strength, and envy from around the world.
Today is announcement day. There is a lot to dig into beyond the headlines, but my quick read indicates:
- Korea and Finland are the top performing OECD countries, but Shanghai-China (a first time participant) outperforms them by a significant margin
- Girls outperform boys in reading in every participating country
- Canadian students continue to be near the top of OECD countries
- British Columbia students perform above Canadian averages
- Since 2000, British Columbia results have improved in science and declined in math and reading
From the OECD Press Release this morning, here are a few more key items they highlight:
• The best school systems were the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. However, schools that select students based on ability, show the greatest differences in performance by socio-economic background.
• High-performing school systems tend to prioritize teacher pay over smaller class sizes.
• Countries where students repeat grades more often tend to have worse results overall, with the widest gaps between children from poor and better-off families. Making students repeat years is most common in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.
• High-performing systems allow schools to design curricula and establish assessment policies, but don’t necessarily allow competition for students.
• Schools with good discipline and better student-teacher relations, achieve better reading results.
• Public and private schools achieve similar results, after taking account of their home backgrounds.
• Combining local autonomy and effective accountability seems to produce the best results.
• The percentage of students who said they read for pleasure dropped from 69% in 2000, to 64% in 2009.
There is much more to dissect, and there is a lot of excellent data produced going deeper into the rankings, which will garner much of the attention. PISA 2009 results are available here and the Executive Summary (a very good read) is available here. Ontario has also released a summary of its results including a series of tables listing all Canadian provinces available here.
As the results are further examined, there is a lot to consider when looking at jurisdictions that have undergone major reform initiatives, and how this has translated into results. A quick read indicates Ontario will likely be getting a lot of attention for its efforts in coming days.
Update: This link (here) is a summary of the results from Stats Canada.
cultureofyes.ca 
Very cogent. I am particularly interested in how the results are going to be shared publicly (or not). I have found myself that the majority of parents and teachers are unaware of just how well we do when compared to other jurisdictions. Years ago I shared the 2006 results with staff and many came up and thanked me for giving them ammunition to defend our education system. What struck me as strange was that we didn’t have a broader sense in our society that yes, we are doing a great job and as you say “improving from a place of strength”.
Thanks Joe. I have the same interest. I want people to look for themselves at the results, and go beyond the short news stories that will come out in the next couple days. There is a lot in these results that is affirming and also a lot that is instructive as we move forward with reform. This is a great opportunity to tconsider the best from around the world and see what may apply to British Columbia.
Thanks for the clear explanation of the results, Chris. Your soccer analogy is very appropriate. It is interesting to see Ontario’s results. The question is what are they doing differently and how can we learn.
Dear Minister of Education,
Please note the following conclusion from PISA: “High performing school systems tend to prioritize teacher pay over smaller class sizes.”
10-10-10 would make me happy.
A great analogy and great summary. It is good to have the feedback that shows that we have a strong education system.
Thanks for the links — I am looking forward to reading the report. I am particularly interested to see where we are good and where we are great AND what we can do to become excellent.
I am also curious to see what we have done (or not done) for our weakest students. In particular, has the gap between our top performing students and our struggling students shrunk or grown.
Chris – this results seem to have been given more press than in 2006 (although I think I am more aware of educational news now than I was in 06). I am wondering if this competitive focus is good for education. It sure does not seem to be working in the US. Am I right to say that we didn’t get an “above average” system by competing with other countries?
I have some concerns with the Minister’s comment, “it’s a reminder that while we have a good education system, we need to make improvements to remain competitive on a global scale.” Especially when we know that competition within school doesn’t seem to help student success. Thoughts?
Unfortunately the press is all about the rankings. I think there is a lot we can learn from the data because it is much more than just a sorting of countries. I also think that this is a case where any news is good news. If people are talking about reading, math and science and what high performing jurisdictions are doing that is good. I agree we did not get an “above average” system through competition, but I hope we got it in part by learning from other systems. I am very interested, in looking at the reading results, to learn from what Ontario has done over the last decade. I am also fascinated by the Shanghai results – just what are they doing in math? So, while many will share the overall results and discuss if being #4 is good or not good enough, I want us all to look at the results and ask what we can learn. The reason I wanted to post on this was that we need educators looking beyond the headlines. We need people reading articles like this one today from the CEA (here) and read and watch these stories from the OECD about improving jurisdictions (here)
Let’s use PISA as a reason to look beyond our borders both provincially and nationally to help inform where we are going in B.C.
I completely agree with what you are saying about learning from other countries – much like I learn from other educators. So how do we keep the focus collaborative rather than competitive?
Great conversation!
Chris, I think we keep the conversation on collaboration by driving the conversation. This is part of the power of our blogs – we can influence the discussion. Rather than simply lament what others say, those of us in education, can help change the conversation. I think we are more influencial than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. We shouldn’t shy away from data, but rather help tell a different narrative.
Thanks for the synthesis, Chris. Like you, I try to look at this stuff less as a competition and more from the perspective of what we can learn from other educational jurisdictions.
One of the things that I believe we overlook are the prophets in our own land. There are many great schools in our districts here in BC and in neighbouring Alberta, and yet it seems rare that we share with eachother as schools. Today, we had a visitation from two schools in Kelowna, and I found the discussions that we had invigorating and enlightening. We try to have schools visit or visit other schools each year, but I actually think that we should do this more frequently, especially in our own districts.
While there is so much to be learned from other countries, we can learn a great deal from our own counterparts, sometimes just down the road.
However, a road trip to Finland would be pretty neat.
I agree Cale – it is a bit like my argument about sharing with and commenting on bloggers in B.C. I know some districts, when looking at hiring administrators, consider a 75% / 25% guideline – with looking to hire about 75% of their candiates from inside but bringing in the other 25% from outside the district. This helps build and support internal leaders while bringing fresh thinking to the organization. I think a similar model works for when we look at school improvement / reform. In West Vancouver, I think we can learn a lot from schools like yours around collaboration time, and from school’s like Gino’s about technology integration, but it is also helpful to look at what Ontario is doing in reading or Shanghai is doing in math to push us beyond our own jurisdictions. This is the value of PISA – it is a reason to look outside and start a conversation. I wish every school spent some time with PISA results – asked questions, investigated stories and asked what can we learn from this that can make us better.
I also could be talked into Finland.
Is the PISA group using last century’s measures to assess education in the 21st Century?
I do like that it uses science in addition to math and literacy. But to answer the question of measures – I don’t think the tools include the richness we associate with “21 century learning” measures.
Of course, this is a the next question – What tools would one use on a global scale to assess the performance of students in various jurisdictions to give a snap-shot of how they are doing?
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