The Condition of Education summarizes important
developments and trends in education using the latest
available data. The report, which the National Center
for Education Statistics (NCES) is required by law to
produce, is an indicator report intended for a general
audience of readers who are interested in education. The
indicators represent a consensus of professional judgment
on the most significant national measures of the condition
and progress of education for which accurate data are
available. For the 2009 edition, NCES prepared a special
analysis to take a closer look at U.S. student performance
on international assessments.
This special analysis looks at information gathered from
recent international studies that U.S. students have
participated in: the Progress in International Reading
Literacy Study (PIRLS), the Program for International
Student Assessment (PISA), and the Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
PIRLS, sponsored by the International Association for
the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and
first conducted in 2001, assesses the reading performance
of 4th-graders every 5 years. PISA, sponsored by
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) and first conducted in 2000,
assesses the reading, mathematics, and science literacy
of 15-year-old students every 3 years. And TIMSS,
sponsored by the IEA and first conducted in 1995,
assesses the mathematics and science performance of both
4th- and 8th-graders every 4 years. Not all countries1
have
participated in all three studies or in all administrations
of a single study’s assessments. All three studies include
both developed and developing countries; however,
TIMSS and PIRLS have a larger proportion of developing
countries participating than PISA does because PISA
is principally a study of the member countries of the
OECD—an intergovernmental organization of 30
developed countries