PISA 2025 Results (Volume I) “Future-Ready Students”
OECD:
More than 760 000 students took the PISA science, mathematics and reading test in 2025 across 91 countries and economies, representing around 33 million 15-year-olds across the world. The highest performers in PISA 2025 across these three domains were the Chinese jurisdictions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Singapore. Additionally, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Macao (China), Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom were among the top 10 performing education systems. The overall performance of OECD countries declined, with the lowest average levels of performance ever observed in science, reading and mathematics. However, there have been some improvements; for example, among OECD countries, Costa Rica, the Slovak Republic, Türkiye and the United Kingdom have seen increases in science scores since 2022. Overall reading scores saw particularly steep declines in the past three years, including in skills that matter most in the AI age: evaluating information, making connections across multiple sources and thinking critically about what we read. The instances of “hasty reading” – in which students read quickly but inaccurately – nearly doubled to 9% between 2018 and 2025.
and;
Across OECD countries, reading performance fell by the equivalent of around one and a half years of learning between 2015 and 2025.
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By every measure, American students are being outperformed by students in Singapore and parts of China who had top scores on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, taken by 15-year-olds around the world.
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The good news from the latest PISA results, released Tuesday, is that the U.S. has gained relative standing in recent decades. Today, U.S. students score well above average in science and reading. Math scores, long America’s weakest subject, are now on par with other developed countries.
The bad news is how this happened. The U.S. has steadily moved up largely because other countries’ scores have deteriorated faster than ours over the last decade. A bevy of data pointsshow American students are learning less than they used to. Even U.S. PISA scores in math and reading are at or near their lowest level.
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Two extraordinary charts from today’s PISA test results:
1) School test scores continue to collapse internationally, underscoring how this is no longer a Covid effect but sustained decline.
Those falls in reading and maths are equivalent to about two years of lost schooling.
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The PISA 2025 results are out today. Some quick insights.
- The major story is very significant global decline. The last PISA study was in 2022, and saw big declines in reading and maths scores from 2018. Obviously the pandemic played a part.
- But this 2025 round has seen further falls even from the 2022 lows!
Things haven’t gone back to normal post-pandemic – they’ve got worse.
Every generation thinks the generation below is less smart – but this time they might be right!
…….
I also think that we shouldn’t overlook the impact of educational fads. Over the last twenty years or so, a lot of influential global organisations have encouraged fads like 21st century skills, discovery learning, etc., and a lot of countries have adopted them.
But these are evidence-free fads that are not going to improve education.
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Canadian students’ reading and math scores decline in OECD’s global assessment
Canadian high-school students are outperforming many of their international peers in science, math and reading, but their overall scores in these subjects are also declining, according to a new international ranking by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Results for the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment, released Tuesday, show Canada in the top 10 among 91 countries and economies that were evaluated.
The OECD conducts the assessment, which measures the performance of 15-year-olds in science, math and reading, every three years. Science was the main focus of this latest round of assessments. Math and reading were also tested, but there were fewer questions asked.
In 2025, about 24,600 students from across the 10 provinces participated in the assessment.
The results showed that Canada’s scores in science, math and reading have all been declining, a trend also seen in other countries.
In science, Canada’s mean performance dropped five points compared to 2022. Its math score dropped 12 points, while reading saw a drop of 17 points.
Most other countries saw similar, if not worse, declines.
2/2 This is important. More Canadian students are struggling and fewer Canadian students are excelling. This started before COVID and it continues.
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The percentage of American 15 year olds who scored at the top level of PISA held relatively steady while the percentage scoring at the lowest level increased.
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Finally, comparative data further bolsters the claim that Gibb and co.’s reforms positively affected the quality of English schools. Between 2010 and 2024, the constituent nations of the United Kingdom ran something of a natural experiment in education policy. While England embraced phonics, a knowledge-rich curriculum, explicit teacher-led instruction, and greater school autonomy, Scotland and Wales eschewed the evidence on early literacy instruction, doubled down on national curricula focused on the acquisition of amorphous “generalizable” skills, and promoted self-directed “discovery” learning as state of the art. During this period, the international metrics show that England forged ahead, while its fellow home nations stagnated (see Figure 2).
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Most commentators on today’s PISA results will be incurious and irresponsible.
Their focus will be on an alleged score decline that they will make no efforts to assess for measurement invariance.
They will hastily interpret observed scores, to the detriment of public knowledge.
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2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than the kids.
Joe Gothard, Becky Kundert and Sonia Spencer Remarks on Madison’s K-12 Literacy Crisis.
2026-2027 Madison K-12 $pending continues to grow, fueled by a 9.7% (!) property tax increase. Total spending will be at least $706,000,000 for 25,003 students, or $28,236 per student.
May 2026 Madison School District Presentation: 7,095 adults for 25,003 students (3.52 students per adult!)
2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener Map.
Map: Foundations of Reading Results: 2015–2024
Where have all the students gone?
3,887 Madison 4 year old to third grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 tax & $pending. This despite our long term, disastrous reading results. May, 2026: 7,095 Staff for 25,003 students; $pending > $26k per student!
Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
