“America’s Woeful Public Schools: TIMSS Sheds Light on the Need for Systemic Reform”[1] “Competitors Still Beat U.S. in Tests”[2] “U.S. students continue to trail Asian students in math, reading, science”[3] These are a few of the thousands of headlines generated by the release of the 2011 TIMSS and PIRLS results today. Although the results are hardly surprising or news worthy, judging from the headlines, we can expect another global wave of handwringing, soul searching, and calls for reform. But before we do, we should ask how meaningful these scores and rankings are. “Numbers don’t ...
