Poverty and the “achievement gap”: Some new data
Carnoy and Rothstein (2013) compared US performance with Korean, Finland and Canada on the PISA 2009, given to 15-year-olds. All three of these countries generally score about 1/3 of a standard deviation better than the US in reading and math on international tests; Arne Duncan refers to these three countries as the three “consistent high-performers” (Carnoy and Rothstein, 2013 p. 10). In the PISA 2009 reading test, Korea had the highest score of all OECD countries (539), Finland was second highest (536) and Canada third (524). American students scored 500, 33 points behind the average of 533 for the three top countries.
A larger percentage of students in the US live in poverty, as compared to the top-scoring countries, and poverty level is consistently associated with school performance. Carnoy and Rothstein attempted to control for this.
They calculated that if the US had the same social class distribution as the average of the top three countries, the average US reading score on the PISA would be 518 (Cornoy and Rothstein, table 3A, p. 13). Social class (poverty) thus accounts for about half the reading gap, as measured by the PISA. Carnoy and Rothstein also
A larger percentage of students in the US live in poverty, as compared to the top-scoring countries, and poverty level is consistently associated with school performance. Carnoy and Rothstein attempted to control for this.
They calculated that if the US had the same social class distribution as the average of the top three countries, the average US reading score on the PISA would be 518 (Cornoy and Rothstein, table 3A, p. 13). Social class (poverty) thus accounts for about half the reading gap, as measured by the PISA. Carnoy and Rothstein also