U.S. Schoolchildren Tumble in International Reading Exam Rankings, Worrying Educators
December 5, 2017
By: Moriah Balingit
Source: The Washington Post
The United States tumbled in international rankings released Tuesday of reading skills among fourth-graders, raising warning flags about students’ ability to compete with international peers.
The decline was especially precipitous for the lowest-performing students, a finding that suggests widening disparities in the U.S. education system.
The United States has traditionally performed well on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, an assessment given to fourth-graders in schools around the world every five years. In 2016, however, the average score in the United States dropped to 549 out of 1,000, compared to 556 in 2011. The country’s ranking fell…