| PISA's global testing reach challenged |
Former secretary of state for education in Spain, Montse Gomendio, now deputy director for education at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and co-author of "Dire Straits: Education Reforms, Ideology, Vested Interests and Evidence," underlines what she sees are the failings of the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which has tested 15-years-olds throughout the world in reading, math, and science since 2020. Developed by the OECD and administered every three years, PISA is designed to yield evidence for governments on which education policies deliver better learning outcomes as students approach the end of secondary school; yet, she notes, according to PISA’s own data, after almost two decades of testing, student outcomes have not improved overall in OECD nations or most other participating countries. PISA’s two assumptions, Gomendio suggests, that its policy recommendations are right and that the evidence provided by PISA data is enough to minimize the political costs of attempting education reform, are flawed. Most policy recommendations are strongly context-dependent, she claims, and PISA’s recommendations may be difficult for policymakers to interpret correctly if they lack precise knowledge of their education system’s state of maturity. Making universal policy recommendations has dire consequences for many countries, particularly those most in need, Gomendio adds, so it would be much more helpful for PISA to look at countries that have achieved gains and try to extract lessons for other countries that had similar starting points when they joined PISA but have not improved.
