A few weeks back, as you were working your way through your daily commute, you may have caught a news story or two about something known as PISA scores. Undoubtedly, the news was not good.
PISA is short for something called the Program for International Student Assessment; a test created for school children by something called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The test is handed out in schools right across the globe every three years, each time focussing on one of three subjects: Math, Science or Reading Literacy. The 2022 edition focused on Math, with the results having been released on December 5th of this year.
It has long been my traditional practice to weigh in on PISA results immediately after they are released, mostly to provide some sense of balance to the tsunami of “Our schools are failing!” rhetoric that invariably accompanies the results. That chicken little messaging has been ridiculously consistent over the years, and has, from time to time, allowed yours truly to have a bit of fun with predicting the impending negative headlines, usually with a fair modicum of success.
This time around, however, I decided to delay my usual tirade as somewhat of an experiment.
It’s not that there was not lots of commentary to be had. Headlines from around the world worked collectively to spread the message that we are not doing enough for our kids, academically speaking at least. From Wales to South-East Europe, from Germany to the USA the news was universally bad.
Not to be left out, headlines across our own country told a similarly dire tale. More math is needed, (so say the pundits) lest we, as a nation, fall behind.
What, precisely, we are in danger of falling behind, or to whom, or why it is important, is never particularly well articulated in PISA conversations. Nor, indeed, is much examination given to the qualifications of the OECD to pass judgement on essentially every education system on the planet.
Indeed, for over two decades, the OECD has been credited with creating tests that, somehow, are a valid predictor of a country’s future economic success and capacity to compete in the global marketplace. This without ever producing much in the way of evidence to show those claims are actually true.
This is why I spent a bit more time pondering than pontificating this time around. I had hoped, somewhat naively perhaps, that in this modern era of questioning everything, at least one of the major news outlets would, finally, ask some fairly basic questions about why we should even remotely care about PISA scores.
Alas, disappointed again.
The OECD has been telling us for twenty years that their testing regimen and ranking system are an important measuring stick of educational standing. And for twenty years, PISAlarmists have been warning of an impending, nigh-on apocalyptic “falling behind” should steps not be taken immediately fix our schools based on the results of that regimen and ranking. A dire tale indeed, albeit one that has yet to materialize.
Every three years, the cycle repeats itself, a cycle which takes focus away from issues like school violence, and lack of student supports, and massive staffing shortages, and ten thousand other more important, and decidedly more tangible, concerns.
If you missed the hubbub this time round, don’t worry. More Pisanity is coming your way just in time for the holidays in 2026. That is when the next chapter of the PISA saga is scheduled to be released.
Spoiler alert: That episode will purport to measure our students’ proficiency in Science, and will show, yet again, that we are in seemingly perpetual and ever present danger of falling behind.
frostededucation 
The OECD would more accurately be called the Organization to Funnel More Wealth to Those Who Already Have It. They do not care about education, they care about training – training to create wealth which can be funnelled to those who already have it.