A Think Twice Review of:

Middle Class or Middle of the Pack: What can we learn when benchmarking U.S. schools against the world’s best

Think Twice - Jun 04, 2013

Publisher/Think Tank - Publisher/Think Tank: America Achieves

Author(s) -

America Achieves report calls for additional international testing. The authors of the report consider recent PISA results a "wake up call to America’s middle class" and contend in response that U.S. high schools should start taking part in a new international test that is to compare the academic knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds- around the world.

Reviewer(s) - Martin Carnoy, Stanford University

This review finds no evidence to support the report’s arguments. Martin Carnoy, Stanford University, finds that the America Achieves report “is not grounded in research but rather is an assertion that measurement, by itself, is an effective reform tool.” And it makes that assertion without ever explaining how the test in question would be linked to curricula or strategies tailored to teaching mathematics and science, or to specific teacher professional development strategies. “Thus the report is of no utility to policymakers,” Carnoy concludes.