Or the DOE reads it at least.

Always nice to have some actual sunshine!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

The US rate of poverty is around 16 %, so the global level should be compared to the countries in the 10-20 % rate to have a meaningful debate. The US had a score of 487. It is significantly less than similar countries you posted.

Obviously, education is linked to poverty in the US, but also in Canada, Japan, or Australia. There are two factors that would be interesting to study though. Comparing with countries with a similar healthcare system (money spent in healthcare is not spent in teaching), and results between schools of similar level of poverty. My bets are that you would find that differences are higher in the US between poor and rich districts than they are in Canada or Japan. I would like to test Texas too as it has a centralized system. Does it make a difference. There are reasons that explain why the US is performing globally less well than comparable countries.
Teachers are not part of them, but the fact that education is managed at the municipal district is obviously part of it.

Note: frankly it would even be better to avoid using PISA as it is a stupid chart. The best proof is that it says China is first when they tested the best school systems in China and not the entirety of China.

We are the only country in the world that tests ALL of our kids. So it makes perfect sense to compare our kids to theirs by income level.

Overall, when we look at all of our scores, we are in the middle of the list. Not #37.

I'd love to stop using PISA. But they are the most referenced scores used to demonize our schools. Perhaps this disaggregated data will help us fight back against the misinformation.

So take Turkey. It's not uniform in poverty. It has schools that serve wealthy areas. It has schools that serve poor areas.

The appropriate thing to do if you're going to disaggregate some of the data for comparison is to disaggregate *all* of the data for comparison.

So why compare just the <10% poverty schools with Finland? It would be sounder to compare the <10% poverty school with the schools in Finland with <10% poverty. Are there any with more than 10% poverty? If no, then it's a valid comparison. If so, then you're likely to see Finnish scores increase.

So take Turkey, with high poverty rates. Are there schools with high poverty rates in Turkey? Compare those with the high-poverty-rate schools in the US--but compare the low povery rate ones with low poverty rate schools in the US.

What you'll find won't be surprising. The US' poverty is typically not as bad as Turkey's poverty, so the US will probably come out ahead.

There are better explanations for the differences. Standards and how the test aligns with them and testing styles; how *students* are disaggregated, so you don't get the same kinds of students taking the tests in all countries. Etc.

This attempt is to put a particular spin on it, not to justify US test scores but to press a political agenda. It aids understanding less than it does outrage and action.