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December 2004 - International Outcomes of Learning in Mathematics Literacy and Problem Solving: PISA 2003 Results From the U.S.Perspective, U.S.Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

The OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that measures 15-year-olds’ capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy every 3 years.

Broad conclusions from PISA 2003:

• American high school students have a poorer mastery of basic math concepts than their counterparts in most other leading industrialized nations, according to a major international survey released yesterday.
  
  
• The PISA study ranked the United States 24th out of 29 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world's richest countries. Students from Finland and South Korea scored best in the survey, which measured the ability of 15-year-olds to solve real-life math problems.
  
  
• The results suggest that, at the secondary-school level, the learning gap between the United States and its competitors in Europe and Asia is widening.

The next PISA Assessment will be administered in 2006.

- PISA Web Site -