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Title: Tracing the U.S. Deficit in PISA to Early Childhood: Evidence from the United States and Canada
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Merry, Joseph |
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Tracing the U.S. Deficit in PISA to Early Childhood: Evidence from the United States and Canada Presented: Denver CO, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2012 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Cognitive Ability; Cross-national Analysis; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Why does the U.S. lag behind so many other countries on international assessments of cognitive skills? The traditional view targets school-based explanations – U.S. schools are less efficient, attract poorer teachers, and lack the proper incentives. But the U.S. educational system may also serve children with greater academic challenges when compared with other countries. Simple comparisons of international test scores fail to reveal whether the U.S. deficit is a function of school problems, or broader societal challenges. One way of gaining leverage on this issue is to understand when U.S. students fall behind their international counterparts. I compare reading/vocabulary test scores for U.S. and Canadian children (ages 4-5) in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79) and Canada’s National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY). I then compare the magnitude of these differences to similar cohorts of students at ages 15-16 using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Findings indicate that while the Canadian advantage at ages 15-16 is substantial (0.30 standard deviation units), this advantage already existed at ages 4-5, before formal schooling had a chance to matter. I discuss the implications of this pattern for interpreting international test score rankings. |
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Bibliography Citation
Merry, Joseph. "Tracing the U.S. Deficit in PISA to Early Childhood: Evidence from the United States and Canada." Presented: Denver CO, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2012. |