About those PISA scores and Exxon Mobil commercials:

[Igel]

5. The OP doesn't compare similar things.

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.