Lithuania Policy Research Capacity Project In this project (2001 - 2003), 3 policy research studies were carried: 1) How do school and student factors explain variation in a national standardized test; 2) Why is the national test result not correlated
with international test results?
This assessment is a little strange because what we did was similar to what the U.S. Department of Education has done in several past reports
linking international test results to state NAEP results.
In particular, the recent work of Ludger Woessmann, Martin West, and Eric Hanushek has utilized the PISA and
TIMSS international test results that Tucker finds so valuable, but they have done so with the scientific methods that Tucker rejects.
International test results such as those of the OECD have become surrogate measures of the future economic potential of nations, prompting a global education race between national education systems.
The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development examines the impact of school technology
on international test results, such as the Pisa tests taken in more than 70 countries and tests measuring digital skills.
The last thing we found in Australia is that we believe this is showing up in
our international test results.
People can debate whether the flood of international, comparative data is helpful, but we can agree that, because educational systems have historically been locally controlled,
international test results have had little effect on state and local educational policies and practices... until now.
Analysis of
international test results (Programme for International Student Assessment - PISA, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study - PIRLS and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study - TIMSS) show that children with at least two years of preschool achieve much higher scores than those who attend no preschool or only one year.