On the international PISA tests in 2012, American 15-year-olds tended to do best on Reading Literacy, medium on Science Literacy, and worst on Mathematics Literacy. I have no idea whether that's for real or just a reflection of the difficulties of translating PISA tests into dozens of languages and making them equally hard in all. Here's our strong suit Reading, with American racial groups broken out according to the federal governments National Center for Education Statistics website for exploring the new PISA data:
| OECD average | 496 |
| Shanghai-China | 570 |
| Asian Americans | 550 |
| Hong Kong-China | 545 |
| Singapore | 542 |
| Japan | 538 |
| Korea, Republic of | 536 |
| Massachusetts All Races | 527 |
| Finland | 524 |
| Ireland | 523 |
| Chinese Taipei | 523 |
| Canada | 523 |
| Connecticut All Races | 521 |
| White Americans | 519 |
| Poland | 518 |
| Multiracial Americans | 517 |
| Estonia | 516 |
| Liechtenstein | 516 |
| New Zealand | 512 |
| Australia | 512 |
| Netherlands | 511 |
| Belgium | 509 |
| Switzerland | 509 |
| Macao-China | 509 |
| Vietnam | 508 |
| Germany | 508 |
| France | 505 |
| Norway | 504 |
| United Kingdom | 499 |
| United States | 498 |
| Denmark | 496 |
| Czech Republic | 493 |
| Florida All Races | 492 |
| Italy | 490 |
| Austria | 490 |
| Latvia | 489 |
| Hungary | 488 |
| Spain | 488 |
| Luxembourg | 488 |
| Portugal | 488 |
| Israel | 486 |
| Croatia | 485 |
| Sweden | 483 |
| Iceland | 483 |
| Slovenia | 481 |
| Hispanic Americans | 478 |
| Lithuania | 477 |
| Greece | 477 |
| Turkey | 475 |
| Russian Federation | 475 |
| Slovak Republic | 463 |
| Cyprus | 449 |
| Serbia, Republic of | 446 |
| African Americans | 443 |
| United Arab Emirates | 442 |
| Chile | 441 |
| Thailand | 441 |
| Costa Rica | 441 |
| Romania | 438 |
| Bulgaria | 436 |
| Mexico | 424 |
| Montenegro, Republic of | 422 |
| Uruguay | 411 |
| Brazil | 410 |
| Tunisia | 404 |
| Colombia | 403 |
| Jordan | 399 |
| Malaysia | 398 |
| Indonesia | 396 |
| Argentina | 396 |
| Albania | 394 |
| Kazakhstan | 393 |
| Qatar | 388 |
| Peru | 384 |
In reading, Asian Americans beat all Asian countries, and trailed only the prosperous city of Shanghai.
White Americans came in fourth among historically white countries, behind only Finland, Ireland, and Canada. White Americans beat a couple of dozen historically white countries wealthy enough to belong to the OECD. Of course, most of these aren't as white as they used to be anymore.
Hispanic Americans beat all eight Latin American countries.
African Americans didn't have any competition from predominantly black counties in Africa or the West Indies, but it's worth noting that African Americans beat all eight Latin American countries.
Keep in mind that this is just in Reading, which American tends to do better in than Math or Science.
Keep in mind that Americans spend a huge amount of money on education.
For more postings devoted to analyzing PISA scores, click the Labels: PISA below.
Keep in mind that Americans spend a huge amount of money on education.
For more postings devoted to analyzing PISA scores, click the Labels: PISA below.