More Information: Reversing the Decline in US Educational Performance - presentation by Andreas Schleicher Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) - special website Purchase publications on this topic at OECD Online Bookshop Access publications on this topic on SourceOECD (for subscribers)
Reversing the Decline in US Educational Performance: The Key to Future Economic Growth Presentation: Andreas Schleicher Head of the Indicators and Analysis Division, OECD Directorate for Education

This event took place on Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Rayburn House Office Building, Room B-369
Independence Ave and South Capitol Street SW, Washington DC
9:00-10:00 AM Presentation, 8:30 AM Registration

Event Description:

Education is a major driving force in economic development. The long-term benefit of a country gaining one additional year of education is a 3 and 6 percent increase in economic growth. The United States once led the world in the level of educational qualifications, but its “ first-mover advantage” is now eroding quickly as more and more countries reach and surpass US qualification levels. For example, in terms of high school completion, the US has slipped from rank 1 among those born in the 1950s to 12th for adults born in the 1970s, and 15-year-olds in the US now perform below the average of the principal industrialized countries in major school subjects. In contrast, two generations ago, South Korea was 24th and had the economic output of Afghanistan. Today, South Korea leads the world with 96 percent of its age cohort getting a high school education, as compared with 75 percent in the U.S and its 15-year-old students perform among the best in the world, not just in mathematics or science but also in problem-solving skills.

Andreas Schleicher, the Head of the Indicators and Analysis Division of the OECD Directorate for Education, reports on the findings of the most recent comprehensive international test of student knowledge across the principal industrialized countries and the implications for the United States. He will discuss:

• Global trends in education and how the U.S. compares with Europe, India, China and its other economic competitors.

• What the best performing education systems are doing to improve their educational systems that the U.S. is not.

• What are the economic implications if the U.S. fails to improve?

Biographies:

Andreas Schleicher has been Head of the Indicators and Analysis Division at the OECD Directorate for Education since 2002. As Division Head, Andreas Schleicher’s responsibilities include directing the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the OECD Indicators of Education Systems programme (INES) and steering the development of new projects such as the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).

At the OECD, Andreas Schleicher has also held the posts of Deputy Head of the Statistics and Indicators Division in the former Directorate for Education, Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (1997-2002) and Project Manager in the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) (1994-1996). Before joining the OECD, he served as Director for Analysis at the International Association for Educational Achievement (IEA) within the Institute for Educational Research in the Netherlands (1993-1994) and International Co-ordinator for the IEA Reading Literacy Study, at the University of Hamburg, Germany (1989-1992). Originally a graduate in physics, he subsequently studied mathematics at Deakin University in Australia, where his master's thesis received the Bruce Choppin Award.