[ti:Lessons From Shanghai's Top Scores on International Test]
[ar:Steve Ember]
[al:Education Report]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English 
[00:03.02]Education Report.
[00:04.82]The Program for International 
[00:06.50]Student Assessment, or PISA, 
[00:09.67]is a two-hour test that compares 
[00:12.10]the performance of fifteen-year-olds. 
[00:15.09]In the latest test, the countries 
[00:18.01]with the best readers 
[00:19.63]were South Korea and Finland. 
[00:22.55]But students in Shanghai, China, 
[00:25.78]scored the highest of all 
[00:27.71]in reading, mathematics and science.
[00:31.88]The next strongest results 
[00:34.06]were in Hong Kong, Singapore, 
[00:36.98]Canada, New Zealand and Japan.
[00:40.46]In all, 
[00:41.83]around half a million students 
[00:44.57]in more than seventy economies 
[00:47.18]took the test last year. 
[00:49.87]The test has been given 
[00:51.86]every three years since two thousand. 
[00:55.04]Last year was the first time 
[00:57.83]Shanghai took part.
[00:59.83]The Organization for Economic Cooperation 
[01:03.56]and Development just released the results. 
[01:06.73]Andreas Schleicher is director 
[01:10.09]of the Education Indicators 
[01:12.70]and Analysis Division at the OECD.
[01:17.18]ANDREAS SCHLEICHER: "Asian countries 
[01:18.05]value education more than other countries. 
[01:20.85]They have given education a priority. 
[01:23.53]Every child, every teacher, every parent 
[01:26.26]knows that education 
[01:27.38]is the gateway to success."
[01:28.87]Mr. Schleicher says 
[01:30.31]other education systems 
[01:32.25]can learn from Shanghai. 
[01:33.99]For example, he says education
[01:37.35]spending in the province has increased, 
[01:40.34]including teacher pay and training. 
[01:44.01]And administrators are putting teachers 
[01:46.99]into challenging classroom situations 
[01:50.04]to make them better at their jobs.
[01:53.15]ANDREAS SCHLEICHER: "They are pairing great 
[01:54.77]with poorer schools in a way 
[01:56.45]that is very systematic and very much 
[01:59.25]focused on improving results."
[02:00.43]In the PISA scoring system, 
[02:02.60]Shanghai scored six hundred in math. 
[02:05.84]By comparison, the United States 
[02:08.70]scored four hundred eighty-seven.
[02:11.25]Shanghai's reading average 
[02:14.18]was five hundred fifty-six. 
[02:16.04]American fifteen-year-olds 
[02:19.09]scored five hundred, the same 
[02:21.70]as in Iceland and Poland.
[02:24.31]In science, Finland 
[02:26.87]was second behind Shanghai. 
[02:29.17]The United States was twenty-third.
[02:32.53]Education Secretary Arne Duncan says 
[02:36.38]the results show an urgent need 
[02:39.55]for Americans to do more to remain 
[02:42.79]competitive in the world economy. 
[02:45.71]He points out that the United States 
[02:48.76]has fallen from first to ninth place 
[02:52.68]in college graduation rates 
[02:55.29]because of gains by other countries.
[02:58.46]Mr. Schleicher says international 
[03:01.70]testing experts have investigated 
[03:04.69]and confirmed the Shanghai scores. 
[03:07.86]He says the PISA results are not 
[03:11.84]representative of all of China. 
[03:14.39]But he also says they dispute 
[03:17.63]the common belief that Chinese education 
[03:21.17]is centered on repetition and memorization.
[03:25.46]Twenty-five percent of the Shanghai students 
[03:29.38]showed advanced thinking skills 
[03:32.30]to solve difficult math problems. 
[03:35.66]The OECD average was three percent.
[03:39.52]And that's the VOA Special English 
[03:44.00]Education Report, 
[03:45.63]by Lawan Davis and Ira Mellman. 
[03:48.87]For a link to the results, 
[03:50.67]go to 51voa.com.
[03:54.85]I'm Steve Ember.