USA Ranks #17 in the World for 'Reading' ... and Black Folks Are Doing Worse

Soulclap to the Black Star Project for sharing this information with us.   It is a scary situation when the rest of the world is reading better than us ... especially those of us of African descent here in America. 

The bottom line is that we need to get busy reading again!

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy. Coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of 34 member countries, PISA was first implemented in 2000 and is conducted every 3 years. PISA 2009 was the fourth cycle of the assessment.

Each PISA data collection effort assesses one of the three subject areas in depth (considered the major subject area), although all three are assessed in each cycle (the other two subjects are considered minor subject areas for that assessment year). Assessing all three areas allows participating countries to have an ongoing source of achievement data in every subject area while rotating one area as the main focus over the years. In the fourth cycle of PISA, reading was the subject area assessed in depth, as it was in 2000.

Sixty countries and 5 other education systems (located in non-national places like Shanghai-China) participated as partners in PISA 2009. This report focuses on the performance of U.S. students in the major subject area of reading literacy as assessed in PISA 2009. 

Let's get to it ... I invite 'villagers' to take a look at the international ranks shown below for 'combined reading literacy'.

            International Ranking - Country/Other Education System - Comparative Score

1.       Shanghai - China 556

2.       Korea, Republic of 539

3.       Finland 536

4.       Hong Kong - China 533

5.       Singapore 526

6.       Canada 524

7.       New Zealand 521

8.       Japan 520

9.       Australia 515

10.   Netherlands 508

11.   Belgium 506

12.   Norway 503

13.   Estonia 501

14.   Switzerland 501

15.   Poland 500

16.   Iceland 500

17.   United States 500

18.   Liechtenstein 499

19.   Sweden 497

20.   Germany 497

21.   Ireland 496

22.   France 496

23.   Denmark 495

24.   Taiwan - China 495

25.   United Kingdom 494

26.   Hungary 494

27.   Portugal 489

28.   Macao-China 487

29.   Italy 486

30.   Latvia 484

31.   Slovenia 483

32.   Greece 483

33.   Spain 481

34.   Czech Republic 478

35.   Slovak Republic 477

36.   Croatia 476

37.   Israel 474

38.   Luxembourg 472

39.   Austria 470

40.   Lithuania 468

41.   Turkey 464

42.   Dubai-UAE 459

43.   Russian Federation 459

44.   Chile 449

45.   Serbia, Republic of 442

46.   Bulgaria 429

47.   Uruguay 426

48.   Mexico 425

49.   Romania 424

50.   Thailand 421

51.   Trinidad and Tobago 416

52.   Colombia 413

53.   Brazil 412

54.   Montenegro, Republic of 408

55.   Jordan 405

56.   Tunisia 404

57.   Indonesia 402

58.   Argentina 398

59.   Kazakhstan 390

60.   Albania 385

61.   Qatar 372

62.   Panama 371

63.   Peru 370

64.   Azerbaijan 362

65.   Kyrgyz Republic 314

 Where various U.S. racial populations would rank among the world's best readers:

• U.S. average 500 - Rank 17 out of 65 reporting countries
• Asian, non-Hispanic 541 - Rank 2 out of 65 reporting countries
• White, non-Hispanic 525 - Rank 6 out of 65 reporting countries
• Hispanic 466 - Rank 41 out of 65 reporting countries
• Black, non-Hispanic 441 - Rank 46 out of 65 reporting countries

Please click here to see full report.