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PISA Summer Conference: "PISA Comes to Your School"
June 25-26, 2009
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an assessment of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science literacy that is conducted every three years. PISA is sponsored in the United States by the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education. In 2009, students from more than 60 countries are scheduled to participate. In light of concerns about our international competitiveness and skills of our workers, knowing how U.S. students compare with peers around the world is important for meeting the challenges of educating our youth.
A conference for representatives of the U.S. schools participating in PISA was held in Washington, DC, on June 25-26, 2009. The purpose of the conference was to provide detailed information about the PISA assessment and the schools' role in the study.
Click here to view the conference agenda: Final Agenda.pdf.
Links to four core presentations are shown below. These are:
Introduction to PISA. This presentation provides an overview of PISA, including a comparison with NAEP and other assessments; countries that participate; how the assessment was developed; the sampling of schools and students; and the assessment timeline. Click here to download: Introduction to PISA.pdf.
PISA Assessment Frameworks. This presentation explains what PISA measures and includes a sample of publicly released items from previous PISA assessment cycles. Click here to download: PISA Assessment Frameworks.pdf.
How Have We Done. This presentation presents international and U.S. PISA results from 2000, 2003, and 2006. Click here to download: How Have We Done.pdf.
PISA in Your School. This presents information on data collection and the role of the School Coordinator at each school. Click here to download: PISA in Your School.pdf and Information for PISA School Coordinators.pdf.
Additional presentations
Additional presentations include PISA results and descriptions of educational systems and challenges in six foreign countries. Immediately below are links to presentations of results from past PISA assessments. Comparisons with international results are presented. These presentations may be viewed at:
Links to descriptions of the educational systems and the educational challenges being faced in each country follow:
Educational System of Australia
Educational System of the United Kingdom
Finally, presentations were made by national education experts about the importance of international standards and benchmarks, and the importance of PISA to the United States. The presentation by Bob Wise, President of the Alliance for Excellent Education, may be found at: International Benchmarking and PISA.pdf and the presentation by Susan Sclafani, Director of State Services at the National Center for Education and the Economy, may be found at PISA and Tough Choices for States and LEAs.pdf .
For more information about PISA, you may go to:
(1) Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development
(2) National Center for Education Statistics
The latter site contains publicly released assessment questions from previous PISA cycles.
