Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas in Peru, was recently voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Also in Peru are the mysterious Nazca Lines--a humming bird, a spider, and trapezoids--which are etched in the desert so large they can only be seen from an airplane. The author experienced some of these places recently when he and his…

In 1997, the Santiago office of UNESCO implemented an assessment of student achievement in Latin America, working in collaboration with 13 Latin American ministries of education. Using a common sampling methodology and survey instruments, researchers in each country collected representative samples of data on third- and fourth-grade achievement in…