This study challenges prior evidence on the impact of Korea's high-stakes school accountability policy as a tool to improve overall achievement and close achievement gaps. Applying difference-in-differences method, the study compares Korean high school students' reading and math test score trends before and after the policy based on the National…

Background: The present study investigates what factors related to the school context influence student achievement on TIMSS mathematics tests across countries. A systematic review of the literature on PIRLS, TIMSS, and ICCS was conducted upstream to identify those school, teacher, and classroom factors shown to be useful predictors of student…

In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and…

Countless policy makers and researchers have flocked to observe the education systems of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, which are among the top five performers in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2009 reading assessment. Many visitors have been particularly impressed by the fact that these education systems succeed in…

The "Comparative Indicators of Education" report series has been published on a biennial basis since it began in 2002, although this year's is the first to expand its focus to the G-20 countries, having previously been focused on the G-8 countries. "Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-20 Countries:…