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The results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) were released by the OECD this week. Headlines have focused on the high scores achieved by Shanghai (China) and South Korea, but it will be important to allow adequate time for serious analysis of the new data before reaching many conclusions.

It is worth noting that preliminary analyses of the data show that Peru and Chile, respectively, have made the most progress in reading scores of all countries since 2000. At the same time, all eight Latin American countries that participated (Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, and Argentina) scored in the lowest range (“below average”) for each subject tested (reading, math, and science).

Below, we provide a data chart that displays the rankings. The official publication of the results (Volume I) from the OECD can be downloaded on-line (only English, German and Italian versions are available, to date). All documents associated with the test, including the PISA 2009 assessment framework, and a comparison with the 2000 test scores (which also focused on reading), can be found at the PISA 2009 Results homepage. We look forward to sharing more information and analysis on this important data set in the near future.

Finally, we suggest the following several links to articles that display the broad initial range of coverage of the test results:

• CNN: The U.S. must start learning from Asia
• Washington Post: Do international test comparisons make sense? and Sample PISA questions given to 15-year-olds
• El Nacional: Pese a evaluaciones, México el último lugar en desempeño educativo: OCDE
• La Tercera: Prueba PISA: Chile lidera en Latinoamérica resultados que miden conocimientos en Lenguaje y Ciencia
• Globo: Pisa: Investimento no professor tem que ser prioridade, diz Haddad