The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a program of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that documents the performance of students in dozens of countries.  PISA has just released the results of the 2012 assessment.  The headline in major media outlets is that “U.S. 15-year-olds Perform Above OECD Average in Problem Solving.”

Twelve percent of U.S. students were “top performers,” scoring at levels 5 and 6, which was similar to the OECD average.  Eighteen percent were “low performers,” scoring at level 1 or below level 1.  This was better than the OECD average of 21 percent “low performers.”

Yet the report highlights the extraordinary lack of equity in the American educational system. For all the debate over whether there is too much focus on all children receiving college preparatory learning, the reality remains that our black, Latino, and low-income children aren’t being provided any of it.

While, on average, 18 percent of U.S. 15-year-olds were “low performers” and 12 percent were “high performers,” students attending schools where the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch was 75 percent or more had much different outcomes. These schools managed to educate their students to the “high performing” level in problem solving only 4 percent of the time, and left their students at the “low performing” level 34 percent of the time.

Because of America’s unusual school funding system, based on local property taxes, schools attended by students living in poverty are less well-funded than those attended by students from better off families.  It is not surprising that student attending poorly- funded schools do less well than those attending well-funded schools.

The PISA report also documents racial and ethnic disparities in student performance.  White students scored at the “high performing” level 16 percent of the time.  Black students scored at the “high performing” level 1 percent of the time.  Hispanic students scored at the “high performing” level 6 percent, while Asian students scored at “high performing” levels 28 percent of the time. At the “low performing” end of the scale for U.S. 15-year-olds we find 10 percent of White students and 44 percent of Black students (along with 23 percent of Hispanic and 5 percent of Asian students).

The problem solving performance of American black 15-year-olds is similar to (but slightly better than) that of 15-year-olds from Middle Eastern (including Israel), Latin American and Balkan countries, worse than those of students in countries that make important investments in education, such as those in the European Union. Black students are much more likely to attend schools in poor neighborhoods than other students.  As a result they are much more likely to attend schools that are poorly-resourced. The lesson is clear:  internationally and within the United States, student performance varies with educational resources.

The consequences are not surprising.  Tragic, but not surprising.