In 2012 Shanghai earned 1st place in the world on the International PISA test. Its score was 613 in math, 570 in reading, and 580 in science. Second place went to Singapore: 573 in math, 542 in reading, and 551 in science. The mean score for all the countries that took part in the PISA was 494 in math, 496 in Reading and 501 in Science.
Around 510 000 students between the ages of 15 years 3 months and 16 years 2 months participated in PISA 2012 as a whole representing about 28 million 15-year-olds globally.
All 34 OECD member countries and 31 partner countries and economies participated in PISA 2012, representing more than 80% of the world economy. The U.S. was ranked #36 compared to the 65 countries/cities listed.
But Shanghai is not a country. It is a city and so was Hong Kong and Macao. Even the Principality of Liechtenstein, a landlocked microstate that is one of Europe’s most affluent (wealthiest) communities, with a population of almost 37,000, was ranked in the top 10 right behind Japan. At least Shanghai has a population of more than 20 million.
The United States with 314.1 million people in 2012 was ranked much lower when the average scores were compared to all the other countries, but America’s ranking was flawed and misleading because of an error when the test was taken in the U.S. To discover more, click the following link: Poor ranking on international test misleading about U.S. student performance, Stanford researched finds.
At this point, you might be thinking, why is he mentioning America’s PISA score when this post is about Shanghai. In Part 3, the ironic answer to that question will be answered.
Continued with Part 2 on August 17, 2016
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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