Poles Smarter Than Yanks

Shall we all move to Poland?

Results from the latest PISA exams — the Program for International Student Assessment — show Poland’s high school students finished ninth among developed nations in science and 10th in reading.

American students ranked 28th and 24th, respectively.


What the U.S. could learn from Poland is this: Its schools once were in the dumps. But Poland started using standardized tests to discover where students needed help, elevated academic standards, wouldn't accept poverty as an excuse, and gave schools not more money, but more autonomy. Poland spends about half of what U.S. schools do per student. So money alone isn't the answer. 

Those reforms didn't take root easily, but over time Poland's scores improved. The PISA exams, which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development administers every three years, focus on applying classroom knowledge to real-world problems.

How can the U.S. keep future students from also falling behind?

Poland's answer is to not give up on kids. The country faced enormous poverty during decades of communism. But it rejected the notion that kids born into poverty couldn't meet higher academic standards