American 15-year-olds recorded one of the country’s lowest reading scores in PISA history while math performance remained near historic lows, although the OECD cautioned that problems with the U.S. sample could have affected the results.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
American teenagers posted one of the nation’s weakest reading performances since international PISA testing began a quarter-century ago, while mathematics scores remained near historic lows, according to results released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
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PISA 2025 Results (Volume 1)
U.S. 15-year-olds averaged 490 points in reading on the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment, down 14 points from 2022. Their average math score was 463, a statistically insignificant two-point decline from the previous assessment, while science remained essentially unchanged at 502. The OECD said the latest U.S. reading and math results were among the lowest recorded since the country began participating in PISA.
More than 760,000 students from 91 countries and economies participated in the assessment, representing approximately 33 million 15-year-olds worldwide. The U.S. sample included 4,625 students from 144 schools.
Despite the domestic declines, American students remained above the OECD average in reading and science and matched the OECD average in math, partly because achievement has fallen across many other countries as well. OECD-wide averages reached their lowest recorded levels in both reading and mathematics in 2025.
The strongest results remained concentrated in Asia. Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, grouped together by PISA as B-S-J-Z China, and Singapore were the two highest-performing education systems across reading, mathematics and science. B-S-J-Z China led in math and science, while Singapore posted the highest reading score.
The differences were particularly pronounced among advanced math students.
Only 8% of U.S. students reached PISA’s top two mathematics proficiency levels, compared with 37% in Singapore, 23% in South Korea and 54% among students tested in B-S-J-Z China. At those levels, students are expected to independently model complex mathematical situations and select and evaluate problem-solving strategies.
The American results came with a significant qualification, however.
The OECD placed a warning on the U.S. data because several sampling standards were not met. Because of incomplete participation, the organization said it could not rule out bias or determine whether the published scores overstate or understate actual U.S. performance.
The problem stemmed in part from disruptions during administration of the assessment. Chalkbeat reported that PISA activity in the United States was paused for about a month in spring 2025 as the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service was cutting contracts and staffing at the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences.
More than 40% of participating American students also failed to complete an accompanying questionnaire, preventing researchers from publishing some U.S. results by race and family poverty. The Education Department acknowledged the monthlong interruption but did not establish that the DOGE cuts caused the data gaps.
The broader international decline has intensified concern about whether learning losses that emerged during and after the COVID-19 pandemic are becoming persistent.
Across OECD countries, average reading scores fell 28 points between 2015 and 2025, while mathematics declined 22 points. The OECD estimated those drops as roughly equivalent to one and a half years of learning in reading and slightly more than one year in mathematics.
Margaret Spellings, who served as U.S. education secretary under President George W. Bush, said the American results demand attention.
“Our kids are going in the wrong direction” on skills essential to future success, Spellings told The New York Times, calling for “urgent action at all levels.”
Tracey Burns, chief of global strategy and research at the National Center on Education and the Economy, estimated that the average student tested in the four participating Chinese jurisdictions was more than five years ahead of the average American student in mathematics and roughly three years ahead in science, according to the Times.
Burns also cautioned that falling achievement is not limited to the United States. “There’s an ongoing global decline, and it seems like the pandemic has a long, long tail,” she told Chalkbeat.
The latest results nevertheless present a complicated picture for the United States. About 74% of American students reached at least baseline proficiency in reading, compared with 69% across OECD countries, while 65% met that benchmark in mathematics, matching the OECD average. U.S. students also scored above the international average on PISA’s new computational problem-solving assessment.
At the same time, the OECD found that reading and mathematics performance remains below 2018 levels, with the share of low-performing U.S. students increasing over the past decade.
Kevin Huffman, a former Tennessee education commissioner who now leads the tutoring and personalized-learning nonprofit Accelerate, said improving those outcomes cannot be assigned to a single level of government.
“Nobody is off the hook,” Huffman told the Times.
The PISA findings therefore leave the United States with an unusual combination: its international standing has improved relative to many other developed countries, yet much of that improvement reflects steeper declines elsewhere rather than stronger American performance.
For U.S. students themselves, the longer-term trend remains considerably less encouraging. Reading has fallen to one of its lowest levels in PISA history, mathematics remains near its historic bottom, and the latest assessment suggests that reversing those declines will require improvement at a time when many education systems around the world are struggling with the same problem.
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