Tom Loveless:

It is true that scores from the two tests are highly correlated at the national level. But the two tests do not measure the same learning. Scores from NAEP’s math and reading tests are also highly correlated when aggregated to the state level. No one would argue that NAEP’s reading and math tests measure the same learning.

Discrepant results from PISA and TIMSS are revealing. When releasing the latest PISA results in 2010, Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD called New Zealand a “high flier.” New Zealand is definitely not a high flyer on the TIMSS math tests, scoring only 486 in 4th grade and 488 in 8th grade–significantly below the international means of 500.

The PISA math assessment is based on a philosophy known as Real Mathematics Education (RME), championed by the Freudenthal Institute in the Netherlands. Jan deLange of the Freudenthal Institute chairs the PISA expert group in mathematics. RME’s constructivist, problem solving orientation is controversial among mathematicians. In the U.S. in the 1990s, a coalition of mathematicians, parents, and local educators opposed similar types of curricula in what became known as the “math wars.” In 2010, New Zealand implemented national standards that are compatible with RME and PISA—and less compatible with TIMSS.

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