England doing something right

The United Kingdom is a state of four countries. Some things are run at the UK level, and some at the individual country level. This allows us to do comparisons that are far better than comparing entirely different countries such as say France and Canada.

So let’s look at how the four parts of the UK have done in mathematics, as measured by PISA.

In 2006 England scored the same as Northern Ireland, below Scotland and above Wales. But after 2009, something happened.

England has declined only 3 points in 19 years. Northern Ireland declined 21 points, Wales 28 points and Scotland 39 points.

So English students were 11 points behind Scottish students, and they are now 25 points ahead.

It is hard to get better evidence than this about which schooling system one should try to emulate.