The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released the results of the PISA 2025 assessment, showing a continued decline in academic performance among students globally. The reading scores of 15-year-old students in the United States have dropped compared to 2022, while their math scores are at one of the lowest levels ever. Meanwhile, some regions in China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea continue to rank among the top performers in the Asian region.
OECD announced the latest results of the triennial Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) on September 8, 2025. A record-breaking number of 91 countries and regions, with over 760,000 15-year-old students participating, made it the largest edition in history.
In 2025, American students scored an average of 463 points in math, a decrease of 2 points from 2022, and 490 points in reading, a drop of 14 points from the previous assessment. OECD noted that both the reading and math performances of American students remain below those in 2018, with reading scores hitting a new low and math hovering at one of the lowest levels ever.
Despite this, due to larger declines in many other countries, the United States managed to break into the top 15 globally in science, reading, and the new problem-solving component. OECD cautioned that as over 40% of American students did not complete the accompanying questionnaire, any potential biases in the test results should be interpreted with caution.
On the other hand, in the three main subjects, students from Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang in China, and Singapore excelled globally in the current assessment, with Estonia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the UK also ranking among the top performers.
Taking the example of the proficiency rates in math and reading, almost all students in the mentioned Chinese provinces met the standards, while the United States had only about 65% and 74% meeting the basic levels. This highlights that high-performing education systems not only have a higher proportion of top students but also more overall students with solid foundational abilities.
Andreas Schleicher, the Director for Education and Skills at OECD and the head of the PISA program, pointed out that in many countries, parents’ involvement in their children’s learning has decreased compared to 2022, especially noticeably among male students. The study also revealed that children from families who inquire about their school day at least once a week scored an average of about 35 points higher in science; this disparity persists even after accounting for socio-economic factors.
The presence of digital devices in classrooms has been linked to lower academic performance. More than a quarter of students in high-income countries indicated that their peers are often distracted by digital devices during science classes, and students who frequently use AI chatbots scored lower overall compared to non-users. OECD stressed that while digital tools and AI can aid learning, they must serve a clear purpose and not replace focus, effort, and comprehension.
Schleicher expressed particular concern over the declining reading abilities, emphasizing that students need the skills to distinguish between facts and opinions, handle ambiguous information, and critically evaluate data.
For the first time in PISA 2025, an assessment of “Learning in the Digital World” was introduced to evaluate students’ abilities in using digital tools for problem-solving. OECD emphasized that this skill cannot replace fundamental knowledge in reading, math, and science; thus, educational systems must simultaneously cultivate students’ core subject competencies and their ability to use digital tools to tackle complex problems.
Tracey Burns, the Global Director of Strategy and Research at the nonprofit organization National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), which studies high-performing education systems, highlighted the overall advantage of Asian regions in this assessment. She suggested that this could have political implications for the United States, stating, “To win the technology race, we need talent with science, technology, and reading skills.”