Overview

NCES supports a variety of activities to provide statistical data for cross-national comparisons of education. These activities focus on 2 major areas: indicators and assessments. For the Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) project, the United States, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and other countries collaborate to develop comparable measures of schools and education, from student enrollment and teacher salaries to graduation rates.

The United States also participates in several international assessments, including: the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) , both conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA); the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA); and the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL) conducted by Statistics Canada and the OECD.

To learn more about the international studies and projects that NCES supports, click on the links to the left. To return to this page, click on the International Comparisons in Education logo.

To learn more about how these international studies compare with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), please see A Comparison of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat (TIMSS-R), and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), by David Nohara, and Comparing PIRLS and PISA with NAEP in Reading, Mathematics, and Science (211 KB), by Maria Stephens and Mary McLaughlin Coleman.

NCES publishes results from international studies as the data become available. In addition, data from international studies and projects are incorporated into compilation reports, such as the Condition of Education and the G8 Indicator Reports.