What Do International Assessments Imply for World-Class Standards?

Abstract

The focus of this article is on the implications of international assessments in setting world-class performance standards. Illustrations of possible uses of results of recent international assessments as benchmarks against which to compare the achievement of U.S. students are presented. A distinction is made between defining a cutting score on an assessment and setting performance standards that indicate whether students have met established performance standards. Several characteristics of international assessments that affect their usefulness as the source of achievement benchmarks (e.g., the content coverage and weighting of the assessment tasks, the definition of the population to be assessed, and the quality of the samples obtained) are discussed.