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Alarming new data shows U.S. students continue to fall behind their peers in reading as the country's achievement gap widens, according to results from the latest globally recognized international exam.
The 2025 Program for International Assessment, or PISA, found that 15-year-old U.S. students' reading scores fell 14 points from the last time the test was administered, in 2022. The assessment also found that the achievement gap among U.S. readers in the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile was the largest among any other country included in the report.
The results come as reading scores among U.S. fourth and eighth grade students worsened in 2024, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, dubbed the nation's report card. The recent plunge has renewed the conversation around the literacy crisis gripping the nation's education system and the debate over COVID-19 school closures.
The Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, which administers both tests to American students, releases the PISA results every three years.
Acting NCES Commissioner Matthew Soldner noted in a press release Tuesday that the performance gap between higher and lower end U.S. students is larger today than it was 10 years ago.
Combined with the NAEP -- the largest assessment of U.S. students' performance in public and private schools across all 50 states and the District of Columbia -- Kevin Huffman, CEO of education nonprofit Accelerate, told ABC News the PISA results are troubling.
"People should have been concerned for a while about the direction of scores for older kids in this country," Huffman said.
The international education scores confirm a "decade of stagnation and a devastating gap" for American students, according to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
"This moment is a stress test for our nation's future," McMahon wrote in a statement. "To pass it, we must enact a hard reset that stops protecting a failed status quo and instead builds a system that empowers state leaders and embraces innovative learning options through school choice."
In a virtual press conference with NCES later on Tuesday, McMahon said the U.S. education system is "failing its students," adding, "We are working towards sunsetting the $3 trillion Department of Education in D.C. that has shortchanged our students and returning decision making to those who know their unique needs best: parents, teachers, and local leaders."
PISA -- which is organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD -- is the industry standard for ranking students from different countries, according to education experts. More than 700,000 students in roughly 90 education systems worldwide, including more than 30 developed nations in the OECD, participated in 2025.
Huffman, the former Tennessee education commissioner, stressed that the gap for the highest and lowest performing students from the assessments was exacerbated by the interrupted instructional period most U.S. students experienced amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He suggested that the disturbing trend in American education will worsen without accountability at the state level.
"I do worry about the idea that if top performing kids do OK, it decreases the urgency among a group of people who otherwise might be pushing to improve educational performance for all kids," Huffman said.
In a written statement, National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues urged Congress to pass the Reading Excellence and Achievement for Development Act -- or "READ" Act -- federal legislation introduced by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy that is focused on evidence-based reading instruction, implementation and intervention through a growing practice called the science of reading.
"America cannot lead the world in innovation, science, technology, or economic growth if we fail to give every child the most fundamental skill they need to succeed: the ability to read," Rodrigues wrote.
Despite the sobering data, U.S. average scores in reading and science were higher than the OECD average in those subjects, according to this week's PISA results.
According to NCES, only Singapore and parts of China scored higher averages that were "significantly different" than the U.S. in both of those subjects.
The U.S. ranked 13th overall in reading and science but fell outside the top 25 in math (27th). There was no significant change in scores for science and math from 2022 and 2015, which is how PISA calculates short-term and long-term trends.
