Thriving in a Complex World: PISA 2025 Results & Lessons for the U.S.

NPR education correspondent Cory Turner opened the conversation by putting the PISA 2025 results in the context of a longer, troubling trend. Declines in student performance are real, he noted, but they did not begin with the pandemic. In many countries, they stretch back more than a decade. Rather than dwell on another round of discouraging headlines, Turner challenged the panel to focus on what comes next.

“Things are bad? Got it. What can we do about it? What should we do about it?” —Cory Turner

PISA Results in Focus

“The world is certainly changing a lot faster than our capacity to adapt to this.” —Andreas Schleicher

Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills, then walked through what the latest PISA results reveal about U.S. students in a global context. U.S. performance in science and mathematics remained broadly stable since 2022, while reading continued to decline. Particularly concerning, Schleicher said, is that students are losing ground fastest on the kinds of higher-order reading skills increasingly important in an AI-rich world: evaluating information, distinguishing fact from opinion, integrating multiple sources, and navigating complexity.

“What we do in school needs to place greater value on the learning process, on the capacity of students to grow, rather than just, you know, whether they deliver a product.” -Andreas Schleicher

The results also tell a complicated story about U.S. performance. American students are more likely than students in many other countries to see science and technology as part of their futures, and the United States produces a remarkably large share of top performers. But 22 percent of American 15-year-olds struggle with the most basic foundations in science.

Schleicher described the U.S. as combining “excellence with inequality.” But international comparisons show that these disparities are not inevitable: students from disadvantaged backgrounds in some high-performing systems outperform even the most advantaged U.S. students. And several countries, including Cambodia, Türkiye, Costa Rica, and the United Kingdom, demonstrate that substantial improvement is possible.

Building a Better System

That led to a broader discussion of whether improving outcomes requires more than simply adding resources. High-performing systems deliberately design the conditions around students: how teachers are prepared and supported, how resources reach students who need them most, and what learning experiences schools are built to provide. Eric Jones, NCEE’s Chief Learning Design Officer, argued that the central question is ultimately one of system design.

“If you have that system in place, students will rise to the occasion, and that’s what we see in these high-performing systems.” – Eric Jones

Using AI Well

The panel also grappled with one of the biggest new variables facing education systems: artificial intelligence. PISA found that 15 percent of American 15-year-olds already use AI every day to help them learn, with another 22 percent using it at least once or twice a week. The emerging evidence suggests that how students use AI matters enormously. Tools that eliminate cognitive effort can undermine learning, while thoughtfully designed uses can help students ask better questions, personalize learning, and tackle more complex problems. NCEE CEO Vicki Phillips argued that schools need to move beyond a simple choice between embracing AI and banning it.

“We all want to put in the safeguards that protect young people, and that certainly needs our focused attention, but AI is the defining technology of this generation. We need to help them use it to think further, create more boldly, and solve problems that were previously beyond their reach.” – Vicki Phillips

Reading for Learning and for Life

That challenge makes foundational skills such as reading more important, not less. Schleicher pointed to a striking finding: the strongest readers of complex digital material were not the students with the greatest exposure to technology, but those who had read books longer than 100 pages. Reading deeply requires students to sustain attention, construct meaning, connect ideas, and critically reflect on information, precisely the capacities they need to navigate a world overflowing with digital content and AI-generated answers. Jones captured the challenge succinctly.

“In an information-rich world, the scarce resource no longer is access to information. It may be the ability to make meaning from it.” —Eric Jones

The Kids Are More Than Alright

Making meaning also requires students to see themselves as active participants in learning. PISA data show a strong relationship between student agency and learning outcomes, including students’ sense of ownership over how, where, and when they learn. As Phillips reminded the group, that means not only defining what a future-ready learner should know and be able to do, but listening directly to young people as they design the experiences that will get them there.

“And we need to ask them. Because surprisingly, when they’re asked about some of these issues, they come up with pretty powerful solutions.” —Vicki Phillips

And amid the concerning academic trends, Tracey Burns, NCEE’s Chief Global Strategy and Research Officer, closed with an important counterpoint. Evidence across surveys shows young people becoming more empathetic, open-minded, inclusive, patient, and self-restrained, alongside declines in youth violence, teen pregnancy, and drug use. The academic challenges facing education systems are serious, she argued, but they should not become a judgment on the generation schools are preparing for the future.

“Kids are more than alright. And these are trends that have been shown and validated across surveys, across cultures, across time. The kids are strong. They have agency. They have power. And there are a lot of things that they are well-positioned to take on, and lead us into a bright future.” —Tracey Burns