Low Test Scores in Latin America: Poor Schools, Poor Families, or Something Else?

Theodore Breton () and Gustavo Canavire-Bacarreza

No 15008, Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público from Universidad EAFIT

Abstract: Latin American students consistently score low on international tests of cognitive skills. In the PISA 2012 results, students in seven Latin American countries had an average score of 395, or about 100 points lower than the average score of 497 in four Scandinavian countries. We examine why Latin American scores are lower and conclude that 50 points are explained by Latin American families’ lower average educational and socioeconomic characteristics, 25 points are explained by Latin America’s weak cultural orientation toward reading books, and the remaining 25 points are explained by the lower effectiveness of educational systems in teaching cognitive skills.

Keywords: Latin America; test scores; PISA; books; school quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2016-06-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu and nep-lam
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000122:015008

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