475 POLICY AND PRACTICE REMIX Donna E. Alvermann & Colin Harrison | Editors Reading Achievement, International Comparisons, and Moral Panic: Do International Reading Test Scores Matter? Colin Harrison Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol. 60 No. 4 pp. 475–479 doi: 10.1002/jaal.607 © 2016 International Literacy Association M oral panic about reading achievement appears to afflict most English-speaking nations from time to time, and when this occurs, stories of a decline in achievement appear regularly in the media. Referring to the first skills survey by the OECD, The New Yorker asserted, “In basic literacy,…younger Americans are at or near the bottom of the standings among advanced countries” (Cassidy, 2013, para. 1). In the United Kingdom, The Guardian newspaper told a similar story: “England’s young people near bottom of global league table for basic skills” (Ramesh, 2013). Australian students apparently fared no better, even with an emphasis on basic skills: “Focus on basic skills blamed for decline in reading standards” (Patty, 2010). In case you’re wondering whether achievement levels are higher in New Zealand, the birthplace of Reading Recovery, Radio New Zealand (2013) reported, “New Zealand’s scores in reading, maths and science exam- ined by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2012 have fallen since the previ- ous test in 2009” (para. 4). So, have reading achievement levels really fallen in all of these countries, and if they have, what should be done? These are the questions that will be addressed in this column. Reading Achievement Levels Matter Reading achievement levels matter to governments, to employers, to teachers, and to parents, and concerns about national achievement levels are not new. The first international study of reading was Thorndike’s (1973) Reading Comprehension Education in Fifteen Countries: An Empirical Study, which was funded by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), and the IEA’s ground- breaking work laid the foundations for today’s surveys, of which PISA and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) attract the most attention. Why are such studies needed? The most common rationale is threefold: improving literacy, improving a nation’s economy, and improving schooling. As the a past execu- tive director of the IEA put it in a PIRLS report, “Central to a nation’s pursuit of its social, political, and eco- nomic goals is a literate and well-educated population” (Wagemaker, 2009, p. 1). Few would argue against this, although it is inter- esting to note from the outset that a causal link is being suggested between a nation’s reading achievement and its economic goals. A further element of the rationale relates to improving not only a nation’s literacy but also its education system. The website of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which oversees PISA, suggests that its data can answer such policy questions as “Are some kinds of teaching and schools more effective than others?” (OECD, n.d., para. 4). Learning from other nations about how to improve reading may be a laudable goal, but I want to sug gest that it is far from straightforward to do this and that there are many reasons for proceeding with great cau- tion before attempting to implement wholesale changes at the system level. Can the Results of International Reading Assessments Tell Us How to Improve Our Education System? In the mid-2000s, education specialists from all over the world descended on Finland, the nation whose 15-year-olds had come top in the world in PISA reading scores. What did these experts learn? They learned that in Finland, formal schooling doesn’t begin until age 7,