The PISA 2025 results provide a new look at how 15-year-old students in the United States are performing in reading, mathematics, and science compared with students around the world. U.S. students scored above the OECD average in reading and close to the OECD average in math.
Looking at performance over time, however, gives a different picture. Reading and math scores have lost ground, even as U.S. students continue to compare relatively well internationally. That is one reason rankings alone do not tell the whole story.
The results also arrive as educators raise concerns about students struggling with reading comprehension, writing, and other literacy skills. A recent CNN report highlighted teachers describing those challenges in their own classrooms, adding a very human perspective to the national and international trends. Combined with recent national assessment data, PISA provides another reason to look beyond where the United States ranks and consider what students need to be successful.
What do the PISA 2025 results show about U.S. students?
PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, is coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It measures how well 15-year-old students can apply what they know in reading, mathematics, and science to problems and situations they may encounter beyond the classroom.
In reading, 74% of U.S. students reached at least Level 2 in 2025, which PISA considers a baseline for proficiency, compared with 69% across OECD countries. U.S. students also continued to perform above the OECD average overall, but the long-term trend is concerning. Reading performance declined between 2022 and 2025 and is now below 2018 levels and among the lowest recorded for the United States in PISA. Compared with 2015, the percentage of U.S. students performing below Level 2 has increased by seven percentage points.
Math shows a similar long-term concern. U.S. students performed close to the OECD average in 2025, but math performance was also below 2018 levels. Compared with 2015, the percentage of U.S. students performing below Level 2 in math increased by six percentage points.
The decline extends well beyond the United States. Across OECD countries, average reading scores fell 28 points between 2015 and 2025, while math scores fell 22 points. The OECD estimates those changes are roughly equivalent to one and a half years of learning in reading and just over one year in math.
These broader trends add to a growing body of information about challenges schools are already addressing.
Why are the PISA 2025 reading results especially important?
Reading stands out in the PISA results not only because scores have declined but because of the types of reading tasks students are finding more difficult. Some of the largest declines involved longer texts and tasks that required students to read carefully and sustain their attention. Between 2018 and 2025, the proportion of students identified as accurate and fluent readers also declined.
The findings also point to challenges with higher-level reading skills, including evaluating and reflecting on information, remembering multiple pieces of information, and using them together to reach a conclusion. These are skills students use far beyond English language arts. They need to read and interpret a math problem, understand scientific information, research a topic, follow written directions, compare sources, and determine whether information is reliable. As students move through middle and high school, understanding increasingly complex text becomes part of learning in nearly every subject.
PISA is not the only assessment showing this pattern. The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that 32% of U.S. 12th graders performed below NAEP Basic in reading. In 1992, that figure was 20%. The average 12th-grade reading score in 2024 was also 10 points lower than when the assessment was first administered in 1992.
What are teachers seeing in the classroom?
Test scores can show the scale of a problem, but they do not always show what that problem looks like during a school day.
In September, CNN reported on teachers across the United States raising concerns about students’ reading skills. The report reflects a broader conversation among educators who say they are seeing older students struggle with reading comprehension, written responses, and other literacy skills they would normally expect students to have developed earlier.
One example came from a Houston high school teacher who described seniors struggling with a basic reading and writing exercise even after he had worked through the material with them. The students could reason through the questions and explain their thinking verbally, he said, but had difficulty applying that reasoning to written text.
One classroom experience cannot represent every school or student, and phrases such as “students can’t read” can oversimplify a complex issue. Students may struggle with different aspects of literacy, including decoding unfamiliar words, understanding what they have read, identifying relevant information, sustaining attention through longer texts, or communicating their understanding in writing.
What makes these classroom experiences particularly notable is that they are appearing alongside national and international data showing similar downward trends. The issue is not simply whether students enjoy reading or read as often as previous generations. It is whether they have the literacy skills they need to learn successfully across subjects and prepare for what comes after high school.
Where does the science of reading fit into this conversation?
This comes at a time when many states and districts have placed greater emphasis on evidence-based literacy instruction commonly discussed under the term “science of reading.” The science of reading is not a single program or teaching method. It refers to a broad body of research about how people learn to read and the skills that contribute to successful reading, including decoding, fluency, vocabulary, language comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing.
Much of the recent attention has focused on early literacy, and for good reason. Building strong reading foundations early and identifying problems before students fall further behind can make a significant difference. But literacy development does not stop when students leave elementary school.
Older students may arrive in middle or high school with very different needs. One student may still struggle with decoding or fluency, while another may read the words accurately but have difficulty understanding a complex passage, making an inference, identifying important information, or explaining what the text means. Understanding the specific skill gap is an important part of determining what kind of support will be most useful.
What do the results tell us about access to academic support?
PISA 2025 also examined the additional academic help students receive outside regular classroom instruction. Students reported participating in individual and group tutoring, online learning platforms, recorded lessons, real-time online instruction, and other forms of academic support.
PISA does not establish that any one form of tutoring or study help causes stronger academic performance, and the OECD cautions against drawing that conclusion from the data. The findings do, however, raise an important issue about access. Socioeconomically advantaged students were more likely than disadvantaged students to participate in some forms of additional instruction. The OECD notes that differences in access to academic support have the potential to contribute to existing disparities.
For schools and districts, making a resource available is not always the same as making it accessible. Some students will ask for help as soon as they encounter a problem. Others may not know where to turn, may be reluctant to ask, or may need support at a time when a teacher or family member is not available.
The type of support students need can vary as well. A student who is several years behind may benefit from consistent, targeted tutoring built into the school day. Another may understand most of the material but need help with a difficult assignment in the evening. Schools may need both structured intervention and flexible ways for students to get help when questions arise.
How should schools respond to the PISA 2025 results?
PISA provides a broad international picture, not a prescription for an individual school or district. Decisions about tutoring, intervention, curriculum, and other student support should begin with local information, including assessment results, classroom performance, attendance, and the needs of individual students.
The 2025 results do reinforce several priorities. Foundational reading and mathematics skills need continued attention, particularly when students reach later grades with gaps that have not been fully addressed. Schools also need ways to identify where students are struggling and connect them with the support that matches those needs.
That support may look different from one student to the next. Some students benefit from consistent, targeted tutoring that gives them additional time to build specific skills. Others may need help with a difficult concept or assignment when a question comes up outside of the school day. In both cases, students benefit from having opportunities to ask questions, work through misunderstandings, and receive focused help with difficult skills or concepts.
Access matters as well. A tutoring program can only help students who are able to use it. Building support into the school day and offering help beyond regular classroom hours can make tutoring easier to access. Multiple options also help schools reach students with different schedules, learning needs, and comfort levels in asking for help.
For more than 25 years, Brainfuse has provided online academic support through libraries, colleges and universities, and K-12 schools and districts. Today, schools can use scheduled high-dosage tutoring for students who need consistent, targeted support or on-demand tutoring for help when questions arise. They can also combine the two approaches based on their academic priorities, schedules, and student populations.
PISA 2025 gives schools another important set of data to consider. The more meaningful work happens at the local level: identifying where students are struggling, determining what kind of help they need, and making sure they can access that support before learning gaps become more difficult to address.
References
National Center for Education Statistics. PISA 2025 U.S. Results.
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2025/
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): Student Performance in PISA 2025.
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2025-results-volume-i_73451bc5-en/full-report/student-performance-in-pisa-2025_23e075c2.html
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): United States.
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2025-results-volume-i-country-notes_2d4ff9ea-en/united-states_0c8cbc7c-en.html
National Assessment of Educational Progress. 2024 NAEP Reading Assessment: Grade 12 Results.
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g12/
Institute of Education Sciences. The Importance of Comprehension in the Science of Reading.
https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/importance-comprehension-science-reading
CNN. “‘Students Can’t Read’: Teachers Sound the Alarm Over America’s Reading Crisis.” September 12, 2026.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/12/us/video/student-literacy-concerns-reading-crisis-rosales-vrtc-digvid
