2025 PISA results show record-low global reading and math performance, with U.S. reading down 14 points since 2022

State of Us · Friday, 11 September 2026

Why it matters

This adds an international benchmark to the recent U.S. NAEP decline and indicates that weakening academic outcomes are broad across advanced education systems rather than solely a U.S. development. The widening U.S. spread between high- and low-performing students is especially relevant to social cohesion and opportunity, while the AI-use figures make it important to distinguish students’ access to assistance from what they can independently read, reason through, and calculate.

What happened

Average PISA reading and mathematics scores across participating systems reached their lowest recorded levels in 2025. U.S. 15-year-olds’ reading score fell 14 points from 2022, math fell two points over that period and 15 points since 2018, while the U.S. maintained its relative position because many other systems declined further; U.S. science performance was essentially unchanged. The U.S. result is marked by widening inequality: its reading 90–10 gap grew by 50 points since 2015, and its science gap exceeded 290 points, while more than half of students across 82 jurisdictions reported using AI chatbots for schoolwork several times a month; a separate Fordham Institute survey found 48% of U.S. high-school respondents regularly used AI to solve math problems.

Previously

  1. 9 Sep 2026 — PISA 2025 finds OECD-average performance at its lowest recorded level across science, reading and mathematics.(oecd.org)

  2. 2024 — US schools administered NAEP assessments in reading and math to 12th-graders and in science to eighth-graders during January–March 2024.(National Center for Education Statistics)

  3. 2009–2025 — PISA mathematics and reading scores dropped or stagnated since 2009, while reading scores declined since 2012, according to the OECD’s 2025 assessment results.(OECD via yahoo.com)

  4. 1992 — NAEP began its high-school reading assessment, providing the baseline for the 2024 result identified as the lowest average reading score in the assessment’s history.(National Center for Education Statistics)

Players & places

  • United States
  • Singapore
  • Japan
  • Estonia
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
  • Fordham Institute

Sources