Education at a Glance is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. The 2021 edition includes a focus on equity, investigating how progress through education and the associated learning and labour market outcomes are impacted by dimensions such as gender, socio-economic status, country of birth and regional location.

In the push to bring data to bear on all of the important education issues of the day, one essential fact is often overlooked: Not all indicators are created equal. This bookprovides a comprehensive approach for understanding how statistical measures of achievement are developed, evaluated, and interpreted. Given the extent to which accountability measures determine outcomes for schools and students, this practical introduction is essential reading for a wide audience that includes school administrators, teachers, policymakers, and the media. The authors strive to increase “statistical literacy” by engaging readers in the process of becoming thoughtful and critical users of data. With the practitioner in mind, this hands-on primer: Outlines a viable approach to interpreting the vast array of available data about education in the United States.Uses clear, jargon-free language with real examples from local, national, and international indicator systems.Offers a website (www.educationindicator.com) with additional resources, examples, and a forum for up-to-the-minute policy discussions.Mike Planty is a statistician at the U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Deven Carlson is a Ph.D. candidate in political science and a graduate research fellow at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Mike Planty and Deven Carlson have taken pity on nonexpert readers of the glut of information about schools and, in this incisive and clearly written book, show how to figure it all out.” —Jay Mathews, Washington Post education columnist “In a data-driven world where competing experts will cite conflicting stats and figures to make their case, Planty and Carlson have penned a volume that will prove invaluable to parents, practitioners, and policymakers trying to separate fact from fiction. If you want to know what’s really going on in education today, read this book.” —Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute “Education researchers, policy analysts, and journalists interested in understanding what really is going on behind the ‘simple’ data that drive the education policy debate need this book.” —Jack Buckley, New York University and former Deputy Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics

Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. With more than 125 charts and 145 tables included in the publication and much more data available on the educational database, Education at a Glance 2017 provides key information on the output of educational institutions; the impact of learning across countries; the financial and human resources invested in education; access, participation and progression in education; and the learning environment and organisation of schools. The 2017 edition presents a new focus on fields of study, investigating both trends in enrolment at upper secondary and tertiary level, student mobility, and labour market outcomes of the qualifications obtained in these fields. The publication also introduces for the first time a full chapter dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals, providing an assessment of where OECD and partner countries stand on their way to meeting the SDG targets. Finally, two new indicators are developed and analysed in the context of participation and progress in education: an indicator on the completion rate of upper secondary students and an indicator on admission processes to higher education. The report covers all 35 OECD countries and a number of partner countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and South Africa). The Excel(tm) spreadsheets used to create the tables and charts in Education at a Glance are available via the StatLinks provided throughout the publication.

International education indicators provide the opportunity to compare America's performance with that of other countries, to identify similarities and differences between our systems and others, and to suggest new approaches to the challenge of providing a world class education. Comparisons are among Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. Students in the U.S. perform well in comparison with their peers in other countries in reading and less well in geography and science; their weakest area is math. Public financial investment in education in the U.S. is among the highest.

The OECD education indicators enable countries to see themselves in light of other countries performance. They reflect on both the human and financial resources invested in education and on the returns of these investments.