Research Shows U.S. Students ‘Average’ in Terms of Financial Literacy

Andreas Schleicher, head of PISA, said one issue is that “math education hasn’t adapted to the changes of the world.”WASHINGTON — American education must evolve to ensure that students are better able to navigate an increasingly complex financial landscape — one that they will traverse from the moment they take out their first student loans until their sunset years when they must tap their retirement funds to survive.

That was the message that a series of education researchers and Obama administration officials delivered Wednesday on the heels of the release of the first financial literacy assessment from the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA.

The PISA results show that among 15 year olds worldwide, American students are “around the average” of the 13 OECD countries and economies that participated in the assessment.

Shanghai-China achieved the highest score in financial literacy, followed by the Flemish Community of Belgium, Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic and Poland, the PISA results show.

Andreas Schleicher, head of PISA, said students in Shanghai-China outperformed others even though they hadn’t been exposed to the specific content on the PISA assessment.

Instead, he said, students in Shanghai possessed the “thinking skills” necessary to extrapolate and solve the financial problems before them.

The United States, on the other hand, came out in the middle of the pack, doing slightly better than the Russian Federation, France and Spain, according to the results.