The stagnant reading test scores could be attributed to the larger societal challenge that fewer and fewer Americans read for pleasure regularly. Given that context, high-stakes testing, nationalized standards and curriculums, and random acts of English teaching often fall short. Distressing as it may be to those of us whose life’s work includes helping to nurture a literate population, it is wholly unsurprising that a society that places a low priority on reading in fact produces so few proficient readers.

Jon Parker

Pittsburgh

To the Editor:

The stagnant results of the international PISA exam have spoken: An extensive overhaul in the American education system is desperately needed. Although myriad troubles plague American schools — from lack of support for immigrant students to inequalities between schools — part of the solution may lie in one of the countries that outperformed us on the PISA exam: Finland.

Our country has sought to boost test scores by introducing a multitude of standardized tests, essentially forcing teachers to center their class around preparing for these tests rather than teaching their students foundational skills. In Finnish schools, students are subject to almost no standardized tests, yet Finnish students surpassed American students in the PISA exam.

In our desperation to improve academic achievement, our country has fostered a culture obsessed with test results, yet, ironically, this fixation only serves as a detriment to America’s academic performance on the international stage.

Riya Jones

Fairfax, Va.

To the Editor:

The “education reform” movement of the past 20 years has not resulted in improved educational attainment because that was not its focus. All of its components — which include opening charter schools, merit pay for teachers, mayoral control in large cities, closing rather than helping struggling schools — focus on governance structures of public education, not on classroom instruction.

Indeed, the one initiative that would have yielded prompt improvement in achievement is the “Reading First” component of No Child Left Behind, which in turn built on the findings of The National Reading Panel Report to Congress of 2000. Instead, it was engulfed by vendor scandals early on, and disappeared. Twenty years later, struggling readers at every grade level still await the report’s full implementation. For that, we don’t need any more “reforms,” just action on what is well established about how to make sure every child is reading on grade level.

Susan Crawford

New York

The writer is director of the Right to Read Project.

To the Editor:

Reading the article about the PISA results, I was disturbed but not surprised. You see, last year I was hired to administer this assessment, and what I experienced both discouraged and alarmed me.