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This article examines the OECD's new PISA-based Test for Schools ("PISA for Schools") program. PISA for Schools is part of the expanding education work of the OECD, building upon main PISA to enable school-to-schooling system comparisons. We examine the development of PISA for Schools, the nature of the instrument, and some initial effects of its introduction. Our theoretical framework focuses on new spatialities associated with globalization and the emergence of topological rationalities and heterarchical modes of governance. We analyze 33 interviews with personnel at the OECD and relevant edu-businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and philanthropic foundations. Pertinent documents and web-based media are also analyzed. We suggest that PISA for Schools provides an exemplary demonstration of heterarchical governance, in which vertical policy mechanisms open up horizontal spaces for new policy actors. It also creates commensurate spaces of comparison and governance, enabling the OECD to "reach into " school-level spaces and directly influence local educational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the expansion of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment ( PISA) and associated growth in the influence of the OECD's education work. PISA has become one of the OECD's most successful 'products' and has both strengthened the role of the Directorate for Education within the organization and enhanced the significance of the organization in education globally. We provide an overview of the OECD, including organizational changes in response to globalization and the changing place of the Directorate for Education within the organization, particularly with the development of PISA in the late 1990s. We show how the OECD is expanding PISA by broadening the scope of what is measured; increasing the scale of the assessment to cover more countries, systems and schools; and enhancing its explanatory power to provide policy-makers with better information. The OECD has also developed the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies ( PIAAC) and PISA-based Tests for Schools, which draw on the PISA template to extend the influence of its education work to new sites. The paper draws on data from 33 interviews with past and present personnel from the OECD, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement ( IEA) and the English and Australian education systems, as well as analysis of relevant OECD documents. We argue that PISA, and the OECD's education work more broadly, has facilitated new epistemological and infrastructural modes of global governance for the OECD in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the re-articulation of social justice as equity in schooling policy through national and global testing and data infrastructures. It focuses on the Australian National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse the discursive reconstitution of social justice as equity in Australian and OECD policy, and analyse NAPLAN and PISA as technologies of governance that re-articulate equity as a measure of performance. These re-articulations are set against the extension of neo-social economistic rationalities to all domains of life and the topological production of new spaces of policy and power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the rescaling and re-spatialization of policy and governance in education, including the constitution of a global education policy field. It deals with the changing education policy work of the OECD, particularly the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We argue that PISA has become the most successful OECD 'product' and as such has become the prototype for other OECD developments, including PISA-Based tests for schools, PISA for development, PIACC and AHELO. These developments help constitute a global education policy field and contribute to the production of a global data infrastructure in education. At the same time, they also have impacts on other spatial relations, including sub-national and local effects in schooling. For example, the PISA-based test for schools programme can be used directly by schools and sub-national systems as part of the new policy spaces in education. In this paper, we document the role of the OECD's education work in respect of these matters. We focus specifically on a video, PISA 2012 - Representing Your Country, produced by the Scottish Department of Education and anchored by the Scottish National Party Minister for Education. The aim of the video is to inspire the participation and strong performance of Scottish students in the 2012 PISA sample. As we will show, using a 'videological analysis', this video demonstrates how Scottish independence and nationalism involve reaching out to draw on the expertise of supranational organisations such as the OECD, while at the same time the OECD is reaching in to nations to shape policy agendas in sub-national spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review essay discusses the history, evolution and development of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and traces the growing impact of its education work. The essay is in four main sections. The first discusses Carrol and Kellow's The OECD: A Study of Organizational Adaptation (Edward Elgar) and provides a brief historical account of the Organisation. The second section reviews Woodward's The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Routledge) and considers the different modes of governance employed by the OECD, particularly its exercise of soft power through peer review. The third section considers Tucker's edited book, Surpassing Shanghai." An Agenda for American Education Built on the World's Leading Systems (Harvard Education Press) and the effects that Shanghai-China's 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) success has had on education policy debates in the USA and globally. The final section engages with Sahlberg's Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn From Educational Change in Finland? (Teachers College Press) and describes factors that have contributed to the high quality and equity of schooling in Finland. The review essay thus moves from an examination of the role and function of the OECD in general terms to more specific discussion of the recent impact of its PISA, which has drawn attention to particular school systems and has influenced education policy-making in both member and non-member countries. We conclude by providing a framework for understanding the epistemological and infrastructural governance functions of the OECD in education globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]