Reading scores among 15-year-olds in the United States fell to their lowest level in about 25 years in the 2025 PISA results released Tuesday by the OECD, down 14 points from 2022, part of a broader international decline (OECD average across 23 countries down 16 points); 25.7 percent of US students ranked as low performers in reading against 13.3 percent top performers, and NYU literacy professor Michael Kieffer said across the 90 participating countries 'there was not a single country with significantly wider inequality in reading scores than the US' (Al Jazeera, 9 Sep). src [!claim] asserted The US reading results come as the Trump administration pushes to dismantle the federal Department of Education; Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Al Jazeera that 'this moment is a stress test for our nation's future' and called for 'a hard reset that stops protecting a failed status quo and instead builds a system that empowers state leaders and embraces innovative learning options through school choice', while the White House says the department has spent more than USD 3 trillion since 1979 (Al Jazeera, 9 Sep). src