This study undertakes an evidence-based approach to compare the differences between Eastern Asia and Western Europe on their 15-year-old adolescents educational achievements, and how these differences are related to the educational practices in the schools. PISA (Programme of International Students Assessments, OECD) 2003 database related to eight countries/region in Eastern Asian and Western Europe are explored, with Japan, Korea, Hong Kong-China on one side and UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and France on the other. Three-level hierarchical models with students nested in schools and schools in countries are used to model the educational outcomes. After having controlled for the impact of diversified family backgrounds and students' individual characteristics, special focuses are given to the impact of general educational policies and specific school practices on students' outcomes. Multilevel models with random intercepts/slopes model as well as cross-level interaction between schools and individual students are applied so as to capture the complex reality in educational settings. The findings help to find out to what extend the variance in students' outcomes could be explained by school features and how educational effectiveness differs across cultures.