This presentation both describes the context underpinning the United States educational system and examines the policy impacts of external events including the results of international achievement testing. At the outset, we show, the signal international events embodying perceived challenges to scientific and economic leadership that influenced US rhetoric and subsequent educational policies. The presentation will briefly trace important international events that have affected Federal legislation and policy. Reactions often triggered three types of searches for knowledge, including concerted explorations, (Let’s visit Finland), innovation matching (A school inspectorate?) and new development (Common Core), although none escapes without serious challenge. We will map the relationship of international tests and educational policy, including impact on Federal initiatives outside of the US Department of Education undertaken in response to international data. Reactions by the private sector will also be considered. We will also depict the pronounced influence of international assessments on practices in US assessment design. The lack of sustained and coherent activities grow from vagaries of distributed rather than centralized educational authority, rather than insensitivity or dismissal of global systems. We will use visual representations of relationships, both conceptual and chronological, to clarify our interpretation of events.

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