Do American and Korean education systems converge? Tracking school reform policies and outcomes in Korea and the USA

This study examines key school reform policies and outcomes of the USA and Korea over the past three decades from comparative perspectives. Since the two nations’ unique educational problems brought divergent educational reform paths—standardization versus differentiation, high-stakes testing versus individualized assessment, and centralization versus decentralization—the study tracks international policy benchmarking efforts and potential impact on educational convergence. The study employs mixed methods, including the content analysis of research and media documents and the trend analysis of TIMSS and PISA datasets. The results indicate that, despite significant changes in policy discourse, the gaps between Korea and the USA in student math achievement and school climates did not narrow. The policy lessons from these cases and the issues of international education benchmarking are discussed.