PISA is a prominent measure used to gauge international student performance. When looking at a comparable sample of countries that participated in the PISA exam in both 2012 (the last time the test was administered) and 2015, the US ranking fell to 35th from 28th in math. The US underperformed the OECD average in math. Scores were relatively unchanged in reading and science compared to 2012 — down one point in each. The US performed better than the OECD average in both subjects. Asian countries again topped the rankings across all subjects, and Singapore was the top performing country across all three subjects.

While PISA is a standardized test and not the sole indicator or measure of student outcomes, the results offer important lessons with international perspective. As the Economist pointed out in their PISA analysis, the top performers have certain traits in common, including treating teachers as professionals, focusing on what happens in classrooms rather than on a school’s structure, and they have high expectations of all students – no matter which path they pursue, vocational or academic. the The results also show that more money doesn’t always mean better results. Despite the fact that the United States ranks among the top nations in per-pupil funding, we are still falling short of our cohort of developed nations. In order to ensure U.S. students remain competitive globally and are educated to their greatest potential, the U.S. must escalate efforts to ensure students of all backgrounds are given the opportunity to excel and keep up with, if not exceed, their international peers.

Year 2030 marks an important demographic turning point in U.S. history according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 National Population Projections. By 2030, all baby boomers will be older than age 65. This will expand the size of the older population so that 1 in every 5 residents will be retirement age. “The aging of baby boomers means that within just a couple decades, older people are projected to outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history” . “By 2035, there will be 78.0 million people 65 years and older compared to 76.7 million (previously 76.4 million) under the age of 18.” The 2030s are projected to be a transformative decade for the U.S. population. The population is expected to grow at a slower pace, age considerably and become more racially and ethnically diverse.

Amlan Roy, an economist at Credit Suisse, has calculated that the shrinking working-age population dragged down Japan's GDP growth by an average of just over 0.6 percentage points a year between 2000 and 2013, and that over the next four years that will increase to 1 percentage point a year. Germany's shrinking workforce could reduce GDP growth by almost half a point. In America, under the same assumptions, the retirement of the baby-boomers would be expected to reduce the economy's potential growth rate by 0.7 percentage points. Demographic trends will shape the future, but they do not render particular outcomes inevitable. The evolution of the economy will depend on the way policymakers respond to the new situation.

To provide easy-to-understand figures on what occupations and shares of employment are most exposed to automation, ITIF qualitatively analyzed each of the 840 occupations and assigned a “risk” level to each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being most at risk of automation and 5 being least at risk. We first sorted occupations according to their education requirements under the assumption that low-skilled occupations were more likely to be substituted by technology. Then we evaluated the job scope of each occupation and the presence of technologies that have the possibility to radically alter them.

For example, translators require a bachelor’s degree as a minimum entry requirement, but ITIF's research assumed that advances in live-translation technologies would have a strong possibility of phasing out the need for human translators over the next 10 years, and therefore assigned it as a “high-risk” occupation. On the other hand, personal care aides do not have a formal education entry requirement, but with the personal care industry built around human-to-human interaction, we classify it as “low-risk.”

ITIF’s analysis, 8 percent of workers are employed in “high-risk” occupations, 33 percent are in “moderately high-risk” occupations, 16 percent are in “moderate-risk” occupations, 28 percent are in “moderately low-risk” occupations, and 15 percent are in “low-risk” occupations. Combining BLS employment estimates with ITIF’s “risk of automation” variable, we find that employment in “high-risk” occupations will increase 2 percent by 2024 while employment in “low-risk” occupations will increase 10 percent by 2024. Meanwhile, the labor force is expected to grow by 5 percent.

It’s worth noting that many articles and pundits also cite a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, claiming that it says that 45 percent of jobs will be automated. But it turns out the McKinsey study actually says that less than 5 percent of jobs could be fully automated. The 45 percent estimate comes from the share of employee time that technology could save—for example, IBM’s Watson cognitive computing system could help doctors make faster and better medical diagnosis and 20 percent of a typical CEO’s time can be replaced by technology like artificial intelligence. McKinsey doesn’t think doctors and CEOs will be out of work because of technology; only that the nature of their work will change and they will be able to use the balance of their time to do more interesting and productive things.