Swedish PISA results have fallen continuously in the past years. Last result showed a break from that but later it turned out that many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question. There is huge concern in Sweden over the state of the schooling system. It is complex because so much have changed over the past 30 years. It is usually not to recommend when trying trying improve something to throw it all up in the air at once, but that is more or less what has been done.
> many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question
You mean newly arrived immigrants. They would greatly decrease the results depending on how many were excluded, yes, but PISA makes a distinction between immigrants and natives anyway so just look at the natives results and you still see a strong positive trend.
Also you could argue that immigrant performance isn't a good indicator of the school system of a country, only an indicator of what kind of immigrants they take in. So the only real number from PISA is actually the performance of students who grew up there and got their entire education in the country.
I don't think that distinction is valuable. Immigrants that come to live here will need to be well equipped for adult life just like native Swedes are. That is why the downward trend has been so worrying. If the young generation in average has faired less well than previous generations, then that is worrying for our society.
