Federal officials deny the charge. Mark S. Schneider, the commissioner for the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, says the decision was made after a number of other countries—Australia, Germany and Finland—also decided not to participate. That left Armenia, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden in the study. “We looked at the countries who are participating, our scarce resources and our overextended staff,” says Schneider, “and we decided to give it a pass.”

Sounds more like the study is Bulldada and woulda been a waste of money; I'm inclined to buy the Federal argument on this one.

Spending a few million to test 4000 high schoolers in comparison with Sweden and Italy? Not so important.