Madrid, Castilla y León, and Asturias are the three autonomous communities that achieve the best results in the PISA Report, published this Tuesday. This does not mean they have not suffered. PISA estimates that a 20-point difference is approximately equivalent to what is learned in one school year. And Madrid has lost 27 points in reading compared to the previous edition, published three years ago. Castilla y León lost 27 in mathematics. And Asturias, 26 in both competencies. All three lose more points than the average of the autonomous communities. But since they were well above the average, that cushion has allowed them to continue occupying the top positions. Some characteristics that benefit them educationally coincide, but each has its particularities. These are the key points.
Community of Madrid
It is the one that obtains the best results in two of the three tests, mathematics and science. It also has the highest GDP per capita in Spain, and the highest socioeconomic and cultural index of its students, notes Lucas Gortazar, Director of Education at EsadeEcPol. The social and cultural profile of families is one of the external factors that most influences student educational performance, and the difference it presents compared to the rest already gives it a great advantage over the others.
PISA constructs, to make comparisons between students and territories, an index, the ISEC, based not on income, but on elements surrounding the students’ lives. Such as the educational level of the parents, their employment status, and information about their home ―number of books, digital devices…― Madrid leads the index in Spain by a wide margin over the other autonomous communities. If it were a country, it would rank ninth among the 42 that belong to the OECD or the EU that participated in the latest edition of PISA. A rating topped by Australia.
Madrid has a percentage of students of migrant origin ―PISA includes both first and second generation― of 25.4%, five points higher than the Spanish average. From the point of view of results in the international assessment, this does not help performance, because these kids score, on average, equivalent to two academic years less than native students. Unlike other territories with equal or higher proportions of students of foreign origin, such as the Balearic Islands (29%), the Valencian Community (27.6%), Navarra (26.7%), Madrid has the educational advantage, however, of having only one official language ―despite the bilingualism of many educational centers―, points out José Saturnino Martínez, education sociologist at the University of La Laguna. And that students of Latin origin have a large weight among the foreign students attending its classrooms.
According to the latest data published by the Ministry of Education, the community enrolls 17.7% of all foreign students in Spain, only 7.7% of those from Africa and, on the other hand, 22.6% from Central America, and 22.8% from South America.
Castilla y León
The second-ranked this year has been among the top three in all editions since it began participating in PISA, at the beginning of the century. And in fact, points out Antonio Cabrales, Professor of Economics at Carlos III University, the background can be traced much earlier. In 1860, Castilla y León was already the second Spanish region with the highest literacy rate, surpassed only by Madrid. An accumulation of cultural capital that, according to experts, implies an advantage. “If we look at historical literacy rates in Spain, they have a very interesting correlation with current results,” adds Cabrales, although they are not everything.
Castilla y León has a socioeconomic and cultural index in PISA higher than the Spanish average ―although slightly lower than that of the OECD―. A percentage of migrant students (16.3%) four points below the national average. A relatively small school population that has decreased since the beginning of the century, while it grew strongly in the whole of Spain. A rural school model with few students, which provides very personalized teaching. “And a fairly stable educational system, not given to histrionics, where the Popular Party has been governing for almost 40 years. A calm and conservative education system, in the good sense of the word,” notes Martínez.
Asturias
Although it has almost always been at the top of the PISA table, and already in the 1860 statistics it was slightly above the average literacy of the Spanish regions, its consolidation on the international evaluation podium is the most recent of the three, because it started in 2018. Asturias shares several characteristics with Castilla y León. Such as a per capita income close to the Spanish average, a number of students that has been decreasing throughout the century, which has spared educational centers the stress experienced in other areas of Spain.
Asturias also has the fourth highest socioeconomic and cultural index of students in PISA, tied with the OECD average. The second lowest proportion of migrant students in the country, 12.3%, 8 points less than the Spanish average. And, despite the limited presence of Asturian, an education system that also mainly operates in Spanish.
To that profile of students much more homogeneous than what has become usual in Spanish educational centers, Asturias adds a hegemonic public school system ―which enrolls 72% of students, six points more than the Spanish average and ahead of Castilla y León, 66%, and Madrid, 54%―. One of the highest investments per student in public education in Spain, 9,062 euros in 2023 ―the average was 7,943―. And an economic fabric with little weight of economic activities that demand a lot of low-skilled labor, such as hospitality, which encourages teenagers to pursue studies.
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