The claim has been circulating these days on websites and social networks: the richest students would obtain worse academic results than the poorest, according to the latest PISA Report. The official data, however, tell a different story.
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The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which the OECD publishes every three years, divides students into four groups according to their socioeconomic level, from the most disadvantaged to the most privileged. In Spain, the pattern repeats itself in the three subjects evaluated: science, reading, and mathematics.
In science, students in the richest quartile score 514 points compared to 440 for the poorest. In reading, the difference is 485 versus 423 points. In mathematics, 496 versus 423. The curve is consistent: each quartile outperforms the immediately lower one, without exceptions. Socioeconomic level remains, therefore, one of the factors that most conditions school performance in Spain, and the headlines suggesting otherwise are not supported by the data.
A widespread but uneven decline
The report does, however, leave a data point that deserves attention: between 2022 and 2026, results have declined in all socioeconomic groups. But that decline has not been the same for everyone: it has been noticeably more pronounced among students with more resources.
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In reading, the drop among rich students is 2.2 times greater than among the poor. In mathematics, 2.3 times greater. In science, the difference widens to 2.8 times. The most privileged quartile, which continues to lead the results in absolute terms, is also the one that has lost the most ground in the last four years.
What is behind the decline?
Among the hypotheses considered to explain this phenomenon is the growing role of artificial intelligence in the educational environment. It is a technology that arrives earlier and with greater intensity in households with more resources, and it could be precisely replacing what the school seeks to develop: the student’s effort and autonomous work. It is, for now, a hypothesis and not a closed conclusion by the report itself.
