This report reflects and analyzes therecently released survey results from the Program forInternational Student Assessment (PISA) conducted in 2009 bythe Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD). The report examines the change in scores from 2006to 2009 and looks at how much of the change can beattributed to improvements in the quality of the educationsystem, how the poor, linguistic minorities and students atsmall schools fared over this period; as well as therelationship between various types of school autonomy andachievement. The analysis reveals that: (1) There were largeincreases in math and reading scores equivalent to one-halfand one year of learning gains over time, and a modestimprovement in the science scores; (2) All of the increaseis attributed to improvements in the quality of theeducation system; (3) The poorest 20 percent of studentsimproved just as much as the overall population.PISA 2009shows that there has been little improvement in the equityof the Bulgarian education system as evidenced by the poorperformance of small schools and socially disadvantagedgroups, including linguistic minorities. Small schools havebeen excluded from the improvements and it is not clearwhether linguistic minorities benefitted from the overallincreased performance of the system. Future reform effortsneed to address these outstanding challenges.
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