Chapter 2 provides an in-depth analysis of the performance of the United States on PISA, contrasting the performance of United States' 15-year-olds in mathematics, reading and science with that of students in other countries and the factors associated with quality and equity of outcomes. This is done by examining the success rates of students at the item level of the test, compared with the success rates of students across OECD countries on average and in comparison with five comparator or reference sytems. The five countries chosen for comparisons with the United States are: two top-performing Asian countries, Shanghai-China and Korea, two European countries performing significantly above the OECD average, the Netherlands and Germany, and one of United States' neighboring countries, Canada. It asks whether faithful implementation of the Common Core State Standards is likely to improve the United States' performance on PISA.