Global Reading Scores Plunge in 2025 PISA Results
Have screens and AI wrecked teen reading or is it down to teacher shortages and starved budgets?
Above: Release of the Results of the 2025 PISA Study in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 8. Image credit: Christian Marquardt/NurPhoto/Getty Images
The Spin
Narrative A
Screens and AI chatbots wrecked reading by turning 15-year-olds into hasty, inaccurate scanners instead of careful thinkers. Dumping AI writing tools into homework destroys the ability to evaluate evidence and hold attention through complex texts. This literacy collapse will drag down future workers and entire economies unless classrooms put effort and deep reading back ahead of gadgets.
Narrative B
Teacher shortages and starved public budgets hollowed out classrooms and sent reading off a cliff. Peddling AI as a classroom savior just lets kids farm out thinking to a bot while trained teachers are missing from classrooms. Well-trained teachers in small classes with real support will make literacy climb again.
