Shanghai PISA v. [insert American city] PISA

In a critique of the latest PISA results, Walt Gardner said:

Shanghai is hardly representative of China because it is an industrialized center with scores of modern universities. In contrast, the U.S. selected students from both public and private schools across the nation.

photo © 2007 Thierry | more info (via: Wylio)I wonder what American cities would compare to Shanghai. It’s a little difficult because Shanghai is so large. New York? Boston? Chicago? San Francisco? Los Angeles?

Can we think of one or more similar metro areas? If so, how would those students’ PISA scores compare to those from Shanghai? Given the relatively-woeful test performance of most urban school systems, I’m guessing that even if we included test scores of surrounding suburban students, it wouldn’t be enough to bring the metro area up to the performance level of Shanghai.

For that matter, do many / most of our best school districts perform at a comparable level to Shanghai? As you can see, I’ve got lots of questions…