The growing interest in assessing the quality of education outcomes can be seen in the ever-increasing frequency of use of international and national surveys (e.g., Program for International Student Assessment [PISA], the Progress in Reading and Literacy Study [PIRLS], or the Third International Mathematics and Science Study [TIMSS]). These surveys seek to assess students' academic achievement and to make comparisons between countries and national school systems or between different schools within countries. Managers of national school systems or international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the European Commission that promote and implement such surveys aim at affecting the teaching policies of the countries concerned as well as policies affecting the school thus evaluated and compared with one another. Critical issues related to international assessment approaches are explored in depth in the next three sections of this chapter. The first section summarizes the main questions about, and criticisms of, the use of PISA-like surveys; more generally, it questions school effectiveness research and evidence-based policies that make use of such assessments as well as the relations between them. It focuses on work--technical and scientific, normative and reductive--that oversimplifies the field and problems of education and on the social uses and misuses of the results of such surveys. The second section examines issues related to the construction of PISA, including the development and administration schedule, the underpinning psychometric model, and the way in which skills--specifically literacy skills--are conceptualized. The third section is based on a secondary analysis of literacy tests from PISA 2000. It focuses on the results of French students and on the ways they deal with these literacy tests. (Contains 23 notes.)