The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement announced the release of a new policy brief authored by Dr. Jonathan Plucker, a member of the NCRGE research team. The brief entitled, Advanced Academic Performance: Exploring Country-Level Differences in the Pursuit of Educational Excellence can be downloaded from http://www.iea.nl/policy_briefs.html. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is an independent, international cooperative of national research institutions and governmental research agencies. It conducts large-scale comparative studies of educational achievement and other aspects of education, with the aim of gaining in-depth understanding of the effects of policies and practices within and across systems of education.