(AP) — High school students in the Blue Valley School District in suburban Kansas City are part of a pilot project involving an international test that can be used to evaluate how they perform in comparison to some top-flight international students.

Blue Valley’s five high schools have been taking a pilot version of the international test called the Program for International Student Assessment. Their scores can be compared with those of top-scoring school systems such as those in Shanghai, Singapore and Finland.

About 126 schools across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom are also taking part in the pilot program.

The Blue Valley’s recent average scores are encouraging. Roughly five countries out of 65 scored statistically higher, and the next eight were statistically equal.