School-of-Thought

I’m reading an excellent book, “Catching Up or Leading the Way” by Michigan State’s distinguished Education Professor Yong Zhao.  Born and raised in China, Zhao writes that America’s education gap is a myth that’s been fueled by the fears of competition from the Chinese, Indians, and others. He believes that by all measures of what’s important to a country, the America education system is  “leading the way.” However, he’s concerned about  America’s current course of centralization and standardization — in other words, he’s concerned about letting Washington dictate what and how students should learn — and as a result, concerned that America is in danger of becoming more like China is and was.

Zhao writes that China is going through reforms to create a less rigid educational system the emulates the US, while our country’s NCLB and national standardization of curriculum is bringing us dangerously close to China’s system.

From the preface, Page vii:

China is determined to transform from a labor-intensive, low level manufacturing economy into an innovation-driven knowledge society. An innovation-driven society is driven by innovative people. Innovative people cannot come from schools that force students to memorize correct answers on standardized tests or reward students who excel a regurgitated dictated, spoon-fed knowledge. Thus China decided to change its “test oriented education” into “talented oriented education”. To engineer this change, China made a conscious, global search for models-education systems that are good at producing innovative talents. As a country with the most Nobel laureates, most original pats, most scientific discoveries in the 20th century, and largest economy in the world, the United States of America seems a reasonable candidate.

On page ix he writes:

The spirit of NCLB is a chain of reasoning that goes like the following: American education is in a crisis. This crisis is proven by two “achievement gaps”: one international and the other domestic. The international gap is indicated by American students consistently poor performance in international process. The domestic gap is the gap of test scores and other achievement measurements such as high school graduation rates between intercity minority students and their suburban peers. The crisis is assumed to have resulted from teachers and school leaders who are unwilling or unable to hold high expectations of their students and deliver high quality instruction because they become complacent or lazy. The solution is to hold these educators accountable for producing measurable outcomes with a variety of incentives and punishments including publishing school performances, allowing school choice, reorganizing low performing schools, and possibly using performance-based teacher pay.

From page x:

Standardization and centralization of curriculum and assessment are essential ingredients of the solution for an obvious reason. Unless all schools in the state or the whole nation is held to teach the same curriculum and all students are assessed using the same tests, it is impossible to compare what and how such students are taught or to distinguish good schools and teachers from poor ones.

And finally, from page xi:

As the result of adopting national standards, schools will produce a homogeneous group of individuals withthe same abilities, skills and knowledge. Such a result will be disastrous to America and Americans because as globalization and technology continue to change the world, America needs a citizenry of creative individuals with a wide range of talents to sustain its tradition of innovation. Americans need talents and abilities that are not available at a lower price elsewhere on earth.

I’m enjoying Zhao because his message is so different than all the other messages that permiate American education.  A quarter of a century ago, the seminal publication of A Nation at Risk told us:

. . . the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.

Zhao, gives me food for thought:  maybe things aren’t as bad as the Nation-at-Riskers and other education nay-sayers tell us.  Maybe as a country we really are doing okay.   

And what of Zhao’s concerns about our current educational course causing a decline of our country’s creativity and innovation? 

Are his concerns credible?   

What do you think?