A couple weeks ago, my friend the Displaced Plainsman pointed out what ought to be some really good blog fodder for our Republican pals. In a post about education reform, LK notes that President Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, was surprised to learn that "no other country was doing what we are betting on" to improve schools. Charter schools, alternate certification, small classes, pay for performance—all magic bullets in America's school-fixing bandolier, but none behind the successes of other countries' education systems. "Obama, Chicago Pals Clueless on Education!" the conservative bloglines ought to shout.
Conservatives glomming on to this critique and the recommendations offered by Marc S. Tucker of the National Center for Education and the Economy would get added support from Tucker for the argument that more money does not inherently improve educational outcomes (a finding discussed here in March). But conservatives may balk at some of the other education myths that Tucker debunks. According to Tucker:
- We cannot explain away our relatively low educational performance as a result of unique cultural diversity, inner-city schools dragging down our scores, or a greater effort to educate all students equally.
- Strong teacher unions don't inhibit high performance in other countries.
- None of the top-performing countries impose grade-by-grade national testing.
- Other countries focus on improving their school systems rather than disrupting them with charter schools and other such proposals.
- We get it backwards by focusing on firing bad teachers. Other countries focus on the point of entry, making it harder to get into teacher training and the profession.
Tucker's Ten Myths document is an appetizer to Tucker's 50-page "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform." The May 2011 report doesn't mention Rep. Kristi Noem's "growth model" suggestion. Tucker studies school achievement in Ontario, Shanghai, Finland, Japan, and Singapore to develop a broad policy framework for our education system. Among Tucker's findings and recommendations:
- Successful foreign education systems are not no-testing zones. They have very rigorous gateway tests that determine students' admission to university and technical schools. Unlike our disjointed system where students take No Child Left Behind Tests to measure their schools, then take SATs and ACTs as part of their quest for college admission, foreign systems produce gateway tests with close collaboration among the secondary schools, universities, tech schools, and industry. Link the tests with college and career, make them cram-/prep-proof, and students tend to take learning very seriously.
- These foreign gateway tests focus less on easily scored multiple-choice questions and more on complex problems and essays. Few of the tests are scored by computers.
- Money does matter in terms of recruiting top talent into teaching. So do raising the status and working conditions of teachers. We can make getting into the profession hard, but we must make staying in the profession desirable.
- Other countries don't waive teaching certification standards when there's a teacher shortage, any more than we waive qualifications for training in engineering when we run short of bridge builders. Letting people teach subjects in which they lack training is utterly alien to strong foreign education systems (oops—there goes my English certification!).
Tucker addresses much more in this report, which is worth reading in full. If she can manage to read the whole thing, Kristi Noem will find a bonus for her Republican friends: Tucker believes this policy framework is best implemented by the states, not the federal government.
Some conservatives enjoy wrapping themselves in the notion of American exceptionalism. Our great country does have some unique characteristics. But Republicans and Democrats alike are embracing education "reforms" that none of our successful neighbors are using. We don't want that kind of pig-headed exceptionalism. In education, we need to ditch our pig-headed exceptionalism and learn from other countries.
Bonus Reading: Professor Jerry Weinberger sees in his Michigan State University classroom what many of us suspect: No Child Left Behind and our focus on standardized testing are producing intellectually deficient (and rather whiny) kids.
We have problems here but it is worse in the south. That is not an excuss, but just means that if we are better than national average does not mean crap. Meaning if you compair yourself to crap you will fool yourself into thinking you are good.
My brother in law taught in Phoenix a few years ago and they had outlawed homework since %80 of the kids did not do any. So now their kids are all equal. They also had one thousand charter schools since the parents were so disgusted with bad education. I also have a friend in Houston who thinks all public schools should be closed since they are to broken to fix. If you want your kids to get an education in Houston you better work for the school district yourself so the teachers know you. So many good teachers quit that you can walk in there anytime and get a job. They tried to get juvenile deliquents to pick up trash after school for punishment and got brought to court for child labor laws.
Watch where the Daugaard cuts come. After 36 years of Republicans cutting waste, watch what they cut when they just cut. Do not let them fool you into thinking that kids now have a long enough attention span to do school in four days per week.
It ain't rocket science. The US (Massachusetts) invented mandatory, compulsory education in 1852 and the nation tweaked it for about 130 years - then promptly ignored it; or let it become consumed with education fads. The 1980's (Reagan era, coincidence?) marks when US education achievements were overtaken by our competitors. The nations that are our competitors and who's students out-compete ours took our model and improved it. They put their best students into teaching. They attend school year-round -- some up to 220 contact days per year instead of a measly 180. They put extracurricular activities in their rightful place - outside the scholarly environment (into private clubs). [School is for scholarly pursuits - not playtime and games.] They have excellent, efficient, and effective school governance in lieu of the US's and SD's layers of make-work administration, administrators, and administrivia. Those nations flattered the US by borrowing from our education system. Then they improved it. It's long past time for the US and SD to return the favor. We cannot afford not to.
It ain't rocket science.
Japan & Korea are normally in the top in the world in math & science. Having spent 18 years in that area, I can tell you that they do things very different. Hoikuen (Japan, Korea near same) 0700-1730 Mon-Sat (preschool/daycare/kindergarten) 6 mos old-5 yo with certified teachers, School uniforms, Saturday half school, longer school hours, much shorter summer vacations, after school tutoring/clubs, sports clubs (mom & dad pay), most difficult HS & college advancement tests in the world, AND do NOT be a naughty student., just to name a few...
This past school year I had the amazing opportunity to teach seven foreign exchange students: 2 from S. Korea, 2 from Thailand, 1 from Tawain, 1 from Sweden, and 1 from Norway. I sometimes feel I learned more from them than they learned from me. We had fascinating discussions about their education systems, which really don't even compare to what we have in America. Some of the assignments they are given and the punishments they are given for not completing them would have a teacher like myself taken to court and probably never teaching again in America.
Of those seven students all of them but two dropped our regular Geometry and Algebra II courses because they thought the courses were not challenging enough for them. They instead took independent online courses like Pre-Calculus and higher level science courses.
The students also loved the fact that our school was on a four day week. The Asian students go to school 6 days a week at home. Their days range from 7 in the morning to sometimes as late as 9 in the evening. All of their sports and so forth are after school hours. The gyms in their schools are not like ours at all and maybe have a basketball hoop. They are mostly large assembly areas for morning exercises or punishing students.
The boy from Tawain told us about the "final" test they have to take to get into college. If you don't pass it, you don't get another chance to retake it - your score is your score. Unlike the ACT or SAT in America that you can take as many times as you want to get the score you need or desire.
It was nice to have these students in our school. It made our students work harder. It made our teachers work harder. We can learn a lot from those countries above us on the educational scale. Believe me they are taking back some interesting things to tell their home schools, and they might not be all good things.
The other day, I got an e-mail from a man whose son just graduated from high school. The father wanted my recommendations for self-teaching guides in basic mathematics, and I do mean basic -- ratios, proportions, percentages, areas, volumes, simple algebra problems in a single variable -- of the sort I learned by the eighth grade (Minnesota, 1960s).
Well!
I'm not certain that subjecting our kids to 72-hour school weeks for 11 months out of the year would solve all our education problems, but something is clearly wrong with "the American way" when it comes to mathematics education.
Many of my readers are in Asia. They seem to be engineering students, mostly. I take that phenomenon as a high compliment.
I suspect that certain cultural differences give Asian students an advantage over us in mathematics. It's partly a work-ethic thing on their part versus a growing laziness on our part, but that difference alone can't explain it all.
It's as if Asians are hard-wired for mathematics. (Is that statement racist? I don't mean it that way. In any case, what if it's true?)
Despite all of the apparent scholastic aptitude advantages the Asians have over us, especially in theoretical mathematics, one thing has become clear to me in recent weeks and months: In the real world, in the real jungle, the Asians are as willing as anybody else to cheat, swindle, and steal.
Stace, CK, Stan, you all provide very interesting examples of good study habits overseas. Stan, on cultural differences, Tucker's report mentions that and says they aren't as relevant as we might think. Other countries have undertaken education reforms that go against the grain of their culture in order to improve student achievement. If it were true that Asians or any of our other competitors were "hard-wired" for academic success, then we'd just have to knuckle down and "re-wire" ourselves. (Just like tennis: the history of Grand Slam winners might suggest that Europeans are hard-wired for tennis success, but that doesn't stop China from training their athletes to catch up.)
At the same time, I'm not morally prepared to send kids to school for more hours than the typical workweek. I also believe we can find numerous other reforms (e.g., less sports, more academics; stiffer teacher training standards more equitable funding for low-income areas) before we resort to running school through the summer. If current practices aren't producing the best results, doing current practices for more hours per week and months per year is a bad option.