Betsy, a junior from New Trier high school, interviewed me for a class assignment and sent me her paper. I asked her if I could share it with others on my blog and she gave me the permission. Thanks, Betsy.
“The paper was written for a class called American studies (an integrated history and English course). The assignment was to explore and research a why question – my question was: why has the government tripled state spending on standardized tests? (the answer was my paper),” Betsy provided the background in an …

America has almost caught up with China, and actually in some areas surpassed it. Thanks to No Child Left Behind, America can now claim to have even more frequent high stakes standardized tests than China. It can also be proud to be more serious than China about the test results because it uses test scores to break up schools, fire school leaders, and publicly humiliate teachers, while China does not have the guts to do any of that. China only gives those schools and teachers with high test scoring students …

The Solutions magazine (print version volume 2, issue 2, page 38-43)  published my article about China’s education reform in April. Below is the abstract. The entire article is online at: Reforming Chinese Education.
When Shanghai, China, was awarded the number one spot for educational achievement by the Program for International Student Assessment, a number of Western countries began to ask what had sparked the country’s rise. One answer is five years of education reforms that began with the Chinese government’s recognition that it needs to improve its teaching system as the …

A version of this post is published in Kappa Delta Pi Record, 48(1), p. 17-22 in Feb. 2012.
To build a better education system, America must build on what we have—differentiation, uniqueness, and diversity.
It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
–Justice Louis D. Brandeis, New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 1932
America is on the precipice of ruining its foundation …

Just in case you have not seen this, the Chronicle of Higher Education just published a commentary co-authored by Brian Coppola of University of Michigan and me.
Read the whole article on the site of the Chronicle site: http://chronicle.com/article/US-Education-in-Chinese/130669/
Here are some of the main points:
The education systems in China and the United States not only are headed in opposite directions, but are aiming at exactly what the other system is trying to give up.
In the United States, through programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, …

If Lady Gaga Can be Useful
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is no doubt one of the most successful global super stars. She has over 13 millions twitter followers and 40 million Facebook fans. Her YouTube video “Bad Romance” has accrued over 411 million views and www.celebritynetworth.com estimates her net worth to be about 110 million dollars. Apparently she has something valuable to offer.
But what she can offer is of no value in the village where I grew up. Nestled in the hills of China’s Sichuan Province, …

Ditch Testing (Part 5): Testing Has Not Improved Education
The evidence is clear. Test-score cheating is not isolated to Atlanta, Baltimore, and a few other schools, as testing proponents tend to suggest. It is not a problem that can be fixed with technical measures such as tightened security. It may be human nature but it is the high and unreasonable pressure of high-stakes standardized testing that leads to corruption. Thus, we cannot minimize the problem, trivialize potential solutions, or blame a few educators who have been caught. The Atlanta scandal should …

Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Cheating Scandal in Atlanta (Part 1)
Last week a state investigation in Georgia confirmed massive cheating in Atlanta Public Schools. A total of 178 educators in 44 elementary and middle schools in the district were named in the report as participants in cheating on the state’s standardized test mandated by NCLB. This is not the first and certainly won’t be the last case of corruption in the nation’s schools. There are ongoing investigations in many other locales, most recently, Philadelphia. While laying blame on these educators, …

Race to the Top, Obama Administration’s $4.35 billion education initiative, has been touted many times by the President and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as “the most meaningful education reform in a generation”. It is also been proposed as the blueprint for the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently bearing the more notorious title No Child Left Behind (NCLB). I have always found Race to the Top amusingly sad and educationally harmful and written about it in different places including an op-ed piece in …

A Nation At Risk – April 1983
Edited by Yong Zhao, March, 2011
Next month marks the 28th anniversary of the publication of A Nation At Risk, one of the most influential education documents in the US history. As an English language learner, I have always been impressed with the prose and composition of this document, although I have raised questions about its content in my book.
The title of the document captures the present condition of American education very well. The goals and aspirations are well stated and I agree with them. …