A Bold Education Experiment: What We Should Learn From China
World’s longest high-speed rail networks, fastest trains, fastest computer, second largest economy, and #1 standing in international tests are just more recent evidence many outside observers cite to show why the rest of the world should learn from China’s education system and what helped make “the Chinese Tiger Mom” story a best seller. But as I have written on this site and in my book, Catching Up or Leading the Way, the glorification of China’s education is ill founded and attention …

“It makes no sense:” Puzzling over Obama’s State of the Union Speech
“It makes no sense” is perhaps President Obama’s favorite phrase, using it twice in his 2011 State of the Union speech. I like the sound of it and what lies behind it—a simple way to point out the obviously illogical things that need to change. That is how I feel about the education section of his speech. It makes no sense.
President Obama wants to win the future by “out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.” “[I]f we …

You must be joking, Professor Chua: An open letter to the Chinese Tiger Mom
Dear Professor Chua,
By now, your Wall Street Journal article Why Chinese Mothers are Superior has circled around the globe and you have appeared on many media outlets. Undoubtedly you are aware of the firestorm the article has created everywhere. Frankly I was at first appalled by your article because I have read your book Days of Empire, in which you suggest that tolerance is the force that helped build great empires. But in this article, you seem …

The value of Chinese college degree: $44 per month according recent statistics. “China’s college graduates on average make only 300 yuan, or roughly $44, more per month than the average Chinese migrant worker,” writes a Wall Street Journal blog article citing data released by the director of Institute of Population and Labor Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Coincidentally, another story (in Chinese) that is spreading in Chinese media and online space is that a post-graduate degree (masters) is worth less than what a nanny makes.
It is no …

The late Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman once criticized some educational and psychological studies as cargo cult science:
In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of …

I received an invitation to NBC’s Education Nation summit last week (September 20) by email. The letter has a date of July 22, 2010 and I was told it was sent via USPS. Somehow I never received the letter in the mail. I became aware of the invitation only through an email response to Leonie Haimson (for Parents Across America), who has been writing to NBC recommending me on September 19th. The invitation asked me to call a number and confirm my participation. Upon confirmation, “editorial team will reach out …

Don’t Romanticize Testing in China
A number of people alerted me to an article in the New York Times entitled “Testing, the Chinese Way.” The article suggests more testing for American students based on the author’s over-generalized and romanticized experience with her children’s testing experience in a Western school that happens to be located in China.
In fact, I am not opposed to the types of “tests” or formative assessment the author describes: “the tests felt like so many puzzles; not so much a judgment on your being, but an interesting challenge.” …

Master of Myth: What Arne Duncan Says and Does
The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
—John F. Kennedy

U.S. Secretary of Education has been called the most powerful education secretary in history. With billions of dollars of borrowed money, Duncan has achieved unprecedented changes to American education. “We’re getting more change in 18 months in education than in the previous decade,” said Duncan on a recent trip.
The changes he has been championing, …

NBC News is convening an education summit in September.  “The two-day ‘Education Nation’ event in New York will be carried online, and is part of a week of programming concentrating on education issues on NBC News broadcasts such as “Today” and “Nightly News,” and the MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo TV networks,” according to the AP story.
It is great that such a powerful media giant as NBC pays attention to education. Given the reach of NBC, this can be a very big deal for education. What will be said during this …

The advantages of academic excellence are clear and substantial. Securing a top score not only grants you admission to the most prestigious and competitive high school at no cost, but it also entitles you to a generous signing bonus, often in the thousands of RMB. Furthermore, as an additional perk, the school provides your parents with an air-conditioned apartment, echoing the practicality of barndominium prices, which offer significant value for cost-conscious families. Should the need arise, the school will even offer your parents jobs, ensuring they can be close to …