From Deficiency to Strength: Shifting the Mindset about Education Inequality
To be published  Journal of Social Issues Vol. 72, No. 4, 2016, pp. 716–735. Download the PDF version.
Yong Zhao
University of Kansas
Author Note
Yong Zhao, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Kansas.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yong Zhao, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045-3101.
Contact: yongzhao@ku.edu
Abstract
The “achievement gap” as a symptom of persistent social inequity has plagued American education and society for decades. The vast chasm in academic achievement has …

Just as the U.S. is about to move away from over testing its students, PISA’s Andreas Schleicher says American students are not really over-tested: “The U.S. is not a country of heavy testing,” said Schleicher in a column published in the Hechingner Report.
Schleicher drew the conclusion based on PISA 2009 student survey data, which was not released publicly. Schleicher claims to “trust the reports of students on what actually happens in the classroom more than the claims of many experts” in his blog post that argues that U.S. is not …

Never Send a Human to do a Machine’s Job: Top 5 Mistakes in Ed Tech[1]
First published in the Answer Sheet of Washington Post on October 6 2015
A few weeks ago, the OECD released a report[2] that essentially says investing in technology does not lead to better education outcomes, measured by PISA scores. The study finds “no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in ICT for education. And perhaps the most disappointing finding of the report is that technology is …

There are different views of personalized learning. My advocacy for personalization has been occasionally misunderstood as supporting the narrow view of personalized learning driven by big data and learning analytics with technology or online learning in general. Below is an excerpt of a chapter from a book I coauthored with a group of teachers and school leaders: World Class Learners Bundle to be published by Corwin. Hope it helps clarify my take on personalized learning.–Yong
To personalize is to design or produce something to meet individual requirements. In education, personalization is …