World's schools teach U.S. a lesson

[Harold Schiffman]

from the November 14, 2007 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1114/p13s02-legn.html

World's schools teach U.S. a lesson
To help US students compete in the global economy, educators seek a
way to compare American schoolchildren with those abroad.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Susan Zelman, head of Ohio's education department, has visited
classrooms in China, India, and Japan. She's met young people with
whom her students will potentially be competing – and collaborating –
when they start careers. And she's impressed.  In Ohio, "our economy
is in the tubes," she says, "so there's really an economic need to
think about, How can we build the workforce?... How can we build a
world-class learning system?"  In the quest to answer that, Ohio is
the first state to use an analysis of the best-performing nations as a
benchmark for its own academic policies. But it's certainly not the
only state or school district that's looking beyond domestic borders
to gauge how well it's doing.

There's no universal agreement on the best way to compare vastly
different education systems around the world – or on what lessons to
draw from data available so far. But there's clearly an appetite for
more information. Despite such momentum, improvements in education in
the United States aren't coming fast enough for some – particularly
those in the business community. "As a nation, our ability to create
intellectual property is pretty much fundamental to continue to drive
our economy, and we don't want to see the US fall behind there," says
William Swope, a vice president of Intel Corp., whose philanthropy
helps train math and science teachers in the US and abroad. "The
governments of the world that are serious about education are applying
the best known methods for improving the quality of their graduates,"
he says.

For states interested in international benchmarking, a new report just
added a piece to the puzzle. It takes data from each state's 8th-grade
scores in math and science on the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) and links it to the Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The two tests were designed to
be compatible, says Gary Phillips, chief scientist at American
Institutes for Research (AIR, www.air.org), a nonprofit in Washington
that released the data Nov. 13. Each state can see where it ranks on a
scale with 45 industrialized and developing countries.

"Most [states] are doing as well as or better than most countries,"
Mr. Phillips says. But he's concerned because "our best states are ...
lower than the best countries – so even though we're in the race,
we're not winning the race." Another common concern: The number of
bachelor's degrees in science and technology in the US, while still on
the rise, has not kept pace with gains in other countries, the
American Council on Education reports. Several nations now spend a
higher portion of their gross domestic product on R&D than does the
US.

India and China are not yet ranked in the most common international
comparisons, but they are seen as competitors because of their sheer
size and their fast development. America's economic dominance emerged
in a context that won't be repeated, notes Vivien Stewart, vice
president for education at the nonprofit Asia Society in New York.
After World War II, much of the world was rebuilding or was still
undeveloped. The US invested heavily in education, becoming the first
to approach universal high school attendance. More recently, the
removal of Communist barriers and the emergence of world trade
agreements have produced "a kind of a seismic shift," Ms. Stewart
says. "The competition is going to get tougher for the US on every
dimension. And therefore the state of our education system becomes
more important than when we were the sole economic superpower."

Stewart has led state education officials on visits to China and
India. In China, there are large gaps between rural and urban
education levels, "but the rate of progress is extraordinary," she
says. At the best high schools, 15-year-olds talked to the visitors in
English about academic work equal to or above what's common at the
best schools in the US. Visitors found that Chinese students know a
great deal about the US and world history. What pervades is "the
intensity of commitment to education, not only on the part of
government but also the students," Stewart says.

Ms. Zelman of Ohio took note on her visit that some of China's elite
high schools are partnerships among businesses, universities, and the
K-12 system. Ohio is working to create such partnerships, she says,
but "quite frankly, we don't have anything comparable."

Some voices are pushing back against the growing sense of competition
with China and other nations. There's too much of a cold-war
mentality, says Yong Zhao, a professor and director of the US-China
Center for Research on Educational Excel­lence at Mich­­igan State
Uni­­versity. He believes some international tests have been
misinterpreted as spelling doom for America's economy.

"I think the tests are biased to reflect the talents that other
cultures emphasize more," says Mr. Zhao. Asian countries tend to score
higher on science and math tests because that's what they focus on
narrowly, but in the US, "we have many more possible outlets for
talents, and that's actually much more important," he says. Chi­­nese
educa­tors look to US education for the creativity and
entrepreneurship it sparks. "Americans should be more American – not
more Chinese or Japanese or Singaporean – in our education," Zhao
says.

One downside in China, where he attended school himself, is that after
so much focus on doing well on tests to advance, many "lose the
internal motivation to learn" and slack off in college.

To be prepared for future jobs, what Americans really need, Zhao says,
is "the ability to manage across different cultures."

Zelman agrees that the issue shouldn't just be framed as one of
competition. "We can be part of an international community where we
can learn from each other." To foster cross-cultural understanding,
Ohio has recently received a federal grant to promote education in
"critical" languages such as Chinese. International benchmarking is
perhaps a natural extension of the work many states are already doing
to improve high school students' preparation for college or the US job
market. Thirty states have joined the American Diploma Project
Network, organized by Achieve Inc., a nonprofit in Washington. Achieve
president Michael Cohen says that in Ohio, Arizona, Delaware, and
several other states, "governors and chief state school officers ...
basically have said, 'Well, it's great that you want us to align our
expectations with the real world kids will face domestically ... but
that's not enough; we need to know what our expectations ought to be
in order for our kids to succeed [globally].' "

Earlier this year, Ohio received a report it commissioned from Achieve
and the McKinsey & Company consulting group. It drew in part on
research by Sir Michael Barber, head of the Education Interest Group
at McKinsey. Sir Michael analyzed top-performing school systems, as
well as systems that are improving rapidly (including a number of US
urban districts). He found three elements they shared:

•The top nations recruit teachers from among the best graduates (the
top 30 percent in Singapore and top 5 percent in South Korea).

•They focus on developing teacher recruits into effective instructors.
(Boston, for instance, has teacher apprenticeships and instructional
coaches to assist teachers.)

•They set high expectations, monitor achievement, and intervene with
children who are falling behind.

Ohio's Zelman, taking such comparisons to heart, plans to recommend
legislation to revise state standards, have Ohio participate in
international comparisons, and improve teacher and principal
development. "We feel we've made some good progress in Ohio, but we
know we still have incredible achievement gaps.... [We want] to make
sure that our children will be able to compete and reap the benefits
of a global economy."

Comparing US, China, India

"You can see the future of a country in the aspirations of its
first-graders," entrepreneur and venture capitalist Robert Compton
told an audience of Harvard graduate students Nov. 2. In visits to
India, he's met young children who wanted to be doctors, engineers, or
scientists of some sort. He wants more Americans to get a glimpse of
their future competition.

Working with filmmakers and Teach for America vets Chad Heeter and
Adam Raney, Mr. Compton produced "Two Million Minutes," a documentary
about how three pairs of top students – in China, India, and the
United States – spent their time in high school (four years add up to
roughly 2 million minutes).

The Indian and Chinese students and their families show a
single-minded focus on academics, partly because competition for
university slots is so fierce. A Chinese mom and dad tell how their
son used to make up his own tests because he loved them so much. The
American students enjoy being well-rounded, with part-time jobs,
Friday night football games, and study nights in front of the TV.
College applications may be stressful for some, but one of the pair
has already been offered a full merit scholarship early in his senior
year.

After watching the film, some students took issue with the implication
that Americans should be more like the Chinese and Indians – more
driven to score high on science and math tests, perhaps at the expense
of other strengths. A student from a South Korean family pointed out
that many Asian students just party once they hit college because
they're so burned out.

Compton responded that he didn't mean the film to be prescriptive. But
he stressed that if Americans don't pay more attention to advances in
education around the world – the way a sports team studies top
competitors – they're in danger of being left behind.

Harvard law student Neil Shah said he could see both sides, but agreed
with the basic premise: "We should learn from other systems, take
what's working, and incorporate it into our own."

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