World's schools teach U.S. a lesson

[k kiss]

Another Ohio story...

You must be about to leave... be sure you bring hat, gloves and umbrella...
it is very cold and cloudy the last few days!

Buon viaggio... a domenica! Call if you need anything on Saturday

kate

5-Day Forecast for Florence  Friday  Saturday  Sunday  Monday  Tuesday
 50° F | 35° F
10° C | 2° C
  50° F | 33° F
10° C | 1° C
  53° F | 32° F
12° C | 0° C
  55° F | 32° F
13° C | 0° C
  57° F | 39° F
14° C | 4° C
  Chance of Rain 20% chance of precipitation
 Overcast  Scattered Clouds  Scattered Clouds  Overcast

On Nov 14, 2007 11:02 PM, Harold Schiffman <hfsclpp at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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."
>
> Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics,
> and related links
>
>
>
> --
> **************************************
> N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
> its members
> and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
> or sponsor of
> the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
> disagree with a
> message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
> *******************************************
>
>


-- 
Katherine Kiss, Ph.D.
Via di Bellosguardo, 5
50124 Firenze, Italia
(0039) 347 036 5418 (cell, no voice mail)
(0039) 055 230 6427 (home/office, no voice mail)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20071116/6fb0e8d5/attachment.htm>