Articles tagged with China

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When the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results were released in December, the big surprise was the world-leading performance by Shanghai. One commentator, former Reagan administration education official Chester Finn, likened the results to Sputnik, the Soviet satellite that beat the U. S. into space in the 1950s.

School board members are likely to hear many dire predictions about the rise of China and the decline of the U.S.  But some of these assertions deserve closer scrutiny writes ASBJ contributing editor Douglas Reeves in his latest column.

Reeves, who taught and conducted research in China for many, shares some of his insight into what’s really behind this Shanghai surprise. Read it here. But hurry as it’s available free only for a limited time.

Naomi Dillon|February 16th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Assessment, Educational Research, Policy Formation, Student Achievement|Tags: , , |

Are U.S. students as bad off as international tests make it seem?

11970922351384635865neocreo_Blue_World_Map_svg_medFifteen-year-old students in Shanghai outperform their peers around the world in math, science, and reading on standardized tests.

Question is, does that make these students better prepared for the global economy of the 21st century? And could it be that U.S. students—who rank 20th in science and 30th in math—are in better shape than most pundits think?

Apparently Chinese educators are a bit worried that their first-place ranking isn’t as impressive as it first appears.

“What the Chinese are very good at doing is achieving short-term goals,” Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of the elite Peking University High School, told USA Today recently. “They’re good at copying things, not creating them.”

That could be a telling observation. Administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2009, the test results, released last month, reveal that students in several other Asian nations—Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan—also outperformed U.S. students.

Such academic success suggests that Asia is preparing a well-educated workforce for tomorrow—and poised to challenge the dominance of the U.S. economy.
(more…)

Naomi Dillon|February 3rd, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Assessment, Governance, Student Achievement|Tags: , , , |
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