Last week, Beida (some call it the Harvard of China) announced that it has granted principals of 39 high schools the privilege to recommend students. The announcement on November 16 sparked a national uproar in China. Both traditional media and online discussions have been following the story with great intensity. So far the reactions have been largely negative. Most are opposed to Beida’s action. Some question why and how the 39 schools were selected: do “unusual talents” only attend these 39 schools? What about the many other high schools? Some question how the 39 principals will actually decide whom to recommend. Some question if this will lead to more corruption, accusing Beida is offering these principals the opportunity to take bribes.

The opposition is mainly fueled by the concern about the fairness and validity of the criteria Beida used to select the 39 high schools and the criteria by which the selected schools will use to decide whom to recommend.  In a country where standardized test scores have been used as the only selection criterion for centuries, as I have written about in my book’s chapter 4, it is almost impossible to imagine that any other measure would be as fair and valid. Thus despite the government’s determination and persistence, China’s many reform efforts have not been able to break away from the test-oriented tradition.

Beida has not backed off and it is unlikely that it will. As a university under the direct administration of China’s Ministry of Education, Beida has to act within the policy framework of the Ministry. Thus Beida’s action can be viewed as a sign of China’s continued serious effort to move away from standardized testing.

But this action, like its many predecessors, is unlikely to have any real impact.  Some of the 39 schools have already put up their recommended students and openly discussed how they were selected. No surprise: test scores. The schools based their recommendation on rankings of the students according to several rounds of recent tests that are closely aligned with the Gaokao.  In other words, these recommended students are great test-takers and can score high enough to get into Beida anyway.

“It is not because we cannot, but we dare not [to use other measures],” one of the principals said. “We certainly have many excellent students. I really wanted to recommend those whose test scores are not so high but with exceptional talents. But dare Beida to really admit them? If it did, would other students and parents accept it?” After some serious thinking, the principal decided that scores are the most convincing measure that is accepted by the public.

Two lessons for America:

1. China is determined to reform its education to cultivate a diversity of talents and creativity. China has recognized and suffered from the damaging effects of standardized testing and has been trying very hard to move away from standards. If America or any other nation wants to worry about China, it is its determination and focus on creativity and talents, not its test scores.
2. Once standardized test scores become an accepted way to judge the potential and value of a child, the performance of a teacher, and the quality of school, it is very difficult to change. We are already seeing signs of this in the U.S., thanks to all the education reformers who want to make Americans “globally competitive.”

News reports about this in Chinese can be found here:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2009-11/16/content_12464003.htm

http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-11/22/content_12517920.htm

I can guess from news reports, op-ed pieces, and blog posts that many states are working hard to prepare their applications. From my reading of the criteria, I think the following are the winning strategies and actions to include in the application, although they may be inconsistent with research findings or common sense.

Suggestion #1:

Stop paying teachers and principals a salary. Instead pay teachers and principals on a per standardized test point basis each day. At the end of each school day, students should be tested using a standardized test, what a teacher and principal is paid is calculated at the end of the day based on the growth of the student, i.e., how much has the student improved over the previous day. This is true accountability and will for sure keep teachers and principals on their toes! (This is the true intention behind the requirement: “At the time the State submits its application, the State does not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers at the State level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation.”)

But to do so, you must not ask the question whether this “accountability” will lead to better teaching, ignore the fact that “accountability” has driven many teachers out of the schools, and forget about attracting highly qualified talents to the teaching profession. Read The Folly of Merit Pay by Alfie Kohn, published in Education Week in 2003.

Suggestion #2:

Remove all “non-core” academic activities and courses and reduce all teaching to math and reading because what the Secretary wants is “increasing student achievement in (at a minimum) reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the NAEP and the assessments required under the ESEA” and “decreasing achievement gaps between subgroups in reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the NAEP and the assessments required under the ESEA.” Actually, no need to teach them these subjects, just teaching them how to pass the tests may be even more effective.

But to do so, you have to forget the reasons for education in the first place, ignore all research findings about the negative consequences of high stakes testing, and suppress any desire to care about the students’ emotional well being, to cultivate their creativity and entrepreneurship, to consider their interest and strengths. Read my book, and Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them by Jenifer Fox.

Suggestion #3:

Make sure every child takes courses in “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM),” the more, the merrier because “[E]mphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” is a competitive preference priority, worth 15 points and you either get 15 points or nothing “(competitive preference points: 15, all or nothing).”

But this requires you to ignore research findings that “[O]ver the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities graduated roughly three times more scientists and engineers than were employed in the growing science and engineering workforce” and “there is no evidence of a long-term decline in the proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM jobs.” You also must not think about what our children will really need to be successful in the 21^st Century global economy, such as cross cultural competencies, foreign languages, digital competencies, or what Daniel Pink refers to as “R-Directed Thinking Skills.” Read a recent study about STEM education in the U.S., an article I wrote for PDK’s Edge magazine, my book, and Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind.

Suggestion #4:

This suggestion is only for Alaska, South Carolina, and Texas because all other 47 states have already done so and that is to develop and adopt “a common set of K-12 standards that are supported by evidence that they are internationally benchmarked and build toward college and career readiness by the time of high school graduation.” All 47 states have signed on to the Common Core Standards Initiative of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. So I guess it counts, although it only has two subjects.

Well there may be a small problem: how to prove that the standards are internationally benchmarked? Did they benchmark against national standards in Canada, our closest neighbor, or Australia, a large federation of states like the U.S.? Of course not, because they do not have national standards. Or perhaps against China since it is our perceived competitor, probably not, because China has been reforming its curriculum over the past two decades and loosening its national control on curriculum. Or perhaps it is the PISA or TIMSS—but these are tests, not curriculum standards.

To wholeheartedly embrace this suggestion, states have to overlook the damages national standards can do to education and not take into consideration the fact that national standards neither improves education for students nor narrows achievement gaps. Read my recently published article on this issue in AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice and the editorial by Chris Tienken, the editor.

Suggestion #5:

Write in lots of money for testing companies and assessment consultants in the application because you will be rewarded for “developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments.” I also suggest, in this spirit, that you promise to test the students more frequently, at least twice a day—one when they come to school and one when they leave, because this will help you collect more data to meet the data systems requirement and hold teachers accountable.

Of course, what this means is that you cannot think about students’ individual differences, the need for diverse talents, or the costs of standardized tests. You cannot think about who will eventually benefit from the assessments either. And in no way you should worry about the corruption high stakes standardized testing brings. Read Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools by Sharon Nicoles and David Berliner.

1. More about the book:

11-11-2009: Primary Source reviews my book: http://www.primarysource.org/catching-up-or-leading-the-way

09-11-2009: Fred Deutsch writes about the book on his blog: http://www.school-of-thought.net/?p=898

29-10-2009: Laura Berman writes in Detroit News about the book and an interview with me: http://bit.ly/4bcuy

28-10-2009: Dr. Suzie Oh in Korea writes about the book. Here is the link in English with Google Translation: http://bit.ly/FgxBy and here is the original Korean version: http://bit.ly/2ogsC9, if you can read Korean.

16-10-1009: Correction: A reader pointed out an error in the book. On page 31, the book says “Senator Judd Gregg, a republican from Vermont,” while the Senator represents “New Hampshire.” My apologies and thanks, Peter, for pointing this out.

12-10-2009: WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show interview about my book: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2009/10/12

05-10-2009: Sean Cavanagh of Education Week wrote about the book: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2009/10/chinese-american_scholar_on_am.html

21-09-2009?Anthony Cody wrote a review of my book: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2009/09/yong_zhao_dont_abandon_creativ.html

14-9-2009: ASCD  Author page includes video clips of me talking about the book: http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Authors/Yong_Zhao.aspx?id=36527511001&nvid=a8b1

1. 11-09-2009: Read sample chapters: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109076.aspx
2. 09-09-2009: Interview with Russ White: http://spartanpodcast.com/?p=525
3. 09-09-2009: Interview on Michigan Public Radio with Charity Nebbe, All Things Considered: http://www.michiganradio.org/
4. MSU News: http://news.msu.edu/story/6755/
5. A talk with Yong Zhao, conducted by Lucy Robertson, Educational Leadership assistant editor: http://ascd.org/Publications/Books/ASCD_Talks_With_an_Author.aspx
6. U.S. vs. China: Thoughtful Chinese Author Says U.S. Schools are Better: Comments about my book by Jay Mathews, education columnist for the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/08/us_vs_china_thoughtful_chinese.html#more

Yong Zhao’s newest book, “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization” is now available on ASCD online store, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

http://shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid=109076

This remarkable book will forever change the debate about what’s wrong and what’s right with American education and where it should be going. Based on his own experience as a student in China and as a parent of children attending school in the United States, Zhao skewers conventional wisdom while setting straight the recent history and current state of US schools. To make his case, Zhao explains:

• Why the perceived weaknesses of American education are actually its strengths.
• How reform proponents, business executives, and politicians have misjudged American education.
• Why China and other nations in Asia are actually reforming their systems to be more like their American counterparts.
• What really matters for an education system and what really counts as educational excellence.

With an extraordinary command of facts and thought leadership, Zhao describes how schools have to keep pace with a world that is being dramatically transformed by globalization, the “death of distance,” and digital technology. Instead of falling in line with mandates for standardization, his prescription is for educators to

• Expand the definition of success beyond math and reading test scores.
• Personalize schooling so that every student has opportunity to learn.
• View schools as enterprises that embrace globalization and digital technology.

Coincidentally, on October 31^st, the day China replaced its Minister of Education, China Central Television (CCTV), the state-run national TV station, exposed eight persistent education problems, or cases of corruption. The station called them “hidden rules” in contrast to “transparent rules” set by government policies.

1. “Enrolling in neighborhood schools without selection exams” became “struggle to select schools.” As early as 1984, the Chinese Ministry of Education made it a policy that public schools must enroll students from their own neighborhood districts and are forbidden to take students from outside their service area. But over 20 years later, parents are still struggling to get their students enrolled in better schools outside their neighborhood through all sorts of means.
2. School Selection Fees become Voluntary Donations. In 1991 the Ministry of Education issued regulations about school fees, forbidding schools to ask for or accept school selection fees from parents. But today, parents whose children are not eligible to enroll in the “good schools” but desire to do so still have to pay a hefty school selection fee to these public schools. Worse yet, these fees are labeled “voluntary donations” to evade government rules.
3. Math Olympiad becomes “Hope Cup” or other types of contests. Although in many places, government and education agencies have banned the practice of “Math Olympiad” and its associated prep classes [because it was deemed harmful to students’ education], a new series of contests have mushroomed, which in substance is the same as the Math Olympiad—the same items, the same teachers.
4. College Admissions Rate still the #1 Indicator of Quality of Schools. As early as 1983, the Ministry of Education demanded that schools not to pursue college admissions rate as the sole indicator of quality of education. But in fact, schools still compete on this indicator.
5. “Key Classes” become “Innovation Classes.” “Key classes” is a common practice to sort students in Chinese schools. The “good students,” those who test well, are placed in “key classes,” which often are given more resources and better teachers. Theoretically the practice has been banned to ensure equity but in reality it continues to exist under different names such as Experimental Classes or Innovation Classes.
6. “Extra Classes” now Have “Parents Committees.” Schools are forbidden from offering extra lessons during holidays and vacations to students to reduce student burden but now schools continue to offer them (with extra fees). To evade the rules, these lessons are now supposedly offered by “Parents Committees” and students are asked to sign testimonials.
7. “I Teach Your Students.” The Ministry of Education has explicitly expressed its opposition to “paid tutoring by teachers.” But teachers continue to do so, except that they swap students and emphasize that what is taught in tutoring sessions are not taught in regular classes.
8. Full-time Training Classes Offered in Different Locations. In 1988, the Ministry of Education issued an order that forbids schools to offer any form of fulltime repeating classes for entrance exams for any reason. Now schools continue to do so, except that these classes are held outside school in different locations.

Underlying all these “hidden rules” is something very simple: the desire to help students obtain high test scores in the College Entrance Exam so the students can get into college or a better college. Parents want that, schools want that, so whatever measures are out there to re-orient schooling in China toward true education instead of test preparation are not going to have much effect. Schools, parents, and students will continue to work for test scores in subject areas that count.

On the surface, the corruption cases in the US may seem different from those in China, the root cause is actually the same: the desire to demonstrate good performance according to some standardized quantitative measures.

This phenomenon has been termed Campbell’s Law after the social scientist Donald T. Campbell, who observed: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

Specifically about testing, Campbell said:

achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.

I have argued that this fear is based on misunderstanding and misinterpretation of data in my book. And here is more evidence.

Last week, a comprehensive study based on analysis of major longitudinal datasets found “U.S. colleges and universities are graduating as many scientists and engineers as ever before.”  The study was conducted by a group of researchers at Georgetown University, Rutgers University, and the Urban Institute. “Our findings indicate that STEM retention along the pipeline shows strong and even increasing rates of retention from the 1970s to the late 1990s,” says the report. However, not all STEM graduates enter the STEM field. They are attracted to other areas.

“Over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities graduated roughly three times more scientists and engineers than were employed in the growing science and engineering workforce,” one of the study’s co-author Lindsay Lowell was quoted in the study’s press release, “At the same time, more of the very best students are attracted to non-science occupations, such as finance. Even so, there is no evidence of a long-term decline in the proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM jobs.”

Earlier studies by the same authors also “found that the U.S. education system produces large numbers of top-performing science and math students.”

Read the report here: http://pitch.pe/31116

I was in China last week. My school visits and conversations with educators brought to my attention a recent speech by China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, which apparently has generated another round of discussions about education reform around the country. The speech highlights the impetus for the upcoming reforms.

Wen delivered the speech in September when he visited a secondary school in Beijing and sat in five lessons (Chinese language, geography, music, math, and research methods). The written speech was published in People’s Daily, the state run national newspaper, and distributed by Xinhua News Agency, on October 11. An English summary of the speech and event is available here but if you can read Chinese, here is the complete speech in Chinese.

“Wen said China failed to foster enough outstanding talents to meet the needs of the nation,” according to the Xinhua report. At the heart of the speech are Wen’s two questions:

1. Why so many people in our society have so many concerns and worries about our education despite the progress we have made over the past 60 years since the establishment of the New China?
2. Why our schools cannot produce outstanding talents?

This is not the first time Wen and other top leaders of China expressed their concerns about China’s inability to foster innovative and creative talents the nation needs. “Compared with other nations, “ says Wen, “students prepared in China have a very good mastery of book knowledge but lacks the ability to make use of the knowledge and creative spirit.”

“This means that over a relatively long period of time in the past we have put the emphasis on knowledge acquisition and teaching to the test, “ Wen continues, “As a result, we have neglected to foster independent thinking and creativity.”

In fairness, China has already launched several waves of reform efforts to transform its traditional “test-oriented” education to “ability-oriented” education for the last two decades or so. But according to the Premier, “it should be noted that we have realized these problems for a long time and have been emphasizing on talent(quality)-education, but what haven’t we seen significant changes?”

The Chinese government has also been working on a long-term strategic plan for education in the next 12 years. The group is headed by Premier Wen himself. It is widely expected that the plan will introduce some bold measures to address the issue of fostering creative and outstanding talents in China to support China’s intention to transform its economy from one built on cheap labor and cheap resources into one built on innovation.

Following the publication of Wen’s speech, a number of responses from education leaders, university presidents, school principals, and teachers have been solicited and published. Some Internet forums have also been flooded with comments from netizens. These responses and comments identified the many challenges facing education in China, but a common complaint is standardization: schools are forced to turn into bureaucracies to implement a set of standardized objectives set by the government and prepare students to do well on standardized measures.

Chapter 4 of my book has a more extensive discussion of education in China and based on my analysis, the answer to Wen’s question lies in the historically rooted belief that the quality of education and the value of an individual can be judged with a single criterion or measured by standardized tests on a few subjects.

———-

In my new book Catching Up or Leading the Way, I mostly focus on issues facing education in the United States noting that the current education reform efforts, with their emphasis on standards, testing, and outcome-based (read test score-based) accountability, are unlikely to make Americans “globally competitive.”

Instead, what America needs is an education system that cultivates a diversity of talents and develops “unique niche talents” that are not available at a cheaper price elsewhere in the world or that cannot be replaced by machines, the argument Daniel Pink makes in his book A Whole New Mind (Pink 2005).

Although the book specifically addresses education in the U.S., I believe the message also applies globally.

I see a growing global trend to reduce the meaning of education into a few numbers. I call this practice the “mismeasure of education,” borrowing the idea from the late Harvard paleontologist and popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould who wrote The Mismeasure of Man to debunk the claim “that intelligence can be meaningfully abstracted as a single number capable of ranking all people on a linear scale of intrinsic and unalterable mental worth” (Gould 1996, p. 20).

Countries that have a history of measuring education with standardized tests, that is, using students’ test scores on a few subjects as indicators of the worthiness of individual students’ education and the quality of education provided by teachers and schools, continue the practice despite their efforts to change. In the meantime, countries that have traditionally relied less on standardized testing have been moving toward the practice. Worse yet, test results of international comparative studies such as TIMSS and PISA have been used as measures of the quality of education in countries. Today, many countries rank or grade their schools based on test results and countries pay a lot of attention to their relative rank on PISA and TIMSS tests.

There does not seem to be anything wrong with assessing students’ education and their providers’ performance. After all, we want to know how well our students are doing and ensure that teachers and schools are doing their job. We should also be happy to see that international ranking of education quality may prompt governments to examine their education policy and hopefully increase education investment.

However, there are a number of problems associated with this reductionist approach to education.

First of all, as the quality of education is reduced to test scores on a few subjects, we run the risk of narrowing the definition of education, and consequently, narrowing students’ educational experiences. One could argue that this does not have to happen. Theoretically true but in reality quite unlikely. The reason is very simple: when test scores are attached with great significance or high stakes, what is tested is what gets taught. And evidence abounds: the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has been shown to have led the reduction of time for education activities and subjects that are not tested and China has been struggling to expand school curriculum and other education activities beyond what is included in its high stakes College Entrance Exam for a long time.

Secondly, when test scores are used to rank education conditions of nations, national leaders and the concerned public are likely to pay attention to the scores and would want the scores on the tested subjects to rise, which again is not necessarily bad. But what could happen is that all nations will be focusing on teaching the few subjects that are included on international tests. As a result, we would see a global homogenization of curriculum, that is, schools globally will try to compete who can teach the same thing better. But that same thing is only a narrow set of subjects and at this time it is math, science, and literacy.

Of course, if the tested subjects are only what our children, globally, need to succeed in the future and are able to comprehensively and accurately reflect the quality of education, this is just fine. But the problem is that they are not.

Math, science, and literacy are undoubtedly very important basics for all students but there are by no means the only components of a good education—what about morality, passion, creativity, understanding of history, society, and humanities, arts, music, social responsibility, and the ability to work together? That’s why test scores have been shown to be poor predictors of future successes of individuals (Goleman 1995) and nations (Baker 2007; Tienken 2008). So the first negative consequence of “mismeasure of education” is quite obvious: a less diverse education environment and narrower curriculum for students.

There is also another negative consequence: it damages the world’s capacity to work together in the global economy by reducing diversity of talents and skills and hampers some nations’ capacity to prepare talents to support their own economy. Today’s world is extremely diverse in terms of cultural traditions, economical development, political system, natural resources, and educational capacities. Different countries may need different types of workers to support their own economy, thus certain knowledge, skills, and talents may be more valuable and in need in different societies. For example, what I can do and know is of little or no value in my village in China, where the knowledge of tending and driving a water buffalo is much more useful.

Moreover, the global economy provides enough challenges and opportunities that need a diversity of talents. Thus, instead of having every one learn the same thing and compete in the same arena, it would be much more productive to encourage different societies to capitalize on their existing diversities and develop unique education systems and devise unique education opportunities.

In some ways, the global economic competition is like the Olympic Games—it is very competitive but the competition takes place in many areas. People with different athletic talents do not compete in one single game and are not judged by one criterion—imagine we reduce the Games to only swimming and using that to judge all athletes, what happens to the ones who can run fast, jump high, or have great endurance?

Finally, the focus on a few subjects or mismeasure of education can distract us from addressing challenges facing different societies and communities as well as all of us as human beings. It may lead communities to abandon their traditional strengths, local values, and ignore what is important locally. It also distracts us from working to educate our children to think as a member of the human race, not just a member of a nation or state.

References:

Baker, K. (2007). “Are International Tests Worth Anything?” Phi Delta Kappan 89(2): 101-104.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, Bantam Books.

Gould, S. J. (1996). The Mismeasure of Man. New York, Northon.

Pink, D. H. (2005). A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. New York, Riberhead Books.

Tienken, C. H. (2008). “Rankings of International Achievement Test Performance and Economic Strength: Correlation or Conjecture?” International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership 3(4): 1-15.

http://www.notonthetest.com/index.html

Thanks, Chris.

Part III of the series examines “the ways China’s educational system thwarts innovation.” Here are some of the highlights:

“Innovation comes not just from infrastructure and investment – it comes from a culture that encourages originality and creativity, rewards risk-taking and tolerates failure. In the People’s Republic of China, that is still a work in progress. Today, we continue our series “Created in China” with a look at the roots of innovation, at how Chinese children are or are not encouraged to be creative, and how that’s evolving as the government makes innovation more of a priority.”

“They [Chinese students] are taught to absorb vast amounts of material, and prepare for the next exam. – in the case of the high school kids, for the college entrance exam. Li says this is how one teacher would get her students ready for the next exam.”

“If you ever encounter a test question on this topic, this is how you should answer it. And she would outline exactly how you should answer it and even to the point where at the end she would say oh if you run out of things to say you could always just praise the Communist Party. And this is how you praise them.”

“Actor Nick Li says he had much the same experience growing up in China. He says that experience wasn’t exactly fertile soil for the seed of innovation to grow.”

“Nick Li is one of many Chinese of his generation whose creativity thrived only when they transplanted themselves into more fertile soil.”

“China’s Ministry of Education is trying to move more of China’s public schools in this direction. It’s part of the government’s effort over the past decade to transform China into a more innovative nation, one that can create its own processes and products, rather than just manufacturing those of other countries.”

“Chinese engineers, the critique goes, are too often trained in the last best technology. They are not trained to be critical thinkers. They are not trained to solve the problems that have not yet been posed. It’s one reason, perhaps, why they have a much higher unemployment rate than some who have graduated from other disciplines in China.”

Well, you get the idea.