ISBA conference

Are America's schools failing our children? Are the Chinese and Indians beating us right, left, and center? Dr. Yong Zhao says, "No!"

Dr. Zhao, University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, gave the keynote at a conference I attended this week. The presentation is taken from his book, and both are titled Catching Up or Keeping the Lead: American Education in the Age of Globalization. His ideas were fresh, forceful, encouraging, and data driven. You'll find his presentation slides here, but here's a brief recap of his argument:

• Americans have long been worried that our competitors are "beating us" at educating children, from post-Sputnik Cold War anxiety about the USSR, to concerns about Japan in the 1980s with the landmark report "A Nation at Risk," to the 2007 movie Two Million Minutes, which argues that we're falling far behind India and China.
• In spite of these anxieties, American creativity, productivity, and economic growth in the late 20th century are unparalleled by any other nation.
• Ironically enough, Asian countries including China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are implementing education reforms to make their systems more like ours, with less emphasis on rote memorization, constant testing, and a narrow focus, and more on developing creativity, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial thinking.

Dr. Zhao believes the trend in the U.S. toward national standards (see my post below) and constant assessment are reforms in the wrong direction, taking us away from what has made the U.S. a great creative power. What I would like to have been able to ask him is what kinds of changes or reforms he would like to see in American education. Something tells me I may be buying his book!

The Indiana School Boards Association (ISBA) is a professional organization for school board members. Their annual fall conference attracted hundreds of board members and administrators from around the state. I attended seven sessions over two days and learned about better school board governance, the media, and pending changes in federal education legislation among other topics. It was more interesting than that probably sounds! I came away as usual with a headful of ideas and inspiration.