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OECD said the poorest 10% of pupils in Shanghai are as good as the most privileged 20% of teenagers in the UK and the United States. If money can't solve the problem, then it is much more difficult to solve.
I am surprised that Shanghai has "one of the most equal education systems" in the world. I thought our schools are most equal, oh well.
If money can't solve the problem, then it is much more difficult to solve.
We've known this for a long time, but politicians and people with stuff for sale always seem to persuade taxpayers to spend more money.
Still, I wonder if Shanghai's education system can simply be transferred intact to Western democracies.
And I wonder about the rest of China. We're always told how great Shanghai is. Why aren't the Shanghai Principles applied everywhere? Or are they? Have they failed, and why?
"Instead, there was a system with a very strong emphasis on training and a career built on incentives for the best teachers. Teachers can receive as much as 30% of their pay in merit payments, decided at school level, on top of a basic salary."
"The Shanghai state school system uses academic selection - with pupils dividing after nine years of basic education into academic and vocational streams, based on point scores in exams. Within the academic stream there are further divisions, with some sought-after schools being seen as the route to the most prestigious universities."
"But there are other social factors to be considered. There is no accountability to parents in this system or mechanism for challenging the decisions of schools or education authorities."
"And there are also questions about the pressure this highly competitive, exam-focused system puts on pupils. As well as public examinations, the school system has many internal tests and assessments. And there have been warnings about the lack of "emotional well-being" that comes with such a concentration on success in exams."
To sum up, teachers are revered and considered true professionals and can get hefty bonuses based on performance. Kids are tracked after 9 years creating competition that drives them to succeed. And yes, that creates stress for some kids. And lastly, parents are not encouraged to question the methods of the educators. There are clearly no special snowflakes in Shanghai or if there are, the schools don't care.
Based on the article there's no way any of this would be accepted in the US unless we do a 180 about how we educate.
"The OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher has shown that in maths tests the poorest 10% of pupils in Shanghai are as good as the most privileged 20% of teenagers in the UK and the United States."
This is reported by BBC news. Data are from OECD and World Bank. Although it is as legit as it can, I still find it hard to believe. Are Americans really that bad?
"The OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher has shown that in maths tests the poorest 10% of pupils in Shanghai are as good as the most privileged 20% of teenagers in the UK and the United States."
This is reported by BBC news. Data are from OECD and World Bank. Although it is as legit as it can, I still find it hard to believe. Are Americans really that bad?
Here's a story to show you what I mean. This morning, my mom came over to watch my son while I went to work, as his preschool finished their school year last Friday. My mom is Chinese and was educated in Taiwan, and worked in a math related career. I was showing her the math that my 7 year old daughter was learning, and the difference between the "Asian math" she gets at home vs the "American math" she gets at school.
Now to preface this, my daughter goes to a competitive entry academically accelerated prep school. It has been ranked to have the second best academics in the whole state, just behind the elite boarding school. They just released the list of colleges that accepted seniors from this prep school this year, and it's littered with a few Ivys and quite a few other prestigious colleges. This is the best you can get in our area. My daughter is just finishing up her first grade year, and the teacher has been sending home their work from this year, including their Everyday Math workbooks they did during the year.
So to show my mom how dismal math is here, first I pulled out the Singapore Math book she was doing at home. I flipped to a random page that she had recently completed and read out the problem she had solved: "Tank D is filled with 4 times as much water as Tank A. Tank A is filled with 4 liters more water than Tank B. Tank B and Tank C together are filled with as much water as Tank D. If Tank D is filled with 28 liters of water, how much water is in Tank C?" (Intensive Practice 2B, page 77)
Then I flipped to a random page of her math book from school (near the end), and I kid you not, it had a picture of three 10-rods and 2 little cubes and asked "What number is this?" (32). I flipped around to make sure it wasn't a review page, but no, they were introducing the concept of place value for the first time in the second half of first grade. At the second best school in the entire state, where all of the kids of the doctors and lawyers go. It's ridiculous how far behind we are, even at the very beginning.
.... '' I flipped to a random page that she had recently completed and read out the problem she had solved: "Tank D is filled with 4 times as much water as Tank A. Tank A is filled with 4 liters more water than Tank B. Tank B and Tank C together are filled with as much water as Tank D. If Tank D is filled with 28 liters of water, how much water is in Tank C?" ...
I would like to raise this question to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Whoever get the correct answer first will get my vote.
What if none of them can answer correctly? Don't you think that is possible? They practice debate all the time, but they never expect that.
...or just skip it and write in Neil deGrasse Tyson. But being the Smartest Guy in the Room isn't necessarily what makes a good President.
Srsly, I'd like to know why Shanghai is always singled out for praise, and why the rest of China can't or won't implement their practices when the BBC obviously want the West to.
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They practice debate all the time, but they never expect that.
