In the meantime, the U.S. has been trying hard to implement what China has been trying to be rid of. An increasing number of states and the federal government have begun to dictate what students should learn, when they should learn it, and how their learning is measured through state-mandated curriculum standards, high school exit exams, and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). There are calls for even more centralization and standardization through national standards and national testing, as well as through rewarding or measuring schools and teachers based on test scores.
I find this trend in American education perplexing. If China, a developing country aspiring to move into an innovative society, has been working to emulate U.S. education, why does America want to abandon it? Furthermore, why does America want to adopt practices that China and many other countries have been so eager to give up? But most vexing is why Americans, who hold individual rights and liberty in the highest regard, would allow the government to dictate what their children should learn, when they should learn it, and how they are evaluated?
What really pushed me to abandon my original writing plan is what I've witnessed over the last few years: broad damage inflicted by NCLB as well as the growing enthusiasm for more standardization and centralization. Frankly, when NCLB was passed, I did not expect it to have much impact on what goes on in American schools, given my experience with past reform movements. Apparently, I was wrong.
I was proven wrong by my son about five years ago. One day at breakfast he told me that he had figured out how to get a better score for his writing on the MEAP, the standardized testing Michigan uses to satisfy NCLB requirements. I knew he had always been a good writer for his age but he did not receive a great score on the MEAP that year. I actually did not care but he seemed concerned and had been working on an improvement strategy. My heart sank as he was explaining to me how he would improve his score. The essence of his strategy was to stop being creative and imaginative. Instead he would follow the scoring rubric, which was analyzed and taught by his teacher. Indeed his score improved the next round. Because of this experience and many other reasons, we decided that it was best to move him to a school that was not governed by NCLB. So he left public education in 10th grade.
I've also been proven wrong about my assumption that NCLB was just another reform movement by the many teachers and school leaders I've met in the last few years. Since 2004, I have given about 200 presentations to groups of teachers and education leaders on the topic of how schools must work to cultivate a diversity of talents, global competence, and digital competencies to cope with a world that has been significantly altered by globalization and technology. My audiences have been diverse and have included local school boards, legislators, community leaders, business leaders, as well as teachers, principals, superintendents, and technology specialists. The occasions have ranged from school opening days, professional development events, and national and international conferences. I've been invited to speak by teachers unions, local schools, state and national education professional organizations, and universities. I would like to think my audiences liked what I said because the number of requests for my presentation has been on the rise over the years. But almost every time I finish my talk, I am asked, "We agree with you, but what about AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress)?"
Then came more systematically gathered evidence that proved me wrong. Several studies discovered that NCLB caused a large proportion of schools to teach to the test and to reduce instructional time for subjects not required by NCLB. It has also been found that in order to raise test scores in NCLB-required areas, many teachers changed their instructional focus and pedagogical style. Some states, schools, and teachers have even been found to cheat on behalf of their students in order to meet the NCLB requirements.
The outcomes of NCLB were exactly what I had feared but refused to acknowledge. Based on my understanding of test-driven education systems such as those in China, Singapore, and South Korea, I anticipated that NCLB would perhaps raise test scores in the required subject areas but the nonrequired subjects would suffer and so would educators' morale and conduct. And that schools would eventually turn into test preparation institutions as the public learns to accept test scores as the only indication of performance for students, teachers, and schools.
The damages of NCLB are certainly disturbing, but what is even more fearsome is its spirit because while the law may be changed, its spirit seems to have a life of its own and keeps growing bigger and bigger. Although many have criticized the specifics of NCLB—whether the mandates are sufficiently funded, how AYP should be calculated, or whether it is realistic to implement the mandates—very few have challenged its spirit. Talks about national standards, international benchmarking, and more accountability are gaining momentum.
The spirit of NCLB is a chain of reasoning that goes like the following: American education is in crisis. This crisis is proven by two "achievement gaps": one international and the other domestic. The international gap is indicated by American students' consistently poor performances in international tests. The domestic achievement gap is the gap in test scores and other achievement measures such as high school graduation rates between inner-city minority students and their suburban peers. The crisis is assumed to have resulted from teachers and school leaders who are unwilling or unable to hold high expectations of their students and deliver high-quality instruction because they have become complacent or lazy. The solution is to hold these educators accountable for producing measurable outcomes with a variety of incentives and punishments including publishing school performances, allowing school choice, reorganizing low-performing schools, and possibly using performance-based teacher pay.
Standardization and centralization of curriculum and assessment are essential ingredients of this solution for an obvious reason. Unless all schools in a state or the whole nation is held to teach the same curriculum and all students are assessed using the same tests, it is impossible to compare what and how much students are taught or to distinguish good schools and teachers from poor ones. For this and other reasons, such as the moral argument that all students deserve and are able to study the same rigorous curriculum, standards have become one of the most enthusiastically embraced concepts in recent U.S. education reform efforts.
Although there are many problems with the well-intentioned spirit of NCLB, the most serious consequence is that it leads to homogenization of talents. While the intention is to ensure every child receives a good education, the problem is that NCLB practically defines good education as being able to show good scores in a limited number of subjects. Thus as schools conform to the standardized curriculum and attempt to provide "good education" so defined, children are deprived of opportunities to develop talents in other areas. In addition, those children who do not perform well on the required tests at the required time are discriminated against because they are considered less able and "at risk." Theoretically, different schools can teach more than what is mandated. In reality schools must ensure that they do well in areas that affect their reputation and standing, which means the subjects that are counted in standardized testing. It is also theoretically possible to develop standards for a broad range of subjects and activities and require all schools teach the same curriculum nationally or statewide, like what China used to do. But even in the case of China, only subjects that count in the high-stakes College Entrance Exam receive serious attention. In the U.S., such an effort is not even possible. The Clinton administration supported the development of national standards for nine subjects, but most of them failed to be accepted because of disagreement over what should be included in each subject.
As a result of adopting national standards, schools will produce a homogenous group of individuals with the same abilities, skills, and knowledge. Such a result will be disastrous to America and Americans because as globalization and technology continue to change the world, America needs a citizenry of creative individuals with a wide range of talents to sustain its tradition of innovation. Americans need talents and abilities that are not available at a lower price elsewhere on earth. American education, despite its many problems, has at least the basics that support the production of a more diverse pool of talents. However, these basics are being discarded by NCLB and similarly spirited reform efforts.
The spirit of NCLB also denies the real cause of education inequality—poverty, funding gaps, and psychological damages caused by racial discrimination—by placing all responsibilities on schools and teachers. While schools can definitely do a lot to help children overcome certain difficulties, their influence has limits.
In a way, the reforms that aim to save America are actually putting America in danger. NCLB is sending American education into deeper crisis because it is likely to lead increasing distrust of educators, disregard of students' individual interests, destruction of local autonomy and capacity for innovation, and disrespect for human values.
Although NCLB and its damages were the impetus for this book, I did not write this book to criticize NCLB. Rather, I focused this book on the real challenges America faces and how to address them. It also discusses how recent reforms have served to distract our attention from the real crisis and have the potential to destroy what America already has to be prepared for the future world. The book begins with a discussion about the current reform efforts in the United States and why they are misguided, followed by a historical account of how the current reforms came into being. I then offer an abbreviated version of the book I was going to write about education in China to show the danger of centralization, standardization, and testing. The primary purpose of this book is to change the discourse about education, to move away from focusing on the past and move toward focusing on the future. Thus I devoted two chapters discussing what the future world might be like as a result of globalization and technological changes. These changes demand us to rethink what knowledge is of value in the future. The knowledge, skills, attitudes, and perspectives that will be valuable are discussed in the subsequent chapters. The final chapter makes some specific suggestions for policy makers, school leaders, and education practitioners.
Although I did not get to complete my book about education in China, I am content with my decision. Doing research and writing this book has been an immensely rewarding experience. I have been living in the United States for more than a decade. I have been a student, a professor, and a parent of two students in American education. I have also conducted research in many schools and interacted with policy makers, educators, parents, and business leaders. So in many ways, I am an "insider" of American education. But I have been fortunate to have been invited to work with educators in over a dozen countries in recent years and spend about one third of my time outside the U.S. each year to remain an "outsider." This book provided me the opportunity to integrate both my insider and outsider experiences and perspectives.
American education is at a crossroads. There are two paths in front of us: one in which we destroy our strengths in order to "catch up" with others in test scores and one in which we build on our strengths so we can keep the lead in innovation and creativity. It is my hope that this book can help change the discourse about education in the United States and convince some of the readers that "leading the way" is a better idea.
January 30, 2009