Yong Zhao posted the first of five blogs about the faulty claims of PISA, the international test that false reformers love to cite as evidence that our schools are failing and our kids don’t work hard enough. The five blog posts are drawn from Zhao’s much awaited new book. If you have not read his other books, order them now. Catching Up or Leading the Way and World Class Learners. You will enjoy them.
Zhao calls PISA “one of the most destructive forces in education today. It creates illusory models of excellence, romanticizes misery, glorifies educational authoritarianism, and most serious, directs the world’s attention to the past instead of pointing to the future. In the coming weeks, I will publish five blog posts detailing each of my “charges,” adapted from parts of my book “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education.”
In this post, Zhao demonstrates one of the misleading claims made by Andreas Schleicher, who runs PISA.
Zhao writes:
“Andreas Schleicher has on many occasions promoted the idea that Chinese students take responsibilities for their own learning, while in “many countries, students were quick to blame everyone but themselves.” France is his prime example: “More than three-quarters of the students in France … said the course material was simply too hard, two-thirds said the teacher did not get students interested in the material, and half said their teacher did not explain the concepts well or they were just unlucky.” Students in Shanghai felt just the opposite, believing that “they will succeed if they try hard and they trust their teachers to help them succeed.” Schleicher maintains that this difference in attitude contributed to the gap between Shanghai, ranked first, and France, ranked 25th.”
Zhao shows by citing PISA rankings that this claim by Schleicher does not withstand scrutiny. It is false.
He writes:
“What’s intriguing is that the countries whose students are least likely to blame their teachers all have a more authoritarian cultural tradition than the countries whose students are most likely to blame their teachers. On the first list, Singapore, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Shanghai-China, Japan, and Viet Nam share the Confucian cultural tradition. And although Japan and Korea are now considered full democracies, the rest of the countries on the list are not[3]. In contrast, the list of countries with the highest percentage of students blaming their teachers for their failures ranked much higher in the democracy index. Norway ranked first; Sweden ranked second, and Switzerland was number seven. With the single exception of Italy, all 10 countries where students were most likely to blame their teachers ranked above 30 on the Democracy Index (and Italy ranked 32nd).
“One conclusion to draw from this analysis: students in more authoritarian education systems are more likely to blame themselves and less likely to question the authority—the teacher—than students in more democratic educational systems. An authoritarian educational system demands obedience and does not tolerate questioning of authority. Just like authoritarian parents [2], authoritarian education systems have externally defined high expectations that are not necessarily accepted by students intrinsically but require mandatory conformity through rigid rules and sever punishment for noncompliance. More important, they work very hard to convince children to blame themselves for failing to meet the expectations. As a result, they produce students with low confidence and low self-esteem.
“On the PISA survey of students’ self-concept in math, students in Japan, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Viet Nam, Macao-China, Hong Kong-China, and Shanghai-China had the lowest self-concepts in the world, despite their high PISA math scores[4]. A high proportion of students in these educational systems worried that they “will get poor grades in mathematics.” More than 70% of students in Korea, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Viet Nam, Shanghai-China, and Hong Kong-China—in contrast to less than 50% in Austria, United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands—“agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they worry about getting poor grades in math[5].”
And he concludes:
“In other words, what Schleicher has been praising as Shanghai’s secret to educational excellence is simply the outcome of an authoritarian education.
“As discussed previously, Chinese education has been notoriously authoritarian for thousands of years. In an authoritarian system, the ruler and the ruling class (previously the emperors; today, the government) have much to gain when people believe it is their own effort, and nothing more, that makes them successful. No difference in innate abilities or social circumstances matters as long as they work hard. If they cannot succeed, they only have themselves to blame. This is an excellent and convenient way for the authorities to deny any responsibility for social equity and justice, and to avoid accommodating differently talented people. It is a great ploy that helped the emperors convince people to accept the inequalities they were born into and obey the rules. It was also designed to give people a sense of hope, no matter how slim, that they can change their own fate by being indoctrinated through the exams.”
Our policymakers wish our students and teachers would think, act, study, and behave like their counterparts in Singapore and Korea. But first they will have to change America’s irreverent, anti-authoritarian culture. Good luck with that!
Comedy Central, are you listening?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So the no-excuses model does provide for higher test scores. Students are not allowed to think creatively or questioningly. They are simply to do what they’re told. And if they don’t, suspension or expulsion will be the result. Gotta get those test scores.
Also, Sweden had the second highest proportion of students who blamed their teachers. Very interesting considering that Sweden has a sizable voucher program. Sweden’s private equity firm-owned schools also include corporate practices like merit pay. (Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/10/sweden-schools-idUSL4N0JK32620131210) With so much choice, I find it hard to understand why Swedish students think they have crappy teachers. (Sarcasm noted.)
(By the way, a student transferred into our school this year from New York City. I asked him about his old school. He said that it was mostly TFA. That he rarely had the same teacher as his older sister who is two years older than him. He also said that the last six weeks before the NY state assessments he always had at least one practice test each day. Sounds like the formula for test gaming.)
Thanks, Diane, but Arne Duncan explained all this to parents in one of his lectures:
“There’s a new book out called “The Smartest Kids in the World, and How They Got That Way.” The author, Amanda Ripley, found an interesting way to compare American schools with those in top-performing countries. She spent time with American students who did a year of school abroad, and with students from other countries who went to school in the United States.
One of the countries she compares us to is South Korea.
Amanda came away believing that these other countries are doing a lot better than the United States in education because—simply put—they’re more serious about it. And that seriousness, that sense of educational purpose, has its roots in both policy and in culture.”
Ripley actually said a lot more than that in the book that Arne Duncan did or did not read. In fact, she wrote a book with a lot of specific details, like how South Korean spends a bundle on private tutors. It’s a hugely profitable market, tutoring:
“Tutoring services are growing all over the globe, from Ireland to Hong Kong and even in suburban strip malls in California and New Jersey. Sometimes called shadow education systems, they mirror the mainstream system, offering after-hours classes in every subject—for a fee.
But nowhere have they achieved the market penetration and sophistication of hagwons in South Korea, where private tutors now outnumber schoolteachers.
Viewed up close, this shadow system is both exciting and troubling. It promotes striving and innovation among students and teachers alike, and it has helped South Korea become an academic superpower. But it also creates a bidding war for education, delivering the best services to the richest families, to say nothing of its psychological toll on students. Under this system, students essentially go to school twice—once during the day and then again at night at the tutoring academies. It is a relentless grind.”
I’m a little baffled about why Ripley doesn’t mention who is paying for all this tutoring. Presumably it’s South Korean parents. Perhaps not a big concern to her, but it would surely be to US working class and middle class families.
Does Arne Duncan want US parents to demand a market in over-priced private tutoring services, like South Korea? Or is he misrepresenting what this book actually reported about South Korea and the reason for their success on standardized tests?
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324635904578639780253571520
Here’s Duncan’s lecture to parents on South Korea when media and ed reformers were flogging the standardized test results:
“In the United States, a significant proportion of new teachers come from the bottom third of their college class, and most new teachers say their training didn’t prepare them for the realities of the classroom. So underprepared teachers enter our children’s classrooms every year, and low-income and minority kids get far more than their share of ineffective teachers.
In contrast, in South Korea, elementary teachers are selected from the top 5 percent of their high school cohort. Teachers there get six months of training after they start their jobs. They are paid well, and the best receive bonus pay and designation as “master teachers.”
Weird that he takes another shot at US teachers and compares them to South Korean teachers when Ripley wrote at length about the huge (and hugely expensive) private tutoring market in South Korea, the “shadow education system”. Could that be the reason South Korea does so well on these tests? Because they spend a huge wad of money paying tutors?
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/remarks-us-secretary-education-arne-duncan-national-assessment-governing-board-educati
I read where South Korea is all about teaching to the test hence the “shadow education system.” High school graduates take one exhaustive high-stakes test that determines their enrollment in one of the few universities used by Samsung (that country’s only major employer) to recruit employees. South Korea has the highest teen suicide rate due to these factors.
When I read Ripley’s book about South Korean students & studying with tutors til at least 10:00 pm at night (while remaining in their “day schools” til 5:00 pm with a break for dinner), I asked myself, how can this country produce any athletes, artists, actors, dancers, playwrights, creative types, equestrians, etc., when these kids obviously have no time to pursue other interests or activities after school or on the weekends? When do they get any exercise or have any downtime to think & dream?
A well respected department, in which stakeholders share a vision of the future, that advances the nation, is supposed to be the legacy of a cabinet member. At a minimum, the department secretary should do no harm. Duncan fails in both regards. It is incumbent on Pres. Obama to dismiss him before he does more damage, to the nation and Presidency.
Duncan’s unfounded disparagements and denigrations have resulted in fewer capable students selecting teaching as a career and in more parents, opting for home schooling. Both are detrimental to the country.
The schools that he envisions, contrast with the education that people like Bill and Melinda Gates and Barack and Michelle Obama, select for their children. Therefore, parents and grandparents have the responsibility to recognize hypocrisy and work toward the firing of Duncan.
The taxpayers, who have first-hand knowledge of their community schools, overwhelmingly support them. In this context, the resilience of the citizens, is a true testament, considering (1) there is a well funded and orchestrated attempt to destroy the reputations of public employees, teachers included, and (2) middle class incomes, the source of taxes for education, stagnated 30 years ago. The gains from the workers’ productivity transferred to unproductive financial firms and the 1% . Duncan seeks to exacerbate the problem, by siphoning funds to for-profit companies like Microsoft, under the slick packaging of a promise, by supply-siders, for good-paying jobs. There is more reason to believe an increase in disposable income for the middle class will lead to increased spending, creating demand for goods and services, and the creation of jobs.
Those, like Duncan, who foster and participate in the process of taking community resources for corporation owners, should be removed from their posts.
AMEN! Love your last sentence.
Love this! Gives me hope! Excellent analysis & good rebuttal to Jeb Bush’s recent comments (as reported by Valerie Strauss in Wash Post). Jeb complains that we care too much about our kids’ self-esteem wherein in Asia they care about math & science; therefore the Asian students will “eat our lunch” in the Great 21st Century Competition.
I teach kids feom all over the world in a small liberal arts context. Of course, every student has her or his own tale to tell. But, there is a strong tendency in my East Asian students (esp. Japan & Korea) to reproduce faithfully what they believe they are told to reproduce, without much deeper thought into the context or thinking beyond the texts themselves, at least while they are stll freshmen & sophomores, European, South American, and North American kids (when not the children of Asian immigrants) do fine with the core texts but are MUCH more likely to question the texts, think beyond them, and think innovatively. At the same time, when given the opportunity to think beyond the texts, many of the kids from East Asia discover that school can be more than an oppressively boring experience, They discover that learning is in fact fun and intrinsically valuable. Some even learn that the final grade is less important than the process of challenging oneself by taking a few intellectual risks from time to time.
I had to read Catching Up or Leading the Way for a doctoral class in Educational Leadership. At least this professor realizes testing is not the be all to end all reforms for our system. I think that book should be mandatory reading for all education and educational administration students in every school of education!
The results of the PISA tests that are used to compare the public education systems of countries is the modern equivalent of the IQ test, and both are useless except to brag about.
And anyone who knows the facts knows that bragging about having a high PISA score or IQ means nothing.
Both are fragile empty pots tottering on the edge of a cliff pushed by the wind toward the abyss.
Don’t get started on IQ. We’ll end up with Jim telling us all about how IQ and race are the only things that matter. I can’t stand it tonight.
What did I say? I don’t care about what Jim thinks. That’s irrelevant.
So true, Lloyd. I couldn’t agree with you more. I wonder why the politicians and the rich in this country aren’t bragging about our high percent of child poverty. We are at the top re: child poverty.
It’s really funny that Arne Duncan said American should follow South Korean model of education out of the blue. They are one of the two Asian countries (the other is Japan) that teach to test by domesticating students in a small classroom packed with a group of 30-40. Students are dealing with physical punishment, bullying (and a high rate of suicide) and sexual harassment which teachers and school principals turn their blind eyes. No matter what age they live, students are always judged by test-scores and put into bubble for national achievement tests, high school qualification exam, and college/university exam.
Sure, South Korea and Japan have really good public education system offering enriched curriculum including social studies, math, science, history, arts, PE, etc. But the reality is many local teaches have so many rooms to work on meaningful instruction–other than rote learning, and drilling. Students are forced to swallow what it says in the textbook like cow in the ranch, transcribing what teachers write down on the blackboard. There’s few student-centered engagement —even in social studies and science class! Oh Mottainai (What a waste!).
What Duncan and like-minded people do not really know is that both South Korea and Japan are considered predominantly homogenous culture (even through there’s a growing multi-cultural awareness in each respectively community), and racial/ethnic minorities are mainly left out of each traditional education. In Japan, which is where I am originally from, children of migrant workers, Nikkei (South Americans of Japanese descents), multi-racial students, and students of generational foreigners (i.e., Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese immigrants) are NOT on the same page with local students, partly due to family’s socio-economic mobility, and partly due to government’s deliberate practice of “racial segregation” under the name of ‘rational distinction’ (NOTE: Japan is the only OECD country that does not have anti-racial discrimination law in national constitution).
Bottom line: It’s easy to boost PISA scores for any country if students have similar cultural background with little or no economic/financial disparities and/or physical/mental handicaps, while conveniently removing those who do not fit into the mainstream classroom at the same time. Japan and South Korea might be able to escape rigorous scrutiny—thanks to international media’s indifference and phony assumption on ‘cultural uniqueness’, but that’s not likely the case for America. If Duncan really thinks US should follow exactly the same approach the two countries are doing, they will end up creating education segregation by ditching tens of millions of CLEED students into a gutter for the next ten years.
When Arne Duncan said America should follow South Korea’a model of education, did he include the roll of parents who spend a sizable portion of the family income on sending their kids to what’s known as cram schools in the evenings and on weekends to make sure they are successful in the public schools?
The same thing could be said of Finland where parents start teaching their kids the love of reading at age 3 meaning by age 7 when they start school, they’ve already had four years of reading at home.
Does Duncan expect every American parent (or parent in America for the illegals) to start teaching their kids to read in English, leave the TV off, lock away the video games and start visiting the library weekly?
I don’t think so.
If we interpret what this fool means by reading between the lines, he’s saying he wants public school teachers to be as successful as those in South Korea but what he doesn’t say is that this must be achieved without the parental support found in South Korea.
I wonder if that occurred to Duncan when he opened his mouth ans spewed such ignorance and stupidity. There is no way the average American parent is going to compete with the average Asian parent when it comes to eduction. No way! Not in a hundred years. Probably not in a thousand years. Not without some drastic and dramatic changes in the way Americans raise their kids when it comes to education.
Everytime Duncan opens his mouth and speaks about education, he shows his incompetence as well as how shallow he is.
Duncan’s mouth reflects those who put him in that position. He’s an echo–a mockingbird don’t the bidding of his masters and we can be sure he will be well paid.
Reblogged this on My Thinks and commented:
This is a very interesting analysis of the nonsense PISA test. Basically the various Chinese cities & Asian countries do well because they have a tradition of not questioning authority.Read on…