Arthur Camins is director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.
He left the following comment about the PISA results:
The release of NAEP, TIMSS and PISA scores always produces debate. How do we compare with others (and on what)? Among us, who has improve and who has not? Are we improving and, if so, are we improving fast enough?
You and others have cogently argued that quickly leaping to favored policy implications usually lacks much evidence and is often misleading.
Arguments in a democracy are natural and could be healthy, but I worry we are not making much progress when it comes to current education policy. Maybe a dose of engineering design thinking can help.
An essential step in such thinking is defining and delimiting the problems. The biggest problem with education is the US is not test scores. Rather, three central problems plague public education the United States. The most dramatic is inequity. There are vast inequities in educational resources and in the conditions of students’ lives, resulting in persistent race- and class-based disparities in educational outcomes.
Second, we are far too focused on a narrow range of outcomes — reading and math test scores — and not enough on a broader range of subject matter or essential domains, such as critical thinking, creativity and collaborative skills. Third, we gravitate toward partial quick solutions, rather than thinking systemically and having the patience allow strategies time to develop, take hold and be refined.
Next, we need to consider both values and technical constraints for ideal solutions. For example, we need to ask what mix of collaborative and competitive strategies align with our values and research on systems that have been successful in sustaining significant educational improvement.
In addition, since ideal solutions always prove better in theory than in practice, we need to plan for optimization– repeated cycles of testing, redesign and retesting.
Finally, to make progress we need mobilize the necessary political will. To do so, we need to hear more about common sense, high-leverage solutions– framed as messages that respect people’s intelligence and tap into their values, aspirations and sense of fairness.
I made several suggestions about these messages last week on the Washington Post’s education blog, The Answer Sheet:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/30/how-thinking-like-an-engineer-can-help-school-reform/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I went to the Washington Post article referenced above. Frankly, there’s nothing new – as far as I could see – in Mr. Camins’ thoughts. Which is why education reform in this country continues to go nowhere. All of the “things we should be doing” are but leaves and branches compared to the root of the problem: We do not have sufficient vigor, passion, intelligence and integrity at the administrative level in our public schools. Until we address that we are doomed to continue spinning our wheels; As Larry Cuban once titled a paper: “Reform: Again, and Again, and Again.”
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Jack
Education reform in this country continues to go nowhere because the schools are not broken. We are a highly stratified society and to paint it with a broad brush demonstrates a surprising degree of ignorance.
But lets play along with your reckless and insulting analysis. In your perfect world of education reform that “works”- a world in which your number one issue has been “addressed”, your ideal world in which all administrators have “sufficient vigor [?], passion, intelligence, and integrity” – what exactly changes????
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Makes perfect sense. Therefore, it won’t happen.
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Now, now, if we start listening to people who actually know what they’re talking about, where will it all end?
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Thoughtful and reasonable.
“To do so, we need to hear more about common sense, high-leverage solutions– framed as messages that respect people’s intelligence and tap into their values, aspirations and sense of fairness.”
Sadly, other than this blog, ideas not often expressed.
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Science has made the world a better place. Engineering design has made the world a better place. We should avail ourselves of both whenever possible. The writer has some great insights and suggestions. But, without honesty, courage, and vision, we are sunk. The science of education has to recognize that education is far broader than applying scientific notions. It is art, experience, skill, human interaction, and practical living all rolled into one and accomplished one individual at a time. Pretending that all is well because flaws can be uncovered in test results or test comparisons between countries or populations and because some places seem to get it right is folly. Pretending that chronic problems and conflicts would no longer plague education in the US if we could only get rid of the misguided reformers, opportunists, statisticians, and data-obsessed nerds is ahistorical. More importantly, that pretense is dangerous denial and unscientific. It is irresponsible. There have been unacceptable issues and failures in education for many generations and the promises made have NEVER been kept for literally millions of students. Fight all you want for teachers and unions and autonomy in the classroom. That is your duty. But, if you want to at least get on the right path for the sake of children, be unafraid of facing the reality that nothing has changed significantly because nothing can change under this paradigm. Laws exist to preserve the status quo and to establish power. Education under duress is the title of a book on brainwashing (O’Neill & Demos, 1971, LDI Books, LA, CA.). Mandatory schooling is education under duress. Ignore that reality at your peril and at the peril of the people you hope to help.
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