From Dana Goldstein’s excellent review of Amanda Ripley’s book, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way
Yet Ripley’s policy recommendations are sensible and strong. High-performing nations have shut down sub-par teacher training programs at non-elite colleges, and there is little doubt the United States should do the same—especially because we are producing an over-supply of teachers. Academically, American schools are too easy, with surveys of students showing pervasive boredom and low expectations. Our curriculum needs a booster shot, and not just in reading and math, the two subjects covered by the new Common Core national standards, but in every area, including technical and career education. Standardized testing is a blunt instrument, although every nation uses it to some degree. The real improvement happens when great teachers are given the autonomy to create engaging lessons. And we should stop throwing tax dollars at school sports programs and at gadgets like interactive white boards and iPads for every child. International comparisons show that the best schools are usually low-tech and focused on academics.
Apt. 11d 
Teaching was a profession that lower and middle class people could aspire to, and achieve. Wouldn’t Goldstein’s suggestions make it out of reach of such individuals? How do we reconcile that with the issues raised in the After High School post?
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has anybody else noticed the rampant anti-intellectualism in the back to school shopping ads? Thinking someone should write something about that — it’s all about “get a cool look”, make cool friends, get a girlfriend/boyfriend — I was struck by the fact that none of the ads mention the fact that school is a place that people go to study. I was thinking it was a peculiar American thing and perhaps telling about how we think about education. (My favorite is the JC Penny ad that I’ve been referring to as extortion — it features a voice-over by an African-American woman, and she says something about how he’ll end up all alone if he has the wrong clothes, and there’s a quick scene of him sitting by himself in the cafeteria — basically, I think it condones bullying the kid with the wrong clothes.)
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Can’t comment on the book, itself, but I have extreme fatigue over comparisons to Korea, Japan, India, . . . . I like the idea of profiling cross-cultural students (need to track down the book about an American family in a Russian school).
My take home from personal knowledge of those systems is that competition plays a huge role — competition between students, and high stakes. One high profile school I know of tests its eighth graders for admission into its own high school. It’s routine for the children to have multiple tutors (one child I know has a full time daily tutor three specialty tutors).
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“The real improvement happens when great teachers are given the autonomy to create engaging lessons.”
Even giving just good teachers autonomy will probably go a long way. Mom was a teacher for more than 30 years, and listening to her it was clear that the most fixable problem in many schools (or indeed in the same school over several years) is principals with an agenda other than education at that school. This one uses the position as a power base in local politics; that one aspires to be a district supervisor; the other one wants to “move up” from middle school to high school; and on and on. They’re distracted, they’re focused on something other than learning at that particular school, they want to look good more than be good.
Relatedly, turnover in administration is a big problem too. Principals who stay two or three years aren’t doing anyone any favors. Each brings in a lot of new ideas, new processes, new things for everyone to adapt to — and if they are actually trying to make their mark and move on to something else, the situation is even worse — and very often their zeal makes it hard for them to give teachers sufficient autonomy. Short-term principals also make it easy for long-term teachers to simply wait them out, or make it necessary for teachers to create their own processes that route around the administration. Neither is good for learning.
“And we should stop throwing tax dollars at school sports programs”
Good luck with that.
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