{"id":1684,"date":"2011-08-02T09:16:24","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T13:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/real-discussion-for-real-education-shanghai.html"},"modified":"2011-08-02T09:16:24","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T13:16:24","slug":"real-discussion-for-real-education-shanghai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/real-discussion-for-real-education-shanghai.html","title":{"rendered":"Real discussion for real education: Shanghai"},"content":{"rendered":"Here’s how they do it in the best education system in the world:\n
\n\n<\/a>\nShanghai’s education system is distinctive and superior\u2014and not\njust globally, but also nationally. Hong Kong, Beijing, and ten Chinese\nprovinces participated in the 2009 PISA, but their results reflected\neducation systems that were still the same-old knowledge acquisition\nmodels, whereas Shanghai had progressed to equipping students with\nthe ability to interpret and extrapolate information from text and\napply it to real world situations\u2014what we would normally refer to\nas \u2018creativity.\u2019 Twenty-six percent of Shanghai 15 year-olds could\ndemonstrate advanced problem-solving skills, whereas the OECD average\nis 3 percent.\n<\/blockquote>\nI do mean that literally, the best in the world:\n
\nEvery three years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and\nDevelopment (OECD) administers its worldwide\n Programme for International Student Assessment<\/a>\n(PISA) to measure how well a nation\u2019s education\nsystem has been preparing its students for the global knowledge\neconomy. Nations such as South Korea, Finland, and Singapore have\ntraditionally topped the rankings, but, apparently, even they are no\nmatch for Shanghai, which shoved the others into lower positions in its\nvery first year of participation in the programme, in 2009.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s according to\nJiang Xueqin writing in the Diplomat 1 August 2011,\n\nHow Shanghai Schools Beat Them All<\/a>.\n

\nSo, how did they do it?\n\n\n

\nFirst, the Shanghai municipal government believes that the most effective\nway to raise the human capital it needs for the global knowledge economy\nis by focusing on raising the overall quality of its education system\nrather than investing in elite schools. \u2018Students of privilege will\ndo well wherever they are, and more resources directed at them won\u2019t\nimprove them that much,\u2019 Schleicher explained. \u2018But more attention\nand investment will greatly improve disadvantaged students.\u2019\n

\nLacking adequate capital, Shanghai decided to rely on the expertise of\nits best principals and teachers to reform its failing schools. The\nShanghai government promised career advancement opportunities and\nautonomy if educators could turn around such schools, and this policy\nhas been stunningly successful. According to Schleicher, 70 percent of\nShanghai students are \u2018resilient,\u2019 meaning that they have stronger\nmath, reading, and science skills than their socio-economic background\nwould suggest.\n

\n\u2018There\u2019s real interest and engagement between teachers and\nstudents,\u2019 Schleicher said. \u2018Every Shanghai classroom has high demands\nyet offers extensive support.\u2019 There\u2019s an expectation and a demand\nthat every student can succeed, and teachers regularly collaborate to\nimprove student performance.\n

\nAccording to Schleicher, what\u2019s truly impressive about Shanghai schools\nis how they focus on collaborative and creative learning.\n<\/blockquote>\nYou know, like an ongoing civil discussion.\nLike \na debate.<\/a>\n

\nAnd Shanghai is winning the global education debate.\n

\nYou want education improvements here?\n

    \n
  1. Do something for the least<\/em> successful students.\n
  2. Model what works by having a real discussion.\n<\/ol>\nA real discussion: not parrotting talking points and ignoring\nwhat anybody else says.\n

    \nYou want knowledge-based jobs?\n

    \nToday, the United States may be the leader in creativity and\ninnovation, but that’s because it made university education universally\navailable 40 years ago, Schleicher argued. Now that the United States\nis failing to invest properly in public education, its prospects are\ndim. Shanghai is in the reverse position. PISA reveals that Shanghai is\ncreating for itself a skilled workforce, and that’s a \u2018significant\nadvantage,\u2019 he told me.\n<\/blockquote>\nYou don’t agree?\n

    \nLet’s have \na debate about that.<\/a>\n

    \n-jsq\n

    \nPS: This post owed to Don Thieme.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s how they do it in the best education system in the world: Shanghai’s education system is distinctive and superior\u2014and not just globally, but also nationally. Hong Kong, Beijing, and ten Chinese provinces participated in the 2009 PISA, but their results reflected education systems that were still the same-old knowledge acquisition models, whereas Shanghai had […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,1376,14,15,3305],"tags":[398,1363,8704,8705,8701,1458,7,3842,6],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-cuee","category-economy","category-education","category-fvcs","tag-china","tag-debate","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-knowledge-based","tag-lowndes-county","tag-shanghai","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-ra","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}