Yesterday I republished a post I wrote in October about the Race to the Top Fund, which is a $4.3 billion effort by the U.S. Department of Education to grant to winning States millions of dollars to increase student achievement, use student achievement data to evaluate teachers and administrators, emphasize STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics), expand testing and evaluation systems, and coordinate (articulate) curriculum. The Race to the Top is a continuation of the No Child Left Behind Act in which the Federal Government “regulates” schooling by linking student achievement to teacher effectiveness, and yes, economic growth.

In his ground breaking book (Catching Up or Leading the Way), Dr. Yong Zhao, Distinguished Professor of Education, Michigan State University, questions and wonders why American education is moving in a direction to implement what China has been working hard to get rid of, and that is a test-driven, standardized educational system.  In fact, in his book, Dr. Zhao describes a movement in China which seeks to transform its education system to match its innovation-driven knowledge society.  He suggests that in China, the government has made a “conscious, global search” for models of education that will produce innovative talents.  And indeed, the Chinese see the American education “model” as a “reasonable candidate” for an innovative educational system.

To give you a flavor of the kind of thinking that Dr. Zhao brings to the issue of educational reform in the U.S.A., here are some comments that he made recently to an ASCD audience.

And what are we doing here in the U.S.?  As Zhao points out, we have been trying hard (for many years, by the way) to implement educational “reforms” that China has been trying to get rid of.  Perhaps the biggest Federal program that has moved American education along this path is the No Child Left Behind Act which mandates achievement testing, high-stakes assessments, state-mandated standards and curriculum.  An now with the Race to the Top fund, it looks inevitable that we will have “common standards” in math and reading, and that teachers and students in every school and district will be held accountable to these same standards.

This system of education is one that is authoritarian in nature, and one that pushes to edges of education the notion that individuality and diversity are important in the education of children and youth.  The celebration of the individual is slowing losing out to the increased demand for a central and standardized educational system.

We should question this.  There are more than 15,000 school districts in the USA, and here we have the U.S. Secretary of Education, Governors, State Education officers, and business leaders leading the charge to move us toward a more authoritarian and centralized educational system when what is needed is an educational environment that fosters innovation and creativity.

I’ll be writing more about this topic in the days ahead.  In the meantime, I suggest you take a look at Dr. Zhao’s book.