June 2007 Archives

Dear Diane,

I was talking with a young man yesterday who is working at a new NYC high schools for students who have dropped out or are about to. He's very enthusiastic about the work and the school. He thinks Bloomberg and Company invented such schools, and that his is the first.

Historical amnesia is, alas, widespread. In a piece on Bloomberg’s ambitions for the Presidency and another on the High School of International Business and Finance, NY Times reporter Sara Rimer suggests that Bloomberg/Klein are the first to worry about how to educate the kids at the bottom, the first to develop small schools, the first to be enamored of test score accountability, the first to eliminate “social promotion” and so on. How does she explain that half of NYC's kids were starting high school at least one year over-age in the late 80's. Shouldn’t a fact-checker catch such historical untruths? My young friend’s ignorance is forgivable, the NY Times reporter’s is less so.

Small, personalized schools for kids who are floundering, or for kids in general, is not a new idea. It was thriving 30 years go. Steve Phillips, now teaching at Brooklyn College, ran a district that served thousands of NYC’s most needy kids in small, personalized and relatively successful schools. He operated a "system" of schools for twenty years that was threatened by each new Chancellor, and disappeared finally under Bloomberg/Klein. With it NYC’s school history was rewritten. Phillips' "domain" eventually included many small schools that weren't designed just for dropouts—like CPESS, Vanguard, Landmark, International etc. By the time his work was dismantled, Phillips had created a system that was larger than Boston’s. How sad that this new recruit to NYC’s schools thinks his school has no history to draw upon.

Amnesia is dangerous, and that's why I agree with you, Diane, on the importance of history. But "teaching" history and getting in the habit of wondering aloud about its uses and abuses do not always go together: The reason you had “no problem” deciding what to include in your California curriculum proposal was that you included everything. (Leaving, as Sizer used to point out, the hard question of what to leave out to classroom teachers.) Getting into the habit of asking questions such as "has this ever been tried before?" "what happened?" "is there a pattern here?" “based on what evidence?” and “does it matter?” is what takes time and patience to work into the classroom’s life where decades and centuries whiz by so fast. Thoughtful questioning starts in kindergarten and is built on every year thereafter if—mind you, “if” that’s what we want young people to carry away from 13 years of schooling.

It’s not unconnected with what we’d both like to see in the reporters who cover the education beat, who probably aced school history courses but are missing the know-how and perhaps the guts to speak truth to power. I’d love to see a real debate based on Lynnell Hancock’s wonderful Nation piece (subscription required). It deserves some heated words in response as we separate mythology from history and dicover that uncertainty has its place in history—and science—too.

The “new” dogma that teachers (and kids!) will work harder or smarter if they are paid for high test scores also enters the debate as though it has no history, no research on its risks, etc. I'm sometimes chided by proponents of “merit” pay for assuming that good teachers will be motivated by such crass incentives to do things they know are not educationally sound. We can't have it both ways. Either it's a waste of money or an effort to undermine professional norms by punishing anyone who doesn’t fall in line. It’s a simple-minded form of current economic orthodoxy gone wild. Meanwhile our critics blather on about character education—as we systematically undermine what is at the root of character: some courage.

Schools that lack the courage to teach in ways that honor what they believe is most important about the “liberal arts”, and agree to dumb it down to fit into a multiple-choice format are a danger to liberal society. But a Mayor and Chancellor who have done their best to encourage such cowardice are at least equally at fault.

Deb

p.s. The reason I love Mike Rose’s work is that he, like Gerald Graff, is prepared to liberate “the liberal arts” from its narrowed “academic” definition.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 10:25 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

Dear Deb,

Sometimes I feel that we are having a discussion that is way too theoretical, while the world of American education is moving hard and fast in completely different directions. You may be comfortable with a school where the kids spend four years on biology, or four years (or is it one year?) taking apart cars and remaining ignorant of Shakespeare. It's a free country, and there are surely teachers and even principals who agree with you. But this is not the policy debate in Washington or the state capitals, it will not be part of the reauthorization of NCLB, no matter who is elected President or who controls Congress; it will not enter the heads of the business and foundation leaders who now seem to be in the driver's seat in many states and districts.

In other words, even if I agreed with you—which I don't—it would be irrelevant, because the policy environment is going elsewhere and not giving even a second's thought to the ideas you propose. There will be science taught because it will be tested this year, in accord with NCLB. All fifty states will have their own science test, and I have not heard them agonizing over which science to teach. My guess is that the science tests will reflect the science that is contained in the most widely used textbooks.In the early grades, and perhaps through middle school, science will likely be life science, environmental science, not much more than basic biology. I doubt that there will be much chemistry or physics on these state tests, for fear that the tests will be too "hard" and the state leaders want good news, not bad news. I doubt that there will be much chemistry or physics on these state tests, for fear that the tests will be too "hard" and the state leaders want good news, not bad news.

I confess that I cling stubbornly to the idea of a liberal arts curriculum, one that includes history, literature, the sciences, mathematics, physical education, and the arts. Forgive me for not including a foreign language. I would love to see every American student learn to speak and read a foreign language. Is that sort of liberal arts program too much to expect? Is it impossible? I don't think so.

Nor do I think it is necessary to get stymied by the question of "whose" history, "which" science or mathematics, any more than one should get stuck over which foreign language. Twenty years ago, I helped to write the K-12 history curriculum for California, and those who wanted no curriculum insisted that no one could decide "whose history" to teach. In fact, while the committee had some good debates, the content wasn't all that difficult to agree on. We all agreed that American children should know the basic ideas, individuals, turning points, and debates in our own history, and we agreed to expand the study of world history from one year to three years (that was hard, deciding which civilizations to include and which to leave out). The content of the U.S. history curriculum was straightforward; we had no problem agreeing on the inclusion of certain key events—like the American Revolution, the shaping of the Constitution, the Civil War, the progressive era, the Great Depression, the World Wars, the Cold War, etc. The interpretation of those events is left to teachers. At the very least, all the students should be able to discuss the Great Depression, for example, because they will know that it happened and will know something about its effects in American politics, its effects on the lives of many people, the art and literature associated with that era.

Will they remember all their life what they remembered in the history class in fifth grade or tenth grade? Will they remember everything they read or heard or studied? Maybe not. Probably not. But I would still argue that we must try our best to teach kids what we think is valuable, what history, literature, science, mathematics, etc., will be important to them in their lives as citizens, as individuals, as people who will work in the modern economy. After they leave school, I hope they will have a solid foundation for continued learning and have the knowledge and vocabulary to participate in our democratic society and the skills to make it ever more democratic.

Speaking of Shakespeare, as you did, reminds me that a couple weeks ago I heard a political leader say that our society will stand or fall, a century from now, not on whether anyone knows Shakespeare but on whether they have the right job skills. We would probably disagree with him, but for different reasons. If, a century from now, we have forgotten how to read Shakespeare, this would be (from my point of view) a culturally impoverished society. We will, of course, be long gone, but I hope that my grandchildren's grandchildren do not live in such a cold, hard place.

To switch subjects, I wonder if you saw the excellent piece about the NYC public schools in the current issue of The Nation (subscription required) by Lynnell Hancock? Quite a lot of teachers and parents are buzzing about it. Hancock, who is a professor of journalism at Columbia University, has done her homework. She sees a corporate style takeover of the public schools under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein, and I think she nails her thesis. Their latest scheme—to pay students for taking tests and for passing tests—is yet another example of the corporate mindset, which devalues education and assumes that the schools will be "fixed" if only the scores on tests go up (no matter the quality of the tests), by any means possible. As usual, the editorial boards of the local newspapers are cheering for an inane idea.

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 8:00 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | Recommend

Dear Diane,

Re your list of the "musts" (math, literacy, history, the sciences, arts and phys ed). It seems easy until one notices what's been left out. (Not to mention whose history, which sciences, what math and so on. ) My friend Ted Sizer argued that since choices had to be made he'd drop phys ed and foreign languages. He got into a lot of trouble for saying it out loud. You left foreign languages out too—on purpose?

Of course, life is long, so what we stuff into the years from 5-18 is just a sampling of what we might deem important. Yet despite the fact that a substantial portion of what we were taught, and even what we learned (not necessarily the same thing) is soon forgotten, it's interesting how passionate we can become on the subject of these requirements.

I spent a summer at the University of Colorado once because a physicist I admired was conducting a course on modern physics for teachers. He spent six weeks helping us understand the concept of "center of gravity." I thought I "got it" by the end and drove away from the University in a glow. Alas, I didn't even get out of the state before that conceptual "aha" had drifted away. I don't regret the intensive six weeks, and I believe that in some way it was a critical experience. But I'm not sure how I could prove it to anyone else's satisfaction.

So—maybe we do and maybe we don't agree on your list. What I'm sure of is that we can't get it "into the heads" of the young because we mandate it—no matter how well-intentioned. And in pretending to do so we miss the opportunity to use schools to do the one thing they can do best: allow young people to keep company with a bunch of adults who are willing to tackle some intellectually worthwhile topics with them.

I'd rather the kids spent four years focused on just biology if there were no adults around who had a deep interest (or expertise) in physics and chemistry. I'd be comfortable with a science teacher who knew enough to help almost any 5-18-year-old explore some fundamentally interesting natural phenomenon no matter which of the science fields it fell under. I'd even rather—and now we're surely going to disagree, Diane—have Teacher X help kids (rigorously) take apart cars—if he and they were truly fascinated by them—then obediently take apart Shakespeare.

What we agree about is that the purpose of all this schooling, which occupies the central waking hours of our youth for so many years (not to mention the money spent on it), is debatable. As long as we rest the need for 13 plus years of schooling on the need for a diploma whose value rests on the claim that it will add x dollars to one's lifetime earnings we're in trouble. The related equation, more schooling=stronger economy, is also too much like alchemy to me. If the owners of General Motors (et al) had gone to "better" schools would Detroit now be thriving…or was it the line workers who failed
us? Or…

While the slogan that what is good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A. never appealed to me, the reverse that what is good for the U.S.A. is (or "would have been") good for General Motors is worth a deeper look. Those open-minded, skeptical and empathetic habits of mind were part of John Dewey's lexicon because they were critical to democracy—but they may have been part of the practical inventiveness that also served our economy well. But they were never at the core of schooling and more tests and more required courses won't put them there.

Your piece on the Huntington blog about Bloomberg's proposal to pay kids for their test scores is great, Diane. In my youth we argued playfully about whether we'd prefer fame or fortune. We've done a lot to settle this for future generations by ensuring that since everything has a price tag, fame and fortune are now inseparable.

Poor Einstein died before he discovered that he could sell his name for a brand of sneakers.

Deb

p.s. Did you read the piece in Ed Week (June 20, p 14-15) on migrants in China relying on private schools? Amazing. Maybe Bloomberg will take a page from China and start charging tuition to "the better schools" as a way to motivate the poor. The kids can save up the pennies earned at the testing game to help them move to better schools. The undeserving poor may choose sneakers over schooling.

But that's their tough choice.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 10:02 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

Dear Deb,

Apparently your trip to China has in no way dimmed your energy or your imagination. Imagine filing two pieces almost instantly!

What knowledge is of most worth? I don't think we would answer the question very differently. Despite some argumentativeness around the margins, we agree on "habits of mind," and we also (I think) agree that math, literacy, history, the sciences, the arts, and physical education are essential elements in education. You prefer to have the teachers in each school decide what the content of each year's curriculum is; I believe that it is valuable and indeed necessary to have curricular guidelines for the district, the state, even the nation. I think—and I may be wrong—that when it is left to individual schools to write their own curriculum, there is enormous variation. Some schools do it well, others do it poorly or not at all; most will tend to rely on the textbooks and the tests to determine their curriculum. Those who do it well tend to be located in the most affluent districts, which reinforces the inequities from district to district.

And there is another reason why it would be valuable to have a good state or national curriculum: Student mobility. Families move from state to state, and from district to district. Many years ago, I heard from a student who told me that her family had moved twice in three years, all in the state of New Jersey. Consequently, she had been assigned to study New Jersey state history three years in a row, in fourth grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade. That is wacky.

As to your point about hard work, I don't know the data any more than you, but I have read that Americans work harder and more productively than people in most other nations. A couple of years ago, Michael Barone wrote a book about the difference between life in school and life in the workplace, which he described as "Hard America, Soft America." Barone argued that the competition and accountability that typified the workplace made it very different from the schools. Maybe what we are seeing in schools today is a push to make the schools more like the workplace, in the sense of injecting competition and accountability.

I must say, before I get a barrage of comments from readers, that I am conflicted about all the stuff that is happening in schools today. I believe in the value of a national or at least a state curriculum, but I am very uneasy about the degeneration of the "standards movement" into the testing movement and the proliferation of test-prep activities. As someone who cares passionately about the importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum, I deplore the narrowing of the curriculum that has been caused by NCLB.

You may have noticed in Tuesday's New York Times that Mayor Bloomberg intends to launch a program to pay kids to get higher test scores. This is, it seems to me, the quintessence of absurdity. You and I agree that kids should become passionate about something; dinosaurs or space travel or archaeology or sports or music. But that assumes that they are willing to do something or pursue something or investigate something or practice something for the joy of it, for the sheer pleasure of doing it, not because somebody is going to pay them $5 or $50 to do it.

So here we are, having forgotten about curriculum, forgotten about "what knowledge is of most worth," forgotten about the goals of education, forgotten about the superiority of awakening intrinsic motivation...just figuring out what to pay kids to get higher scores. And if it "works," is there enough money in the world to pay everyone to do what they should do as a matter of commonsense, self-preservation, and civic duty?

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 6:20 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | Recommend

Dear Diane,

I'm intrigued by the hard work theme. I don't know the data well, but I do know that employed Americans work harder than comparable employees in industrialized nations. I also know our public policy decreases the odds of parents staying home with their infants, having shared vacations, etc. I think of us as a nation busy being entertained and short on leisure.

I actually became a teacher most of all because I wanted my summers free! (Just as I chose Antioch College in 1949—which just closed—because it was the only college I could find that had the same rules for girls and boys, I've always had odd reasons for making my choices.) For me, summertime was the essential balance to the school year—it gave me (and always has) a chance to have a second life, of keeping the spirit of play going in my life. And so on. So I have a skewed view.

It mattered to me as a parent that my kids had some "passions"—things they loved to do—more than that they had talents. I even cherished, and still do, my 40-something–year-old son Roger's passion for frisbee. He's off in Holland right this moment playing frisbee (free style). As I drove him to the airport on his way to Scandinavia years and years ago (when he was in his teens) he asked me—"so, who has paid your way to Europe lately?" At that time the answer was "no one". But the real delight I had was just watching his pleasure—from which flowed hard practice and devotion!

Sounds silly, but it's worth a thought. How can we get kids to love reading, for example, the way they love…whatever.

I want a world—and a school system—that nourishes our passions for living, for caring about each other, for not being easily conned, for having well-informed convictions that are open to re-examination, to thinking our opinions could count, etc. "Hard work" is what follows—what infants have plenty of when they are trying to figure out how the world works and how they can make a dent in it. It's what the "laziest" student has when preparing himself for a career as a basketball star—hours upon hours of practicing for a future that is no less foolish or unlikely than the one he doesn't practice for at school. I always was intrigued at how easy it was to keep 5-year-olds busy at work in a good kindergarten, how undistractable they were, when one year later they were labeled "immature" by first grade teachers who insisted they couldn't stick to any task for more than a few minutes without their intervention. The same kids. Different "work".

Of course, poorly paid drudgery is the lot of most of the world's people—who haven't a shot at the "good life" that Spencer and I, and you, are wondering about. I suspect that there is no contradiction between preparing kids for a passionate life of leisure and a life of productive, satisfying and high-level work. (Another "must read" is Mike Rose's more recent book—"The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker"—on the subject of what we mean by "high-level" work.)

Good schools are the expression of society's highest dreams for all its kids; our dreams these days are very shabby.

Deb

Posted by Deborah Meier at 6:50 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

Dear Diane,

With that Spencer question—"What knowledge is of most worth?"—lingering in my mind I took a quick trip to Boston for the 8th grade graduation ceremonies at my old school—Mission Hill. Lots of old-timers were there—former students, families and staff. The place is a magnet—drawing us back together for renewal and inspiration. With us also for the week were visitors from a K-5th grade school in North Carolina that several of us had visited in May—a school in crisis over its history as a magnet school for "open" education. Their reactions to Mission Hill were intriguing to me, as they tried to sort out what it was that appealed to them despite the divisions within their staff about traditional vs. progressive schooling.

Mission Hill built itself around a version, and a revision, of Central Park East (CPE) in East Harlem. We kept their "five habits of mind", alongside a new motto, "Be Kind and Work Hard". The latter, which I abstained from voting for, in retrospect may be as important a statement of who we are as its CPE intellectual roots (those habits of mind). In part the place works, perhaps, because it's a constant back and forth balance between the rituals and traditions that families and staff bring with them from their histories—traditions that do not always neatly go together but do not clash either. In the end, no one entirely "owns" it, but everyone does; its own culture is a constantly rewoven mix of many.

What we've struggled to fashion is a style which gives the adults extraordinary individual freedom within a context of mutual decision-making, and a commitment to treat each other and each other's ideas "as if" we had no doubt that they were intended to further our common purposes. Plus a lot of mutual affection.

And, Diane, here's another point: it even has a "set" curriculum, although one that is the creation of our faculty and our Board. From 5-year-olds to 13-year-olds everyone studies the same subject matter at the same time. (A few years ago the staff added a short "spring fling"—to enable teachers to spend a month on a topic of their own classes' special interest, as well a Friday K-8th grade elective program that functions outside the set course of study.) The year is divided into trimesters; every winter it's one of four Ancient Civilizations; in the fall and then spring everyone studies a common scientific theme and an American history theme. These themes repeat every four years—so that each child studies the same "topic" in K-3, and again in 4-7. We "do" American politics each presidential election year, and we rotate between the natural and physical sciences. The other three American studies themes include the African-American experience, the Peopling of the Americas, and How We Make a Living. In addition we teach math and literacy both separately and as part of our thematic studies. All but the 8th grade are multi-age (K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7), and every student (with the help of his or her own faculty adviser) must complete six portfolios (bodies of work) to the satisfaction of their graduation committee before walking across that stage in mid-June.

Does that mean we agree ahead of time on what everyone "covers", or have a common pre- and post-test in mind? No. But on the other hand all teachers present their plans to their colleagues for feedback each year, observe each other frequently, and discuss what we are learning about our kids and the subject matter. We bring in experts, share texts, and try to influence each other as co-citizens of the community at large. We ask, over and over, how we can tell whether what is going on in our classrooms supports the "habits" of heart, mind and work that we care about. We are required to take state tests, but the more critical data is the stuff (literally) we have accumulated year after year in our archive of student work, and our tracking of what happens to our kids after they leave us.

It's based, as you noted, on Spencer's question, "what knowledge is of most worth?". Our answer to Spencer's question is embedded in the discussions that go into inventing our school, its course of study, its pedagogy, its governance, and how we assess our work and hold each other accountable.

Deb

P.S. Diane, the Mike Rose book is "Lives On the Boundary", not "Across"!

Posted by Deborah Meier at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Dear Deb,

Your trip sounds wonderful, fascinating, and even worth the physical stress. I didn't mention it before, but after my trip to China in 1998, I became quite ill as a direct result of an 18-hour flight. Of course, stuff happens here, too. Last week, I was supposedly flying from Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, to NYC, which should have been a routine flight. The air-traffic-control system somehow went down, and it took me 15 hours of travel to actually make the trip. I would have preferred to go to China!

Your remarks about how a controlled media produces confusing data resonated with me. And I agree with you that the miraculous numbers claimed by Mayor Bloomberg in NYC are dubious, as Jack Jennings' claims for the effects of NCLB are tenuous. In the case of Bloomberg, we have the bizarre instance of someone who knows nothing about curriculum or instruction (both the Mayor and his chancellor) claiming credit for miraculous score increases. If they are right, then the answer must be to improve the schools by getting rid of all the educators, or erecting a giant guillotine outside every schoolhouse door to threaten anyone whose scores fall instead of rise. As for Jack Jennings' report, it was widely cited in the press as evidence that NCLB is working, but I don't think it is possible to find a causal link or even to say that the rising scores are evidence of better education. The kids everywhere are being test-prepped to a fare-thee-well, and as one of our readers earlier commented, we may be raising a generation of test-takers who are not educated (actually I think the phrase was "a generation of idiots").

I don't trust the numbers either. When scores rise miraculously, it's a good bet that one of two things have happened: a) Either the test was made easier, or, b) some low-performing students were excluded from the testing population. A subcategory under point (a) is that the cut score on the test was lowered, even while the content remained the same.

There has also been a rash of cheating incidents—in Texas and California. Now that the tests are high-stakes, and now that some jurisdictions plan to attach bonuses (or sanctions) to test scores, we can expect to see more of that.

I was at a meeting yesterday in D.C. where someone mentioned that the main issue in education is the same today as it was in Herbert Spencer's time, more than a century ago: "What knowledge is of most worth?" When he said that, I knew he was out of touch with contemporary developments. The business leaders and politicians never ask that question. They just want to know how high can the scores go and how quickly.

The quicksand is rising.

Welcome home!

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 9:50 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

Dear Diane,

A quick note—undoubtedly it won't end up being so quick—re. your words last month about my anarchistic, "do your own thing" thing views re. curriculum. It's a puzzle, I know, but no—that's not quite what I'm saying.

Like colleges, most private schools design their own course of study—with schools providing more or less space for teachers to decide how and where they fit in. At Fieldston, teachers had favorite topics and approaches and thus "curriculum" differed over the years. CPESS—my old high school—had a 6-year (grades 7-12) curriculum that we "invented" together, although since the pace was much slower (e.g. we taught about half the physics textbook over two years), there was a great deal of opportunity to explore some topics in greater depth, to follow individual student and teacher interests and unexpected dilemmas and to do more listening rather than telling.

Incidentally, based on my experience, AP courses are mostly popular in affluent districts because they are useful for getting into college. The best of the AP courses—in literature—offers the greatest leeway re. coverage.

In fact, Diane, one can argue with people with whom you do not share the same knowledge or values, and since words never mean exactly the same thing it's always wise not to presume how much two arguers have in common. You are right that our shared history allows us to take some shortcuts. But sometimes it's not wise. For example, you are sure that if any sensible teacher (like me?) read Chall's book that would end the reading "wars". Surely you realize I read it and disagreed with Chall, even as I also found it useful.

It's intriguing to me that I find it so easy to believe differently than you do, that even shared knowledge and shared values do not lead inevitably to agreement, and that people who do not know much about King, segregation and the Brown decision are not inevitably harder to discuss civil rights with than people who think they do. Or that "agreement" often hides as much as it reveals; that our ability to nod amicably when hearing terms like Brown, King, etc often implies only surface recognition not knowledge.

In short, faking it is often social good manners, but should not be encouraged in school. Open ignorance is often such a relief. Given our commonalities I'm as puzzled at your contrary conviction as you are about mine. It's, in part, the basis of my fascination with your ideas.

The tyranny I'm worrying about is either of us "winning" and having the power to enforce our ideas/approach on the other. I worry when my "eye" and "ear" are focused on the authorities above me rather than the students before me. I worry when faculty meetings are not places where the kind of rigor we hope for from our students is practiced.

The happy fact is than none of us ever, ever, ever have to agree with each other's ideas. The unhappy fact is that some of us have very little voice over what ideas we are allowed to implement—at least openly. The schools that teach the least advantaged are, I claim, the least likely to have teachers whose education is well utilized in the classroom setting, and who are least likely to pass on to the young the kind of liveliness of mind that could engage their students.

Have you ever read "Lives Across the Boundary" by Mike Rose? It's a wonderful account of Mike's own education and his work with "under-prepared" college students that would, I suspect, also appeal to you and make for an interesting discussion.

Deborah

Posted by Deborah Meier at 3:15 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

Dear Diane,

I'm home at last. I survived our three-week jaunt with great pleasure. Shanghai to Hangshou, to Guilin, to Xi'An to Beijing—combining "business" with pleasure with my son Nicholas Meier (also an educator) and my colleague Eleanor Duckworth of Harvard. The hardest part was the leg from San Francisco to Boston, which took nearly 15 hours and required flying first to LA!

It was all amazing. I feel as though I have seen the future and it leaves me both troubled and curious.

I spent time with wonderful, kind, gracious and interesting people. Including people from a wide range of middle-class backgrounds and ages and prior experiences. We talked extensively with a woman who spent the Cultural Revolution "exiled" with her family who had surprisingly mixed views about the experience.

Her pain in part comes now from the fact that the valuable part of it has been abandoned and the worst ignored. She feels the experience forever changed her insight into poverty and the plight of most people—but that in fact present-day China is more oblivious than ever to the gaps between rich and poor.

A controlled media gives the Chinese an advantage when it comes to confusing data. I was told that education is officially universal from 1st to 9th grade, that kids are not left back, and also that many kids never go to school due to various conditions in the countryside, being "migrants"—and thus "uncounted'' in the cities—and/or not being able to afford school fees. When pressed about what happens if you can't afford the fees, some insisted they were low enough to make no difference and others that the kids just didn't go to school.

I met a wealthy Chinese philanthropist—whose husband is both a Communist Party member and a private investment banker—who was impressed by the idea of publicly-funded free school breakfasts and lunches for the poor. Her private foundation is now providing it on a small scale as a charity.

The schools I visited were model schools, although I'm not sure they accept all children. (As in NYC, it's hard to get straight answers to the question of entrance requirements.) Class sizes were huge—45-50.

Although these particular schools are working with the local university on introducing "western" progressive ideas they haven't gone very far. The idea of Progressive that we saw practiced was presently limited to doing things in smaller groups using one's hands—even if everyone was doing the same thing (like copying pictures of butterflies from books). The children were delighted to meet us, open and friendly, and had command of some decent English.

Half of the kids who take the final high school exams—which were occurring while we were there—pass them to go on to some post-secondary schooling. (The streets were filled with parked cars around high schools as the more privileged parents hovered there to pick up the kids at the end of the day's exams.) However, the exams are praised as an essential anti-corruption tool by many we talked to.

But I don't trust the numbers any more than (Mayor Michael) Bloomberg's claims for NYC, or (Jack) Jennings' claims for the effect of NCLB.

Nor am I clear whether the announced 50 percent pass rate is based on a pre-fixed rate or the outcome of a pre-fixed score. I think it's the former. To my surprise I was told most of the tests are now multiple-choice. The focus on memorization is considered a real crisis and the reason people like me were invited to China. However, since the exams remain based on memorization Government talk about innovation is not taken too seriously, some educators told me. Sounds familiar!

Nicholas Kristof's account in The New York Times is certainly different than what I heard from those I talked with. (Note: Kristof's column is available only through TimesSelect.) They claimed that rural schooling was of very low quality, sometimes barely existent. There's a teacher shortage and it's particularly hard to get teachers to work in rural schools. Fewer resources and school fees have a greater impact in the countryside as well. The biggest incentive for many to move to the cities is to get their kids educated, and even then.... Both anecdotal stories and official data make arriving at conclusions difficult. E.g. While the official population given for Shanghai is 12 million, I was told it is actually nearer 21 million if one includes foreigners and migrants—the latter rural Chinese who are in Shanghai semi-illegally.

Why the futuristic image? It was my first reaction to Shanghai. It seemed like something out of "Star Wars" or some other sci fi movie with its bizarre and amazing skyline, the variety of skyscraper shapes, the lighted buildings in which advertising reaches a scale unknown anywhere else (as yet), and an amazing system of above-ground highways. Elevated highways criss-cross the city in every direction with huge ramps curling and snaking everywhere. Underneath cars, taxis, buses, bicycles—including rickshaw-style truck-bikes piled high with everything imaginable—competing in a wild semi-rule-less and ruthless fashion. Plus smog. A woman I met who grew up in Beijing says that in her youth there were blue skies in Beijing of a sort she never sees anymore. (Still there was enough sun for me to get a burnt nose.)

The historical sights—Great Wall, terra-cotta soldiers, gardens, temples, mosques, the Emperor's palaces, boat rides—were one more glorious than the next. We traveled by train, plane, boats of all sorts, subways (in Shanghai and Beijing) and cars. And walking, walking, walking. Plus eating, eating, eating. We visited a friend at her "country" home on the outskirts of Shanghai, and had a home-delivered Chinese dinner in the midst of a bamboo forest.

All of this reminds me again that one of the purposes of life is leisure. So I'm less worried, Diane—from a moral viewpoint—about the fact that industrialization, modern technology, strong unions, democracy and extensive education have led to, and been fueled by, a longing for leisure. (For context, see Diane Ravitch's piece in The Huffington Post.) I think leisure and security—for ordinary people—is one of the great triumphs of human history. The purpose of a strong economy is precisely that it enables more and more of its citizens to enjoy the pleasures of the mind and body, without fear of losing out in life's race. I realize such an idea—of ordinary people belonging to the leisure class, may be doomed—for a century or so. But I regret it. And hope we can keep the ideal alive, rather than be forced to retreat back to 19th Century conditions of labor.

But nothing that I saw on my trip was any more scary as omens of the future than the story I read about Bloomberg and Company introducing "capitalist" incentives for schoolchildren in NYC. No more M&Ms, but cash for improved test scores. What next?

A final note on China. The only time I was aware of "constraint" on free speech was on an occasion that reminded me of the atmosphere at local American school district meetings—where disagreement is quickly shushed—rather than of a totalitarian regime. Still, I am aware that many forms of disagreement—organized and open—are taboo; much is censored (including Wikipedia) and much not talked about. The penalty for trying to organize in the workplace is prison and torture (see Letter from China by Jehangir S. Pocha in The Nation, June 4) and income differentials outdo our own outrageous ones. Standing in Tiananmen Square is an awe-inspiring experience and a reminder.

I remain a skeptic, even about my own eyewitness account above, and yet a long-term optimist about possibilities. The latter out of sheer conviction, the former a lifetime habit.

Deb

P.S. Diane, a side note. I am not unmindful of NAEP. I just would like us to use all forms of testing honorably—to gather accurate data Re. NAEP, it's the cut-off scores that I find most objectionable.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 11:20 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

Bridging Differences was on a brief hiatus while Deborah Meier traveled in China. Today, the blog returns with a new post from Diane Ravitch.

Dear Deb,

I hope you had a wonderful trip to China and that you are not too wiped out. I have been there a few times, first in 1987, most recently in 1998. I hear it has changed quite a lot since then.

Lots of things happening in your absence, none to gladden your heart. The Center for Education Policy released a report on NCLB, concluding that it was overall having a positive effect on achievement. CEP, as you know, is run by Jack Jennings, who was a top legislative staff person for the Democrats in the House of Representatives for many years.

Then came a column by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times on May 28, called "The Educated Giant," (available only through TimesSelect) where he commented on how successful the Chinese education system is. Apparently he was there with his wife and two of his children at the same time as you. From the column, it seems that his wife was born in China. They returned to her native village and were greatly impressed by the schools they saw. He wrote that "the level of math taught even in peasant schools is similar to that in my kids' own excellent schools in the New York area." Kristof noted that Chinese students are "hungry for education and advancement and work harder" than American children. Chinese children, he said, show up at school at 6:30 a.m. to get an extra hour of tutoring before school starts at 7:30 a.m. After a lunch break (from 11:30 til 2 p.m.), they return to school from 2 p.m. until 5. He says they do homework every night and weekend, and even do homework for an hour or two each day during summer vacation. He concludes that we need to "raise our own education standards to meet the competition" from China.

I would have loved to discuss Kristof's article with you. I wrote a blog for the Huffington Post about it, and my view is that most American kids are unwilling to work all that hard. The slacker mentality would not be tolerated in China. Here it is a dominant style.

Next came a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, which equated state proficiency standards with NAEP standards. What it found—no surprise!—is that state standards vary so widely that a fourth grade student in Mississippi who was rated "proficient" might well be judged "failing" in Massachusetts. The report, called "Mapping 2005 State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales" was quite amazing. One point that came through in this report was that many states rate students as "proficient" who would be rated "below basic" on the NAEP scale.

I know you don't give a hoot about NAEP, and that you think its cut scores are way too high. But the important point that came across in this study is the crazy variability in state standards. The states with high standards are Massachusetts, Wyoming, and South Carolina. Close behind are Arkansas, Nevada, Connecticut, California, and New Mexico. The other states have set low to middling standards. I am sure this made the Bush administration unhappy, but the fundamental idea is that this variability makes no sense. We need accurate and consistent information about student progress.

I look forward to hearing whether your impression of China echoes that of Nicholas Kristof. I have a sneaking suspicion that it did not.

Best,

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 7:50 AM | Permalink | 17 Comments | Recommend

The Bridging Differences blog resumes today! Diane Ravitch's first post-break entry will be published shortly.

Posted by Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend