“I’ll just find the answer on Wikipedia at home” is definitely nowhere to be found on the much discussed international assessment on which America fared so poorly late last year.
As a student-teacher, I have heard this response countless times, and it certainly is telling about the current thinking of our students.
At the end of last year, the Paris-based Organization for Economic and Co-operation Development released the results of its benchmark test for 15-year-old students around the globe and America’s results were dismal.
We finished 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math.
Much of the education world is rightfully using these results as a call for real reform in America. Chester E. Finn Jr., an official in President Ronald Reagan’s Department of Education, told the New York Times after hearing of the results, “Wow, I’m kind of stunned, I’m thinking Sputnik.”
It is most encouraging to see the recent push for education reform from the likes of President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, but we must ensure the boat is not simply moving more rapidly in the same direction.
The current federal mandate for education, No Child Left Behind, as Obama said during the State of the Union, must be replaced with a new, more flexible law.
The federal mandate is where change must come from. International assessments are important and needed, but are not omnipotent.
Jay Matthews, an education writer for the Washington Post, points out, “We have managed to be the world's most powerful country, politically, economically and militarily for the last 47 years despite our less-than-impressive math and science scores, maybe that flaw is not as important as film documentaries and political party platforms claim.”
NCLB’s basic tenets are to judge students, schools, and teachers based on large-scale standardized testing.
An ominous scenario presents itself then, if, in response to our poor performance on such international tests, a greater emphasis on testing is the result.
A number of countries consistently finish ahead of the U.S. on these international tests, but clearly China seems to be the first one we are compared to. One does not need a Ph.D. to figure out why — we are fearful of being overtaken economically by the ascending global power.
However, it is essential to institute reforms that do now bring us closer to a Chinese style of education — see: rote learning and memorization.
The rewritten federal mandate must include benchmarks in applied learning, technology, and entrepreneurship. These are where the “future will be won,” as President Obama frequently discusses these days.
A former high school physics teacher, Singaporean Chua Chin Wei, told USA Today that Asian students “are very strong in the fundamentals, but we need to go beyond that to create and innovate.”
We must not fall into this trap; rather, we should change and encourage the model which fits American students best—creative thinking coupled with an open environment which allows them to succeed.
Reach Zach at zlevinep@asu.edu
