With China looming as a long-term challenge to the U.S. global economic position, many educators want to know how its 194 million K-12 students learn to see what the U.S might do differently.

Various reasons are offered for what’s perceived as China’s success, particularly in math, where it consistently outperforms the U.S. on international tests; they include centralized educational control, longer classroom hours, and respect for teachers that’s rooted in Confucianism. 

But critics of China’s educational system who argue that such success comes at the cost of diminished creativity aren’t eager to see the U.S. adopt its methods. By viewing China as a model, U.S. education policy is going in the wrong direction, according to Michigan State University professor Yong Zhao, who teaches educational psychology and educational technology.

“American education reforms have been making a mistake by emulating other countries,” said Zhao, who directs the Center for Teaching and Technology and the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence at the East Lansing school.

Zhao has a book coming out this summer on how U.S. education should pursue reform, “Catching Up or Keeping the Lead: American Education in the Age of Globalization.” It’s not by following China, he said. 

China is struggling to broaden its curriculum, but the effort isn’t working. Although its economic policies have dramatically shifted, its education hasn’t. The system emphasizes rote memorization, knowledge as opposed to ability, and test taking, all at the expense of creativity, Zhao said. With the world’s fourth-largest GDP and one-fifth of its population, China still has a labor-intensive, not knowledge-intensive, economy. It isn’t producing the technological innovation that it could, he said.  

Zhao isn’t completely critical of his native country’s educational system, the world’s largest. China’s total kindergarten through college student population is over 300 million, an increase of 100 million since 1985, according to 2007 Ministry of Education figures.  

In that context, China’s accomplishments are stunning  – among them, almost total elimination of illiteracy among its 1.3 billion citizens. But to those who glorify Chinese education and see it as a model for the U.S., Zhao points out that appearances can be deceiving.  

Take the case of information technology curriculum standards. In Chinese elementary school, grades 1-6, students are required to spend no less than 68 hours annually on information technology. In middle school, grades 7-9, it’s also 68 hours. In high school, grades 10-12, it increases to 70-140 hours.  

While those requirements might sound impressive, they need to be put in context. Required hours of information technology classes are very difficult to implement when many schools simply don’t have computers, Zhao said. Similarly, while the Chinese government puts money into education, he pointed out that students’ families do, too. The Ministry of Education reported in 2007 that spending for all education levels was 1.2 trillion RMB, a little short of $200 billion. Out of that amount, government spending -- central and local government direct investment and tax breaks for education-related businesses -- came to 828 billion RMB, about 3.3% of China’s 2007 GDP. The rest came from individual family investment in children’s education, according to Zhao.  

The reason for family contributions? First, government investment isn’t enough, and second, extreme competition forces parents to spend money to make sure their children outperform others, Zhao says. 

Proponents as well as critics of China’s educational system agree that it faces an overwhelming problem in its urban/rural divide.   

Cities have far greater concentrations of population, more wealth, a higher proportion of educated citizens, and more access to qualified teachers and administrators, said C. Montgomery Broaded, Director of the Center for Global Education at Butler University in Indianapolis, Ind. 

“There are huge challenges in the provision of high quality and universal education in rural areas,” he said. “It’s much more challenging for rural communities to comply with the compulsory education law.” 

In many rural areas, local education officials can only provide students with five years of elementary education, although they sometimes try to compensate with four-year junior high school, Broaded said. Many local governments don’t have the resources to provide completely free education, and try to make up costs by imposing fees. “That’s burdensome for families,” he said. 

And while the central government has announced major funding initiatives to make education more affordable for rural families, there’s always a gap between what it does and what local governments do, Broaded said. Another key difference from U.S. education is the role of tests in a Chinese student’s academic and professional career. Examinations aren’t just important, they’re critical, Broaded said. And they account for the tremendous competition and pressure faced by students. 

The U.S. system isn’t likely to include that kind of high-stakes testing in its k-12 educational system anytime soon. “It becomes very competitive. The transition from junior high school to senior high school is incredibly important for determining people’s future opportunities for education and employment,” Broaded said. “This would be inconceivable in the U.S.” 

China: Teacher Training

 China wants 85% of its 18-21 years olds – that’s a staggering 6.5 million students – in higher education, including vocational and community college-type institutions, by 2011-12. In order to reach that ambitious goal, it’s taking practical steps to improve the qualifications of its English teachers.  That’s where U.S. educational institutions, among them the prestigious University of Southern California, come in. In a program launching this summer, a group of Shanghai’s top high school English instructors and principals will work on graduate degrees in teaching at USC. At the same time, they’ll improve their English and will study English-teaching methods.  English is viewed by Chinese educators not just as the international language – it’s seen as a key to thinking differently. “They believe that understanding English will help spark more creativity,” said Karen Symms Gallagher, Dean of USC’s Rossier School of Education. 

The Chinese teachers will come from Shanghai’s Yangpu District. Roughly equivalent to a U.S. county, the district has 500,000 students in K-12 schools. It’s sending 25 to 30 of its best teachers and principals, chosen by the district, to the private southern California university for six weeks.  Gallagher has done lots of work with Chinese educators in the Yangpu District, and she says the English they speak is largely formal. “They really are reticent to sit down and have informal conversations,” she said.

Chinese educational administrators believe that a beneficial ripple effect will follow if their teachers are fluent in English and understand U.S. culture, Gallagher said. Those teachers will develop an increased ability to problem-solve, and they’ll be able to teach that to their students along with the English language. The Chinese school system doesn’t teach problem-solving skills, and educators are well aware of the lack, she said.  “They’re very good at getting Chinese students to do well on tests and to obtain basic knowledge, but they know students are not creative problem-solvers,” Gallagher said.  

  
Next: Strengths of Chinese education. Vivien Stewart of The Asia Society and businessman/filmmaker Bob Compton, who made “Two Million Minutes,” a look at students in China, India, and the U.S., weigh in on what they think is working.  
 
 

Sheila Riley is a San Francisco-based freelance journalist. She is also an experienced online editor and ESL curriculum developer, and teaches ESL at City College of San Francisco.

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