Overview: Is our system of education really in that much trouble? Education and the global challenge

So now we have a sense of what good teaching is... and is not... who our students are... and how our federal government is working to try to reform our system of schooling. There's another group of folks out there who are talking about a crisis in education... how our kids in this country are being left behind... how our kids can't compete in the global education race. Work through the resources below... are you alarmed by the fact that American kids get outscored on tests by kids from other countries? Are you alarmed that American kids are lazy and unwilling to work hard in school? Or do you think this is a manufactured crisis designed by policy makers?

Read and study these resources carefully and formulate some opinions... keeping the discussion questions in mind as you do. When you are ready, head to the appropriate Moodle forum to post your thoughts.

Readings:

Spend a couple hours working through resources from Education Week and their annual report called Quality Counts. This year's reports is titled The Global Challenge. Be sure to read each of these reports:

• Quality Counts 2012 Press Release
• Equipping U.S. Schools for the Global Fast Lane
• U.S. Education Pressured by International Comparisons
• Multimedia: The Global Challenge
• A Brief History of the Standards-based Movement in Education - is the standards movement killing education?

Discussions questions - each also appear in the corresponding Moodle forum:

1. How alarmed should we be by all these international comparisons? Is the United States really about to crumble and fall into the ocean because the performance of our students is so dismal? How much of this crisis do you think is manufactured by the media? And how much of it do you believe is real - real enough to worry about and try to fix? Defend your answer with examples, data, and your own personal experiences.
2. About a dozen years ago, things really began to shift in the United States away from a textbook and teacher centered approach to schooling to a standards-based approach to schooling. How is standards-based education different? Some people argue that the test-oriented, standards-driven system of education we have going right now - which is exactly what the NCLB legislation ushered in for us - is the thing that is leading our education system down the tubes. What do you think about this? In other words, what are some positives and negatives of the standards-based system? How can we work toward high quality reform from our perspective as teachers - or teachers in training? What do people like Yong Zhao and Ken Robinson say is missing from our system of standards-based schooling? Do you agree with them? Defend your answer.

Supplementary materials:

Now... before you move on from this unit... take a look at these resources. Yong Zhao is a friend of mine from China and is the new Dean of Global Education at the University of Oregon. He grew up in China and has some concerns about America's desire to keep up with China, Singapore, and other Asian countries. Consider these resources:

• Putting Chinese Students to the Test
• Video: No Child Left Behind and Global Competitiveness
• Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity - and here's a final hilarious talk about what's wrong with schools... perhaps the standards movement isn't the problem? Don't miss this video - its awesome!
• Here's why 1990 was awesome