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Faced with an increasingly urgent achievement gap in math and science that may hinder U.S. competitiveness, American educators and policymakers are studying best practices in China and other Asian countries that produce better results.

Over the past two decades, the United States has steadily increased education funding in response to calls from the business and policy communities for improved math and science education. These investments have not yielded significant improvements in student achievement. In fact, average math scores for U.S. students trail significantly behind nearly all countries in the Asia Pacific region. Adding urgency to these data are the recently released findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found that U.S. middle and high school students have not shown any improvement in science over the past five years.

While American scientific research is widely admired, there are grave concerns about the quality of math and science education to prepare students to be highly qualified scientists and engineers. In a global economy, it is no longer enough for a state or school district to compare itself with the state or district next door; they need to compare themselves against world standards.

As U.S. policy makers and business leaders sound the call for greatly increased investment in K-12 math and science education, these results show that funding increases need to be accompanied by more effective approaches. The report, Math and Science Education in a Global Age: What the U.S. Can Learn from China, outlines key ways in which China, and East Asia more broadly, have been successful in producing higher student achievement in math and science. These include:

• National Standards and Aligned Instruction. China has national standards in math and science, which drive coherent textbook content, teacher preparation and professional development. In the United States, there is a great deal of variation in the rigor and quality of standards across educational jurisdictions.
• Strong Core Curriculum. In China, biology, chemistry, and physics, as well as algebra and geometry are mandatory for completion of high school. In the United States, students are allowed to choose among different levels of learning and can opt out of more advanced courses.
• Rigorous Teacher Preparation. In China far higher proportions of science and math teachers have degrees in their disciplines than their U.S. counterparts. And specialist science teachers are employed as early as third grade, unlike in the United States where most primary teachers are “generalists” typically responsible for all subjects.
• Examinations Motivate Students. China’s education system is exam driven. Math and science play a major role in the highly competitive entrance examinations for universities.
• Time on Task. Chinese schools and learning after school are intensely academically focused. The Chinese school year is a full month longer at the secondary level than American schools and overall Chinese students spend twice as many hours studying as their U.S. peers.

“In our global age, investments in math and science education need to benchmark best practices wherever we can find them. Most educators know little about education in other countries,” said Vivien Stewart, Vice President at Asia Society. “As other countries are instituting fundamental reforms, the United States needs a globally oriented world-standard education to prepare our young people for leadership.”

In many respects, the two systems are mirror images of each other: China has a nationally driven system with strong national curriculum standards and regulation of textbooks, a coherent, knowledge-focused curriculum that emphasizes mastery of basic concepts, clear alignment between curriculum and instruction, and strong student work ethic. The United States, by contrast, is a decentralized system where states and localities make many of the decisions. The report suggests ways in which the two countries can learn from each other. Asia Society has recently led delegations of American education leaders to China, in cooperation with the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Business Roundtable, and has hosted Chinese leaders in the United States to deepen knowledge of each others successes and challenges.

The report also reveals that China is seeking to adapt aspects of the U.S. educational system. China’s emphasis on exams may have a harmful effect on flexible and creative approaches to learning that are central characteristics of U.S. education and necessary for innovation. Chinese educators are learning from, and beginning to apply the greater choice and inquiry oriented teaching methods that characterize American schools. The report also provides a caveat that educational ideas from one setting may not be totally applicable to others but they broaden the discussion of potential solutions. The key goal, Ms. Stewart maintains, is to allow U.S. schools to learn from effective practices in countries like China, while maintaining the strengths that Chinese educators admire in U.S. schools.

Asia Society
Asia Society is the leading global organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. The Society seeks to enhance dialogue, encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across the fields of policy, business, education, arts, and culture. Founded in 1956, Asia Society is a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution with offices in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Manila, Melbourne, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Washington, DC. 

To read the Opinion piece by Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, click here.
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