The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way

By her own admission, journalist Amanda Ripley used to go out of her way to avoid writing articles about education. She'd rather cover almost anything else. But after she was assigned a story on a controversial educator, she became intrigued. What types of education helped children become smarter? Did particular skills help them tackle learning challenges better?

During her research, Ripley happened to see a chart compiling half a century of student test scores and performance rankings, gathered from a variety of different countries and cultures. She was intrigued - and puzzled. The data in that chart (collected by economists Ludger Woessmann and Eric Hanushek) greatly changed her perspective and upended her assumptions about what children need to reach their learning potential.

The research revealed that in a handful of countries scattered across the world, kids seemed to be gaining critical learning skills, outpacing many other countries, including America (especially in math). From their earliest years, the students in these select areas learned effective and innovative ways to tackle reading, science, and math problems. Their skills also helped them master not only familiar but new information more quickly and easily.

What accounted for these differences over time? How on earth did Canada go from having a mediocre educational system to one with impressive results- even rivaling Japan? Why did a country without child poverty, Norway, end up with students who still received inadequate schooling? Why did American teenagers (even those attending elite schools) rank 18th in math compared to kids in New Zealand, Belgium, France, and other countries?

These questions are part of what Ripley calls "the mystery" and it is at the heart of this book: the reasons why some kids learn so much in some countries and so little in others. As part of her attempt to gain more insight into how a select group of countries excelled at educating their children, Ripley sought the help of three American teenagers - Kim, Eric, and Tom - who were sent to live and learn in "smarter" countries for a year. Much of this book is based on first-hand accounts of the teens' experiences while living and learning in another culture.Without them, Ripley notes, she "never would have glimpsed...the scenes that make it possible to understand why policy works or, more often misses the mark totally."

The three American students have very different backgrounds. There is Kim, who left her rural area of Sallisaw, Oklahoma and a relatively mediocre school system to travel to Finland. Eric attended a high school in Minnetonka, Minnesota which was regularly ranked among the top schools in America by Newsweek. He traveled to Busan, South Korea to experience the "Korean pressure cooker" of education there. Tom left behind a high school culture in Gettysburg,Pennsylvania, one which was focused on sports and the Future Farmers of America and traveled to Wroclaw, Poland.

I was fascinated by reading about these students' lives abroad and the challenges they faced when navigating different school systems and cultural traditions. Many of the descriptions are vivid, from Eric's sense of dread when he realized that Korean students attended school a staggering 12 hours a day to Tom's recollection of his first humiliating attempt at a math problem (in front of the class) in Poland.

But this book is more than a series of personal perspectives from three teens. There is also plenty of hard data interspersed between their anecdotes. This does make for a certain scattered quality to the book at times. A description of Tom's initial struggles with math in his Polish classroom leads into a long section on math education in the United States before coming back round to Tom as he picks up the chalk and attempts to solve a math equation. When Kim struggles to understand a Finnish novel, her teacher brings her a children's book which simplifies the plot details. This section is the jumping off point for contrasting Finnish teacher training with that in the United States before returning to Kim and her discussion with some classmates.

In spite of an occasionally bumpy flow, this book was still very engaging. It not only gave me a cross- cultural perspective but new insights into ways to help children become innovative and effective learners.

Amanda Ripley's book, "The Smartest Kids in the World" is a valuable addition to the literature on education policy. Its main contribution is to add a personal student view to what the education experience is like in Finland, Poland, and South Korea - three countries that score highly on standardized international tests - compared to the U.S., where scores are average in reading and mediocre in math. This personal student side of education is provided mainly by following three American high school students in their exchange school experiences in Finland, Poland, and South Korea.

The overall impression one is left with is that Finland and Poland's educational systems clearly have advantages over the U.S. system. These systems are more rigorous, and have higher expectations than the U.S. system. Furthermore, Finland apparently has much higher standards for teacher candidates, and higher relative teacher salaries. One is left to wonder if perhaps this teacher quality variable is the key to meaningful education reform.

On the other hand, although Ms. Ripley explicitly disagrees, it is hard to see why South Korea's education system would be preferred to the U.S. `s educational system. The South Korean system is largely motivated by an overly rigid "meritocracy" that bases college admission and hiring for good jobs on performance on a standardized test in high school. While this leads to a huge amount of time devoted to cramming for this test, one has to wonder how much learning is going on for anything that isn't tested. At one point, Ms. Ripley cites the literature that shows that much of life success depends on "soft skills", which involve many traits of character including social relationships, self-confidence, etc. It is hard to see how South Korea's test-cramming system develops any soft skills other than persistence. This is a valuable soft skill, but it is clearly not the only soft skill. And in fact the American high school exchange student she profiles drops out of his assigned South Korean high school because it is such a crazy, anti-social environment.

The other striking aspect of the book is how much the strengths and weaknesses of the American education system have to do with American culture. The U.S. has not traditionally had a culture that places the highest value on intellectual rigor. This has sometimes had some advantages in that it allows some students to advance even though they don't conform to school standards. But she raises the important issue of whether our cultural attitudes have become outmoded due to changes in our economy that require more intellectual attainment in a wider variety of good jobs. Ms. Ripley cites any number of examples where American parents and policymakers simply don't place a very high value on having higher standards that some students might struggle to pass.

The book has a great appendix giving advice to parents on choosing good schools. This includes very useful information such as how to observe whether a classroom truly engages students and is productive. This appendix by itself will be worth the book's purchase price for many parents.

The book would have benefitted from more discussion of "where do we go from here" for U.S. policymakers. For example, in a practical sense, how would we best go about significantly increasing the selectivity of our teaching training institutions and attracting better college students into teaching? What role should be played by standardized tests for prospective teacher candidates versus higher salaries for teachers versus better hiring practices in local school districts? Greater exploration on how we could adapt the lessons of Finland's teacher quality efforts to the U.S. political environment would have improved the book.

American pupils consistently perform poorly when compared to those in other nations. Numerous excuses have been offered, all refutable, but that's a subject for another time. Amanda Ripley's new 'The Smartest Kids in the World' provides insight on how they get that way.

Author Ripley follows three American teenagers who travel to and spend a year in school at other nations - Kim (15) goes form Oklahoma to Finland, Eric (18) from Minnetonka (Minneapolis suburb) to Pusan in South Korea, and Tom (17) from a small village in Pennsylvania to Poland. I was particularly interested in her reporting about South Korea, having spent 15 months there long ago, courtesy of the U.S. Army. Even back then it was obvious that Koreans saw education as crucial for success.

Eric had already graduated from Minnetonka High (a highly rated U.S. school in a well-regarded state for education) but wanted to broaden his perspectives prior to entering DePaul University. In Korea he was placed with pupils two years younger than himself because his hosts believed seniors would be too wrapped up preparing for the national testing program to spend time with him. The college-qualifying examination is considered a major life-determinant for Korean youth, and only those scoring in the top 2% are admitted into the top three schools. (No 'legacy admissions,' or other exceptions.) There he found himself in classes with over 30 pupils (primary school classes averaged over 28 in 2009, middle-school around 35), classrooms lacking American hi-tech (eg. interactive whiteboards that function as giant touch screens, numerous computer terminals), and graded on a curve - only the top 4% get the top grade (out of nine classifications), and the bottom 4% get the worst grade, regardless; examination results are posted on the board. (Student IDs are used, but Eric reports that the pupils all know each others' IDs.) Eric quickly tired of the intensity (and probably didn't score very well either, given the new language), and dropped out to go to a community college instead. Despite the rigor, Korea has the world's highest proportion of high-school graduates.

Classes lasted until 4:00 P.M. (Ripley doesn't tell us when they begin), at which time students take 30 minutes to clean and mop floors, erase and clean boards, and empty garbage - those with demerits (long hair, misbehaving) are assigned to clean bathrooms. At 4:30 they're back in their seats prepping for the next-years' college entrance exams. After dinner, its another two hours of loosely supervised study. At 9 P.M. pupils leave, with about 75% going to private tutoring academies ('hagwons') until 11 P.M. or later. In addition, they also attend school two months more than American pupils. During summer break libraries are overcrowded with students, and many pay for A/C quiet space in private libraries. Eric also reported that about one-third of pupils slept in class (stores sell special pillows that slip over one's forearm to make napping more comfortable) - turns out they had good reason, given the long hours put in.

The Korean government spends less than half the proportion of GDP on K-12 education as the U.S., with parents adding more ($1,500/year at Namsan), plus the cost of hagwons and/or private tutoring. Elementary-school teachers come from 12 elite universities that admit only the top 5% of applicants; for some reason high-school teachers are less distinguished in their prior preparation.

Andrew Kim is the Korean 'rock-star' of education, working 60 hours/week while taking in $4 million/year and employing 30 assistants. He teaches only three in-person classes; most of his earnings come from online classes - $3.50/hour, 150,000 students. He's also written about 200 books, and responds to student questions. Hagwons complain if parents are not involved - parents receive text messages when their children arrive, others on their progress. In addition, the teachers call home 2 - 3X/month. Students sign up for specific teachers. Kim has 120/lecture class, most classes are much smaller. Teachers whose pupils score low or have low enrollment numbers are placed on probation - 6 months w/o improvement leads to dismissal; about 10% are dismissed/year in the hagwon system the author investigated. Aspiring teachers must first present two mock lectures before hiring. Pupils surveys report they like their hagwon teachers better than those in the public schools, finding they learn more from them and seeing them as fairer. Hagwon teachers don't need to be certified, receive no benefits or salary guarantee; most earn less than their public-school counterparts.

Legions of students failing to get into top universities spend an entire year after high school attending hagwons to improve their scores.
Pupils, as well as teachers, have to compete to enter top hagwons. The prestigious Daesung Institute, admission is based on students' test scores, and only 14% are accepted. After a year of 14-hour days, about 70% gain entry to one of the nation's top three universities.

The government is trying to discourage 'excessive' hagwons - those open beyond 11 P.M. are given warnings, and after three such are closed for a week; repeat and its two more weeks. Government staff patrol and follow-up information from paid tipsters. Private libraries used for studying are exempt from these limits.

The PISA test is probably the most respected international comparison of pupil achievement. Recently the test also surveyed parents - volunteering in their children's extra-curricular activities (eg. 'PTA types') is associated with lower reading scores. Those reading to their young children on a regular basis - associated with much better performance; when the children get older, parental involvement with discussions about school, movies, current events, books, etc. is associated with higher performance, as well as asking about their school days. Another important finding - self-discipline and conscientiousness are strongly related to school performance and ultimate life success.

Teenage suicide rates are lower than those in the U.S.; adults, however, for unknown reasons, have one of the highest such rates. Meanwhile, its students consistently outperform their peers in every country in reading and math, and since 1962 GDP has risen 400X.

For those who think kindergarten and preschool are 'the answer,' Ripley points to Finland - there they start mandatory school a year later than U.S. kids. (However, Finland does have extensive early childhood programs, and over 60% under age 7 attend municipal kindergarten programs. Many also have attended publicly funded preschool.) Another surprise - learned that Poland outperforms the U.S. in high-school graduation rates and achievement, while spending about half what the U.S. does.

Poland moved up the international test-score rankings in record time by following Finland and South Korea's examples - well-trained teachers (Finland closed all its education colleges in the 1960s and moved them into the top eight most elite universities in the nation where only top students could enroll), a rigorous curriculum, little if any high-tech gadgetry, and a challenging exam required of all graduating seniors. Poland also changed to keep all pupils in the same schools until they were 16, delaying when some would have entered vocational schools. Before 2000, half of Poland's rural adults had finished only primary school.

Three criticisms - First, Ripley opens with a graph attributed to Eric Hanushek et al - 'Dance of the Nations,' showing Norway in a steep decline in pupil achievement - down to one of the lowest in the world, as well as South Korea dropping steeply since 2000, though still above all nations except Finland. This does not square with my review of international pupil test results, especially for older pupils, nor could I locate the referenced graph via the Internet. Therefore, I ascribe zero credibility to her use of that data; fortunately, it does not affect the topics I was interested in. Second, sometimes her statistics lack clarity/solid reference points. Finally, Ripley correctly observes the pupils in some nations work much less than their counterparts in South Korea, even the U.S., and in my opinion, goes too-far in downplaying the importance of hard work - especially when her 6/19/13 'Motivation Matters More Than Ever' in The Atlantic reports that 'teaching motivation is probably more important than reading' (I'm assuming a bit of hyperbole there).

It very rarely happens that the cover of The New York Times Book Review, which represents some of the most prestigious intellectual real estate in the United States, is given over to a discussion about education. When that does happen, as it did last Sunday, it becomes clear why “school reform” just perpetuates and intensifies the education status quo.

A certain ideology, along with a set of empirical assumptions, underlies most conversations about education in this country, most of what actually happens in schools, and most proposals for change. These assumptions are accepted by the overwhelming majority of politicians, business leaders, and journalists. (Whenever three entities are involved in something, the usual metaphor is a three-legged stool. Here, I find myself thinking of the recycling logo, in which three bent arrows are arranged in a triangle, each one pointing to another in an endless loop.)

Progressive critics have complained to one another about how corporations, corporate foundations, and a corporate sensibility drive education policy. The creation of the Common Core “State” Standards is only the most recent example. We’ve also pointed out that Democratic and Republican public officials sound remarkably similar when they talk about schools — similar to one another and similar to the business community. But much less has been said about how journalists who cover education tend to reflect and feed this same mainstream — and, I think, deeply flawed — view of education.

That third arrow was conspicuously on display in the Book Review as one journalist and author, Annie Murphy Paul, summarized a book by another, Amanda Ripley. I haven’t yet read the book, “The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way,” but the reviewer appears to accept just about all of what she takes to be the author’s key assumptions. The resulting review (titled “Likely to Succeed”) offers a cautionary collection of problematic premises:

1. America desperately needs to turn to other countries for solutions because our students’ performance is “mediocre.”

2. The best way to judge educational success or failure is by looking at standardized test scores. High scores are good; low scores are bad — full stop. And high scores are defined in zero-sum terms: The point isn’t to reach a certain level but to outscore students in other countries.

3. The primary objective of schools is to transmit to children the “knowledge and skills to compete in the global economy.” (This statement actually comprises two premises: that education should be understood primarily in economic terms, and — just as with test results — the goal is not to succeed but to triumph over others.)

4. Similarly, from the individual student’s point of view, the main reason to learn is that doing so is a prerequisite to making more money after one graduates. A U.S. student is quoted as asking two Finnish girls why they seem to care so much about what they’re studying, and they supply what Paul and/or Ripley regard as “the only sensible answer”: Studying hard will eventually result in a “good job.” Alas, we’re told, this “irrefutable logic still eludes many American students.”

5. A key ingredient of success is “persistence” — knowing “what it [feels] like to fail, work harder, and do better.” Putting children on a “hamster wheel,” with “relentless and excessive” pressure to succeed at any cost, may have tragic human costs — for example, in Korea — but this is said to be preferable to the less intense pressures said to be experienced by American students.

(There’s actually one more set of interesting premises in the review, which is that Finland’s process of selecting only top candidates to be teachers initiates a “virtuous cycle” in which “better-prepared, better-trained teachers can be given more autonomy, leading to more satisfied teachers who are also more likely to stay on.” Notice that (a) selecting “top” students to be teachers is equated with offering better preparation and training, and (b) it’s assumed that teachers who weren’t at the top of their class or provided with a certain kind of training shouldn’t be given autonomy. Thus, the process of micromanaging teachers, imposing detailed prescriptive curricula and pedagogy, is justified because all those barely qualified teachers require it.)

Along with many other writers, I’ve tried to challenge each of these premises. The first one is really the cornerstone of the others: It’s because our students are at the bottom of the barrel that we have to turn to other countries to learn how education ought to be done. This turns out to be nonsense, as I pointed out in a recent essay called “’We’re Number Umpteenth!’: The Myth of Lagging U.S. Schools,” and as Iris Rotberg, Richard Rothstein, the late Gerald Bracey, and others have explained for some time.

While the occasional journalist and even politician may acknowledge that, just possibly, we’re overtesting kids, almost all take on faith that test scores are appropriate for judging a student’s, school’s, state’s, or nation’s education status. If it turns out that standardized tests are inherently flawed indicators — not just misapplied, overused, or badly implemented — then all judgments based on those numbers would have to be rethought. Suddenly one would realize that it’s possible for awful teaching, and unimpressive intellectual capabilities, to produce high test scores. And for superb teaching, and creative thinking, to yield relatively low test scores. That of course would call into question every article or book that judges “smart kids” or “successful schools” on the basis of standardized test results.

The third premise is based on a value rather than evidence, so one can only argue, as I have elsewhere, that there’s something deeply disturbing about regarding children mostly as future employees and reducing education to an attempt to increase the profitability of corporations — or, worse, the probability that “our” corporations will defeat “theirs.” Some of the least inspiring approaches to schooling, and the least meaningful ways of assessing its success, follow logically from thinking of education not in terms of its intrinsic worth, or its contribution to a truly democratic society, but in the context of the “21st-century global economy.”

The fourth premise — that “the only sensible” reason for kids to take school seriously is their own eventual financial gain — also reflects basic values, but here there are some relevant data. For example, a study published last year in the “Journal of Educational Psychology,” which built on a great deal of other research, found that “highlighting the monetary benefits that education can bring…could very well discourage youths from fully engaging with learning.”

As for that last premise: To be honest, I find it deeply depressing to consider the possibility that anyone could regard the misery visited upon children, the sacrifice of their childhoods on the altar of higher grades and test scores — all in the name of cramming them full of more facts[1] so they can squeeze out another few points on a do-or-die test — and say, “Hey, we ought to treat our kids more like that!” (Ripley is quoted as saying that, despite its excesses, she would “reluctantly pick the hamster wheel” to the American approach because it “felt more honest.”) By contrast, some folks closest to these nightmarish regimens of tutoring and psychological stress are saying it must stop. A South Korean education official surveys the damage and says, in effect, “What do high test scores matter when we’re destroying our children? We’re struggling to move beyond this stifling test-prep version of education, and you Americans want to imitate us??”

Part of the ideology underlying the hamster wheel sensibility is the current glorification of grit, self-discipline, and the alleged benefits of making children experience more failure and frustration. I’ve challenged these modern versions of the Protestant work ethic here and there, and I’ll do so at greater length in a book to be published next year called “The Myth of the Spoiled Child.” What’s striking, though, is how so many journalists have uncritically accepted a set of principles based on a combination of conservative ideology and bad psychology. (I challenge you to find a single article in the mainstream press that raises meaningful questions about the value of self-discipline or grit.) And of course these assumptions fit beautifully with all the other premises — about mediocre U.S. students, the value of standardized tests, and an economic rationale for education.

Come to think of it, the synergistic relationship among politicians, businesspeople, and journalists really is captured by that three-triangle logo because the principles in question are endlessly recycled. One of the key features of the conventional wisdom, the dominant ideology, is that we no longer recognize it as such because we hear it so often. There’s no food for thought here; everyone just knows that our students are lousy, or that raising test scores would improve our economy, or that grit is good; there’s no need to defend these propositions.

Food for thought? Listen — I’ll gladly eat the front page of the New York Times Book Review if it ever features a book that challenges these premises.

NOTE
1. Many books and essays about “smarter kids” or the “new science of learning” turn out to be mostly about techniques for memorizing facts more efficiently, not about meaningful learning — in the sense of understanding ideas from the inside out. But that’s a journalistic misrepresentation for another day.

[...]

I live in a state that (to exaggerate only slightly) despises external standards (such as the International Baccalaureat or Common Core...), grossly underfunds its schools, lets minorities go to the wall, and believes that micromanagement by a monolithic legislature is the only safeguard against anarchy, atheism, and the Democrats. This is not going to change soon. So this book, providing a clear, balanced and dispassionate analysis of three countries that have achieved results far surpassing those here, on far less money, is a eye-opener. Even if these approaches are a rarity in this country, at least we know what to look out for when evaluating schools and teachers. We will make great use of it when our family has to make the hard choice between educating our grandchildren in the public system (which in principle we want to support), or "go private", which has obvious financial and social consequences.

Amanda Ripley highlights some very important and in most cases fairly obvious ways in which American education can be improved. One of the biggest achievements of the book, I think, is to establish that, far from it being a conundrum how to reform, in fact there are a whole bunch of steps to be taken, any one of which would almost certainly make a big difference: a common curriculum, an exit test for high school that actually must be passed, (much) higher standards of teacher training, actually spending more on the *under*privileged than on the *over*privileged as now occurs, deemphasizing sports, which are now certainly overhyped, and overall adopting the novel attitude that kids are in school to--brace yourself--learn. Also praiseworthy is Ripley's willingness to point out shortcomings in some of the foreign systems that have achieved success by some measures, South Korea most of all. This is a welcome correction to Obama's misguided praise of the South Korean educational system. In many ways, South Korea is an educational dystopia that unfortunately could be where the US is now headed, with public schools becoming increasingly unhelpful in educating kids and parents being driven more and more to the private sector and their own efforts to fill in the gaps. Our growing mania for testing, which if properly applied could be useful, is also reminiscent of Korea.

The section on Korea points to one shortcoming in the book, which is a lack of attention to the fact that education does go on beyond high school. Whatever serious problems primary and secondary schools have, American universities are still widely regarded as the world's best. South Korea's, if you ask almost any South Korean, are places where young people go to socialize, meet future spouses, network, and generally regroup after the horror of test prep that is secondary education in Korea. This is where Ripley's portrait of the US as a fairly relentlessly anti-intellectual, jock-o-cratic culture manifesting itself most strongly in the provincial world controlled by the PTA, parts with reality just a shade. The US is the country where the world comes to be educated, and it is certainly arguable that the kind of excellence that is possible at American universities is in fact an outgrowth of the unbelievable variations in quality that happen in a locally controlled system. Backing away from the book, one could caricature Ripley as another American liberal who has fallen in love with Europe, with Poles heatedly arguing philosophy in coffee shops, for instance, and who reflexively snipes at school athletics as a distraction. That would, let me make clear, be a caricature. But there are times when it would be nice for Ripley to note that correcting excesses of US culture is what's called for, not the wholesale scrapping and rebuilding of it.

My only other area of minor complaint would be that Ripley soft-pedals the economic aspect of American academic underperformance a little too much. She has an excellent section on an urban Helsinki school that is in fact quite diverse, unlike much of the rest of Finland. She notes the strengths of a rigorous approach to the immigrant population there, the maintenance of high expectations for the less advantaged students in the face of the obvious extra burden with which they struggle, and the good sense of directing more resources to these classrooms that will obviously need them. This section is an effort to respond to criticisms that South Korea, Poland, and Finland are all very homogeneous and thus start without a giant problem of educating a multicultural, multilingual population that the US has. She also looks at the statistics to show that in some places in the US it has been possible, as in Finland, to educate the disadvantaged through the application of sound principles. This is admirably argued, but I do come away from the discussion feeling that it's all a little insufficient, to the scale of the immigration challenge in the US, and to the depth of the historical challenge in a country that has been blighted by slavery and Jim Crow after it all the way from its inception into the memory of people still living today. This all seems a bit more difficult to address than the special needs of a few immigrant neighborhoods in Helsinki floating in a sea of Finns. This is not to cast aside the value of looking at what's working in homogeneous populations; certainly, many of these principles are still very applicable, and becoming trapped in the disadvantage of the past is in many ways exactly what Ripley sees happening with the lack of rigor in US schools. But the US is, I must use the word, exceptional in some regards, and I suspect that the directing of resources to the especially needy in this country would quickly break whatever bank we could find to finance it, simply because there are *so many* especially needy.

Some other reviewers have mentioned the lack of policy instructions in the book--how do we implement the recommendations and changes Ripley identifies as necessary. I think she's quite astute at not wandering into that morass; I think she is clear-sighted enough to know that most of the changes her book endorses or implies are entirely politically impossible. She on more than one occasion notes that a crisis situation is what made it possible for the requisite changes in education to take place in many foreign countries, and that probably a crisis will be what motivates change here. While there's some evidence that we might be in the early stages of such a crisis here--common core being something a lot of people never would have thought would have the legs it's shown thus far--I think it's likely things just aren't bad enough here yet for common sense to take hold. Yes, the educated work force is dampening job growth, but we're still importing the educated from other countries. And as the cost of manufacturing in China and other developing nations rises, the economists are being proven right and jobs are starting to return to the US in some cases, purely for economic reasons. The fact is that the whole economic "competition" impetus for education is a little misguided. You don't have to have the smartest population as long as you're in the middle of the pack--competitive. This is because in capitalism, we don't need the best product, just the one that works and sells and earns a high enough margin. Hate to break it to the pessimists, but there is still a market for the American worker, even if the poor individual in question may in many cases not have the math skills to count his or her meager wages.

Sometimes well-meaning journalists overdrive their headlights. This is one of those cases. Ms. Ripley misinterprets the results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), cherry picks some student anecdotes in an attempt to reinforce her talking points, and leaps to most of the same weak policy conclusions promoted by other poorly informed critics of public education. If you're interested in a more grounded, accurate critique, I suggest Diane Ravitch's new book, Reign of Error. She successfully uses data to counter many of the widely disseminated misperceptions about student achievement in our public schools. Dr. Ravitch offers a great point of departure for a thoughtful consideration of school reform.

Amanda Ripley shares what she learned while studying pre-collegiate education in three foreign countries: Finland, South Korea, and Poland. The quality of education in any country reflects - for better or worse - what the adults in each country value most. For example, in Finland, rather than "trying to reverse engineer high-performance teaching culture through a dazzlingly complex performance evaluations and value-added data analysis," as in the United States, education leaders ensure high-quality from the beginning, allowing only top students to enroll in teacher training programs. Unlike in the U.S. the education of children is entrusted only to "the best and the brightest" teachers who demand academic rigor and best effort.

In a country such as South Korea where that is not the case, ambitious parents enroll their children in hagwons (highly intensive, after-school for-profit teaching centers) to ensure that they will pass the country's stringent graduation examination, "the key to a successful prosperous life." In 2011, parents spent $18-Billion on these cram schools. Ripley calls this system "rigor on steroids," a "hamster wheel" that has created as many problems as it has solved. In 2010, one Hagwon teacher - Andrew Kim - earned $4-million and in South Korea is renowned as a "rock star teacher." Most of his teaching is done online. Thousands of students are charged $3.50 an hour. They or their parents select specific teachers -- not hagwons -- with selections based entirely on how well the instructors' students score on the national exam.

As for Poland, its public schools seem to accomplish much more with less than do the other two. As in Finland and South Korea, however, parents have high hopes and great expectations for their children and generously support well-trained teachers, a rigorous curriculum, and a challenging national examination for all graduating seniors. Ripley was surprised to learn that "sports simply did not figure into the school day" nor does athletic competition between and among schools have any appeal. "There was no confusion about what school was for - or what mattered in kids' life chances."

I think the title of Ripley's book is somewhat misleading. Public school education in Finland, South Korea, and Poland does not produce smarter students than do schools anywhere else but they [begin italics] do [end italics] seem to produce students who are better prepared to compete in what Ripley characterizes as "an automated, global economy" in which competitors must be "driven to succeed" and have learned -- during their school days -- how to adapt in a "culture of rigor."

As she observes in the final chapter, "The stories of Finland, Korea, and Poland are complicated and unfinished. But they reveal what is possible [in the United States]. All children must learn rigorous higher-order thinking to thrive in the modern world. The only way to do that is by creating a serious intellectual culture in schools, one that kids can sense is real and true. As more and more data spills out of schools and countries, and as students themselves find ways to tell the world how much more they can do, these counternarratives will, I hope, be too loud to bear."

After reading these concluding remarks, I was again reminded of the "10,000-hour rule" revealed by decades of research conducted by Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University. With rare exception, those who invest (on average) 10,000 hours in deliberate, highly disciplined practice (of almost anything) under expert supervision can achieve peak performance. If a student spends (on average) five hours a day in a classroom for 40 weeks a year for twelve years (grades 1-12), the total is 12,000 hours.

To repeat, the quality of education in any country reflects - for better or worse - what the adults in each country value most. What does the performance of students of U.S. public schools - in international competition -- tell us about what their parents value most? How well prepared will these students be for competition with students from other countries in the "an automated, global economy" to which Ripley refers, a business world in which competitors must be "driven to succeed" and have learned - during their school days -- how to adapt in a "culture of rigor"?

The two star rating is coming through the eyes of someone looking at the book as educational research. I'm not sure whether the author intended the book for that purpose or not, but it is presented as such. For those looking for a good general background of what education is like in Finland, South Korea, and Poland through student narratives, the book is very insightful. For those looking for educational theory grounded in research and data, look elsewhere.

The Good: Being a journalist, the author is obviously skilled at presenting information in a style that is easily understood and very readable. It is a classic "easy read". The educational systems of the three aforementioned countries are presented through the eyes of three high school students from the United States studying abroad. Learning the basics about what school days are like in those countries was interesting. Hearing about how students in those countries learned and the different styles of cultural emphasis was great information. At the end of the book, you'll have a good "big picture" idea of the general educational philosophies of each country and where it came from.

The Bad: The ultimate conclusions the author develops are arrived at through two basically two things...PISA test scores and the students narratives of what they encountered. While narratives can be a very important qualitative data source, it is hardly generalizable to whole populations of students. The author basically states education in the United States is sub par because educational institutions don't emphasize rigor or offer a culminating, high stakes test at the end of high school. American teachers are presented as mainly lazy and uninspired and American students are generalized as bored, unchallenged, and unprepared when they leave the K-12 realm.

This isn't surprising with books examining the problems of education in the United States. Other authors (Tony Wagner comes to mind) often present the ills of American education through the experiences of a few students. rather than actual research from inside the classroom. It is very common to see a sentence something similar to, "Like most American teenagers, she would sit there and stare out the window during class because it was neither interesting or engaging". Does this happen? Absolutely. Does it happen all over the world? Absolutely. However, generalizing American students into categories like "most", "many", without actually doing the research results in conclusions that are based on the thoughts and experiences of just a few students who were chosen mainly because they had negative experiences in their public school system. Why not also look at those American students who are having outstanding experiences in their public schools? This book would have you believe there really are not any, which could not be further from the truth.

What I found very confusing is, the author arrives at the conclusion these school systems abroad are much better despite the fact two of the students actually had, for the most part, bad experiences during their time in the other countries. One student had to change families and schools and wanted to return home, while another picked up the habits of drinking and smoking. This was glossed over and somehow twisted into evidence supporting the predetermined conclusion that schools in the United States are worse than these other countries.

Are there issues with regard to public education in the United States? Certainly. It is a fact that American students probably are not challenged as much as they should be. However, school districts and principals are often slammed by parents when their children struggle, receive poor grades, and their work is "too hard". Most teachers will tell you they are approached significantly more often by parents defending students and looking for an easier road than they are by parents looking for more challenging material and lessons that build grit and perseverance. The main problem we have in the United States is a cultural problem that does not value these qualities.

In short, this is another book written about education by an author who has very limited experience or expertise on the subject. It is similar to a books written about health and medicine by someone who is not a medical doctor. While outside views are often very productive and bring innovation to schools, they also provide solutions that are grounded in stories and limited research. That is, for the most part, the case with this book.

This is a very well written narrative on why certain countries' students perform so well scholastically. Amanda Ripley is a journalist, and her writing style is captivating.

The book focuses on why Finland, South Korea, and Poland do so well in terms of student scores on a test (PISA) that measures creative and critical thinking. Page 3 features a chart that co9mpares a number of different countries on their students' performance, based on results from a number of tests. The United States does not distinguish itself here, being in the lower tier of 15 societies.

Ripley examines why different countries score differently (primarily using PISA). Her method is odd, albeit seemingly persuasive. She follows three American AFS students, in a foreign exchange program. They come from Oklahoma (Kim), Pennsylvania (Tom), and Minnesota (Eric). Each goes to a different country--South Korea, Poland, and Finland--each of which features students scoring very high on PISA. Ripley follows them throughout the year, uses them as informants about education, interviews staff in the American and foreign high schools, and so on. The end result is a set of conclusions as to why these three countries do so much better than the United States.

A central conclusion by Ripley (Page 193): "To give our kids the kind of education they deserved, we had to first agree that rigor mattered most of all; that school existed to help kids to learn to think, to work hard, and yes, to fail." She observes that sports is much more important in American high schools than in the three other countries studied--probably at the expense of a focus on academics.

So far, so good. Emphasizing academics and expecting hard--and good--work do go with better student performance, as data suggest. However, Ripley depends more on her three informants than on data. And that is an issue to me. Are these three students typical? Are their experiences typical? Can we develop hard conclusions about what works and what doesn't based on a sample size of three? If one looks to this as a source of suggestions about why students fare better in some countries rather than others, the book works well. If one depend on this as a powerful source of knowledge about what yields success, there would be a problem.

Still and all, this is a fascinating book that gets the reader to thinking--and that is a positive contribution of this volume.