The United States has long been successful in elite education, training not only a large number of technology and business elites such as Bill Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg, but also a large number of Nobel Prize winners.This has to do with the accumulation of generations in favour of elite dominance, and with the liberal, non-competitive educational environment in which children's curiosity, inquisitiveness and creativity are protected.
But it is also this institutional arrangement in favor of the elite that has created a relatively solid social stratification in the United States, which has delayed the flow of talent, especially the rising channels of young people.
From "Supporting the Vulnerable" to "Every Student's Success"
43-17=？48÷3=？The percentage of Chinese primary school graduates who fail to answer correctly in five seconds may be less than 5 percent; in the U.S., the percentage of primary school graduates who fail to answer correctly in five seconds may be as high as 50 percent.
This is clearly detrimental to human resources development and has left American society plagued by problems such as poverty, crime, and drug abuse.To change the situation, Congress passed and enacted the Primary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty" effort.The ESEA has two distinct features: supporting the vulnerable and explicitly offering assistance to the disadvantaged poor, minorities, immigrants, and so on; and centralizing power, the federal government expanded its intervention in education.
After Clinton was elected president in 1992, he presided over a major revision of the ESEA, named the 1994 Education Improvement Act, which was passed and enacted by Congress.The U.S. Goals for Education Act 2000 was passed.Both bills fully maintain the ESEA's fundamental purpose of "support for vulnerable people" and further strengthen centralization in education.This revision is characterized by a clear "time table" and reform objectives that clearly, specifically, and in detail set out the goals that education in the United States needs to achieve by the year 2000.
President George W. Bush's first campaign was on education reform.On 23 January 2001, just three days after taking office, he introduced an educational reform programme known as "No one can be less".In December of the same year, Congress passed the new ESEA Act, which he presided over as amended, the 2001 No One Can Be Less Act (NCLB).The first sentence of the bill reads: "This is a bill that closes the educational achievement gap with accountability, flexibility and selectivity so that no child is left behind."Since then, the United States has launched a vigorous education reform movement, and the slogan "None can be less" is well known.
The key word for the NCLB reform is "accountability," which is important for strengthening the examination, and the core initiative is to hold state exams in grades 4 and 8.In America's cultural environment, such intensive exam reform is indeed necessary to urge less conscious students to "fall behind."But it also brings new problems, most importantly putting a lot of pressure on both teachers and students, and exams become the baton of the school's daily work.Under the pressure of accountability, many primary and secondary schools have taken various measures to take the examination - the state examination subjects have been strengthened in time, resources, teachers, and other subjects, including art, music, and physical education.In order to meet the standards, many primary and secondary schools have extended school hours, supplementary classes after school, and reduced student rest time.
"Examination education" restricts the creativity of teachers and is not conducive to teachers' creativity.The competitive educational environment caused by "examination education" is also not conducive to the free development of outstanding students, which may discourage outstanding students' curiosity.Along with the advancement of reform, the disadvantages of "test-taking education" are becoming more and more obvious.George W. Bush's educational reforms were criticized by some education experts, especially by teachers at the grassroots level.
In September 2011, the Obama administration's Department of Education announced that states could propose exemptions from the NCLB Act.As of May 20, 2013, 38 states had approved waiver applications by the Department of Education, with 10 remaining states awaiting approval.The NCLB is now dead.
How not to follow in the footsteps of the NCLB and maintain a balance between "relief backwardness" and "protection excellence" has become an issue that the Obama administration has to consider.
In February 2009, more than a month after he was sworn in, he signed the American Revitalization and Reinvestment Act 2009, proposing education reform under the slogan "Strive Up" and allocating $4.35 billion to create "Strive Up Fund" to support state education innovation.On December 6, 2011, Obama chose Osawatomi High School in Kansas to announce his re-election platform for the 2012 presidential election."After World War II, the likelihood that poor-born Americans would become middle-class was 50 percent, down from 40 percent in the 1980s to 33 percent today.That situation must be reversed.After lengthy discussions and bipartisan communication, Congress agreed on the ESEA amendment on November 19, 2015, and the revised bill was named the Every Student Success Act (ESSA) and signed into law on December 10, replacing the 14-year-old NCLB Act.
Three Characteristics of American Reform
The first salient feature of the new ESSA bill is "reduction of burden," which changes the federal government's strict assessment and rating system for schools in the NCLB, reducing the pressure and burden on students, teachers and schools.Obama acknowledged that the goals of the NCLB reform were right and did improve the quality of education overall.However, examination education also has obvious negative effects.The new legislation preserves statewide compliance on reading, math and science subjects, while encouraging states, school districts, and schools to develop and implement flexible and applicable multi-assessment methods.
A second salient feature of the new bill is "decentralization," which ends test-based accountability led by the Federal Department of Education and replaces it with state accountability that returns control of education to state and local school districts.
While "reducing" and "delegating power", the new bill does not ease the focus on the "falling behind" issue.ESSA rules that schools with a bottom 5 percent assessment score, fewer than 67 percent of high school graduates, and schools with consistently poor academic performance among disadvantaged students can be taken over by the state.
"Through this arrangement, we reaffirm America's fundamental ideal of giving every child, regardless of race, family income, background, zip code, and wherever he lives, the opportunity to do so."
Education reform in the United States has several striking features.First, educational reform is promoted by the president and guaranteed by education legislation passed by Congress.Under President Johnson, Congress passed the ESEA Act; under President Clinton, Congress passed the Education Improvement Act and the Education Goals Act; under President George W. Bush, Congress passed the NCLB Act; and under President Obama, Congress passed the ESSA Act.Secondly, educational reform has clear objectives and targets, clearly aimed at promoting social equity and improving the quality of education.Third, keep pace with the times and adjust in a timely manner.In order to play a role in promoting education, the federal government has strengthened its power since 1965.By 2015, adjustments will be made in a timely manner to re-delegate to local governments.Since 2001, examinations and accountability have been strengthened, and by 2015, timely adjustments have been made to curb the signs of "test-taking education".
China's educational reform should leave more room for outstanding students
The most important inspiration for American education reform is that there is no "no profit and no harm" reform option in the world.The relaxed and non-competitive educational environment in the United States is conducive to the growth of outstanding talents, but it is not conducive to students who lack learning awareness.Our country's examination education is not conducive to the growth of innovative talents, but it has made many middle and lower students middle and upper, and helped many children who may fall behind avoid falling behind.
China's education problem is mainly manifested in the training of innovative and excellent talents.Since 1949, China's manufacturing industry has been in the middle and lower ranks of most industrial chains, mainly because examination education has dampened the curiosity and creativity of outstanding children.
Today, the most important and dignified reason for those who oppose education reform, especially college entrance examination reform, is the so-called "maintenance of fairness."The college entrance examination is one of the fairest methods of university admission in the world today, but the reform is not because the college entrance examination is unfair, but because the education of the examination is not conducive to the growth of innovative talents.
If there is only one country in the world today, we can consider keeping the current "test-taking education" situation unchanged and compressing the development space of outstanding students to avoid some children falling behind.