The Business of Education

Today, I read two articles on education. Now while, I am neither a parent nor a teacher, I still feel the need to comment on those articles. 

The first article was from the BBC website titled "Digital textbooks open new chapter".  The article stated that by 2015 South Korea plans to have all its curriculum material in a digital format.  They call the project "Smart Education".  Already South Korea is one of the world's highest rated education systems.  The country is second in global rankings for reading, fourth for math and fifth for science. Family spending on education in South Korea is the highest in the world in proportion to family income.
According to the South Korean government, the program is not just about cost-savings.  They believe this initiative will reach more students in rural areas.

At the same time as the South Korean educational system was rising in the global ranks, the US educational system was declining.  President George W. Bush had a program "No Child Left Behind".  The title of the program was clever, but the results have been not been satisfactory.  The program required all government-run schools receiving federal funding to administer a state-wide standardized test annually to students.  At the end of the day, it seems the program is only about more testing to students.   The purpose of the tests is to determine whether the school has taught the students well.  This is nothing about learning or helping more students to succeed.  People are amazed when I tell them the statistics about the percentage of college graduates in the US.  It is a cute trick that one way of presenting the numbers is to say the percentage of the adult population who attended college. This number is a far cry from those graduating from college.  However, according to the census data in 1940 5% of Americans 25 and older had a bachelor's degree.  In 2009 nearly 28% hold a bachelor's degree.  The rate for black Americans is 17% and 13% for Hispanic Americans.

If those statistics are not dreadful enough, the next article was just shameful.  The article was titled "Chinese Lose Promise for $52,000 as US Schools Exploit Need".  With the economic crisis private schools, especially, are experiencing financial problems.  The weak economy has reduced the number of well-off American applicants.  Many private schools are using agents with misleading sales pitches to recruit students from wealthy Chinese families.  The number of Chinese students  attending private US high schools increased more than 100-fold to 6,725 in 2010 from 65 in the 2005-2006 school year. 

It is not that I am against Chinese  or any foreign students studying in the US, but using the "bait and switch" tactic is outrageous.  Chinese students are interested in studying in the US to improve their English and some want to attend US universities.  The article states that one school has a $55,000 fee, including $9,600 for English as a second language and $1,800 for orientation.  Additionally, in some of the private high schools there are more Chinese students than American students.  Chinese students traveled to the US to room with other Chinese students.  This by no means will  help their English.  An even sadder point mentioned in the article was in some schools 70% of the American students  had some type of learning difficulties, including  attention deficit disorder (ADD),  attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or Dyslexia.

From the two articles, one can see that the two education systems are going in different directions.  South Korea seems to be preparing the next generation to use the technology that will be in place when the children are adults.  On the other hand, there are schools in the US which are looking to cushion the bottom line.  At the end of the day, it should be about the student.  It seems some have understood this point and others have different agendas.