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Reforming Education —The great schools revolution Education remains the trickiest part of attempts to reform the public sect

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问题     Reforming Education
    —The great schools revolution Education remains the trickiest part of attempts to reform the public sector. But as ever more countries embark on it, some vital lessons are beginning to be learned
    Sep 17th 2011|DRESDEN, NEW YORK AND WROCLAW| from the print edition
    From Toronto to Wroclaw, London to Rome, pupils and teachers have been returning to the classroom after their summer break. But this September schools themselves are caught up in a global battle of ideas. In many countries education is at the forefront of political debate, and reformers desperate to improve their national performance are drawing examples of good practice from all over the world.
    Why now? One answer is the sheer amount of data available on performance, not just within countries but between them. In 2000 the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) at the OECD, a rich-country club, began tracking academic attainment by the age of 15 in 32 countries. Many were shocked by where they came in the rankings. (PISA’s latest figures appear in table 1.) Other outfits, too, have been measuring how good or bad schools are. McKinsey, a consultancy, has monitored which education systems have improved most in recent years.
    Technology has also made a difference. After a number of false starts, many people now believe that the internet can make a real difference to educating children. Hence the success of institution like America’s Kahn Academy (see article). Experimentation is also infectious; the more governments try things, the more others examine, and copy, the results.
    Above all, though, there has been a change in the quality of the debate. In particular, what might be called "the three great excuses" for bad schools have receded in importance? Teachers’ union have long maintained that failures in Western education could be blamed on skimpy government spending, social class and cultures that did not value education. All these make a difference, but they do not determine outcomes by themselves.
    The idea that good schooling is about spending money is the one that has been beaten back hardest. Many of the 20 leading economic performers in the OECD doubled or tripled their education spending in real terms between 1970 and 1994, yet outcomes in many countries stagnated—or went backwards. Educational performance varies widely even among countries that spend similar amounts per pupil. Such spending is highest in the United States—yet America lags behind other developed countries on overall outcomes in secondary education. Andreas Schleicher, head of analysis at PISA, thinks that only about 10% of the variation in pupil performance has anything to do with money.
    Many still insist, though, that social class makes a difference. Martin Johnson, an education trade unionist, points to Britain’s "inequality between classes, which is among the largest in the wealthiest nations" as the main reason why its pupils under perform. A review of reforms over the past decade by researchers at Oxford University supports him. "Despite rising attainment levels," it concludes, "there has been little narrowing of long standing and sizeable attainment gaps. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds remain at higher risks of poor outcomes." American studies confirm the point; Dan Goldhaber of the University of Washington claims that "non-school factors", such as family income, account for as much as 60% of a child’s performance in school.
Yet the link is much more variable than education egalitarians suggest. Australia, for instance, has wide discrepancies of income, but came a creditable ninth in the most recent PISA study. China, rapidly developing into one of the world’s least equal societies, finished first.
    Culture is certainly a factor. Many Asian parents pay much more attention to their children’s test results than Western ones do, and push their schools to succeed. Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea sit comfortably at the top of McKinsey’s rankings (see table 2). But not only do some Western countries do fairly well; there are also huge differences within them. Even if you put to one side the unusual Asians, as this briefing will now do, many Western systems could jump forward merely by bringing their worst schools up to the standard of their best.
    So what are the secrets of success? Though there is no one template, four important themes emerge: decentralisation (handing power back to schools); a focus on underachieving pupils; a choice of different sorts of schools; and high standards for teachers. These themes can all betraced in three places that did well in McKinsey’s league: Ontario, Poland and Saxony.
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答案 教育改革 ——教育大改革 教育改革始终是社会改革中最棘手的一部分，但随着越来越多的国家着手进行改革，人们逐渐学到一些重要的经验教训。 2011年9月17日｜德累斯顿，纽约和弗罗茨瓦夫｜来自印刷版本。 从多伦多到弗罗茨瓦夫，从伦敦到罗马，学生和老师们在暑假之后陆陆续续开始返校。然而这个九月，教育本身却陷入了全球争论之中。教育成了许多国家政治辩论的前线，急欲提高国家表现的改革者们开始从世界各地借鉴良好的教育改革实践经验。 为什么现在急欲改革呢?一个答案在于如今各国学生成绩数据的透明性。这些成绩数据不仅在某国内是透明的，在国与国之间也是透明的。2000年，经济合作与发展组织OECD(事实上是富国俱乐部)开展了国际学生评估项目PISA，开始跟踪记录32个国家的15岁学生的成绩。很多国家都对他们国家排名感到震惊。(表1：PISA最新数据)其他机构也开始评估各国教育的优劣。咨询公司麦肯锡就开始监测哪些教育体系在最近几年中进步最快。 技术也产生了很大影响。经历了最初一系列失误之后，现在很多人都相信互联网能够真正影响学生教育，因此才有了诸如美国可汗学院(见文章)的成功。教育试验也是极具影响力的。越来越多的国家进行试验，就有越来越多的国家对其试验进行检验，并复制其成功模式。 但如今有关教育的辩论性质发生了变化。19．更重要的是失败教育的所谓的“三大借口”的重要性逐渐减退。20．教师工会始终认为西方教育的失败在于政府投人不足，社会阶级分化和文化对教育的漠视。21．但事实上这些虽然对教育确实有影响，但他们不足以决定现状。 好的教育就是资金投入的理念遭到重击。国际经济合作组织OECD中有20个国家经济发达，其中许多国家1970～1994年间对教育的资金投入增加了1倍或2倍，但他们教育发展却仍然停滞不前，甚至有所倒退。即便是平均资金投入相同的国家。其教育质量也有很大不同。美国的教育资金投入是最高的，但其中等教育的整体水平却落后于其他发达国家。PISA国际学生评估分析部主管安德烈亚斯.施莱歇尔认为学生表现的不同只有10％和教育资金投入有关。 然而还是有很多人坚持认为社会阶级分化对教育质量有影响。教育工会成员马丁.约翰逊指出，英国社会阶级的不平等是发达国家中最严重的，这是英国学生学习表现不好的最主要原因。哈佛大学对过去十年的教育改革研究支持了他的观点。该研究结果总结说，尽管学生总体成绩有所提高，但不同阶级学生的成绩差距却丝毫没有缩小。家庭背景不好的学生依然更不容易取得好成绩。美国的一项研究也证实了这一点。华盛顿大学的丹.戈德哈伯声称，非教育因素诸如家庭收入等对孩子学习成绩的影响占了60％。 然而这其中的联系比教育平等主义者所想的要复杂得多。例如，澳大利亚家庭收入差距很大，但令人难以置信的是，在最近的PISA测试中，澳大利亚位居第九。而发展迅速，世界贫富差距最大的国家之一的中国更是高居榜首。 文化当然也是一个重要因素。37．亚洲家长比西方家长更加重视孩子的学习成绩，他们推动了教育的成功。新加坡、中国香港和韩国在麦肯锡排行榜中轻轻松松位居榜前。(见表2)而西方国家非但整体表现一般，他们国内各学校表现也有很大差距。即使排除这些非比寻常的亚洲国家(下文也将也不予评论)，西方国家的教育体系也很难将国内最差的学校成绩提高到最好学校的成绩水平。 那么成功的秘诀是什么呢?虽然没有成功模板，但有四个重要的因素值得考虑：分权(还权于学校)；关注成绩落后的学生；增加不同类型学校的选择；提高师资水平。在麦肯锡排行榜排名靠前的安大略、波兰和撒克逊都很好地运用了这些因素。
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