What can we learn from Shanghai?

Apparently quite a bit. According to the most recent international testing results, Chinese students from Shanghai blew away the rest of the field, placing first in math and reading. Good news for Shanghai even if these results don't represent the nation as a whole (which they certainly don't), bad for America. For purposes of comparison, our kids placed 11th in reading and 26th in math.

It's not enough that the Chinese are already outproducing us in the field of green and alternative energy (and I promise you this will haunt us if we don't get our act together quickly), they're out-educating us too. Ok, that may not be entirely true, but they're educating and they're doing it well. Combined with the rapid pace of their economic growth, this signals a real threat to America's position as the world's premier economic power. It's time to step up and in a big way.

The part of this that struck me most is the following quote "Also, in recent years, teaching has rapidly climbed up the ladder of preferred occupations in China, and salaries have risen. In Shanghai, the authorities have undertaken important curricular reforms, and educators have been given more freedom to experiment."

In other articles on other sites, I've written about the need for America to invest in educators, compensating them and providing them with work environments that affirm the fact that teachers are the cornerstones of our society. Weird how they're doing that in China and the students there just placed first in both math and literacy. I wonder if there is a correlation...

Some experts, upon seeing these results, proclaimed that this would America's new Sputnikesque wake-up call. This is the moment we realize we can't just sit around and expect to remain on top because others are actively trying to unseat us. I can only hope these people are right because clearly America needs a wake-up call. While Kentucky exports biblical stories and Oklahomans live in fear of sharia law that is an ever-present danger in the heartland, China is investing in science, math and reading. Does this really mean Americans think we'll stay the best by building biblical theme parks and legal walls to protect against Islam while the Chinese think they'll become the best by educating people? I certainly hope not, because if that's the case America is in a truly bad spot.

So here's to Apollo, the American rockets that took us to the moon after Sputnik scared us out of our socks. Hopefully someone somewhere in our great nation has a modern-day Apollo up their sleeve so we're not left studying history in Kentucky's theme parks.