On China and education

An opinion piece in the Washington Post argues that America, and the West generally I suppose, shouldn't be getting into a panic over a recent claims that Chinese high school education is beating the world:

As pointed out by several experts, such as Rob J. Gruiters, university lecturer at the faculty of education at the University of Cambridge, the China ranking is a sham. The 2018 PISA tests were given to 15-year-olds only in the cities of Beijing and Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, four of the most urbanized and affluent areas of the country. All 79 nations and political entities participating in PISA are asked to submit results that accurately represent their schools. China has not done that, but the people running PISA do little about it.

Tom Loveless, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on international school assessments, summed up the situation after the 2018 PISA results were released:

“There is not one but two Chinas: one urbanized, mainly on the east coast, and rapidly growing in wealth; the other rural, in the interior of China or on the move as migrants, and mired in poverty. As a rough proxy, recent population numbers put the Chinese rural share at 41 percent. PISA assesses achievement of the first China and ignores the second.”

And the education standards in the poorer parts of the country sound pretty low:

Scholars rarely get a chance to look closely at rural Chinese education, but the available information is depressing. Loveless cited studies conducted from 2007 to 2013 showing cumulative dropout rates in rural areas between 17 and 31 percent in junior high schools. Only half of rural Chinese children went to high school and only 37 percent of that age group graduated.  A 2017 study revealed that in 27 provinces the average high school classroom had more than 45 students. In 12 provinces the average was more than 55. Loveless said the government’s official goal is no more than 56 students per classroom.