parresia

public educationThe juxtaposition between Japanese

public education

The juxtaposition between Japanese education and American education has been a long standing rivalry-- always, it seems, with America playing catch-up. We've been watching Japan's performance in math and science for years now. We've cataloged thousands and thousands of hours of video taped Japanese classrooms (one study recently completed had over 30,000 hours of video taped material; one study). We've analyzed and reanalyzed stats on everything from Japanese/American test scores, to their respective television veiwing habits.

It seems that after all the work thats been done there are some factors that are starting to rear their head over and over. In short, there are a few practices of Japanese teachers that DO seem to have a high correlation to excellent performance.

Those practices are the following. 1. Nationalized Standards (every student in Japan is expected to learn the same thing). 2. Nationalized tests (every 8th grade student, for instance, takes the exact same test every week, for the entire year). 3. Learning Teams (teachers are required to partake in intensive professional development on a weekly basis).

Of these practices the United States has shyed away from them all. There are many reasons for their fear, of which I do not want to go into here, but I did want to comment on the first Japanese practice and its relation to our system in the future.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that national standards would mean Federal oversight in education. Further, it isn't hard to see that Federal control over all public education would be a highly sought control by those in politics of liberal persuasion (unfortunately, this includes some Republicans). From this evidence, which is just recently becoming more and more appearant to the general populace, based on the numerous studies we've done on Japanese education and what is only now becoming "common knowledge" in the education upper eshalons, the push to nationalize education in the United States will increase in furvor and potency.

Soon we will be hearing a redoubled plea to nationalize education...otherwise, we'll be told, "the Japanese will take over..."

I write this as a warning. We need to watch and be careful. We who value our capitalistic, republic democracy based on the Constitution must stand watch. If Americans do not continue to go back to their roots in the Constitution- where we see that education is to be a state right, and only a state right- then the socialist movement in America will overtake yet another hallmark of what is considered to be a democraticly free nation.