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Community Corner

America is Being Left Behind in Education By India, China

Award winning teacher Keith Ballard will host forums Feb. 16 and Feb. 22 to discuss why he thinks America's education system is being blown away by Chinese and Indian students, and what America needs to do to change.

I recently returned from China and India and was exposed to education systems that have overtaken America in performance and are poised to wreak havoc on our local and national job competition.

The U.S. public school system is being blown away and simply won’t be able to compete without undergoing major changes. Making the comparison to a football game, the Chinese public school system (K-12) is at NFL level of play; whereas the United States is playing high school ball.

For 25 days in September and October 2011, I visited 10 schools in China and 12 schools in India to interview students, teachers and administrators, over that time capturing more than 50 hours of video.

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Videos from my trip can be viewed on my YouTube channel.

Prior to going to China and India, I invested approximately 400 hours of research in this subject. A stark reality was revealed to me that schools in America are by and large not preparing students to compete for high-tech, high-paying jobs.

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American teachers are not the problem but are part of the solution. John Simmons, EdD, who interviewed over 60 engineering students while traveling in India in November 2011, collaborated with me on this project. 

The main reason I did this project is because I have a seven-year-old son and I have deep concerns that his education in the U.S. public school system will not sufficiently prepare him to compete for the best jobs in the future.  

Many countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea, China, India, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands and Taiwan prove that a country can provide its children with a world class public education across all socio-economic lines. 

These countries tie their public school system with the success of their economies. Unfortunately, the U.S. treats public education as a social issue and during times of economic downturn, social programs are the first to go on the chopping block. 

The state of California may continue to cut the number of education days for our children which is a very dangerous move if we are trying to grow our economy and compete with many Asian countries that have high growth and robust economies. The U.S. must treat education as a national security issue because we cannot continue to fund a large and powerful military without a robust economy to support that military. 

China continues to loan the U.S. money every hour of every day so that we can pay our military bill and for the costly wars that we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amount of information in the world is doubling every 18 months. The world is changing rapidly.   

According to data cited in Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, the typical Chinese student at high school graduation will have received conservatively six additional years of schooling more than an American public school student.

This is due to longer school years in China (approximately 50 more days per year), longer school days (three hours more per day) and an earlier start time for kindergarten (two to three years earlier than in the US). 

If you add in homework loads of Chinese students (about two hours per day) and time on task in the classroom due to virtually no discipline problems in Chinese public schools, the number could look more like eight years ahead of American students.

Furthermore, studies have shown that Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times more time with their children per day than American parents.

We are clearly being out parented and out educated – that is the bottom line.

Our future will increasingly be determined on our capacity and our will as a nation to educate all children well – a challenge we have very little time to meet if the United States is not to experience the modern day equivalent of the fall of Rome.

The U.S. government uses the international PISA test as the best indicator of how our students are performing in comparison to many other industrialized countries throughout the world. 

In 2009, Shanghai, China scored first in reading, first in math and first in science in the world. 

The US scored 31st in Math, 23rd in Science and 17th in Reading. 

Even worse, this is the best that the U.S. can do after spending the second highest per-pupil amount for education in the world.  

The U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated that there are two million unfilled, high-wage, high-skilled jobs in America. For years, companies have looked beyond our borders for qualified individuals to immigrate to America and fill the positions.

The Chinese and Indians have been and are continuing to prepare for these jobs. To catch-up with the Chinese and Indians, we must adopt the same attitude we had when America met the challenge of the space race. 

But first the leaders in the American educational system will have to understand the problem. Band-Aids won’t work! There’s no magic bullet!

Only by being open to really understanding the problem and seeking solutions will we as a community and country be able to have our children and future generations compete for these high-tech, high-paying jobs. Understanding the problem is foremost! Willingness to discuss the problem with an open mind is central to effecting change.

I recommend the following changes to improve education in the United States.

1. Recognize the importance of early childhood brain stimulation and preparing children to be competitive early on. China does this through excellent parent involvement and by starting kindergarten at age two. The U.S. starts kindergarten at age five or later.

2. Increase the number of days in the school year and hours per day (time on task) to compete with other top-performing countries. 

California's students go to school 180 days per year – Chinese students go to school 230 days per year.

3. Increase awareness among educational administrators, teachers and the public of just how high the “educational bar” needs to be raised. 

Most people do not understand that this is a real and serious problem; this includes teachers, administrators and many well-educated Americans. Honestly acknowledging the situation and using established data is the best approach when seeking solutions to this issue.

4. Facilitate “school-to-career” vocational programs to help those students who cannot or do not want to go to college. China and Germany have excellent models to follow.

5. Work with politicians, TV, radio and print news to help recognize the need for and facilitate change.  

6. AND make real changes!

Conclusion: Secretary Duncan has made it clear that our high school and college graduates can’t keep up with the demand for high-tech high-paying jobs in America.

Whether we recognize it or not, we are part of a global job marketplace. 

It’s not about us versus them. It’s about California's children being competitive for good-paying jobs. 

We must prepare our kids for good jobs. That is what it’s all about!

Keith Ballard is a music teacher at Southwest Middle School who was chosen among teachers nationwide for the Milken Family Foundation Educator Award in 2003.

at Chula Vista High School he will give a presentation titled “ Understanding the New Tsunami - The Chinese Public School Educational System and How to Prepare Your Children to Compete for the High-Tech, High Paying Jobs of the Future!”

A second forum will be held Feb. 22 from 6:30–8:15 p.m. at the North County Regional Education Center in San Marcos.

Parents are encouraged to bring their kids in the eighth grade and older.

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