Thomas Friedman on education: 'There is no secret'

Nothing earth-shattering here from one of the Times' many easy-to-parody staff columnists, but it's a good, compact reminder of something I think we frequently lose sight of.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/opinion/friedman-the-shanghai-secret.html?hp

After visiting Shanghai’s Qiangwei Primary School, with 754 students — grades one through five — and 59 teachers, I think I found The Secret:

There is no secret.

When you sit in on a class here and meet with the principal and teachers, what you find is a relentless focus on all the basics that we know make for high-performing schools but that are difficult to pull off consistently across an entire school system. These are: a deep commitment to teacher training, peer-to-peer learning and constant professional development, a deep involvement of parents in their children’s learning, an insistence by the school’s leadership on the highest standards and a culture that prizes education and respects teachers.

 

Don't forget that the students go to school on high-speed rail ... that's critical.

 

"[E]asy-to-parody[.]"

 

And end up getting a job building Ipads for a buck a day.

 

Hey, don't accuse me of bullying because I ran up the score. If Friedman doesn't want to be parodied, he needs to grow a pair and opinionate better!

 

Hey, I'm on record that I'd replace the whole lot of them this second with the best of Slate's pundits and the page would be infinitely better immediately.

 

Friedman wrote that column because he could.

 

The Times should make Greenwald a columnist.

 

God damn does he love the murderous, Communist, Chinese system of government.

Of course, he's right about there being "no secret".

We don't have the will to hold teachers, parents, or kids to high standards.

 

Nor to respect teachers.

 

You want to find a good school system? Find a town with big Asian population. They are big on holding schools and teachers accountable.

 

Would we respect any profession that doesn't uphold standards?

The teaches, and their unions, are obstacles to imposing standards.

(So are the folks who get "shamed" by inspirational posters and who think their kids are "bullied" when they're beaten badly in a football game.)