Common Core

Astonished at the slip in student performance in recent years, Japan is reconsidering its now ten-year-old experiment in “pressure-free” education. “There’s a sense of crisis,” said a professor of education in Tokyo, “there are serious concerns about whether our education system is working … .”

Yet, in contrast to the United States’ relatively abysmal performance on PISA (29^th in science and 35^th in math), Japan’s scores (6^th in science and 10^th in math) remain well above the OECD average, and its education system is consistently heralded (for good reason) as one worthy of emulation.

So why the “shock”? Japan’s drop (from first in math in 2000 to 10^th in 2006) has coincided with a dramatic move away from the so-called “cram education” to a more “student-centered” approach, as educators slashed content requirements and focused instead on supporting students in their application of knowledge to real-life situations. At the expense of fundamentals, Japan added electives and spent more time exploring students’ questions, like “Why doesn’t a sleeping bird fall from its perch on a branch?”

Japan’s current situation is especially interesting in light of the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math and English, which of course seek to raise US standards. But, with the CCSS, American students will learn how to determine the area of a trapezoid in sixth grade, a full year after Japanese students learn the same concept. So we’re still behind.

Japan’s bravely called its failed education experiment what it is ‒ a “huge failure.” Japan should be applauded for moving back to its roots in deep content. As US educators create curricula in response to the CCSS, we hope we will avoid Japan’s costly mistake.

Lynne Munson and Stephanie Porowski

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under Curriculum, Standards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.