[yo-mf]

"The problem with education politics is that people like you love to totally distort the issues. Ya, there are problems on both sides, but we aren't even having honest debates yet."

His was about the closet to an honest debate yet. I also lived in China, and let's be honest, kids from elite families are not in public schools. They go to private schools where they get a superior education and teachers that are subject to much more scrutiny. That being said, as in the US, public schools in wealthier districts are measurably better than poorer districts. I remember walking into a public school in Tongchuan near Xi'an that was nothing more than a tiny wooden frame with aluminum for the ceiling and siding. That was in sharp contrast to a school outside of my apartment in Beijing in Haidian Qu where most of the elite universities are which sported computers, modern facilities, and well educated teacher. Not too much different than a public school in Palo Alto as an example.

Your comment however is more a deflection than addressing the real issue which is teacher quality and whether teachers should be evaluated and paid according to performance. Taking the though further, would a free-market education system rather than the current public system be a better option for improving educational results? That would be a more interesting conversation to have, if you are willing to participate.

[seanmcdirmid]

Most kids of elites go to public schools actually, like renmin zhongxue that is probably the best in Beijing...you can tell by all the black Audi's lining up around 4 pm to jam traffic on zhongguancun Dajie.

Private schools are technically not allowed except for special subjects (after school) and to teach expat kids (aka international schools, though they take some Chinese students also). Also, where you live doesn't determine where you go to school always, especially if you don't have hukou. So a farmer can't just move to Beijing to have their kids enroll in nice Beijing schools. A farmer could move to palo alto however, and take advantage of palo alto schools. The system in china just fails horribly for most of the kids, and you probably know that.

Lets have an honest debate about education in the states instead of throwing up examples that are probably more screwed up than the USA. Only a few countries in western Europe honestly do better than us; even Singapore and Hong Kong have huge warts.

A pure free market system is just going to lead to sad form of libertarian feudalism. The problem with schools is that the rich kids continue to do well, the poor kids do bad, with little social mobility that the schools should be enabling. Any solution had to look at helping kids that need help the most rather than help rich parents game the system for their maximum benefit.

[yo-mf]

And the irony is that a public school system that should be egalitarian is in fact ripe for many of the same abuses as a free market system. Yes, the farmer could move to Palo Alto so the children can go to a better school, but there is no way to pay the actual expense of living is said area. The public system also locks in students in a hopeless track of educational and financial poverty. That is a direct consequence of poorly run (corrupt) schools staffed with low quality teachers protected by the education bureaucracy and teacher's unions.

The real debate we should be having is whether our nation can continue to have a publicly funded education system that supports improving quality and can be a platform that provides any child regardless of economic class an opportunity to receive a quality education. I believe it can, but the situation as it stands today, particularly in poorer districts is not encouraging.

By the way, "public" and "private" are distinctions that I have found to be rather loose in China. Let's just say that the class system is alive and healthy post-Mao...

[seanmcdirmid]

Public and private are quite well defined, actually, don't let the hongbao's fool you...those are all public schools.

Low quality, sure, but corrupt? The USA is not china or India, our schools are pretty incorrupt even if incompetent. Getting rid of public education in the states would destroy American society as we know it. We will become more like Mexico, brazil, or South Africa, with the rich hiring body guards and living in fortresses to keep out the crime; thankfully it's is easy to get a gun in the states. We ignore the fact that even our imperfect system is better than the crappy libertarian alternative.

I'm sure teacher unions are part of the problem, but lazy parents who blame the unions for the whole problem are just idiots. Finland has teacher unions and they do very good at education. The problems we have are cultural, but deep down inside, the parents are happy to blame the unions and kept things the way they are, like a republican congress they just want to complain, point out their scapegoat, and make sure no improvements actually happen.

Right, the farmer has to live in palo alto somehow to get education for ther kids, but plenty of farmers live in Beijing and their kids get squat.

[yo-mf]

Wow, lazy parents...care to provide any metrics to back up that ludicrous assumption? The lazy parent excuse is what come out of the mouths of teachers to justify themselves and the status quo.

Having grown up in the inner city, there were plenty of parents that did not care, they were too busy wallowing in the despair of poverty. But there were plenty of other parents that fought to get their kids a better education and were stymied by a system that simply did not appreciate or care for feedback or parental participation. So those that could afford it sent their kids to Catholic schools, the only place left in NYC to ensure kids got a decent education. I was fortunate enough to be one of those kids, but my parents stretched to make the tuition. Today, it is even worse as parochial schools shut down and magnet schools are not able to meet the rising demand by parents fed up with the public options and desperate for alternatives.

This is not an honest debate. Obviously you are coming from one particular viewpoint and I am coming from another. Part of it might be political views and part might be personal interactions with the US educational system. I have children now in public school and can see how misaligned incentives have created a system that simply does not rewards quality.

As for bringing up Finland, that is a country that has less people than Chicago, a completely different culture, and a homogeneous population. What works there simply does not translate (just as the hagwons in Korea do not translate to the US). What does translate however is making quality the pinnacle for reshaping the US education system, something that oddly liberals resist. Instead they protect the unions and the status quo and that sounds like the camp you support.