Learning from the World: Achieving More by Doing Less

Countries that score higher in international comparisons than does the U.S. also require less time in school, assign less homework, and use less high-tech gadgetry. Mr. Baines argues that maybe it is time we learned from them. AT THIS moment, in school districts throughout the United States, initiatives are being launched to extend the school day, increase homework, integrate technology, and require more high-stakes testing. The assumption underlying these initiatives is that more and more--more time in school, more homework, more technology, and more high-stakes testing--will produce smarter, better-prepared students who, in turn, will help guide the nation through the tumultuous and uncertain 21st century. To realize the ideal of an educated, productive citizenry, however, many countries around the world are employing radically different approaches. Instead of executing a strategy of more and more, some countries have decided to educate their young people by doing less. Because the test scores of students from these countries routinely eclipse the scores posted by American students in two international comparisons of student achievement--Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme of International Student Achievement (PISA)--an investigation of educational practices in higher-achieving countries might prove instructive. Four areas where the policy and practice in high-achieving countries run counter to current practice and policy in the U.S. are as follows: 1) time spent at school, 2) homework, 3) technology, and 4) schools as agents of social change. TIME SPENT IN SCHOOL Students in public schools in most countries in Western Europe, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Japan, and Singapore--all members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)--spend an average of 701 hours per year in school. In Finland, where students have scored near the top in international comparisons of achievement for a number of years, students spend only 600 hours in school. In the United States, by contrast, children go to school for six or more hours per day, five days per week, for approximately 185 days spread over a period of nine or 10 months. The average time spent at school in the U.S. totals over 1,100 hours, almost double that of children in Finland. By the time children reach the age of 14 in Finland, they will have gone to school for 2,500 fewer hours than students in America (the equivalent of two to four years of schooling). Despite much longer school days, American students routinely score 10% to 20% lower than Finnish students on international tests of achievement. Experimental studies have repeatedly found no correlation between time spent at school and levels of achievement. (1) Of course, as any teacher in American public schools can attest, time at school is often wasted on performing nonteaching tasks, organizing paperwork, maintaining discipline, and keeping students busy. Some of the more prestigious private secondary schools in America schedule classes in the fashion of universities -- 90-minute periods that meet twice each week, with one day a week set aside for advising and one-on-one tutoring. If such a schedule were adopted in public high schools, for example, total instructional hours in America would drop sharply. But such a transformation would mean a departure from the traditional schedule and a retreat from the daily array of professional development opportunities such as hall duty, lunch supervision, bus detail, parking lot patrol, and detention hall supervision. HOMEWORK As with instructional hours spent in school, America also leads the world in assigning homework--a whopping 140 minutes per week in mathematics for secondary students. Despite this extra workload, American students are renowned for posting mediocre scores on math tests. For example, the average score for an eighth-grade American student on the mathematics portion of the TIMSS in 2003 was 502. …

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