Maybe, this author is suggesting, Americans need to abandon exceptionalism and start listening a bit…
Reverse mentoring when it comes education across the globe: “Most Atlantic readers know that, although the U.S. spends more per student on K-12 education than any other nation except Luxembourg, students in a growing number of nations outperform our own. But think about this: Among the consistent top performers are not only developed nations (Japan, Finland, Canada), but developing countries and mega-cities such as South Korea, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Even if we find a way to educate our future work force to the same standards as this latter group — and we are a very long way from that now — wages in the United States will continue to decline unless weoutperform those countries enough to justify our higher wages. That is a very tall order. You would think that, being far behind our competitors, we would be looking hard at how they are managing to outperform us. But many policymakers, business leaders, educators and advocates are not interested. Instead, they are confidently barreling down a path of American exceptionalism, insisting that America is so different from these other nations that we are better off embracing unique, unproven solutions that our foreign competitors find bizarre.”
The top-performing nations have followed paths that are remarkably similar and straightforward. Most start by putting more money behind their hardest-to-educate students than those who are easier to educate. In the U.S., we do the opposite.
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