Ed. Blogging Banned by China's Baidu?

From a recent article on Baidu

Although I'm a modest operation, I chart my page views around the globe.  It's amazing how blogging creates international connections.  After the United States, China (which is considered separately from Hong Kong) figured relatively high in my statistical count of page views  until about a month ago...

On Saturday, January 31, I posted a piece entitled, "Testing as the Biggest Distraction Ever."  In it, I referred to Yong Zhao's recent book, some BBC stories about academic intolerance in China and some instances of high-stakes cheating scandals in South Korea as well as China.

I noticed shortly following that post I stopped receiving page views from China.  Off hand, I would guess there is an explanation for this anomaly.  I would guess that my blog can no longer be accessed in mainland China.  So, I attempted to look into it further. 

I occasionally visit foreign search engines.  It is fun.  It is entertaining and it can be enlightening.  Whereas I can't find my blog at mainland China's Baidu, I can find it (at least as I write this) at google.com.hk or Hong Kong.  It is fascinating to me.  I know that the 1989 incidents in Tiananmen Square are accessible through google.com.hk, but not Baidu.  You may find an article at Baidu, however, informing you that the incident is a myth.  If the giant dragon found my blog threatening enough to ban, I am a little surprised, but also somewhat flattered.  

Nothing which I wrote, of course, was done with spite or the intention to mislead.  If anything I said was inaccurate, I would have hoped that someone would address it by correcting me--or the BBC.  When the truth must be kept from people, it is the first sign that a regime cannot honestly support itself.  It may be able to rule by fear, but it cannot forever keep truth from its people.  Our world is increasingly small for that.  

For the record, I can find dianeravitch.net, nyceducator.com, perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com, ednotesonline.blogspot.com, nycpublicschooparents.blogspot.com, iceuft.blog.blogspot.com, thejosevilson.com, raginghorse.wordpress.com and a good many other local blogs available in Hong Kong, but not all are available through Baidu.  (If you click on the links above, you are directed to the results of a Google search for each in Hong Kong.)

I searched for these same blogs in mainland China.  I can find the mother of all, Diane Ravitch, at Baidu.  It would be far harder to pretend she did not exist.  I did not have as much luck finding nyceducator.com, perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com, nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com, iceuft.blog.blogspot.com and raginghorse.wordpress.com at Baidu. (If you click on the links, you will be directed to the Baidu search results for these blogs.  The blogs do not seem to appear.)  Thejosevilson.com, censored from NYC school websites, ironically is available thorough Baidu.  If Mr. Vilson chooses to write a piece on academic freedom, migrants or equality in China, things might change.  I could be wrong...   

Although it seems I will lose a lot of traffic on my site from China, if it be so, I wouldn't want it any other way.  I love China, but I favor one which allows its citizens far more freedom.  And, if truth be told, one of my favorite modern-day heroes, if not my favorite, is Tankman.  There are other Tankmen in China, only we do not hear about them quite so much.  Any photos are destroyed.  (If you haven't seen the PBS Frontline on Tankman, I recommend it.  I personally believe he was executed by the goverment in 1989.)

I had the pleasure of three weeks or so in China in the summer of 1984 as a high-school student.  I came away with several souvenirs.  My favorite, beyond any doubt, was a book of stories and poems given to me by a guide.  In it, I kept the napkin upon which he wrote in green marker (with his name in both Chinese and pidgin) "I love American people."  I sometimes wonder what happened to him in the wake of Tiananmen Square.  Since he wasn't in Beijing though, I think there is good reason to the hope he fared well.

I have no doubt unleashing the creativity of China's more-than-a-billion people would benefit the world greatly.  I also have no doubt it would threaten China's communist government.  Creativity when combined with bravery always threatens dictatorship.  So, China must remain test-obsessed for its own preservation.  High-stakes tests, even those seemingly built upon a bedrock of cheating, prop up its government.  We must not choose that path.  

Strangest of all the modern educational "reform," I cannot comprehend how our government has looked with envy at Shanghai for its PISA test scores with hardly a word about the underlying lack of freedom, academic and otherwise, there.  When the obsession with test scores seems to blind our government to such things, I begin to think we need more Tankmen and Tankwomen in the United States.

Are There Better Uses for the Red Pen?

Shanghai, China, aced last year's PISA tests, hitting scores to catapult it into first place.  Yet, the disconnect between high test scores and democratic rights remains startling.  Despite a system supposedly championing workers, factory conditions smack of nineteenth-century America.  With school expenses too high for some families to afford, many of the people of the People's Republic seem to have their chances of getting ahead severely curtailed.  The recent demands of the people of Hong Kong for more political voice only emphasize the need for change that goes far beyond the school system.

Maybe besides focusing on test scores, "reformers" should take a look at the wider society--not just in China, but in the U.S.A., too.  Poverty is on the rise.  Workers find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.  In the world of education, profiteers swarm overhead like vultures.  The Common Core is a supreme distraction from the more compelling, yet harder to solve, ills facing society.  As Shanghai considers bowing out of participation in PISA's's rote learning for standardized tests, we might consider doing the same.  For the same reasons, we might better bow out of the "Common" Core.  

Does Testing Appeal to Our Most Basic Instincts?

Testing has become the most important measure of the value of an education.  Whether the test is an S.A.T. (the old or soon-to-be-newer version), the P.I.S.A., or CCSS-aligned, it can be "gamed."  The higher-stakes the test, the more time teachers will be forced to waste in test preparation.  If the test reflects on teachers and schools, as it does with current APPR laws, teachers will effectively be asked to teach to the test. 

Seventy percent of the students in NY state failed last year's round of CCSS tests.  Feeling pressure, Governor Cuomo said the tests will not count against students.  Oddly enough, he stands firm in his desire to count the tests against teachers and their schools.  If, in the next round 90% of students fail, knowing full well that the tests will not count against them, APPR laws will help to turn schools inside-out.  I suppose if you like "creative disruption," whether it is fair or foul, this might sit just fine with you.  I believe, however, schools are microcosms of communities and communities crave stability. 

There are no perfect tests, and even if we all agreed that a test could be the model of perfection, I would still resent teaching to it.  These tests are not used to help teachers inform their instruction. They are politically-charged weapons unleashed by educational deformers.  These tests are largely multiple-choice in nature.  These tests do not reflect the valuable life skills that better determine a child's chances of success in the future.  These tests attempt to teach us all to think alike.  In that spirit, I wondered how our ancestors ever survived without tests.

Testhenge

Leaning Towards P.I.S.A.: Do the ends justify the means?

 
The P.I.S.A. exam, or Programme for Internationale Assessment was put together by the O.E.C.D. (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in 1997.  The first tests were administered in 2000.  They test knowledge and its applications.  The tests are given to students who are between 15 years and 3 months and 16 years and 2 months.  They test math, reading, science, problem solving and financial literacy.  They are supposed to test skills assumed to be necessary in our global economy.  In addition, surveys are also given to students, parents and schools to assess demographics. 
P.I.S.A. would not be my choice "yardstick" for measuring any nation's educational system for several reasons.

1.  Cultural biases may be inherent in the test and in its translation.  Roughly one-half million students take the test in 65 countries.  According to some opinions, the very way in which students attempt to complete the exam is largely embedded in culture.  In some countries, students attempt to complete every question (Holland).  In other countries, students are more likely to skip questions (Germany and Austria).   Students in some nations get slaughtered, so to speak, near the end of the exam. 

2.  The Test only measures children who attend school.  It tells us nothing about vast inequalities of access to education.  Although the U.S. is struggling to increase educational gains by sectors of our population, all children attend school.
 
3.  China ranked #1 in the most recent P.I.S.A. ratings; yet, there are questions about whether or not its sample which is drawn largely from its stellar city of Shanghai (minus many children of migrant workers) is truly representative of the country. 

Enter the P.I.S.A. Dragon!


4.  If countries gear curriculum towards these tests, they can inflate their numbers, but at what cost?  What gets tested will guide what is taught.  Countries will game the system in so many ways that strike at the heart of the true purposes of education. 
Some link SAT scores to IQ; some link them to college readiness.  When I went to school, SAT scores told me more about which families had more disposable income to funnel into Stanley Kaplan and the desire to do so.  After the initial P.I.S.A. tests were given, people knew the nature of the beast, so to speak.  Now, scores may not so much evaluate application of knowledge as degree of test prep in the host nations.

5.  Standardized tests fail to measure creativity, invention, ingenuity, social skills and other, ultimately non-measurable gems integral to "success" (a term whose very definition is highly debatable) in life.  The test supposedly evaluates skills necessary in the global economy by reducing whole educational systems to basically three numbers. I wonder with much trepidation how much the world will lose by focusing on turning out little, standard-issue automatons of the corporate world.  Is there any place left for philosophy, music, art, invention, that which cannot be quantified, but may be among the most beautiful and important aspects of life?  Must we all wear gray, flannel suits?

If P.I.S.A. becomes the ultimate measure of the worth of a nation's educational system, so much of beauty and diversity will be lost.  Pearson may profit, but persons will not.