Tierra Foxworth

April 17th, 2020

IDC 201-201

World Class: How to Build a 21st - Century School System

This book overall is very insightful and full of things I did not know. From different

PISA scores around the world and what contributed to them, and how poverty may not have

anything to do with that at all; to teachers and how we see and treat them. All of these things are

discussed in detail in this book like no other that I have read. Schleicher goes on to talk about his

experiences and how he thinks the world needs to change in order to give the future students of

the world a better and proper education. For me, this book was so eye opening. I was able to

understand what he meant and the ideas that he is grasping at and trying to get other people like

educators to understand.

In the beginning of the book, it goes on to talk about the PISA and how it changed the

education system around the world. This test was designed by the OECD in the late 1990s. After

administering the test and looking over the results they were able to conclude that Finland had

the best overall education system. They made education the biggest priority; not sports, or any

other extracurricular activity. Education and school were pretty much all these kids had but they

enjoyed it at the same time and knew the expectations that they were being held to. It was also

found that there was, “no automatic link between social disadvantage and poor performance in

school” (pg. 23). I think that this is so important when we look at education. I think that it does

not matter where you come from or how you got here as long as you are trying to learn and doing

the best that you can. I think Schleicher was right when he said that poverty did not play a role in
the way that children were educated. All that really mattered was the quality of the education that

they were given. If the country provided good, wholesome education to their students then they

did well on their PISA scores. If the country saw education as a back-burner subject then the

scores were awful. I love how Schleicher talks about how it is not about how much money is

spent on education. It only matters on what you do with it and how you use it. He talks more

about how the school systems need to get good quality teachers for their kids and make sure that

those teachers are up to par with education as time goes on. For me, this is one of the most

important things for the students. I also liked the comparison of the education systems in

Singapore, Estonia, Canada, Finland, and Shanghai. All of these countries had awareness of

underperformance and inequities in their education systems. They made innovation a top priority

and made sure to use their resources to the best of their abilities. These countries based their

systems on the fact that every student can succeed when given the right kind of support that is

not always financial.

One thing I really did like was the fact that the president of Brazil knew how bad his

country’s education system was. He knew that it needed improvement and that his students were

not getting all that they needed. He knew that the standards for them were so low and that most

of the people in his country did not think that change was needed. He decided to give out the

PISA test just to prove to everyone where they really were on a global scale. Low and behold the

results were not up to par and Brazil was one of the lowest scoring countries in 1997. I applaud

Carsoso for doing this. People need to have their eyes opened in order to see what is really going

on the world around them. They need to see the things that are hard that way they can know what

they need to change. I think in a lot of the world, especially in this country, we are all scared of

change. We don’t do anything different because we are scared to either hurt someone’s feelings
or do something wrong. I feel like if what we are doing isn’t working then we need to be willing

to change. We need to be willing to see what is wrong and fix it. Children are our future in this

world and it is such a disservice to them if we are not allowing them to be educated properly.

Another point that was made in the book is how a country’s most valuable asset is its children

and its people. In countries like Finland, Japan, and Singapore, they know that education is really

all that they have. They know that is the most important thing for them to make money off of and

to keep their economy alive. They know that their children are the future and if they want to

continue on with the prosperity of their countries, then they take education very seriously. They

hold their children to high expectations and make sure that the have certain life skills that will

make them be able to adapt to things in the world. I think learning new life skills and being able

to adapt to things should be one of the most important things that we teach our kids. Overall, I

think it will make them better students and also better members of society as they get older. The

world is constantly changing and we need to be able to teach them to change with it. There are

still children around the world who are stuck in the old education ways and we can see with the

PISA scores how different their scores really are. When education is made a the top priority you

will see a difference not only in PISA scores but in many other divisions of a country’s

government.

Teachers are another part of the education system that are also undervalued. In many of the

countries in the world, teachers are told what to do and how they need to be teaching their

students. They have no authority over their own classrooms and many of them do not like their

jobs. They are educated once in their lifetimes and not made to keep up with new information or

made to education themselves as time goes on. I think that this is also in a way a disservice to

our children. When the teachers are not where they should be then how can we expect the
students to be there as well? I do not understand how someone who is so important can be treated

the way that they are or made to do things that they may not fully agree with. Teachers in this

country, and I’m sure in other countries of the world as well, have a very hard job. So much is

expected out of them and they are given very littler resources to do so. Teachers are the ones on

the front lines and when we don’t listen to them it directly affects the students. I like how

Schleicher talked about making reforms and how when teachers stand united, more things get

done. This is so true and just goes on to show how we really need to listen to them and make sure

that they have everything that they need.

I think all together this book was an eye opener. I was shocked at how different the world really

is all around and how far behind we really are when it comes to educating our students. I think

we really need to take a step back and look at what we are doing. How are we making things

better? Are we changing the things that aren’t working? I think the answers to these questions are

ones that we as future educators need to strive for and we need to be the ones who can help make

a difference.