Recent economic troubles in the US have fed into a great deal of fear about China as an emerging superpower. And the high test scores Chinese students have been getting on standardized tests are especially alarming to policy-makers. In this book, Yong Zhao – a product of the Chinese public school system who once taught in it as well – shines a critical light on the ways in which these anxieties are affecting American schools. In this sobering account, the author argues that the Chinese system is a perilous model for the US since American schools aim to shape students into productive members of society capable of democratic self-governance, and not pliant workers in an autocratic state.
