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When the United States picks exemplars to learn from, diversity ought to be among the characteristics of the model countries.

Every educator now takes it for granted that we need to learn from high achievers around the world — but with so many countries, how should we choose among them? One important criterion for American educators should be diversity. Finland, Japan, South Korea, and Shanghai all are popular places for educators to visit. One thing you can’t learn from any of them, however, is how to make the most of diversity — they just don’t have enough of it.

One country that does have diversity and is gaining more every day is Germany. Earlier this year, we learned that one of every seven people living in Germany today was born in another country — and this was before the current wave of refugees. This diverse new Germany should be especially interesting for Americans because its results have climbed steadily in achievement and equity since the first Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam in 2000. Germany has gone from below average to one of the most improving nations in the world. These gains contrast with the U.S., where results basically are unchanged.

What did Germany do to engineer this steady rise? At first glance, its reforms appear similar to U.S. reforms. Germans, like Americans, have developed common standards and assessments across state lines. New resources have been pumped into professional development. The country has developed data-rich information systems for improving instruction. All of these reform strategies are familiar to Americans, but German results have improved on PISA, and ours haven’t.

Why?

Avoid market reforms

One explanation arises not so much from what Germans have done to improve their schools as what they have not done. In the U.S., market-based reform models ignited charter school movements, encouraged alternative forms of educator preparation, and opened the way for technological innovations. These reforms created a cottage industry of young social entrepreneurs with minimal educational preparation but plenty of elbow grease. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by their idealism.

Unfortunately, these reforms, however impressive, have not improved the U.S. education system as a whole because they make no contribution to the overall coherence of the school system. They do the opposite. They introduce competitive models that give educators a vested interest in outshining one another rather than working together to lift all results.

German reforms at first glance look identical to U.S. reforms. On closer examination though, you’ll find that, even when German reformers use similar language about accountability and data, they actually are far more restrained when it comes to the pressures they put on teachers who interact daily with students. Germany has more testing than before the first PISA, but most testing is done by sampling subpopulations of students at just two grade levels rather than a census of all of them. Germany does no public ranking of teachers against teachers, and there is almost no ranking of schools against schools. No public revenues go into pay-for-performance schemes that focus educators on pumping up test scores. German education gives parents and students choices but does so in a way that validates a culturally prized vocational school sector.

Persistent, solid work

Throughout all of these reforms, Germany emphasizes building a solid educational platform for all students that is focused on the core tasks of teaching and learning. Germans shy away from charismatic leaders and feel-good workshops. The country’s reforms emphasize persistent, solid foundational work that can withstand scrutiny.

There are many arguments against international benchmarking in education. Some say countries are too different from one another for their schools to be compared usefully. Others worry that too great an emphasis on testing will lead to a narrowing of the curriculum. These are warnings we should heed.

However, we should not retreat from analyzing how American students’ learning compares to their counterparts in other nations. We should be especially curious when countries are making gains with diverse multicultural populations that share some similarities with our schools.

Germany has transformed itself dramatically since the Berlin Wall came down a little over a quarter century ago. It’s time for U.S. educators to give German schools a fresh look to learn what could be contributing to their improvements in achievement and equity.

 

Citation: Shirley, D. (2015). BACKTALK: Learn from a diverse, new Germany. Phi Delta Kappan, 97 (3), 80.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Dennis Shirley

Dennis Shirley is a professor of education at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development of Boston College, MA. He is the coauthor of The Age of Identity: Who Do Our Kids Think They Are … and How Do We Help Them Belong? (Corwin Press, 2023).