Checker is among those educators ?stunned,? as he told the New York Times, by China's performance in what the Times noted was the nation's ?debut in international standardized testing.? And stunned he, and we all, should be. China scored at the top in all three categories tested?science, reading, and math?and in math, especially, it was way out in front, with second-place Singapore finishing nearly 40 points behind. Sputnik for the 21st century? Perhaps. One can't help but wonder, though, if China, given its obsessive and pathological concern over its own image, did not find some way to manipulate the PISA results, perhaps by discretely controlling the sample of students from which the test-makers could select test-takers? Too conspiracy-theory-ish? Not at all. This is China, we're talking about.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow