The World’s Highest-Scoring Students

Hani Morgan

The World’s
Highest-Scoring
Students

How Their Nations Led
Them to Excellence

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morgan, Hani, author.

Title: The world’s highest-scoring students:

how their nations led them to excellence / Hani Morgan.

Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2018.

Series: Global studies in education; vol. 35 | ISSN 2153-330X

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017045803 | ISBN 978-1-4331-5142-2 (hardback: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4331-5143-9 (paperback: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5144-6 (ebook pdf)

ISBN 978-1-4331-5145-3 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5146-0 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Academic achievement—Cross-cultural studies.

Education—Cross-cultural studies. | Education and state—Cross-cultural studies.

Educational change—Cross-cultural studies.

Educational evaluation—Cross-cultural studies.

Education—United States. | Educational change—United States.

Classification: LCC LB1062.6.M67 2017 | DDC 371.26/4—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045803

DOI 10.3726/b12911

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

About the author

HANI MORGAN is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Southern Mississippi. He received his M.A. and M.Ed. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and his Ed.D. from Rutgers University. He is the co-editor of The World Leaders in Education: Lessons from the Successes and Drawbacks of Their Methods.

About the book

The World’s Highest-Scoring Students focuses on how various countries transformed their school systems into the worldʼs leading systems of education. Hani Morgan covers eight countries: Finland, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China, Canada, Estonia, and the United States. His book offers ideas on how the United States can improve its school system so that it can regain its status as the worldʼs undisputed leader in education.

In addition to offering a brief historical context for each country, Morgan describes important practices that helped these nations achieve stellar results in international testing. Some of the subjects covered include teacher preparation programs, cultural attitudes toward education, and teacher recruitment practices. His book differs from other texts on this topic because he describes in detail the most recent practices that various educational systems have used to maintain top academic performance and the strategies others have implemented to climb to the top.

The Worldʼs Highest-Scoring Students offers a new perspective on this topic in several ways. This book provides a balanced view of the highest-ranking nations in education, offering the outstanding practices they use to achieve stellar results but also pointing out the problems they endure. In addition, Morgan discusses various controversies about international tests, including the limitations of using these tests to evaluate students.

This eBook can be cited

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·1·

Why It’s Crucial to Learn from World-Class Nations in Education

American students have never achieved impressive results on one of the world’s most important international tests, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). This less-than-optimal performance occurs for a variety of reasons, which involve the overall quality of America’s school system and the inequalities in wealth in its society. By investigating what world-class nations in education do to achieve outstanding school systems, countries with mediocre results on international tests, such as the United States, can gain valuable insights on how they can enhance their public education system. Such insights are crucial because a nation’s school system has a strong impact on the extent to which its society will thrive. For example, several studies suggest that if countries that fail to perform well on international tests raise their scores, their economies would improve (Lynch & Oakford, 2014; Paine & Schleicher, 2011).

Economic gains are just one of the advantages nations reap when they enhance the quality of their schools. In many countries, only privileged students attend outstanding schools, while those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds go to inferior institutions. Thus, when nations improve on international tests, such as the PISA, it is often after they create policies that promote equity in their school systems.←1 | 2→