Thomas Friedman learns nothing in China

Thomas Friedman writes (currently the most-emailed article at the NY Times):

I’ve traveled here with Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, and the leaders of the Teach for All programs modeled on Teach for America that are operating in 32 countries. We’re visiting some of the highest- and lowest-performing schools in China to try to uncover The Secret — how is it that Shanghai’s public secondary schools topped the world charts in the 2009 PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) exams.

The most important reason, ignored by Friedman because he is an HBD-denialist, is that Chinese children in Shanghai have genetically higher IQs than American children.

The second most important reason, only alluded to, is that Chinese have more widespread middle-class values. Even stupid Chinese people respect teachers and the importance of education. In contrast, a commenter to the article writes about his experience as a teacher in America:

1. I often don’t hear from many parents until April or May, if at all. They do not return notes, emails, or phone calls, nor do they attend parent-teacher conferences.

2. On most days, the only homework I assign is to read a novel for 20 minutes. Only half of the students will do that. I don’t assign any other homework because doing so is an exercise in futility. If I assign homework regularly, many of the kids earn zeroes and fail the class, and then the parents and administrators come to me wanting to know how and why I am failing the kids, what I am doing wrong, and how I am going to improve.

The teacher also mentions a problem of American schools which is always worth pointing out again, which is that we refuse to group students by ability;

In one of my language arts classes I have one 6th grade boy reading at the 12th grade level and one 6th grade boy reading at the 2nd grade level. I am expected to develop separate and equal lesson plans for each boy, as well as for all of the kids in the middle.

I also suspect that the Chinese schools have more strict discipline for problem students than what the American teacher describes:

5. Kids can do whatever they want. My school has no detention. Suspension is a vacation and expulsion is illegal. Almost nobody fails a grade, despite bad performance.