Recommendation

I am nearly finished with Catching Up or Leading the Way and recommend this book as essential reading in the fight against NCLB and testing as the way to determine student progress. Zhao traces the failure of centralized education in China, Japan, Singapore, and everywhere else it has been tried. His most powerful comments come in the form of comparing our history of scoring very low in tests that rank nations (we always have) and yet we continue to lead the world in innovation and places many people want to live. To reconcile this discrepancy one must always remember that the U.S. has valued creativity which leads to innovation and invention which keeps us on top. The high performing nations on standardized tests are all abandoning the centralized education system and moving toward decentralizing while the U.S. is moving in the opposite direction. Can someone explain???