Seoul vs Baltimore

A friend of mine teaches English in Korea. He has been there for the past six years. Whenever he is town, we discuss our different experiences as classroom teachers. He teaches at a great private school in Seoul and I teach at a magnet public school in Baltimore.

Recently he sent me a link to a New York Times article with a one sentence explanation, “Welcome to my world - this article may give you an understanding of the environment I teach in.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/world/asia/27seoul.html

Two things stand out after having read the article. First, Koreans place a high value on education, especially on the prestige of an institution. Second, the standard is perfection -- students are expected to ace their test, including the SAT.

I wonder if it would be possible to transform my magnet public school into an uber-student producing factory. What would have to change? What could stay the same?

I believe the standards are excellent -- at least they are on paper. I also believe that the level of instruction is high. So these things could stay same.

Now let us look at what needs to be changed. Getting society to value education as much as I believe we should is impossible. This leaves us with only a few options. One option is to change the student, but we would probably run into some serious ethical dilemmas. This brings me to the next option (remember I am only discussing my magnet school). The next option would be restrict admissions. Reduce the size of the school by 75%, leaving only the best and the brightest. This would dramatically improve our average SAT scores and acceptance into top tier colleges would soar.

So should we do it? On one hand the numbers would be impressive! But on the other hand we have to consider the cost of such a program. We have to think about the cost of rejecting 75% of the students at my school. My answer is no. We should not. It is a public school, not a private one. Admission standards should be relative to the public we serve. Our mission is not to be better than a private school (especially one halfway around the world). Our mission is to provide the best education to the best students of Baltimore.

We cannot go around comparing Korean schools to American schools or private to pubic with the goal of saying one is better than the other. This is just an apple and orange comparison – it does not make sense. At the same time we need to stop looking at schools as business and doing everything by the numbers. Schools are not business and number can be misleading.