Adam Minter, Columnist

Are China's Schools Failing?

Its education system is rife with inequality. That hurts everyone in the long run.

December 20, 2016 at 12:05 AM UTC

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."

How the other half learns.
Photographer: STR/AFP

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It had become something of a ritual. Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development would release the results of its PISA exams, which are given to hundreds of thousands of students in dozens of countries. And every three years, an American freak-out would ensue, as Chinese students seemed to be outperforming their U.S. counterparts by a wide margin.

In 2009, Shanghai students did so well -- beating the world in math, science and reading -- that President Barack Obama declared it a "Sputnik moment," requiring immediate action. A similar panic broke out in 2012. But this year proved to be a surprise. The results from the 2015 tests, released this month, showed Chinese students ranked sixth in math, 10th in science and 27th in reading. What happened?