dana, amy, ramesh, thank you for joining us. thank you for watching state of the union. i m candy crowley in washington. if you missed any part of the show, find us on itunes. fareed zakaria gps is next. this is gps the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i m fareed zakaria. we ll start today s show with a simple question, are america s kids falling behind the rest of the world? the recent release of international test scores suggests the answer might be yes. i have a powerhouse panel to talk about the problem and solutions, former new york city schools chancellor joel klein, teach for america s wendy kopf, sal kan, one of the most innovative educators of the world and tom friedman of the new york times. then, to understand the protests that have roiled ukraine over the past weeks you have to go
system, wendy kopf, teach for all and sal kan is one of the most innovative educators in the world and the founder of kan academy and tom friedman the three-time pulitzer prize winning columnist for the new york times. joel you ve seen these results for years. what do you think is the big takeaway? the clear takeaway is we re stuck and not getting the results we need with our kids and we re going to pay a human price if we don t change, change quickly and rapidly. two points people should understand, pisa tests the kind of skills that the market is going to demand, the kind of higher order complex thinking that in a global high-tech economy our children need to have if they re going to succeed, and a failure to have those skills is going to mean they re not going to be able to get the jobs they want. the world is changing so rapidly. that is the first takeaway and
everyone who has talked before is try to get that, more into the school system, try to get the school system to make sure that people have the skills so that everyone can participate in this economic engine. wendy, what do you make, it seems to me what sal is say iin is we don t need to become more like something sk. we need to become more like the very best of america, a combination of rigor and inventiveness and open-mindedness and creative thinking. of course i agree. i think what the piece shows us is how much wasted potential there is in this country. it shows us what s possible. and i think what tom spoke to about what we saw in shanghai, this is not magic or unique to the chinese culture and i thought this was so fascinating. we go in there and we re listening to the man has really led not ohm their engagement in had pisa but the education system for the last two decades
there s where technology can change the game for us. wendy, when you ve looked around, because your teach for all is now in 36 countries. yes. what seemed to be the best practices that are applicable? one thing is, just to go back to the shanghai example, it was about teachers. it s also about school leaders and it s about system leadership. we were blown away by the caliber of the folks who have over a long time driven the change and if you get under the covers, some shanghai schools are stronger than others and they take those school principals who are running the best schools and pair them up with the principalless at the other schools so they can transfer rahs. this is a people business. i couldn t agree more that technology can give a ton of leverage to really strong people but to me, we need, and this is what teach for all is all about, but we got to start channeling our top talent towards this challenge of improving
which i think is important you asked sal about technology. the thing that will change education is teaching and learning. it s at that interface where it happens. technology can make teachers more empowered, more effective, the kind of things that sal is doing to help them. and you have a company. i have a company amplified doing the same kind of things and i think that s right. what you re struck by when you listen to wendy and listen to tom and they went to visit this school in shanghai, what that was about was great teachers. we got to get great teachers constantly getting better and give them the tools and the help, so that their kids can learn. to you that means teacher evaluations. teacher evaluations, better pay, it means more time on task and it means the constant improvement that wendy, tom and others have long talked about. when you talk about these teachers, constantly working with each other, getting better at their craft, and using technology to empower and enable