Yong Zhao - Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World

Better understanding between the US and China is important not only for both nations, but for the world. Having spent the first half of his life as a student and teacher in China, and the second half as a scholar and innovator in the US, Zhao is a unique interpreter of where China's educational system has come from and where it needs to go. It should be read by caring educators around the world creating schools for the future of an uncertain world.

MILTON CHEN, senior fellow, The George Lucas Educational Foundation; chairman, Panasonic Foundation

Zhao's extraordinary book turns all the popular and politically hyped assumptions about East-West educational relations back to front and inside out. Asia's not an educational mirror for the West, but is actually a hall of mirrors that distorts the West's view of it. China's not an authoritative exemplar of high achievement, but is an authoritarian imposer of it. Unexpected and outrageous, this is the book that no one will ignore or want to.

ANDY HARGREAVES, Brennan Chair of Education, Boston College; coauthor, Uplifting Leadership

Yong Zhao's new work analyzes the origins, strengths, and failings of China's authoritarian education system. It is an important worktimely and concise, well-researched and well-arguedthat will positively influence the debate over education reform in both the United States and in China.

JIANG XUEQIN, Chinese education reformer; author, Creative China

In Catching Up or Leading the Way, Zhao challenged Americans to play to their strength rather than chase the myth of foreign excellence. In Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?, he focuses on the US obsession with Chinawhich he knows better than anyone writing on education policy today. Chapter 8 (The Naked Emperor: Chinese Lessons for What Not to Do) is a devastating unmasking of the China Superiority Myth that lays responsibility at the door of PISA and lazy journalists.

GENE V. GLASS, regents' professor emeritus, Arizona State University; research professor, University of Colorado at Boulder; coauthor, 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools

Cover Design: Faceout Studio, Charles Brock

Cover Illustration: Connie Gabbert

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ISBN 978-1-118-48713-6 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-58501-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-58491-0 (ebk)

To my parents, who gave me the freedom to be me

Yong Zhao, born and raised in China's Sichuan Province, taught English in China for six years before coming to the United States as a visiting scholar in 1992. He currently holds the first Presidential Chair at the University of Oregon, where he serves as director of the Institute for Global Education and professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. He is also a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute of Victoria University in Australia.

Zhao's contributions to the education field are many. He has developed computer software, including the award-winning ZON (http://enterzon.com), the world's first massively multiplayer online role-playing game for studying Chinese. The college English learning system Zhao codeveloped, New Era Interactive English, has been used by millions of college students in China since its publication in 2004. Zhao also led the development of Education for Global Citizenship, an innovative bilingual, bicultural, and dual pedagogy program for early learning. He has won numerous awards for his contributions in research, leadership, and innovation.

A popular keynote presenter, Zhao has delivered speeches and workshops in over a dozen countries on six continents. He has been quoted or featured as an expert commentator in such media outlets as USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Parenting magazine, NPR, ABC, The Australian, Xinhua News Agency, and China's national television network, China Central TV.

Zhao is the author of more than one hundred articles and twenty books. His most recent publications include the books Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization (ASCD, 2009), The Handbook of Asian Education (edited; Taylor and Francis, 2011), and World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (Corwin, 2012).

The Acknowledgments section is always the most difficult part of writing a book because there is no way to list all the people who have made it possible. It's especially difficult for this book due to the time it took me to complete it and the number of people from whom I have benefited.