Shanghai students top international Rankings. Lenora Chu, an American journalist living in Shanghai, enrolled her young son in China’s state-run public school system. In Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve, Chu writes about the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese approach.

Students are obedient achievers in a “military-like education system driven by high-stakes testing, with teachers posting rankings in public, using bribes to reward students who comply, and shaming to isolate those who do not.”