[Lamplighter]

I'm taken by how a news item or TV show pops up just when you're involved in some topic or other.

Given this thread, here's (another ?) article that seems to touch on all the issues
we hear about when it comes to education of children,
from how to teach them to qualifications and pay of teachers.

NY Times
Shanghai Schools’ Approach Pushes Students to Top of Tests

The Shanghai students performed well, experts say,
for the same reason students from other parts of Asia
— including South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong — do:
Their education systems are steeped in discipline,
rote learning and obsessive test preparation.

Public school students in Shanghai often remain at school until 4 p.m.,
watch very little television and are restricted by Chinese law from working before the age of 16.

“Very rarely do children in other countries receive academic training as intensive as our children do,”
said Sun Baohong, an authority on education at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

“So if the test is on math and science, there’s no doubt Chinese students will win the competition.”

And there are differences of opinion as to the "outcomes" of these teaching methods:

But many educators say China’s strength in education is also a weakness.
The nation’s education system is too test-oriented, schools here stifle creativity and
parental pressures often deprive children of the joys of childhood, they say.

“These are two sides of the same coin:
Chinese schools are very good at preparing their students for standardized tests,”
Jiang Xueqin, a deputy principal at Peking University High School in Beijing,
wrote in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal
shortly after the test results were announced.
“For that reason, they fail to prepare them for higher education and the knowledge economy.”

As to the teachers qualifications and pay...

In Shanghai, teachers are required to have a teaching certificate and
to undergo a minimum of 240 hours of training;
higher-level teachers can be required to have up to 540 hours of training.

There is a system of incentives and merit pay,
just like the systems in some parts of the United States.
“Within a teacher’s salary package, 70 percent is basic salary,” said Xiong Bingqi,
a professor of education at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
“The other 30 percent is called performance salary.”