Why would there be “riots in the street”? One of the first lessons I learned in political science is that no group would give up an advantage they have voluntarily without a fight. When it comes to self-interest, we are tribal that way. Personally, I prefer a straight-up meritocracy, but I know few politicians anywhere would support me.
Since we are talking about Chinese education, Shanghai’s performance on the PISA is worth a mention. When the results first came out in 09, the world was in shock. But based on Gaokao scores, the city is nothing special. What gives?
I learned later that 12 jurisdictions were tested but that the data from the other jurisdictions were not published. Later still, the results for Zhejiang and the jurisdictions as a whole became available in China. For what it’s worth, the 12 jurisdictions combined scored a respectable 520, a point higher than Taiwan. Zhejiang surprisingly did not do as well as Shanghai, scoring a 563 to Shanghai’ 577.
Still later, I learned that Zhejiang did most of the testing in rural areas and not in the major centres. Some of the strong provinces were not part of the twelve tested. (To be fair, some of the laggards were not tested either). Based on the Gaokao results over the years, Shanghai only performed in the average range, lagging behind places like Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shangdong etc.