Americans who visit Chinese schools quickly realize that many of our beliefs and assumptions about education hold little water in China: In the United States, our urban public schools perform relatively poorly, but in China the urban systems rate among the nation's best. Here we often regard private schools as...

In recent weeks, President Barack Obama has come under fire for not expounding a narrative, or story line, to rally the American people around a compelling vision for the nation's future. In the New York Times, Drew Westen wrote that since Obama's inauguration, Americans have needed...