I am grateful to the many people who contributed to the book in different ways. Professor Keith Campbell of St. Mary's College is perhaps the one person who has had the most significant influence on my understanding of American education and culture. His intimate knowledge, insightful observation, and passionate criticism gave me a life-changing orientation to American public education. For that I am forever indebted to Keith. The book was inspired by an education reform conference of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) initiated by the U.S Department of Education, the Chinese Ministry of Education, and the Chilean Ministry of Education in 2004. I must thank Dr. Susan Sclafani, then counselor to U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Vice Minister Zhang Xinsheng of the Chinese Ministry of Education, Dr. Alan Ginsburg and Ms. Adriana de Kanter of the U.S. Department of Education for involving me in organizing the research aspect of the conference. I am also indebted to the Hong Kong-based Sunwah Education Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for their financial sponsorship of the conference.

During the writing of this book, I benefited tremendously from conversations with Dennis Phillips of Stanford University, Vivien Stewart of the Asia Society, Gilbert Choy of the Sunwah Education Group, Fernando Reimers of Harvard University, Briand Caldwell of University of Melbourne in Australia, Alma Harris of Warwick University in England, and Paul Conway of University College Cork in Ireland. Dr. Jing Lei of Syracuse University read the first draft of the book and provided invaluable feedback.

My colleagues at Michigan State University have been a source of great support and inspiration. Tom Bird and Ken Frank have been great listeners and devils' advocates almost weekly. I thank them for their wisdom and encouragement. I also thank Bill Schmidt for the many exciting conversations about standards and curriculum as well as education in China and America. Jere Brophy, Jack Schwille, Dick Prawat, and Bob Floden have all helped me shape my ideas. Barbara Markle has provided many opportunities for me to present my ideas to legislators and K–12 educators, which led to refinement of some of the ideas included in the book. Ken Dirkin frequently supplied useful resources and acted as an inspiring sounding board. My assistant Lisa Payne ably managed my schedule to allow me time to write.

My thanks also go to Chun Lai, Ruhui Ni, Jiawen Wang, Wei Qiu, and Naiyi Xie for their assistance with the references and proofreading the manuscript.

I must thank Sunwah Education Foundation in Hong Kong and Chairman Dr. Jonathan Choi for the vision and financial support that established the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. The Center provided me the opportunities to study education in China and the United States in depth. I must also thank the U.K.-based iNet and its parent organization, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), for enabling me to interact with educators around the globe and giving me the opportunity to focus on global citizenship. I would also like to thank SSAT and Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) for allowing me to use some text from publications I wrote for them, namely Preparing Global Citizens (SSAT, 2008) and Education in the Flat World (PDK Edge, 2007).

I am grateful for the professional guidance I received from the capable staff at ASCD, especially Genny Ostertag, acquisitions editor, and Darcie Russell, my project manager.

This book could not have been completed without the support of my family. They did not only give me the time and encouragement, but also served as readers and sources of ideas. My wife, Xi Chen, was the first reader of each chapter and gave very candid yet encouraging comments. My son, Yechen, and my daughter, Athena, were also drafted to hear about the book many times. They provided stories and references, some of which are included in the book.

As usual, I end with a disclaimer. While many people have contributed in various ways to this book, all errors are mine and the views do not necessarily reflect those of the supporting organizations.