Review: Cuba’s Academic Advantage

Abstract

Cuba’s Academic Advantage: Why Students in Cuba do Better in School by Martin Carnoy, with Amber K. Gove and Jeffery H. Marshall. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2007. 209 pp. ISBN 0- It is difficult to find current research on the Cuban educational system that moves beyond the anecdotal. Furthermore, the little material on Cuba available in English, especially if written in the United States, tends to come from either extreme of a highly polarized ideological spectrum, which either unfairly romanticizes or demonizes the realities of our island neighbor. In this book Martin Carnoy draws on existing international test data, complemented by field research and interviews, to inform readers about what is actually happening in Cuban elementary schools. He does this without trying to make up our minds about the Cuban political system, making it a valuable contribution to anyone interested in this field of study. Although Cuba is the main subject of this book, Carnoy’s study employs comparative research that examines not only the Cuban educational system, but the Chilean and Brazilian systems as well, rewarding readers with insightful analysis and critique of all three systems. The investigation begins with the results of the 1997-1998 UNESCO-sponsored Laboratorio international exam and survey which compared math and language educational outcomes of fourth-graders in 13 Latin American countries and quantitatively revealed what many experts had long suspected, that the Cuban educational system performs well above other countries in the region. The book attempts to explain this phenomenon using a mixed- methods approach that includes four strategies: statistical estimations based on production functions using the exam and survey data; synthesis of interviews with school teachers, administrators, students, families, and ministry of education officials at all levels; a review of mathematics textbooks and curriculum; and the results of videotaping and coding actual math instruction in classrooms. The author describes his methodology without attempting to hide any of the shortcomings in the different data sources; he openly discusses some of the potential problems with the Laboratorio results and the limitations due to the restricted number of classroom observations. Still, the triangulation available from the multiple approaches’ complementing results creates convincing answers to the basic question posed in this book. By sticking to a more rigorous data- driven analysis of the education systems under scrutiny, we lose some of the personal dimensions of life in Cuban, Brazilian, and Chilean schools. This reflects part of the stated mission of the book; Carnoy admits that although it might be “technical and boring” at times, this approach is necessary to get away from the simple “he said, she said” aspect of research. Because of the text’s clear language and logical layout, readers not interested in or not capable of understanding some aspects of Carnoy’s methodology, especially the chapter dealing with statistical