Japanese Education Today, the first volume resulting from the U.S. Study of Education in Japan, made important contributions to our understanding of Japanese education in cultural context [vii]. This report is now widely considered the most informative and readable summary of Japanese education in cultural context that is currently available in English.This volume, Japanese Educational Productivity, contains briefer, and in some cases updated, versions of six of the eighteen research papers prepared by outside scholars under commission from the National Institute of Education (chapters 3-7 and 9), and four form members of the Department of Education team that produced Japanese Education Today. As the U.S. study developed, it became clear that, in addition to our original plan for a general audience report (which was all that was required under the bilateral agreement with Japan), we were accumulating some important scholarly work that should be made available in its own right. [x]

Robert Leestma is the former Director of OERI U.S. Department of Education. Herbert J. Walberg, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago.