Book excerpt: China’s education system has grown increasingly complex, creating the need for an annual critical review of the education system by China’s top scholars. The Blue Book of Education, as it is known in Chinese, has gained a reputation for offering the most penetrating perspective in China on educational reform and development. In this important English translation combining the Blue Books published in 2007 and 2008, the issues, developments, challenges, and crises in Chinese education are comprehensively discussed and critically analyzed. This volume’s incisive contributions address a wide range of pressing issues including: debt caused by the expansion of higher education, quality of education, employment of graduates, corruption of scholarship, education for migrant children, the gap between policy and practice in bilingual education for minority students, the popularization of no-fee compulsory education in rural areas, reform of the national university examination system, and thorny problems faced by private daycares and private schools. The volume is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the perspective of some of China’s most critical scholars about the most pressing challenges facing education.