Japan's education system, like it's economy, was long seen in Japan and elsewhere as the model of efficiency, discipline and high standards. In recent years, however, the model has collapsed. Classroom pressures mount, and incidents of bullying, suicide, dropout, and violence of one kind or another proliferate. The growing sense of educational crisis came to a head with the 1997 incident in which a child was murdered and decapitated, apparently by a fourteen-year-old student. When the child killer of Kobe claimed that he had been avenging himself against school which threatened his existence,...