From the Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
"U.S. students, who once led the world, currently rank 21st in the world in science and 25th in math," Newsweek reported in September. I hear that a lot. Politicians and business leaders often bemoan the decline of American education compared to the rest of the world. We are doomed, they say, unless we [fill in here the latest plan to save the country.]
So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth. The data show that we have been mediocre all along, as far back as 1964. If anything, we have lately been showing some signs of improvement.
Loveless, senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, says in his annual report on American Education:
"The United States never led the world. It was never number one and has never been close to number one on international math tests. Or on science tests, for that matter. It is more accurate to say that the United States has always trailed the world on math tests."
Among the comments on the latest results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in December, which showed some U.S. gains, was this from Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia: "The good news is that the free-fall seems to have stopped--and it was a free-fall for a while."
Loveless says no. "There was no sharp decline--in either the short or long run," he says. "The U.S. performance on PISA has been flat to slightly up since the test's inception, and it has improved on TIMSS [the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, another major series of tests] since 1995."
This is not exactly good news, but context is important. If we have managed to be the world's most powerful country, politically, economically and militarily, for the last 47 years despite our less than impressive math and science scores, maybe that flaw is not as important as film documentaries and political party platforms claim. And if, after so many decades of being shown up by much of the rest of the developed world, we are improving, it might be time to be more supportive of what we already doing to fix our schools.
Loveless is one of the nation's leading experts on PISA and TIMSS. He has been part of the cohorts of specialists who advise those programs. In his report he says the first international test comparable to those two was the First International Math Study (FIMS) in 1964. It assessed 13-year-olds in 12 countries. The United States placed next to last, just ahead of Sweden.
We were beaten by Israel, Japan, Belgium, Finland, Germany, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, France and Australia, in that order. Other age groups were tested with similarly disappointing results for the United States.
In the latest PISA and TIMSS tests, the United States did better, scoring in the middle of the pack. On PISA, the United States was up 5 points in reading, 13 points in math and 13 points in science. If we maintain that pace, Loveless says, we will boost the U.S. gross domestic product by at least $41 trillion in the next 20 years, according to an analysis of PISA results by Stanford University economist Eric A. Hanushek.
Loveless, a former teacher, cannot resist tarnishing the shiny reputations of our most celebrated international competitors, while he is on the subject. He declares that the often-heard assumption that Finland has the best educational system in the world, with India and China coming on strong, also is a myth.
This blogger has been dumping on the strength of the Chinese and Indian school systems for a long time. Loveless agrees that they are very large, very poor countries that are so ill-equipped for international tests that they have never participated in them as countries. Shanghai scored number one on the latest PISA, but that is no indicator of how China would do.
"Shanghai's municipal website reports that 83.8 percent of high school graduates enter college," Loveless says. "The national figure is 24 percent." The American figure is about 66 percent.
Loveless is less dismissive of Finland, which has been scoring well for several years. But he says Americans who love the Finnish model of paying teachers higher salaries, decentralizing authority over educational decisions and eschewing high-stakes standardized testing should tune into the debate the Finns are having about their schools.
Finnish children were doing well on international tests before those reforms were adopted. That suggests that cultural and societal factors might be the more likely reason for their success. Many Finnish mathematicians say that the country is catering too much to PISA, which emphasizes word problems and practical applications of math, and neglecting to prepare students for college math.
Loveless says more than 200 university mathematicians in Finland petitioned the education ministry to complain of students increasingly arriving in their classrooms poorly prepared. "Knowledge of fractions and algebra were singled out as particularly weak areas," Loveless says.
Everyone has problems, even the much-admired Chinese, Indians and Finns. American schools seem to have absorbed the message that our students have the capacity to achieve more than we have asked them to do. Support for better and more focused math and science courses is increasing.
We should stop talking about some golden age of schooling that never existed, and instead look for ways to create one. But no one should expect that is going to happen quickly, or without controversy
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/myth_of_declining_us_schools.html
Showing posts with label pisa rankings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pisa rankings. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
China Flunks Biggest Test
There math scores may be a little higher than ours and we might owe them money but overall where would you want to live? -cpg
From the Shanker Blog
In the “dog bites man” department, Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a devastating report, which found that the Chinese had “failed to deliver” the human rights gains promised in its much-ballyhooed, first-ever “National Human Rights Action Plan” for 2009-10.
The report is timely, since Chinese President Hu Jintao is in Washington this week to discuss a wide variety of issues with President Obama and other U.S. leaders, including human rights. In terms of “promises made and promises broken,” the U.S. will surely have China’s human rights record of the last two years in mind.
HRW reports that the years 2009-2010 witnessed a “rollback of key civil and political rights” in China, as the regime, among other actions, stepped up its practice of “enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions, including in secret, unlawful detention facilities known as ‘black jails.’” It also:
“continued its practice of sentencing high-profile dissidents such as imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo to lengthy prison terms on spurious state secrets or “subversion” charges;
expanded restrictions on media and internet freedom;
tightened controls on lawyers, human rights defenders, and nongovernmental organizations;
broadened controls on Uighurs and Tibetans.”
This is a serious report. By taking China at its word as to the sincerity of its Human Rights Action Plan, HRW throws a lot of cold water on the theory that has been a critical part of U.S. China policy for nearly half a century: that engagement will lead to democratic change.
While focusing on political rights, HRW strains to give the Chinese government credit for something. It notes, for example, that the UN has commended the regime on its efforts to address “subsistence and development rights”—still, as the report observes, even here, reliable data are hard to come by.
But political and civil rights are the report’s priority. Among its findings: The Chinese government “repeatedly rejected requests” for an “independent international investigation into the March 2008 protests across the Tibetan plateau,” refused to approve requests to visit Tibet by the United Nations,” and “made false statements” before UN Human Rights Council in February 2009.” What were those “false statements?” The government denied that there was any censorship in the country or that any individual or press representative had suffered government retribution for airing their opinions.
That’s a whopper, even by UN standards. According to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which maintains a database on political prisoners, roughly 5,500 individuals are incarcerated in Chinese prisons today simply for exercised their internationally-recognized human rights. As the CECC website notes: “A ‘political prisoner’ is someone who is detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising his or her human rights under China’s own Constitution and laws, or under international law. These rights include peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and free expression—including the freedom to advocate for peaceful social or political change, and to criticize Chinese government policy or Chinese government officials.”
As the HRW report notes, one of those languishing in prison for the crime of peacefully airing his opinions is Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The report also focuses on a notable and ironic example of government censorship and, arguably, manipulation: In an Oct. 2010 interview on CNN, broadcast in the U.S., Premier Wen Jiabao argued for freedom of speech in China, especially the right to criticize the government. But no one in China saw his remarks; they were censored.
A cynic might suspect that Wen himself gave the order to censor his own remarks, but in this “looking glass” world that is modern China, perhaps we should take the Premier at his word. Enter the looking glass: Tonight, if tradition is observed, President Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, will exchange toasts at a state dinner with President Hu, jailer of Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has used very blunt language recently to call for Liu’s release. What President Obama says tonight and how he says it, will be yet another milestone in a presidency defined by difficult challenges.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=1640
From the Shanker Blog
In the “dog bites man” department, Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a devastating report, which found that the Chinese had “failed to deliver” the human rights gains promised in its much-ballyhooed, first-ever “National Human Rights Action Plan” for 2009-10.
The report is timely, since Chinese President Hu Jintao is in Washington this week to discuss a wide variety of issues with President Obama and other U.S. leaders, including human rights. In terms of “promises made and promises broken,” the U.S. will surely have China’s human rights record of the last two years in mind.
HRW reports that the years 2009-2010 witnessed a “rollback of key civil and political rights” in China, as the regime, among other actions, stepped up its practice of “enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions, including in secret, unlawful detention facilities known as ‘black jails.’” It also:
“continued its practice of sentencing high-profile dissidents such as imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo to lengthy prison terms on spurious state secrets or “subversion” charges;
expanded restrictions on media and internet freedom;
tightened controls on lawyers, human rights defenders, and nongovernmental organizations;
broadened controls on Uighurs and Tibetans.”
This is a serious report. By taking China at its word as to the sincerity of its Human Rights Action Plan, HRW throws a lot of cold water on the theory that has been a critical part of U.S. China policy for nearly half a century: that engagement will lead to democratic change.
While focusing on political rights, HRW strains to give the Chinese government credit for something. It notes, for example, that the UN has commended the regime on its efforts to address “subsistence and development rights”—still, as the report observes, even here, reliable data are hard to come by.
But political and civil rights are the report’s priority. Among its findings: The Chinese government “repeatedly rejected requests” for an “independent international investigation into the March 2008 protests across the Tibetan plateau,” refused to approve requests to visit Tibet by the United Nations,” and “made false statements” before UN Human Rights Council in February 2009.” What were those “false statements?” The government denied that there was any censorship in the country or that any individual or press representative had suffered government retribution for airing their opinions.
That’s a whopper, even by UN standards. According to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which maintains a database on political prisoners, roughly 5,500 individuals are incarcerated in Chinese prisons today simply for exercised their internationally-recognized human rights. As the CECC website notes: “A ‘political prisoner’ is someone who is detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising his or her human rights under China’s own Constitution and laws, or under international law. These rights include peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and free expression—including the freedom to advocate for peaceful social or political change, and to criticize Chinese government policy or Chinese government officials.”
As the HRW report notes, one of those languishing in prison for the crime of peacefully airing his opinions is Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The report also focuses on a notable and ironic example of government censorship and, arguably, manipulation: In an Oct. 2010 interview on CNN, broadcast in the U.S., Premier Wen Jiabao argued for freedom of speech in China, especially the right to criticize the government. But no one in China saw his remarks; they were censored.
A cynic might suspect that Wen himself gave the order to censor his own remarks, but in this “looking glass” world that is modern China, perhaps we should take the Premier at his word. Enter the looking glass: Tonight, if tradition is observed, President Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, will exchange toasts at a state dinner with President Hu, jailer of Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has used very blunt language recently to call for Liu’s release. What President Obama says tonight and how he says it, will be yet another milestone in a presidency defined by difficult challenges.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=1640
Monday, January 17, 2011
PISA Rankings: The sky may not be falling
From Bloomberg Bussiness Week
by Vivek Wadhwa
America has an inferiority complex about its education system. You hear the sirens every year, when the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) releases its annual test results. Finland, South Korea, and Singapore usually come out on top; we start blaming our K-12 teachers for not teaching enough mathematics and science; we begin worrying about the millions of engineers and scientists China and India graduate.
This year the big surprise was that Shanghai garnered first place in the PISA rankings. Then The Wall Street Journal ran a story on the home page of its website titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." The Journal article claimed that Chinese (and Korean, Indian, etc.) parents raise "stereotypically successful kids"—math whizzes and music prodigies. They do this by not allowing their children to attend sleepovers; have a playdate; be in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their own extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama. The article went on to recount as typical a series of acts that would be considered child abuse in the U.S. (and aren't the norm in India and China).
The Journal article was simply bizarre, yet it is true that education in China and India is very challenging and fiercely competitive. Children are brought up to believe that education is everything, that it will make the difference between success and starvation. So from their early years they work long and hard. Most of their childhood is spent memorizing books on advanced subjects.
American Stereotypes
Meanwhile, the perception is that American children live a relatively easy life and coast their way through school. They don't do any more homework than they have to; they spend an extraordinary amount of time playing games, socializing on the Internet, text-messaging each other; they work part time to pay for their schooling and social habits. And they party. A lot. These stereotypes worry many Americans. They believe the American education system puts the country at a great disadvantage. But this is far from true.
The independence and social skills American children develop give them a huge advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks. They can think for themselves, and they can innovate. This is why America remains the world leader in innovation; why Chinese and Indians invest their life savings to send their children to expensive U.S. schools when they can. India and China are changing, and as the next generations of students become like American ones, they too are beginning to innovate. So far, their education systems have held them back.
My research team at Duke looked in depth at the engineering education of China and India. We documented that these countries now graduate four to seven times as many engineers as does the U.S.The quality of these engineers, however, is so poor that most are not fit to work as engineers; their system of rote learning handicaps those who do get jobs, so it takes two to three years for them to achieve the same productivity as fresh American graduates.As a result, significant proportions of China's engineering graduates end up working on factory floors and Indian industry has to spend large sums of money retraining its employees. After four or five years in the workforce, Indians do become innovative and produce, overall, at the same quality as Americans, but they lose a valuable two to three years in their retraining.
Rankings Reconsidered
And then there is the matter of the PISA rankings that supposedly show the U.S. trailing the rest of the world. Hal Salzman, a professor at Rutgers' John J. Heidrich Center for Workforce Development, debunked myths about these in a May 2008 article in Nature magazine. Salzman noted that international tests use different sampling criteria from country to country, so we're not always comparing apples to apples. As well, the tests compare select populations of small countries such as Singapore and Finland, which each have about 5 million people, with the U.S., which has 310 million. These countries achieve the top rankings on the PISA list. Compare these countries to similar-sized U.S. states, however, and you find that some of those states, including Massachusetts (population 6.5 million), produce the top students. Additionally, we're comparing America's diverse population—which includes disadvantaged minorities and unskilled immigrants with little education—with the homogeneous populations of countries like Finland, Japan, and New Zealand.
Much is made of the PISA test scores and rankings, but the international differences are actually quite small. Most of the U.S. ranking lags are not even statistically significant. The U.S. falls in the second rank on some measures and into the first on others. It produces more highest-performing students in science and reading than any other country does; in mathematics, it is second only to Japan. Moreover, one has to ask what the test results actually mean in the real world. Do high PISA rankings make students more likely to invent the next iPad? Google (GOOG)? I don't think so.
Let's keep improving our education system and focus, in particular, on disadvantaged groups. Education is the future of our nation. But let's get over our inferiority complex. America is second to none. Rather than in mastery of facts learned by rote and great numbers of accomplished martinets, its strength lies in the diversity and innovation that arise in an open, creative society.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2011/tc20110112_006501_page_2.htm
by Vivek Wadhwa
America has an inferiority complex about its education system. You hear the sirens every year, when the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) releases its annual test results. Finland, South Korea, and Singapore usually come out on top; we start blaming our K-12 teachers for not teaching enough mathematics and science; we begin worrying about the millions of engineers and scientists China and India graduate.
This year the big surprise was that Shanghai garnered first place in the PISA rankings. Then The Wall Street Journal ran a story on the home page of its website titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." The Journal article claimed that Chinese (and Korean, Indian, etc.) parents raise "stereotypically successful kids"—math whizzes and music prodigies. They do this by not allowing their children to attend sleepovers; have a playdate; be in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their own extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama. The article went on to recount as typical a series of acts that would be considered child abuse in the U.S. (and aren't the norm in India and China).
The Journal article was simply bizarre, yet it is true that education in China and India is very challenging and fiercely competitive. Children are brought up to believe that education is everything, that it will make the difference between success and starvation. So from their early years they work long and hard. Most of their childhood is spent memorizing books on advanced subjects.
American Stereotypes
Meanwhile, the perception is that American children live a relatively easy life and coast their way through school. They don't do any more homework than they have to; they spend an extraordinary amount of time playing games, socializing on the Internet, text-messaging each other; they work part time to pay for their schooling and social habits. And they party. A lot. These stereotypes worry many Americans. They believe the American education system puts the country at a great disadvantage. But this is far from true.
The independence and social skills American children develop give them a huge advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks. They can think for themselves, and they can innovate. This is why America remains the world leader in innovation; why Chinese and Indians invest their life savings to send their children to expensive U.S. schools when they can. India and China are changing, and as the next generations of students become like American ones, they too are beginning to innovate. So far, their education systems have held them back.
My research team at Duke looked in depth at the engineering education of China and India. We documented that these countries now graduate four to seven times as many engineers as does the U.S.The quality of these engineers, however, is so poor that most are not fit to work as engineers; their system of rote learning handicaps those who do get jobs, so it takes two to three years for them to achieve the same productivity as fresh American graduates.As a result, significant proportions of China's engineering graduates end up working on factory floors and Indian industry has to spend large sums of money retraining its employees. After four or five years in the workforce, Indians do become innovative and produce, overall, at the same quality as Americans, but they lose a valuable two to three years in their retraining.
Rankings Reconsidered
And then there is the matter of the PISA rankings that supposedly show the U.S. trailing the rest of the world. Hal Salzman, a professor at Rutgers' John J. Heidrich Center for Workforce Development, debunked myths about these in a May 2008 article in Nature magazine. Salzman noted that international tests use different sampling criteria from country to country, so we're not always comparing apples to apples. As well, the tests compare select populations of small countries such as Singapore and Finland, which each have about 5 million people, with the U.S., which has 310 million. These countries achieve the top rankings on the PISA list. Compare these countries to similar-sized U.S. states, however, and you find that some of those states, including Massachusetts (population 6.5 million), produce the top students. Additionally, we're comparing America's diverse population—which includes disadvantaged minorities and unskilled immigrants with little education—with the homogeneous populations of countries like Finland, Japan, and New Zealand.
Much is made of the PISA test scores and rankings, but the international differences are actually quite small. Most of the U.S. ranking lags are not even statistically significant. The U.S. falls in the second rank on some measures and into the first on others. It produces more highest-performing students in science and reading than any other country does; in mathematics, it is second only to Japan. Moreover, one has to ask what the test results actually mean in the real world. Do high PISA rankings make students more likely to invent the next iPad? Google (GOOG)? I don't think so.
Let's keep improving our education system and focus, in particular, on disadvantaged groups. Education is the future of our nation. But let's get over our inferiority complex. America is second to none. Rather than in mastery of facts learned by rote and great numbers of accomplished martinets, its strength lies in the diversity and innovation that arise in an open, creative society.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2011/tc20110112_006501_page_2.htm
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Four Reasons Finland’s Schools are Better Than Ours
By Anne Bibby
America's latest school report card jump-started yet another wave of panic that our students will never be able to compete on the world stage.The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s release of its annual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, an international comparison of educational performance, placed U.S. kids in the incredibly average group.
But aside from the fear that our children won’t one day earn enough to prop up our Social Security/Medicare entitlements, the report wasn’t quite a death knell for the public school system.
America’s kids didn’t flunk. Where countries like England, France and Sweden are mired in mediocrity with no signs of improvement, the U.S. posted modest gains.
What’s most interesting about the PISA report, and important for the public school reformers here to focus on, is Finland.
Finland As A Model
Once again, Finnish students topped the PISA report card, but what makes this information worth scrutinizing is that 25 years ago Finland’s school system sat in the same predicament that public schools in the U.S. find themselves now. The Finns scored below average in math and science and had alarming achievement gaps between urban and affluent schools versus poor and rural schools.
So what did the Finns do?
They began scrutinizing the education policies and practices of more successful countries, took what worked, ignored that which went against the grain and built an educational system where today there is virtually no academic difference among socio-economic groups. Children in Finland can attend school anywhere in the country and be assured of the same quality of education.
The Exact Opposite
Not surprising to me, as a former teacher, is that Finland reformed its schools and rose to the top by doing almost the exact opposite of what reformers like Secretary of State Arne Duncan and Bill Gates would have Americans believe is the only cure for our ailing schools.
Despite the differences in our countries' make-ups, (America is far more diverse and has a child poverty rate that is four times higher than Finland) they have much to teach us.
What Did Finland Do?
First, no child in Finland ever takes a standardized test. The only test a Finnish student takes is the one that determines if he/she will go on to university. In addition, standardized tests are not used to measure teaching ability or to compare schools. Parents, teachers and students assess progress and effectiveness of schools. Any comparison assessment relies on sample-based learning tests, which are low-stakes because the data is simply used in research to determine what works and what doesn’t. The Finns believe that education is a process, not a game to be won or lost.
Second, Finland put time and money into elevating the teaching profession. Parents and politicians regard teachers in the same manner they do doctors. In fact, the Finns trust schools more than any other institution except the police.
Teachers come into the profession with advanced degrees and they work with autonomy. Teachers are key players in determining curriculum and assessment, which might explain why the teaching profession attracts the best and brightest. After all, who wants to go into a profession where it is assumed you graduated in the bottom half of your class and couldn’t get into any other discipline at university?
Third, administrators from principals to school superintendents are all former teachers. No one is allowed to oversee the education of Finnish children in any role who hasn’t the educational training and experience. There are no exceptions. The idea that a business person or politician, who never taught, understands the learning process or should be in charge of reform would puzzle a Finn.
Fourth, Finland does not promote the idea of educating its young as a competition. Schools work in tandem and cooperation is the rule rather than the freakish exception. Interestingly, Shanghai – whose students bested Finland in math and science this year – also shuns the competitive model of school reform. In Shanghai, low performing schools are paired with and mentored by high performing ones with the emphasis on sharing techniques that work. Closing schools and firing teachers is simply not a choice.
What Could Americans Do?
How can American education reform benefit from Finland’s success?
First by admitting that what amounts to reform here isn’t "best practices" in the most academically successful countries in the world. When Finland began its reform, it took some cues from the United States but ignored those things that were fads or had no compelling long term data to support their effectiveness.
Perhaps it’s time that those who wish to make a difference in educating American children admitted that what we are doing is the same things over and over in slightly different packaging, and it isn’t working. What Do You Think?
What does education reform look like in your community? Has anything in the last decade made an impact for the good? What suggestions would you make?
From Care2.com: http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/four-reasons-finland-s-schools-are-better-than-ours/
America's latest school report card jump-started yet another wave of panic that our students will never be able to compete on the world stage.The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s release of its annual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, an international comparison of educational performance, placed U.S. kids in the incredibly average group.
But aside from the fear that our children won’t one day earn enough to prop up our Social Security/Medicare entitlements, the report wasn’t quite a death knell for the public school system.
America’s kids didn’t flunk. Where countries like England, France and Sweden are mired in mediocrity with no signs of improvement, the U.S. posted modest gains.
What’s most interesting about the PISA report, and important for the public school reformers here to focus on, is Finland.
Finland As A Model
Once again, Finnish students topped the PISA report card, but what makes this information worth scrutinizing is that 25 years ago Finland’s school system sat in the same predicament that public schools in the U.S. find themselves now. The Finns scored below average in math and science and had alarming achievement gaps between urban and affluent schools versus poor and rural schools.
So what did the Finns do?
They began scrutinizing the education policies and practices of more successful countries, took what worked, ignored that which went against the grain and built an educational system where today there is virtually no academic difference among socio-economic groups. Children in Finland can attend school anywhere in the country and be assured of the same quality of education.
The Exact Opposite
Not surprising to me, as a former teacher, is that Finland reformed its schools and rose to the top by doing almost the exact opposite of what reformers like Secretary of State Arne Duncan and Bill Gates would have Americans believe is the only cure for our ailing schools.
Despite the differences in our countries' make-ups, (America is far more diverse and has a child poverty rate that is four times higher than Finland) they have much to teach us.
What Did Finland Do?
First, no child in Finland ever takes a standardized test. The only test a Finnish student takes is the one that determines if he/she will go on to university. In addition, standardized tests are not used to measure teaching ability or to compare schools. Parents, teachers and students assess progress and effectiveness of schools. Any comparison assessment relies on sample-based learning tests, which are low-stakes because the data is simply used in research to determine what works and what doesn’t. The Finns believe that education is a process, not a game to be won or lost.
Second, Finland put time and money into elevating the teaching profession. Parents and politicians regard teachers in the same manner they do doctors. In fact, the Finns trust schools more than any other institution except the police.
Teachers come into the profession with advanced degrees and they work with autonomy. Teachers are key players in determining curriculum and assessment, which might explain why the teaching profession attracts the best and brightest. After all, who wants to go into a profession where it is assumed you graduated in the bottom half of your class and couldn’t get into any other discipline at university?
Third, administrators from principals to school superintendents are all former teachers. No one is allowed to oversee the education of Finnish children in any role who hasn’t the educational training and experience. There are no exceptions. The idea that a business person or politician, who never taught, understands the learning process or should be in charge of reform would puzzle a Finn.
Fourth, Finland does not promote the idea of educating its young as a competition. Schools work in tandem and cooperation is the rule rather than the freakish exception. Interestingly, Shanghai – whose students bested Finland in math and science this year – also shuns the competitive model of school reform. In Shanghai, low performing schools are paired with and mentored by high performing ones with the emphasis on sharing techniques that work. Closing schools and firing teachers is simply not a choice.
What Could Americans Do?
How can American education reform benefit from Finland’s success?
First by admitting that what amounts to reform here isn’t "best practices" in the most academically successful countries in the world. When Finland began its reform, it took some cues from the United States but ignored those things that were fads or had no compelling long term data to support their effectiveness.
Perhaps it’s time that those who wish to make a difference in educating American children admitted that what we are doing is the same things over and over in slightly different packaging, and it isn’t working. What Do You Think?
What does education reform look like in your community? Has anything in the last decade made an impact for the good? What suggestions would you make?
From Care2.com: http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/four-reasons-finland-s-schools-are-better-than-ours/
Do we really want to catch up with China?
By Steve Koss
Nick Kristof does it, as does Thomas Friedman. So in his own uncritical way does Arne Duncan. And so do the many other media alarmists who accept at face value Shanghai city schools’ recent PISA results and use those scores to forecast a coming American apocalypse. They all see China as the world’s great education success story, the “model” for American education. But they really don’t have a clue.
The latest insult to American education just arrived this week in the form of a NY Times piece describing how those Shanghai schools are so successful because of their classroom discipline, thereby managing to conflate bad teaching, institutionalized fear of public shaming, and educational rigidity with good classroom management. Based on what I saw while teaching several years ago at the high school level in a major, wealthy Chinese city near Shanghai, here is what typical Chinese education was really like, at its near-best, at the high school level:
-- Every classroom was a bare, cinder-block-walled enclosure, no heat in the winter, no cooling in the early summer, virtually nothing decorating the walls. Students spent their entire school day in the same room – teachers came to them.
-- Every classroom held 48 – 50 students, lined up in traditional, ramrod-straight rows. Textbooks and workbooks for students’ full set of the day’s classes were piled on and under their desks – no one had a locker.
-- Teachers lectured from a dais at the front of the room. Students sat quietly at their desks and listened, took notes, occasionally recited in unison or responded, standing, to a direct question from the teacher. Questions from students were a rarity.
-- Many, if not most, lectures were straight from students’ texts, sometimes nothing more than teachers simply reading from the textbook.
-- Teachers appeared at students’ classrooms just before lessons began, departing back to their subject area offices immediately upon finishing their lessons. Casual student-teacher interaction was minimal at best. Teachers spent much of their office time (they only taught two class periods per day) playing video games and reading the daily newspaper.
-- Copying of assignments was rampant – and tolerated. As, all too often, was cheating on exams. Scores counted more than how they were achieved.
-- I saw no evidence of what in the U.S. we would call “student projects.” Classroom activity appeared to be the same lecture and recitation style every day.
-- Students were actively discouraged from asking questions. I was told on more than one occasion that students’ parents could actually be called into the school so that a teacher could complain that the child was disrupting lessons because he/she was asking too many questions.
-- Schools had no clubs or activities and minimal if any organized sports teams. One school where I worked claimed to have two or three interscholastic sports teams, but only for boys.
-- Students typically took seven or eight classes each semester, leaving no time for activities even outside of school.
-- Never once among the hundreds of students I saw and taught did I see a student with a physical handicap or a visible learning disability. I don’t know where those students were, or if they were even still permitted to attend school by high school age, but if so, there was no inclusion.
-- Physical education consisted mostly of lining students up in straight rows and performing low-impact calisthenics and movement.
-- The last semester of senior year is dedicated nearly exclusively to preparation for the gaokou, the national, three-day-long, college entrance examination.
-- Schools were evaluated, and principals and teachers rewarded, according to their students’ standardized exam results.
-- Teachers earn extra income from tutoring. They are allowed to accept money from their own students (or gifts from those students’ parents), a sure-fire disincentive to effective teaching in the classroom setting.
-- There was no parent involvement in the schools whatsoever. Parents visited a school for only one of two reasons: to be roundly chastised for their child’s behavior/performance, or to present a gift for extra tutoring services rendered.
I could go on, but this should be more than enough to convey the message: Do we REALLY want our education system to be like China’s?
How much of a price are we willing to pay in order to match the Chinese in “international competitiveness,” and are those measures the ones that are really important in our society, in our culture, in our children’s future successes?
And when will media folks (and senior education officials) cease their misleading and destructive opinion mongering based on little more than a standardized exam report, or helicoptering into a selective Chinese school for an hour or two and being strung along as though they were touring a Chinese-version Potemkin village?
The American public deserves better. It is only little-known Chinese education writers like Yong Zhao and Jiang Xueqin who are currently telling the true story about Chinese education. If NBC truly believed in their own ultra-inflated, “Education Nation” hype, they would devote a prime-time hour to it and tell the real story – not just about China or Singapore, but about Finland as well.
And, please, for at least that one hour, no Geoffrey Canada!
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-like-shanghai-sorry-mike.html
Nick Kristof does it, as does Thomas Friedman. So in his own uncritical way does Arne Duncan. And so do the many other media alarmists who accept at face value Shanghai city schools’ recent PISA results and use those scores to forecast a coming American apocalypse. They all see China as the world’s great education success story, the “model” for American education. But they really don’t have a clue.
The latest insult to American education just arrived this week in the form of a NY Times piece describing how those Shanghai schools are so successful because of their classroom discipline, thereby managing to conflate bad teaching, institutionalized fear of public shaming, and educational rigidity with good classroom management. Based on what I saw while teaching several years ago at the high school level in a major, wealthy Chinese city near Shanghai, here is what typical Chinese education was really like, at its near-best, at the high school level:
-- Every classroom was a bare, cinder-block-walled enclosure, no heat in the winter, no cooling in the early summer, virtually nothing decorating the walls. Students spent their entire school day in the same room – teachers came to them.
-- Every classroom held 48 – 50 students, lined up in traditional, ramrod-straight rows. Textbooks and workbooks for students’ full set of the day’s classes were piled on and under their desks – no one had a locker.
-- Teachers lectured from a dais at the front of the room. Students sat quietly at their desks and listened, took notes, occasionally recited in unison or responded, standing, to a direct question from the teacher. Questions from students were a rarity.
-- Many, if not most, lectures were straight from students’ texts, sometimes nothing more than teachers simply reading from the textbook.
-- Teachers appeared at students’ classrooms just before lessons began, departing back to their subject area offices immediately upon finishing their lessons. Casual student-teacher interaction was minimal at best. Teachers spent much of their office time (they only taught two class periods per day) playing video games and reading the daily newspaper.
-- Copying of assignments was rampant – and tolerated. As, all too often, was cheating on exams. Scores counted more than how they were achieved.
-- I saw no evidence of what in the U.S. we would call “student projects.” Classroom activity appeared to be the same lecture and recitation style every day.
-- Students were actively discouraged from asking questions. I was told on more than one occasion that students’ parents could actually be called into the school so that a teacher could complain that the child was disrupting lessons because he/she was asking too many questions.
-- Schools had no clubs or activities and minimal if any organized sports teams. One school where I worked claimed to have two or three interscholastic sports teams, but only for boys.
-- Students typically took seven or eight classes each semester, leaving no time for activities even outside of school.
-- Never once among the hundreds of students I saw and taught did I see a student with a physical handicap or a visible learning disability. I don’t know where those students were, or if they were even still permitted to attend school by high school age, but if so, there was no inclusion.
-- Physical education consisted mostly of lining students up in straight rows and performing low-impact calisthenics and movement.
-- The last semester of senior year is dedicated nearly exclusively to preparation for the gaokou, the national, three-day-long, college entrance examination.
-- Schools were evaluated, and principals and teachers rewarded, according to their students’ standardized exam results.
-- Teachers earn extra income from tutoring. They are allowed to accept money from their own students (or gifts from those students’ parents), a sure-fire disincentive to effective teaching in the classroom setting.
-- There was no parent involvement in the schools whatsoever. Parents visited a school for only one of two reasons: to be roundly chastised for their child’s behavior/performance, or to present a gift for extra tutoring services rendered.
I could go on, but this should be more than enough to convey the message: Do we REALLY want our education system to be like China’s?
How much of a price are we willing to pay in order to match the Chinese in “international competitiveness,” and are those measures the ones that are really important in our society, in our culture, in our children’s future successes?
And when will media folks (and senior education officials) cease their misleading and destructive opinion mongering based on little more than a standardized exam report, or helicoptering into a selective Chinese school for an hour or two and being strung along as though they were touring a Chinese-version Potemkin village?
The American public deserves better. It is only little-known Chinese education writers like Yong Zhao and Jiang Xueqin who are currently telling the true story about Chinese education. If NBC truly believed in their own ultra-inflated, “Education Nation” hype, they would devote a prime-time hour to it and tell the real story – not just about China or Singapore, but about Finland as well.
And, please, for at least that one hour, no Geoffrey Canada!
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/01/be-like-shanghai-sorry-mike.html
Thursday, December 30, 2010
How desperate for reform should we be
By Larry M. Elkin
Our public schools are awash in high-stakes testing, but we aren’t doing well enough. We know this, of course, because the latest test results tell us so.
“To be brutally honest…a host of developed nations are out-educating us,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said earlier this month in response to recently released international rankings produced by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
The United States placed 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 OECD countries.
The real surprises, however, were the scores of two non-OECD education systems included in the study: Shanghai and Hong Kong. Averaged across the three disciplines measured, the United States had a score of 496 on a scale of zero to 1,000. Hong Kong scored 546. Shanghai averaged 577, ranking first in all three categories.
President Obama declared the situation to be a new “Sputnik moment” for American education, referring to the Cold War fears triggered by the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite in 1957. At that time, the U.S. made a massive push to improve math and science curricula as a way of retaining the country’s technical advantage. Harking back to the language of the Space Race, Obama said he wants to protect investments in education (that means spend a lot of federal money) to “win the race” for jobs and economic development.
In reality, however, the U.S. never really fell behind in its race with the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. had a few strong suits, in which it rivaled or surpassed our abilities. Rocketry, at that moment, was one of them. But there was never a time when, overall, the Soviets remotely approached the level of American technology, efficiency or productivity. From cars to nuclear power, Soviet technology was an unreliable backwater.
The current “Sputnik moment” is, like the original, an overreaction.
The PISA rankings show that the average 15-year-old American student cannot answer as many test questions correctly as the average 15-year-old student in Shanghai. But this is no cause for societal or economic panic. What is important is that our companies are able to find the talent they need to develop. Is Boeing having trouble finding enough people with the knowledge of advanced calculus necessary to design airplanes? Are publishing houses struggling to locate people with the reading skills necessary to edit books? I don’t think so. As long as I’m right, American companies will be on solid ground.
Even if companies were having difficulty accessing talent, the most practical solution at a policy level would be, not to teach more Americans calculus or editing, but to reform labor and immigration laws to enable companies to hire the people who have those skills, wherever they reside. The practical solution on a corporate level would be to send the work requiring specific skills to the places where people with those skills are available. Boeing might open a design facility in Finland, which scored an impressive 541 on the math assessment. Harper Collins might hire freelance editors based in Canada, which bested us by 24 points in reading.
The answer is not to simply amp up competition in American schools in order to try to raise our position in international competitions. This, unfortunately, seems to be what education officials intend to do. Education Secretary Duncan said at a press conference following the release of the PISA scores, “The findings, I have to admit, show that the United States needs to urgently accelerate student learning to try to remain competitive in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.”
But “accelerating student learning” to “compete” with other nations is not a path to economic prominence. Japan’s education system continues to be rated one of the best in the world, and is routinely held up as a model which critics of our system argue we ought to emulate. Yet Japan’s economy has remained lethargic ever since it tanked in 1990, and the country’s population – a better indicator of a society’s overall health, in my view – is in an accelerating decline.
The Japanese system, along with many others in Asia modeled after it, emphasizes high-stakes standardized testing. Test scores are used to separate students into stratified levels which dictate their future educational possibilities.
This leads to heavy stress and early burn-outs, so that, by the time they reach the university level, many Japanese students have already exhausted their best intellectual energies. A Canadian who teaches English at a Japanese university wrote in a critique of the country’s education system, “The result of all this test-taking and stress, is a nation of order takers who have trouble making decisions, let alone stating an opinion.”
Already I think the U.S. is in danger of falling into the same pattern. As Rebecca Pavese wrote here recently, some parents of 5-year-olds are so eager to score a competitive advantage for their children that they wait a year before allowing them to start school. This allows these children to accumulate more skills before they enter the now-cutthroat world of kindergarten.
At the high school level, the unprecedented number of star students, all within a few grade points of one another, has led several schools to start naming multiple valedictorians. William R. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, told The New York Times that he had heard of some schools with as many as 100 valedictorians. This crowding at the top forces students who are set on attending top colleges to do even more to distinguish themselves. Scores of colleges these days seem unwilling to admit anyone other than card-carrying superheroes.
Of course, excessive pressure to overachieve is not the only problem troubling the American education system. Far too many kids don’t graduate, and far too many of those who do graduate lack the skills necessary to be productive in a high-tech, service-based economy. Particularly troubling is the ongoing achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We need to fix these problems, but our need to do so is not contingent on how other countries are doing.
Education is very important. Being the international valedictorians based on PISA scores is not. To be successful, a country needs policies that encourage actual economic growth and social development, not good test taking.
A strong nation requires wise government spending, flexible labor markets, the ability to form coalitions, openness to competition, orderly politics, and the willingness to import labor through immigration or to outsource it through trade as needed. These are the things we need to focus on. If America does not continue to thrive in the world, it will be because of the things we do or fail to do, not because of the things people do elsewhere.
http://wallstreetpit.com/54966-a-new-sputnik-moment-as-misleading-as-the-first
Our public schools are awash in high-stakes testing, but we aren’t doing well enough. We know this, of course, because the latest test results tell us so.
“To be brutally honest…a host of developed nations are out-educating us,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said earlier this month in response to recently released international rankings produced by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
The United States placed 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 OECD countries.
The real surprises, however, were the scores of two non-OECD education systems included in the study: Shanghai and Hong Kong. Averaged across the three disciplines measured, the United States had a score of 496 on a scale of zero to 1,000. Hong Kong scored 546. Shanghai averaged 577, ranking first in all three categories.
President Obama declared the situation to be a new “Sputnik moment” for American education, referring to the Cold War fears triggered by the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite in 1957. At that time, the U.S. made a massive push to improve math and science curricula as a way of retaining the country’s technical advantage. Harking back to the language of the Space Race, Obama said he wants to protect investments in education (that means spend a lot of federal money) to “win the race” for jobs and economic development.
In reality, however, the U.S. never really fell behind in its race with the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. had a few strong suits, in which it rivaled or surpassed our abilities. Rocketry, at that moment, was one of them. But there was never a time when, overall, the Soviets remotely approached the level of American technology, efficiency or productivity. From cars to nuclear power, Soviet technology was an unreliable backwater.
The current “Sputnik moment” is, like the original, an overreaction.
The PISA rankings show that the average 15-year-old American student cannot answer as many test questions correctly as the average 15-year-old student in Shanghai. But this is no cause for societal or economic panic. What is important is that our companies are able to find the talent they need to develop. Is Boeing having trouble finding enough people with the knowledge of advanced calculus necessary to design airplanes? Are publishing houses struggling to locate people with the reading skills necessary to edit books? I don’t think so. As long as I’m right, American companies will be on solid ground.
Even if companies were having difficulty accessing talent, the most practical solution at a policy level would be, not to teach more Americans calculus or editing, but to reform labor and immigration laws to enable companies to hire the people who have those skills, wherever they reside. The practical solution on a corporate level would be to send the work requiring specific skills to the places where people with those skills are available. Boeing might open a design facility in Finland, which scored an impressive 541 on the math assessment. Harper Collins might hire freelance editors based in Canada, which bested us by 24 points in reading.
The answer is not to simply amp up competition in American schools in order to try to raise our position in international competitions. This, unfortunately, seems to be what education officials intend to do. Education Secretary Duncan said at a press conference following the release of the PISA scores, “The findings, I have to admit, show that the United States needs to urgently accelerate student learning to try to remain competitive in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.”
But “accelerating student learning” to “compete” with other nations is not a path to economic prominence. Japan’s education system continues to be rated one of the best in the world, and is routinely held up as a model which critics of our system argue we ought to emulate. Yet Japan’s economy has remained lethargic ever since it tanked in 1990, and the country’s population – a better indicator of a society’s overall health, in my view – is in an accelerating decline.
The Japanese system, along with many others in Asia modeled after it, emphasizes high-stakes standardized testing. Test scores are used to separate students into stratified levels which dictate their future educational possibilities.
This leads to heavy stress and early burn-outs, so that, by the time they reach the university level, many Japanese students have already exhausted their best intellectual energies. A Canadian who teaches English at a Japanese university wrote in a critique of the country’s education system, “The result of all this test-taking and stress, is a nation of order takers who have trouble making decisions, let alone stating an opinion.”
Already I think the U.S. is in danger of falling into the same pattern. As Rebecca Pavese wrote here recently, some parents of 5-year-olds are so eager to score a competitive advantage for their children that they wait a year before allowing them to start school. This allows these children to accumulate more skills before they enter the now-cutthroat world of kindergarten.
At the high school level, the unprecedented number of star students, all within a few grade points of one another, has led several schools to start naming multiple valedictorians. William R. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, told The New York Times that he had heard of some schools with as many as 100 valedictorians. This crowding at the top forces students who are set on attending top colleges to do even more to distinguish themselves. Scores of colleges these days seem unwilling to admit anyone other than card-carrying superheroes.
Of course, excessive pressure to overachieve is not the only problem troubling the American education system. Far too many kids don’t graduate, and far too many of those who do graduate lack the skills necessary to be productive in a high-tech, service-based economy. Particularly troubling is the ongoing achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We need to fix these problems, but our need to do so is not contingent on how other countries are doing.
Education is very important. Being the international valedictorians based on PISA scores is not. To be successful, a country needs policies that encourage actual economic growth and social development, not good test taking.
A strong nation requires wise government spending, flexible labor markets, the ability to form coalitions, openness to competition, orderly politics, and the willingness to import labor through immigration or to outsource it through trade as needed. These are the things we need to focus on. If America does not continue to thrive in the world, it will be because of the things we do or fail to do, not because of the things people do elsewhere.
http://wallstreetpit.com/54966-a-new-sputnik-moment-as-misleading-as-the-first
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Caviar tastes on a spam budget, why we will never be like Finland
Finland is often pointed to as having the idea education system. -cpg
By Paul Sahlberg
IF AMERICANS harbored any doubts about their eroded global edge, the recent release of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s fourth international comparison of educational performance should rattle the nation from its “We’re No. 1’’ complacency. The latest Program for International Student Assessment study revealed that, although the United States made some modest gains, it is lagging behind many other developed nations in the ability of its 15-year-olds. The country isn’t flunking: like France, England, and Sweden, learning here has stagnated at below-average levels. That “gentleman’s C’’ should be a call to change course.
As recently as 25 years ago, Finnish students were below the international average in mathematics and science. There also were large learning differences between schools, with urban or affluent students typically outperforming their rural or low-income peers. Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
Finland has a different approach to student testing and how test data can or should not be used. Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do. Politicians and administrators are informed about how well the education system works by using sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work. Parents and politicians think that teachers who work closely together with parents are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools.
Another difference is that Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers
Educational leadership is also different in Finland. School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
What could the United States learn from the Finns? First, reconsider those policies that advocate choice and competition as the key drivers of educational improvement. None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
Second, provide teachers with government-paid university education and more professional support in their work, and make teaching a respected profession. As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Finally, with the fourth PISA study again showing that the US education system is lagging those in many other countries, Americans should admit that there is much to learn from these systems. Relying on one’s past reputation is probably not the best approach for transforming an educational system to meet tomorrow’s needs and challenges. With America’s “can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Pasi Sahlberg is director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture and is a former Washington-based World Bank education specialis
Taken from the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/?page=1
By Paul Sahlberg
IF AMERICANS harbored any doubts about their eroded global edge, the recent release of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s fourth international comparison of educational performance should rattle the nation from its “We’re No. 1’’ complacency. The latest Program for International Student Assessment study revealed that, although the United States made some modest gains, it is lagging behind many other developed nations in the ability of its 15-year-olds. The country isn’t flunking: like France, England, and Sweden, learning here has stagnated at below-average levels. That “gentleman’s C’’ should be a call to change course.
As recently as 25 years ago, Finnish students were below the international average in mathematics and science. There also were large learning differences between schools, with urban or affluent students typically outperforming their rural or low-income peers. Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
Finland has a different approach to student testing and how test data can or should not be used. Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do. Politicians and administrators are informed about how well the education system works by using sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work. Parents and politicians think that teachers who work closely together with parents are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools.
Another difference is that Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers
Educational leadership is also different in Finland. School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
What could the United States learn from the Finns? First, reconsider those policies that advocate choice and competition as the key drivers of educational improvement. None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
Second, provide teachers with government-paid university education and more professional support in their work, and make teaching a respected profession. As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Finally, with the fourth PISA study again showing that the US education system is lagging those in many other countries, Americans should admit that there is much to learn from these systems. Relying on one’s past reputation is probably not the best approach for transforming an educational system to meet tomorrow’s needs and challenges. With America’s “can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Pasi Sahlberg is director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture and is a former Washington-based World Bank education specialis
Taken from the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/?page=1
Monday, December 27, 2010
Imagine what could be
By teacherken, blogger for the daily Kos
Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciences
Imagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with poorer students
Imagine that nation now has almost no difference in performance between schools with affluent students and those with poorer students
Imagine in that nation teachers are so respected that the best students compete to become teachers, not just for two years, but for a career
Imagine that that nation's schools are now internationally respected
Imagine that our nation might actually be able to learn from what that nation has done
Stop imagining. I'm talking about Finland, as you can read in a piece in today's Boston Globe, by Pasi Sahlberg, titled Learning from Finland and subtitled How one of the world’s top educational performers turned around.
Sahlberg is now director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. Previously he served as a Washington-based World Bank education specialist. Having lived in the US, he is well-aware of the problems of the US educational system. He is also knowledgeable about international comparisons of schools, for example, the recent PISA (The Program for International Student Assessment) by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), in which yet again Finland was the top ranked nation (ignore the results from Shanghai, which are (a) not typical of China, and (b) where students spend several hours daily in intensive test preparation AFTER a full day of school). Finland was also highly ranked in a international study by McKinsey and Company.
Finland used to have serious problems in school performance, as Sahlberg acknowledges.
Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
The Finns examined what other countries were doing, and as Sahlberg also writes
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
We'll talk about the mistakes Finland is avoiding shortly.
First, some argue that Finland is nowhere near as diverse as the US. Sahlberg acknowledges that is true, but also points out that it is becoming increasingly diverse in recent years, with the implication that the additional diversity is not affecting the performance of its schools. Further, as many have pointed out Finland has a far lower level of childhood poverty than does the US, well under 5%b as compared to ours at more than 20%. Yet in Finland differences between schools with substantial numbers of poor children - primarily in rural areas - now perform as well as those with more affluent students in the urban areas. Sahlberg refers to the results of the most recent PISA, where
The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background.
There are some real differences in the approach that Finland took to achieve the results which now rank it so highly. For example,
Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do.
How do politicians and administrators determine how well schools are doing? They turn to
sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work.
There is also a culture where parents think teachers who work closely with them "are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools."
And teachers are respected.
Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers.
Stop there for a moment and consider how different our approach is here. We have a well-established pattern of denigrating public schools and teachers. We have notable voices - Bill Gates, for example - arguing that teachers getting advanced degrees is a waste of time and resources. We have a concerted effort to delegitimize public schools, with moves for vouchers, charter schools run by for profit organizations, hedge funds seeing how turning to charters can lead to profits for their investors, etc. Yet Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. Of course, we also don't trust the police in the US, which may indicate some real cultural differences that do not work to our advantage.
There is another important difference from what we have been seeing, because in Finland
School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
Here we have the newly announced initiative of the George W. Bush institute to train 50,000 people with no prior educational work experience as principals running school, we have the effort5s of Eli Broad and others to take business executives and train them as superintendents running district. At a more basic level, we have a variety of programs, of which Teach for America is the most notable, giving young people 5 weeks of intensive training and then placing them in classrooms, with a commitment that is not required to be longer than 2 years. I might add to what Sahlberg writes that in Finland it takes about 2 years of training under decreasing levels of supervision and increasing assumption of responsibility before one is fully responsible for her own classroom.
Sahlberg offers some suggestion for what the US could learn from the Finns. He argues strongly against using choice and competition as drivers for educational improvement, noting
None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
He also notes that Finland provides teacher candidates with a government-paid university education - remember that most teacher candidates in this nation have to pay for their own education which can leave them with substantial debt before they begin to earn incomes. Finland provides more support when they move into their classrooms and treats teaching as a respected profession. As he notes,
As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Please, note carefully the words teaching as a lifelong career. Two years as a means of enhancing one's resume for other purposes is not the same thing, and does not benefit either the students being taught or the nation as a whole, despite news coverage to the contrary.
Sahlberg is blunt - he tells us that "Americans should admit that there is much to learn" from the educational systems of nations like Finland behind whom the US now lags. He thinks it is possible, closing with these words:
With America’s "can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Let me add one other difference between Finland and the US that Sahlberg does not address. The teaching force in Finland is 100% unionized. Unionization is not in and of itself an obstacle to excellence in education. We should remind those who seek to use things like America lagging in comparisons like PISA not to use unions as an excuse, especially when states with unionized teaching and general work forces tend to outperform schools in right to work states.
The role of unions is different, to be sure. The culture is different, and not just in the respect given unions in Finland, including teachers unions.
Not only does Finland not have the high degree of childhood poverty we have in the US, they also have a far more substantial social safety net, starting with income security for families and medical care for all, two things sorely lacking in this nation.
Thus while I strongly advise we listen to what Salhberg has to offer us about how we can reform our schools, we should also bear in mind that we will not fix all the problems of learning until we are also willing to address the continuing inequities in this nation. Fixing the schools will be insufficient. I note that at a conference earlier this year Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute said that we would be better served taking the money that we could spend reducing the principal/teacher ratio to a reasonable level where you could evaluate teachers, and get much more bang for the buck by taking that money and building a health clinic in schools such as those in inner cities. Rothstein was addressing just one part of the impact that economic inequity has upon students that schools as they are currently constructed cannot address.
Still, I think we can learn from Finland, probably more so than we can from a China or a Korea, both of which are struggling to to change the direction of their schooling away from the test centric places they have been, ironically at the same time that we are going in the wrong direction.
I began by asking you to imagine a nation with excellent schools.
Now I make the same suggestion as does Sahlberg, that we seriously attempt to learn from what Finland has achieved in the past 25 years.
Imagine what we might be able to do with our schools.
Taken from the dail Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/27/931791/-Imagine-a-nation-with-excellent-schools
Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciences
Imagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with poorer students
Imagine that nation now has almost no difference in performance between schools with affluent students and those with poorer students
Imagine in that nation teachers are so respected that the best students compete to become teachers, not just for two years, but for a career
Imagine that that nation's schools are now internationally respected
Imagine that our nation might actually be able to learn from what that nation has done
Stop imagining. I'm talking about Finland, as you can read in a piece in today's Boston Globe, by Pasi Sahlberg, titled Learning from Finland and subtitled How one of the world’s top educational performers turned around.
Sahlberg is now director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. Previously he served as a Washington-based World Bank education specialist. Having lived in the US, he is well-aware of the problems of the US educational system. He is also knowledgeable about international comparisons of schools, for example, the recent PISA (The Program for International Student Assessment) by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), in which yet again Finland was the top ranked nation (ignore the results from Shanghai, which are (a) not typical of China, and (b) where students spend several hours daily in intensive test preparation AFTER a full day of school). Finland was also highly ranked in a international study by McKinsey and Company.
Finland used to have serious problems in school performance, as Sahlberg acknowledges.
Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
The Finns examined what other countries were doing, and as Sahlberg also writes
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
We'll talk about the mistakes Finland is avoiding shortly.
First, some argue that Finland is nowhere near as diverse as the US. Sahlberg acknowledges that is true, but also points out that it is becoming increasingly diverse in recent years, with the implication that the additional diversity is not affecting the performance of its schools. Further, as many have pointed out Finland has a far lower level of childhood poverty than does the US, well under 5%b as compared to ours at more than 20%. Yet in Finland differences between schools with substantial numbers of poor children - primarily in rural areas - now perform as well as those with more affluent students in the urban areas. Sahlberg refers to the results of the most recent PISA, where
The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background.
There are some real differences in the approach that Finland took to achieve the results which now rank it so highly. For example,
Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do.
How do politicians and administrators determine how well schools are doing? They turn to
sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work.
There is also a culture where parents think teachers who work closely with them "are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools."
And teachers are respected.
Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers.
Stop there for a moment and consider how different our approach is here. We have a well-established pattern of denigrating public schools and teachers. We have notable voices - Bill Gates, for example - arguing that teachers getting advanced degrees is a waste of time and resources. We have a concerted effort to delegitimize public schools, with moves for vouchers, charter schools run by for profit organizations, hedge funds seeing how turning to charters can lead to profits for their investors, etc. Yet Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. Of course, we also don't trust the police in the US, which may indicate some real cultural differences that do not work to our advantage.
There is another important difference from what we have been seeing, because in Finland
School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
Here we have the newly announced initiative of the George W. Bush institute to train 50,000 people with no prior educational work experience as principals running school, we have the effort5s of Eli Broad and others to take business executives and train them as superintendents running district. At a more basic level, we have a variety of programs, of which Teach for America is the most notable, giving young people 5 weeks of intensive training and then placing them in classrooms, with a commitment that is not required to be longer than 2 years. I might add to what Sahlberg writes that in Finland it takes about 2 years of training under decreasing levels of supervision and increasing assumption of responsibility before one is fully responsible for her own classroom.
Sahlberg offers some suggestion for what the US could learn from the Finns. He argues strongly against using choice and competition as drivers for educational improvement, noting
None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
He also notes that Finland provides teacher candidates with a government-paid university education - remember that most teacher candidates in this nation have to pay for their own education which can leave them with substantial debt before they begin to earn incomes. Finland provides more support when they move into their classrooms and treats teaching as a respected profession. As he notes,
As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Please, note carefully the words teaching as a lifelong career. Two years as a means of enhancing one's resume for other purposes is not the same thing, and does not benefit either the students being taught or the nation as a whole, despite news coverage to the contrary.
Sahlberg is blunt - he tells us that "Americans should admit that there is much to learn" from the educational systems of nations like Finland behind whom the US now lags. He thinks it is possible, closing with these words:
With America’s "can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Let me add one other difference between Finland and the US that Sahlberg does not address. The teaching force in Finland is 100% unionized. Unionization is not in and of itself an obstacle to excellence in education. We should remind those who seek to use things like America lagging in comparisons like PISA not to use unions as an excuse, especially when states with unionized teaching and general work forces tend to outperform schools in right to work states.
The role of unions is different, to be sure. The culture is different, and not just in the respect given unions in Finland, including teachers unions.
Not only does Finland not have the high degree of childhood poverty we have in the US, they also have a far more substantial social safety net, starting with income security for families and medical care for all, two things sorely lacking in this nation.
Thus while I strongly advise we listen to what Salhberg has to offer us about how we can reform our schools, we should also bear in mind that we will not fix all the problems of learning until we are also willing to address the continuing inequities in this nation. Fixing the schools will be insufficient. I note that at a conference earlier this year Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute said that we would be better served taking the money that we could spend reducing the principal/teacher ratio to a reasonable level where you could evaluate teachers, and get much more bang for the buck by taking that money and building a health clinic in schools such as those in inner cities. Rothstein was addressing just one part of the impact that economic inequity has upon students that schools as they are currently constructed cannot address.
Still, I think we can learn from Finland, probably more so than we can from a China or a Korea, both of which are struggling to to change the direction of their schooling away from the test centric places they have been, ironically at the same time that we are going in the wrong direction.
I began by asking you to imagine a nation with excellent schools.
Now I make the same suggestion as does Sahlberg, that we seriously attempt to learn from what Finland has achieved in the past 25 years.
Imagine what we might be able to do with our schools.
Taken from the dail Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/27/931791/-Imagine-a-nation-with-excellent-schools
Saturday, December 25, 2010
It's not teachers, it's poverty
"There are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics."--Mark Twain
There has been much talk about how the United States is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to education, however when you factor out poverty something where sadly we are one of the leaders in the world with over 20% of our children living in it, we do a lot better. Teacher quality is just a drop in the bucket of education problems.
Follow the link to the article to learn more. -cpg
http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html
There has been much talk about how the United States is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to education, however when you factor out poverty something where sadly we are one of the leaders in the world with over 20% of our children living in it, we do a lot better. Teacher quality is just a drop in the bucket of education problems.
Follow the link to the article to learn more. -cpg
http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Where do reforms really come from
By Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers
One of the great frustrations with America's public education system is that our success stories are rarely scaled up so that more students can benefit. To our children's detriment, decision-makers are more likely to chase fads, shift course or choose "reforms" lacking evidence of effectiveness than they are to adopt and expand educational approaches that have been proven successful.
Unfortunately, this is true on many levels. Accomplished teachers rarely have opportunities to share their craft with colleagues or to mentor new teachers. The "secrets" of successful schools too often remain a mystery, even to schools close by. And rather than replicate the practices of high-performing school districts for the benefit of far more students, many superintendents seem intent upon putting their own imprint on a school system -- evidence be damned.
The results of an international assessment released earlier this month show the consequences of America's failure to build on what works in education. American students ranked in the middle of countries participating in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. Underlying the results are the stark differences between practices in the top-performing countries and the prevailing approaches to education in the United States.
President Obama has said the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. Unfortunately for U.S. children, the top-down, test-driven, evidence-free approach to education that dominated this past decade has failed to put the United States on the path that high-achieving nations have followed.
Simply put, the highest-achieving countries in the world out-prepare, out-invest, out-respect and, as a result, outperform the United States.
The top-performing countries on PISA -- Finland, Singapore and South Korea -- place a heavy emphasis on teacher preparation, mentoring and collaboration. They de-emphasize standardized tests, and each has a well-rounded curriculum that teachers can tailor. In Finland, which I recently visited, teacher training is demanding, rigorous and extensive -- with ample clinical experience. Teachers in these countries are esteemed, and are expected to make teaching their profession, and they're virtually 100 percent unionized.
Contrast this with the United States, where teacher preparation too often is insufficient for the complexity and importance of this work. Teachers frequently are assigned a classroom and left to sink or swim. High rates of turnover are expected and even built into the system. Indeed, half of all teachers leave within their first five years. This constant churning costs American school systems $7 billion each year. The cost to American students is incalculable.
The top-performing countries provide a more equitable education for all students and offset the effects of poverty through wraparound services that support students and their families. South Korea provides increased pay, smaller class sizes and more time for collaboration for teachers working in hard-to-staff schools.
Shanghai, which outranked all its competitors, emphasizes support for struggling teachers and schools. As the New York Times reported, "When a school is in trouble in Shanghai, authorities pair it with a high-performing school. The teachers and leaders of the strong school help those in the weak school until it improves. The authorities send whatever support is needed to help those who are struggling." The United States, in contrast, too often substitutes last-resort measures such as school closings and mass teacher firings for this thoughtful approach proven effective by the world's education leader.
High-achieving countries treat teachers as professionals, and responsibility for student outcomes is shared. School systems work with teachers and their unions, and parents and students are engaged and responsible, as well. Compare this with what happens in the United States, where teachers are routinely asked to accept policies made without their input, and then blamed when the policies fail. And often teachers are held solely accountable for student achievement, rather than the mutual responsibility approach that has proven so successful in many other countries.
Educating all our students at high levels is not easy, but our international neighbors show that it can be done. We must study and replicate the best practices, both here and abroad, for the benefit of our kids, and our competitiveness.
Taken from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-weingarten/scaling-up-success_b_799258.html?ref=fb&src=sp
One of the great frustrations with America's public education system is that our success stories are rarely scaled up so that more students can benefit. To our children's detriment, decision-makers are more likely to chase fads, shift course or choose "reforms" lacking evidence of effectiveness than they are to adopt and expand educational approaches that have been proven successful.
Unfortunately, this is true on many levels. Accomplished teachers rarely have opportunities to share their craft with colleagues or to mentor new teachers. The "secrets" of successful schools too often remain a mystery, even to schools close by. And rather than replicate the practices of high-performing school districts for the benefit of far more students, many superintendents seem intent upon putting their own imprint on a school system -- evidence be damned.
The results of an international assessment released earlier this month show the consequences of America's failure to build on what works in education. American students ranked in the middle of countries participating in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. Underlying the results are the stark differences between practices in the top-performing countries and the prevailing approaches to education in the United States.
President Obama has said the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. Unfortunately for U.S. children, the top-down, test-driven, evidence-free approach to education that dominated this past decade has failed to put the United States on the path that high-achieving nations have followed.
Simply put, the highest-achieving countries in the world out-prepare, out-invest, out-respect and, as a result, outperform the United States.
The top-performing countries on PISA -- Finland, Singapore and South Korea -- place a heavy emphasis on teacher preparation, mentoring and collaboration. They de-emphasize standardized tests, and each has a well-rounded curriculum that teachers can tailor. In Finland, which I recently visited, teacher training is demanding, rigorous and extensive -- with ample clinical experience. Teachers in these countries are esteemed, and are expected to make teaching their profession, and they're virtually 100 percent unionized.
Contrast this with the United States, where teacher preparation too often is insufficient for the complexity and importance of this work. Teachers frequently are assigned a classroom and left to sink or swim. High rates of turnover are expected and even built into the system. Indeed, half of all teachers leave within their first five years. This constant churning costs American school systems $7 billion each year. The cost to American students is incalculable.
The top-performing countries provide a more equitable education for all students and offset the effects of poverty through wraparound services that support students and their families. South Korea provides increased pay, smaller class sizes and more time for collaboration for teachers working in hard-to-staff schools.
Shanghai, which outranked all its competitors, emphasizes support for struggling teachers and schools. As the New York Times reported, "When a school is in trouble in Shanghai, authorities pair it with a high-performing school. The teachers and leaders of the strong school help those in the weak school until it improves. The authorities send whatever support is needed to help those who are struggling." The United States, in contrast, too often substitutes last-resort measures such as school closings and mass teacher firings for this thoughtful approach proven effective by the world's education leader.
High-achieving countries treat teachers as professionals, and responsibility for student outcomes is shared. School systems work with teachers and their unions, and parents and students are engaged and responsible, as well. Compare this with what happens in the United States, where teachers are routinely asked to accept policies made without their input, and then blamed when the policies fail. And often teachers are held solely accountable for student achievement, rather than the mutual responsibility approach that has proven so successful in many other countries.
Educating all our students at high levels is not easy, but our international neighbors show that it can be done. We must study and replicate the best practices, both here and abroad, for the benefit of our kids, and our competitiveness.
Taken from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randi-weingarten/scaling-up-success_b_799258.html?ref=fb&src=sp
Sunday, December 12, 2010
What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report
From Valerie Strauss Answer Sheet
This was written by William J. Mathis of Goshen, Vermont. He is the managing director of the National Education Policy Center.. and a former Vermont superintendent. The views expressed are his own.
By William J. Mathis
For the 27th, government officials have yet again been surprised, shocked and dismayed over the latest international test score rankings. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “We have to see this as a very serious wake-up call.” Former Reagan education official Chester E. Finn Jr. reported that he was “kind of stunned” by the results of the Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) results. In hyperbolic overdrive, he compared the results to Pearl Harbor and Sputnik.
The PISA tests were given to 15-year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 65 nations and educational systems. Nine had higher average scores in reading, 17 in math, and 12 in science.
While ranking nations on test scores is a pretty sorry way to evaluate education systems, there is simply no reason to expect the results to have been any better than they were the last time we heard from this same chorus of surprised, shocked and dismayed pundits and politicians.
The reason is simple. Federal and state policymakers continue to embrace reforms that have little positive effect (if not downright negative effects) while ignoring reforms that make a difference. Buried within the PISA report is an analysis of educational systems that registered high test scores. Here are some of the less-reported findings:·
*The best performing school systems manage to provide high-quality education to all children.
· *Students from low socio-economic backgrounds score a year behind their more affluent classmates. However, poorer students who are integrated with their more affluent classmates score strikingly higher. The difference is worth more than a year’s education.
· *In schools where students are required to repeat grades (such as with promotion requirements), the test scores are lower and the achievement gap is larger.
· *Tracking students (“ability grouping”) results in the gap becoming wider. The earlier the practice begins, the greater the gap. Poor children are more frequently shunted into the lower tracks.
· *Systems that transfer weak or disruptive students score lower on tests and on equity. One-third of the differences in national performance can be ascribed to this one factor.
· *Schools that have autonomy over curriculum, finances and assessment score higher.
· *Schools that compete for students (vouchers, charters, etc.) show no achievement score advantage.
· *Private schools do no better once family wealth factors are considered.
· *Students that attended pre-school score higher, even after more than 10 years.
As OECD Paris-based official Michael Davidson said in National Public Radio comments, “One of the striking things is the impact of social background on (U.S.) success.”
Twenty percent of U.S. performance was attributed to social background, which is far higher than in other nations. Davidson went on to point out that the United States just does not distribute financial resources or quality teachers equally. In a related finding, students from single-parent homes score much lower in the United States than they do in other countries. The 23-point difference is almost a year’s lack of growth.
Our Educational Policies
Unfortunately, federal and state policies do little to adopt these factors that other nations have found so successful. Countless finance studies show that funding across our schools is inequitable and inadequate. Federal and state governments vaguely note this concern but actions do not match the rhetoric. Our treatment of economically deprived students is to house them in segregated schools and shunt them into tracked programs.
A number of “get tough” social promotion policies have been adopted in states even though we know they are harmful. Despite a clear research consensus, early education is still politically disputed. Tracking students still remains the national norm even as we know it increases the achievement gap.
As the federal government (under both Republican and Democratic administrations) has become even more top-down and prescriptive, local schools become less autonomous and less like our successful international counterparts. Finally, the push for privatizing public education through charters, tuition tax credits, vouchers and the like does not result in better test scores and has the effect of increasing segregation, and the inequalities that lead to low test scores.
The American Dream
The American dream is that all children have an opportunity to be successful no matter how humble their roots. Thus, the most troubling finding in the PISA results is the lack of “resilience” among our children.
OECD measured resilience by looking at the scores of the least wealthy 25% of students and seeing what proportion of these students have academic scores in the top 25% of countries with similar socio-economic levels. In the highest scoring nations, 70 percent of the students are rated resilient.
The U. S. figure is less than 30%. In a nation which sees the top 1% controlling more than 50% of the nation’s wealth and the collapse of middle class jobs, we face the specter of building a country of social, economic and educational apartheid.
Secretary Duncan calls the PISA scores a serious wake-up call for our economy and “international competitiveness.” But that is merely to misunderstand economics and global competitiveness. Due to our pursuit of ineffective and ill-focused educational and economic reforms , the rude disturbance of our slumbers is the slamming of the door on the American dream.
Taken from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/what-international-test-scores.html?wprss=answer-sheet
This was written by William J. Mathis of Goshen, Vermont. He is the managing director of the National Education Policy Center.. and a former Vermont superintendent. The views expressed are his own.
By William J. Mathis
For the 27th, government officials have yet again been surprised, shocked and dismayed over the latest international test score rankings. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “We have to see this as a very serious wake-up call.” Former Reagan education official Chester E. Finn Jr. reported that he was “kind of stunned” by the results of the Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) results. In hyperbolic overdrive, he compared the results to Pearl Harbor and Sputnik.
The PISA tests were given to 15-year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 65 nations and educational systems. Nine had higher average scores in reading, 17 in math, and 12 in science.
While ranking nations on test scores is a pretty sorry way to evaluate education systems, there is simply no reason to expect the results to have been any better than they were the last time we heard from this same chorus of surprised, shocked and dismayed pundits and politicians.
The reason is simple. Federal and state policymakers continue to embrace reforms that have little positive effect (if not downright negative effects) while ignoring reforms that make a difference. Buried within the PISA report is an analysis of educational systems that registered high test scores. Here are some of the less-reported findings:·
*The best performing school systems manage to provide high-quality education to all children.
· *Students from low socio-economic backgrounds score a year behind their more affluent classmates. However, poorer students who are integrated with their more affluent classmates score strikingly higher. The difference is worth more than a year’s education.
· *In schools where students are required to repeat grades (such as with promotion requirements), the test scores are lower and the achievement gap is larger.
· *Tracking students (“ability grouping”) results in the gap becoming wider. The earlier the practice begins, the greater the gap. Poor children are more frequently shunted into the lower tracks.
· *Systems that transfer weak or disruptive students score lower on tests and on equity. One-third of the differences in national performance can be ascribed to this one factor.
· *Schools that have autonomy over curriculum, finances and assessment score higher.
· *Schools that compete for students (vouchers, charters, etc.) show no achievement score advantage.
· *Private schools do no better once family wealth factors are considered.
· *Students that attended pre-school score higher, even after more than 10 years.
As OECD Paris-based official Michael Davidson said in National Public Radio comments, “One of the striking things is the impact of social background on (U.S.) success.”
Twenty percent of U.S. performance was attributed to social background, which is far higher than in other nations. Davidson went on to point out that the United States just does not distribute financial resources or quality teachers equally. In a related finding, students from single-parent homes score much lower in the United States than they do in other countries. The 23-point difference is almost a year’s lack of growth.
Our Educational Policies
Unfortunately, federal and state policies do little to adopt these factors that other nations have found so successful. Countless finance studies show that funding across our schools is inequitable and inadequate. Federal and state governments vaguely note this concern but actions do not match the rhetoric. Our treatment of economically deprived students is to house them in segregated schools and shunt them into tracked programs.
A number of “get tough” social promotion policies have been adopted in states even though we know they are harmful. Despite a clear research consensus, early education is still politically disputed. Tracking students still remains the national norm even as we know it increases the achievement gap.
As the federal government (under both Republican and Democratic administrations) has become even more top-down and prescriptive, local schools become less autonomous and less like our successful international counterparts. Finally, the push for privatizing public education through charters, tuition tax credits, vouchers and the like does not result in better test scores and has the effect of increasing segregation, and the inequalities that lead to low test scores.
The American Dream
The American dream is that all children have an opportunity to be successful no matter how humble their roots. Thus, the most troubling finding in the PISA results is the lack of “resilience” among our children.
OECD measured resilience by looking at the scores of the least wealthy 25% of students and seeing what proportion of these students have academic scores in the top 25% of countries with similar socio-economic levels. In the highest scoring nations, 70 percent of the students are rated resilient.
The U. S. figure is less than 30%. In a nation which sees the top 1% controlling more than 50% of the nation’s wealth and the collapse of middle class jobs, we face the specter of building a country of social, economic and educational apartheid.
Secretary Duncan calls the PISA scores a serious wake-up call for our economy and “international competitiveness.” But that is merely to misunderstand economics and global competitiveness. Due to our pursuit of ineffective and ill-focused educational and economic reforms , the rude disturbance of our slumbers is the slamming of the door on the American dream.
Taken from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/what-international-test-scores.html?wprss=answer-sheet
How do succesful school systems treat their teachers?
By Sabrina Stevens Shupe
The recent release of two important reports led me to ask this question.
The National Education Policy Center shared a brief that reviews available research on several different aspects of teacher evaluation and makes recommendations for a comprehensive approach to teacher evaluation. If different measures, like observation (by peers and principals), teacher self-reports, student surveys, classroom artifacts, portfolios and value-added assessment are used, then the weaknesses of one measure can be offset by the strengths of another.
Meanwhile, the much-anticipated PISA rankings came out, revealing that America is (still) in the "middle of the pack" of international rankings of 15-year-old performance in reading, science and math. Putting anxious hand-wringing and concerns about representativeness and meaning aside, if we take the rankings at face value, then there is merit in examining how more successful school systems work, and learning from what makes them so successful.
One of the key things that such systems have in common is that they take teaching seriously. Drawing from research summarized in Linda Darling-Hammond's The Flat World and Education, common features of the teacher experience in places like the Scandinavian nations, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong include:
· Between three and four years of high-quality teacher education, typically funded at government expense. Pre-service teacher education programs in these places tend to include courses in content-specific pedagogy to develop teachers' knowledge of how their discipline works and empower them to help learners deal with certain types of conceptual issues unique to their field, research projects where teachers write theses on teaching practice and other issues in the schools, and at least one year of training within a school setting. Like the rest of the teaching and learning system, teacher education programs are regularly evaluated and updated, with teachers playing a central role in the process.
· Extensive mentoring and meaningful ongoing professional development. Teachers in these systems spend their first years working closely with veteran teachers, who often receive special training on how to be good mentors. New and veteran teachers alike spend a considerable amount of time engaging in professional learning, which is often embedded within the generous amounts of time (between 15-25 hours a week!) they have for collaborative planning. They frequently do action research projects with their colleagues and present their learning to other teachers through publications or at conferences. Release time for observations in other teachers' classrooms is also common, after which teachers take time to critique each other and offer feedback.
· Leadership development. Teachers are given the opportunity to develop curriculum and assessments, mentor and coach teachers, and offer professional development. The strongest teachers are recruited to become principals, who are trained to serve as instructional leaders.
· Professional pay and status. Teachers are paid comparably to members of other professions, and teaching itself is highly honored. Some governments make special efforts to recruit their best students into the teaching profession, which simultaneously boosts the strength of the teaching corps and the prestige of the profession as a whole.
Recognizing that "teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible," other nations devote considerable time and resources into teaching. Note, too, that all of these investments are based on two key assumptions:
· That teachers should teach, develop and evaluate each other (and that every facet of education -- from teacher training to school leadership -- should be informed and led by professional educators).
· That teachers will stay in teaching until they retire, thereby allowing them to continue the cycle of developing other teachers and leading schools, and making such extensive investments worthwhile.
Though we have examples of strong teacher education, induction and professional development programs here, there is no large-scale effort to coordinate and/or duplicate these programs to ensure that every single teacher benefits from them. Here, it is more often the case that:
· Teachers must forgo income (and more often, go into debt) in order to participate in high-quality, in-depth teacher preparation programs, or skip such preparation and go directly into the classroom (typically the neediest ones) with little to no training
· Mentoring is spotty.
· Professional development is shallow and often disconnected from any given teacher's specific needs as a practitioner.
· Teachers have relatively little built-in time (three to five hours a week) to plan at all, let alone collaboratively.
· Teachers are increasingly observed, evaluated and led by school leaders who are not well-trained, experienced educators.
· Teachers are underpaid relative to other professions with similar levels of education.
Unlike our international peers, Americans don't consider teaching a prestigious profession or even much of a profession at all ("Those who can, do, those who can't, teach"). We don't invest in teachers or teaching, we only nominally (if at all) involve teachers in the process of making major decisions about education, and we've even become shockingly comfortable with the idea of teaching being a disposable job -- something people do for a couple of years before moving on to something else (...better? ...More important?).
And our national conversation about improving the quality of teaching focuses primarily on "getting rid of bad teachers." Instead of doing what's necessary to develop and keep good teachers, like improving teacher education and induction programs, implementing comprehensive evaluation systems and embedding teachers in supportive, well-resourced school communities, America glorifies whomever seems the most willing to fire people.
Rather than guaranteeing teacher quality before teachers take responsibility for students, we're growing a system where we put teachers in the classroom, then try to figure out if they're good enough after the fact. This experiment-and-punish approach is remarkably cruel to both teachers and students, especially the neediest ones -- who are often subjected to strings of over-worked, under-supported, and under-trained instructors year after year. If we really want to build a world-class school system, why waste time and money on witch hunts and magic bullets?
Why not emulate world-class school systems?
Taken from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sabrina-stevens-shupe/successful-schools-treat-teachers_b_793559.html
The recent release of two important reports led me to ask this question.
The National Education Policy Center shared a brief that reviews available research on several different aspects of teacher evaluation and makes recommendations for a comprehensive approach to teacher evaluation. If different measures, like observation (by peers and principals), teacher self-reports, student surveys, classroom artifacts, portfolios and value-added assessment are used, then the weaknesses of one measure can be offset by the strengths of another.
Meanwhile, the much-anticipated PISA rankings came out, revealing that America is (still) in the "middle of the pack" of international rankings of 15-year-old performance in reading, science and math. Putting anxious hand-wringing and concerns about representativeness and meaning aside, if we take the rankings at face value, then there is merit in examining how more successful school systems work, and learning from what makes them so successful.
One of the key things that such systems have in common is that they take teaching seriously. Drawing from research summarized in Linda Darling-Hammond's The Flat World and Education, common features of the teacher experience in places like the Scandinavian nations, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong include:
· Between three and four years of high-quality teacher education, typically funded at government expense. Pre-service teacher education programs in these places tend to include courses in content-specific pedagogy to develop teachers' knowledge of how their discipline works and empower them to help learners deal with certain types of conceptual issues unique to their field, research projects where teachers write theses on teaching practice and other issues in the schools, and at least one year of training within a school setting. Like the rest of the teaching and learning system, teacher education programs are regularly evaluated and updated, with teachers playing a central role in the process.
· Extensive mentoring and meaningful ongoing professional development. Teachers in these systems spend their first years working closely with veteran teachers, who often receive special training on how to be good mentors. New and veteran teachers alike spend a considerable amount of time engaging in professional learning, which is often embedded within the generous amounts of time (between 15-25 hours a week!) they have for collaborative planning. They frequently do action research projects with their colleagues and present their learning to other teachers through publications or at conferences. Release time for observations in other teachers' classrooms is also common, after which teachers take time to critique each other and offer feedback.
· Leadership development. Teachers are given the opportunity to develop curriculum and assessments, mentor and coach teachers, and offer professional development. The strongest teachers are recruited to become principals, who are trained to serve as instructional leaders.
· Professional pay and status. Teachers are paid comparably to members of other professions, and teaching itself is highly honored. Some governments make special efforts to recruit their best students into the teaching profession, which simultaneously boosts the strength of the teaching corps and the prestige of the profession as a whole.
Recognizing that "teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible," other nations devote considerable time and resources into teaching. Note, too, that all of these investments are based on two key assumptions:
· That teachers should teach, develop and evaluate each other (and that every facet of education -- from teacher training to school leadership -- should be informed and led by professional educators).
· That teachers will stay in teaching until they retire, thereby allowing them to continue the cycle of developing other teachers and leading schools, and making such extensive investments worthwhile.
Though we have examples of strong teacher education, induction and professional development programs here, there is no large-scale effort to coordinate and/or duplicate these programs to ensure that every single teacher benefits from them. Here, it is more often the case that:
· Teachers must forgo income (and more often, go into debt) in order to participate in high-quality, in-depth teacher preparation programs, or skip such preparation and go directly into the classroom (typically the neediest ones) with little to no training
· Mentoring is spotty.
· Professional development is shallow and often disconnected from any given teacher's specific needs as a practitioner.
· Teachers have relatively little built-in time (three to five hours a week) to plan at all, let alone collaboratively.
· Teachers are increasingly observed, evaluated and led by school leaders who are not well-trained, experienced educators.
· Teachers are underpaid relative to other professions with similar levels of education.
Unlike our international peers, Americans don't consider teaching a prestigious profession or even much of a profession at all ("Those who can, do, those who can't, teach"). We don't invest in teachers or teaching, we only nominally (if at all) involve teachers in the process of making major decisions about education, and we've even become shockingly comfortable with the idea of teaching being a disposable job -- something people do for a couple of years before moving on to something else (...better? ...More important?).
And our national conversation about improving the quality of teaching focuses primarily on "getting rid of bad teachers." Instead of doing what's necessary to develop and keep good teachers, like improving teacher education and induction programs, implementing comprehensive evaluation systems and embedding teachers in supportive, well-resourced school communities, America glorifies whomever seems the most willing to fire people.
Rather than guaranteeing teacher quality before teachers take responsibility for students, we're growing a system where we put teachers in the classroom, then try to figure out if they're good enough after the fact. This experiment-and-punish approach is remarkably cruel to both teachers and students, especially the neediest ones -- who are often subjected to strings of over-worked, under-supported, and under-trained instructors year after year. If we really want to build a world-class school system, why waste time and money on witch hunts and magic bullets?
Why not emulate world-class school systems?
Taken from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sabrina-stevens-shupe/successful-schools-treat-teachers_b_793559.html
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