Global Ed News
- Australian policies formally put forward in ESOS Act amendmentAfter the announcement of a draft framework outlining a “soft cap” on international students, the education minister Jason Clare formally introduced a bill to parliament on May 16. Amendments were proposed to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act, which would give the government broader powers over the activities of agents and their interactions with providers in Australia. The proposals in the bill, some of which have previously been announced separately, would enable the government to set enrolment limits on international students at individual institutions and pause applications for new international education providers for up to 12 months. The legislation takes aim at “the shonks and crooks looking to take advantage of students and make a quick buck at the expense of this critical national asset”, said Clare in a speech to parliament. “[Students] are back already [after the pandemic]. That’s a vote of confidence in our institutions and providers, and in Australia as a place where the best and brightest come to study. But it is also something we need to manage carefully and protect from bad actors – and that’s what this bill does,” he continued. He detailed that the proposals ... read more3 days ago
- Curmudgucation: Curriculum as the Next Reformy Frontier
Curmudgucation: Curriculum as the Next Reformy Frontier Just stay with me for a minute. The right-tilted Hoover Institute has a publication out for the fortieth anniversary of A Nation At Risk, the Reagan-era hit job on public education, a collection of essays by various members of the reformster world. Some of these are not very enticing (Eric Hanushek on Fixing Schools Through Finance, or Cami Anderson on Lessons from Newark), but there's at least one that's worth a look. Robert Pondiscio's contribution is The Case For Curriculum (reprinted in slightly more readable form here), and it's a thoughtful look at his perennial point . And if it seems like I just wrote about this stuff, it's because I did, but it's a discussion worth continuing. Pondiscio opens with a sort of recap of ed reform so far, admitting that "the structural reform theory of change has underperformed" and that while they've logged some successes, "if the classic ed reform playbook of higher academic standards, high-stakes testing, and muscular accountability was going to bear fruit, drive watershed improvement in student outcomes, or appreciably narrow racial achievement gaps, we’d have clear evidence of it by now." Worse, as the education reform movement evolved from the do-gooder earnestness ... read more3 days ago - Korea aims to boost students abroad with CSATA national standardised exam that operates in Korea is being increasingly embraced on an international level – and could help the country boost the number of its students studying abroad. The College Scholastic Aptitude Test is the country’s standardised test to “evaluate academic prowess and subject-specific expertise” – but not in the same way that the SATs or A-Levels do. No tests, according to Kyuseok Kim of the UWAY consultancy, exhibit the intensity found in the entrances exams of Korea, as well as Japan and China – the day of the exam, police cars transport students and even airplane take-off and landing times are changed to fit with exam schedules. “Historically, it has been pivotal within the domestic educational framework but is now gaining traction among US and other international universities seeking to tap into the competitive Korean student market for the last four years,” Kim told The PIE News. In April, a study abroad fair saw deans and directors of international admissions from various US universities descended on Seoul, including State University New York’s four main campuses, Washington State, Rochester and Miami – due to their involvement of a fledgling initiative to boost the CSAT’s use abroad. “It started in ... read more3 days ago
- DCPS chancellor slams Mendelson plan to shift central office funds to schoolsThe chancellor of D.C. Public Schools has fired back against a council proposal to send $25.4 million from the central office budget to individual schools. ... read more3 days ago
- Loudoun considers delayed-start days to give teachers training timeLoudoun County schools has proposed delaying the start of classes by two hours on 16 days next school year to help free up time to train on new teaching standards. ... read more4 days ago
- Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Get Tech Out of Classrooms – Some Parents Say (Jessica Grose) (Guest Post by Jessica Grose)Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Get Tech Out of Classrooms - Some Parents Say (Jessica Grose) (Guest Post by Jessica Grose) Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The New York Times. She covers family, religion, education, and culture. Jaime Lewis noticed that her eighth-grade son’s grades were slipping several months ago. She suspected it was because he was watching YouTube during class on his school-issued laptop, and her suspicions were validated. “I heard this from two of his teachers and confirmed with my son: Yes, he watches YouTube during class, and no, he doesn’t think he can stop. In fact, he opted out of retaking a math test he’d failed, just so he could watch YouTube,” she said. She decided to do something about it. Lewis told me that she got together with other parents who were concerned about the unfettered use of school-sanctioned technology in San Luis Coastal Unified School District, their district in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Because they knew that it wasn’t realistic to ask for the removal of the laptops entirely, they went for what they saw as an achievable win: blocking YouTube from students’ devices. A few weeks ago, they had a meeting ... read more4 days ago
- The Sameness of Teaching
Why has teaching in public schools (including charters) looked so familiar to generation after generation of parents, grandparents, journalists, and researchers? In short, why has there been so much continuity in how teachers teach over decades? Surely, things have changed in elementary and secondary school classrooms. Desktop and laptop computers are prevalent in schools; teachers use the Internet for video lessons; students give PowerPoint presentations; students use clickers to answer multiple choice questions during discussions with results instantaneously displayed in colorful bar charts; new textbooks are available, some of which are online. Yet amid all of those changes, there remains a common sequence to 45-55 minute lessons with teachers taking attendance, collecting homework, questioning students, handing out worksheets, using textbooks, managing discussions, administering tests, and assigning homework. How to explain this sameness in teaching practice? Consider, for example, school districts where administrators add new courses on critical thinking to meet reform-minded parents’, academics’, employers’, and donors’ demands for 21st century skills. Or keep in mind when teachers urge students to bring their laptops to class to do Internet searches, take notes, work in groups, and make PowerPoint presentations to the rest of the class. Clearly, over time, teachers have made ... read more4 days ago - Janresseger: Today’s Bitter Divide—in Our Society and in Our Public SchoolsJanresseger: Today’s Bitter Divide—in Our Society and in Our Public Schools In America Has Legislated Itself into Competing Red, Blue Versions of Education, the Washington Post’s Hannah Natanson and her colleagues identify the growing divide between red states—whose legislatures are banning school curricula that recognize the history of racial inequity, intentionally include the stories and histories of Black, Brown, and American Indian students, and cover human sexuality—and blue states whose curricula aim to reflect on and correct our society’s history of racism, exclusion, and homophobia. Certainly the Post’s reporters are correct to acknowledge the growing political divide in public school curricular policy across the states, but they misdiagnose the cause. They explain that online programming during COVID alarmed parents when they saw what their children were being taught, and caused frightened parents to begin organizing: “(T)he onslaught of restrictive legislation in red states began in 2021… inspired in many cases by parent concerns over curriculums…. as some mothers and fathers—granted an unprecedented glimpse into lessons during the era of school-by-laptop—found they did not like or trust what their children were learning. Soon, some parents were complaining that lessons were biased toward left-leaning views and too focused on what they saw as irrelevant discussions ... read more5 days ago
- Radical Eyes for Equity: Another Cautionary Tale of Education Reform: “Improving Teaching Quality to Compensate for Socio-Economic Disadvantages: A Study of Research Dissemination Across Secondary Schools in England”
Radical Eyes for Equity: Another Cautionary Tale of Education Reform: “Improving Teaching Quality to Compensate for Socio-Economic Disadvantages: A Study of Research Dissemination Across Secondary Schools in England” Linked in her article for The Conversation is Sally Riordan’s “Improving teaching quality to compensate for socio-economic disadvantages: A study of research dissemination across secondary schools in England.” This analysis is another powerful cautionary tale about education reform, notably the “science of reading” (SOR) movement sweeping across the US, mostly unchecked. As I do a close reading of Riordan’s study, you should also note that the foundational failure of the SOR movement driving new and reformed reading legislation in states is that the main claims of the movement are dramatically oversimplified or misleading. I strongly recommend reviewing how these SOR claims are contradicted by a full examination of the research and science currently available on reading acquisition and teaching: Recommended: Fact-checking the Science of Reading, Rob Tierney and P David Pearson. This close reading is intended to inform directly how and why SOR-based reading legislation is not only misguided but likely causing harm, notably as Riordan addresses, to the most vulnerable populations of students that education reform is often targeting. First, here is an overview of Riordan’s study: ... read more6 days ago - Teachers at Montgomery school upset over cut to extended-year programA decision to end an extended-year program at Roscoe Nix Elementary School has frustrated some teachers who say they relied on the summertime salary. ... read more6 days ago
- VCU students walk out of commencement during Youngkin addressThe students were demonstrating support for Palestinians and protesting some of the Republican governor’s crusade against efforts to promote racial equity in education. ... read more1 week ago
- Can Historians Help School Reformers?Historians are divided over what can be learned from history. Some find that knowing the past can inform the present. Others say that the past has no lessons to teach those living now but it is nonetheless worthwhile to recapture what occurred and their consequences. But when policymakers, practitioners, parents, and public school students ask about the usefulness of history they want guidance from the past to avoid making mistakes now. And some even want predictions. Historians who believe that the past can inform policy argue that even if “lessons” cannot be extracted from the past, policymakers can surely profit from looking backward. They say scholars can aid contemporary policymakers by pointing out similarities and differences between previous and current situations. Or, of even more help to policymakers, historians can redefine existing problems and solutions by observing how similar situations were viewed by a previous generation. Finally, without stooping to offer “lessons,” historians can alert policymakers to what did not work, what might be preferable and what to avoid under certain conditions. Other historians reject the notion that history can, or even should, serve the present. These historians point to their obligations as professionals to be disinterested in ... read more1 week ago
- U-Va. officials defend arrests at protest as faculty seek review of decisionUniversity of Virginia faculty called Friday for an independent review of the use of police to clear a pro-Palestinian protest but stopped short of condemning the decision. ... read more1 week ago
- Mel Ainscow on Making Schools Inclusive
This week, IEN shares a commentary from Mel Ainscow that draws from his new book Developing Inclusive Schools. Ainscow (Mel_Ainscow@yahoo.co.uk) is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Manchester, Professor of Education at the University of Glasgow, and Adjunct … Continue reading ... read more2 weeks ago - Every Tech Tool in Classrooms Needs Ruthless Scrutiny (Jessica Grose)Just as school boards and administrators evaluate carefully every item placed in classrooms from the size of windows to furniture to whiteboards to textbooks, so too should the ubiquitous technologies used daily–nay, hourly–such as cell phones and laptops (including software) be rigorouly assessed. New York Times reporter Jessica Grose makes just that point in this article. Educational technology in schools is sometimes described as a wicked problem — a term coined by a design and planning professor, Horst Rittel, in the 1960s, meaning a problem for which even defining the scope of the dilemma is a struggle, because it has so many interconnected parts that never stop moving. When you have a wicked problem, solutions have to be holistic, flexible and developmentally appropriate. Which is to say that appropriate tech use for elementary schoolers in rural Oklahoma isn’t going to be the same as appropriate tech use in a Chicago high school. I spent the past few weeks speaking with parents, teachers, public school administrators and academics who study educational technology. And while there are certainly benefits to using tech as a classroom tool, I’m convinced that when it comes to the proliferation of tech in K-12 education, we need ... read more2 weeks ago
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