A World Class Educaton

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  • June 12, 2012 at 2:25 pm #22354
    Anonymous
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    As a relatively young nation that also boosts the current oldest continuous republic, I think we have a lot to learn to secure the health of our great democratic experiment. And what more important for the well being of our Republic if not a robust education system. It is best to keep an open mind and never feel secure in our accomplishments and grow stagnant and allow the decay process to take hold. While many faults may be found in our educational system, I am confident in an educational system that is constantly reflecting on how to improve and better itself. I look forward to reading [font=Times]Stewart's A World Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation and drawing lessons from it that I can implement in my classroom and share with my colleagues.[/font]

    June 19, 2012 at 11:23 am #22355
    Anonymous
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    I don't know if anyone else was watching, but during the U.S. Open, one of the major oil corporations had taken out an ad that used PISA stats to show how the U.S. is falling behind other countries. I thought it interesting that the corporation then went on to say how it was going to throw money at the problem so that our students would improve in math and science. Well, it didn't say that in so many words, but that is what it amounts to. No mention of looking into the best practices of these leaders in education to get a glimpse at what could be learned from them, such as curriculum development, assessment strategies, or teacher training. What is definition of insanity? Banging one's head repeatedly against the wall and expecting different results?

    June 19, 2012 at 11:23 am #3964
    Rob_Hugo@PortNW
    Keymaster

    I have been reading Vivien Stewart's A World Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation (2012). In it, she discusses the need for international benchmarking and uses China as one of her examples of countries who have recently experienced rapid results in improving their education systems. She points specifically to Shanghai's 2009 PISA results, and how they had top results in math, science, and reading. She also indicates the sorts of changes that have helped Shanghai achieve this top ranking: establishing neighborhood schools, matching lower-ranking schools with higher-ranking schools, making sure that the best teachers are spread throughout the school system, and making a broader curriculum. She also speaks of the government's plan to make preschool universal, raise retention rates to 95%, increase secondary school rates to 90%, and fix other disparities by 2020. Among China's challenges, she lists the rural-urban gap in education, the university entrance exam, and the lack of well-trained faculty. Her take on the challenge of reforming the university entrance exam is particularly interesting in that she points to most reform attempts as unwelcome attempts to "dumb down" traditional Chinese curriculum and teaching methods. That section of the book particularly resonated with me, as it seems often in American society we experience the same resistence to change.

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