The Global Search for Education
“I believe that it is a public duty to provide a good public school with adequate resources and a rich curriculum in every neighborhood.” — Diane Ravitch
The Education Debate 2012 — Diane Ravitch
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Making education a focus during the 2012 election debates is our ongoing goal in The Global Search for Education series. Today I am honored to share the perspectives of Diane Ravitch as we continue the discussion of the issues that we believe will be a priority for the next President of the United States.
Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a distinguished historian of American education. She is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. She served as Assistant Secretary of Education for Research and Improvement in the administration of President George H.W. Bush and was appointed to two terms on the National Assessment Governing Board by the Clinton administration. Ravitch is the author or editor of over 20 books on education, including the national bestseller, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (Basic Books).
“It is NOT the role of the Department of Education to foist its own unproven preferences — like evaluating teachers by student test scores or charter schools or merit pay — on states and districts.”— Diane Ravitch
What should the role of federal government be in K- 12 education? How much more funding should be given to education reform and in what major areas should it be spent?
The federal government has certain roles that have been consistent since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965:
First, to equalize spending for the neediest districts, especially those that enroll children who are poor.
Second, to protect the civil rights of children.
Third, to provide accurate and timely information about the condition and progress of education, including support for the no-stakes National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Fourth, to fund the education of children with disabilities.
Fifth, to aid low-income students who enroll in college.
The basic mission of the U.S. Department of Education is to support equality of educational opportunity.
It is not the role of the Department of Education to foist its own unproven preferences — like evaluating teachers by student test scores or charter schools or merit pay — on states and districts.
“I would like to see higher standards for entry into schools of education. I would wish that every teacher has a four-year degree in a content area, and a fifth year of study of education.” — Diane Ravitch
What would be your position on improving the teaching profession, including recruitment, teacher training, compensation, and assignment to low-income schools?
I would like to see higher standards for entry into schools of education. I would wish that every teacher has a four-year degree in a content area, so they are knowledgeable in the subjects they will teach, and a fifth year of study of education, including cognitive science, adolescent psychology, assessment, cultural diversity, the sociology of the family and the community, and the history, politics, and economics of education. No one should be allowed to teach who does not have a year of study that includes practice teaching and research. I would also disallow education degrees earned online. Teachers should be paid more for taking on additional responsibilities; they should not have their pay or evaluation tied to test scores of students.
Teaching should be a prestigious career. Those who enter teaching should be well-prepared and expect to make a career in education.
“The US lags far behind the rest of the world in establishing high-quality early childhood education.”
— Diane Ravitch
What would be your position on school choice, including charter schools and their expansion, private schools, vouchers, and investment in inadequately staffed and facilitated low-income schools?
I oppose school choice outside the public school system. I oppose private management of public schools. I oppose for-profit schools. I fear that in time we will see the re-emergence of a dual system of schools in our cities, with charters for the able and public schools serving the rejects from charter schools. I see district after district where charters drain funding and top students away from the public schools. It makes no sense. I oppose vouchers. I believe that it is a public duty to provide a good public school with adequate resources and a rich curriculum in every neighborhood. Every school should have the staff and resources it needs to provide a full curriculum, after-school activities and appropriate services for students.
What would be your strategy to address the domestic and international achievement gaps, including your position on early childhood education, standardized testing, on-line modular education, and teacher/principal accountability?
I think we should stress early childhood education. The US lags far behind the rest of the world in establishing high-quality early childhood education. I think we should minimize the use of standardized testing, use it only for diagnostic purposes, not for accountability, not for rewards or punishments or school closings. Standardized tests reflect gaps, they don’t close them. The online schools have very poor results and do nothing to improve achievement. The best way to improve achievement is to improve the standard of living of our poorest children while improving the curriculum at all schools and the professional supports for teachers. One important reform would be to make sure that every child has a regular medical check-up, that every school has access to a health clinic and/or a school nurse. In the schools that serve the neediest children, class sizes should be reduced to no more than 20.
“Every school should have a full and balanced curriculum, with a rich arts program, history, civics, geography, mathematics, the sciences, foreign languages, and literature.” — Diane Ravitch
What would be your position on curriculum reform, including the role of the arts, the treatment of ethics, and the adoption of blended online learning?
I believe that every school should have a full and balanced curriculum, with a rich arts program, history, civics, geography, mathematics, the sciences, foreign languages, and literature. Every school should have a library with a full range of resources, including computers and the Internet.
I would ban for-profit schooling.
What would be your position on how to make college affordable for more qualified low income students?
The federal government should increase subsidies for college for low-income and middle-income students. Education is a basic human right and it should not be denied because of inability to pay. Young people should not be buried in debt when they finish college. We can’t expect to increase college enrollment rates if young people cannot afford to go. I also think the government should be extremely vigilant in policing for-profit colleges, where the attrition rates are extremely high and young people drop out with heavy debt and no education.
Diane Ravitch and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Jack Miller and Diane Ravitch
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Andy Hargreaves (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
The Education Debate 2012 — Howard Gardner
The Education Debate 2012 — Howard Gardner
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Has there ever been a more important time to debate the big picture questions of education? As nations around the world reform education to prepare their students for the 21st century workplace, are our students ready to compete? In five interviews with education luminaries, I’ve asked them to imagine they were Secretary of Education and to discuss how they would address the issues facing America.
Today, my imaginary Secretary of Education is Dr. Howard Gardner. Dr. Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, he received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. Dr. Gardner has received honorary degrees from 26 colleges and universities. In 2005 and 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. His most recent book is Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the Age of Truthiness and Twitter.
“Asking me to be Secretary of Education is a stretch, if not a counterfactual state of affairs, since my ideas and values are quite distant from those of my predecessors. Nonetheless, if, knowing of my views, a hypothetical President were to appoint me, here’s how I would answer his or her questions.”
What should the role of the federal government be in K-12 education? How much more funding should be given to education reform and in what major areas should it be spent?
The Federal Government plays a crucial role in ensuring civil rights and equitable distribution of funds to districts-in-need and to talented students. In the last few decades, it has become involved in issues of curriculum and assessment. While the motivation may have been praiseworthy, the results have been mixed. In many ways, the education that has been promoted is regressive; it presumes a population that was needed in the 19th or 20th century, rather than the graduates that we should want and need for the 21st century (versatile, critical and creative problem solvers, and responsible, decent, well-informed citizens). The curriculum has been increasingly narrowed to STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects and the assessments to multiple choice, fact-centric instruments.
Every educator and every parent in America should read Pasi Sahlberg’s book, Finnish Lessons. Finland has catapulted from a country with a mediocre educational system to perhaps the most admired system in the world. It has done so by ignoring the GERM (Global Educational Reform Movement) approach to educational reform (Sahlberg’s sardonic term) favored by the U.S. and England.
Finnish education features: 1) a highly professionalized teacher cohort; 2) a very ‘flat’ system. Schools around the country look similar to one another and each classroom contains the range of students. Teachers are expected to deal with the range - little talk about ‘special needs’ or ‘special education.’ There is plenty of art, music, and crafts in the system, and the amount is being increased this year! Also, through ninth grade, there are few formal tests.
What would be your position on improving the teaching profession, including recruitment, teacher training, compensation, and assignment to low income schools?
The key to a high performing educational system — whether it is in Finland, Singapore, or Canada — is a highly professionalized teacher corps. Professionals know their subjects and how to teach them effectively. They are given status, autonomy, and a reasonable standard of living, on the assumption that they can make judicious decisions about complex, not easily solved dilemmas. (For more on the good professional, see goodworkproject.org). The bulk of federal discretionary funds should be used to shift our country from a K-12 teaching cohort that is not distinguished academically and has not had the opportunity to act in a professional manner to a cohort that is as well-informed as our best engineers and physicians and as thoughtful and fair minded as our best judges.
The most skilled teachers should work in the most challenging districts and should be compensated accordingly. We should be recruiting from the same ranks as Teach for America, but not for a two year immersion — rather for decades-long dedication to a noble profession. Teacher training should take place over several years, largely on site, and not in brief ‘boot camps’. There should be a career path from intern to teacher to master teacher and teacher-of-teachers. The issue is NOT price — we spent trillions on wars, and give huge tax breaks to multi-millionaires, with hardly any second guessing.
What would be your position on school choice, including charter schools and their expansion, private schools, vouchers and investment in inadequately staffed and facilitated low income schools?
Given the disagreements and different value systems across the American educational system, the experimentation involved in charter schools has probably been worthwhile. It has hardly been revolutionary in any sense, and certainly not in results. I have stated for twenty years that we cannot expect charter schools to be notably better than regular public schools because ultimately they draw on the same population of teachers and students and, except in a few cases, have available equivalent funding.
In a country that was truly serious about educational reform, one would aim for excellently trained teachers in the full range of public schools, and there would be no need for charters or vouchers. The needed experimentation can be done within the public system as happens, for example, in Singapore.
Howard Gardner
What would be your strategy to address the domestic and international achievement gaps, including your position on early childhood education, standardized testing, on-line modular education, and teacher/principal accountability?
Though it is politically incorrect to say so, I think the U.S. has spent much too much time and energy documenting the achievement gap. Any social scientist, indeed any reasonable observer, could have told us twenty years ago that there would be large achievement gaps across racial and socio-economic groups. And any person with common sense could indicate the kinds of steps that were likely to lead to the reducing of the achievement gap.
In the U.S., we have a figure/ground problem. The dominant figure has become test scores and international comparisons — everything is focused on this ‘league table’ mentality. As a person who believes in the United States as it once was, the ‘figure’ should be the kind of society that we want to have and the kind of human beings that we want to nurture. All education, including testing and ranking, should be organized around the attainment of that vision. I believe that if we succeeded in having schools that were as good as our country can be, the test scores and rankings would take care of themselves. Remember, too, that the U.S. remained predominant, despite earlier threats from the Soviet Union and Japan; this was not about our test scores, it was about the health of our society.
What would be your position on curriculum reform, including the role of the arts, the treatment of ethics, and the adoption of blended online learning?
Our educational system ought to reflect the highest values of our society. I believe that education in the arts should be as central in the lives of young people as education in science or mathematics. Moreover, and this may ensure my marginality in current discourse, I believe that education in the arts needs no justification in terms of ‘transfer’ to other subjects or to its generation of wealth; it is a ‘good’ in itself. Indeed, societies are ultimately remembered for their art and culture, and that is as it should be.
Since I’ve devoted almost twenty years to the promotion of ethical thinking in young people, I don’t have to reiterate the importance of ethics in the educational system. There is nothing wrong with courses in ethics. But ultimately, the most powerful ‘treatment’ is the way that adults behave, at home, at school, and in the workplace; and the kinds of signals given by our society to those who behave ethically and those — often working on Wall Street — who do not. If ethics is ‘in the air’ and ‘on the street’, young people will notice; and if ethical behavior is honored in the breach, rather than in the observance, that will, alas, be noted as well.
When I describe my studies of ‘good work,’ to strangers, their eyes often glaze over. Hearing about ‘bad work’ is so much more tantalizing. But I gain attention when I point out that all over the world, people admire our legal system, our judicial system, our journalism, our institutions of higher education. And yet, I can testify first hand, that we are doing our best, as a society, to undermine those institutions. What a tragedy! That is because, over the last four decades, ethics has taken a back seat to the accumulation of wealth, by any means possible. The best political system is NOT untrammeled capitalism; it is the subtle blending of democracy, capitalism, and socialism — as observed in Scandinavia and in Northern Italy.
What would be your position on how to make college affordable for more qualified low income students?
Again, I risk being politically incorrect. I am great believer in the liberal arts, as conveyed in our best residential colleges, and I believe that Yale (and Swarthmore and Williams) are worth what they charge — and of course, they actually cost more than they charge. It would be tragic if these schools were to abandon their educational mission, again at the very time that the rest of the world (e.g. ,Singapore, the Emirates) are trying to emulate them.
But, alas, an education like this is only available to families that are affluent, or to the lucky few who benefit from need-blind admissions; the inequity of human, social and financial capital is fanning the distance between the haves (the upper 1 percent) and everyone else.
I have several suggestions:
- We need to determine what can be accomplished well ‘online’ and transmit as much of education as we can in ways that are inexpensive and widely accessible.
- We need to redirect as much of governmental and charitable discretionary funds to provide opportunities for the talented who lack the money for a higher education.
- We should provide forgivable loans to those who go into public service careers.
- We need to experiment with blended learning, such that students can have residential experiences while living at home, so that they don’t need to move across country into expensive housing.
- We need to improve our primary and secondary education so that we don’t need the remedial courses required for millions of students in our community colleges and other non-selective institutions.
- At some point in their lives, all individuals who would like a broader liberal arts education ought to have the opportunity, but there is absolutely no need to provide this to all 18 years olds. Many of them are much better off in the workplace — both for them and for our workplaces.
Howard Gardner and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Harvard Graduate School of Education.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Andy Hargreaves (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
Aurora School Principal Martti Hellström in the classroom with his pupils
A Look at a Finnish School
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
If you thought you knew everything about the remarkable transformation of Finland’s schools from mediocre to one of the top performing school systems in the world, think again. Native Finn Pasi Sahlberg (educator, researcher, advisor on global education reform, and Director General of CIMO in Helsinki, Finland), who has lived and closely studied this remarkable reformation, tells the full story in his newly released book, Finnish Lessons – What can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Sahlberg shows how the Finnish ways of improving schools differ from the global educational reform movement and from the North American educational policies and reform strategies. It’s a wake-up call for all countries around the world who aspire to achieve excellence.
This week in The Global Search for Education, Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish school Principal Martti Hellström, the enchanting students of the Aurora School in the city of Espoo and I share some Finnish lessons with a unique look inside the 5th grade classroom of a typical Finnish primary school.
“The Aurora School,” Pasi explains to me, “serves its community by integrating all pupils in normal classes without segregation or selection of pupils based on their characteristics. The school emphasizes leadership and shared responsibility of teaching all children so that their different talents and abilities are respected. This school is noteworthy in that it utilizes in a representative way the local autonomy that the current legislation offers to schools.” The answers to my questions below are based on Pasi’s conversation with Aurora School Principal Martti Hellstrom:
What are the backgrounds of these pupils? What is the diversity (racial and socio-economic) within the class?
Pupils come from the Lippajarvi neighborhood of the city of Espoo. It is a typical suburban district of the city. Some parents have a relatively high level of wealth. However, most children live in an average middle class family. Some live in lower income homes. In this school, about one tenth of the pupils have an immigrant background family. That is less than many other schools in Espoo. Some schools have over a quarter of the children coming from an immigrant background.
How long is the school day?
The school day starts between 8 and 9am in the morning and finishes between 1 and 2pm in the afternoon. The class has 25 lessons a week. Each lesson is 45 minutes long. There are 3 hours and 45 minutes of instruction each day on average. In the Aurora school this class (5th grade) has one four-lesson day, one six-lesson day and the other days are five lessons long.
Does the school provide a meal service and is it free for any of the students?
The school serves a healthy, tasty, warm lunch each day for all pupils. The school meal has been free of charge for all children in Finland since 1943.
What percentage of the children read at their grade level or higher?
In Finland, we don’t categorize children according to their reading skills. In each class we have children with varying abilities and talents. So does this class in the Aurora School. Teaching is adjusted to serve the different abilities in the classroom.
Children with development disorders or other disabilities are placed in the same class with all other pupils
What percentage of the children can do math at their grade level or higher?
In Finland, we monitor pupils’ learning achievement at the national level only using sample-based tests. We don’t have data available that would allow us to answer that question. In our city, we know that our pupils, on average, are a little bit above the national average based on these sample-based tests. The Aurora School has been in the sample and the school has performed at a good level in the city of Espoo.
How much homework do the children get each night?
The role of homework in Finnish schools has continuously become less important. Pupils do their learning assignments mostly during the school day so that they can spend time with their own activities at home. According to our surveys, Finnish pupils in basic education spend less than one hour per day doing homework.
Do these children take a standardized test during the school year?
Standardized tests are not used in Finland like they are used, say, in the United States. Instead, we follow pupils’ progress with school-made summative and diagnostic assessments in order to find out which children need more help than others to be successful.
How does the teacher assess the student’s work each term?
Pupils are given two report cards each school year. In grades 1 through 4, the reporting is based on a description of the pupil’s strengths and all the areas which need more development. In Grades 5 and 6, progress is assessed using grades of 4 to 10. Assessment is based on teacher-made tests or tasks, and so- called continuous performance of pupils.
Is the curriculum centralized or teacher driven?
Finland has a three-tier curriculum system. The framework and broad principles are defined at the central government level. Based on this national framework curriculum, municipalities then design their local policies for curricula. Normally, the concrete curriculum work takes place at the level of schools according to the municipal guidelines. Today, the flexibility at the level of schools is a little less than it used to be in the 1990’s.
How much music and art (all the art forms) are there in the curriculum?
Fifth Grade pupils have 25 lessons a week. Nine lessons of the 25 weekly lessons are arts, music, craft work and sports.
Are the teachers happy with the quality of the school’s facilities?
At the moment, the Aurora School facilities are good based on the average national level. However, Aurora was built in 1957 and its annex in 1982. The school awaits a long-promised renovation. It should begin in 2014.
What is the starting salary of a teacher? What is the upper end of the range?
A newly appointed teacher receives about 2300 euro a month (or about $40,000 per year before taxes). The tax rate in that salary category is about 25 – 30%. At the upper end of the end of the range, the salary is 3400 euro a month (or about $59,000). This is their basic salary. They can actually earn more than this depending on their additional duties within the school.
What qualifications do the teachers have?
All teachers have a master’s degree from a Finnish University. (Note: Only Finland’s best and most committed teachers make it into the profession due to its popularity and the intense competition to become a teacher. Each year, many of the most talented and motivated students submit applications but only about 1 out of every 10 will be accepted into primary schools. The total annual Finnish applicants, in all the five categories of teacher education programs, number about 20,000.)
What parental involvement is there in the school?
Parents participate in many different ways. Each class has its own PTA. The basis of these PTA’s in the Aurora School is the Home and School Association (Koti ja Koulu Yhdistys). The school board of the Aurora school decides on the most important things. Most of the board members are parents of the pupils in Aurora. Some of these parents also voluntarily assist teachers during the school day.
This video was made by the pupils of the Aurora School. It’s about “Siesta” i.e. the 75 minute recess each day of the week when students can do whatever they want to. Many do music or sports or go to rehearse theater or simply do their “homework”.
The “Siesta” video by the children of the Aurora School
Pasi Sahlberg and C. M. Rubin
(Photos and video courtesy of Martti Hellstrom and Pasi Sahlberg)
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon, Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education
C.M. Rubin has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice In Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“The way to improve the quality of teaching is through teamwork in the schools, and then surround it with better teacher pre-service, better attraction of the profession, and better professional development.” – Michael Fullan
Change Leader
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Michael Fullan has been working to identify the right drivers for whole system education reform. His paper, “Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform,” has stimulated considerable interest from educators around the world (including the US) to understand the policies and strategies that can help get education into successful system reform, i.e. real solutions to closing the achievement gap and improving learning so that students learn better than they did before.
Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and is Special Adviser on Education to Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario. Fullan served as dean of the faculty of education at the University of Toronto from 1988 to 2003. He is currently working as adviser and consultant on several major education reform initiatives around the world. His work is based on how large-scale reform can be successfully accomplished. He has written several best sellers on leadership and change. His latest book is Change Leader: Learning to Do What Matters Most.
What kind of education system will permit a country to have the people skills needed to compete globally?
We did a qualitative study called “The Slow Road to Higher Order Skills” to take a look at what we call the 21st century skills. The skills that are normally listed, like creativity, communication, collaboration, problem solving, reasoning and digital literacy, are not well operationalized. Even though there has been a big project from Cisco/Intel/Microsoft to do that, the progress has been very slow. In Ontario, we want to start deeply with literacy and numeracy. We do not want to be narrow in our focus but we also do not want to get into the vagaries of the 21st century skills that people talk about but do not operationalize. In short, no one seems to know what “there” looks like when it comes to higher order skills, and correspondingly, no one knows how to get there.
What are your views on standardized testing?
The worst thing a system can do is load up on standards and assessments in a way that overwhelms schools. This is wrong driver number one. Instead, we have to focus on instruction and learning (personalized to each student) as the centerpiece, and then link to standards and assessments. The driver here has to be assessment-instruction up close with the student and the teacher. In my paper, “Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform,” I identified how some systems are mishandling accountability.
[Editor’s note: To briefly summarize Fullan’s paper, the four wrong drivers are the focus on accountability (versus intrinsic motivation and capacity building), individual quality (versus group quality), technology (versus instruction), fragmented (versus systemic) solutions.]
Testing is important in what I am going to call the accountability strategy, but the push on standardized testing can become too narrow and it becomes a mindset that says we have to load up on assessment and also identify with world class standards (such as PISA) in terms of assessment. Almost all of the skills that I consider the high order skills are measurable if you want to measure them. Politicians make assessments based on testing that is narrower than it should be. The PISA test is a great example of how we can break out of that mold. On top of this, we have been working on the “black box” of implementation for which you not only need better assessments, but you also need innovative instruction in relation to those assessments. Once again, the core is assessment-instruction personalized to each learner.
We seem to have become assessment obsessed in the US since our poor results in the last PISA Test.
The greater urgency the US places on competing internationally, the more that becomes an obsession in the wrong direction. The US school systems have been losing ground since 1980 with growing gaps between high and low performers, and poor rankings internationally. The US needs to take PISA benchmarks seriously, they need to get behind the numbers and realize that the top performers got there by building the collective capacity of teachers in the country – all the teachers.
“With Sir Ken Robinson, we want to map out the curriculum that includes the arts as well as literacy and math.” – Michael Fullan
What can be done to better address the emotional well-being of some kids today given the rise in competition and the pressure to achieve?
We have too many tests, so one way to reduce stress is to have fewer tests. I agree we have to reduce the stress on kids. Enabling them to have more success would be a great stress reducer. So, I would rather ask first what goals we are striving for. Let’s build those goals into the learning experience. And those goals have to include the well-being of our kids.
I think of the problem as a three legged stool. Let’s call the three legs: standards, assessment, and instruction. I want to go beyond the word curriculum and focus also on instruction. We’ve got standards. Even though they’ve not improved enough, there is a foot in the door around higher level skills, which should include well being. Our solution is to strengthen the two way street between instruction and assessment. Assessment should be a strategy teachers use to personalize the curriculum for kids and to improve instruction. Dylan Wiliam has published a book called Embedded Formative Assessment (Solution Tree), and it’s all about teachers and students engaged in the two way street between instruction and assessment of how they are doing. The answer for me is to zero in on instruction and assessment. In addition, we are beginning to work with Sir Ken Robinson to ensure curriculum is broadened to include the arts. Students’ well-being will be greatly served by tapping into the intrinsic motivation of a range of kids. (Editor’s Note: see Global Search for Education, C. M. Rubin’s interviews with Sir Ken Robinson and with Dylan Wiliam.)
What is the nature of the respect for teachers in countries that are doing well in education?
When you look at Finland, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong, all of which have high quality teachers, you will see that it’s not just that they have good teachers, but also because they have improved the whole profession. It’s a combination of incentivizing teachers and improving working conditions. Teacher’s salaries have been going up in the US, so it’s not just about teachers’ salaries. It is more about the respect for teachers, the quality of their preparation, the working conditions, and enabling teachers to work together. It’s a big task for the US because the US is starting so far behind.
What the US is counting on is the wrong driver on teacher appraisal. We think the way to improve the quality of teaching is through teamwork in the schools, and then surround it with better teacher pre-service, better attraction of the profession, and better professional development. Those surround things are enablers rather than causes, and the core cause is to improve the profession itself. You have to improve the entire teaching profession, not just reward the top 20% and punish the bottom 20%. You have to improve the daily work of all teachers, which is what we are doing in Ontario.
Does Canada’s definition of educational excellence take into account the quality of life of individuals and of a society’s artistic and cultural achievements?
No, not yet. I have been an advisor to the Premier of Ontario since 2003. We are in our 8th year now and we have spent a lot of time getting the house in order, so to speak. I would say that what we have done is get to the point where our next phase is to go for the whole well-being of the child. We have the stage set to do that. Five years ago, OECD UNESCO did a report on child well-being in rich countries. This study assessed the well-being of students in about 20 countries. It showed Canada well down. A policy objective has to be the well-being of students. We are looking forward to working with Sir Ken Robinson from the UK who, as you know, has advocated for the arts in education for over a decade. We need to integrate some of Ken’s thinking into our ongoing goals. Specifically, what we are now working on is to integrate technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge to accelerate personalized learning. We need learning that is deeply engaging for students, precise (i.e. it has to be specific and concrete), high yield (big return for the effort) and higher order. With Sir Ken Robinson, we want to map out the curriculum that includes the arts as well as literacy and math.
Professor Michael Fullan and C. M. Rubin
(Photos courtesy of the Dwight School and Michael Fullan)
In The Global Search for Education, join C. M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon, Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education
C.M. Rubin has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice In Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
