The Global Search for Education
“Providing college tuition-free without getting the money back through taxes for the better educated means that the poor end up subsidizing the education of the rich.” — Andreas Schleicher
On US Education Problems
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
According to Andreas Schleicher of OECD, the United States is unique among countries in that the generation of workers entering the US workforce does not have higher college attainment levels than the generation about to leave the workforce. He further believes a key strategy to addressing this problem is improving equitable access to education across the board and that good examples of how to achieve this can be found in other education systems such as Finland, Canada, Japan or Korea. None of this sounds particularly new, but I wondered if Andreas were making the big picture education decisions, how would he address some of our key issues? We recently had the opportunity to discuss this further.
Andreas Schleicher is Special Advisor on Education Policy to OECD’s Secretary-General, and is Deputy Director for Education. He also provides strategic oversight over OECD’s work on the development and utilization of skills and their social and economic outcomes. This includes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES).
“Spending in the US is regressive in that schools in disadvantaged areas end up with less resources than schools in socially advantaged areas (in virtually all other industrialized countries it is the other way round).” — Andreas Schleicher
Should government provide tuition free education from pre-school through college?
There is no free education; someone has to pay. If governments provide free education from pre-school through college, they need to back that up with a steeply progressive tax system so that the better qualified people end up paying the bill eventually. The Nordic countries in Europe show that this can work, and work well. The other good option is to ask students to pay tuition and to back that up with a universal student support system that provides an income-contingent loan system complemented with a scheme of means-tested grants. In that way you minimize risks for students, avoid that they end up with huge debt that they cannot pay back, and you provide special assistance to those students who would otherwise be prevented from attending university. The UK shows how this can work. Providing college tuition-free without getting the money back through taxes for the better-educated means that the poor end up subsidizing the education of the rich.
Are you in favor of privatizing public schools?
Results from PISA show no performance advantage of private schools, once you account for social background. However, cross-country analysis of PISA suggests that the prevalence of schools’ autonomy to define and elaborate their curricula and assessments relates positively to the performance of school systems, even after accounting for national income. School systems that provide schools with greater discretion in deciding student assessment policies, the courses offered, the course content and the textbooks used are also school systems that perform at higher levels. So perhaps the question for countries is not how many private or charter schools they have, but how they enable every public school to assume charter-type responsibility.
“Perhaps the question for countries is not how many private or charter schools they have, but how they enable every public school to assume charter-type responsibility.” — Andreas Schleicher
Since every child is probably not meant to pursue a liberal arts education, what would you do to make our children more competitive in the skilled trade jobs market?
Our data show that when employers are involved in designing curricula and delivering education programs at the post-secondary level, students seem to have a smoother transition from education into the labor market. Compared to purely government-designed curricula taught in school-based systems, learning in the workplace offers several advantages: it allows trainees to develop “hard” skills on modern equipment, and “soft” skills, such as teamwork, communication and negotiation, through real-world experience. Hands-on workplace training can also help to motivate disengaged youth to stay in or re-engage with the education system. Workplace training also facilitates recruitment by allowing employers and potential employees to get to know each other, while trainees contribute to the output of the training firm. Workplace learning opportunities are also a direct expression of employers’ needs, as employers will be ready to offer opportunities in areas where there is a skills shortage.
“Our data show that when employers are involved in designing curricula and delivering education programs at the post-secondary level, students seem to have a smoother transition from education into the labor market.” — Andreas Schleicher
Do you think that the United States needs to do more in the area of early childhood education, and if so, what?
One the one hand, the US falls well behind most countries in the industrialized world when it comes to early childhood education, and this is clearly a key lever to raise quality and equity in learning outcomes. At the same time, the US does really well when you look at student performance in primary education, so-so when it comes to performance in middle school, and not very well when it comes to performance in high school. This suggests that students actually get quite a strong start, but the school system adds less year after year than what children in other countries learn. That is something you don’t address with better early childhood education but with a better school system.
What do you think is the best way to fund our public schools?
The US spends plenty of money on public schools, but our data show three things. First of all, a disproportionally high share of that spending does not make it into the classroom. Secondly, spending is regressive in that schools in disadvantaged areas end up with less resources than schools in socially advantaged areas (in virtually all other industrialized countries it is the other way around). This does not allow the US to attract the most talented teachers into the most challenging classrooms, which would make public spending most effective. Third, high performing countries tend to prioritize the quality of teachers and the size of classes. The trend in the US over the last decade has gone the other way around.
Andreas Schleicher and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of OECD
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (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 (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), 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
“What is fundamentally different today is that education systems now need to equip all teachers, and not just some, for effective learning.” — Andreas Schleicher
In Search of Professionals Around the World
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“It is very clear that high performing systems generally have a high performing teacher population.” — Andreas Schleicher
Professional Capital, Andrew Hargreaves’ and Michael Fullan’s recently released book, proposes an action plan for teachers, administrators, schools, districts, and state and federal leaders as to how to create a 21st century generation of professional teachers.
Countries around the world are undertaking reforms to better prepare teachers to teach in 21st century classrooms. Today in part four of our series, The Global Search for Education - In Search of Professionals, I have asked Andreas Schleicher, given his extensive global educational perspective, to weigh in on what the US and other nations can learn from some of the high performing education systems that are doing this.
Andreas Schleicher is Deputy Director for Education and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD’s Secretary-General. He also provides strategic oversight over OECD’s work on the development and utilization of skills and their social and economic outcomes. This includes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES).
What steps or changes do you believe we should make in the US in order to further advance the quality of teachers and the teaching profession going forward?
Part of the answer lies in the changes in the demands placed on teachers. In every country, there have always been great teachers, and many of us are here today because we had great teachers. But what is fundamentally different today is that education systems now need to equip all teachers, and not just some, for effective learning. In the past, when you only needed a small slice of well-educated workers, it was sufficient, and perhaps efficient, for governments to invest a large sum into a small elite to lead the country. But the social and economic cost of low educational performance has risen very substantially and the best performing education systems now get all young people to leave school with strong foundation skills, which is what you see in the PISA results. When you could still assume that what you learn in school will last for a lifetime, teaching content and routine cognitive skills was at the center of education. Today, where you can access content on Google, where routine cognitive skills are being digitized or outsourced, and where jobs are changing rapidly, education systems need to enable people to become lifelong learners, to manage complex ways of thinking and complex ways of working that computers can’t take over easily. That requires a very different caliber of teachers. When teaching was about explaining prefabricated content, you could tolerate low teacher quality. And when teacher quality was low, governments tended to tell their teachers exactly what to do and exactly how they wanted it done, using prescriptive methods of administrative control and accountability. What you see in the most advanced systems now is that they have made teaching a profession of high-level knowledge workers, and that, not higher salaries, is what makes teaching so attractive in countries as different as Finland, Japan or Singapore. But people who see themselves as candidates for the professions are not attracted by schools organized like an assembly line, with teachers working as interchangeable widgets. You therefore see a very different work organization in high performing systems, with the status, professional autonomy, and the high-quality education that go with professional work, with effective systems of teacher evaluation and with differentiated career paths for teachers. That is perhaps the biggest challenge for the US.
“Singapore’s new TE21 Model seeks to enhance key elements of teacher education.” — Andreas Schleicher
In general what common characteristics have you observed in the high performing systems relative to their teaching profession?
High performing systems have common characteristics:
- Their teachers are well-versed in the subjects they teach and adept at using different methods and, if necessary, changing their approaches to optimize learning.
- They have a rich repertoire of teaching strategies, the ability to combine approaches, and the knowledge of how and when to use certain methods and strategies.
- Their teachers have a deep understanding of how learning happens, in general, and often also of their individual students’ motivations, emotions and lives outside the classroom, in particular.
- Their teachers work in highly collaborative ways, with other teachers and professionals or para-professionals within the same organization, or with others in other organizations, in networks of professional communities and in different partnership arrangements, including, for some, mentoring teachers.
- In some countries teachers acquire strong technology skills and skills to use technology as effective teaching tools, both to optimize the use of digital resources in their teaching and to use information-management systems to track student learning.
- Their teachers have the capacity to help design, lead, manage and plan learning environments in collaboration with others.
- Last but not least, their teachers reflect on their practices in order to learn from their experience.
Consider three advanced education systems: Finland, Singapore and Japan. What do you see as the strengths of the Finnish system?
Teacher education in Finland has several distinguishing qualities:
- It is research based. Teacher candidates are not only expected to become familiar with the knowledge base in education and human development, but they are required to write a research-based dissertation as the final requirement for the masters degree. The rationale for requiring a research-based dissertation is that teachers are expected to engage in disciplined inquiry in the classroom throughout their teaching career.
- It has a strong focus on developing pedagogical content knowledge. Traditional teacher preparation programs too often treat good pedagogy as generic, assuming that good questioning skills, for example, are equally applicable to all subjects. Because teacher education in Finland is a shared responsibility between the teacher education faculty and the academic subject faculty, there is substantial attention to subject-specific pedagogy for prospective primary as well as upper-grade teachers.
- There is ample training for all Finnish teachers in diagnosing students with learning difficulties and in adapting their instruction to the varying learning needs and styles of their students.
- It has a very strong clinical component. Teachers’ preparation includes both extensive course work on how to teach - with a strong emphasis on using research based on state-of-the-art practice - and at least a full year of clinical experience in a school associated with the university. These model schools are intended to develop and model innovative practices, as well as to foster research on learning and teaching.
“What’s interesting in Japan is their approach to build on the knowledge of the profession.”— Andreas Schleicher
What are your thoughts on the Singapore system?
Singapore is easy to understand because the system is well documented and highly institutionalized. Singapore’s National Institute for Education as a university-based teacher education institution provides the theoretical foundation to produce “thinking teachers” but has strong partnerships with key stakeholders and the schools to ensure strong clinical practice and realities of professionalism in teacher development. Singapore’s new TE21 Model seeks to enhance key elements of teacher education, including the underpinning philosophy, curriculum, desired outcomes for our teachers, and academic pathways. These are considered essential prerequisites in meeting the challenges of the 21st century classroom. Their model focuses on three value paradigms: Learner-centered, Teacher Identity and Service to the Profession and Community. Learner-centered values puts the learner at the centre of teachers’ work by being aware of learner development and diversity, believing that all youths can learn, caring for the learner, striving for scholarship in content teaching, knowing how people learn best, and learning to design the best learning environment possible. Teacher identity values refer to having high standards and strong drive to learn in view of the rapid changes in the education milieu, to be responsive to student needs. The values of service to the profession and community focuses on teachers’ commitment to their profession through active collaborations and striving to become better practitioners to benefit the teaching community. The model also underscores the requisite knowledge and skills that teachers must possess in light of the latest global trends, and to improve student outcomes.
Finally what are your thoughts on the Japanese System?
What’s interesting in Japan is their approach to build on the knowledge of the profession, through regular lesson studies in which all teachers take part. The Japanese tradition of lesson study in which groups of teachers review their lessons and how to improve them, in part through analysis of student errors, provides one of the most effective mechanisms for teachers’ self-reflection as well as being a tool for continuous improvement. Observers of Japanese elementary school classrooms have long noted the consistency and thoroughness with which a math concept is taught and the way in which the teacher leads a discussion of mathematical ideas, both correct and incorrect, so that students gain a firm grasp on the concept. This school-by-school lesson study often culminates in large public research lessons. For example, when a new subject is added to the national curriculum, groups of teachers and researchers review research and curriculum materials and refine their ideas in pilot classrooms over a year before holding a public research lesson, which can be viewed electronically by hundreds of teachers, researchers and policymakers. The tradition of lesson study in Japan also means that Japanese teachers are not alone. They work together in a disciplined way to improve the quality of the lessons they teach. That means that teachers whose practice lags behind that of the leaders can see what good practice is. Because their colleagues know who the poor performers are and discuss them, the poor performers have both the incentive and the means to improve their performance. Since the structure of the East Asian teaching workforce includes opportunities to become a master teacher and move up a ladder of increasing prestige and responsibility, it also pays the good teacher to become even better.
Andreas Schleicher and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of the OECD.
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 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), 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), Professor Dr. Wolfgang Schneider (Germany), 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
Andreas Schleicher - Director of PISA
Can You Pass the Global Standardized Test?
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
In approximately six weeks time, policy makers, administrators, researchers and educators will meet at the OECD PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) conference in Tokyo to study the educational strategies of countries which excel in the global standardized test. Many of these strategies will be previewed over the next few weeks in The Global Search for Education.
The performance of US students in the 2009 PISA was poor, especially when you consider that the US has the biggest global economy and is among the top 10 countries in standards of living. Despite the fact that every global thought leader interviewed in The Global Search for Education agreed that standardized testing is not a comprehensive measure of student abilities, no one in the US can feel comfortable that of 65 countries who took PISA, our students ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in Math. While these scores were higher than our 2006 results, they were still far behind the highest scoring countries — South Korea, Finland, China, and Canada.
So what is the basis of the validity of PISA? Perhaps more important, given the global economic, social and demographic changes taking place, how is PISA planning to ensure that its test will continue to measure the competencies that are most relevant to the future success of students? I discussed this with Andreas Schleicher, the widely esteemed Director of PISA.
Andreas, which countries around the world participate in the PISA test?
PISA covers 87% of the world economy currently. In China we have only covered 12 provinces so far because it is a very complex place to administer the test. If you look at the last PISA assessment, the province of Shanghai came up Number 1 in all three areas. The PISA test is very demanding. It’s not a simple multiple choice test, so you require a complex marking process. You must have reliability and consistency. It takes time and effort to build up participation.
How do you take into account the demographic differences among countries?
In the US for example, PISA is applied in public and private schools alike. We have test results broken down demographically: urban, rural, parental income, and other significant measures. Countries must provide a sample that accurately represents the different demographics. You need that demographic data to understand how well a country is really doing. When you compare Mexico with Japan and take into account the different economic situations, you gain greater insight.
The US is favorably evaluated and fares reasonably well overall partly because it is a wealthier country that has spent more on education. The rankings over estimate the overall position of the US, which is something you will find quite well explained in Volume 2 of our report.
For example: If you don’t take the demographic context into consideration in Chile, you are evaluating the results unfairly. Rich countries have an unfair advantage.
What kinds of content make up the test?
There is a mix of questions reflecting a wide range of tasks around the PISA subjects which are Math, Science and Reading. There are some multiple choice questions but there are also many questions that require students to construct answers – some involving extended responses.
How does PISA assess critical thinking/creative thinking/interpersonal skills/language knowledge?
Foreign language testing is not a part of PISA testing. Critical thinking and creative thinking have been a very important part of PISA testing from the start. If you can’t creatively apply knowledge, if you can’t think critically across different fields of knowledge, you’re not going to get to the highest levels of PISA performance.
In some areas we do well, although in other areas we can do better. For example, one of our objectives for the future is that we want the test to include interpersonal skills. So we are trying to build an assessment of collaborative problem solving skills, because in the world today, countries do not just work by themselves. The test of skills is how well can you exchange ideas, collaborate with others, and work across socioeconomic heterogeneous groups.
How well are you assessing artistic and creative abilities? Artistic and cultural achievements have an impact on a society’s quality of life, would you agree?
I very much agree with you. The Arts are a very important subject area. We spoke earlier about the importance of creativity in critical thinking and reasoning. I will say that in PISA, we have not done very well on this because these subjects are very much culturally bound. We are not equipped to assess these capabilities in terms of international comparisons, but I do agree that this is an important agenda for the future, and that it is an area we all should be doing better in.
Are there any expansion plans related to the existing test for the future?
Yes, we are moving towards computer delivered assessments which will allow more interaction in terms of answering questions. It allows us to play with concepts like space and time. That’s the major area of development as it will allow us to cater to a wider range of student abilities. We are not equipped for the technology revolution in current educational curriculums. We are hoping that assessments will evolve, and we are trying to reflect that as well as we can. I think we are able to assess things that we couldn’t assess in the past. I am fairly optimistic that a lot of effort is being made to extend the range of constants that can legitimately extend assessment.
The PISA test assesses student capabilities more broadly than the current US national standardized tests. What do we need to do with our educational system to excel in this global test? What do we need to do with the education of our students to help them lead the way in the 21st century? These questions will be addressed in The Global Search for Education, where C. M. Rubin will be joined by globally renowned education thought leaders 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), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. David Shaffer (US), 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), among others. They explore the big picture educational questions that all nations face. They discuss the answers to these questions, the solutions other nations have decided to embrace, and the results they are having.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
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
