International Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. This joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education is part of our efforts to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn, and exchange experiences in the United States.
We encourage the participation of all individuals and institutions interested in international education and exchange activities, including schools, colleges and universities, embassies, international organizations, businesses, associations, and community organizations.
The dates for IEW 2010 are November 15th - 19th. The dates for IEW 2011 are November 14th - 18th. Click here for more information.
Check this post on the Camfed site (also a must see if you haven't heard of them). It include short segments from school girls in Zimbabwe and their take on their educational prospects and opportunities. Yes, it plugs Camfed, but the point remains clear and reminds me of those privileges to which I have access.
Paul J. Adams III, an African-American man with activist roots in the 1960’s civil rights movement, came from a family of teachers. After being black listed himself as a teacher in Alabama because of his civil rights activities, he moved to Chicago, received a master’s degree in psychology, and then landed a job as guidance counselor at Providence St. Mel, an all-black parochial school on Chicago’s notorious drug-ridden, gang-ruled West Side.
A year after his arrival, Adams became principal, only to be told the following year that Chicago’s archdiocese was going to close the school. After orchestrating a fundraising campaign that received national and local media attention, funds poured in and enabled Adams to buy the school from the Sisters of Providence and convert it to a not-for-profit independent school. To ward off thieves and vandals, he literally moved into the empty nuns’ quarters of the convent inside the school.
He then set about achieving a new goal: To turn Providence St. Mel into a first rank college preparatory school, and its African-American student body into a corps of driven, disciplined, high achieving students.
That was over 30 years ago. Since then, 100% of Providence St. Mel graduates have been accepted to college, half of them, during the last seven years, to first tier and Ivy League colleges and universities.
The road from failing inner city school to a pre-K-through-12 educational system that produces graduates who attend Ivy League colleges and universities was not a smooth one. THE PROVIDENCE EFFECT traces the school’s development from a struggling shoe-string budget dream into a school and a method of teaching that produces not only inspired students, but parents, teachers and administrators dedicated to settling for nothing less than the highest expectations.
As testament to the hurdles overcome, and the efficacy of the teaching model that governs education at Providence St. Mel, THE PROVIDENCE EFFECT features interviews with alumni who share how the school re-wrote the failing, mediocre lives that had been scripted for them because of their West Side origins. The shared consensus is that the school’s philosophy set them up for success because greatness was expected of them.
Cameras in class reveal how teachers are held to just as high and demanding a standard as is expected of the students. Administrators are dedicated to insuring that a teacher’s first and only job is to teach….not to administer, not to become bogged down in red tape or hindered by a self-perpetuating bureaucracy.
In the 80s, President Reagan visited twice, remarking in the film, “This is the way it should be done.” As a young organizer, President-to-be Barack Obama also visited the school.
THE PROVIDENCE EFFECT is an effect that is on the cusp of becoming viral nationally: The school’s teaching method has been so successful that in 2006 another school, this time on Chicago’s south side became a charter school --- appropriately named Providence Englewood --- solely in order to achieve the same results. In two short years, these students scores have gone from the 9th percentile to the 50th percentile on the Terra Nova Standardized tests. Students at Providence Englewood significantly outperform other schools within their neighborhood.
Not long ago the report for the 2009 Education for All campaign was released putting emphasis on the role of governments. One of the major obstacles to universal primary enrollment around the world is funding for school facilities, teacher salaries, personal fees, and materials. Here is a short clip by UNTV that briefs on last years EFA meeting in New York, and how several states have committed to providing more aid to developing countries.
There has to be a balance however between dumping money at a problem (which is totally legit despite what some critics think), allocation and management of that money, and finally the building of sustainable internal capacity to provide such schooling. At the most general level, most observers will agree that fixing one sector in society at a time isn't a long term solution. In other words, you can't just develop the education sector alone in order to create a sustainable system. There has to be more broad and deeper changes in society.
Many have spoken to this point, particularly the innovative educator Ivan Illich. In his "Deschooling Societies" (now available in full online; click here for text), Illich wrote how schools reflect the values of society, and how until society is tranforms education will remain limited in its scope and its objectives. Illich argues that we have placed emphasis on achievement in learning as oppose to the value of processes of learning. Standards are not rejected, but they cannot be the ultimate goal of learning, if we are to envision a more rich and fruitful engagement in education.
How does this relate to Education For All. Well, let's take a quick look. The goal is ultimately to get children into schools, to get them literate (reading and writing), and to graduate so that they have equal opportunities. All three seem like great goals. However, what models are used as schools? There is a great book called "Who's education for all: The recolonization of Africa?" which talks about how EFA is geared toward establishing Western modeled schools which favors the prevailing dominant groups, and immediately puts other cultural societies at a disadvantage. I think the balance is that while we look to get all our children into schools, we should be equally concerned with what type of schools their getting into, and what they are studying.
As caveat, I have to say that it seems to be self-righteous for me to talk about being critical of an education campaign while sitting comfortably in my home with the luxury of accessible schooling. Yet, I'm not saying EFA is bad at all. On the contrary, I'm suggesting that while the policy makers and states are moving forward with providing education in the ways they know how, educators need to rethink and make concerted effort not to dish out or content ourselves with a educational model that has not served the greater majority of the world. We can do better always, and so pausing to reflect qualitative issues is equally as important as quantitative ones.
One of the major challenges of getting under served high school graduates into universities has been access, recruitment, and after being admitted, keeping students for the full term of their undergraduate studies.
The Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence--also known as CREATE--has launched a program that targets one of the key roots of the dilemma in increasing access and sustainability, namely pre-university education. As their mandate suggests, the challenge rests in their preparation for university and not university entrance systems or processes alone. To address this issue, they state that CREATE aims to:
Forming collaborations between UCSD and local elementary and secondary school districts
Offering the highest quality of education to 700 students at their on-campus model school (The Preuss School).
Conducting research on improving educational opportunities for underserved students
Offering innovative teacher education and professional development opportunities for local educators.
With an array of educationalists and university faculty members at the University of California, San Diego, CREATE offers a promising model of community engagement and educational solidarity which seems to be fragmented for the most part and disconnected between K-12 and univesrity levels throughout the United States. Not only do professors and instructors share their cutting edge research and experience, but UCSD students also get involved as mentors in encouraging and helping youth foster ideas of higher education.
U.S. president Barack Obama today addressed several challenges facing the American education system. Obama made the comments before the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Among the problems Obama talked about - high college and high school dropout rates. Near the end of his speech, Obama stressed the importance of factors outside of school, in particular parental involvement and supplemental education, in ensuring students succeed in school. Obama also reminisced about the crucial role his mother played in his own early education.
In 2000, world leaders made two sets of major development commitments. The first was the Dakar Framework for Action, where governments from 164 countries adopted six ambitious targets for education for all children, youth and adults for 2015. The second, also for 2015, was the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): eight wide-ranging commitments for areas including education, child and maternal health, nutrition, disease and poverty.
The EFA goals and the MDGs are mutually interdependent. Not only a right in itself, education plays a crucial role in reducing poverty and inequality, improving child and maternal health, and strengthening democracy. Conversely, progress in education depends on gains in other areas, such as the reduction of poverty and disadvantages, and increased gender equality. (EFA 2009)
The most recent EFA report, produced under the auspice of UNESCO, entitled “Inequality: Why Governance Matters” (2009), asserts that universal primary education (one of six goals) WILL NOT be met by the 2015 deadline.
The main barriers, the report explains includes disparity related to wealth, gender, ethnicity, and location. They warn that if governments are to take the Education for All goals seriously, they will need to grapple with the challenges of inequality.
The report theme is framed by the role of governance in achieving the goals. On the one hand, developing countries do not allocate enough funds to education (while NGOs and donors have fallen short on their part as well). On the other hand, financing alone, the report contends, is not sufficient; equity issues are at the heart of the disparity between the rich and poor, boys and girls, and various ethnic and regional divides.
The authors of the report make several clear suggestions about how governments can contribute toward: (1) breaking the cycle of disadvantage, (2) improving access, (3) raising quality, and (4) enhancing participation and accountability. Yet, a shortfall of efforts on the part of governments’ in addressing inequity remains an unavoidable obstacle.
In the following posts, I will discuss the latest EFA Report and its evaluation of the status and recommendations related to the six goals, which include: (1) early childhood care and education; (2) universal primary education; (3) meeting the lifelong learning needs of youth and adults; (4) adult literacy; (5) gender; and. (6) quality.
