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by Ava Arsaga, Parent Cortical Mass America’s public school system enjoyed the limelight for nearly a century. But in the last few decades our performance has been overshadowed by many industrialized nations.
by Joan Richardson, Learning First In the 1980s, educators and policymakers swarmed across Germany to examine its two-tier education system that separated college-bound students from vocational ed students, all in an effort to boost the national economy. In the 1990s, Japan and its unique lesson study model attracted American attention. Along came the 2000s, and Finland has the starring role.
by Jordan Weissmann, The Atlantic, When you look at the average performance of American students on international test scores, our kids come off as a pretty middling bunch. If you rank countries based on their very fine differences, we come in 14th in reading, 23rd in science, and 25th in math. Those finishes led Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to flatly declare that "we're being out-educated."
by Jordan Weissmann, The Atlantic So it turns out the United States is not, in fact, the educational wasteland tech industry lobbyists would have you think. Companies like Microsoft often claim that America is suffering from an economically hobbling shortage of science, math, and computer talent. The solution, they argue, is to let employers fill their hiring gaps by importing tens of thousands of educated guest workers beyond what the law currently allows.
by Juliana Herman, Sasha Post, Scott O'Halloran, Center for American Progress Increased investments in high-quality preschool education for all children, regardless of income, will put us more in line with the rest of the world and ensure school readiness for our most at-risk children.
by Julia Lawrence, Education News As the United States and others look to grow their economies, some are looking to the successes of Germany's education system as a model.
by Philip Elliot, Huff Post American teenagers aren't doing as poorly on international science tests as adults think. Despite the misconception, people don't think the subject should get greater emphasis in schools, a survey released Monday found.
by Olga Khazan, The Atlantic A fascinating new study reveals that Americans are more likely to call their children "intelligent," while European parents focus on happiness and balance. Here's why.
by Staff at Online Colleges The U.S. has the highest dropout rate out of all industrialized nations. Find out how we stack up, and what we can learn from the rest of the world.
by Gwen Dewar, PhD, Parenting Science Is Chinese parenting superior? In her new book, Amy Chua argues that Chinese kids achieve more because Chinese moms are more strict and demanding. True? Check out the research.
by Thomas Friedman, New York Times Ever wonder how your kid’s school compares with one in China? Now you can find out. "There was a time when middle-class parents in America could be — and were — content to know that their kids’ public schools were better than those in the next neighborhood over. As the world has shrunk, though, the next neighborhood over is now Shanghai or Helsinki."
Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week ...a new analysis of the most recent Trends in International Math and Science Study suggests that so-called "A-plus countries"— whose math achievement in 1995 prompted American educators to take a page from their standards in developing the Common Core State Standards in math—have not sustained that achievement in more recent exams, and that better examples of academic leaders might be found closer to home.
by Edutopia and Pearson, Early intervention and sustained individual support for every student are keys to educating the whole child in Finnish schools.
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by Ben Jensen, Joanna Farmer, Center for American Progress In this report we discuss and closely examine Shanghai’s empowered-management program, an important education initiative that has markedly improved low-performing schools in Shanghai.
by Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway, The Journal A program in Singapore is bringing smartphones into the classroom as part of an effort to transform instruction to an inquiry-based model. The results? Let's just say the United States needs to take note.
by Jonathan Folwler and Elizabeth Rodd, Big Think Misperceptions of China's economy owes to a weakening of U.S. confidence, which has more to do with psychology than reality.
by Michele McNeil, Education Week Rhee's advice to legislators getting push back on the common core? "Reframe the debate." "This is being framed as, 'The federal government is trying to stick something down your throat,'" Rhee said. "You need to reframe the debate," Rhee said she told the Florida lawmakers. "This is about China kicking our butts. Do you want China to kick our butts? No!"
by David C. Berlner, Education Week OpEd: Frankly, it looks to me like our nation is more at risk from critics like these than it is from the hard-working teachers and administrators trying to help poor kids and their families get ahead in a nation that is increasingly stacking the deck against the poor. It really is not an achievement gap between the United States and other nations that is our problem. We actually do quite well for a large and a diverse nation. It's really the opportunity gap, not the achievement gap that coud...
by Helen Russell, Guardian Danish firm brings its research into child development as well as cash to new Billund venture centred on inquiry-based education
by Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift Zhao has analyzed data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and discovered a negative correlation between high math scores and confidence.
by Whitney Burke, DML Central ...education reform is actually rooted in several overlapping and contradictory models of the knowledge economy. Araya’s dissertation focuses on this idea that policy makers must take into account multiple knowledge economies (e.g., the green economy, the network economy, the creative economy, and the expanding “smart” economy) before they can begin to tackle education reform for the 21st century
The OECD has developed a new tool to help individual schools benchmark their students’ proficiency in reading, mathematics and science against the world’s top education systems. It will also give educators an insight into the learning environments at schools so they can consider ways to improve...
by Julia Lawrence, Education News Tablets are becoming a more common sight in Beijing classrooms as students use them not only in place of bulky textbooks, but also to replace notebooks and other study aids. The tablets are being piloted in schools thanks to a half-a-million dollar grant announced by the Beijeing government to be used to create a so-called [...]
by Eamonn Fingleton, New York Times As China becomes richer, is it destined to pass the United States as the world’s most inventive nation? China’s total number of researchers in R&D more than doubled from 2000 to 2007. During that period in the United States, the number of researchers in R&D grew less than 10 percent.
by Edutopia and Pearson, By cultivating strong school leadership, committing to ongoing professional development, and exploring innovative models like its tech-infused Future Schools, Singapore has become one of the top-scoring countries on the PISA tests.
by Jessica Leber, MIT Technology Review Putting free U.S. college courses online is only the first step to filling higher education needs around the world. Students in countries like India and Brazil have been signing up in droves for these massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered for free from top-tier universities, such as Stanford, MIT, and Harvard.
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This study digs deep into the PISA tests results and provides new data to feed the edreform beast.