Prompt: What conclusions do you draw about how education in your
country is doing when compared to the rest of the world? What in the
readings surprises you? Worries you? Angers or inspires you?
What follows are my reflections after reading portions of the PISA and TIMSS reports as well as other data from the World Bank.
First let me say that the thought of looking at data always
puts me into a cold sweat. Give me
an anecdote, a narrative, a picture, an interpretive dance and I am all
set. Data, charts and spreadsheets
make my knees wobble and head spin.
But somehow I managed to take a look at PISA (Volume IV: What Makes a
School Successful), play around with the World Bank Data, read the TIMMS
executive summary, and generate an interesting facebook dialogue with the
Infographic picture.
I should also point out that at the word “test” my guard
immediately went up: “Standardized tests, what do they know? Surely they have
cultural biases, surely they are flawed, surely this data can’t really be
trusted”. With just a brief
reading about the PISA test, I liked what I saw in terms of the tasks using
applied knowledge and problem solving.
I don’t know enough about standardized tests to comment on the quality
of either the PISA or the TIMSS, but decided to let go of my skepticism and
just look at the data for what it was.
What inspired me was PISA’s assertion that the most
successful schools are in fact finding high academic achievement despite
disparity in resources[1].
While a family’s socioeconomic
status and the resources available to schools still correlate with achievement
levels, I was surprised to see that in many schools and in many countries
around the world there is high achievement being attained with few
resources. From page 3:
“The education systems that have been
able to secure strong and equitable learning outcomes, and to mobilise rapid
improvements, show others what is possible to achieve. Naturally, GDP per
capita influences educational success, but this only explains 6% of the
differences in average student performance. The other 94% reflect the potential
for public policy to make a difference. The stunning success of Shanghai-China,
which tops every league table in this assessment by a clear margin, shows what
can be achieved with moderate economic resources and in a diverse social
context.” (ibid).
From my perspective, I saw enormous
differences in achievement from my previous school (a school with 90% of
students considered low SES) to my current school (with 30% of students
considered low SES). My personal
experience with education in Vermont has led me to see wide gaps in achievement
corresponding with the socioeconomic status of students. I see a consistent pattern of low SES
students doing worse in school and on our standardized tests that the high SES
students. My job feels so much
easier and less daunting in my new school with only 30% low SES students. The TIMSS report confirmed my personal
experience, (page 13 of the executive summary), showing that students with
“Many Resources” scoring an average of 119 points higher in 4th
grade and 115 points higher in 8th grade than students with “Few
Resources”. To summarize, while I
am seeing a trend of my students with fewer resources performing at a lower
achievement level, I am inspired by the PISA results that show that a student’s
socioeconomic status does not seal their fate. The idea that SES accounts for only 6% of the differences in
student performance shines a spotlight on the inequities of education here in
Vermont and the US. Equal access
and high expectations for all can go a long way in closing that achievement
gap.
Another trend I found that made me feel
angry and frustrated (also related to family resources) was the importance of
early education and preprimary school.
Both the PISA and the TIMSS showed that students with access to
preprimary school performed better at all the grade levels tested. Quality preprimary school is connected
with so many other facets of a healthy society. Since becoming a working
mother, the extreme shortage and high cost of quality day care and preschool
has become a passionate issue for me.
Not only is this a barrier to women becoming productive members of the
work force, but quality of preprimary care and education sets children up for
success for the rest of their student careers. I get frustrated when I read about countries like France
that offer universal, high quality, and low or no cost daycare and
preschool. This is a huge
shortcoming in the United States.
Not only is it hard to even find a spot for your child due to well
documented shortages of available spots, but when parents are able to find a
spot it is usually at a high financial cost. These financial barriers to quality preprimary education are
already setting up the achievement gap for the “haves” and the “have nots” in
our society.
There is so much more to talk about,
but I will end with one other trend that I found interesting. The PISA report talked quite a bit
about teacher autonomy. Schools
that moved away from a bureaucratic “top-down” approached and gave teachers
more autonomy and control in their classrooms tended to be more
successful. “There are the 60
million teachers!” I thought to myself while reading. Important to note that
teachers with autonomy AND a clear accountability system were showed greater
student successes. Teachers with
autonomy and little accountability did not show a trend for success. Also
interesting that job satisfaction and teacher pay corresponded to high success,
but smaller class size did not. I am not sure how other US educators feel, but
I do have high autonomy with high accountability in my school. This is a strength my school system!
Lastly, a data question for the
data-minded folks out there! I see on the infographic that the US outspends everybody. BUT when looking in the World Bank database,
they present spending per pupil as a % of GDP per capita. When you look at spending per pupil as
a % of GDP per capita, there are countries (Sweden was one) that outspend the
US at both the primary and secondary level. What does that mean? What does % of GDP per capita really mean?
From
the PISA report (ibid): "Success will go to those individuals and
countries that are swift to adapt, slow to complain and open to change." I
do not this the US yet fits that description, but I am hopeful for my home
state of Vermont.
[1] OECD (2010),
PISA 2009 Results: What Makes a School Successful? – Resources, Policies and
Practices (Volume IV)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264091559-en
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