What are some of the obstacles to expanding best practices beyond these pockets of excellence
Many of the practices of high-performing systems are implemented in some U.S. districts and states, but not systematically or at scale. What are some of the obstacles to expanding best practices beyond these pockets of excellence? What capacities do districts or states need to build in order to make this goal a reality?
For this three-page paper, prepare an argument either for or against expanding the systems and practices of high-performing schools across the United States. Be certain to defend your stance. Validate your statements with quotes and theories from education and government leaders.
Support your statements with evidence from the Required Studies and your research. Cite and reference your studies in APA style.
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DEVELOPING SUCCESSFUL SYSTEMS
To jumpstart your thinking about teacher evaluation and education improvement, view Dean’s Lecture Series: Teacher Evaluation: What Really Matters for Effectiveness and Improvement (The University of Melbourne, 2014).
The movement to improve schools across the nation is an ambitious endeavor. As Stewart (2012) implied, improving schools is no easy task. Even after one has identified that the old ways of doing things are no longer working, coming up with system-wide comprehensive solutions as to how to develop better schools and school systems is challenging. Educators appear to be doing a better job than ever before, even though they have more standards to cover and their students have more tests to pass than any group of students in the nation’s history.
That equity matters for children, teachers, and societies is indisputable. While many other countries claim that they are running off the blueprints provided by the United States’ education system, it is apparent that they have adjusted and improved upon those plans (Stewart, 2012). Areas of inequity are common from country to country (gender, income, ethnicity, special educational needs, etc.). The ethnic, cultural, and intellectual diversity of U.S. students has never been greater and reflects the diversity of the American population. Unfortunately, while the U.S. school system is getting better at educating ALL students, many still lack the basic education and skills required to be successful in the 21st century (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). This is not because schools have failed, but because society now has higher expectations and demands more skills than were ever designed to be taught in America’s education system. So, despite the fact that America’s schools are improving, students continue to fall further behind their international peers. This gap is further accentuated by the United States’ commitment to excellence and equity to prepare ALL students to become independent, productive citizens.
Picking up on the concept of higher expectations in the preceding paragraph, you find that the American school system defines this in a different way from its international counterparts. While many countries teach students a few in-depth subjects at a time, the education system of the United States was structured to cover a myriad of subjects, but with less depth in the subject matter, resulting in curriculum described as “a mile wide and an inch deep” (Stewart, 2012, p. 82). For example, the math and science courses studied by the average American student are approximately two years behind that of high-performing countries (Layton, 2013).
Even given the American system’s complex curriculum and lagging performance with its international peers, the majority of Americans continue to believe that a successful path toward the American Dream is achieved through education—an education provided within a public system. The American educational system echoes this belief in its affirmation that equity is an intrinsic indicator and a necessary component of a quality education. Equal access to quality teachers, materials, and schools enhances learning opportunities, and sustains quality education.
Fate and destiny are not always predetermined by birthright, but molded by educational opportunities. While the level of American student achievement has been relatively flat for some time, countries with diverse populations such as Poland, Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, and Norway are reforming and raising student achievement across the board (Stewart, 2012). Lessons can be learned from the actions of other countries, like Canada, where the province of Ontario has recognized the importance of using stakeholders to design reforms that would then tempt teachers, parents, and school districts to enlist their ideas to survive difficulties and changes in leadership. Likewise, in China, the emphasis is on recruiting and training prospective educators, and the improvement of the already 12 million strong teaching workforce (Stewart, 2011). To encourage more people to become teachers, China has raised the salaries of their instructors to equal those of civil service occupations. In poorer regions, China’s central government contributes part of the cost of teachers’ salaries to attract new applicants. In Singapore, to enlist the finest teachers, they select applicants from the top third of their fourth-year graduate classes (Tucker, 2011).
Schools across America must be improved (Kopp, 2013). While the current state of affairs is not abysmal, it is far from perfect with other countries vying to overtake the United States as the largest economic power in the world, and as far as education goes, the United States is already well behind. What is clear is that the highest-performing school systems in the world have a low variance rate from student to student. What is not clear is what needs to be consistent across schools and where can there be flexibility? What is known is that providing equal access to an excellent education is the path toward better achievement for students and greater prosperity for society.
References
Kopp, W. (2013, October 25). Do American schools need to change? Depends what you compare them to. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/…
Layton, L. (2013, December 3). U.S. students lag around average on international science, math and reading test. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-s…
Stewart, V. (2012). A world-class education: Learning from international models of excellence and innovation. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Stewart, V. (2011). Improving teacher quality around the world: The international summit on the teaching profession. Retrieved from http://asiasociety.org/files/lwtw-teachersummitrep…
Tucker, M. S. (2011, May 24). Standing on the shoulders of giants: An American agenda for education reform. Retrieved from http://ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Standin…
The University of Melbourne. (2014, February 3). Dean’s lecture series: Teacher evaluation: What really matters for effectiveness and improvement [Video file]. Retrieved from
U.S. Department of Education. (2013). Advance release of selected 2013 digest tables. Digest of Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2013menu_tables…
WEEKLY OBJECTIVES
Through participation in the following activities, the candidate will:
Examine the education system worldwide and identify how resources and roadblocks affect school systems in different countries.
Book Study Chapters
Excellence and Equity
Teacher Evaluation
Identify how differing purposes result in different outcomes.
Teacher Evaluation
Expanding Best Practice
Examine current issues in international schooling.
Teacher Evaluation
Book Study Chapters
REQUIRED STUDIES
The following materials are required studies for this week. Complete these studies at the beginning of the week and save these weekly materials for future use.
A World-Class Education (Stewart, 2012)
Chapter 3: The Common Elements of Successful Systems
Chapter 4: Developing Effective Teachers and School Leaders
Chapter 5: Modernizing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Read the chapter assignments for the book you selected:
Finnish Lessons 2.0 (Sahlberg, 2015)
Chapter 4: The Finnish Way
Chapter 5: Is the Future Finnish?
Surpassing Shanghai (Tucker, 2011)
Chapter 6: How the Top Performers Got There
Chapter 7: An Action Plan for the United States
Read
Globalization and the Preparation of Quality Teachers: Rethinking Knowledge Domains for Teaching (Goodwin, 2010) [Web page]
View
Education Innovation in the Slums (Leadbeater, 2010) [Video] [Transcript]
Explore
Open Doors (Institute of International Education, 2014) [Web page]
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