Education in Spite of Policy

Education in Spite of Policy PDF Author: Robin Alexander
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351688758
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book

Book Description
A national system of education cannot function without policy. But the path to practice is seldom smooth, especially when ideology overrules evidence or when ministers seek to micromanage what is best left to teachers. And once the media join the fray the mixture becomes downright combustible. Drawing on his long experience as teacher, researcher, government adviser, campaigner and international consultant, and on over 600 published sources, Robin Alexander expertly illustrates and illuminates these processes. This selection from his recent writing, some hitherto unpublished, opens windows onto cases and issues that concern every teacher. Part 1 tackles system-level reform. It revisits the Cambridge Primary Review, an evidence-rich enquiry into the condition and future of primary education in England, which challenged the UK government’s policies on curriculum, testing, standards and more besides. Here the reform narratives and strategies of successive governments are confronted and dissected. Part 2 follows the development of England’s current National Curriculum, exposing its narrow vision and questionable use of evidence and offering a more generous aims-driven alternative. This section also investigates the expertise and leadership needed if children are to experience a curriculum of the highest quality in all its aspects. Part 3 reaches the heart of the matter: securing the place in effective pedagogy of well-founded classroom talk, a mission repeatedly frustrated by political intervention. The centrepiece is dialogic teaching, a proven tool for advancing students’ speaking, thinking, learning and arguing, and an essential response to the corrosion of democracy and the nihilism of ‘post-truth’. Part 4 goes global. It investigates governments’ PISA-fuelled flirtations with what they think can be adapted or copied from education elsewhere, examines the benefits and pitfalls of international comparison, and ends with the ultimate policy initiative: the United Nations mission to ensure ‘inclusive and equitable quality education’ for all the world’s children. Education in Spite of Policy is for all those teachers, students, school leaders and researchers who value the conversation of policy, evidence and practice, and who wish to explore the parts of education that policy cannot reach.

Education in Spite of Policy

Education in Spite of Policy PDF Author: Robin Alexander
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351688758
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book

Book Description
A national system of education cannot function without policy. But the path to practice is seldom smooth, especially when ideology overrules evidence or when ministers seek to micromanage what is best left to teachers. And once the media join the fray the mixture becomes downright combustible. Drawing on his long experience as teacher, researcher, government adviser, campaigner and international consultant, and on over 600 published sources, Robin Alexander expertly illustrates and illuminates these processes. This selection from his recent writing, some hitherto unpublished, opens windows onto cases and issues that concern every teacher. Part 1 tackles system-level reform. It revisits the Cambridge Primary Review, an evidence-rich enquiry into the condition and future of primary education in England, which challenged the UK government’s policies on curriculum, testing, standards and more besides. Here the reform narratives and strategies of successive governments are confronted and dissected. Part 2 follows the development of England’s current National Curriculum, exposing its narrow vision and questionable use of evidence and offering a more generous aims-driven alternative. This section also investigates the expertise and leadership needed if children are to experience a curriculum of the highest quality in all its aspects. Part 3 reaches the heart of the matter: securing the place in effective pedagogy of well-founded classroom talk, a mission repeatedly frustrated by political intervention. The centrepiece is dialogic teaching, a proven tool for advancing students’ speaking, thinking, learning and arguing, and an essential response to the corrosion of democracy and the nihilism of ‘post-truth’. Part 4 goes global. It investigates governments’ PISA-fuelled flirtations with what they think can be adapted or copied from education elsewhere, examines the benefits and pitfalls of international comparison, and ends with the ultimate policy initiative: the United Nations mission to ensure ‘inclusive and equitable quality education’ for all the world’s children. Education in Spite of Policy is for all those teachers, students, school leaders and researchers who value the conversation of policy, evidence and practice, and who wish to explore the parts of education that policy cannot reach.

Improving a Country’s Education

Improving a Country’s Education PDF Author: Nuno Crato
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030590313
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Get Book

Book Description
This open access book compares and contrasts the results of international student assessments in ten countries. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released the results of its 2018 assessment in December 2019. This book reflects the debates that typically follow the release of these results and focuses on the causes of differences between countries. Such causes include continuous decline in one country, improvement combined with increasing internal inequalities in another country, or rapid improvement in spite of an outdated curriculum in yet another. In addition, the book discusses a number of general questions: Is knowledge outdated? Are computers taking over and replacing teachers? Are schools killing creativity? Are we adequately preparing the next generation? Are schools failing to educate our kids? The book starts out with a summary of PISA’s evolution and PISA results, and an explanation of the major factors that play a role in changes in countries’ results. The next ten chapters are devoted to ten specific countries, offering a summary of data and an explanation of the major drives for changes in education results for each one. Each chapter includes a short description of the country’s educational system as well as the impact of PISA and other ILSA studies on the country’s educational policies. The chapters also include a timeline of policy measures and main hallmarks of the country’s educational evolution, discussing the impact of these measures on its PISA results. A final reference chapter explains what PISA is, what it measures and how. While highlighting the 2018 results, the book also takes into consideration previous results, as well as long-term initiatives. This book gathers the contribution of well-known and respected experts in the field. Specialists such as Eric Hanushek, for the US, Tim Oates, for England, Montse Gomendio, for Spain, Gunda Tire, for Estonia, and all other contributors draw on their vast experience and statistical analysis expertise to draw a set of rich country lessons and recommendations that are invaluable for all of those who care about improving a country’s education system.

Learning in Spite of Labels

Learning in Spite of Labels PDF Author: Joyce Herzog
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781882514137
Category : Home schooling
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Get Book

Book Description
Practical strategies for working with children with learning disabilities.

Shaping Education Policy

Shaping Education Policy PDF Author: Douglas E. Mitchell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136869964
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book

Book Description
Shaping Education Policy is a comprehensive overview of education politics and policy during the most turbulent and rapidly changing period in American history. Respected scholars review the history of education policy to explain the political powers and processes that shape education today. Chapters cover major themes that have influenced education, including the civil rights movement, federal involvement, the accountability movement, family choice, and development of nationalization and globalization. Sponsored by the Politics of Education Association, this edited collection examines the tumultuous shifts in education policy over the last six decades and projects the likely future of public education. This book is a necessary resource for understanding the evolution, current status, and possibilities of educational policy and politics.

Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education PDF Author: John Dewey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book

Book Description
. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

Policy Making in Education

Policy Making in Education PDF Author: National Society for the Study of Education
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226601328
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book

Book Description
The Eighty-First Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System PDF Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465014917
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book

Book Description
Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.

Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms

Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms PDF Author: Timothy D. Walker
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324001267
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 155

Get Book

Book Description
Easy-to-implement classroom lessons from the world’s premier educational system. Finland shocked the world when its fifteen-year-olds scored highest on the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a set of tests touted for evaluating critical-thinking skills in math, science, and reading. That was in 2001; but even today, this tiny Nordic nation continues to amaze. How does Finnish education—with short school days, light homework loads, and little standardized testing—produce students who match the PISA scores of high-powered, stressed-out kids in Asia? When Timothy D. Walker started teaching fifth graders at a Helsinki public school, he began a search for the secrets behind the successes of Finland’s schools. Walker wrote about several of those discoveries, and his Atlantic articles on this subject became hot topics of conversation. Here, he gathers all he learned and reveals how any teacher can implement many of Finland's best practices. Remarkably, Finland is prioritizing the joy of learning in its newest core curricula and Walker carefully highlights specific strategies that support joyful K-12 classrooms and integrate seamlessly with educational standards in the United States. From incorporating brain breaks to offering a peaceful learning environment, this book pulls back the curtain on the joyful teaching practices of the world's most lauded school system. His message is simple but profound: these Finland-inspired strategies can be used in the U.S. and other countries. No educator—or parent of a school-aged child—will want to miss out on the message of joy and change conveyed in this book.

What Keeps Teachers Going?

What Keeps Teachers Going? PDF Author: Sonia Nieto
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807743119
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Get Book

Book Description
This book presents teaching as evolution, teaching as autobiography, teaching as love, and asks the question: What keeps teachers going in spite of everything?

Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education

Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education PDF Author: Maria Teresa Tatto
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350068691
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education reviews the evolution of education policy on initial teacher education as an indicator of the knowledge that is considered important for nation building. It also looks at research on approaches and structures to initial teacher learning as an indication of the intellectual and moral direction to which schooling must aspire. Contributors look at these dynamics across a range of societies including Australia, the Czech Republic, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, and the USA. Using a review of the literature approach within a comparative framework, the book seeks to answer the following questions for each country: What has been the evolution of different approaches to learning to teach in each setting, and what factors have influenced change over the years? What are the underlying theories that characterize past and current thinking about the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed by teachers and what evidence is used to support these theories? What does a review on the state of the knowledge about teacher education over the past 30 years reveal about the evolution of the research and knowledge traditions that have supported current and past innovations in teacher education? Maria Teresa Tatto and Ian Menter explore international variability in different conceptions of knowledge in the context of learning to teach and explore the way in which national and international influences interact in the developing trajectories of teacher education policy and practice, considering what knowledge is considered important for teachers to have.