International and Comparative Education Commons^™

Universalizing Primary Education In Sierra Leone: Promises And Pitfalls On The Path To Equity, Grace Pai

Publications and Research

What barriers remain in the progress towards achieving Universal Primary Education (UPE), and how does the UPE agenda affect out-of-school children? Through a mixture of historical, quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, this study examines these questions using the developing context of Sierra Leone as a case study.

Findings from over 100 interviews show that first of all, the most salient barrier that prevents children from participating in primary school is the fact that school is not free de facto in spite of the national abolishment of primary school fees in 2004. Rather than commonly cited constraints such as a …

Reconfiguring Democracy And The Purpose Of Higher Education In China, Honglian Yang

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reconfigures Chinese democracy and the purpose of higher education through a conversation of its tradition, culture, and modern challenges in the context of civic studies, a new academic discipline focusing on civic renewal and citizens’ role as co-creators for a better society. Through analyzing the affinities between the Confucian tradition, Dewey’s communitarian form of democracy, the Chinese socialist tradition and public work, this dissertation explores the civic foundation for constructing Chinese democracy as collective agency. Recasting the "China Dream” as a collective work, it highlights important possibilities of developing civic professionals as the transformative force in modern China …

Why The American Superpower Has Mediocre Educational Rankings, Madeline R. Hays

Undergraduate Research Posters

Although education holds implications for economic growth, scientific progress, and political participation, the United States remains on the lower end of educational quality compared to other industrial and first-world nations. Despite substantial efforts by the American government to mend this issue, reforms have yielded minimal improvement in results. Identifying the reasons for the declining nature of US education is essential in understanding how to improve the current academic state. Why has there been a decline in education quality in America compared to other first-world countries since World War II? In order to distinguish the characteristics correlating with low-achievement in the …

Education: A More Powerful Weapon Than War?, Maja K. Thomas

Student Publications

In this paper, I analyze the impact of education on civil war onset, utilizing variables measuring length of compulsory education and number of internal armed conflicts in a given country per year. Using data from the Quality of Government Institute’s Quality of Government Standard Time Series data set, I test this hypothesis and find that an increase in compulsory education length decreases the expected number of internal armed conflicts. The results suggest further importance of education as a great equalizer among individuals as well as nations.

Quality Of Early Childhood Development Services Across Contexts : Experience With The Sithuthukile Trust, South Africa, Rachel Warren

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the quality of early childhood development (ECD) programs is determined within two different contexts: western and South African.

Site Visitation: School Leaders' Perceptions Of A Diagnostic Tool For School Improvement, Mary Shannon C. Chiasson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This case study explored the use of site-visitation as a diagnostic tool for school improvement. Nine charter schools in New Orleans were selected for the study. Based on qualitative research and systems theory, a within- and cross-case analysis of nine semi-structured interviews with school leaders were conducted. The school leaders’ experiences with the state-run site-visitation model and their use of the findings for school improvement was explored. The findings led to the development of a hybrid accountability model that encompasses the components school leaders believe will lead to school improvement. This study aims to assist educators, policy makers, and researchers …

Some Observations On Scientific Epistemology With Applications To Conflict Resolution And Constructive Controversy, Judith Puncochar, Don Faust

Other Presentations

An overview, by Judy and Don (published in 2013 in the BULLETIN OF SYMBOLIC LOGIC):

Explorationism is a perspective wherein all of our knowledge is (so far) less than certain, and naturally would come equipped with a base logic entailing machinery for representing and processing evidential knowledge. One such base logic is Evidence Logic, which strives to deal with the phenomenon of the gradational presence of both confirmatory and refutatory evidence. From this perspective, we will address questions surrounding sociological problem areas that we see as deeply infused with substantial epistemological factors. By defining a framework as any theory, …

The Development And Design Of The Common Core State Standards For Mathematics, Jason Zimba

New England Journal of Public Policy

As one of the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, I begin by explaining what the standards are, what they are not, and how they were developed. Then I detail some ways in which the standards differ from previous state standards. Finally, I describe some of the developments I have seen in the implementation of the standards and the key developments I would like to see in the future.

Sustaining The Teaching Profession, Ronald Thorpe

New England Journal of Public Policy

Within the United States and across nations, there seems to be consensus that teacher quality is the most important school-based variable in determining how well a child learns. While such an observation hardly sounds like headline news, it is a milestone in the development of teaching as a profession. It suggests where investments should be made if people really are serious about student learning. It also explains why policymakers and the public should care about what it means to be an effective teacher and what it will take to create and sustain a teaching workforce defined by accomplished practice. Teachers, …

What Can Pisa Tell Us About U.S. Education Policy?, Linda Darling-Hammond

New England Journal of Public Policy

Despite years of attention to “reform” in the United States, overall achievement on international assessments such as PISA has not improved during the period from 2000 to 2012. Reforms focused on high-stakes testing attached to sanctions, expansions of charter schools, and a market-based approach to teaching have been unsuccessful in changing outcomes. Meanwhile, growing childhood poverty, along with increasing segregation, income inequality, and disparities in school spending, have expanded the opportunity gap. Lessons from other nations and successful states indicate that systematic government investments in high-need schools along with capacity-building that improves the knowledge and skills of educators and the …

The National Commission On Education Excellence And Equity: Hypotheses About Movement Building, Christopher Edley Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 2013, the congressionally chartered national Commission on Education Equity and Excellence issued unanimous recommendations for P–12 policy changes at the federal, state, and local levels. This remarkably broad consensus, with unusual pragmatism and concreteness, is comprehensive in its scope and predominantly research based. As a clarion call and reform strategy, the commission report, For Each and Every Child, is a successor to A Nation at Risk (1983); the commission’s grand if not grandiose intention was to provide a framework for the next decade or more of nationwide policy struggle. This article, after briefly summarizing the recommendations, focuses on …

Transforming Public Education: The Need For An Educational Justice Movement, Mark R. Warren

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nearly fifteen years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the failures of our educational system with regard to low-income children of color remain profound. Traditional reform efforts have sought improvements solely within the confines of the school system, failing to realize how deeply educational failure is part of and linked to broader structures of poverty and racism. A social movement that creates political and cultural change is necessary to transform the racial inequities in public education itself and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement to combat poverty and racism. The seeds of a new educational …

School Reform In Canada And Florida: A Study Of Contrast, Catherine S. Boehme

New England Journal of Public Policy

Alberta and Florida have instituted school reform initiatives over the past fifteen years in an effort to improve the quality of their schools. Alberta has focused on systemic improvement by engaging the community in educational needs assessment, raising the high standards of teacher preparation, and improving effective instructional practices through professional development. Florida’s efforts have concentrated on holding students, teachers, schools, and districts accountable for high-stakes testing results by increasing the number and rigor of required assessments and increasing the negative consequences for low achievement scores. The 2012 PISA scores reveal that Alberta’s students are maintaining their high rankings relative …

Massachusetts Schooling Matters: Good News, Contributing Factors, Challenges, Persistent Problems, Kathleen J. Skinner, Paul Toner

New England Journal of Public Policy

Massachusetts public schools have performed at the highest levels on national and international benchmarked reading, mathematics, and science assessments. The Commonwealth’s population demographics related to educational attainment, employment, and family income coupled with factors within the control of the state, districts, or schools, such as highly qualified and unionized teachers, average school-district size, defined time on learning, universal health care coverage for all children, state funding for pre-K–12 schooling, curriculum articulation through statewide standards, and high participation in college admissions exams, have contributed to academic success. Massachusetts schools, however, still face challenges in narrowing existing achievement gaps, reducing the emphasis …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

On December 3, 2013, when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, the ranking of the United States as number 27 on the global scoreboard elicited little surprise among teachers, educational professionals, academics, and educational policymakers. The usual platitudes were trotted out—no mention that the United States’ standing was getting any worse, just which other countries were passing us by. We were stuck at a perennial average.

The results are in a sense a metaphor of the slow decline of the United State since the 1970s from a position of …

International Education Comparisons: How American Education Reform Is The New Status Quo, Randi Weingarten

New England Journal of Public Policy

The United States participates in international studies comparing school systems across the world. Reformers have largely ignored the lessons from these studies about what works best to educate children, and a strategy of test-based accountability has become the new status quo. This article analyzes the failed policy ideas reformers keep pushing on our schools that have been shown across the globe to be unsuccessful in the areas of school choice and competition, teacher quality and evaluation, an engaging curriculum, and equity. Research examines what top performing countries do to help students succeed, as well as what works in districts across …

Poverty, Educational Achievement, And The Role Of The Courts, Michael A. Rebell

New England Journal of Public Policy

The large and growing proportion of U.S. students who come from poverty backgrounds explains this country’s relatively low performance on international achievement tests. These students need a broad range of comprehensive educational services if they are to have a meaningful opportunity to succeed in school. These opportunities include not only adequate resources for basic K–12 educational services but also parent engagement, health and other services, and additional early education, after-school, and summer programs. In most states, the schools attended by students with the greatest needs tend to receive the fewest resources because of the inequitable systems most states use for …

Getting To The Core And Evolving The Education Reform Movement To A System Of Continuous Improvement, Fernando M. Reimers, Eleonora Villegas-Reimers

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article places the most recent study of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) in historical perspective, reviewing the role of international comparisons in efforts to build public education systems as key institutions of democratic societies. It discusses the findings for the United States, examining differences with other participating countries. It also looks at a paradox. Despite the high priority education has received in the United States in the past two decades, the country underperformed in a number of indicators in the PISA in comparison with many other countries participating in the study. The authors explain the findings as the …

Interview With Andreas Schleicher, Padraig O'Malley, Andreas Schleicher

New England Journal of Public Policy

This interview took place on March 17, 2014, in Washington, DC, with Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Schleicher is responsible for the Directorate of Education and Skills’ research, analysis, and publication of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems. The OECD reports on PISA, PIAAC, and TALIS were released between December 3, …

Democracy Education: The Radical Teaching, Learning, And Doing Of Tao Xingzhi, Todd A. Price Dr.

Faculty Publications

The apex of China’s 1911 Republican Revolution, the election in Nanjing of native son Dr. Sun Yat-sen, heralded an historic break with autocracy. Tragically, Sun Yat-Sen’s democracy did not last long. A bitter period of feudal strife followed as warlords sought to carve fiefdoms out of the young republic. Humiliating concessions to Japan under the Versailles Treaty added to the new republic’s problems. Continuing violation of China’s sovereignty spawned the May 4th, 1919 student movement in Peking. Reverberations from May 4th helped launch a small communist party cell in Shanghai and a larger democracy movement across the country.

Trenchant feudalism, …

Skills Needs Of The Ict Sector In Tanzania, Deirdre Lillis, Fredrick Mtenzi, Diana Mauricaite, Said Jafari, Peter Manifold

Reports

Information and Communication Technology will play a critical role in sustaining the high growth rates experienced by African economies in the last decade. Investment in the ICT sector enables the creation of high quality jobs and acts as an enabling technology for other key industries such as agriculture, mining, finance, health and education. ‘New Software Economy’ models mean international location and company scale are less relevant and enable small organisations to compete globally in niche markets. Unlike many traditional industries which have heavy infrastructure requirements, the key resource of the ICT Sector is its people and the knowledge, skills and …

Gaging The Education Abroad Perception: A Survey Of Personnel At The University Of Wisconsin-Platteville, Jennifer R. Krahn

Capstone Collection

As higher education institutions nationwide are striving to increase the number of U.S. students having international experiences, it is important that international programs professionals are not the only advocates for education abroad on campus. Administration, faculty, and staff buy-in is invaluable as the policy makers and leaders across campus, and their personal experiences, opinions, and endorsements are powerful. The University of Wisconsin system has a system-wide goal for each campus to have 25 percent of their students study abroad, and therefore, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UW-Platteville) is looking to administration, faculty, and staff for support in increasing education abroad participation. …

Choosing Home: International Pushes And Pulls For Malaysian Alumni Of U.S. Graduate Programs, Pauline Chhooi

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Malaysians’ journeys to pursue graduate education in the U.S. generate more than just degree attainment. This dissertation looks at how experiences in the U.S., both in graduate school and in the workplace, influenced highly educated Malaysians, especially in their exploration of push and pull factors that influence their decisions to remain in the U.S. or to return to Malaysia. This study focuses on twenty-two participants comprised of those who have returned to Malaysia, those who are working in the U.S. on non-immigrant visas, those who became Permanent Residents and those who are naturalized U.S. citizens.

The first major finding demonstrates …

Dialogue Between Israelis And Palestinians: Obsolete Approach Or Still Viable Technique In The Middle East Conflict Transformation Toolkit?, Laurie Millman

Capstone Collection

During the last thirty years of the 20^th century, there was a proliferation of dialogues between Palestinians and Israelis. Participants in early unofficial dialogues sometimes became negotiators for official dialogues, or articulated positions which were later presented in public Track II negotiations such as the Geneva Accords. Nevertheless, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has not been transformed, and seems more intractable now than in many years. Given the optimism, effort, and analysis which have been invested in dialogue, this paper considers the question of whether dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians represents an obsolete approach or a still valuable technique in the …

Genocide In The Classroom: How Transitional Societies Are Affected By The Quality Of Genocide Education, Leah Oppenheimer

Honors Scholar Theses

Recognized as a legal term since 1944, genocides have been an unfortunate occurrence since the beginning of world history. However, many countries have failed to properly educate students about genocides that have taken place in their own countries by either not providing accurate or consistent information about what took place or denying the genocide outright. Additionally, in many countries, relations between formerly warring ethnic groups have not improved, despite the often large amount of time that has passed since the end of the genocide. This study examines how history education, both accurate and inaccurate, has affected the current social situation …

Collective Bargaining In United Kingdom Higher Education, Helen Fairfoul, Laurence Hopkins, Geoff White

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This article provides an overview of the collective bargaining system in United Kingdom (UK) higher education and considers some of the current challenges. The arrangements for determining the pay of staff in UK higher education reflect both the historical context of the UK funding system and the unique nature of UK industrial relations law. From World War II, the funding of UK higher education has predominantly come from central government spending with a strong central framework of policy and governance. Since the 1960s, the higher education sector has grown dramatically, both in terms of student numbers and the number of …

Strategic Discussions For Nebraska: Opportunities For Nebraska -- Food Scarcity, Mary Garbacz

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Strategic Discussions for Nebraska is a program in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources that produces an annual publication called Opportunities for Nebraska, focusing on a different topic each year. The publication is produced in hard copy and also is available online at www.sdn.unl.edu.

The content for each publication is produced by UNL students enrolled in a Magazine Writing course each spring semester, taught by the SDN coordinator. Students conduct interviews with UNL researchers and write stories for inclusion in the publication. The interviews are captured on video and are edited into video montages, …

La Derecha Contemporánea En Chile: Su Rol En El Movimiento Estudiantil, Alexandra Jane Bellows

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This investigation studies the political right in Chile and how they see their role within the student movement of 2011. One of the most relevant topics in current Chilean politics, the student movement has organized, over the course of the past nine months, a series of strikes, protests and demonstrations, rallying at certain times over 100,000 people. The students are demanding change to the structure of the higher education system, a system established during the 1980’s under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and largely influenced by the neoliberal model of Milton Freidman and the “Chicago boys.” This movement has …

Building A World-Class System In Ireland’S Financial Crisis, Ellen Hazelkorn

Articles

Irish higher education faces particular difficulties given the severity of its economic crisis. Like other countries, it is engaged in significant system restructuring coupled with managed policy direction. Where Ireland does differ is in its emphasis on a 'whole of country strategy' and commitment that teaching and research go hand-in-hand. This paper looks at the fortunes and mis-fortunes of Irish higher education.

World-Class Universities Or World-Class Systems? Rankings And Higher Education Policy Choices, Ellen Hazelkorn

Other resources

Is it always a good thing when a university rises up the rankings and breaks into the top 100? Do rankings raise standards by encouraging competition or do they undermine the broader mission to provide education? Should rankings be used to help decide educational policy and the allocation of scare financial resources? Should policy aim to develop world-class universities or to make the system world-class?

University rankings have dominated headlines and the attention of political and university leaders wherever or whenever they are published or mentioned. Politicians regularly refer to them as a measure of their nation’s economic strengths and …