Taken at Chinteche Community Day Secondary School in Malawi, Africa, 2007.
"UNESCO believes that education is a human right for all throughout life and that access must be matched by quality."
As we strive for universal access to education, how can we also improve quality?
From 2006-2008, I was a Peace Corps education volunteer in Chintheche, Malawi, teaching middle school social studies and high school English. Since 1994, Malawi had offered free primary school for all, a progressive step, given that free universal primary education didn't become the international standard until the declaration of the UN's Millennium Development Goals in 2000. The decision to open Malawi's primary schools to all students was noble, but unfortunately the new policy wasn't matched with a commensurate investment in school infrastructure, learning resources, or teacher training. I remember seeing groups of forty or fifty kids sitting out in their school courtyard under a tree as their harried teacher shouted to make herself heard.
When the kids arrived to middle school and had to take social studies in English, most of them were wholly unprepared. My students spoke an average of three languages, but they didn't learn much in the way of English in primary school. When they arrived to middle school and suddenly faced courses taught entirely in English, they were lost. To cope as a teacher, I used to find out who my best English-speaking students were and make them the captains of their small groups. I would speak in English and then pause so that my English-speaking captains could translate what I had said to their classmates. It was a slow process with less than perfect results. I remember thinking that it was kind of cruel to just throw kids into middle school English classes without a background in English from primary. The country had set ambitious goals for its educational system, but some crucial pieces were missing to make it work.
Even today, much is needed to help Malawi's educational system live up to its promise. Global Partners in Education (GPE) recently announced a grant of $44.9 million to Malawi's educational sector for the building of 500 new classrooms, 300 sanitary blocks, 150 hand washing stations, and 800 performance-based grants to schools that have high retention rates for girls. (Currently, only 18 of 100 girls finish primary school, which lasts until 8th grade.) The GPE investment will also go for additional training for teachers and headmasters in class management techniques and the development of a better deployment system for teachers across the country (Albright, 2016).
An aspect of the GPE plan that appeals to me is that they are channeling their funds through Malawi's education department, rather than setting up a separate organization. In a recent blog post, Alice Albright, CEO of GPE, explained why this approach is better: "Our model brings all partners together around the table in support of the country's national education plan. Our objective is to strengthen the education system as a whole to make it more efficient and sustainable in the long term" (Albright, 2016). I hope GPE's initiative does prove helpful for Malawi's students. It sounds like an improvement over some foreign aid projects I witnessed while teaching there. One foreign aid group decided to build a primary school in the forest down the highway from my village because it seemed to them like a scenic spot. Once the school was finished, though, no Malawians would attend or work at the school. The local people didn't want to go to school in the middle of a forest. They knew that clearings were safer, given all the snakes in the area, and to them the site seemed dirty.
There's another thing that appeals to me about Albright's post. She acknowledges the heroic efforts of Malawian teachers. "My heart went out to the teachers, who did their very best in difficult conditions," she said. That was the same feeling I had working alongside Malawian teachers for two years at Chinteche. They taught long hours in overcrowded classrooms without sufficient learning materials, and they were poorly paid. In fact, sometimes they had to wait weeks for their pay to arrive from the capital. Our head, Mr. Moyo, was a master of motivation and camaraderie, or I wonder if the teachers would have kept coming to work at all. If teacher working conditions were improved, teachers would feel more secure, and I have to think the quality of instruction would be enhanced.
The Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (2015) team agrees. In their background paper for the Oslo Summit on Education for Development, they outlined four major recommendations for improving educational quality. The first recommendation was to "develop a shared understanding of what is necessary to ensure that all learners are taught by good teachers and served by effective teaching." In order to attract and retain top candidates, they suggested implementing competitive pay structures and incentives. Such a step would make a big difference in the lives of my former colleagues in Malawi, and for teachers around the world.
The team's second recommendation was to revise initial teacher education and continuous professional development to respond to challenging classroom situations. This recommendation is reminiscent of GPE's focus on training Malawian teachers in advanced class management techniques. Beyond class management, the EFA Global Monitoring Report calls for training in identifying students' learning needs, considering issues of equity, making use of a variety of effective teaching strategies, and providing focused, outcome-based feedback. Using the Malawian context as a frame of reference, I would suggest that this second step of more rigorous teacher training and professional development, with higher expectations for classroom outcomes, would need to be paired with the report's first recommendation of increased teacher pay and incentives. Otherwise, teachers would be understandably reluctant to embrace the new, more work-intensive strategies.
The report's third recommendation is key: "recognize the need for effective and participatory school leadership focused on teaching effectiveness and learning." My secondary school in Malawi just happened to have a top-notch director who knew how to motivate his teachers and student body and inspire a sense of community. Having said that, I have to admit Mr. Moyo was a little old fashioned in his instructional approaches, while at the same time beloved for his jokes, stories, and obvious concern for student well being. Most of the teachers at Chinteche Community Day Secondary School were traditional in their pedagogy, and the students were well accustomed to their methods.
When, as an upstart and an outsider, I tried to use more participatory methods in my high school English class, asking the students to create a class newspaper, for example, several students and teachers were put off. Making a class newspaper didn't appear in the national syllabus and wouldn't be on the end-of-year high stakes exam. Mr. Moyo supported my methods, but even a supportive director couldn't assuage students' concerns about the exams. Based on my experience, I would say training in innovative instructional techniques will only work if those techniques are in accordance with the overall expectations of the system. High stakes exams that determine a student's entrance into university, when there are only two public universities in the whole country and admission spots are severely limited, tend to put a damper on creative instructional techniques.
The EFA Global Monitoring Report's final recommendation is to invest in teaching and learning materials, especially textbooks and supplementary reading in kids' native languages. The thinking here is that even if students don't always have access to highly-trained teachers, they can read the books and learn on their own. The report suggests that 4-6% of a country's gross domestic product (GDP), or 15-20% of its overall expenditures, should be devoted to education. According to the World Bank website, in 1999 Malawi spent 5% of its GDP on education and now spends 5.4%. This figure would indicate that Malawi has been investing a significant portion of its resources in education for several years. What we can't be sure about is the equity of this investment, in terms of rural and urban schools, for example, or the specific educational needs that get prioritized.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report "Education at a Glance 2016" says that in 2013, OECD countries spent an average of 5.2% of their GDP on education. This statistic indicates that Malawi is spending more on education as a percentage of GDP than the global average, but the country still has major deficiencies in educational services. In order to understand this apparent paradox, we need to bear in mind that Malawi has one of the lowest GDPs per capita in the world. At 1,100 USD, Malawi ranks 223rd in the world in GDP per capita (CIA World Factbook, 2015). That's why external aid from organizations like GPE is so vital for Malawi's students.
A Malawi-U.S. Connection: high-stakes testing
Teaching in Malawi, I concluded that one deterring factor to the quality of their education is high-stakes testing. Students and teachers alike are so laser focused on the outcomes of the national exams, which are quite traditional in their content and format, that they are unwilling to consider innovating their approaches to teaching and learning. I do not blame them for focusing on this exam; after all, the exam is most students' only hope for attending university, and university spots are scarce to say the least.
In the U.S. also, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, signed by then President George W. Bush in January 2002, ushered in an era of intense focus on standardized testing. Under the law, schools that faired poorly, or in other words failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward their standardized testing goals, faced severe penalties. For example, in the second year of failing to make AYP, the school was required to allow students to transfer to another school in the district. By the fifth year of failing to make AYP, the school faced the prospect of cutting most if not all of its teaching staff. What's more, schools failing to make AYP had to withhold 10% of their federal Title I funding in order to offer free tutoring services and support students' transferring to other schools (Klein, 2015a).
Many feel the increased emphasis on standardized testing did not serve the U.S. well. Klein (2015a) says that it's unclear that the major features of NCLB had the intended effect, and this criticism includes standardized testing. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union has also come out against what they see as an unhealthy emphasis on standardized testing and the accompanying sanctions in NCLB. In 2016, they adopted a resolution entitled "Taking Action on the Promise of the Every Child Succeeds Act" that was strongly in favor of the Obama administration's overhaul of NCLB. The resolution puts forth the following criticisms of NCLB:
1) It was based on a test-and-punish system.
2) It narrowed teachers' instruction, since teachers felt pressured to teach to the test rather than teaching all that students needed to know.
3) It put the federal government in charge of teacher evaluation, and the government's evaluations were focused on standardized test scores.
As a result of such criticisms, in December 2015 President Barack Obama signed into law a revision of No Child Left Behind called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Both laws are revisions of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed by Lyndon B. Johnson. This latest revision, the Every Student Succeeds Act, gives states more flexibility in how they hold schools accountable for students' learning. While students still need to take standardized reading and math tests in grades 3-8 and once in high school, states are now allowed to look at other factors in judging a school's effectiveness, including but not limited to student engagement. Seven states have been green lighted to pilot alternative forms of testing including performance-based tasks, rather than the traditional fill-in-the-bubble tests. States also have more flexibility in terms of what to do about schools that are not meeting growth goals. Because this new law gives significant discretionary authority back to states in terms of evaluating and supporting schools, the effects of the law will depend largely on how each state responds (Klein, 2015b).
Beyond standardized tests in the U.S.: what is needed to improve educational quality?
National organizations have several recommendations for improving the quality of education. The National Education Association (NEA) has a lot to say about the importance of treating teaching as a true profession, with high standards for performance as well as compensation: "We believe that the expertise and judgment of education professionals are critical to student success. We maintain the highest professional standards, and we expect the status, compensation, and respect due all professionals" (NEA, 2016). As part of this focus, they advocate for more effective and better funded teacher professional development. The NEA, AFT, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) published a 2010 report called "Advancing High-Quality Professional Learning through Collective Bargaining and State Policy," intended for use by association leaders and state policy makers when crafting legislation directed at teacher professional development. The report's overall thrust is to give more respect and authority to teachers themselves in choosing the themes and the manner of their professional development.
To the end of establishing "the highest professional standards," the CCSSO has put forward the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) standards, first published in 2011 and revised in 2013. These standards are intended to define what every K-12 teacher should know and be able to do given our emerging understanding of how students learn and our educational environment of high accountability (CCSSO, 2013). These standards were developed through a collaboration of state education agencies and national education organizations and have been widely adopted for use in teacher training and evaluation.
A de-emphasis of standardized tests doesn't mean that educational organizations don't support standards for teachers and students. When standardized tests take on a more proportional role, schools and teachers are freed to craft an educational experience that works best for students, according to their own professional judgment and the guidance of educational experts. That seems to be what national organizations like AFT are arguing. Their vision for education is based on engaging curricula, including project-based learning, the arts, music, physical education, social studies, civics, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math design challenges), and career and technical education. When, on the global stage, an organization like UNICEF calls for child-friendly schools in a safe, healthy, holistic environment (UNICEF, 2010), one gets the sense that both in the U.S. and abroad, educational organizations want to teach the whole child. They don't want to see such a narrow focus on certain academic indicators that we miss the larger picture of what it means to truly nurture and educate.
Other educational organizations to check out
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices- a research and development firm serving our nation's governors. This organization works with the CCSSO to host the Common Core State Standards website. Their work directly affects state policy decisions.
National Board of Professional Teaching Standards- Established in 1987, this board works "to advance accomplished teaching for all students." They offer a voluntary system by which teachers can earn a special "board certification." The process of board certification engages teachers in self reflection and professional growth, and their site is full of testimonials from teachers who have benefited from the experience.
Education International- the world's largest federation of unions. AFT is a member of Education International (EI). In fact, EI represents more than 32 million educational employees around the world. Their values seem to be in line with those of AFT, with a special emphasis on equity of all kinds. What was interesting to me is how EI and AFT collaborate. For example, EI's website features a radio interview with AFT president Randi Weingarten addressing the tragic disappearance and assumed government massacre of 43 Mexican teacher college students in 2014.
Related reading
Walker, T. (2014, September 2). The testing obsession and the disappearing curriculum. NEA Today. Retrieved from
http://neatoday.org/2014/09/02/the-testing-obsession-and-the-disappearing-curriculum-2/
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report "Education at a Glance 2016" says that in 2013, OECD countries spent an average of 5.2% of their GDP on education. This statistic indicates that Malawi is spending more on education as a percentage of GDP than the global average, but the country still has major deficiencies in educational services. In order to understand this apparent paradox, we need to bear in mind that Malawi has one of the lowest GDPs per capita in the world. At 1,100 USD, Malawi ranks 223rd in the world in GDP per capita (CIA World Factbook, 2015). That's why external aid from organizations like GPE is so vital for Malawi's students.
A Malawi-U.S. Connection: high-stakes testing
Teaching in Malawi, I concluded that one deterring factor to the quality of their education is high-stakes testing. Students and teachers alike are so laser focused on the outcomes of the national exams, which are quite traditional in their content and format, that they are unwilling to consider innovating their approaches to teaching and learning. I do not blame them for focusing on this exam; after all, the exam is most students' only hope for attending university, and university spots are scarce to say the least.
In the U.S. also, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, signed by then President George W. Bush in January 2002, ushered in an era of intense focus on standardized testing. Under the law, schools that faired poorly, or in other words failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward their standardized testing goals, faced severe penalties. For example, in the second year of failing to make AYP, the school was required to allow students to transfer to another school in the district. By the fifth year of failing to make AYP, the school faced the prospect of cutting most if not all of its teaching staff. What's more, schools failing to make AYP had to withhold 10% of their federal Title I funding in order to offer free tutoring services and support students' transferring to other schools (Klein, 2015a).
Many feel the increased emphasis on standardized testing did not serve the U.S. well. Klein (2015a) says that it's unclear that the major features of NCLB had the intended effect, and this criticism includes standardized testing. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union has also come out against what they see as an unhealthy emphasis on standardized testing and the accompanying sanctions in NCLB. In 2016, they adopted a resolution entitled "Taking Action on the Promise of the Every Child Succeeds Act" that was strongly in favor of the Obama administration's overhaul of NCLB. The resolution puts forth the following criticisms of NCLB:
1) It was based on a test-and-punish system.
2) It narrowed teachers' instruction, since teachers felt pressured to teach to the test rather than teaching all that students needed to know.
3) It put the federal government in charge of teacher evaluation, and the government's evaluations were focused on standardized test scores.
As a result of such criticisms, in December 2015 President Barack Obama signed into law a revision of No Child Left Behind called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Both laws are revisions of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed by Lyndon B. Johnson. This latest revision, the Every Student Succeeds Act, gives states more flexibility in how they hold schools accountable for students' learning. While students still need to take standardized reading and math tests in grades 3-8 and once in high school, states are now allowed to look at other factors in judging a school's effectiveness, including but not limited to student engagement. Seven states have been green lighted to pilot alternative forms of testing including performance-based tasks, rather than the traditional fill-in-the-bubble tests. States also have more flexibility in terms of what to do about schools that are not meeting growth goals. Because this new law gives significant discretionary authority back to states in terms of evaluating and supporting schools, the effects of the law will depend largely on how each state responds (Klein, 2015b).
Beyond standardized tests in the U.S.: what is needed to improve educational quality?
National organizations have several recommendations for improving the quality of education. The National Education Association (NEA) has a lot to say about the importance of treating teaching as a true profession, with high standards for performance as well as compensation: "We believe that the expertise and judgment of education professionals are critical to student success. We maintain the highest professional standards, and we expect the status, compensation, and respect due all professionals" (NEA, 2016). As part of this focus, they advocate for more effective and better funded teacher professional development. The NEA, AFT, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) published a 2010 report called "Advancing High-Quality Professional Learning through Collective Bargaining and State Policy," intended for use by association leaders and state policy makers when crafting legislation directed at teacher professional development. The report's overall thrust is to give more respect and authority to teachers themselves in choosing the themes and the manner of their professional development.
To the end of establishing "the highest professional standards," the CCSSO has put forward the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) standards, first published in 2011 and revised in 2013. These standards are intended to define what every K-12 teacher should know and be able to do given our emerging understanding of how students learn and our educational environment of high accountability (CCSSO, 2013). These standards were developed through a collaboration of state education agencies and national education organizations and have been widely adopted for use in teacher training and evaluation.
A de-emphasis of standardized tests doesn't mean that educational organizations don't support standards for teachers and students. When standardized tests take on a more proportional role, schools and teachers are freed to craft an educational experience that works best for students, according to their own professional judgment and the guidance of educational experts. That seems to be what national organizations like AFT are arguing. Their vision for education is based on engaging curricula, including project-based learning, the arts, music, physical education, social studies, civics, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math design challenges), and career and technical education. When, on the global stage, an organization like UNICEF calls for child-friendly schools in a safe, healthy, holistic environment (UNICEF, 2010), one gets the sense that both in the U.S. and abroad, educational organizations want to teach the whole child. They don't want to see such a narrow focus on certain academic indicators that we miss the larger picture of what it means to truly nurture and educate.
Other educational organizations to check out
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices- a research and development firm serving our nation's governors. This organization works with the CCSSO to host the Common Core State Standards website. Their work directly affects state policy decisions.
National Board of Professional Teaching Standards- Established in 1987, this board works "to advance accomplished teaching for all students." They offer a voluntary system by which teachers can earn a special "board certification." The process of board certification engages teachers in self reflection and professional growth, and their site is full of testimonials from teachers who have benefited from the experience.
Education International- the world's largest federation of unions. AFT is a member of Education International (EI). In fact, EI represents more than 32 million educational employees around the world. Their values seem to be in line with those of AFT, with a special emphasis on equity of all kinds. What was interesting to me is how EI and AFT collaborate. For example, EI's website features a radio interview with AFT president Randi Weingarten addressing the tragic disappearance and assumed government massacre of 43 Mexican teacher college students in 2014.
Related reading
Walker, T. (2014, September 2). The testing obsession and the disappearing curriculum. NEA Today. Retrieved from
http://neatoday.org/2014/09/02/the-testing-obsession-and-the-disappearing-curriculum-2/
Reference List
AFT, NEA, CCSSO, & NSDC. (2010). Advancing high-quality professional learning through collective bargaining and state policy. Retrieved from
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TQ_NSDC_Book10.pdf
Albright, Alice. (2016, September 21). Betting on education in Malawi. (Weblog comment).
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TQ_NSDC_Book10.pdf
Albright, Alice. (2016, September 21). Betting on education in Malawi. (Weblog comment).
Retrieved from http://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/betting-education-malawi
American Federation of Teachers. (2016). Taking action on the promise of the Every Child Succeeds Act. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/resolution/taking-action-promise-every-student-succeeds-act
American Federation of Teachers. (2016). Taking action on the promise of the Every Child Succeeds Act. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/resolution/taking-action-promise-every-student-succeeds-act
CIA World Factbook. (2015). Malawi. Retrieved from
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mi.html
Council of Chief State School Officers. (2016). InTASC model core teaching standards and learning progressions for teachers 1.0. Retrieved from http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2013/2013_INTASC_Learning_Progressions_for_Teachers.pdf
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mi.html
Council of Chief State School Officers. (2016). InTASC model core teaching standards and learning progressions for teachers 1.0. Retrieved from http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2013/2013_INTASC_Learning_Progressions_for_Teachers.pdf
Education for All Global Monitoring Report. (2015). Investing in teachers is investing in learning: a prerequisite for the transformative power of education. Retrieved from
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002338/233897e.pdf
Klein, Alyson. (2015, April 10). No Child Left Behind: an overview. Education Week. Retrieved
from http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-summary.html.
Klein, Alyson. (2015, March 31). The Every Student Succeeds Act: an ESSA overview. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/every-student-succeeds-act/index.html
National Education Association. (2016). NEA's vision, mission, and values. Retrieved from
http://www.nea.org/home/19583.htm
Klein, Alyson. (2015, April 10). No Child Left Behind: an overview. Education Week. Retrieved
from http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-summary.html.
Klein, Alyson. (2015, March 31). The Every Student Succeeds Act: an ESSA overview. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/every-student-succeeds-act/index.html
National Education Association. (2016). NEA's vision, mission, and values. Retrieved from
http://www.nea.org/home/19583.htm
UNESCO. (n.d.) Education for the 21st Century. Retrieved from
http://en.unesco.org/themes/education-21st-century
UNICEF. (2010, November 18). Child-friendly schools. Retrieved from
http://www.unicef.org/education/index_focus_schools.html
World Bank. (2016). Government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP). Retrieved from
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS
http://en.unesco.org/themes/education-21st-century
UNICEF. (2010, November 18). Child-friendly schools. Retrieved from
http://www.unicef.org/education/index_focus_schools.html
World Bank. (2016). Government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP). Retrieved from
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS
