Inquiry-based learning (also spelled as enquiry-based learning in British English) is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios. It contrasts with traditional education,
which generally relies on the teacher presenting facts and their
knowledge about the subject. Inquiry-based learning is often assisted by
a facilitator
rather than a lecturer. Inquirers will identify and research issues and
questions to develop knowledge or solutions. Inquiry-based learning
includes problem-based learning, and is generally used in small-scale investigations and projects, as well as research.
The inquiry-based instruction is principally very closely related to
the development and practice of thinking and problem-solving skills.
History
Inquiry-based learning is primarily a pedagogical method, developed during the discovery learning
movement of the 1960s as a response to traditional forms of
instruction—where people were required to memorize information from
instructional materials, such as direct instruction and rote learning. The philosophy of inquiry based learning finds its antecedents in constructivist learning theories, such as the work of Piaget, Dewey, Vygotsky, and Freire among others,
and can be considered a constructivist philosophy. Generating
information and making meaning of it based on personal or societal
experience is referred to as constructivism.
Dewey's experiential learning pedagogy (that is, learning through
experiences) comprises the learner actively participating in personal or
authentic experiences to make meaning from it.
Inquiry can be conducted through experiential learning because inquiry
values the same concepts, which include engaging with the
content/material in questioning, as well as investigating and
collaborating to make meaning. Vygotsky approached constructivism as
learning from an experience that is influenced by society and the
facilitator. The meaning constructed from an experience can be concluded
as an individual or within a group.
In the 1960s Joseph Schwab called for inquiry to be divided into three distinct levels.
This was later formalized by Marshall Herron in 1971, who developed the
Herron Scale to evaluate the amount of inquiry within a particular lab
exercise.
Since then, there have been a number of revisions proposed and inquiry
can take various forms. There is a spectrum of inquiry-based teaching
methods available.
Inquiry learning has been used as a teaching and learning tool
for thousands of years, however, the use of inquiry within public
education has a much briefer history. Ancient Greek and Roman educational philosophies focused much more on the art of agricultural and domestic skills for the middle class and oratory
for the wealthy upper class. It was not until the Enlightenment, or the
Age of Reason, during the late 17th and 18th century that the subject
of Science was considered a respectable academic body of knowledge. Up until the 1900s the study of science within education had a primary focus on memorizing and organizing facts.
John Dewey, a well-known philosopher of education at the beginning of the 20th century, was the first to criticize the fact that science education
was not taught in a way to develop young scientific thinkers. Dewey
proposed that science should be taught as a process and way of thinking –
not as a subject with facts to be memorized.
While Dewey was the first to draw attention to this issue, much of the
reform within science education followed the lifelong work and efforts
of Joseph Schwab.
Joseph Schwab was an educator who proposed that science did not need to
be a process for identifying stable truths about the world that we live
in, but rather science could be a flexible and multi-directional inquiry
driven process of thinking and learning.
Schwab believed that science in the classroom should more closely
reflect the work of practicing scientists. Schwab developed three levels
of open inquiry that align with the breakdown of inquiry processes that
we see today.
Students are provided with questions, methods and materials and are challenged to discover relationships between variables
Students are provided with a question, however, the method for research is up to the students to develop
Phenomena are proposed but students must develop their own questions
and method for research to discover relationships among variables
The graduated levels of scientific inquiry outlined by Schwab
demonstrate that students need to develop thinking skills and strategies
prior to being exposed to higher levels of inquiry.
Effectively, these skills need to be scaffolded by the teacher or
instructor until students are able to develop questions, methods, and
conclusions on their own.
Characteristics
Example
of problem/project based learning versus reading cover to cover. The
problem/project based learner may memorize a smaller amount of total
information due to spending time searching for the optimal information
across various sources, but will likely learn more useful items for real
world scenarios, and will likely be better at knowing where to find
information when needed.
Specific learning processes that people engage in during inquiry-learning include:
Creating questions of their own
Obtaining supporting evidence to answer the question(s)
Explaining the evidence collected
Connecting the explanation to the knowledge obtained from the investigative process
Creating an argument and justification for the explanation
Inquiry learning involves developing questions, making observations,
doing research to find out what information is already recorded,
developing methods for experiments, developing instruments for data
collection, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, outlining
possible explanations and creating predictions for future study.
Levels
There
are many different explanations for inquiry teaching and learning and
the various levels of inquiry that can exist within those contexts. The
article titled The Many Levels of Inquiry by Heather Banchi and Randy Bell (2008) clearly outlines four levels of inquiry.
Level 1: Confirmation inquiry
The teacher has taught a particular science theme or topic. The teacher
then develops questions and a procedure that guides students through an
activity where the results are already known. This method is great to
reinforce concepts taught and to introduce students into learning to
follow procedures, collect and record data correctly and to confirm and
deepen understandings.
Level 2: Structured inquiry
The teacher provides the initial question and an outline of the
procedure. Students are to formulate explanations of their findings
through evaluating and analyzing the data that they collect.
Level 3: Guided inquiry
The teacher provides only the research question for the students. The
students are responsible for designing and following their own
procedures to test that question and then communicate their results and
findings.
Level 4: Open/true inquiry
Students formulate their own research question(s), design and follow
through with a developed procedure, and communicate their findings and
results. This type of inquiry is often seen in science fair contexts
where students drive their own investigative questions.
Banchi and Bell (2008) explain that teachers should begin their
inquiry instruction at the lower levels and work their way to open
inquiry in order to effectively develop students' inquiry skills. Open
inquiry activities are only successful if students are motivated by
intrinsic interests and if they are equipped with the skills to conduct
their own research study.
Open/true inquiry learning
An
important aspect of inquiry-based learning is the use of open learning,
as evidence suggests that only utilizing lower level inquiry is not
enough to develop critical and scientific thinking to the full
potential. Open learning has no prescribed target or result that people have to
achieve. There is an emphasis on the individual manipulating information
and creating meaning from a set of given materials or circumstances.
In many conventional and structured learning environments, people are
told what the outcome is expected to be, and then they are simply
expected to 'confirm' or show evidence that this is the case.
Open learning has many benefits.
It means students do not simply perform experiments in a routine like
fashion, but actually think about the results they collect and what they
mean. With traditional non-open lessons there is a tendency for
students to say that the experiment 'went wrong' when they collect
results contrary to what they are told to expect. In open learning there
are no wrong results, and students have to evaluate the strengths and
weaknesses of the results they collect themselves and decide their
value.
Open learning has been developed by a number of science educators including the American John Dewey and the German Martin Wagenschein.
Wagenschein's ideas particularly complement both open learning and
inquiry-based learning in teaching work. He emphasized that students
should not be taught bald facts, but should understand and explain what
they are learning. His most famous example of this was when he asked
physics students to tell him what the speed of a falling object was.
Nearly all students would produce an equation, but no students could
explain what this equation meant. Wagenschein used this example to show the importance of understanding over knowledge.
Although both guided and open/true inquiry were found to promote
science literacy and interest, each has its own advantages. While
open/true inquiry may contribute to students' initiative, flexibility
and adaptability better than guided inquiry in the long run,
some claim that it may lead to high cognitive load and that guided
inquiry is more efficient in terms of time and content learning.
Inquisitive learning
Sociologist of education Phillip Brown defined inquisitive learning as learning that is intrinsically motivated (e.g. by curiosity and interest in knowledge for its own sake), as opposed to acquisitive learning that is extrinsically motivated (e.g. by acquiring high scores on examinations to earn credentials). However, occasionally the term inquisitive learning is simply used as a synonym for inquiry-based learning.
Neuroscience
The
literature states that inquiry requires multiple cognitive processes
and variables, such as causality and co-occurrence that enrich with age
and experience.
Kuhn, et al. (2000) used explicit training workshops to teach children
in grades six to eight in the United States how to inquire through a
quantitative study. By completing an inquiry-based task at the end of
the study, the participants demonstrated enhanced mental models by
applying different inquiry strategies.
In a similar study, Kuhan and Pease (2008) completed a longitudinal
quantitative study following a set of American children from grades four
to six to investigate the effectiveness of scaffolding strategies for
inquiry. Results demonstrated that children benefitted from the
scaffolding because they outperformed the grade seven control group on
an inquiry task.
Teacher training
A new inquiry program tends to benefit from professional collaboration.
The teacher training and process of using inquiry learning should be a
joint mission to ensure the maximal amount of resources are used and
that the teachers are producing the best learning scenarios. Twigg's
(2010) education professionals who participated in her experiment
emphasized year round professional development sessions, such as
workshops, weekly meetings and observations, to ensure inquiry is being
implemented in the class correctly.
Another example is Chu's (2009) study, where the participants
appreciated the professional collaboration of educators, information
technicians and librarians to provide more resources and expertise for
preparing the structure and resources for the inquiry project.
By subject
Science education
History
A catalyst for reform within North American science education was the 1957 launch of Sputnik,
the Soviet Union satellite. This historical scientific breakthrough
caused a great deal of concern around the science and technology
education the American students were receiving. In 1958 the U.S.
congress developed and passed the National Defense Education Act in order to provide math and science teachers with adequate teaching materials.
Science standards
America's Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
embrace student centered inquiry-based pedagogy by implementing a
three-part approach to science education: Disciplinary Core Ideas
(DCIs), Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), and Cross Cutting
Concepts (CCCs).
The standards are designed so that students learn science by performing
scientific practices in the classroom. Students use practices such as
asking questions, planning and carrying out investigations,
collaborating, collecting and analyzing data, and arguing from evidence
to learn the core ideas and concepts in scientific content areas. These
practices are comparable to the 21st century skills
that have been shown to be indicators of success in modern societies
and workplaces regardless of whether that field is science based.
Pedagogical applications
Inquiry-based
pedagogy in science education has been shown to increase students'
scientific knowledge and literacy when compared to when students are
taught using more traditional pedagogical methods.However, even though students in inquiry-based classrooms are shown to
have higher scientific knowledge, they have also been shown to have
increased frustration and decreased confidence in scientific ability
when compared to their peers taught using traditional methods. Research has also shown that while inquiry-based pedagogy has been
shown to improve students' science achievement, social contexts must be
taken into account. This is because achievement gaps among students may
be as likely to widen as they are to decrease due to differences in
student readiness for inquiry-based learning based on social and
economic status differences.
In cases where students' scientific knowledge in an inquiry based
classroom was not significantly different than their peers taught in
traditional methods, student problem solving ability was found to be
improved for inquiry learning students.
Inquiry as a pedagogical framework and learning process fits within
many educational models including Problem Based Learning and the 5E
Model of Education.
Problem-based learning
Inquiry as a pedagogical framework has been shown to be especially effective when used along problem-based learning (PBL) assignments.
As a student-centered strategy, problem-based learning fits well within
an inquiry based classroom. Students learn science by performing
science: asking questions, designing experiments, collecting data,
making claims, and using data to support claims. By creating a culture
and community of inquiry in a science classroom, students learn science
by working collaboratively with their peers to investigate the world
around them and ways to solve problems affecting their communities.
Students confronted with real world problems that affect their everyday
lives are shown to have increased engagement and feel more encouraged
to solve the problems posed to them.
5E Model of Science Education
The
5E Model of Science Education is a planning structure that helps
science teachers develop student centered inquiry-based lessons and
units. In the 5E model, students learn science by exploring their
questions using the same approach scientists explore their questions. By
using this approach, science teachers help their students connect
scientific content learned in the classroom with phenomena from their
own lives and apply that learning to new areas, in science and beyond.
The 5E Model is broken into the following sections which may repeat and occur at various stages of the learning process.
Engage: This is generally considered to be the opening
stage of the 5E Model and is used to inspire student curiosity and
should help students connect new phenomena to prior learning. This stage
of the 5E model also aims to identify student misconceptions that need
to be addressed through the lessons designed by the teacher.
Explore: In this stage, students investigate the phenomena
observed during the engage stage and answer any questions they have
generated based on their observations. The level of inquiry (i.e. fully
open vs. guided) may vary based on the level, age, and readiness of
students.
Explain: In this stage, the teacher helps students piece
together the information they gathered during the explore stage. Again,
the level of direct teacher instruction and explanation may vary based
on the level, age, and readiness of students.
Elaborate/Expand: This stage determines if students are truly
able to apply the information they have learned to new areas and to the
solution of real world problems.
Evaluate: In this stage students evaluate their own learning
and the teacher evaluates student understanding and ability to apply
knowledge to multiple areas.
Collaboration and communication
Effective
collaboration and communication is an integral part of scientists' and
engineers' everyday lives and their importance is reflected in the
representation of these skills in the science and engineering practices
of the Next Generation Science Standards. Inquiry education supports
these skills, especially when students take part in a community of inquiry.
Students who are actively collaborating and communicating in an inquiry
based science class exhibit and develop many of these skills.Specifically, these students:
make observations and ask questions with their peers
work with peers to design solutions to problems
analyze claims of their peers
argue from evidence
support their peers' growth and search for knowledge
Social studies and history
The
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State
Standards was a joint collaboration among states and social studies
organizations, including the National Council for the Social Studies,
designed to focus social studies education on the practice of inquiry,
emphasizing "the disciplinary concepts and practices that support
students as they develop the capacity to know, analyze, explain, and
argue about interdisciplinary challenges in our social world."
The C3 Framework recommends an "Inquiry Arc" incorporating four
dimensions: 1. developing questions and planning inquiries; 2. applying
disciplinary concepts and tools; 3. evaluating primary sources and using
evidence; and 4. communicating conclusions and taking informed action.
For example, a theme for this approach could be an exploration of
etiquette today and in the past. Students might formulate their own
questions or begin with an essential question such as "Why are men and
women expected to follow different codes of etiquette?" Students explore
change and continuity of manners over time and the perspectives of
different cultures and groups of people. They analyze primary source
documents such as books of etiquette from different time periods and
form conclusions that answer the inquiry questions. Students finally
communicate their conclusions in formal essays or creative projects.
They may also take action by recommending solutions for improving school
climate.
Robert Bain in How Students Learn described a similar approach called "problematizing history".
First a learning curriculum is organized around central concepts. Next,
a question and primary sources are provided, such as eyewitness
historical accounts. The task for inquiry is to create an interpretation
of history that will answer the central question. Students will form a
hypothesis, collect and consider information and revisit their
hypothesis as they evaluate their data.
By region
Ontario
After Charles Pascal's report in 2009, the Canadian province of Ontario's
Ministry of Education decided to implement a full day kindergarten
program that focuses on inquiry and play-based learning, called The
Early Learning Kindergarten Program. As of September 2014, all primary schools in Ontario started the program. The curriculum document
outlines the philosophy, definitions, process and core learning
concepts for the program. Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, Vygotsky's
zone of proximal development, Piaget's child development theory and
Dewey's experiential learning are the heart of the program's design. As
research shows, children learn best through play, whether it is
independently or in a group. Three forms of play are noted in the
curriculum document, pretend or "pretense" play, socio-dramatic play and
constructive play. Through play and authentic experiences, children
interact with their environment (people and/or objects) and question
things; thus leading to inquiry learning. A chart on page 15 clearly
outlines the process of inquiry for young children, including initial
engagement, exploration, investigation, and communication. The new program supports holistic approach to learning. For further details, please see the curriculum document.
Since the program is extremely new,
there is limited research on its success and areas of improvement. One
government research report was released with the initial groups of
children in the new kindergarten program. The Final Report: Evaluation
of the Implementation of the Ontario Full-Day Early-Learning
Kindergarten Program from Vanderlee, Youmans, Peters, and Eastabrook
(2012) conclude with primary research that high-need children improved
more compared to children who did not attend Ontario's new kindergarten
program.
As with inquiry-based learning in all divisions and subject areas,
longitudinal research is needed to examine the full extent of this
teaching/learning method.
Netherlands
Since
2013, Dutch children have participated in a curriculum of learning to
read through an inquiry-based pedagogical program. The program, from the
Dutch developmental psychologist Ewald Vervaet, is named Ontdekkend Leren Lezen (OLL; 'Discovery Learning to Read') and has three parts.
OLL's main characteristic is that it is for children who are reading
mature. Reading maturity is assessed with the Reading Maturity Test. It
is a descriptive test that consists of two subtests.
Benefits
Chu
(2009) used a mixed method design to examine the outcome of an inquiry
project completed by students in Hong Kong with the assistance of
multiple educators. Chu's (2009) results show that the children were
more motivated and academically successful compared to the control
group.
Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn cite several studies supporting the success of the constructivist problem-based
and inquiry learning methods. For example, they describe a project
called GenScope, an inquiry-based science software application. Students
using the GenScope software showed significant gains over the control
groups, with the largest gains shown in students from basic courses.
A large study by Geier on the effectiveness of inquiry-based
science for middle school students, as demonstrated by their performance
on high-stakes standardized tests, showed the improvement was 14% for
the first cohort of students and 13% for the second cohort. This study
also found that inquiry-based teaching methods greatly reduced the
achievement gap for African-American students.
Misconceptions
There
are several common misconceptions regarding inquiry-based science, the
first being that inquiry science is simply instruction that teaches
students to follow the scientific method. Many teachers had the
opportunity to work within the constraints of the scientific method as
students themselves and assume inquiry learning must be the same.
Inquiry science is not just about solving problems in six simple steps
but much more broadly focused on the intellectual problem-solving skills
developed throughout a scientific process. Additionally, not every hands-on lesson can be considered inquiry.
Some educators believe that there is only one true method of
inquiry, which would be described as the level four: Open Inquiry. While
open inquiry may be the most authentic form of inquiry, there are many
skills and a level of conceptual understanding that the students must
have developed before they can be successful at this high level of
inquiry.
While inquiry-based science is considered to be a teaching strategy
that fosters higher order thinking in students, it should be one of
several methods used. A multifaceted approach to science keeps students
engaged and learning.
Criticism
Empirical evidence
Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006)
review of literature found that although constructivists often cite
each other's work, empirical evidence is not often cited. Nonetheless
the constructivist movement gained great momentum in the 1990s, because
many educators began to write about this philosophy of learning.
Richard E. Mayer from the University of California, Santa
Barbara, wrote in 2004 that there was sufficient research evidence to
make any reasonable person skeptical about the benefits of discovery
learning—practiced under the guise of cognitive constructivism or social
constructivism—as a preferred instructional method. He reviewed
research on discovery of problem-solving rules culminating in the 1960s,
discovery of conservation strategies culminating in the 1970s, and
discovery of LOGO programming strategies culminating in the 1980s. In
each case, guided discovery was more effective than pure discovery in
helping students learn and transfer.
Inquiry-based teaching can be perceived as in conflict with standardized testing common in standards-based assessment systems which emphasize the measurement of student knowledge and skills.
Excess
In
a 2006 article, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's president, Chester E.
Finn Jr., was quoted as saying "But like so many things in education,
it gets carried to excess... [the approach is] fine to some degree." The organization ran a study in 2005 concluding that the emphasis states put on inquiry-based learning is too great.
Teacher and student effort
It
should be cautioned that inquiry-based learning takes a lot of planning
before implementation. It is not something that can be put into place
in the classroom quickly. Measurements must be put in place for how
students knowledge and performance will be measured and how standards
will be incorporated. The teacher's responsibility during inquiry
exercises is to support and facilitate student learning (Bell et al.,
769–770). A common mistake teachers make is lacking the vision to see
where students' weaknesses lie. According to Bain, teachers cannot
assume that students will hold the same assumptions and thinking
processes as a professional within that discipline (p. 201).
Not every student is going to learn the same amount from an
inquiry lesson; students must be invested in the topic of study to
authentically reach the set learning goals. Teachers must be prepared to
ask students questions to probe their thinking processes in order to
assess accurately. Inquiry-science requires a lot of time, effort, and
expertise, however, the benefits outweigh the cost when true authentic
learning can take place.
Education reform is the name given to the goal of changing public education.
The meaning and education methods have changed through debates over
what content or experiences result in an educated individual or an
educated society. Historically, the motivations for reform have not
reflected the current needs of society. A consistent theme of reform
includes the idea that large systematic changes to educational standards
will produce social returns in citizens' health, wealth, and
well-being.
As part of the broader social and political processes, the term
education reform refers to the chronology of significant, systematic
revisions made to amend the educational legislation, standards, methodology, and policy affecting a nation's public school system to reflect the needs and values of contemporary society. 18th century, classical education
instruction from an in-home personal tutor, hired at the family's
expense, was primarily a privilege for children from wealthy families.
Innovations such as encyclopedias, public libraries, and grammar schools
all aimed to relieve some of the financial burden associated with the
expenses of the classical education model. Motivations during the Victorian era emphasized the importance of self-improvement. Victorian education
focused on teaching commercially valuable topics, such as modern
languages and mathematics, rather than classical liberal arts subjects,
such as Latin, art, and history.
Motivations for education reformists like Horace Mann and his proponents focused on making schooling more accessible and developing a robust state-supported common school system. John Dewey,
an early 20th-century reformer, focused on improving society by
advocating for a scientific, pragmatic, or democratic principle-based
curriculum. Whereas Maria Montessori incorporated humanistic motivations to "meet the needs of the child". In historic Prussia,
a motivation to foster national unity led to formal education
concentrated on teaching national language literacy to young children,
resulting in Kindergarten.
The history of educational pedagogy
in the United States has ranged from teaching literacy and proficiency
of religious doctrine to establishing cultural literacy, assimilating
immigrants into a democratic society, producing a skilled labor force for the industrialized workplace, preparing students for careers, and competing in a global marketplace. Education inequality is also a motivation for education reform, seeking to address problems of a community.
Motivations for education reform
Education reform, in general, implies a continual effort to modify and improve the institution of education. Over time, as the needs and values of society change, attitudes towards public education change. As a social institution, education plays an integral role in the process of socialization.
"Socialization is broadly composed of distinct inter- and
intra-generational processes. Both involve the harmonization of an
individual's attitudes and behaviors with that of their socio-cultural
milieu." Educational matrices mean to reinforce those socially acceptable informal and formal norms, values, and beliefs that individuals need to learn in order to be accepted as good, functioning, and productive members of their society.
Education reform is the process of constantly renegotiating and
restructuring the educational standards to reflect the ever-evolving
contemporary ideals of social, economic, and political culture. Reforms can be based on bringing education into alignment with a society's core values. Reforms that attempt to change a society's core values can connect
alternative education initiatives with a network of other alternative
institutions.
Education reform has been pursued for a variety of specific
reasons, but generally most reforms aim at redressing some societal
ills, such as poverty-, gender-, or class-based
inequities, or perceived ineffectiveness. Current education trends in
the United States represent multiple achievement gaps across
ethnicities, income levels, and geographies. As McKinsey and Company
reported in a 2009 analysis, "These educational gaps impose on the
United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national
recession."
Reforms are usually proposed by thinkers who aim to redress societal
ills or institute societal changes, most often through a change in the
education of the members of a class of people—the preparation of a
ruling class to rule or a working class to work, the social hygiene of a
lower or immigrant class, the preparation of citizens in a democracy or
republic, etc. The idea that all children should be provided with a
high level of education is a relatively recent idea, and has arisen
largely in the context of Western democracy in the 20th century.
The "beliefs" of school districts are optimistic that quite literally "all students will succeed", which in the context of high school graduation examination in the United States,
all students in all groups, regardless of heritage or income will pass
tests that in the introduction typically fall beyond the ability of all
but the top 20 to 30 percent of students. The claims clearly renounce
historical research that shows that all ethnic and income groups score
differently on all standardized tests and standards based assessments and that students will achieve on a bell curve.
Instead, education officials across the world believe that by setting
clear, achievable, higher standards, aligning the curriculum, and
assessing outcomes, learning can be increased for all students, and more
students can succeed than the 50 percent who are defined to be above or
below grade level by norm referenced standards.
States have tried to use state schools to increase state power, especially to make better soldiers and workers. This strategy was first adopted to unify related linguistic groups in Europe, including France, Germany and Italy.
Exact mechanisms are unclear, but it often fails in areas where
populations are culturally segregated, as when the U.S. Indian school
service failed to suppress Lakota and Navaho, or when a culture has widely respected autonomous cultural institutions, as when the Spanish failed to suppress Catalan.
Many students of democracy have desired to improve education in
order to improve the quality of governance in democratic societies; the
necessity of good public education follows logically if one believes
that the quality of democratic governance depends on the ability of
citizens to make informed, intelligent choices, and that education can
improve these abilities.
Politically motivated educational reforms of the democratic type are recorded as far back as Plato in The Republic. In the United States, this lineage of democratic education reform was continued by Thomas Jefferson, who advocated ambitious reforms partly along Platonic lines for public schooling in Virginia.
Another motivation for reform is the desire to address
socio-economic problems, which many people see as having significant
roots in lack of education. Starting in the 20th century, people have
attempted to argue that small improvements in education can have large
returns in such areas as health, wealth and well-being. For example, in Kerala, India in the 1950s, increases in women's health were correlated with increases in female literacy rates. In Iran,
increased primary education was correlated with increased farming
efficiencies and income. In both cases some researchers have concluded
these correlations as representing an underlying causal relationship:
education causes socio-economic benefits. In the case of Iran,
researchers concluded that the improvements were due to farmers gaining
reliable access to national crop prices and scientific farming
information.
History
Classical education
As taught from the 18th to the 19th century, Western classical education
curriculums focused on concrete details like "Who?", "What?", "When?",
"Where?". Unless carefully taught, large group instruction naturally
neglects asking the theoretical "Why?" and "Which?" questions that can
be discussed in smaller groups.
Classical education in this period also did not teach local (vernacular)
languages and culture. Instead, it taught high-status ancient languages
(Greek and Latin) and their cultures. This produced odd social effects
in which an intellectual class might be more loyal to ancient cultures
and institutions than to their native vernacular languages and their
actual governing authorities.
18th century
Child-study
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, father of the Child Study Movement, centered the child as an object of study.
Rousseau provided a dual critique of the educational vision
outlined in Plato's Republic and that of his society in contemporary
Europe. He regarded the educational methods contributing to the child's
development; he held that a person could either be a man or a citizen.
While Plato's plan could have brought the latter at the expense of the
former, contemporary education failed at both tasks. He advocated a
radical withdrawal of the child from society and an educational process
that utilized the child's natural potential and curiosity, teaching the
child by confronting them with simulated real-life obstacles and
conditioning the child through experience rather intellectual
instruction.
European
and Asian nations regard education as essential to maintaining
national, cultural, and linguistic unity. In the late 18th century
(~1779), Prussia instituted primary school reforms expressly to teach a unified version of the national language, "Hochdeutsch".
One significant reform was kindergarten whose purpose was to have
the children participate in supervised activities taught by instructors
who spoke the national language. The concept embraced the idea that
children absorb new language skills more easily and quickly when they
are young
The current model of kindergarten is reflective of the Prussian model.
In other countries, such as the Soviet Union, France, Spain, and Germany, the Prussian model has dramatically improved reading and math test scores for linguistic minorities.
19th century England
In the 19th century, before the advent of government-funded public schools, Protestant organizations established Charity Schools to educate the lower social classes. The Roman Catholic Church and governments later adopted the model.
Designed to be inexpensive, Charity schools operated on minimal
budgets and strived to serve as many needy children as possible. This
led to the development of grammar schools, which primarily focused on teaching literacy, grammar, and bookkeeping skills so that the students could use books as an inexpensive resource to continue their education. Grammar was the first third of the then-prevalent system of classical education.
Educators Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell developed the monitorial system, also known as "mutual instruction" or the "Bell–Lancaster method". Their contemporary, educationalist and writer Elizabeth Hamilton, suggested that in some important aspects the method had been "anticipated" by the Belfast schoolmaster David Manson.
In the 1760s Manson had developed a peer-teaching and monitoring system
within the context of what he called a "play school" that dispensed
with "the discipline of the rod". (More radically, Manson proposed the "liberty of each [child] to take the quantity [of lessons] agreeable to his inclination").
Lancaster, an impoverished Quaker during the early 19th century in London and Bell at the Madras School of India
developed this model independent of one another. However, by design,
their model utilizes more advanced students as a resource to teach the
less advanced students; achieving student-teacher ratios as small as 1:2
and educating more than 1000 students per adult. The lack of adult
supervision at the Lancaster school resulted in the older children
acting as disciplinary monitors and taskmasters.
To provide order and promote discipline the school implemented a unique internal economic system, inventing a currency called a Scrip.
Although the currency was worthless in the outside world, it was
created at a fixed exchange rate from a student's tuition and student's
could use scrip to buy food, school supplies, books, and other items
from the school store. Students could earn scrip through tutoring. To
promote discipline, the school adopted a work-study model. Every job of
the school was bid-for by students, with the largest bid winning.
However, any student tutor could auction positions in his or her classes
to earn scrip. The bids for student jobs paid for the adult
supervision.
Joseph Lancaster
Lancaster promoted his system in a piece called Improvements in
Education that spread widely throughout the English-speaking world.
Lancaster schools provided a grammar-school education with fully
developed internal economies for a cost per student near $40 per year in
1999 U.S. dollars. To reduce cost and motivated to save up scrip,
Lancaster students rented individual pages of textbooks from the school
library instead of purchasing the textbook. Student's would read aloud
their pages to groups. Students commonly exchanged tutoring and paid for
items and services with receipts from down tutoring.
The schools did not teach submission to orthodox Christian
beliefs or government authorities. As a result, most English-speaking
countries developed mandatory publicly paid education explicitly to keep
public education in "responsible" hands. These elites said that
Lancaster schools might become dishonest, provide poor education, and
were not accountable to established authorities. Lancaster's supporters
responded that any child could cheat given the opportunity, and that the
government was not paying for the education and thus deserved no say in
their composition.
Though motivated by charity, Lancaster claimed in his pamphlets
to be surprised to find that he lived well on the income of his school,
even while the low costs made it available to the most impoverished
street children. Ironically, Lancaster lived on the charity of friends
in his later life.
Modern reformist
Although
educational reform occurred on a local level at various points
throughout history, the modern notion of education reform is tied with
the spread of compulsory education.
Economic growth and the spread of democracy raised the value of
education and increased the importance of ensuring that all children and
adults have access to free, high-quality, effective education. Modern
education reforms are increasingly driven by a growing understanding of
what works in education and how to go about successfully improving
teaching and learning in schools.
However, in some cases, the reformers' goals of "high-quality
education" has meant "high-intensity education", with a narrow emphasis
on teaching individual, test-friendly subskills quickly, regardless of
long-term outcomes, developmental appropriateness, or broader
educational goals.
Horace Mann
Horace Mann, regarded as the father of American public education
In the United States, Horace Mann (1796 – 1859) of Massachusetts used his political base and role as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education to promote public education in his home state and nationwide.
Advocating a substantial public investment be made in education, Mann
and his proponents developed a strong system of state supported common schools.
His crusading style attracted wide middle class support. Historian Ellwood P. Cubberley asserts:
No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the
American people the conception that education should be universal,
non-sectarian, free, and that its aims should be social efficiency,
civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the
advancement of sectarian ends.
In 1852, Massachusetts passed a law making education mandatory. This model of free, accessible education spread throughout the country and in 1917 Mississippi was the final state to adopt the law.
John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey,
a philosopher and educator based in Chicago and New York, helped
conceptualize the role of American and international education during
the first four decades of the 20th century. An important member of the
American Pragmatist movement, he carried the subordination of knowledge to action into the educational world by arguing for experiential education
that would enable children to learn theory and practice simultaneously;
a well-known example is the practice of teaching elementary physics and
biology to students while preparing a meal. He was a harsh critic of
"dead" knowledge disconnected from practical human life.
Dewey criticized the rigidity and volume of humanistic education,
and the emotional idealizations of education based on the child-study
movement that had been inspired by Rousseau and those who followed him.
Dewey understood that children are naturally active and curious and
learn by doing.
Dewey's understanding of logic is presented in his work "Logic, the
Theory of Inquiry" (1938). His educational philosophies were presented
in "My Pedagogic Creed", The School and Society, The Child and Curriculum, and Democracy and Education (1916). Bertrand Russell
criticized Dewey's conception of logic, saying "What he calls "logic"
does not seem to me to be part of logic at all; I should call it part of
psychology."
Dewey left the University of Chicago in 1904 over issues relating to the Dewey School.
Dewey's influence began to decline in the time after the Second World War and particularly in the Cold War era, as more conservative educational policies came to the fore.
Administrative progressives
The form of educational progressivism which was most successful in having its policies
implemented has been dubbed "administrative progressivism" by
historians. This began to be implemented in the early 20th century.
While influenced particularly in its rhetoric by Dewey and even more by his popularizers, administrative progressivism was in its practice much more influenced by the Industrial Revolution and the concept economies of scale.
The administrative progressives are responsible for many features
of modern American education, especially American high schools:
counseling programs, the move from many small local high schools to
large centralized high schools, curricular differentiation in the form
of electives and tracking, curricular, professional, and other forms of
standardization, and an increase in state and federal regulation and
bureaucracy, with a corresponding reduction of local control at the
school board level. (Cf. "State, federal, and local control of education
in the United States", below) (Tyack and Cuban, pp. 17–26)
These reforms have since become heavily entrenched, and many
today who identify themselves as progressives are opposed to many of
them, while conservative education reform during the Cold War embraced
them as a framework for strengthening traditional curriculum and
standards.
More recent methods, instituted by groups such as the think tank Reform's education division, and S.E.R. have attempted to pressure the government of the U.K. into more modernist educational reform, though this has met with limited success.
Public school reform in the United States
In the United States, public education
is characterized as "any federally funded primary or secondary school,
administered to some extent by the government, and charged with
educating all citizens.[30]
Although there is typically a cost to attend some public higher
education institutions, they are still considered part of public
education."
Colonial America
In
what would become the United States, the first public school was
established in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 23, 1635. Puritan
schoolmaster Philemon Pormont led instruction at the Boston Latin School.
During this time, post-secondary education was a commonly utilized tool
to distinguish one's social class and social status. Access to
education was the "privilege of white, upper-class, Christian male
children" in preparation for university education in ministry.
In colonial America, to maintain Puritan religious traditions, formal
and informal education instruction focused on teaching literacy.
All colonists needed to understand the written language on some
fundamental level in order to read the Bible and the colony's written
secular laws. Religious leaders recognized that each person should be
"educated enough to meet the individual needs of their station in life
and social harmony." The first compulsory education laws
were passed in Massachusetts between 1642 and 1648 when religious
leaders noticed not all parents were providing their children with proper education.
These laws stated that all towns with 50 or more families were
obligated to hire a schoolmaster to teach children reading, writing, and
basic arithmetic.
"In
1642 the General Court passed a law that required heads of households
to teach all their dependents — apprentices and servants as well as
their own children — to read English or face a fine. Parents could
provide the instruction themselves or hire someone else to do it.
Selectmen were to keep 'a vigilant eye over their brethren and
neighbors,' young people whose education was neglected could be removed
from their parents or masters."
The
1647 law eventually led to establishing publicly funded district
schools in all Massachusetts towns, although, despite the threat of
fines, compliance and quality of public schools were less than
satisfactory.
"Many
towns were 'shamefully neglectful' of children's education. In 1718
'...by sad experience, it is found that many towns that not only are
obliged by law, but are very able to support a grammar school, yet
choose rather to incur and pay the fine or penalty than maintain a
grammar school."
When John Adams drafted the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780,
he included provisions for a comprehensive education law that
guaranteed public education to "all" citizens. However, access to formal
education in secondary schools and colleges was reserved for free,
white males. During the 17th and 18th centuries, females received little
or no formal education except for home learning or attending Dame Schools. Likewise, many educational institutions maintained a policy of refusing to admit Black applicants. The Virginia Code of 1819 outlawed teaching enslaved people to read or write.
Post-revolution
Soon after the American Revolution, early leaders, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams,
proposed the creation of a more "formal and unified system of publicly
funded schools" to satiate the need to "build and maintain commerce,
agriculture and shipping interests".
Their concept of free public education was not well received and did
not begin to take hold on until the 1830s. However, in 1790, evolving
socio-cultural ideals in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
led to the first significant and systematic reform in education
legislation that mandated economic conditions would not inhibit a
child's access to education:
Reconstruction and the American Industrial Revolution
During Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1877, African Americans worked to encourage public education in the South. With the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson,
which held that "segregated public facilities were constitutional so
long as the black and white facilities were equal to each other", this
meant that African American children were legally allowed to attend
public schools, although these schools were still segregated based on race. However, by the mid-twentieth century, civil rights groups would challenge racial segregation.
During the second half of the nineteenth century (1870 and 1914), America's Industrial Revolution
refocused the nation's attention on the need for a universally
accessible public school system. Inventions, innovations, and improved
production methods were critical to the continued growth of American
manufacturing. To compete in the global economy,
an overwhelming demand for literate workers that possessed practical
training emerged. Citizens argued, "educating children of the poor and
middle classes would prepare them to obtain good jobs, thereby
strengthen the nation's economic position."
Institutions became an essential tool in yielding ideal factory workers
with sought-after attitudes and desired traits such as dependability,
obedience, and punctuality. Vocationally oriented schools
offered practical subjects like shop classes for students who were not
planning to attend college for financial or other reasons. Not until the
latter part of the 19th century did public elementary schools become
available throughout the country. Although, it would be longer for
children of color, girls, and children with special needs to attain
access free public education.
In the early 1950s, most U.S. public schools operated under a
legally sanctioned racial segregation system. Civil Rights reform
movements sought to address the biases that ensure unequal distribution
of academic resources such as school funding, qualified and experienced
teachers, and learning materials to those socially excluded communities. In the early 1950s, the NAACP
lawyers brought class-action lawsuits on behalf of black schoolchildren
and their families in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware,
petitioning court orders to compel school districts to let black
students attend white public schools. Finally, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that framework with Brown v. Board of Education and declared state-sponsored segregation of public schools unconstitutional.
In 1964, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
"prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national
origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial
assistance."
Educational institutions could now utilize public funds to implement
in-service training programs to assist teachers and administrators in
establishing desegregation plans.
In 1965, the Higher Education Act (HEA) authorizes federal aid for postsecondary students.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(ESEA) represents the federal government's commitment to providing
equal access to quality education; including those children from
low-income families, limited English proficiency, and other minority
groups. This legislation had positive retroactive implications for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, more commonly known as HBCUs.
"The Higher Education Act of 1965,
as amended, defines an HBCU as: "…any historically black college or
university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission
was, and is, the education of black Americans, and that is accredited by
a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by
the Secretary [of Education] to be a reliable authority as to the
quality of training offered or is, according to such an agency or
association, making reasonable progress toward accreditation."
Known as the Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of ESEA, offered federal aid to school districts to provide bilingual instruction for students with limited English speaking ability.
"Title I: Bilingual Education Act - Authorizes appropriations for carrying out the provisions of this Act. Establishes, in the Office of Education,
an Office of Bilingual Education through which the Commissioner of
Education shall carry out his functions relating to bilingual education.
Authorizes appropriations for school nutrition and health services,
correction education services, and ethnic heritage studies centers.
Title II: Equal Educational Opportunities and the Transportation of Students: Equal Educational Opportunities Act
- Provides that no state shall deny equal educational opportunity to an
individual on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national
origin by means of specified practices...
Title IV: Consolidation of Certain Education Programs: Authorizes
appropriations for use in various education programs including
libraries and learning resources, education for use of the metric system
of measurement, gifted and talented children programs, community
schools, career education, consumers' education, women's equity in
education programs, and arts in education programs.
Community Schools Act - Authorizes the Commissioner to make
grants to local educational agencies to assist in planning,
establishing, expanding, and operating community education programs
Women's Educational Equity Act
- Establishes the Advisory Council on Women's Educational Programs and
sets forth the composition of such Council. Authorizes the Commissioner
of Education to make grants to, and enter into contracts with, public
agencies, private nonprofit organizations, and individuals for
activities designed to provide educational equity for women in the United States.
Title V: Education Administration: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA)- Provides that no funds shall be made available under the
General Education Provisions Act to any State or local educational
agency or educational institution which denies or prevents the parents
of students to inspect and review all records and files regarding their
children.
Title VII: National Reading Improvement Program: Authorizes the
Commissioner to contract with State or local educational agencies for
the carrying out by such agencies, in schools having large numbers of
children with reading deficiencies, of demonstration projects involving
the use of innovative methods, systems, materials, or programs which
show promise of overcoming such reading deficiencies."
"[T]he federal government and virtually all state governments, teacher
training institutions, teachers' unions, major foundations, and the mass
media have all pushed strenuously for higher standards, greater
accountability, more "time on task," and more impressive academic
results".
In the latter half of the decade, E. D. Hirsch
put forth an influential attack on one or more versions of progressive
education. Advocating an emphasis on "cultural literacy"—the facts,
phrases, and texts.
In 1994, the land grant system was expanded via the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to include tribal colleges.
Most states and districts in the 1990s adopted outcome-based education
(OBE) in some form or another. A state would create a committee to
adopt standards, and choose a quantitative instrument to assess whether
the students knew the required content or could perform the required
tasks.
In 1992 The National Commission on Time and Learning, Extension revise funding for civic education programs and those educationally disadvantaged children.
In 1994 the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965;
amended as The Eisenhower Professional Development Program; IASA
designated Title I funds for low income and otherwise marginalized
groups; i.e., females, minorities, individuals with disabilities,
individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP).
By tethering federal funding distributions to student achievement, IASA
meant use high stakes testing and curriculum standards to hold schools
accountable for their results at the same level as other students. The
Act significantly increased impact aid for the establishment of the
Charter School Program, drug awareness campaigns, bilingual education, and technology.
In 1998 The Charter School Expansion Act amended the Charter School Program, enacted in 1994.
The standards-based National Education Goals 2000, set by the U.S. Congress in the 1990s, were based on the principles of outcomes-based education. In 2002, the standards-based reform movement culminated as the No Child left Behind Act of 2001 where achievement standard were set by each individual state. This federal policy was active until 2015 in the United States .
An article released by CBNC.com said a principal Senate Committee
will take into account legislation that reauthorizes and modernizes the
Carl D. Perkins Act. President George Bush approved this statute in
2006 on August 12, 2006.
This new bill will emphasize the importance of federal funding for
various Career and Technical (CTE) programs that will better provide
learners with in-demand skills. Pell Grants are specific amount of money
is given by the government every school year for disadvantaged students
who need to pay tuition fees in college.
At present, there are many initiatives aimed at dealing with
these concerns like innovative cooperation between federal and state
governments, educators, and the business sector. One of these efforts is
the Pathways to Technology Early College High School (P-TECH).
This six-year program was launched in cooperation with IBM, educators
from three cities in New York, Chicago, and Connecticut, and over 400
businesses. The program offers students in high school and associate programs focusing on the STEM curriculum.
The High School Involvement Partnership, private and public venture,
was established through the help of Northrop Grumman, a global security
firm. It has given assistance to some 7,000 high school students
(juniors and seniors) since 1971 by means of one-on-one coaching as well
as exposure to STEM areas and careers.
In 2012 the Obama administration launched the Race to the Top competition aimed at spurring K–12 education reform through higher standards.
"The
Race to the Top – District competition will encourage transformative
change within schools, targeted toward leveraging, enhancing, and
improving classroom practices and resources.
The four key areas of reform include:
Development of rigorous standards and better assessments
Adoption of better data systems to provide schools, teachers, and parents with information about student progress
Support for teachers and school leaders to become more effective
Increased emphasis and resources for the rigorous interventions needed to turn around the lowest-performing schools"
In 2015, under the Obama administration, many of the
more restrictive elements that were enacted under No Child Left Behind
(NCLB, 2001), were removed in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA,
2015) which limits the role of the federal government in school liability. Every Student Succeeds Act
reformed educational standards by "moving away from such high stakes
and assessment based accountability models" and focused on assessing
student achievement from a holistic approach by utilizing qualitative
measures.
Some argue that giving states more authority can help prevent
considerable discrepancies in educational performance across different
states.
ESSA was approved by former President Obama in 2015 which amended and
empowered the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
The Department of Education has the choice to carry out measures in
drawing attention to said differences by pinpointing lowest-performing
state governments and supplying information on the condition and
progress of each state on different educational parameters. It can also
provide reasonable funding along with technical aid to help states with
similar demographics collaborate in improving their public education
programs.
Social and emotional learning: strengths-based education model
This
uses a methodology that values purposeful engagement in activities that
turn students into self-reliant and efficient learners. Holding on to
the view that everyone possesses natural gifts that are unique to one's
personality (e.g. computational aptitude, musical talent, visual arts
abilities), it likewise upholds the idea that children, despite their
inexperience and tender age, are capable of coping with anguish, able to
survive hardships, and can rise above difficult times.
Trump administration
In 2017, Betsy DeVos
was instated as the 11th Secretary of Education. A strong proponent of
school choice, school voucher programs, and charter schools, DeVos was a
much-contested choice as her own education and career had little to do
with formal experience in the US education system.
In a Republican-dominated senate, she received a 50–50 vote - a tie
that was broken by Vice President Mike Pence. Prior to her appointment,
DeVos received a BA degree in business economics from Calvin College in
Grand Rapids, Michigan and she served as chairman of an investment
management firm, The Windquest Group. She supported the idea of leaving
education to state governments under the new K-12 legislation.
DeVos cited the interventionist approach of the federal government to
education policy following the signing of the ESSA. The primary approach
to that rule has not changed significantly. Her opinion was that the
education movement populist politics or populism encouraged reformers to commit promises which were not very realistic and therefore difficult to deliver.
On July 31, 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Strengthening
Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (HR 2353) The
Act reauthorized the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act,
a $1.2 billion program modified by the United States Congress in 2006. A move to change the Higher Education Act was also deferred.
The legislation enacted on July 1, 2019, replaced the Carl D.
Perkins Career and Technical Education (Perkins IV) Act of 2006.
Stipulations in Perkins V enables school districts to make use of
federal subsidies for all students' career search and development
activities in the middle grades as well as comprehensive guidance and
academic mentoring in the upper grades.
At the same time, this law revised the meaning of "special populations"
to include homeless persons, foster youth, those who left the foster
care system, and children with parents on active duty in the United
States armed forces.
Barriers to reform
Education inequalities facing students of color
Another
factor to consider in education reform is that of equity and access.
Contemporary issues in the United States regarding education faces a
history of inequalities that come with consequences for education
attainment across different social groups.
Racial and socioeconomic class segregation
A history of racial, and subsequently class, segregation in the U.S. resulted from practices of law. Residential segregation
is a direct result of twentieth century policies that separated by race
using zoning and redlining practices, in addition to other housing
policies, whose effects continue to endure in the United States.
These neighborhoods that have been segregated de jure—by force of
purposeful public policy at the federal, state, and local
levels—disadvantage people of color as students must attend school near
their homes.
With the inception of the New Deal between 1933 and 1939, and
during and following World War II, federally funded public housing was
explicitly racially segregated by the local government in conjunction
with federal policies through projects that were designated for Whites
or Black Americans in the South, Northeast, Midwest, and West.
Following an ease on the housing shortage post-World War II, the
federal government subsidized the relocation of Whites to suburbs.
The Federal Housing and Veterans Administration constructed such
developments on the East Coast in towns like Levittown on Long Island,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. On the West Coast, there was Panorama City, Lakewood, Westlake, and Seattle suburbs developed by Bertha and William Boeing.
As White families left for the suburbs, Black families remained in
public housing and were explicitly placed in Black neighborhoods.
Policies such as public housing director, Harold Ickes', "neighborhood
composition rule" maintained this segregation by establishing that
public housing must not interfere with pre-existing racial compositions
of neighborhoods.
Federal loan guarantees were given to builders who adhered to the
condition that no sales were made to Black families and each deed
prohibited re-sales to Black families, what the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA) described as an "incompatible racial element".
In addition, banks and savings intuitions refused loans to Black
families in White suburbs and Black families in Black neighborhoods.
In the mid-twentieth century, urban renewal programs forced low-income
black residents to reside in places farther from universities,
hospitals, or business districts and relocation options consisted of
public housing high-rises and ghettos.
This history of de jure segregation has impacted resource
allocation for public education in the United States, with schools
continuing to be segregated by race and class. Low-income White students
are more likely than Black students to be integrated into middle-class
neighborhoods and less likely to attend schools with other predominantly
disadvantaged students.
Students of color disproportionately attend underfunded schools and
Title I schools in environments entrenched in environmental pollution
and stagnant economic mobility with limited access to college readiness
resources.
According to research, schools attended by primarily Hispanic or
African American students often have high turnover of teaching staff and
are labeled high-poverty schools, in addition to having limited
educational specialists, less available extracurricular opportunities,
greater numbers of provisionally licensed teachers, little access to
technology, and buildings that are not well maintained.
With this segregation, more local property tax is allocated to
wealthier communities and public schools' dependence on local property
taxes has led to large disparities in funding between neighboring
districts.
The top 10% of wealthiest school districts spend approximately ten
times more per student than the poorest 10% of school districts.
Racial wealth gap
This history of racial and socioeconomic class segregation in the U.S. has manifested into a racial wealth divide.
With this history of geographic and economic segregation, trends
illustrate a racial wealth gap that has impacted educational outcomes
and its concomitant economic gains for minorities.
Wealth or net worth—the difference between gross assets and debt—is a
stock of financial resources and a significant indicator of financial
security that offers a more complete measure of household capability and
functioning than income.
Within the same income bracket, the chance of completing college
differs for White and Black students. Nationally, White students are at
least 11% more likely to complete college across all four income groups.
Intergenerational wealth is another result of this history, with White
college-educated families three times as likely as Black families to get
an inheritance of $10,000 or more.
10.6% of White children from low-income backgrounds and 2.5% of Black
children from low-income backgrounds reach the top 20% of income
distribution as adults. Less than 10% of Black children from low-income
backgrounds reach the top 40%.
Access to early childhood education
These
disadvantages facing students of color are apparent early on in early
childhood education. By the age of five, children of color are impacted
by opportunity gaps indicated by poverty, school readiness gap,
segregated low-income neighborhoods, implicit bias, and inequalities
within the justice system as Hispanic and African American boys account
for as much as 60% of total prisoners within the incarceration
population. These populations are also more likely to experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
High-quality early care and education are less accessible to
children of color, particularly African American preschoolers as
findings from the National Center for Education Statistics show that in
2013, 40% of Hispanic and 36% White children were enrolled in learning
center-based classrooms rated as high, while 25% of African American
children were enrolled in these programs. 15% of African American
children attended low ranking center-based classrooms. In home-based
settings, 30% of White children and over 50% of Hispanic and African
American children attended low rated programs.
What to teach, at what age, and to which students. Discussion
points include the age at which children should learn to read, and the
primary mathematical subject that is taught to adolescents – algebra, or
statistics or personal finances.
Funding, neglected infrastructure, and adequacy of educational supplies
Charter
schools public independent institutions in which both the cost and risk
are fully funded by the taxpayers. Some charter schools are nonprofit
in name only and are structured in ways that individuals and private
enterprises connected to them can make money. Other charter schools are
for-profit. In many cases, the public is largely unaware of this rapidly
changing educational landscape, the debate between public and
private/market approaches, and the decisions that are being made that
affect their children and communities. Critics have accused for-profit entities, (education management organizations, EMOs) and private foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation
of funding Charter school initiatives to undermine public education and
turn education into a "Business Model" which can make a profit.
In some cases a school's charter is held by a non-profit that chooses
to contract all of the school's operations to a third party, often a
for-profit, CMO. This arrangement is defined as a vendor-operated school, (VOS).
School choice
Economists, such as the late Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, advocate for school choice to promote excellence in education through competition and choice. Proponents claim that a competitive market for schooling provides a workable method of accountability for results. Public education vouchers
permit guardians to select and pay any school, public or private, with
public funds that were formerly allocated directly to local public
schools. The theory is that children's guardians will naturally shop for
the best schools for their children, much as is already done at college
level.
Many reforms based on school choice have led to slight to
moderate improvements. Some teachers' union members see those
improvements as insufficient to offset the decreased teacher pay and job
security. For instance, New Zealand's
landmark reform in 1989, during which schools were granted substantial
autonomy, funding was devolved to schools, and parents were given a free
choice of which school their children would attend, led to moderate
improvements in most schools. It was argued that the associated
increases in inequity and greater racial stratification in schools
nullified the educational gains. Others, however, argued that the
original system created more inequity, due to lower income students
being required to attend poorer performing inner city schools and not
being allowed school choice or better educations that are available to
higher income inhabitants of suburbs. Thus, it was argued that school
choice promoted social mobility and increased test scores, especially in
the cases of low income students. Similar results have been found in
other jurisdictions. The small improvements produced by some school
choice policies seem to reflect weaknesses in the ways that choice is
implemented, rather than a failure of the basic principle itself.
Teacher tenure
Critics
of teacher tenure claim that the laws protect ineffective teachers from
being fired, which can be detrimental to student success. Tenure laws
vary from state to state, but generally they set a probationary period
during which the teacher proves themselves worthy of the lifelong
position. Probationary periods range from one to three years.
Advocates for tenure reform often consider these periods too short to
make such an important decision; especially when that decision is
exceptionally hard to revoke.
Due process restriction protect tenured teachers from being wrongfully
fired; however these restrictions can also prevent administrators from
removing ineffective or inappropriate teachers.
A 2008 survey conducted by the US Department of Education found that,
on average, only 2.1% of teachers are dismissed each year for poor
performance.
In October 2010 Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs had a consequential meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama to discuss U.S. competitiveness and the nation's education system.
During the meeting Jobs recommended pursuing policies that would make
it easier for school principals to hire and fire teachers based on
merit.
In 2012 tenure for school teachers was challenged in a California lawsuit called Vergara v. California.
The primary issue in the case was the impact of tenure on student
outcomes and on equity in education. On June 10, 2014, the trial judge
ruled that California's teacher tenure statute produced disparities that
"shock the conscience" and violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.
Funding levels
According to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland
when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools,
with each of those two countries spending more than $11,000 (in
U.S. currency).
Despite this high level of funding, U.S. public schools lag behind the
schools of other rich countries in the areas of reading, math, and
science.
A further analysis of developed countries shows no correlation between
per student spending and student performance, suggesting that there are
other factors influencing education. Top performers include Singapore, Finland and Korea, all with relatively low spending on education, while high spenders including Norway and Luxembourg have relatively low performance. One possible factor is the distribution of the funding.
In the US, schools in wealthy areas tend to be over-funded while schools in poorer areas tend to be underfunded.
These differences in spending between schools or districts may
accentuate inequalities, if they result in the best teachers moving to
teach in the most wealthy areas.
The inequality between districts and schools led to 23 states
instituting school finance reform based on adequacy standards that aim
to increase funding to low-income districts. A 2018 study found that
between 1990 and 2012, these finance reforms led to an increase in
funding and test scores in the low income districts; which suggests
finance reform is effective at bridging inter-district performance
inequalities.
It has also been shown that the socioeconomic situation of the students
family has the most influence in determining success; suggesting that
even if increased funds in a low income area increase performance, they
may still perform worse than their peers from wealthier districts.
Starting in the early 1980s, a series of analyses by Eric Hanushek indicated that the amount spent on schools bore little relationship to student learning.
This controversial argument, which focused attention on how money was
spent instead of how much was spent, led to lengthy scholarly exchanges. In part the arguments fed into the class size debates and other discussions of "input policies." It also moved reform efforts towards issues of school accountability (including No Child Left Behind) and the use of merit pay and other incentives.
There have been studies that show smaller class sizes and newer buildings
(both of which require higher funding to implement) lead to academic
improvements. It should also be noted that many of the reform ideas that
stray from the traditional format require greater funding.
According to a 1999 article, William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education,
argued that increased levels of spending on public education have not
made the schools better, citing the following statistics:
The EFA Assessment 2000 was launched in July 1998 with
an aim to help countries to identify both problems and prospects for
further progress of EFA, and to strengthen their capacity to improve and
monitor the provision and outcomes of basic education. Some 179
countries set up National Assessment Groups which collected quantitative
data focusing on eighteen core indicators and carried out case-studies
to collect qualitative information.
Education 2030 Agenda refers to the global commitment of the
Education for All movement to ensure access to basic education for all.
It is an essential part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The roadmap to achieve the Agenda is the Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action, which outlines how countries, working with UNESCO and global partners, can translate commitments into action.
The United Nations,
over 70 ministers, representatives of member-countries, bilateral and
multilateral agencies, regional organizations, academic institutions,
teachers, civil society, and the youth supported the Framework for
Action of the Education 2030 platform. The Framework was described as
the outcome of continuing consultation to provide guidance for countries
in implementing this Agenda. At the same time, it mobilizes various
stakeholders in the new education objectives, coordination,
implementation process, funding, and review of Education 2030.
Learning crisis
The learning crisis
is the reality that while the majority of children around the world
attend school, a large proportion of them are not learning. A World Bank
study found that "53 percent of children in low- and middle-income
countries cannot read and understand a simple story by the end of
primary school." While schooling has increased rapidly over the last few
decades, learning has not followed suit. Many practitioners and
academics call for education system reform in order to address the
learning needs of all children.
The movement to use computers more in education naturally includes
many unrelated ideas, methods, and pedagogies since there are many uses
for digital computers. For example, the fact that computers are
naturally good at math leads to the question of the use of calculators
in math education. The Internet's communication capabilities make it
potentially useful for collaboration, and foreign language learning. The
computer's ability to simulate physical systems makes it potentially
useful in teaching science. More often, however, debate of digital
education reform centers around more general applications of computers
to education, such as electronic test-taking and online classes.
Another viable addition to digital education has been blended learning.
In 2009, over 3 million K-12 students took an online course, compared
to 2000 when 45,000 took an online course. Blended learning examples
include pure online, blended, and traditional education. Research
results show that the most effective learning takes place in a blended
format.
This allows children to view the lecture ahead of time and then spend
class time practicing, refining, and applying what they have previously
learned.
The idea of creating artificial intelligence led some computer scientists to believe that teachers could be replaced by computers, through something like an expert system;
however, attempts to accomplish this have predictably proved
inflexible. The computer is now more understood to be a tool or
assistant for the teacher and students.
Harnessing the richness of the Internet is another goal. In some
cases classrooms have been moved entirely online, while in other
instances the goal is more to learn how the Internet can be more than a
classroom.
Web-based international educational software is under development by students at New York University,
based on the belief that current educational institutions are too
rigid: effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and
questions of practice are not predictable or standardized. The software
allows for courses tailored to an individual's abilities through
frequent and automatic multiple intelligences
assessments. Ultimate goals include assisting students to be
intrinsically motivated to educate themselves, and aiding the student in
self-actualization. Courses typically taught only in college are being
reformatted so that they can be taught to any level of student, whereby
elementary school students may learn the foundations of any topic they
desire. Such a program has the potential to remove the bureaucratic
inefficiencies of education in modern countries, and with the decreasing
digital divide, help developing nations rapidly achieve a similar
quality of education. With an open format similar to Wikipedia, any
teacher may upload their courses online and a feedback system will help
students choose relevant courses of the highest quality. Teachers can
provide links in their digital courses to webcast videos of their
lectures. Students will have personal academic profiles and a forum will
allow students to pose complex questions, while simpler questions will
be automatically answered by the software, which will bring you to a
solution by searching through the knowledge database, which includes all
available courses and topics.
The 21st century ushered in the acceptance and encouragement of
internet research conducted on college and university campuses, in
homes, and even in gathering areas of shopping centers. Addition of
cyber cafes on campuses and coffee shops, loaning of communication
devices from libraries, and availability of more portable technology
devices, opened up a world of educational resources. Availability of
knowledge to the elite had always been obvious, yet provision of
networking devices, even wireless gadget sign-outs from libraries, made
availability of information an expectation of most persons. Cassandra B. Whyte
researched the future of computer use on higher education campuses
focusing on student affairs. Though at first seen as a data collection
and outcome reporting tool, the use of computer technology in the
classrooms, meeting areas, and homes continued to unfold. The sole
dependence on paper resources for subject information diminished and
e-books and articles, as well as online courses, were anticipated to
become increasingly staple and affordable choices provided by higher
education institutions according to Whyte in a 2002 presentation.
Digitally "flipping" classrooms is a trend in digital education that has gained significant momentum. Will Richardson,
author and visionary for the digital education realm, points to the
not-so-distant future and the seemingly infinite possibilities for
digital communication linked to improved education. Education on the
whole, as a stand-alone entity, has been slow to embrace these changes.
The use of web tools such as wikis, blogs, and social networking sites
is tied to increasing overall effectiveness of digital education in
schools. Examples exist of teacher and student success stories where
learning has transcended the classroom and has reached far out into
society.
The media has been instrumental in pushing formal educational institutions to become savvier in their methods. Additionally, advertising has been (and continues to be) a vital force in shaping students and parents thought patterns.
Technology is a dynamic entity that is constantly in flux. As
time presses on, new technologies will continue to break paradigms that
will reshape human thinking regarding technological innovation. This
concept stresses a certain disconnect between teachers and learners and
the growing chasm that started some time ago. Richardson asserts that
traditional classroom's will essentially enter entropy unless teachers
increase their comfort and proficiency with technology.
Administrators are not exempt from the technological disconnect.
They must recognize the existence of a younger generation of teachers
who were born during the Digital Age and are very comfortable with
technology. However, when old meets new, especially in a mentoring
situation, conflict seems inevitable. Ironically, the answer to the
outdated mentor may be digital collaboration with worldwide mentor webs;
composed of individuals with creative ideas for the classroom.
