Philippine Basic Education

This is a video worth watching....

In "The Dangers of Fluent Lectures', I think Colleen Flaherty extracted the correct message from a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the difference between how much students have learned and how much students think they have learned: "A study says smooth-talking professors can lull students into thinking they've learned more than they actually have -- potentially at the expense of active learning." Instead of focusing on the difference between strictly didactic lectures (passive learning) and those that allow students to work in groups, hold discussions and solve problems on their own (active learning), Flaherty sees that the difference really lies in how much students think they really have learned. Students can first be given the opportunity to solve problems on their own before being provided the answer or students can be spoon-fed. In the former case, students receive a more honest assessment of what they know…

Surely, it is not a straight line but there is definitely a correlation. Schools with children who qualify for free or reduced-fee lunch have teachers with fewer years of experience. This is the situation in Prince William County elementary schools in Virginia according to InsideNova:

For improvement, we often look around us and copy what seems to work better. This happens as well in basic education. The challenge in education, however, is that schooling is not one specific task. It cannot be distilled in one activity or even one policy. Education is a system composed of many parts that work together and affect each other. Lifting one specific aspect is not necessarily the same as copying the entire system. And if done carelessly, we may even be attributing success to the wrong aspect. Take, for instance, the curriculum. We may hastily ascribe the apparent success of schools in Finland to what they teach and how they teach. What if the success of these schools really hinge on how well prepared their teachers are? In this case, what they teach and how they teach really do not matter. What really makes them successful is that the teachers are better trained. Simply copying Finland's curriculum therefore is not a recipe for uplifting schools without considering th…

Near the end of last year, the school board of Fairfax county decided to review its advanced academic program. Part of the decision is to seek advice from experts in advanced academics programming and equity. The board wants to hear what experts have to say. Well, experts in another school district in the United States, New York City public schools, have already spoken. Their recommendation is the immediate elimination of "gifted programs". One can guess then that in the near future the board at Fairfax county will face the same question New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is facing: Should one implement what experts recommend when the recommendation can possibly lead to political suicide?



One simply has to look at comments posted on news articles reporting this recommendation to grasp the strong objection to this recommendation. Here are examples from the Washington Post:


Unreal. 

The “progressive” race to the bottom continues....Ohhhkay... time to acknowledge the 800-pound go…

I was looking at the recent activity on my blog this morning and noticed that a post I made more than two years ago was suddenly receiving quite a number of views. The post was "No Homework Policy" And browsing through a Philippines' news site explained why there was an increase in interest on this topic. Bills have been filed in the House of Representatives in the Philippines. One of the bills would even impose a fine of P50,000 or imprisonment of one to two years on teachers who would violate the no-homework condition. I did not know that giving homework to one's students could be considered a crime. Giving homework might not be doing good in basic education but it should never be regarded as a felony.



As noted in the previous post years ago, research is quite clear with regard to homework. Homework has modest effect on the academic achievement of older students (grades 7-12) and has no effect on younger students (Kindergarten to grade 6). Seeing that homework does …