Philippine Basic Education

There is a growing enthusiasm for social emotional learning (SEL). It does make sense to focus not just on the academic side of education. Education must be holistic. The academic, social and emotional needs of a child must be met. Unfortunately, a greater recognition for the importance of SEL sometimes misses the fact that unlike academic goals, SEL is often caught and not taught. How a teacher treats his or her students dramatically affects the social and emotional well-being of a child. This beats any formal teaching of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. It is more about what we actually do and not what we say. Mashi Liyanage, a seventeen year old, writes in a blog an experience she always remembers from her 7th grade, "In my school life, there are many things that scare me. Getting punished for not doing homework, going late to the school, getting low marks on my exams and many more. But there is one thing ...

While most K-12 schools in the United States have reopened to in-person classes this school year, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) tells us that about 140 million children are still waiting for their first day to attend school. Among countries that have not reopened schools is the Philippines. The country is currently facing a surge in COVID cases and vaccination has only reached seventeen percent of the population. Above copied from PhilStar A teacher's group in the Philippines, Teachers' Dignity Coalition , recently criticized the plans of the Department of Education to hold webinars for teachers: Most schools were closed last year and we do have plenty of lessons to learn regarding what is important in both teaching and learning. In an article, " Adapting and Enduring: Lessons Learned from International School Educators During COVID-19 ", published in the Journal of Research in International Education, these lessons are summarized: Technology Access ...

More than 1500 have signed a petition requesting Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) to offer an option for virtual learning. The course I am scheduled to teach in a couple of weeks at Georgetown University is still tentatively on a remote platform. With FCPS parents, there are two reasons behind asking for online learning. Children younger than 12 years old are not vaccinated, and with full capacity, social distancing is not possible. Why I still have to teach online in a university stands on only one reason, lack of social distancing in a class of more than 100 students. There is in fact data that can help address how to keep students and instructors safe from the coronavirus. Data from more than a million students and more than a hundred thousand staff show that "With masking in place, full, in-person instruction – is appropriate for all grades and all schools" . Above copied from Change.org Data that indicate the effectiveness of wearing masks in schools have been provi...

Five years ago, research has shown us convincingly that Black and Hispanic children are underrepresented in advanced academic programs. It has been long argued that schools need to respond to the needs of gifted children. Unfortunately, for such programs to succeed, it is required that students be properly identified. This area has always been challenging. Studies have pointed out time and again that selections have been disproportionate on the basis of race, ethnicity and family income.  Above copied from Grissom, Jason A., and Christopher Redding. 2016. “Discretion and Disproportionality: Explaining the Underrepresentation of High-Achieving Students of Color in Gifted Programs.”  AERA Open  2(1): 1-25 Now, research has something else to say: Above copied from the Hechinger Report This new study is scheduled to be published in May 2021 in the journal of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, but authors of the study have provided us with a preview. The following sum...

 A new spotlight from Education Week  is now available and it is about the Science of Reading . A registration form is required to access the above spotlight. It has been several decades yet schools are still not tuned to what science suggests regarding how we should teach reading to young children. Schools often exert effort on encouraging children to read books that they find interesting. Parents are asked to read to their children. Unfortunately, there is no focus on the method science tells us is most effective. Even here in Fairfax county, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recently wrote to the school superintendent of the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS): "Literacy is a human right. Without it, we are condemned to a life of greater struggle and fewer opportunities. We have waited long enough, and we refuse to wait even one more day." The NAACP provided a litany that shows how FCPS has neglected black children for the past 14 ye...

Fairfax County switched to a virtual environment back in March of last year. The county had about 10 confirmed COVID cases during that time. During the week of Labor Day in September, Fairfax county was seeing on average 70 new COVID cases per day. Fairfax county public schools opted stay virtual. Now, school officials are once again planning for a return to in-person instruction some time this coming March. Today, the county is reporting  more than 250 new COVID cases. There is no doubt that current COVID transmission in the county sits at a high alarming level. The situation is not better compared to either March or September last year.  Above copied from Fairfax Health District The above graph clearly shows that COVID case counts in the county are at their highest level, higher than last April, and much higher than last September. Experts are worried about variants from Brazil, South Africa and Britain. With the United States leading the world in number of COVID confirmed c...

With the dismal performance of students in the Philippines in the 2019 TIMSS, it is timely to reflect on why basic education in the Philippines is failing. Surely,  there are factors  that correlate with low scores in math and science. These are parental education, number of books available at home, availability of computers and internet, and the general attitude of students toward mathematics. These factors indeed require an Herculean effort to overcome for any educational system. Developing skills in math and science requires support from home, but this cannot be used as an excuse for the failure of a school system. One must not disregard, for instance, the fact that teachers in the Philippines themselves do not do well in exams in mathematics . There is likewise a tendency to find fault in the testing itself. Language is one excuse. When reasons are too obvious, it is not really helpful to look further. When students from the Philippines took the exam in their language...

When this blog started back in 2012, I noted that second year high school students in the Philippines had the lowest scores in both Math and Science in both 1999 and 2003 TIMSS. The results for the 2019 TIMSS are now available. This time, fourth grade students from the Philippines participated. These students are clearly products of the new K to 12 curriculum and the scores are actually worse this time. These data suggest that the new curriculum has not addressed what really plagues Philippine basic education. The DepEd K+12 curriculum introduced in 2012 only exacerbates the problems of education in the Philippines. Above copied from Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., Kelly, D. L., & Fishbein, B. (2020). TIMSS 2019 International Results in Mathematics and Science. Retrieved from Boston College, TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center website: https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2019/international-results/ The drop in scores is quite substantial. The black curve is for ma...

With the possibility of overwhelming hospital facilities and staff, it is now necessary for the US to do everything possible to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. In the past, we have obviously made mistakes by not shutting down the main avenues through which the virus is transmitted from person to person: indoor gatherings. Early in the Fall, schools remain closed in most areas but bars, gyms, restaurants, churches and weddings continue. And in New York City, with an apparent second wave of infections, schools close doors first while bars remain open.  Current data do indicate that schools in areas where in-person learning continues do not contribute significantly to the transmission of the coronavirus. Nevertheless, at this point where every state in the country is seeing a rapid and uncontrolled rise in COVID cases, it is obviously not prudent to send our young to schools. Yet, in the county I live in, a group called OpenFCPS still clamors for students to have the choic...

COVID testing sites are currently seeing long lines. There is a troubling surge in cases during the past couple of weeks but the present rush to COVID testing is largely due to a huge misconception. COVID testing is not a pass to celebrate Thanksgiving indoors with family and friends. The rate at which the coronavirus multiplies and therefore becomes detectable needs to be considered. A negative COVID testing result tells us that an individual does not carry enough viral load to be detected only at the time of testing. "At the time of testing" is key to using correctly the result of a COVID test. During the past summer, some tourist destinations resorted to a COVID test as a requirement for travel, which probably added to the misconception that a negative COVID result was enough proof for safety. Georgetown University remained open during the current semester to a few students and researchers but these individuals had been required to be tested twice a week. Without a vaccine...

According to CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, it does not make sense that schools are being closed while restaurants, gyms, bars and churches remain open. His argument is based on the observation that while the positivity COVID test rate in New York City is above 3 percent, the rate inside schools is below 0.2 percent. In order to avoid overwhelming hospitals, it is important to curb transmission. A total lockdown obviously comes with collateral damage on the economy. For this reason, it is imperative that the measures taken be the most effective and least damaging. Our measures need to be guided by science. And science can in fact answer the question, "Where do COVID transmissions mostly occur?". Citing a paper in Nature , Dr. Gupta lists the following as high risk COVID locations: restaurants, gyms, cafes, hotels and religious gatherings. Above copied from CNN Looking deeper into the details of the study, one sees that these locations also affect low-income households more than ...

I have the impression that my previous post, " Facts have no bearing on how one feels ", may have been read as "How we feel has no bearing on facts". The two are very different. What often makes education particularly challenging is correcting misconceptions. What we think normally becomes a part of who we are and when what we conceive gets refuted, it appears to be an attack on ourselves. And this is especially true when these misconceptions are intimately connected to our values. For example, Trevors and Duffy have recently found that correcting misconceptions regarding COVID-19 are going to be difficult since these involve moral values and emotions. We already know this with issues like climate change, diversity and inclusion, and gun ownership and violence. All these issues require collective action, but with strongly held misconceptions, corrective measures will simply remain out of reach. The coronavirus pandemic will continue to grip our world, sea levels wi...

Earlier this year, we were hoping that the novel coronavirus will be less threatening during the summer period. Cases in the United States had continued to rise and countries in tropical areas were equally vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19. We also thought that the virus was spread mainly by droplets which probably did not travel as far as 6 feet from the source. Now, there is enough evidence that SARS-CoV-2 could be airborne and therefore, could travel much farther. What remains, of course, is the required conditions before we could safely open schools. There is no possibility of transmission if there are no active cases. This condition unfortunately remains elusive at the moment. A vaccine seems the only way to get out of this predicament but in all honesty, a safe vaccine is still so many months away. But we can control this pandemic if we understand its transmission and act accordingly. And one thing is clear, we must avoid indoor gatherings. Using data on SARS-CoV-2 transmissio...

With COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in the US and other countries, it becomes apparent that non-pharmaceutical interventions work only if these are all observed simultaneously. Most schools are currently planning to hold virtual classes only. This intervention has been recently associated with a 62% reduction in COVID-19 incidence rate and a 58% reduction in the number of COVID-19 related deaths. These reductions are clearly substantial, but these are obviously associated with effects from other interventions. Students are asked to sacrifice significantly this coming Fall with schools remaining closed for face-to-face instruction. It is a travesty if schools remain closed while bars remain open during this time. The reopening of schools hinges on the current incidence of COVID-19 in the community. Schools remain virtual so that community transmission is avoided. It is only fair that the community practices the other necessary interventions so that there is hope that students would ...

It has been twelve days since my family participated in a community rally for black lives matter. Knock on wood, I have not heard from anyone in the rally who have contracted the novel coronavirus. These rallies have been widespread, but no surge in cases has been associated with these gatherings. In our neighborhood protest, it was impossible to maintain a social distance of six feet, but there was one thing everyone was able to observe. Everyone was wearing a mask. My daughter Amelia speaks in a rally for Black Lives Matter Several weeks have already passed since massive rallies for George Floyd were staged. Yet, surges in cases have not occurred. Take, for instance, Minneapolis, the epicenter of these protests. At this time, the city is reporting only 1.4 percent positive for those who were tested and also attended rallies. The same is true for other major metropolitan areas where demonstrations happened. Above copied from Intelligencer The photo and caption above probably captures ...

Language could be a barrier. I remember in college the first time I heard the word "stochastic". Wow! I had no idea then what that word meant. And that word had a significant weight on what the instructor was trying to tell me. I wished the instructor had just used the more familiar synonym, "random". I probably would have understood more. It is true that science requires precise and accurate language, but in a lot of cases, it is possible to use more familiar words instead of low-frequency but non-technical words. Chemistry requires the use of the word "covalent", but it does not require the use of the word "commensurate" in place of the word "equal". In a classroom where students' needs ought to be considered, we must try our best to help children succeed, and not add unnecessary hurdles to learning. In science, this is particularly important especially when the students are not native speakers of the medium of instruction. Rece...

In the United States, gaps are obvious in public school education on a variety of measures. On average, Blacks score lower in standardized tests. With regard to school suspensions, Blacks receive a lot more than Whites do. In gifted programs, Blacks are underrepresented. Blacks are also more likely be retained in a grade than Whites do. On the other hand, white students are more likely to be enrolled in advanced courses than Black students. The same gaps appear between children of low- and high-income families. Thus, it is convenient to blame out-of-school factors for these gaps since  correlations between gaps and race, and between gaps and socio-economic status, are fairly strong. It is sadly a convenient excuse. By scratching deeper into data, researchers have found that most of these gaps are actually products of our discretion. This is the conclusion made by Kenneth Shores, Ha Eun Kim, and Mela Still in a paper to be published in the American Educational Research Journal . ...

FCPSOn, the program of Fairfax County public schools (FCPS) aimed to "provide students with equitable access to meaningful learning experiences and technology to support their learning", was first introduced several years ago in some schools in Chantilly. Since then, the program has been evaluated by a team of researchers from the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins. In their most recent evaluation, the researchers conclude, "Guaranteed access to a personal computer has succeeded in “leveling the playing field” among students of varying socio-economic backgrounds, learning interests, and needs". FCPSOn is scheduled to be implemented in all middle schools starting next school year. CoveringTheCorridor  reports that in the proposed budget, $4.0 million would be used for this expansion. One of my son's teachers in middle school was therefore looking forward to next year when each and every student in her French class would have access to a ...