Philippine Basic Education

Being born poor in this world already limits one's future because of a general inequality in opportunity. Upward social mobility is often hindered by lack of success in basic education. Fruitful employment is less likely without finishing at least a high school education. Poverty, with its deleterious effects on education, is indeed a difficult challenge to address. Still, there are ways by which one can alleviate the effects of poverty on education. In the Philippines, the conditional cash transfer program is touted by the World Bank as an intervention "proven to keep poor children healthy and in school". Of course, surviving is different from thriving. One needs an intervention that have much broader impact. With this task, it is necessary to find other factors aside from poverty that can have a significant impact on education. Apparently, there is one that affects families, regardless of income: The presence of fathers in a neighborhood. This conclusion comes from a...

Placing blame is an exercise we never shy away from. When schools are failing, we may be quick to point our finger to teachers. And for some, we may hold the parents or the lack of good parenting accountable. It takes a village to raise a child so I guess we are all indeed responsible. In response to the recent school shooting in Florida, there is a Facebook post made by a schoolteacher that caught my attention. Amie Diprima Brown, a teacher in Cartersville Middle School, notices how much has changed in terms of how involved parents are in their children's growth and development.  Amie Diprima Brown February 22 at 8:50pm  ·  Rome, GA  ·  With all of the talk about guns in schools, why it’s happening, and how to solve the issue let me offer a little different perspective. I’ve been teaching since 2003. This marks my 15th year in the classroom. Everybody always talks about how schools have changed, and it’s true, they have. Yes, there’s the “crazy new math...

One way to gauge the role of a father in a child's basic education is to compare various characteristics of school-age children for those who live with and without a father. A 2008 paper published in Social Indicators Research  shows that fatherless children are less likely to be healthy, more likely to have attention problems, more likely to repeat a grade, more likely to be suspended, less likely to receive A's, and less likely to enjoy school. Not having a father seems to correlate with so many negative outcomes. Whether this is a clear proof of the important role a father plays in a child's basic education can still be debated since not having a father often correlates with other factors that are already known to affect a child's education and health. Poverty, for instance, is one important factor and this often correlates with not having a father. Another factor is racism since African American samples represent a significant portion in the studies conducted in the...

"It Takes a Village" probably ranks high in the list of popular proverbs. Even Hillary Clinton used it as a title for her book . The proverb rings true especially in close-knit neighborhoods or communities. Unfortunately, with increasing isolation, we probably need to take a step back and realize that first, "It takes a family to raise a child." In education, numerous studies have strongly suggested that poverty profoundly affects learning outcomes. Perhaps, underneath this is the fact that the family deeply influences education. Such impact can be easily seen when one compares the academic performance of children who are in foster care against those who are not. The chasm observed in this comparison is actually much wider than the gap seen due to poverty. Above copied from The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd has been examining the academic performance of foster children in t...

Surprising results have been recently reported regarding the achievement gap in kindergarten in the United States. Sean F. Reardon and Ximena A. Portilla report in a study published in the journal AERA Open  that the kindergarten school readiness gap between poor and rich children has narrowed significantly during the past decade. This is promising. It suggests a further decline in the achievement gap in the later years of basic education. It is surprising because income inequality has significantly widened during this time period and yet, the achievement gap has done the opposite. The actual cause still needs to be determined but the best guess at the moment is what parents are doing. Above copied from Recent Trends in Income, Racial, and Ethnic School Readiness Gaps at Kindergarten Entry Sean F. Reardon, Ximena A. Portilla AERA Open Aug 2016, 2 (3) 2332858416657343; DOI: 10.1177/2332858416657343 The 90-10 gap represents the difference between children from families belongin...

"In one study of extra-year programs, the biggest gains were not for the extra-year children but for the at-risk children who have received extra help in the regular classroom", noted Shepard and Smith in their paper, " Synthesis of Research on School Readiness and Kindergarten Retention ". Shepard and Smith had long argued that schools should address the diversity of young children when they enter kindergarten and not focus on applying a common set of standards for all. Sadly, a list for kindergarten readiness, which includes the ability to "identify 30+ letters", is what parents see, for instance, from a county in Ohio. Above copied from SheKnows School readiness as well as school entry age are issues difficult to address in research since learning outcomes are often determined by factors other than these two. As a starter, context matters. In addition, how schools respond as Shepard and Smith had shown can easily sway the results simply based on a...

Parents can provide both support and control. Parenting styles according to Maccoby and Martin can be categorized into four types: authoritarian (demanding and unresponsive), authoritative (demanding but responsive), permissive (responsive but undemanding), and neglectful (unresponsive and undemanding). With Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" , strict and harsh parenting has been suggested to lead to successful education outcomes. Research has shown that this is false. The data as nicely illustrated by Paul Tullis in Slate  show that Tiger parenting leads only to lower achievement and greater depression. Above copied from Paul Tullis at Slate Cultural differences are often cited to explain different parenting styles. Thus, the success of an authoritative parenting style may just hold in Western societies, but not in general. What outcomes can be predicted from any given parenting style therefore need to be studied across cultures. There is one study tha...

I have received strong opinions or comments when I share posts on this blog on Facebook. It is frustrating sometimes to see how strong an individual takes a stand, yet evidence is sorely lacking. We can easily get misinformed especially when we listen to only what we want to hear, and read what we only want to see. We are very comfortable when our knowledge matches what we want to believe. This applies to issues that are very significant to us. Take, for instance, how well we think our own children are doing in school. A recent representative national survey in the United States of parents and guardians of children enrolled in public schools shows how far our perception is from reality. Above copied from  Parents 2016:Hearts & Minds of Parents inan Uncertain World Parents like to believe that their children are doing well in their school. The reality is that most children are not reaching proficiency in both math and reading. What is surprising, however, is when parent...