On arrival at Davos I wrote about how appropriate the "transformation and new models" theme of this year's World Economic Forum is for framing what needs to happen in education. What I'm realizing a few days into the Forum however is that the topic of education really isn't on the agenda at all!
We've addressed everything but -- the threats to our economic strength, our environment, our public safety, our health. We've addressed youth unemployment and the need for international cooperation and collaboration. But we just aren't focusing on education or on the need to address the enormous educational disparities that persist in countries all around the world.
How can this be?
Maybe the world's leaders have thrown up their hands about the possibility of change in education? And yet as I said in my last blog, there is plenty of evidence around the world that we can have not only incremental change but truly transformational change in education if we channel our leadership energy against it.
Perhaps the issue is that the world's leaders believe that education is the one issue that is intensely local? What I've seen in our own work at Teach For All, however, is that educational disparities are universal in their nature. All over the world, children facing the challenges of poverty attend schools that aren't designed to meet their extra needs; across country lines, the lives of marginalized kids look far more similar than they do different. At the same time, it's been amazing to see the institutional patterns at the system level, all over the world.
Given that the nature of the problem is similar across country lines, the solutions will be shareable. So it's a miss that our leaders aren't prioritizing a global commitment to expanding educational opportunity.
Imagine a world of decreasing educational levels and growing educational disparities. In that world, the global threats we face only become larger. On the other hand, in a world of improving educational outcomes, our global welfare improves. If the world's leaders are serious about improving collective well-being, we'd better get serious about prioritizing education, in our nations and in our global discussion.
Hopefully we won't have to wait for the Davos participant list to be filled with generations of alumni of Teach For All programs in order to see the day that education is one of the main focuses here!
Wendy Kopp, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Teach For All, USA; Social Entrepreneur, Schwab Fellow of the World Economic Forum
Through experience-you can not affect change on a large scale when the core issues are at a much smaller scale. There will always be disagreement and much to do about nothing in the long run. Build a strong base, and build from there.
Wendy-I'll dig into Teach For All. Overall, your arguement has merit, yet seems intangible for this day and age.
I know it is an issue we very much struggle with here in the U.S. and it's interesting to compare the models of other countries, where incentives for teaching are much higher and the profession draws from the best and brightest. The work by the DOE on this is very enlightening, as it looks at teacher recruitment models, from Korea to Brazil: http://blogs.worldbank.org/education/international-summit-on-the-teaching-profession
Chrissy
Now I understand, as we must focus on glory, freedom and heroes, not insides being blown apart, when discussing war,
So in "international aid" we must focus on vaccinations, fertilizers, and education and never mention the actual sources of starvation, lack of clean water, and pandemics.
Just pour on more love and money, and more fertilizers and insecticide.
"When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM[genetically modifed] crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared".
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html#ixzz1kmxraTf5
What am I getting at?
It is a cime against humanity to introduce "death control" without also introducing "birth control".
Providing modern family planning methods to all people with unmet needs would cost about $6.7 billion a year, slightly less than the $6.9 billion that Americans are expected to spend for Halloween this year”.
The New York Times, Op-Ed October 24, 2011.
And I don't think it was unintentional..
That Fact that the world has a FINITE CARRYING CAPACITY.
All the love, empathy, science and agronomy, and all the democracy in the world is are not going to change that Fact. That is the ultimate "Inconvenient Truth".
Leave aside all the nice "green", "empathetic", "do-gooding" Forget, "the threats to our economic strength, our environment, our public safety, our health" They are all secondary effects.
It's like trying to repair the "flak jacket" when the real problem is the the person's guts are hanging out. (After, Joseph Heller, "Catch 22)
Remember when it was front page news when the world population reached 7 billion? Well it has increased by 18 milllion since them. The estimated increase in population this year (2012) is 30 million. , of which close to six million has actually incurred.
Doubt that: See: www.worldometers.info. It is well documented. Also the loss of arable land loss figures are well supported.
In five years, is the world going to provide an education to 30 million five year olds than we did on December 31, 2011?
More likely there will be 5 million more five year old begging in the streets.
http://american.com/archive/2007/june-0607/mexican-immigration-will-solve-itself/
Yes you are quite right. See also "worldfactbook" for every country in the world.
Also www.worldometers.info for information for the entire world. That is what concerns me.
The ouput of our own education system needs major, non-political (if such is at all possible today) attention. And this has nothing to do with funding. Our problem is not money; it’s process. One of our problems is we have too many self interest groups each pulling in its own direction.
Only 35 percent of our 8th graders score proficient in math and slightly less than that in reading.
And half of all our schools are presently failing whatever federal standards exist, and SAT scores have fallen to the lowest level ever recorded.
We are in no position to be telling others what to do. Let’s focus on fixing our own major problems, one of which is education. It should also be noted that over half the world's nations are already ahead of us in education results, i.e., abilities, not diplomas which far too often mean close to nothing other than time spent.
They are not elected officials. They are Kleptocrats trying to keep the musical chairs moving.
Trying Not To Enforce Greek CDS as The Default Event it really is because of counter party risk.