Children Around the World Face Great Educational Challenges. Is Better Leadership the Solution?
Chee, who is also a sheep farmer, owns an elementary school 45 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona. Many children walk more than two hours round trip from their homes in this area. They were soon thrust into the culture of “No Excuses,” as part of the first Native American school to become a member of the national college readiness program. He expects all of his students to plan for a college education.
When Chee first started teaching school, he would ask his fourth graders where they would go to college. “They didn’t know anything,” he said. “I was saying what field do you want to enter, and they said, ‘What are you talking about? “
Chee, who also has improved reading and writing levels, takes her students on college campus visits when they are still in elementary school. They eat lunch in the cafeteria at Arizona State University, where Chee is getting her doctorate, and learn about the different programs and classes they can take. “They learn the structure of a college application,” Chee said.
The conference gave me the opportunity to learn how UNESCO spends years compiling data and searching for common themes. I spoke with Manos Antoninis, who directs the Global Education Monitoring Report, which analyzes data used by policymakers around the world to strengthen their education systems. Because the conference took place before the election, we did not think what would be UNESCO’s relationship with the US President-elect Donald Trump cut ties with the group during his first term. The relationship was reestablished under President Joe Biden; Trump has said little about it since then.
Antoninis said he hopes the report will spark new ways to develop, hire and support school leaders, many of whom come to Brazil to exchange success stories and learn from the inclusion of profiles and comparisons from more than 200 countries. Antoninis emphasized the importance of reaching both the poorest and the richest countries to collect data.
“The American student should read surveillance reports to open their eyes to the diversity of equality,” he told me. “Seeing it in your country, but not on the scale of how people live elsewhere, and at a low level of education. Others are far behind.”
It’s not always easy to read long reports and sit through the chorus of bad news and hand-waving that often accompanies the latest education scare reports. I’m counting on my colleague, Proof Points writer Jill Barshay, to help interpret the latest NAEP and PISA results by explaining trends and identifying problems that seem to be worsening since the global pandemic. This is one of the reasons why I look forward to facilitating a robust discussion among global education leaders in Hong Kong next month.
I hope to have the chance to meet more leaders like Chee, to follow the numbers and learn how a school leader can change a life. Chee told me that several of his students have graduated from college in recent years. He appreciates the times.
“Some of my former students are now teachers, they come into the classroom and visit us,” said Chee. “Or a family will come in and say, ‘Hey, my son is graduating from college; my daughter graduated,’ and it all started here.”
This story is about school leadership written by Liz Willen and produced by The Hechinger reporta non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger newsletter.
