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What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education

An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math. Teenagers told us what’s working and what’s not in the American education system.

By The Learning Network

Earlier this month, the Program for International Student Assessment announced that the performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000 . Other recent studies revealed that two-thirds of American children were not proficient readers , and that the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening.

We asked students to weigh in on these findings and to tell us their suggestions for how they would improve the American education system.

Our prompt received nearly 300 comments. This was clearly a subject that many teenagers were passionate about. They offered a variety of suggestions on how they felt schools could be improved to better teach and prepare students for life after graduation.

While we usually highlight three of our most popular writing prompts in our Current Events Conversation , this week we are only rounding up comments for this one prompt so we can honor the many students who wrote in.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

Put less pressure on students.

One of the biggest flaws in the American education system is the amount of pressure that students have on them to do well in school, so they can get into a good college. Because students have this kind of pressure on them they purely focus on doing well rather than actually learning and taking something valuable away from what they are being taught.

— Jordan Brodsky, Danvers, MA

As a Freshman and someone who has a tough home life, I can agree that this is one of the main causes as to why I do poorly on some things in school. I have been frustrated about a lot that I am expected to learn in school because they expect us to learn so much information in such little time that we end up forgetting about half of it anyway. The expectations that I wish that my teachers and school have of me is that I am only human and that I make mistakes. Don’t make me feel even worse than I already am with telling me my low test scores and how poorly I’m doing in classes.

— Stephanie Cueva, King Of Prussia, PA

I stay up well after midnight every night working on homework because it is insanely difficult to balance school life, social life, and extracurriculars while making time for family traditions. While I don’t feel like making school easier is the one true solution to the stress students are placed under, I do feel like a transition to a year-round schedule would be a step in the right direction. That way, teachers won’t be pressured into stuffing a large amount of content into a small amount of time, and students won’t feel pressured to keep up with ungodly pacing.

— Jacob Jarrett, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

In my school, we don’t have the best things, there are holes in the walls, mice, and cockroaches everywhere. We also have a lot of stress so there is rarely time for us to study and prepare for our tests because we constantly have work to do and there isn’t time for us to relax and do the things that we enjoy. We sleep late and can’t ever focus, but yet that’s our fault and that we are doing something wrong. School has become a place where we just do work, stress, and repeat but there has been nothing changed. We can’t learn what we need to learn because we are constantly occupied with unnecessary work that just pulls us back.

— Theodore Loshi, Masterman School

As a student of an American educational center let me tell you, it is horrible. The books are out dated, the bathrooms are hideous, stress is ever prevalent, homework seems never ending, and worst of all, the seemingly impossible feat of balancing school life, social life, and family life is abominable. The only way you could fix it would be to lessen the load dumped on students and give us a break.

— Henry Alley, Hoggard High School, Wilmington NC

Use less technology in the classroom (…or more).

People my age have smaller vocabularies, and if they don’t know a word, they just quickly look it up online instead of learning and internalizing it. The same goes for facts and figures in other subjects; don’t know who someone was in history class? Just look ‘em up and read their bio. Don’t know how to balance a chemical equation? The internet knows. Can’t solve a math problem by hand? Just sneak out the phone calculator.

My largest grievance with technology and learning has more to do with the social and psychological aspects, though. We’ve decreased ability to meaningfully communicate, and we want everything — things, experiences, gratification — delivered to us at Amazon Prime speed. Interactions and experiences have become cheap and 2D because we see life through a screen.

— Grace Robertson, Hoggard High School Wilmington, NC

Kids now a days are always on technology because they are heavily dependent on it- for the purpose of entertainment and education. Instead of pondering or thinking for ourselves, our first instinct is to google and search for the answers without giving it any thought. This is a major factor in why I think American students tests scores haven’t been improving because no one wants to take time and think about questions, instead they want to find answers as fast as they can just so they can get the assignment/ project over with.

— Ema Thorakkal, Glenbard West HS IL

There needs to be a healthier balance between pen and paper work and internet work and that balance may not even be 50:50. I personally find myself growing as a student more when I am writing down my assignments and planning out my day on paper instead of relying on my phone for it. Students now are being taught from preschool about technology and that is damaging their growth and reading ability. In my opinion as well as many of my peers, a computer can never beat a book in terms of comprehension.

— Ethan, Pinkey, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Learning needs to be more interesting. Not many people like to study from their textbooks because there’s not much to interact with. I think that instead of studying from textbooks, more interactive activities should be used instead. Videos, websites, games, whatever might interest students more. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use textbooks, I’m just saying that we should have a combination of both textbooks and technology to make learning more interesting in order for students to learn more.

— Vivina Dong, J. R. Masterman

Prepare students for real life.

At this point, it’s not even the grades I’m worried about. It feels like once we’ve graduated high school, we’ll be sent out into the world clueless and unprepared. I know many college students who have no idea what they’re doing, as though they left home to become an adult but don’t actually know how to be one.

The most I’ve gotten out of school so far was my Civics & Economics class, which hardly even touched what I’d actually need to know for the real world. I barely understand credit and they expect me to be perfectly fine living alone a year from now. We need to learn about real life, things that can actually benefit us. An art student isn’t going to use Biology and Trigonometry in life. Exams just seem so pointless in the long run. Why do we have to dedicate our high school lives studying equations we’ll never use? Why do exams focusing on pointless topics end up determining our entire future?

— Eliana D, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

I think that the American education system can be improved my allowing students to choose the classes that they wish to take or classes that are beneficial for their future. Students aren’t really learning things that can help them in the future such as basic reading and math.

— Skye Williams, Sarasota, Florida

I am frustrated about what I’m supposed to learn in school. Most of the time, I feel like what I’m learning will not help me in life. I am also frustrated about how my teachers teach me and what they expect from me. Often, teachers will give me information and expect me to memorize it for a test without teaching me any real application.

— Bella Perrotta, Kent Roosevelt High School

We divide school time as though the class itself is the appetizer and the homework is the main course. Students get into the habit of preparing exclusively for the homework, further separating the main ideas of school from the real world. At this point, homework is given out to prepare the students for … more homework, rather than helping students apply their knowledge to the real world.

— Daniel Capobianco, Danvers High School

Eliminate standardized tests.

Standardized testing should honestly be another word for stress. I know that I stress over every standardized test I have taken and so have most of my peers. I mean they are scary, it’s like when you take these tests you bring your No. 2 pencil and an impending fail.

— Brennan Stabler, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Personally, for me I think standardized tests have a negative impact on my education, taking test does not actually test my knowledge — instead it forces me to memorize facts that I will soon forget.

— Aleena Khan, Glenbard West HS Glen Ellyn, IL

Teachers will revolve their whole days on teaching a student how to do well on a standardized test, one that could potentially impact the final score a student receives. That is not learning. That is learning how to memorize and become a robot that regurgitates answers instead of explaining “Why?” or “How?” that answer was found. If we spent more time in school learning the answers to those types of questions, we would become a nation where students are humans instead of a number.

— Carter Osborn, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

In private school, students have smaller class sizes and more resources for field trips, computers, books, and lab equipment. They also get more “hand holding” to guarantee success, because parents who pay tuition expect results. In public school, the learning is up to you. You have to figure stuff out yourself, solve problems, and advocate for yourself. If you fail, nobody cares. It takes grit to do well. None of this is reflected in a standardized test score.

— William Hudson, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Give teachers more money and support.

I have always been told “Don’t be a teacher, they don’t get paid hardly anything.” or “How do you expect to live off of a teachers salary, don’t go into that profession.” As a young teen I am being told these things, the future generation of potential teachers are being constantly discouraged because of the money they would be getting paid. Education in Americans problems are very complicated, and there is not one big solution that can fix all of them at once, but little by little we can create a change.

— Lilly Smiley, Hoggard High School

We cannot expect our grades to improve when we give teachers a handicap with poor wages and low supplies. It doesn’t allow teachers to unleash their full potential for educating students. Alas, our government makes teachers work with their hands tied. No wonder so many teachers are quitting their jobs for better careers. Teachers will shape the rest of their students’ lives. But as of now, they can only do the bare minimum.

— Jeffery Austin, Hoggard High School

The answer to solving the American education crisis is simple. We need to put education back in the hands of the teachers. The politicians and the government needs to step back and let the people who actually know what they are doing and have spent a lifetime doing it decide how to teach. We wouldn’t let a lawyer perform heart surgery or construction workers do our taxes, so why let the people who win popularity contests run our education systems?

— Anders Olsen, Hoggard High School, Wilmington NC

Make lessons more engaging.

I’m someone who struggles when all the teacher does is say, “Go to page X” and asks you to read it. Simply reading something isn’t as effective for me as a teacher making it interactive, maybe giving a project out or something similar. A textbook doesn’t answer all my questions, but a qualified teacher that takes their time does. When I’m challenged by something, I can always ask a good teacher and I can expect an answer that makes sense to me. But having a teacher that just brushes off questions doesn’t help me. I’ve heard of teachers where all they do is show the class movies. At first, that sounds amazing, but you don’t learn anything that can benefit you on a test.

— Michael Huang, JR Masterman

I’ve struggled in many classes, as of right now it’s government. What is making this class difficult is that my teacher doesn’t really teach us anything, all he does is shows us videos and give us papers that we have to look through a textbook to find. The problem with this is that not everyone has this sort of learning style. Then it doesn’t help that the papers we do, we never go over so we don’t even know if the answers are right.

— S Weatherford, Kent Roosevelt, OH

The classes in which I succeed in most are the ones where the teachers are very funny. I find that I struggle more in classes where the teachers are very strict. I think this is because I love laughing. Two of my favorite teachers are very lenient and willing to follow the classes train of thought.

— Jonah Smith Posner, J.R. Masterman

Create better learning environments.

Whenever they are introduced to school at a young age, they are convinced by others that school is the last place they should want to be. Making school a more welcoming place for students could better help them be attentive and also be more open minded when walking down the halls of their own school, and eventually improve their test scores as well as their attitude while at school.

— Hart P., Bryant High School

Students today feel voiceless because they are punished when they criticize the school system and this is a problem because this allows the school to block out criticism that can be positive leaving it no room to grow. I hope that in the near future students can voice their opinion and one day change the school system for the better.

— Nico Spadavecchia, Glenbard West Highschool Glen Ellyn IL

The big thing that I have struggled with is the class sizes due to overcrowding. It has made it harder to be able to get individual help and be taught so I completely understand what was going on. Especially in math it builds on itself so if you don’t understand the first thing you learn your going to be very lost down the road. I would go to my math teacher in the morning and there would be 12 other kids there.

— Skyla Madison, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

The biggest issue facing our education system is our children’s lack of motivation. People don’t want to learn. Children hate school. We despise homework. We dislike studying. One of the largest indicators of a child’s success academically is whether or not they meet a third grade reading level by the third grade, but children are never encouraged to want to learn. There are a lot of potential remedies for the education system. Paying teachers more, giving schools more funding, removing distractions from the classroom. All of those things are good, but, at the end of the day, the solution is to fundamentally change the way in which we operate.

Support students’ families.

I say one of the biggest problems is the support of families and teachers. I have heard many success stories, and a common element of this story is the unwavering support from their family, teachers, supervisors, etc. Many people need support to be pushed to their full potential, because some people do not have the will power to do it on their own. So, if students lived in an environment where education was supported and encouraged; than their children would be more interested in improving and gaining more success in school, than enacting in other time wasting hobbies that will not help their future education.

— Melanie, Danvers

De-emphasize grades.

I wish that tests were graded based on how much effort you put it and not the grade itself. This would help students with stress and anxiety about tests and it would cause students to put more effort into their work. Anxiety around school has become such a dilemma that students are taking their own life from the stress around schoolwork. You are told that if you don’t make straight A’s your life is over and you won’t have a successful future.

— Lilah Pate, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

I personally think that there are many things wrong with the American education system. Everyone is so worried about grades and test scores. People believe that those are the only thing that represents a student. If you get a bad grade on something you start believing that you’re a bad student. GPA doesn’t measure a students’ intelligence or ability to learn. At young ages students stop wanting to come to school and learn. Standardized testing starts and students start to lose their creativity.

— Andrew Gonthier, Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Praise for great teachers

Currently, I’m in a math class that changed my opinion of math. Math class just used to be a “meh” for me. But now, my teacher teachers in a way that is so educational and at the same time very amusing and phenomenal. I am proud to be in such a class and with such a teacher. She has changed the way I think about math it has definitely improve my math skills. Now, whenever I have math, I am so excited to learn new things!

— Paulie Sobol, J.R Masterman

At the moment, the one class that I really feel supported in is math. My math teachers Mrs. Siu and Ms. Kamiya are very encouraging of mistakes and always are willing to help me when I am struggling. We do lots of classwork and discussions and we have access to amazing online programs and technology. My teacher uses Software called OneNote and she does all the class notes on OneNote so that we can review the class material at home. Ms. Kamiya is very patient and is great at explaining things. Because they are so accepting of mistakes and confusion it makes me feel very comfortable and I am doing very well in math.

— Jayden Vance, J.R. Masterman

One of the classes that made learning easier for me was sixth-grade math. My teacher allowed us to talk to each other while we worked on math problems. Talking to the other students in my class helped me learn a lot quicker. We also didn’t work out of a textbook. I feel like it is harder for me to understand something if I just read it out of a textbook. Seventh-grade math also makes learning a lot easier for me. Just like in sixth-grade math, we get to talk to others while solving a problem. I like that when we don’t understand a question, our teacher walks us through it and helps us solve it.

— Grace Moan, J R Masterman

My 2nd grade class made learning easy because of the way my teacher would teach us. My teacher would give us a song we had to remember to learn nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc. which helped me remember their definitions until I could remember it without the song. She had little key things that helped us learn math because we all wanted to be on a harder key than each other. She also sang us our spelling words, and then the selling of that word from the song would help me remember it.

— Brycinea Stratton, J.R. Masterman

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What Will It Take to Fix Public Education?

The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? Yale Insights talked with former secretary of education John King, now president and CEO of the Education Trust, about the challenges that remain, and the impact of the Trump Administration.

• John B. King President and CEO, The Education Trust

This interview was conducted at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit , hosted by Yale SOM’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute on January 30, 2018.

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush traveled to Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio, to sign the No Child Left Behind Act , a bipartisan bill (Senator Edward Kennedy was a co-sponsor) requiring, among other things, that states test students for proficiency in reading and math and track their progress. Schools that failed to reach their goals would be overhauled or even shut down.

“No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance,” Bush said. “[W]hen we find poor performance, a school will be given time and incentives and resources to correct their problems.… If, however, schools don’t perform, if, however, given the new resources, focused resources, they are unable to solve the problem of not educating their children, there must be real consequences.”

Did No Child Left Behind make a difference? In 2015, Monty Neil of the anti-standardized testing group FairTest argued that while students made progress after the law was passed, it was slower than in the period before the law . And the No Child Left Behind was the focus of criticism for increasing federal control over schools and an emphasis on standardized testing. Its successor, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, shifted power back to the states.

President Barack Obama had his own signature education law: the grant program Race to the Top, originally part of the 2009 stimulus package, which offered funds to states that undertook various reforms, including expanding charter schools, adopting the Common Core curriculum standards, and reforming teacher evaluation.

One study showed that Race to the Top had a dramatic effect on state practices : even states that didn’t receive the grants adopted reforms. But another said that the actual impact on outcomes were limited —and that there were overly high expectations given the scope of the reforms. “Heightened pressure on districts to produce impossible gains from an overly narrow policy agenda has made implementation difficult and often counterproductive,” wrote Elaine Weiss.

Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? And how will the Trump Administration’s policies alter the trajectory? Yale Insights talked with John King, the secretary of education in the latter years of the Obama administration, who is now president and CEO of the nonprofit Education Trust .

Q: The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Do you think we’re getting closer to a consensus on the systematic changes that are needed in education?

Well, I’d say we’ve made progress in some important areas over the last couple of decades. We have highest graduation from high school we’ve ever had as a country. Over the last eight years, we had a million African-American and Latino students go on to college. S0 there are signs of progress.

That said, I’m very worried about the current moment. I think there’s a lack of a clear vision from the current administration, the Trump administration, about what direction education should head. And to the extent that they have an articulate vision, I think it’s actually counter to the interests of low-income students and students of color: a dismantling of federal protection of civil rights, a backing-away from the federal commitment to provide aid for students to go to higher education, and undermining of the public commitment to public schools.

That’s a departure. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve had a bipartisan consensus, whether it was in the Bush administration or the Obama administration, that the job of the Department of Education was to advance education equity and to protect student civil rights. The current administration is walking away from both of those things.

I don’t see that as a partisan issue. That’s about this administration and their priorities. Among the first things they did was to reduce civil rights protections for transgender students, to withdraw civil rights protections for victims of sexual assault on higher education campuses. They proposed a budget that cuts funding for students to go to higher education, eliminates all federal support for teacher professional development, and eliminates federal funding for after-school and summer programs.

Q: Some aspects of education reform have focused on improving performance in traditional public schools and others prioritize options like charter schools and private school vouchers. Do you think both of those are needed?

I distinguish between different types of school choice. The vast majority of kids are in traditional, district public schools. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to strengthen those schools and ensure their success.

Then I think there is an important role that high-quality public charters can play if there’s rigorous oversight. And if you think about, say, Massachusetts or New York, there’s a high bar to get a charter, there’s rigorous supervision of the academics and operations of the schools and a willingness to close schools that are low-performing. So for me, those high-quality public charters can contribute as a laboratory for innovation and work in partnership with the broader traditional system.

There’s something very different going on in a place like Michigan, where you’ve got a proliferation of low-quality, for-profit charters run by for-profit companies. Their poorly regulated schools are allowed to continue operating that are doing a terrible job, that are taking advantage of students and families. That’s not what we need. And my view is that states that have those kinds of weak charter laws need to change them and move toward something like Massachusetts where there’s a high bar and meaningful accountability for charters.

And then there’s a whole other category of vouchers, which is using public money for students to go to private school, and to my mind, that is a mistake. We ought to have public dollars going to public schools with public accountability.

Q: When you have a state like Michigan in which you’ve got a lot of very poor charter schools, does that hurt a particular type of student more than others?

It has a disproportionate negative effect on low-income students and students of color. Many of those schools are concentrated in high-needs communities and, unfortunately, it’s really presenting a false choice to parents, a mirage, if you will, because they’re told, “Oh, come to this school, it will be different” or, “it will be better,” and actually it’s not. Ed Trust has an office in Michigan, where we have spent a long time trying to make the case to elected officials that they need to strengthen their charter law and charter accountability.

Unfortunately, there’s a very high level of spending by the for-profit charter industry and their supporters on political campaigns. And so far there’s not been a lot of traction to try to strengthen the charter oversight in Michigan. We see that problem in other states around the country, but at the same time we know there are models that work. We know that in Massachusetts, where there’s a high standard for charters, their Boston charters are some of the highest performing charters in the country, getting great outcomes for high-need students. So it’s possible to do chartering well, but it requires thoughtful leadership from governors and legislators.

Q: What’s your view on how students should be evaluated?

Well, I think we have to have a holistic view. The goal ought to be to prepare students for success in college, in careers, and as citizens. So we want students to have the core academic skills, like English and math, but they also need the knowledge that you gain from science and social studies. They need the experiences that they have in art and music and physical education and health. They need that well-rounded education to be prepared to succeed at what’s next after high school. They also need to be prepared to be critical readers, critical thinkers, to debate ideas with their fellow citizens, to advocate for their ideas in a thoughtful, constructive way—all the tools that you need to be a good citizen.

In order to evaluate all of that, you need multiple measures; you can’t just look at test scores. Obviously you want students to gain reading and math skills, but you also need to look at what courses they’re taking. Are they taking a wide range of courses that will prepare them for success? Do they have access to things like AP courses or International Baccalaureate courses that will prepare them for college-level work? Do they acquire socio-emotional skills? Are they able to navigate when they have a conflict with a peer? Are they able to work collaboratively with peers to solve problems?

So you want to look at grades; you want to look at teachers’ perceptions of students. You want to look at the work that they’re doing in class: is it rigorous, is it really preparing them for life after high school? And one of the challenges in education is, to have those kinds of multiple measures, you need very thoughtful leadership at every level—at state level, district level, and at the school level.

Q: How should we be evaluating teachers?

I started out as a high school social studies teacher, and I thought a lot about this question of what’s the right evaluation method. I think the key is this: you want, as a teacher, to get feedback on how you’re doing and what’s happening in your classroom. Too often teaching can feel very isolated, where it’s just you and the students. It’s important to have systems in place where a mentor teacher, a master teacher, a principal, a department chair is in the classroom observing and giving feedback to teachers and having a continuous conversation about how to improve teaching. That should be a part of an evaluation system.

But so too should be how students are doing, whether or not students are making progress. I know folks worry that that could be reduced to just looking at test scores. I think that would be a mistake, but we ought to ask, if you’re a seventh-grade math teacher, if students are making progress in seventh-grade math.

Now, as we look at that, we have to take into consideration the skills the students brought with them to the classroom, the challenges they face outside of the classroom. But I think what you see in schools that are succeeding is that they have a thoughtful, multiple-measures approach to giving teachers feedback on how they’re doing and see it as a tool for continuous improvement to ensure that everybody is constantly learning.

Q: Do you think the core issue in improving schools is funding? Or are there separate systemic issues that need to be solved?

It varies a lot state to state, but the Education Trust has done extensive analysis of school spending, and what we see is that on average, districts serving low-income students are spending significantly less than more affluent districts across the country, about $1,200 less per student. And in some states, that can be $3,000 less, $5,000 less, $10,000 less per student for the highest-needs kids. We also see a gap around funding for communities that serve large numbers of students of color. Actually, the average gap nationally is larger for districts serving large numbers of students of color—it’s about $2,000 less than those districts that serve fewer students of color.

So we do have a gap in terms of resources coming in, but it’s not just about money; it’s also how you use the money. And we know that, sadly, in many places, the dollars aren’t getting to the highest needs, even within a district. And then once they get to the school level, the question is, are they being spent on teachers and teacher professional development, and things that are going to serve students directly, or are they being spent on central office needs that actually aren’t serving students? So we’ve got to make sure they have more resources for the highest-needs kids, but we’ve also got to make sure that the resources are well-used.

Q: Does it make it significantly harder that so much of the decisions are made on the local level or the state level when you’re trying to create a change across the country?

It’s certainly a challenge. You want to try to balance local leadership with common goals. And you want, as a country, to be able to say, look, you may choose different books to read in class, you may choose different experiments to do in science, but we need all students to have the fundamental skills that they’ll need for success in college and careers and we ought to all be able to agree that all schools should be focused on those skills. Even that can be politically challenging.

We also know that from a funding standpoint, having funding decided mostly on the local level can actually create greater inequality, particularly when you’re relying on local property taxes. You’ll have a very wealthy community that’s spending dramatically more than a neighboring community that has many more low-income families. One of the ways to get around that is to have the state or the federal government account for a larger share of funding so that you can have an equalizing role. That was the original goal of Title I funding at the federal level—to try to get resources to the highest-needs kids.

The other challenge we see is around race and income diversity or isolation. And sadly, in many states, Connecticut included, you have very sharp divisions along race and class lines between districts and so kids may go to school and never see someone different from them. That is a significant problem. We know there are places that are trying to solve that. Hartford, Connecticut, for example, has, because of a court decision, a very extensive effort to get kids from Hartford to go out to suburban schools and suburban kids to come to Hartford schools. And they’ve designed programs that will attract folks across community lines, programs that focus on Montessori or art or early college programs. We can do better, but we need leadership around that.

Q: Are you seeing concrete results from programs like Hartford?

What we know is that low-income students who have the opportunity to go to schools that serve a mixed-income population do better academically. And we also know that all students in schools that are socioeconomically and racially diverse gain additional skills outside the purely academic skills around how to work with peers, cross-racial understanding, empathy.

So, yes, we are seeing those results. The sad thing is, it’s not fast enough; it’s not happening at enough places. We in the Obama administration had proposed a $120 million grant program to school diversity initiatives around the country. We couldn’t get Congress to fund it. We had a small planning grant program that we created at the Education Department that was one of the first things the Trump administration undid when they came into office. So we’re going backwards at the federal level, but there’s a lot of energy around school diversity initiatives at the community level. And that’s where we’re seeing progress around the country.

Q: Do you think the education system should aim to send as many people to college as possible? Should we think of it as being necessary for everyone or should we find ways to prepare students for a wider range of careers?

What’s clear is that everybody going into the 21st-century economy needs some level of post-secondary training. That may be a four-year degree. It could also be a two-year community college degree, or it could be some meaningful career credential that actually leads to a job that provides a family-sustaining wage. But there are very, very few jobs that are going to provide that family-sustaining wage that don’t require some level of post-secondary training. My view is, we have a public responsibility to make sure folks have access to those post-secondary training opportunities. That’s why the Pell Grant program is so important, because it provides funding for low-income students to be able to pursue higher education.

We also need to do a better job in the connection between high school and post-secondary opportunities. A lot of times students leave high school unclear on what they’re going to do and where they should go. We can do a much better job having students have college experiences while in high school and then prepare them to transition into meaningful post-secondary career training.

Q: What’s the one policy change you would made to help students of color and students in poverty, if you had to choose one thing?

There’s no one single silver bullet for sure, but one of the highest return investments we know we can make as a country is in early learning. We know, for example, that high quality pre-K can have an eight-to-one, nine-to-one return on investment. President Obama proposed something called Preschool for All, which would have gotten us toward universal access to quality pre-K for low- and middle-income four-year olds. That’s something we ought to do because if we can give kids a good foundation, that puts them in a better place to succeed in K-12 and to go on to college.

But I have a long list of policy changes I would want to make. I think, fundamentally, we haven’t made that commitment as a country, at the federal level, state level, or local level, to ensuring equitable opportunity for low-income students and students of color. And if we made that commitment, then there’s a series of policy changes that would flow from that.

Interviewed and edited by Ben Mattison.

Visit edtrust.org to learn more about the Education Trust. Follow John B. King Jr. on Twitter: @JohnBKing .

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Seven Solutions for Education Inequality

Giving compass' take:.

•  Jermeelah Martin shares seven solutions that can reduce and help to eliminate education inequality in the United States.
• What role are you ready to take on to address education inequality? What does education inequality look like in your community?
• Read about comprehensive strategies for promoting educational equity .

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Systemic issues in funding drives education inequality and has detrimental effects primarily on low-income Black and Brown students. These students receive lower quality of education which is reflected through less qualified teachers,not enough books, technologies and special support like counselors and disability services. The lack of access to fair, quality education creates the broader income and wealth gaps in the U.S. Black and brown students face more hurdles to going to college and will be three times more likely to experience poverty as a American with only a highschool degree than an American with a college degree. Income inequality worsens the opportunity for building wealth for Black and Brown families because home and asset ownership will be more difficult to attain.

• Concretely, the first solution would be to reduce class distinctions among students by doing away with the property tax as a primary funding source. This is a significant driver for education inequality because low-income students, by default, will receive less. Instead, the state government should create more significant initiatives and budgets for equitable funding.
• Stop the expansion of charter and private schools as it is not affordable for all students and creates segregation.
• Deprioritize test based funding because it discriminates against disadvantaged students.
• Support teachers financially, as in offering higher salaries and benefits for teachers to improve retention.
• Invest more resources for support in low-income, underfunded schools such as, increased special education specialists and counselors.
• Dismantle the school to prison pipeline for students by adopting more restorative justice efforts and fewer funds for cops in schools. This will create more funds for education justice initiatives and work to end the over policing of minority students.
• More broadly, supporting efforts to dismantle the influence of capitalism in our social sector and supporting an economy that taxes the wealthy at a higher rate will allow for adequate support and funding of public sectors like public education and support for low-income families.

Read the full article about solutions for education inequality  by Jermeelah Martin at United for a Fair Economy.

More Articles

Our education funding system is broken. we can fix it., learning policy institute, nov 21, 2022, the funding gap between charter schools and traditional public schools, may 22, 2019.

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The Ongoing Challenges, and Possible Solutions, to Improving Educational Equity

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Schools across the country were already facing major equity challenges before the pandemic, but the disruptions it caused exacerbated them.

After students came back to school buildings after more than a year of hybrid schooling, districts were dealing with discipline challenges and re-segregating schools. In a national EdWeek Research Center survey from October, 65 percent of the 824 teachers, and school and district leaders surveyed said they were more concerned now than before the pandemic about closing academic opportunity gaps that impact learning for students of different races, socioeconomic levels, disability categories, and English-learner statuses.

But educators trying to prioritize equity have an uphill battle to overcome these challenges, especially in the face of legislation and school policies attempting to fight equity initiatives across the country.

The pandemic and the 2020 murder of George Floyd drove many districts to recognize longstanding racial disparities in academics, discipline, and access to resources and commit to addressing them. But in 2021, a backlash to such equity initiatives accelerated, and has now resulted in 18 states passing laws restricting lessons on race and racism, and many also passing laws restricting the rights and well-being of LGBTQ students.

This slew of Republican-driven legislation presents a new hurdle for districts looking to address racial and other inequities in public schools.

During an Education Week K-12 Essentials forum last week, journalists, educators, and researchers talked about these challenges, and possible solutions to improving equity in education.

Takeru Nagayoshi, who was the Massachusetts teacher of the year in 2020, and one of the speakers at the forum, said he never felt represented as a gay, Asian kid in public school until he read about the Stonewall Riots, the Civil Rights Movement, and the full history of marginalized groups working together to change systems of oppression.

“Those are the learning experiences that inspired me to be a teacher and to commit to a life of making our country better for everyone,” he said.

“Our students really benefit the most when they learn about themselves and the world that they’re in. They’re in a safe space with teachers who provide them with an honest education and accurate history.”

Here are some takeaways from the discussion:

Schools are still heavily segregated

Almost 70 years after the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, most students attend schools where they see a majority of other students of their racial demographics .

Black students, who accounted for 15 percent of public school enrollment in 2019, attended schools where Black students made up an average of 47 percent of enrollment, according to a UCLA report.

They attended schools with a combined Black and Latinx enrollment averaging 67 percent, while Latinx students attended schools with a combined Black and Latinx enrollment averaging 66 percent.

Overall, the proportion of schools where the majority of students are not white increased from 14.8 percent of schools in 2003 to 18.2 percent in 2016.

“Predominantly minority schools [get] fewer resources, and that’s one problem, but there’s another problem too, and it’s a sort of a problem for democracy,” said John Borkowski, education lawyer at Husch Blackwell.

“I think it’s much better for a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy, when people have opportunities to interact with one another, to learn together, you know, and you see all of the problems we’ve had in recent years with the rising of white supremacy, and white supremacist groups.”

School discipline issues were exacerbated because of student trauma

In the absence of national data on school discipline, anecdotal evidence and expert interviews suggest that suspensions—both in and out of school—and expulsions, declined when students went remote.

In 2021, the number of incidents increased again when most students were back in school buildings, but were still lower than pre-pandemic levels , according to research by Richard Welsh, an associate professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education.

But forum attendees, who were mostly district and school leaders as well as teachers, disagreed, with 66 percent saying that the pandemic made school incidents warranting discipline worse. That’s likely because of heightened student trauma from the pandemic. Eighty-three percent of forum attendees who responded to a spot survey said they had noticed an increase in behavioral issues since resuming in-person school.

Restorative justice in education is gaining popularity

One reason Welsh thought discipline incidents did not yet surpass pre-pandemic levels despite heightened student trauma is the adoption of restorative justice practices, which focus on conflict resolution, understanding the causes of students’ disruptive behavior, and addressing the reason behind it instead of handing out punishments.

Kansas City Public Schools is one example of a district that has had improvement with restorative justice, with about two thirds of the district’s 35 schools seeing a decrease in suspensions and expulsions in 2021 compared with 2019.

Forum attendees echoed the need for or success of restorative justice, with 36 percent of those who answered a poll within the forum saying restorative justice works in their district or school, and 27 percent saying they wished their district would implement some of its tenets.

However, 12 percent of poll respondents also said that restorative justice had not worked for them. Racial disparities in school discipline also still persist, despite restorative justice being implemented, which indicates that those practices might not be ideal for addressing the over-disciplining of Black, Latinx, and other historically marginalized students.

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Education and inequality in 2021: how to change the system

Research Associate at the University of Geneva's department of Education and Psychology; Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva's La Grande Boissière, Université de Genève

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Conrad Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

AUF (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie) provides funding as a member of The Conversation FR.

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Since its earliest traces, at least 5,000 years ago , formal education – meaning an education centred on literacy and numeracy – has always been highly selective. Ancient Egyptian priest schools and schools for scribes in Sumeria were only open to the children of the clergy or future monarchs.

Later on, the wealthy would use private tutors, such as the Sophists of Athens (500 - 400 BCE). Ancient Greek schools, such as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum , were restricted to a small elite group. Formal education was reserved for male children who were wealthy, able, and privileged.

Through time, even after learning societies began to flourish, it was still an education for some and not for everybody.

In the 1800s Black people were denied access to quality education in the United States. In European colonies, education was used to strip people of their cultural heritage and relegate them to a future of menial labour.

Education has always been less accessible to women than men. Even today, over 130 million girls are still out of school. Although the difference between girls and boys is lessening, the disparity disadvantaging girls persists . From a socioeconomic perspective, in many countries, private schools continue to grow alongside compulsory state schools, offering a different style of education, sometimes at a very high price.

Today, progress to attain the dream of universal access to education is slow. UNESCO’s Education for All and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 , which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, are still far from materialising: roughly 260 million children are still not in school . The COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation worse: remote learning is inaccessible to roughly 500 million students . Estimates are that over 200 million children will still be out of school by 2030 .

In my study “Education and Elitism” , the overarching question that runs through the book is about the future of education worldwide: What are the prospects for the future? Are we facing an even more enclaved, pauperised majority while a tiny minority become more powerful and wealthy?

Certain paths could open up. On the one hand, places in selective institutions could become even more difficult to access while private education strips ahead of national standards. On the other hand, changes might make education more inclusive: this would include scholarships, cheaper private education, more robust state systems and deep assessment reform.

Prospects for the future

Scholarship programmes: These allow the brightest and poorest access to transformative learning ecosystems . However, this contributes to a brain drain and does not develop the local educational sector , particularly in Africa.

Cheaper private education: A movement of accessible private schools is growing . This allows more children to access some of the value-added features of such systems – more curriculum flexibility, smaller class sizes, more individual student tracking. However, there are reports that this is widening social divides , as the public system isn’t improving fast enough to keep up.

More robust state systems: UNESCO estimates that it would cost a total of US$340 billion each year to achieve universal pre-primary, primary, and secondary education in low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2030. The average annual per-student spending for quality primary education in a low-income country is predicted to be US$197 in 2030. This creates an estimated annual gap of US$39 billion between 2015 and 2030. Financing this gap calls for action from private sector donors, philanthropists, and international financial institutions.

Online learning: The COVID-19 lockdown has brought inequalities to the surface. However, the rise of online learning worldwide has been phenomenal. This opens up the potential to widen access to learning socioeconomically and, if delivered by skilled facilitators, academically . There is a problem, though: online instruction lacks the emotional quantum that face-to-face learning creates. Because of this, motivation levels and persistence tend to be low in online learning environments . And importantly, in many countries, many students still don’t have access to the internet.

A way forward: reforming the system

Perhaps the most substantive movement to reduce inequalities would not be to accelerate access to a broken system but to reform the system itself .

It is time to look further than narrow academic metrics as the only way of describing young people’s competences. The whole educational system across high schools, in every country, needs to change dramatically. Assessment models should recognise and nurture more varied and multiple competences, in particular, attitudes, skills and types of knowledge beyond those concentrated in constructs that are favoured by socioeconomic background, such as literacy and numeracy .

Read more: Education needs a refocus so that all learners reach their full potential

Until universities and employers look beyond traditional metrics, it will be difficult to break a circuit that favours, for the large part, middle class, socially and ethnically privileged candidates.

To truly break away from a millennia of elitist, selective systems , the approach needs to move from pure academics to a credit system that captures many more stories of learning. This new credit system should be known as a passport, meaning students have stamped it with the various competences such as lifelong learning and self-agency that they have developed throughout their learning (in an out of school), allowing them to be recognised on numerous different fronts.

A coalition of schools from every continent is working on this project, now seeking universities to sit around the table in order to bring this work to its conclusion. This would mean co-designing an elegant, life worthy transcript to allow more access to more children based on more expansive criteria.

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Education in Crisis Situations

The Global Initiative – Partnership for Transformative Actions in Crisis Situations in the first global multi-stakeholder initiative to mobilize cross-country cooperation and bring actions to scale while addressing immediate educational needs at national, regional, and global levels.

As 244 million children and young people are currently affected by armed conflict, health, or climate-induced disasters, political or economic crises, and associated forced displacement, including refugee crises, the need to intervene and put an end to the vicious cycle is urgent. Crises dramatically impact the longer-term investment required to transform education systems and to ensure their resilience to future disruption. 

With the main objective of advocating for and implementing the Humanitarian-Development- Peacebuilding Triple Nexus, the Global Initiative was launched as the main framework for its actions which targets 4 areas:

• Inclusive education: Improve equitable inclusive education access and learning outcomes for children and youth affected by crises. 
• Finance: Protect and improve external financing, ensure it reaches learners equitably and aligns with national planning priorities and commitments to international conventions. 
• System Strengthening: Build inclusive, crisis-resilient education systems that ensure protection of the right to education for children and youth, address the needs of all learners in a holistic way, and include information and tools related to safeguarding health, wellbeing, nutrition, water, sanitation and protection from violence, sexual exploitation and abuse. 
• Interlinked priorities: Scale and mainstream high-impact and evidence-based interventions into policy and programming efforts with a focus on eight inter-linked priorities: (i) teachers; (ii) community participation; (iii) gender equality and inclusion; (iv) early childhood education; (v) mental health and psychosocial support; (vi) protection from violence; (vii) equitable delivery of education technology and innovation, especially for the most marginalized children; and (viii) meaningful child and youth engagement. 

Strategies and activities 

For the Partnership, implementing this initiative means making it relevant for those most in need, with a focus on tangible actions where it matters most: on the ground, in the classroom, and in the experience of teachers and learners alike. Moving forward is about making this Call to Action meaningful in concerned countries and thinking of its implementation based on the different feedback and contexts. 

Thus, out of the 36 members who have signed off, an agreement was made to focus on the following 14 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Niger, South Sudan, Uganda, Ukraine, Yemen, Zambia. Based on National consultations held in the 14 countries, the Operationalization plan of the Global Initiative – Partnership for Transformative Actions in Crisis Situations focuses on solutions that: 

• Identifies ways to strengthen political accountability for transforming and financing education in crisis situations 
• Draws the main guidelines to implement the 4 pillars of the Global Initiative
• Establishes a clear roadmap staged with milestones until December 2024. 
• Map the national consultation commitments to concrete country-level actions supported by engaged EiEPC stakeholders on the ground. 
• Anchor interventions to national, regional, and global monitoring and reporting mechanisms with a first status report published in September 2025 reflecting adaptations and adjustments that enable meaningful, contextualized action and monitoring. 

Co-conveners

The co-conveners of the Call-to-Action: Education in crisis situations are:

• Education Cannot Wait
• Global Partnership for Education

Partners 

The Global Initiative has been signed and endorsed by the following 36 Member States: Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Denmark, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Germany, Haiti, Jordan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Madagascar, Niger, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, South Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, European Union, ECW, GPE, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, INEE, EiE Champion Group (coalition of more than 90 CSOs), The LEGO Foundation

How to engage 

The best way to engage for countries and organizations remains to endorse the CtA. Being engaged means to make a living and transformative commitment for the most in need and to fully capitalize on this unique opportunity. It must be done by:

• Nurturing and sustaining the political commitment and resources mobilized to support countries to adhere to the pillars of the Call to Action 
• Engaging all stakeholders at local, national, regional, and global levels to create a movement beyond ministries of education, led by learners and teachers across the world, inspired by civil society, and connected with broader movements for positive change. 
• Strengthening existing clusters and working groups on Education in Emergencies and reinforce open and effective Triple Nexus partnership platforms.  
• Gathering robust data and evidence to transpose the national consultation commitments to concrete country-level actions supported by engaged EiEPC stakeholders on the ground 
• Taking proactive and transformative measures to address the key barriers and bottlenecks to education in crisis situations, with a focus on the most marginalized populations. 
• Accounting for progress on global, regional, and national commitments on education in crisis situations in and through education. 

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Ending Poverty Through Education: The Challenge of Education for All

About the author, koïchiro matsuura.

From Vol. XLIV, No. 4, "The MDGs: Are We on Track?",  December 2007

T he world made a determined statement when it adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. These goals represent a common vision for dramatically reducing poverty by 2015 and provide clear objectives for significant improvement in the quality of people's lives. Learning and education are at the heart of all development and, consequently, of this global agenda. MDG 2 aims to ensure that children everywhere -- boys and girls -- will be able to complete a full course of good quality primary schooling. MDG 3 targets to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. Indeed, learning is implicit in all the MDGs: improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS simply cannot be achieved without empowering individuals with knowledge and skills to better their lives. In addition, MDG 8 calls for "more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction". The MDGs on education echo the Education for All (EFA) goals, also adopted in 2000. However, the EFA agenda is much broader, encompassing not only universal primary education and gender equality, but also early childhood education, quality lifelong learning and literacy. This holistic approach is vital to ensuring full enjoyment of the human right to education and achieving sustainable and equitable development. What progress have we made towards universal primary education? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 -- Education for All by 2015: Will we make it? -- presents an overall assessment of progress at the halfway point between 2000 and 2015. There is much encouraging news, including: • Between 1999 and 2005, the number of children entering primary school for the first time grew by 4 per cent, from 130 million to 135 million, with a jump of 36 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa -- a major achievement, given the strong demographic growth in the region. • Overall participation in primary schooling worldwide grew by 6.4 per cent, with the fastest growth in the two regions farthest from achieving the goal on education -- sub-Saharan Africa, and South and West Asia. • Looking at the net enrolment ratio, which measures the share of children of primary school age who are enrolled, more than half the countries of North America, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean have rates of over 90 per cent. Ratios are lower in the Arab States, Central Asia and South and West Asia, with lows of 33 per cent (Djibouti) and 68 per cent (Pakistan). The challenge is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than one third of countries have rates below 70 per cent. • The number of children out of school has dropped sharply, from 96 million in 1999 to around 72 million by 2005, with the biggest change in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, which continue to harbour the largest percentages of children not in school. South and West Asia has the highest share of girls out of school. The MDG on education specifies that both boys and girls should receive a full course of primary schooling. The gender parity goal set for 2005, however, has not been achieved by all. Still, many countries have made significant progress. In South and West Asia, one of the regions with the widest disparities, 93 girls for every 100 boys were in school in 2005 -- up from 82 in 1999. Yet, globally, 122 out of the 181 countries with data had not achieved gender parity in 2005. There is much more to be done, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, but there are strong trends in the right direction. This overall assessment indicates that progress in achieving universal primary education is positive. Countries where enrolments rose sharply generally increased their education spending as a share of gross national product. Public expenditure on education has climbed by over 5 per cent annually in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. Aid to basic education in low-income countries more than doubled between 2000 and 2004. Progress has been achieved through universal and targeted strategies. Some 14 countries have abolished primary school fees since 2000, a measure that has promoted enrolment of the most disadvantaged children. Several countries have established mechanisms to redistribute funds to poorer regions and target areas that are lagging in terms of access to education, and to offset economic barriers to schooling for poor households. Many countries, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India and Yemen, have introduced specific strategies to encourage girls' schooling, such as community sensitization campaigns, early childhood centres to release girls from caring for their siblings, free uniforms and learning materials. These strategies are working and reflect strong national commitment to achieving universal primary education. Enrolment, however, is only half the story; children need to stay in primary school and complete it. One way of measuring this is the survival rate to the last grade of primary education. Although data are not available for every country, globally the rate of survival to the last grade is 87 per cent. This masks wide regional variations, with medians of over 90 per cent all over the world, except in South and West Asia (79%) and sub-Saharan Africa (63%). Even then, some children drop out in the last grade and never complete primary education, with some countries showing a gap of 20 per cent between those who enter the last grade and those who complete it. One of the principal challenges is to improve the quality of learning and teaching. Cognitive skills, basic competencies and life-skills, as well as positive values and attitudes, are all essential for development at individual, community and national levels. In a world where the acquisition, use and sharing of knowledge are increasingly the key to poverty reduction and social development, the need for quality learning outcomes becomes a necessary essential condition for sharing in the benefits of growing prosperity. What children take away from school, and what youth and adults acquire in non-formal learning programmes, should enable them, as expressed in the four pillars of the 1996 Delors report, Learning: The Treasure Within, to learn to know, to do, to be and to live together. Governments are showing growing concern about the poor quality of education. An increasing number of developing countries are participating in international and regional learning assessments, and conducting their own. Evidence shows that up to 40 per cent of students do not reach minimum achievement standards in language and mathematics. Pupils from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds and those with access to books consistently perform better than those from poorer backgrounds with limited access to reading materials. Clear messages emerge from these studies. In primary education, quality learning depends, first and foremost, on the presence of enough properly trained teachers. But pupil/teacher ratios have increased in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia since 1999. Some 18 million new teachers are needed worldwide to reach universal primary education by 2015. Other factors have a clear influence on learning: a safe and healthy physical environment, including, among others, appropriate sanitation for girls; adequate learning and teaching materials; child-centred curricula; and sufficient hours of instruction (at least 800 hours a year). Initial learning through the mother tongue has a proven impact on literacy acquisition. Transparent and accountable school governance, among others, also affects the overall learning environment. What then are the prospects for achieving universal primary education and gender parity? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 puts countries into two categories depending on their current net enrolment rate: 80 to 96 per cent, and less than 80 per cent. For each category, it then assesses whether current rates of progress are likely to enable each country to reach the goal by 2015. Noting that 63 countries worldwide have already achieved the goal and 54 countries cannot be included in the analysis due to lack of adequate data, the status is as follows: Out of the 95 countries unlikely to achieve gender parity by 2015, 14 will not achieve it in primary education and 52 will not attain it at the secondary level. A further 29 countries will fail to achieve parity in both primary and secondary education. The international community must focus on giving support to those countries that are currently not on track to meet the MDGs and the EFA goals, and to those that are making progress. On current trends, and if pledges are met, bilateral aid to basic education will likely reach $5 billion a year in 2010. This remains well below the $9 billion required to reach universal primary education alone; an additional $2 billion are needed to address the wider context of educational development. Ensuring that adults, particularly mothers, are literate has an impact on whether their children, especially their daughters, attend school. In today's knowledge-intensive societies, 774 million adults are illiterate -- one in four of them women. Early learning and pre-school programmes give children a much better chance to survive and succeed once they enter primary school, but such opportunities are few and far between across most of the developing world, except in Latin America and the Caribbean. Opportunities for quality secondary education and ongoing learning programmes provide motivation for students to achieve the highest possible level of education and view learning as a lifelong endeavour. The goals towards which we are striving are about the fundamental right to education that should enable every child and every adult to develop their potential to the full, so that they contribute actively to societal change and enjoy the benefits of development. The challenge now is to ensure that learning opportunities reach all children, youth and adults, regardless of their background. This requires inclusive policies to reach the most marginalized, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations -- the working children, those with disabilities, indigenous groups, linguistic minorities and populations affected by HIV/AIDS.

Globally, the world has set its sights on sustainable human development, the only prospect for reducing inequalities and improving the quality of life for present and future generations. In this perspective, Governments, donors and international agencies must continue working jointly towards achieving universal primary education and the broader MDG agenda with courage, determination and unswerving commitment. To find out more about the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, please visit ( www.efareport.unesco.org ).

The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

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The costs of inequality: education’s the one key that rules them all.

When there’s inequity in learning, it’s usually baked into life, Harvard analysts say

Corydon Ireland

Harvard Correspondent

Third in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to identify and understand inequality, in seeking solutions to one of America’s most vexing problems.

Before Deval Patrick ’78, J.D. ’82, was the popular and successful two-term governor of Massachusetts, before he was managing director of high-flying Bain Capital, and long before he was Harvard’s most recent Commencement speaker , he was a poor black schoolchild in the battered housing projects of Chicago’s South Side.

The odds of his escaping a poverty-ridden lifestyle, despite innate intelligence and drive, were long. So how did he help mold his own narrative and triumph over baked-in societal inequality ? Through education.

“Education has been the path to better opportunity for generations of American strivers, no less for me,” Patrick said in an email when asked how getting a solid education, in his case at Milton Academy and at Harvard, changed his life.

“What great teachers gave me was not just the skills to take advantage of new opportunities, but the ability to imagine what those opportunities could be. For a kid from the South Side of Chicago, that’s huge.”

If inequality starts anywhere, many scholars agree, it’s with faulty education. Conversely, a strong education can act as the bejeweled key that opens gates through every other aspect of inequality , whether political, economic , racial, judicial, gender- or health-based.

Simply put, a top-flight education usually changes lives for the better. And yet, in the world’s most prosperous major nation, it remains an elusive goal for millions of children and teenagers.

Plateau on educational gains

The revolutionary concept of free, nonsectarian public schools spread across America in the 19th century. By 1970, America had the world’s leading educational system, and until 1990 the gap between minority and white students, while clear, was narrowing.

But educational gains in this country have plateaued since then, and the gap between white and minority students has proven stubbornly difficult to close, says Ronald Ferguson, adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and faculty director of Harvard’s Achievement Gap Initiative. That gap extends along class lines as well.

“What great teachers gave me was not just the skills to take advantage of new opportunities, but the ability to imagine what those opportunities could be. For a kid from the South Side of Chicago, that’s huge.” — Deval Patrick

In recent years, scholars such as Ferguson, who is an economist, have puzzled over the ongoing achievement gap and what to do about it, even as other nations’ school systems at first matched and then surpassed their U.S. peers. Among the 34 market-based, democracy-leaning countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States ranks around 20th annually, earning average or below-average grades in reading, science, and mathematics.

By eighth grade, Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. noted last year, only 44 percent of American students are proficient in reading and math. The proficiency of African-American students, many of them in underperforming schools, is even lower.

“The position of U.S. black students is truly alarming,” wrote Fryer, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics, who used the OECD rankings as a metaphor for minority standing educationally. “If they were to be considered a country, they would rank just below Mexico in last place.”

Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Dean James E. Ryan, a former public interest lawyer, says geography has immense power in determining educational opportunity in America. As a scholar, he has studied how policies and the law affect learning, and how conditions are often vastly unequal.

His book “Five Miles Away, A World Apart” (2010) is a case study of the disparity of opportunity in two Richmond, Va., schools, one grimly urban and the other richly suburban. Geography, he says, mirrors achievement levels.

A ZIP code as predictor of success

“Right now, there exists an almost ironclad link between a child’s ZIP code and her chances of success,” said Ryan. “Our education system, traditionally thought of as the chief mechanism to address the opportunity gap, instead too often reflects and entrenches existing societal inequities.”

Urban schools demonstrate the problem. In New York City, for example, only 8 percent of black males graduating from high school in 2014 were prepared for college-level work, according to the CUNY Institute for Education Policy, with Latinos close behind at 11 percent. The preparedness rates for Asians and whites — 48 and 40 percent, respectively — were unimpressive too, but nonetheless were firmly on the other side of the achievement gap.

In some impoverished urban pockets, the racial gap is even larger. In Washington, D.C., 8 percent of black eighth-graders are proficient in math, while 80 percent of their white counterparts are.

Fryer said that in kindergarten black children are already 8 months behind their white peers in learning. By third grade, the gap is bigger, and by eighth grade is larger still.

According to a recent report by the Education Commission of the States, black and Hispanic students in kindergarten through 12th grade perform on a par with the white students who languish in the lowest quartile of achievement.

There was once great faith and hope in America’s school systems. The rise of quality public education a century ago “was probably the best public policy decision Americans have ever made because it simultaneously raised the whole growth rate of the country for most of the 20th century, and it leveled the playing field,” said Robert Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at HKS, who has written several best-selling books touching on inequality, including “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community” and “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.”

Historically, upward mobility in America was characterized by each generation becoming better educated than the previous one, said Harvard economist Lawrence Katz. But that trend, a central tenet of the nation’s success mythology, has slackened, particularly for minorities.

“Thirty years ago, the typical American had two more years of schooling than their parents. Today, we have the most educated group of Americans, but they only have about .4 more years of schooling, so that’s one part of mobility not keeping up in the way we’ve invested in education in the past,” Katz said.

As globalization has transformed and sometimes undercut the American economy, “education is not keeping up,” he said. “There’s continuing growth of demand for more abstract, higher-end skills” that schools aren’t delivering, “and then that feeds into a weakening of institutions like unions and minimum-wage protections.”

“The position of U.S. black students is truly alarming.” — Roland G. Fryer Jr.

Fryer is among a diffuse cohort of Harvard faculty and researchers using academic tools to understand the achievement gap and the many reasons behind problematic schools. His venue is the Education Innovation Laboratory , where he is faculty director.

“We use big data and causal methods,” he said of his approach to the issue.

Fryer, who is African-American, grew up poor in a segregated Florida neighborhood. He argues that outright discrimination has lost its power as a primary driver behind inequality, and uses economics as “a rational forum” for discussing social issues.

Better schools to close the gap

Fryer set out in 2004 to use an economist’s data and statistical tools to answer why black students often do poorly in school compared with whites. His years of research have convinced him that good schools would close the education gap faster and better than addressing any other social factor, including curtailing poverty and violence, and he believes that the quality of kindergarten through grade 12 matters above all.

Supporting his belief is research that says the number of schools achieving excellent student outcomes is a large enough sample to prove that much better performance is possible. Despite the poor performance by many U.S. states, some have shown that strong results are possible on a broad scale. For instance, if Massachusetts were a nation, it would rate among the best-performing countries.

At HGSE, where Ferguson is faculty co-chair as well as director of the Achievement Gap Initiative, many factors are probed. In the past 10 years, Ferguson, who is African-American, has studied every identifiable element contributing to unequal educational outcomes. But lately he is looking hardest at improving children’s earliest years, from infancy to age 3.

In addition to an organization he founded called the Tripod Project , which measures student feedback on learning, he launched the Boston Basics project in August, with support from the Black Philanthropy Fund, Boston’s mayor, and others. The first phase of the outreach campaign, a booklet, videos, and spot ads, starts with advice to parents of children age 3 or younger.

“Maximize love, manage stress” is its mantra and its foundational imperative, followed by concepts such as “talk, sing, and point.” (“Talking,” said Ferguson, “is teaching.”) In early childhood, “The difference in life experiences begins at home.”

At age 1, children score similarly

Fryer and Ferguson agree that the achievement gap starts early. At age 1, white, Asian, black, and Hispanic children score virtually the same in what Ferguson called “skill patterns” that measure cognitive ability among toddlers, including examining objects, exploring purposefully, and “expressive jabbering.” But by age 2, gaps are apparent, with black and Hispanic children scoring lower in expressive vocabulary, listening comprehension, and other indicators of acuity. That suggests educational achievement involves more than just schooling, which typically starts at age 5.

Key factors in the gap, researchers say, include poverty rates (which are three times higher for blacks than for whites), diminished teacher and school quality, unsettled neighborhoods, ineffective parenting, personal trauma, and peer group influence, which only strengthens as children grow older.

“Peer beliefs and values,” said Ferguson, get “trapped in culture” and are compounded by the outsized influence of peers and the “pluralistic ignorance” they spawn. Fryer’s research, for instance, says that the reported stigma of “acting white” among many black students is true. The better they do in school, the fewer friends they have — while for whites who are perceived as smarter, there’s an opposite social effect.

The researchers say that family upbringing matters, in all its crisscrossing influences and complexities, and that often undercuts minority children, who can come from poor or troubled homes. “Unequal outcomes,” he said, “are from, to a large degree, inequality in life experiences.”

Trauma also subverts achievement, whether through family turbulence, street violence, bullying, sexual abuse, or intermittent homelessness. Such factors can lead to behaviors in school that reflect a pervasive form of childhood post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Possible solutions to educational inequality:

• Access to early learning
• Improved K-12 schools
• More family mealtimes
• Reinforced learning at home
• Data-driven instruction
• Longer school days, years
• Respect for school rules
• Small-group tutoring
• High expectations of students
• Safer neighborhoods

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At Harvard Law School, both the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative and the Education Law Clinic marshal legal aid resources for parents and children struggling with trauma-induced school expulsions and discipline issues.

At Harvard Business School, Karim R. Lakhani, an associate professor who is a crowdfunding expert and a champion of open-source software, has studied how unequal racial and economic access to technology has worked to widen the achievement gap.

At Harvard’s Project Zero, a nonprofit called the Family Dinner Project is scraping away at the achievement gap from the ground level by pushing for families to gather around the meal table, which traditionally was a lively and comforting artifact of nuclear families, stable wages, close-knit extended families, and culturally shared values.

Lynn Barendsen, the project’s executive director, believes that shared mealtimes improve reading skills, spur better grades and larger vocabularies, and fuel complex conversations. Interactive mealtimes provide a learning experience of their own, she said, along with structure, emotional support, a sense of safety, and family bonding. Even a modest jump in shared mealtimes could boost a child’s academic performance, she said.

“We’re not saying families have to be perfect,” she said, acknowledging dinnertime impediments like full schedules, rudimentary cooking skills, the lure of technology, and the demands of single parenting. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Whether poring over Fryer’s big data or Barendsen’s family dinner project, there is one commonality for Harvard researchers dealing with inequality in education: the issue’s vast complexity. The achievement gap is a creature of interlocking factors that are hard to unpack constructively.

Going wide, starting early

With help from faculty co-chair and Jesse Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree, the Achievement Gap Initiative is analyzing the factors that make educational inequality such a complex puzzle: home and family life, school environments, teacher quality, neighborhood conditions, peer interaction, and the fate of “all those wholesome things,” said Ferguson. The latter include working hard in school, showing respect, having nice friends, and following the rules, traits that can be “elements of a 21st-century movement for equality.”

In the end, best practices to create strong schools will matter most, said Fryer.

He called high-quality education “the new civil rights battleground” in a landmark 2010 working paper for the Handbook of Labor Economics called “Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination.”

Fryer tapped 10 large data sets on children 8 months to 17 years old. He studied charter schools, scouring for standards that worked. He champions longer school days and school years, data-driven instruction, small-group tutoring, high expectations, and a school culture that prizes human capital — all just “a few simple investments,” he wrote in the working paper. “The challenge for the future is to take these examples to scale” across the country.

How long would closing the gap take with a national commitment to do so? A best-practices experiment that Fryer conducted at low-achieving high schools in Houston closed the gap in math skills within three years, and narrowed the reading achievement gap by a third.

“You don’t need Superman for this,” he said, referring to a film about Geoffrey Canada and his Harlem Children’s Zone, just high-quality schools for everyone, to restore 19th-century educator Horace Mann’s vision of public education as society’s “balance-wheel.”

Last spring, Fryer, still only 38, won the John Bates Clark medal, the most prestigious award in economics after the Nobel Prize. He was a MacArthur Fellow in 2011, became a tenured Harvard professor in 2007, was named to the prestigious Society of Fellows at age 25. He had a classically haphazard childhood, but used school to learn, grow, and prosper. Gradually, he developed a passion for social science that could help him answer what was going wrong in black lives because of educational inequality.

With his background and talent, Fryer has a dramatically unique perspective on inequality and achievement, and he has something else: a seemingly counterintuitive sense that these conditions will improve, once bad schools learn to get better. Discussing the likelihood of closing the achievement gap if Americans have the political and organizational will to do so, Fryer said, “I see nothing but optimism.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately portrayed details of Dr. Fryer’s background.

Illustration by Kathleen M.G. Howlett. Harvard staff writer Christina Pazzanese contributed to this report.

Next Tuesday: Inequality in health care

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What the U.S. Education System Needs to Reduce Inequality

The future of every society, great and struggling, is in the hands of its young people. These future leaders and their store of knowledge, their abilities to reason, their worldviews and skills will determine the improvements and problems the rest of the century will bring.

With this perspective in mind, some education experts in the United States harbor concern that, if education policies and teacher recruitment and retention approaches in the U.S. don’t see some change, the country will face compounding societal challenges in the years and decades ahead.

Many point to the less-than-heartening standing of the U.S. education system in the ranking compiled by PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, as one of the sources of this concern. The most recent PISA report, released in 2015, placed the U.S. at a below-average 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science.

The story of the U.S. education system gets rougher when one takes into account what the results showed about the inequality that persists within it. Disadvantaged students in the U.S. are two-and-a-half times more likely to be low performers on the exam than their more-advantaged counterparts.

The fact that such disparity in the education system exists in the United States because, in this country, lack of resources is not the issue—it’s how they’re applied. The U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP in 2014 of roughly $55,000. Accordingly, the U.S. spends a relatively high amount on education per student. Between the ages of 6 and 15, the country spends about $115,000 per student – more than any country in the PISA ranking besides Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, and Singapore.

These disparate numbers and ranking suggest that at issue for the education system in the U.S. is not the need to secure more funding, but the need for better policies. What follows is a list of five policy lessons the U.S. can learn from their PISA rankings—and from the countries who do a better job of managing to narrow the inequality gap without sacrificing performance.

1. Plot a clear strategy to improve the education experience for all students and narrow inequality gap.

The PISA 2015 report notes that the countries whose educational systems offered students the best outcomes and the least indication of inequality had instituted clear, carefully thought-through strategies with reduction of inequality in mind. For example, British Columbia in Canada developed a plan to improve the outcomes of Aboriginal students.

2. Hold to equally rigorous standards for all classrooms.

Some countries have shown that adopting standardization programs—and making sure that low-performing schools are held to those standards as diligently as top-performing ones—have been successful in bringing schools and their students onto a more-level playing field. Starting from the conviction that every student—no matter where in the country he or she lives—should receive a similar education will lead in the direction of a sound standardization policy.

3. Put a focus on teachers as a central force for change in the education system.

Countries that pay teachers a comfortable living wage and offer practical support to those in the most difficult situations tend to see the benefits in their students’ learning outcomes. Since the United States faces a teaching shortage, especially in schools serving the most vulnerable populations, such changes would likely go a long way in improving the problem of inequality here.

4. Equalize the share of resources among all school systems.

Right now, American schools in higher-income regions see the benefit of higher tax revenues, only exacerbating the other advantages those students enjoy. The PISA report details how many high-performing education systems across the world take steps to ensure that resource allotment is equalized – so that all students can equally benefit from a country’s wealth.

5. Pay special attention to at-risk schools and districts, to monitor and ensure major progress.

Given that many schools and their students are starting from a deep disadvantage that has been decades and centuries in the making, it follows that policies should favor at-risk schools when putting in place programs like after-school mentoring programs, arts programs, teacher-hiring programs, and the like.

With these policies in mind, policymakers and advisors in the U.S. can make great strides in building an equitable education system for all of the country’s students—and build a stronger society in the process.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-education

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-United-States.pdf

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Silver bullets are hard to come by in the developing world. But this should not be discouraging.

Take the international education sector. While its horizon doesn’t promise any night-to-day revolutions premised on a succinct call to action, it is dotted with evidence that reveals a diverse array of options for improving learning and, thereby, tackling extreme poverty.

For donor organizations and their implementing partners, this is instructive. Direct, effective, and relatively simpler solutions to individual aspects of a larger problem can add up to more than the sum of their parts. This is precisely how diverse interventions in education can help tackle extreme poverty in developing countries. These seven independent approaches stand out to me as offering valid paths to important improvements in learning and life:

• Set simple, communicable standards —Standards are a vital mechanism of promoting accountability and high performance in education, and may matter more for poor communities than rich—rich communities are often able to “force” systems to provide them with a good standard of quality. Parents who are not aware of the level at which their child should be achieving may be satisfied with the education services a school is providing even as their child’s learning outcomes fall short. Education systems should set simple standards and, just as importantly, communicate these standards to parents so that they may better understand their child’s progress and hold schools accountable. Under the EdData project , for instance, USAID has facilitated the creation of reading benchmarks for the early grades in certain countries. (See for example the case of the Philippines ).
• Start curricula where children are —When it comes to establishing the right curriculum, sometimes too much ambition can be problematic. For instance, one official curriculum in a developing country sets a reading comprehension goal of second grade students being able to “construct the meaning of the text.” In this particular country, a large percentage of second graders cannot even read a single word. Such theoretically ambitious curricula sometimes reflect an upper middle class bias, and evidence suggests that they result in lower achievement. Curricula should instead set very specific standards that reflect where children are in their educational development, such as starting with the basics of reading. Some NGOs are able to do this without “dumbing down” the curriculum, by starting where children are, and then ramping up. Ministries should also be able to do so. Pratham, an organization dedicated to improving education for India’s poor, has carried out numerous interventions demonstrating that restructuring classes by learning level—instead of age—can produce large improvements in learning. Their successful “ Read India ” program is based on this principle.
• Fix the mess in the early years — Uganda’s “triple crisis” in the early grades--high rates of grade repetition, lack of early childhood development programs, and low literacy rates—weighs heavily on the country’s prospects. But the crisis is not isolated there; some 40 countries are affected. Some of the poorest developing countries report huge over-enrollment in the early grades and a big drop-off between first and second grades. This is not truly due to students dropping out, but to (often under-reported) grade repetition. As the chart below illustrates, many countries report grade enrollment rates that far exceed the population of grade-aged children in the country. A major part of the problem is lack of quality early childhood education and oral stimulation early on, which has contributed to, among other things, a crisis in early grade reading: about half of grade 2 children in Early Grade Reading Assessment programs cannot read any words. Fixing the problem promises far-reaching benefits—early cognitive development is the best predictor of later cognitive development, which is a good predictor of income. In Uganda, the government is working in conjunction with USAID on a National Action Plan for Child Well-Being that includes the goal of improving education in the early years.

• Improve both accountability and pedagogy —A slew of research carried out on development programs in poor areas shines light on two batches of effective interventions: accountability (e.g. merit pay, community influence over teachers’ rewards) and pedagogy (e.g. better books, better teaching, tighter programming and supervision). Accountability interventions by themselves are unlikely to sufficiently change behaviors and outcomes. Pedagogical interventions are unlikely to be scaled or sustained without accountability and supervision. Therefore, it is important that accountability and pedagogical improvements are both pursued. The two approaches are highly complementary from a strategic management perspective as well. As I explored in a recent co-authored paper , education systems in developing countries are typically in need of very large improvements in learning outcomes. Results of such significance are typically only achieved through direct pedagogical interventions, which are extremely expensive to take to scale. However, system-level changes—such as improved accountability—have the potential to improve teaching and learning on a national scale. For example, projects in Kenya are utilizing school monitoring systems to better track observations of instructional practice.
• Work on mother tongue —Providing instruction in little-used home languages is often considered too complicated: doing so requires more advanced logistics, coordination, creativity, teacher placement and support. But perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the poor is linguistic and related to early grade reading, and it has been demonstrated that vast improvements in reading outcomes can be achieved through instruction in mother tongue. As poignantly described by SIL , local languages have a critical role to play in achieving the biggest development goals on the horizon.
• Pay attention to finance and resources —Finance matters but the “how” may be more important than the “how much.” Increases in salary levels, for instance, generally do not lead to learning improvements. A World Bank assessment of government-funded schools in Malawi found almost no relationship between expenditure and results. Pro-poor financing that is tightly linked to results can help, but care must be taken to avoid perverse incentives such as teaching to the test. Differentiated support (e.g., more funding for the poor, or more investment in teacher support where results are lacking rather than in blanket professional development) would be a real innovation in many countries.
• Rethink systems —Increasingly, vertical interventions such as USAID’s Early Grade Reading programs have delivered impressive results. However, full systemization of education in the development context has proven elusive. Previous efforts to improve systems (in the 1980s and 1990s) were somewhat de-linked from learning outcomes, results measurement, and concrete use cases that could exemplify what the reforms can achieve. Now programs such as Early Grade Reading offer concrete proof of application and impact. Practitioners should look deeply at the concrete recent experiences and consider whether there is an applicable “bare-bones” or “sine qua non” systematic approach for meeting needs of the poor. The DFID-funded Research on Improving Systems of Education ( RISE ) program is a promising innovation.

Ideally, these interventions should be considered all at once, as part of systemic reforms. But there are versions or subsets of these systemic interventions that could yield benefits relatively quickly and would not be hard to take to scale, if political will exists.

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It is said. If you gave him a fish. It will be for that day. But if you made him learn about fishing. You will solve his hunger problem for whole life. This is the Education. And really it's a panacea for all the evils againest humanity.

In reply to Education is a Panacea solution for poverty reduction.. by Dr. R. S. Chauhan

Thanks for your comment. Education is about as close as humanity can come to a panacea. Warm regards.

In reply to panacea by Luis Crouch

Luis, you are as close to being a panacea for the world's ills that any member of humanity could be. I salute you on the Global Partnership for Education--may it enable all of us to reach more of our potential. Noel

In reply to Panaceas for humanity by Noel McGinn

Thanks, Noel. GPE does great work!

Im interested and would like you to assist the elementary school in my village in PNG.There is not enough support and the learning standard is very low here.

The lack of parental involvement in the education of children presents educators with a large issue in many countries. A marginalized parent, from an education standpoint, has not had any exposure to education (Hansman, 2006). Their children are sure to repeat the same behaviors because they do not have teaching and guidance in the home environment. This places a huge burden on teachers during the child's early education years. How realistic is it for the teachers to ensure that every child makes progress in first and second grade the first time they attend classes? Perhaps a strategy of using multiple teachers in the classroom would allow for teaching and formative assessment of each student to achieve the learning outcomes and place them on a path to timely progress.

Hansman, C. (2006). Low-income adult learners in higher education. In S.B. Merriam, B.C. Courtenay, & R.M. Cervero (Eds.), Global issues and adult education (pp. 399-411). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

In reply to Parental Involvement by Alan F.

Well, at the very least the first few grades should not be more overcrowded than the later grades. Part of the problem is that Grade 1 is used in lieu of school readiness programs, creating a big mix of ages in that grade, and many goals. Just sorting out the age heterogeneity would help. And at the very least having the same pupil-teacher ratio, of now lower, in the early grades. Incidentally, one of the most cost-effective things you can do in an education system is, probably, to put your best teachers (not necessarily the most knowledgeable about subjects, but the most caring and skillful) in the earlier grades. May be politically difficult but it makes a lot of pedagogical and efficiency sense.

In reply to parental by Luis Crouch

Thank you for you response. If the suggestions you made regarding age heterogeneity could be successful, how would the educational and political powers of the country implement new policies to aid the youngest children? If the powers can be shown that improving early education is relevant to child development, and facilitates better success in the latter education years, what are the barriers to change?

In reply to School Readiness by Alan F.

Well, I think there are two keys to this.

One is the traditional arguments regarding the benefits and the return on investment of investing in both the first few grades and so on. These are the usual Heckman arguments and other arguments.

My sense from experience and discussions with Ministries of Education and Ministries of Finance is that these arguments are perceived as a bit abstract.

So, two, is the demonstration that at least a good number of countries are in some sense already paying the cost of providing a better experience in pre-primary and the first few grades, because the current mess imposes either fiscal or educational costs. In a paper that I hope to get published soon, I make this argument. You are welcome to a copy of it if you write me at my e-mail address [email protected] . I also have a PPT where I make the argument in graphical form.

In my (admittedly limited) experience in getting countries to consider these issues, the second line of argument has worked better. But that is based on relatively limited experience.

Cheers and thanks for your interest.

I am heartily thankful to Global Partnership for Education for this in-depth research and initiation for the Education of marginalized section of the developing countries. the points that were raised and explained in the article titled as "7 actions to fight extreme poverty by improving education in the developing world" with valid references are the real requirement to solve the problem of illiteracy and poverty both. Parental Involvement, Set simple communicable standards, Improve both accountability and pedagogy, Rethink systems, Pay attention to finance and resources, Start curricula where children are, Work on mother tongue are the fundamental demands to the mission of SDGs by 2030. One more thing that I want to add is the Employment with the Education. we have to convert our schools into Educational workshops where the identified group will get education and employment both at the same time. we have to re-think and have to differentiate the educational policies for them.

In reply to Educational Workshops for the marginalized class of the society by Dr. Rupendra S…

Certainly linking education to the world of work is a trend that is worth paying attention to. Models used in some developed countries may have a role in developing countries, and vice versa. But I think this makes most sense for adolescents, say. Not sure it makes sense for the very few first grades. For adolescents, putting more schools in work, and putting more of work in the schools, seems to make sense. Programs such as Linked Learning, as implemented by ConnectEd, seem to be receiving good evaluations. Thanks for your interest.

As president of a philantropic women society, I would like to learn about possible ways to contribute and support your educacional programs in Panama.

In reply to Support for your programs in Panama by María Ana Antoniadis

Thanks for your interest. I am afraid I no longer work at GPE, and Panama may not be poor enough to qualify for GPE programs. However, the various initiatives to which I refer in my blog are documented and are not that difficult for a country such as Panama to adapt or at least use as inspiration. Good luck!

First of all thanks Luis

Education like, Look at the course like you are viewing it for the first time. Using the ‘student view’ options provided are useful for this as well.

Regards Katya

One of the many ways to get a child excited about learning is to approach it in a creative way. The Christian Children's Fund of Canada has 85 Creative Learning Centres operating in India thanks to donors that support 3,200 children. Learning through play, music and other creative methods makes learning fun. Watch this video to see how sponsor support is inspiring education through creativity. https://www.ccfcanada.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7…

After reading your complete post I really like all the steps and actions to fight extreme poverty by improving education in the developing world. Children in India are facing the basic challenges like shortages of teachers, books, and basic facilities, and insufficient public funds to cover education costs. I think your provided steps specially “Pay attention to finance and resources” and “Improve both accountability and pedagogy” are really helpful to fight extreme poverty and in development of country.

There are many good organizations specially Shareandserve.com which provides free education charities to rural areas. They also help to remove extreme poverty in India. So, Thanks for your thoughts on this subject.

Nice information that are provided in this article,Thanks for sharing this type of information.

Very interesting info for all the kids at westfield intermediate school. It is very useful. Including all the kids in my class -Ava Grace 6th grader at westfield intermediate school!!!

Dear Luis, Thank you for the article. The 7-actions highlighted are very useful, especially for developing countries. One of my best lines " finance matters but how may be more important than how much". Leaders in education in poor countries are quick to project lack of finance as a major challenge impeding the quality of education, but when they get the money, it ends up in the wrong direction.

Of the 7 best ways to fight poverty, language of instruction appears to continue haunting the Zambian education system where the movement from English to a familiar language of instruction appears not to solve the linguistic dilemma in the language of instruction in the education system. While use familiar languages of instruction in early grades is better than using English, familiar languages are equally not mother tongues further worsening the difficulties learners from diverse culture face in the classroom owing the the multiplicity of languages in the country. Thus, children in cosmopolitan cities where one familiar language has been adopted yet there are children from all over the country find it very difficult to understand instruction and be helped by their parents who are alien to the local languages in towns.

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Opinion: What governments can learn from schools to solve the global education crisis

Global education – already in need of urgent reform – is tilting hard in the wrong direction. Image:  Reuters/Caren Firouz

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• Learning poverty, post-pandemic, is still on the increase worldwide.
• Policy-makers must begin to incorporate solutions pioneered by educators on the ground.
• If teachers are heeded, the innovations that work can be systematized.

World leaders gathered this September to grapple with the global learning crisis at the UN’s Transforming Education summit. Bringing education to the top of the global political agenda, it's a vital initiative.

Even before the pandemic, the UN was warning the world was on course to miss out on SDG 4 goals. With 1.5 million learners impacted by school and university closures, COVID has made that mountain steeper still, especially in low- and middle-income countries where the rate of learning poverty has increased by a third. Pre-COVID, 57% of 10-year-olds in these countries were unable to understand a simple written text – today, it is 70% .

Global education – already in need of urgent reform – is tilting hard in the wrong direction. That world leaders recognize the need for transformative action is a step in the right direction, and I hope the legacy of this summit is lasting change. While talks are a start, what governments need to do is listen. They need to bring the teachers tackling the crisis at the ground level to the table and learn from the knowledge, experience and expertise bound up in our schools. This will help truly understand what needs transforming and how.

There’s much that can be learned from that famous – though unfortunately typical – story of a group of policy-makers discussing future roles for women in society back in the 1960s. The travesty of the situation was that no women were actually present. It took women many years and many protests, to get a seat at the table.

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Prioritizing education: why we should look to sierra leone and rwanda, online learning: what next for higher education after covid-19, how many children in the world are getting a proper education.

If world leaders aren’t ready to admit that they don’t have all the answers, that we can only begin to tackle the global education crisis if we listen to those on its frontlines, then educators at the coalface must raise their voices to be heard.

We launched the World’s Best School Prizes to provide schools with that platform: to surface their best practices and not only share them with their peers around the world for improving education from the grassroots but to show governments the everyday techniques that are changing children’s lives and how they might start systematizing what works.

Take just a few examples of this innovation from the schools we celebrated as our top three finalists this week.

Pinelands North Primary School in South Africa perfectly demonstrates the importance of inclusivity in education. When its principal took up the role in 1997, South Africa was emerging from the shadow of apartheid, and the student population of her school was still predominantly white. Today Pinelands is a beacon of diversity. All pupils, male or female, wear the same uniforms, kids are taught sign language, and the school has gender-neutral bathrooms. When the school accepted its first transgender pupil, it provided guidance for families about gender identities and trained staff to guide parents.

Meanwhile, Escuela Emilia Lascar , a school in Chile, shows that innovative solutions to engaging vulnerable students can have a significant impact. It launched its own “Emilia TV” programme broadcast weekly on social media to keep students motivated during the pandemic and beyond. Today, the school has its own TV studio producing student-led content on topical issues. The project led to increased enrolment and attainment.

We can take inspiration from schools like Dunoon Grammar School in Scotland, which curated new skill-based courses to turn around a brain drain impacting its rural community. This is a school that has not only changed its curriculum to meet the real-life needs of its students but tackled challenges in the wider community as well. Dunoon is a clear example of how strong schools build strong societies.

Their stories are many and varied, and they span the globe. But the results we repeatedly see in the world’s best schools are improved educational outcomes and stronger communities.

But the schools can’t do this alone – not sustainably. To truly maximize their expertise, creativity and impact, governments must understand what these schools are doing well and how to amplify their work.

When things don’t work, people and organizations either do more of what they were doing, thinking they can “power” their way through the problem, or they do less. Very few of them shift towards a different approach, but a shift is what we need, and no time has ever been more urgent than now.

Social innovators are addressing the world’s most serious and entrenched challenges, ranging from illiteracy to clean water and sanitation, girls’ education, prison reform, financial inclusion and disaster relief.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is supporting more than 400 leading social innovators operating in over 190 countries.

Since its foundation in 1998, a total of 722 million lives have been directly improved by the work of this community of leading social innovators.

Our global network of experts, partner institutions and World Economic Forum constituents are invited to nominate outstanding social innovators.

Visit the Schwab Foundation website for more information about the award process and the selection criteria.

Read more about the Foundation's impact.

If something comes out of this month's talks at the Transforming Education Summit, let it be a recognition that lasting change for the better rarely comes solely from the top down. It is a multifaceted process in which mutual understanding, cooperation and collaboration are essential.

Even with the best will in the world, governments rise and fall, and education ministers come and go. Still, teachers are present day-in and day-out, striving to overcome often colossal challenges to improve the next generation's lives.

Understanding how they are going about it is not just a study in effective pedagogy. It’s the true art of policy-making.

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How to Fix the Unequal Distribution of Education Resources

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Each December we spend a lot of time thinking about gifts. We reflect on those we care most about and try to figure out what they would like, or what will make their lives better. With the holiday season now behind us, it’s a good time to remember that one of the most important gifts we can offer our young people is a chance at a better education.

When we think about how best to ensure that every child is given the educational foundation they need to thrive, we must remember that every child is unique. Children have different skills, different interests, and different learning styles. Our educational system, on the other hand, tries to teach them all in the same setting, with the same approach and curriculum, expecting them all to succeed – and knowing that too many won’t.

That’s a mistake – one we must address with innovation that makes school more flexible. This effort has gained steam in the wake of a pandemic that clearly illustrated the problem of a system built entirely on in-person classroom instruction. Some states have already adopted reforms, and more will consider them in the year ahead. The team at The LIBRE Initiative – a nonprofit dedicated to helping the Hispanic community – is working in a number of states to build support for providing parents and educators with new educational options.

Education savings accounts (ESAs) for example, are a topic of discussion around the country. By allowing educational dollars to be applied to educational expenses, such as tutors, seminars, online instruction, or other options, ESAs recognize that parents and families are best positioned to make education decisions for their children.

Georgia is among the states  that have previously considered ESA proposals , and the state legislature will have an opportunity to pass them in the year ahead. For the Hispanic community, which makes up 16% of Georgia’s public school enrollment, this priority is particularly important. Our team will engage with families eager to learn more about the ongoing debate, and how ESAs could help them.

In Virginia, a few thousand students currently take advantage of a program launched in 2013 to provide scholarships to those  with limited income and special needs . With governor-elect Glenn Youngkin  having endorsed ESAs , expanded educational opportunity is sure to be part of the upcoming education debate. The likely next Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates  recently confirmed  that education will be a top priority in the state, with an effort to “ensure every student in Virginia gets the high-quality education they deserve.”

In North Carolina, several hundred students participate each year in the Personal Education Savings Account program, which provides a limited financial benefit to some students with disabilities. It is expected that lawmakers may again introduce  the Student Success Act , which would allow families to access funds that could be used to address their students’ individual educational needs. Like its neighbors to the north and south, North Carolina may also be the site of a robust education reform debate.

In the state of Arizona, where unfair school funding formulas lead to  an inequitable distribution  of education resources, there have been growing calls  to update the system . As parents engage and make their voices heard, it will be important for legislators and advocates to ensure families have more equal access to a quality education.

While the parameters of the education debate in many states are still taking shape, it’s already clear that our teams in Texas and Colorado will also be engaging on key pieces of legislation with the potential to significantly improve educational opportunities for Hispanics and the broader community. Issues such as charter schools, tuition for immigrant students, and others will be at the fore.

In all of these areas, we should insist on reforms that take a student-centered approach to help ensure that each child has a chance for the best possible education. We know that’s key to building stronger communities and a stronger nation.

Daniel Garza is president of The LIBRE Initiative.

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Learning online: problems and solutions, blog post by unicef young reporters matej milosievski (16), dorisa zemon (16), jana stojkovska (17) and kristijan popovski (17).

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Like in many countries, in the fight against COVID-19, schools in North Macedonia have closed and learning is taking place online. The amount of content, online assessment, much of it without adequate instructions, are just some of the problems that young people face in this new learning environment. The Ministry of Education and Science in cooperation with UNICEF and other partners created a new online-learning platform called EDUINO, where pre-primary and primary school students can continue their education through video lessons, resources and a variety of games. In addition an educational program called TV Classroom is being broadcast on the national television. The primary and secondary schools have also started holding online classes through various digital platforms. All of these are good efforts, but - do all students have the means to attend online classes and what can we say about the actual quality of education in this online environment?   These are some different perspectives and views on how we can make it work.

Student’s Perspectives

The truth is, for many students, online learning is only a formality and not a real substitute for regular teaching. Some teachers only share material to students without teaching it. Online testing is sometimes based on the principle of “work it out yourself”. Students are not acquiring real, long-lasting knowledge. And some students don’t have the opportunity to leave their home during the two hours allowed during the curfew because they have to sit in online classes. Some students don’t even have proper equipment to attend online classes. They don’t have electronic devices such as computers, telephones and cameras. The number of these devices in households is often limited which can be very inconvenient for online appointments, classes, and meetings that take place simultaneously. Also, some teachers don’t consider the fact that during online testing, the student may lose the internet connection. Unfortunately, if this happens, the student gets graded based on the number of questions answered and recorded in the system before the connection was lost. Students also face problems managing their own time as a result of online teaching. 

Parents Perspectives

Online learning is new, unknown and different for students, teachers and parents. It’s especially difficult for lower grade students. Parents of these young learners more often have to spend most of their time, helping their children navigate through platforms, working with them on homework and explaining the curriculum. This is true of parents who work from home, but what about those children whose parents go to work? How can these parents help their children? With this online learning, they need to find more time, concentration and focus to support their children to learn and master the subjects. Those parents who don’t have IT skills face greater problems, and need to seek help from relatives, friends, colleagues, etc. Parents and students from vulnerable communities also face difficulties, as many don’t have the means to provide their children a computer or smartphone to attend classes.

Teachers Perspectives

For now, everyone is going on as if the most important thing is to teach what is the remaining curriculum, to get the final grades and to finish the school year formally. But is it really necessary for students? Is that the right way to deal with this new situation?

Certainly not! In this big picture, perhaps the biggest burden is put on teachers. They are in a situation where they are unprepared and without proper support. Criteria and guidelines imposed by the institutions are not sufficient to deal with the situation effectively. Existing assessment criteria that include tests and examinations are not suitable for digital learning. No teacher can assess with certainty whether the homework assigned to students is written independently and assigning separate homework to each individual student is simply an overload and difficulty.

Teachers need serious preparation to use online tools and platforms. They are not all ready for the new situation, which further opens the issues with our overall education. We are all aware that if we want to improve the quality of education, we need to better use digital technologies, but we also need to provide appropriate support and training to teachers to support the quality of instruction.

When asked about their experience with learning online teachers say: “Most of the students are attending the classes and fulfil their homework but now we can’t tell whether they completed the tasks independently or if it was a group effort. As teachers, we found ourselves unprepared . It is really challenging since we never had any training on distance learning.”

Our views and suggestions

It is obvious that the situation affects everyone, and everyone needs to come together so that we can overcome the pandemic. However, we must not allow the situation to compromise the quality of learning for those whose hands the future of our country lies. That’s why we, as young reporters, while considering the issue we were researching, are giving our own opinions and suggestions for improving online learning:

• Systemic solutions from the Ministry of Education and Science and the Bureau for Development of Education should develop a well-designed platform with a specific given curriculum, as well as a fair and effective way of assessment.
• Vulnerable families should be supported so that they have the means to acquire equipment and skills to be able to support their children learn online.
• Students and young people should be consulted. Future decisions should also take into consideration how students feel, their views, their conditions and needs. Students should have access to materials without feeling discriminated against, left to feel helpless when they have questions, or unheard when they have an opinion or request.
• Students should not be assessed with numerical grades rather descriptively.
• As the situation evolves, a more purposeful approach is definitely required, by including representatives from multiple areas in evaluating and sharing their experiences about what worked well and what didn’t. It should consider the problems and solutions faced by students, parents and teachers.
• Achieve compromise, because only together and with joint forces we can get the best results out of this whole situation. 

Written by:

Kristijan, 17

Blogs written by UNICEF Young Reporters  are part of a UNICEF volunteer initiative to give young people the space to share their own views on topics important to them.  The work of the Young Reporters during COVID-19 pandemic is partly funded by USAID.

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42 Causes, Effects & Solutions for a Lack of Education

“ Lack of education, old age, bad health or discrimination – these are causes of poverty, and the way to attack it is to go to the root.”

Robert Kennedy, Politician

Lack of Education: Causes, Effects & Solutions

A lack of education can be defined as a state where people have a below-average level of common knowledge about basic things that they would urgently need in their daily life.

For instance, this could include basic knowledge in math, writing, spelling, etc.

Especially in poor developing countries, educational inequality is quite prevalent.

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A lack of education can have severe adverse effects.

In this article, the causes, effects and solutions for a lack of education are examined in detail.

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Causes for a lack of education, homelessness, substance abuse, bad company, cultural factors, natural disasters, insufficient social aid, insufficient educational infrastructure, teacher gaps, low qualification levels of teachers, lack of learning materials, gender discrimination, disabilities.

Poverty can be regarded as a big cause of a lack of education and for educational inequality.

Children from poor families often do not have access to proper education since it is simply too expensive for their families to send them to school.

Moreover, these children also often have to work instead of attending school since they have to contribute to the family income in order to support their family members financially.

Orphans are at greater risk to suffer from a lack of education compared to “normal” kids since they often have no one who takes care of them.

This could lead to financial trouble since it is quite hard to earn enough money to cover your expenses while you are still a kid.

In turn, this may result in a state where these children have to work quite a lot to earn enough money to survive.

Thus, these orphans will have no time to attend school since they need all their time to work.

If you grow up in a family with homeless parents, chances are that you will not get proper education since your parents will not have sufficient money to send you to school and they might not even care too much since they often have other problems like drug addiction and you may therefore be at great risk to be neglected.

Thus, growing up in a family with homeless parents may also contribute to educational inequality.

Parenting is a big factor when it comes to a lack of education.

The more your parents care about you, the less likely it is that you end up with a low level of education.

However, in some cases, parents just do not know better.

They may themselves have a low level of education and think that this education level is enough for a happy life.

Therefore, they may lead you on the same education path which may lead to a lack of education for you.

The abuse of substances of all sorts can also contribute to a lack of education.

If you consume drugs on a regular basis, chances are that you become unreliable and you may also refrain from attending school too often.

Thus, substance abuse at a young age may also increase educational inequality since children who consume drugs will often prioritize substance consumption over school and their education levels are likely to suffer due to that.

If you hang out with family members or friends who are doing drugs or other illegal stuff, chances are that you get influenced by these people and they may eventually drag you down in life.

You may also start to consume substances or skip school which may translate into a lack of education in later stages.

Laziness may also be a factor when it comes to educational inequality.

Some people have a higher motivation to learn and develop themselves than others.

People who are not gifted with this drive to learn and progress may have a hard time in school since they may have no motivation to get good grades in order to be able to attend university later.

This may also lead to a serious lack of education if the will to learn is extremely limited.

In some cultures, it is also quite common that people often only get quite basic education.

These cultures often rely on certain beliefs and may not value advanced education enough to send their children to university or other educational institutions.

Religion can also play a big role in the level of education.

Religious families often live quite conservative, which often makes it hard for children to get proper education since the religious beliefs of parents may not be in line with the education goal.

This may be especially true for girls since they are often supposed to stay at home and to cook and do the household instead of getting proper education and start a career.

Conflicts can also be a big cause of a lack of education. In regions where conflicts are common, people simply feel that the protection of their life is more important than sending their kids to school.

Moreover, due to conflicts, many people have to leave their homes and migrate to other countries to save their life.

Thus, children who are suffering from these adverse conditions are likely not be able to get proper education due to conflicts.

Natural disasters may also play a role when it comes to a lack of education.

When regions get hit by natural disasters like tsunamis or other catastrophes, people living in these regions will suffer from vast destruction of public infrastructure.

They may also suffer from serious health issues due to these natural disasters.

Under these horrible conditions, it will be quite hard for children to get proper education since schools and other educational facilities may have been destroyed.

In many countries, there is a lack of or only insufficient social aid and welfare .

If people become unemployed, they may not get any financial subsidies from the government.

Imagine you have children and lose your job.

Now, you will likely not be able to afford the tuition fees for your kids anymore which may lead to a lack of education for your children.

In some regions, the overall educational infrastructure is quite bad.

This is especially true for rural areas.

People who live in these regions often have to bring their children to the next school.

However, many poor people do not even have a car.

This will likely lead to a lack of education for their children since these children may not be able to attend school simply due to the long distance.

Some regions may also suffer from a shortage of teachers.

In those regions, classes are often quite big and teachers will not be able to respond to every school kid individually.

This may in turn lead to educational inequality since some children learn faster than others.

Children who learn quite slow may be left behind and their overall education level may significantly suffer due to that.

Another issue related to a lack of education may be an insufficient qualification of teachers.

If teachers have no high level of education, chances are that school kids will also have a low level of education when they finish school since their teachers have simply not been able to teach them on a high level.

Especially in poor developing countries, children also often suffer from a lack of learning materials.

If children do not have the appropriate books or other facilities to learn, chances are that their level of education will suffer.

Although the tolerance towards women and girls who want to attend school has increased over the past decades, there are still many countries in which women are meant to stay at home and do the household instead of getting proper education and to work in a normal job.

This gender discrimination will lead to a lack of education for many girls since their families may not want them to attend school.

Children who suffer from disabilities, especially in poor countries, are likely to get only insufficient education since parents will often not have enough money to send all of their kids to school.

These parents will often choose a family member who has the best chances to succeed in school in order to secure the family income.

Thus, children with disabilities will rather stay at home instead of attending school.

Effects of Educational Inequality

Unemployment, illegal activities, social isolation, bad working conditions, insufficient health insurance, radicalization, poor housing conditions.

Many studies have shown that poverty and a lack of education are strongly positively correlated.

Since poor families may not be able to send their kids to school, these children may suffer from significant educational inequality.

However, not only is poverty a cause for a low level of education, it can also be an effect of insufficient education since a bad education will often translate into an increased probability for unemployment and low salaries.

A low level of education increases the risk of unemployment dramatically.

If you apply for a job, chances are that your education level will be screened by companies.

If you do not have a sufficiently high level of education, you will likely not get the job.

Moreover, if you have a low education level and become unemployed, you will also have a hard time to find another suitable job.

A low level of education may also increase the probability of drug addiction.

These people may not be aware of the consequences of drug abuse and may only recognize them when it is already too late.

Moreover, due to unemployment or other adverse events in their life, people with low levels of education may be at greater risk to consume drugs since they simply see no bright future for themselves and want to mask their bad feelings with the high of drugs.

Homelessness can also be a cause due to a lack of education.

If people lose their job and are not able to pay for their rent anymore, they may be at risk of becoming homeless.

Since the chances for unemployment increases with a low level of education, so does the probability of homelessness.

If people are not able to find a job due to their low level of education, chances are that these people are willing to engage in criminal actions in order to make their living.

Imagine you try hard to find a job but it simply doesn’t work out and you have to supply for your children.

It would be quite attractive to earn substantial money by engaging in criminal actions, wouldn’t it?

Since the probability to engage in criminal activities increases due to a low level of education, so does the chance to go to jail.

If you engage in illegal things, you will be caught sooner or later and may end up in prison.

Thus, educational inequality may also increase the chances to go to jail, especially for poor people.

A lack of education may also lead to social isolation since people who only have low levels of education may not be able to follow conversations or to take part in mentally demanding activities.

Therefore, they may lose social contacts and may end up in social isolation.

Moreover, since a lack of education may also translate into poverty, these people may also not be able to afford social activities which in turn may lead to social isolation .

Low levels of education also often imply a low salary since the wage for a job is often determined by demand and supply of skills.

If workers only have low skill levels, they are easily exploitable by companies which want to maximize profits and therefore will pay their workers only a quite low salary.

Since people with a low level of education often do not have many other job options, they may be exploited by firms and may suffer from quite bad working conditions.

This may include working quite long hours or working under insecure conditions.

A lack of education and the resulting low income may also often lead to insufficient health insurance.

Many people will simply not be able to afford health insurance due to their low salary.

In case of severe health issues, they may suffer from serious long-term consequential effects since they are often not able to afford proper medical treatment due to their lack of health insurance .

Educational inequality can also lead to significant dependence of all sorts.

If you only have a low level of education, chances are that you will be dependent on financial or other support in order to be able to carry out important tasks in your daily life.

Dependence in any form will in most cases not turn out favorable for the dependent person in life since they give away the leverage to other people which may have the power to treat the dependent persons quite bad.

People who only have low levels of education may also be easier to recruit for radical movements.

This is due to the fact that these people may not be able to identify the arguments made by fundamentalists as flawed and may therefore be willing to join these organizations, even if these arguments do not make sense at all from an objective perspective.

A lack of education may also contribute to poor housing conditions since it increases the risk of poverty .

Poor people may not be able to afford rent in a nice neighborhood and may live in bad neighborhoods which may lead to low quality of life and insecurity for these people.

Solutions for a Lack of Education

Better educational infrastructure, financial support for poor families, raise awareness on the importance of education, more tolerance regarding education, minimum wages, increase in quality regarding social security, improvements in health insurance, support for children from difficult family conditions, improve quality of teachers, close teacher gaps, improve access to education for girls and women.

Governments and municipalities should try to provide better educational infrastructure so that it is easier for the local population to attend school.

This means that it has to be assured that the next school is not many miles away but rather within walking distance so that also children of poor families who do not own a car can attend school on a regular basis.

Moreover, building an online course infrastructure may be another great way to improve the overall education levels of the general public.

It is also crucial to support poor families with financial subsidies so that their kids are able to attend school.

This is quite important to fight a lack of education since poverty is a main cause why children are not able to go to school.

By supporting poor families, educational inequality could be fought to a certain extent.

Many people might not even be aware of what a lack of education really means for their children.

Parents may believe that a basic education taught at home is sufficient to succeed in life since they do not know better.

However, with our technological progress, it is likely that education will be more important than ever to succeed in our nowadays job market.

It is also crucial that we change the mind of people in a way that they regard education as a valuable thing.

In some cultures, education is not regarded as important at all and some parents even do not want their kids to become educated since they fear that their kids will leave them if they give them too many options in life.

An indirect way to fight low education levels may be by setting or even increasing minimum wages.

The introduction of minimum wages may likely decrease the level of poverty, which may in turn translate into better chances for children to be able to attend school.

Better social security schemes are also crucial to fight a lack of education.

It has to be assured that everyone gets basic aid in case he or she becomes unemployed.

This should also include financial support for children to send them to school, even if their parents are unemployed.

By setting up more sophisticated social security schemes , the access of children to proper education could be improved.

Educational inequality could also be fought by introducing better health insurance schemes.

People who lack proper health insurance may be at great risk to suffer from severe long-term damages related to the absence of medical treatment in case of illness.

This in turn may lead to a lack of education for their children since these persons may not be able to work anymore and will therefore likely not be able to pay for the tuition fees for their children.

Children who experience violence at home may also be at greater risk to suffer from significant lacks of education since they may become mentally sick which may distract them to learn and progress.

Moreover, their parents may not even care at all about their children’s education which may further exacerbate the issue.

In order to improve the overall education levels, we also have to make sure that the quality of the teachers is sufficient.

If the education of teachers is quite low, chances are that also the education levels of school kids will suffer since these teachers will not be able to teach sufficiently advanced things.

In regions where teacher gaps are an issue, local authorities should try to recruit more teachers so that children get a better individual education which may improve their overall education level and therefore may mitigate the problem of educational inequality.

In countries and regions where girls and women are still discriminated against due to their gender, it is crucial to raise the awareness that girls are equally important compared to boys when it comes to the supply with proper education.

By doing so, the value systems in these regions may change and girls may get better access to educational facilities.

A lack of education is a big global problem.

Especially in poor countries, many children suffer from educational inequality, which may in turn lead to several severe issues when these children turn into grownups.

Therefore, it is crucial to fight the problem of a lack of education on a global scale.

By doing so, we can ensure a brighter future for many people worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_inequality

https://www.nber.org/papers/w8206

https://www.ucl-ioe-press.com/2019/10/14/tackling-educational-inequality/

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As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.

After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.

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Top 8 modern education problems and ways to solve them.

| September 15, 2017 | 0 responses

In many ways, today’s system is better than the traditional one. Technology is the biggest change and the greatest advantage at the same time. Various devices, such as computers, projectors, tablets and smartphones, make the process of learning simpler and more fun. The Internet gives both students and teachers access to limitless knowledge.

However, this is not the perfect educational system. It has several problems, so we have to try to improve it.

•  Problem: The Individual Needs of Low-Achievers Are Not Being Addressed

Personalized learning is the most popular trend in education. The educators are doing their best to identify the learning style of each student and provide training that corresponds to their needs.

However, many students are at risk of falling behind, especially children who are learning mathematics and reading. In the USA, in particular, there are large gaps in science achievements by middle school.

Solution: Address the Needs of Low-Achievers

The educators must try harder to reduce the number of students who are getting low results on long-term trajectories. If we identify these students at an early age, we can provide additional training to help them improve the results.

• Problem: Overcrowded Classrooms

In 2016, there were over 17,000 state secondary school children in the UK being taught in classes of 36+ pupils.

Solution: Reduce the Number of Students in the Classroom

Only a smaller class can enable an active role for the student and improve the level of individual attention they get from the teacher.

• Problem: The Teachers Are Expected to Entertain

Today’s generations of students love technology, so the teachers started using technology just to keep them engaged. That imposes a serious issue: education is becoming an entertainment rather than a learning process.

Solution: Set Some Limits

We don’t have to see education as opposed to entertainment. However, we have to make the students aware of the purpose of technology and games in the classroom. It’s all about learning.

• Problem: Not Having Enough Time for Volunteering in University

The students are overwhelmed with projects and assignments. There is absolutely no space for internships and volunteering in college .

Solution: Make Internships and Volunteering Part of Education

When students graduate, a volunteering activity can make a great difference during the hiring process. In addition, these experiences help them develop into complete persons. If the students start getting credits for volunteering and internships, they will be willing to make the effort.

• Problem: The Parents Are Too Involved

Due to the fact that technology became part of the early educational process, it’s necessary for the parents to observe the way their children use the Internet at home. They have to help the students to complete assignments involving technology.

What about those parents who don’t have enough time for that? What if they have time, but want to use it in a different way?

Solution: Stop Expecting Parents to Act Like Teachers at Home

The parent should definitely support their child throughout the schooling process. However, we mustn’t turn this into a mandatory role. The teachers should stop assigning homework that demands parental assistance.

• Problem: Outdated Curriculum

Although we transformed the educational system, many features of the curriculum remained unchanged.

Solution: Eliminate Standardised Exams

This is a radical suggestion. However, standardised exams are a big problem. We want the students to learn at their own pace. We are personalizing the process of education. Then why do we expect them to compete with each other and meet the same standards as everyone else? The teacher should be the one responsible of grading.

• Problem: Not All Teachers Can Meet the Standards of the New Educational System

Can we really expect all teachers to use technology? Some of them are near the end of their teaching careers and they have never used tablets in the lecturing process before.

Solution: Provide Better Training for the Teachers

If we want all students to receive high-quality education based on the standards of the system, we have to prepare the teachers first. They need more training, preparation, and even tests that prove they can teach today’s generations of students.

• Problem: Graduates Are Not Ready for What Follows

A third of the employers in the UK are not happy with the performance of recent graduates. That means the system is not preparing them well for the challenges that follow.

Solution: More Internships, More Realistic Education

Practical education – that’s a challenge we still haven’t met. We have to get more practical.

The evolution of the educational system is an important process. Currently, we have a system that’s more suitable to the needs of generations when compared to the traditional system. However, it’s still not perfect. The evolution never stops.

Author Bio:   Chris Richardson is a journalist, editor, and a blogger. He loves to write, learn new things, and meet new outgoing people. Chris is also fond of traveling, sports, and playing the guitar. Follow him on Facebook and Google+ .

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What is the problem and how can we solve it? School authorities’ perceptions of the shortage of teachers in Sweden

• Original Article
• Open access
• Published: 20 May 2023
• Volume 22 , pages 479–497, ( 2023 )

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The lack of fully trained teachers is a national challenge in Sweden despite numerous attempts by authorities to approach the issue from a long-term perspective. The proportion of fully trained teachers needs to increase by just over 50% by 2035, and the imbalance will continue for many years to come. Many actors such as the media and politicians have participated in the debate, but not those who are significantly forced to handle, control, and lead in resolving the current situation and who have an overview of the problems at a structural level, namely, the school authorities (school authority in the school system according to the Education Act (Skollagen 2010: 800) can be a municipality, county council, state, or individual who is responsible for the activities in the school. In this text, the most responsible head of a municipality in the educational department has responded to the survey). This study covers 55 school authorities’ views on national tendencies and possibilities of solving this problem using an enactment policy theory. The empirical data are based on a web survey and analyzed through thematic content analysis. The result shows deep concerns about the accelerated problem, the challenges of finding fully trained teachers, and negative attitudes toward the profession. Possible solutions are higher salaries, flexible solutions to becoming teachers, higher status, and better working environments. The school authorities’ perceptions of possible solutions are to some extent consistent with ongoing political initiatives. Neither do they emphasize an overall picture of the working conditions for teachers, nor the far-reaching consequences of all political reforms. In summary, their actions are interpreted as quite re-active, nonlinear, and ad hoc solutions and less proactive perceptions and actions. This can possibly be explained by the fact that the state sets limits on economic initiatives.

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1 Introduction

The shortage of teachers in Sweden has been an accelerating societal problem in the past decade. With rapid and historically unexpected development, school authorities and other actors have been caught off guard. According to Bertilsson ( 2018 ), the supply of teachers is a challenge of historical proportions. However, the shortage of teachers is not just a Swedish phenomenon. Shortages of fully trained teachers are common in almost all European countries and in the USA (Aragon, 2016 ; Federičová, 2020 ). As far as Europe is concerned, Federičová ( 2020 ) reported on the shortage in 19 countries. Her findings show that southern European countries experience very low rates of teacher turnover (in this text meaning leaving the profession), at about 15% on average, in comparison with northern countries, where turnover reached 37%. The two northern countries in the study were Sweden and Denmark. The turnover of teachers seems to have impacted both students and the economy. According to Ronfeldt et al. ( 2013 ), high rates of teacher turnover have an adverse impact on student achievement. School jurisdictions pay high costs to replace teachers who leave (Barnes et al., 2007 ; Hanushek et al., 2016 ).

The consequences of the teacher shortage affect first and foremost the Swedish school students and employees, but also other recipient groups in society such as parents, politicians, and other school staff. There are several explanations for the rapidly emerging shortage of teachers in Sweden, including different, overlapping, or similar explanations on different levels. Political reforms have played a crucial role in the issue. Several curriculum reforms and teacher education reforms during recent decades have changed the conditions for school actors. Changed and deteriorating work environments have led to many dropouts and the deteriorating status of the profession (Håkansson Lindqvist et al., 2021 ). Only between 11 and 26% of high school teachers believe that the teaching profession has a high status, according to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) international study in TALIS (Skolverket, 2019d ). The view of how the teaching profession is valued in society is also lower for Swedish teachers and principals (less than 10%) compared to other OECD countries (19% of EU teachers and 30% of EU school leaders) (Skolverket, 2014 ). The teaching profession also has relatively lower application pressure as a first choice in Sweden (59% of college graduates put it as a first choice) compared to other OECD countries (67%), which is also an indication of low status (Skolverket, 2019e ).

There are also a number of possible solutions to deal with the problem, more or less accentuated depending on the target group. Not least, there are different voices in the media discussing how the problem should be handled (Hultén, 2019 ), for example, that the so-called “flum school Footnote 1 ” has to disappear, to introduce grades in the previous years, and to focus on order and good behavior in school and on other ideological foundations in the Swedish school system.

Many different actors have been involved in the debate: authorities, interest groups, politicians, trade unions, and student organizations, to name a few. An overall and complete solution in Sweden is in demand because no actor can solve the shortage of teachers alone; cooperation is necessary. What is demanded in the debate is a comprehensive national political solution to reverse the negative trend. A recent research review concluded that.

…the best way to make the teaching profession more attractive so that more people choose to study, staying or returning to the profession is to improve working conditions and ensure that the teaching profession meets expectations (Kungl. Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien, 2020 , p. 11).

Neither researchers nor school authorities have been particularly visible on this issue. Therefore, this study is based on the school authorities’ perceptions of the shortcoming and their proposals for measures to remedy it. School authorities—usually a municipality or a private school group—have an important position, as they have an overview of the problems at a structural level. They are also the actors who are significantly forced to handle, control, and lead the resulting situation to reasonable emergency solutions. They decide how the schools should work, ensure that the schools have the resources required and must constantly work to make the school better. School authorities have the overall responsibility for principals' work within the municipality or unit (if it is a private school authority). They have the responsibility for ensuring that education is conducted in accordance with the provisions of The Educational Act (Skollagen, 2010 ), regulations that have been issued on the basis of the act and the provisions for education that may be found in other statutes. However, there are differences between school principals in terms of how they manage their task with consequences for equality and individual students' rights to a good education (Ahnborg, 2017 ). A sharp critique is raised against school authorities not being sufficiently familiar with school activities, not following up on them, being poor at analyzing, and do not doing what needs to be done (Skolinspektionen, 2014 ).

With the support of the above, the aim of this study is thus to explore and explain the current state of the teacher shortage in Sweden and possible solutions from the view of school authorities. The results can provide important insights into and relevant explanations from the target group that handles this societal problem at the structural level in the school system. Thus, the voice of an important actor who has not been prominent in the debate will also be heard. The results can also provide knowledge and understanding for school authorities about the complex situation to determine a long-term, sustainable solution in their own regions.

2 Background

This chapter provides an overview of the current situation regarding the shortage of teachers, current needs, ongoing and future political initiatives, and organizational perspectives.

2.1 The current situation

Official statistics estimate that by 2033, there will be a shortage of about 45,000 teachers (Skolverket, 2019a ), of which the largest shortages will be for subject teachers in upper secondary school, middle school teachers, and vocational teachers. Lack means “that there are not enough newly educated and fully trained teachers to meet the estimated need, not that there is a shortage of teachers to conduct teaching” (Skolverket, 2019a , p. 1). Other sources claim that there will be a shortage of almost 65,000 teachers by 2035 (Jaara Åstrand, 2019 ). The largest imbalance is calculated for subject teachers in upper secondary school, middle school teachers, and vocational teachers. Today, around 70% of teachers in compulsory school are educated and 81% in upper secondary school (Skolverket, 2019b ); in other words, there is currently a 20–30% shortage of fully trained teachers in Swedish schools. The shortage of fully trained teachers varies greatly between school forms, between 25 and 85%, where the largest shortage is within special schools. The variation between subjects is also high. History and Swedish have the highest number of fully trained teachers, while the lowest number are in technology and Swedish as a second language. One staff group that has increased in the past year is teaching assistants, with a 25% increase from the previous years (Skolverket, 2020 ).

The lack of teachers in Sweden is not really a new phenomenon. It can be traced back to 1975—as far back as is possible—to find labor market forecasts (Sveriges Officiella statistik, 1975 ). That year there was a shortage of teachers in music, drawing, special needs, and crafts. As early as 1983, attention was drawn to the lack of teachers in mathematics and science (Sveriges Officiella statistik, 1983 ). The shortage of teachers has since then accelerated in each year according to the official statistics and has included more and more subjects and categories of teachers.

Teacher shortages could also be related to the age structure of Swedish teachers, which is alarming. Every fifth primary and secondary school teacher is 60 years or older and will thus retire in the near future. In Sweden’s regions, the proportion of teachers over the age of 60 is between 20 and 27%, while the number of teachers under the age of 30 amounts to approximately 4% (Berglin, 2019 ). This will also exacerbate the shortage of teachers.

The dropout rate in the profession is also high. Here, information differs between sources. The chairman of the teachers’ union claims that 38,000 teachers choose to leave the profession prematurely (Jaara Åstrand, 2019 ), whereas the ministers for education state, “Most teachers also choose to stay in the profession: about 92 percent of all trained teachers have a profession that wholly or partly matches their education” (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020c , p. 1). Closely linked to dropouts is staff mobility in the education sector, which amounted to 18% in 2019.

It is not just active teachers who drop out of the profession. A large number of students also drop out of teacher training . For example, one-third of Swedish subject teacher–students drop out in the 1st academic year (Universitetskanslersämbetet, 2019 ). Teacher education has been criticized in the media, according to Edling and Liljestrand ( 2019 ), where critics are skeptical of the scientific basis and postmodernism, which they believe should be replaced by cognitive science.

Over the past 30 years, the teaching profession has both changed and deteriorated. The reforms of teacher education have been implemented in parallel with reforms of the school system. A number of reforms around 1990 were significant, in particular decentralization (including the so-called municipalization in 1991), goal and performance management, and marketization (Lundström, 2019 ). Researchers describe this era as “a hustle and bustle of reform.” This intensive reform means that it is difficult to evaluate the effects and consequences of them and how they have affected practice in schools (Hanberg et al., 2016 ). According to the National Audit Office (Riksrevisionen, 2017 ), school authorities consider that one of the reforms, the career reform, has provided opportunities for teachers to develop a career, but at the same time, it has contributed to the deterioration of cohesion and opportunities for the cooperation of teachers. Career reform means that teachers can at different stages qualify their competence with both academic points and experience-based knowledge, which results in higher pay and increased responsibility. These reforms have created problems for recruitment in various ways. One example is that a teacher education is not compatible with the previous, which means that teachers cannot be hired. One example is that teacher certification has meant that many teachers do not get permanent employment and cannot set grades. Lundström ( 2019 ) claims that in this case, the system can be perceived as a counter-productive crowded policy space.

Two real deteriorations in daily work are that the average teaching time of primary and secondary school teachers has increased by 2 weeks per school year, and that in many schools, substitutes are no longer brought in when teachers are sick or need to take care of a baby (Skolvärlden, 2019 ).

It is not only experienced teachers who react to the workload. When newly graduated teachers start working, only 40% of them undergo an introductory period with a mentor, despite the fact that this is a requirement set forth by the Education Act and its regulations (Lärarnas Riksförbund, 2020 ). That the beginning period as a teacher is demanding, with insufficient introduction and a lack of mentors, is confirmed in Lundström’s ( 2019 ) study which describes newly graduated teachers’ experiences of high workload and stress. In summary, the causes of the problem are complex.

2.2 Needs and ongoing and upcoming investments

To meet the need, a 25% increase in the number of graduate teachers per year over the next 12 years is required. There are several reasons for this increased need. The population base is a significant cause. The number of children and students increased by 22% in the last 10 years (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020c ).

Various initiatives from the current government are underway to overcome the shortage of teachers. Teacher training institutions comprising approximately 10,400 new full-time students have been expanded. Additionally, further expansion of supplementary pedagogical education (KPU) and permanent expansion of vocational teacher education have been proposed. A 28% increase is estimated in the number of students in teacher education since 2011. Another investment is further education of not yet fully trained teachers and preschool teachers (VAL), which is considered to have good prospects for expansion. Furthermore, a relatively new form of the distribution of teacher education has started in a number of teacher positions: work-integrated teacher education (AIL), where teachers can work and study at the same time during an extended study period (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020b ).

The following planned initiatives to reform teacher education have been presented to the government: strengthening the link between theory and practice, strengthening practice in schools, increasing the supply of postgraduate teachers, and improving research-related teacher education (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020a ). Concrete proposals from responsible ministers to attain more discipline in schools include, for example, a mobile phone ban during class time. It will also be easier to relocate school students who have threatened or subjected others to violence.

Also in international contexts, the Swedish government and authorities have participated in discussions and deliberations on how to support the teaching profession. One distinct example is The 2021 International Summit on the Teaching Profession, where the Swedish delegation mainly focused on how to value and support the teaching profession and support the well-being of teachers (OECD, 2021 ). The above-mentioned example shows that the Swedish government takes the problem seriously and seeks different solutions to it.

2.3 Other solutions in the debate

Various solutions, both traditional and radically new, to solve the shortage of teachers have been presented in the debate. A very radical new solution is to reduce the shortage of teachers with the help of teachers with artificial intelligence (AI teachers), who would not replace but relieve teachers in the school (Sundin and Aschan, 2018 ). Developments in artificial intelligence are accelerating, and the researchers predict that using AI teachers is a competitive advantage and will show up in the future PISA results. Distance learning means that teaching is interactive and takes place in real time using information and communication technology. The students are on the school premises together with a tutor. The main teacher, who works as the distance teacher, is at the same time somewhere else, with experimental activities in progress .

Another way of looking at recruitment potential is that about 20% of trained teachers work outside the education sector and could be attracted back to the industry (IFAU, 2018 ). The National Union of Teachers (Lärarnas Riksförbund, 2020 ) presented a broad solution that aims to reach the so-called teacher reserve and implement a supplementary teacher program (KLP). The aim of the proposal is to attract about half a million potential teachers to obtain a complete education. This includes the unauthorized, some 34,000 people who work outside the school but have teacher education and others who have some university education and can imagine becoming teachers. The proposal would replace today’s different and disparate paths to the teaching profession. Another proposal is to offer “65-plus” individually tailored services (i.e., use the skills of trained teachers as much as possible).

Alternative selections for teacher education to promote the use of locally determined selection criteria (using 1/3 of the places for locally based selection criteria; Universitets- och högskolerådet, 2018 ) are already being used at some higher education institutions—for example, in teacher education in dance and music.

Following an international outlook on the situation of Swedish teachers, Heller-Sahlgren ( 2018 ) also advocated the following three measures: (1) salary development, (2) teaching time in relation to total working time, and (3) the classroom environment.

2.4 Organizational perspectives

Both research and the general debate present the importance of creating good working conditions and creating jobs in order to get teachers to stay in the profession. As school authorities are responsible for organizing teachers' work environments, it is important to contextualize this aspect. Over the last two decades, a growing body of research has shown how the “character” of the workplace can influence the overall quality of teaching, teacher retention, and school improvement (Johnson et al., 2005 , 2011 ). Even though the contexts of the school environment vary across countries, teacher retention is widely recognized as an important step toward avoiding teacher shortages (Van den Borre et al., 2021 ). Studies have pinpointed how the organizational characteristics of schools influence teachers’ career paths, including decisions about whether to stay in or leave the profession (Borman et al., 2017 ), but according to Perryman and Calvet ( 2020 ) workload is the most frequently cited reason for having left or for leaving in the future.

Good work environments seem crucial for teachers to remain in the profession (Ingersoll et al., 2017 ) and for their personal and professional effectiveness. Schools with strong professional environments have improved teachers´ effectiveness, over time, by 38% more than peers in schools with weak environments (Johnson et al., 2011 ). In addition, well-being and cooperation were promoted. In this work environment, instructional leadership which focuses on the core responsibility of a school , namely teaching and learning, seems to be a successful approach for teachers to help students achieve good results (Ingersoll et al., 2017 ). Direct links between the quality of school working environments and outcomes for students and teachers are demonstrated in a number of international studies (cf. Berry et al., 2019 ; Hattie). In other words, both students “results and teachers” well-being benefit if good work environments are created. This increases the probability that teachers will remain in the profession.

In summary, possible solutions compete between the perspectives of internal (i.e., to the school system) and external actors in Sweden.

3 Theoretical framework—policy enactment

This study assumes that school authorities interpret, reinterpret, and use policies that come from above in different ways, and the framing of the result may be inspired by policy enactment theory (Ball et al., 2012 ). School authorities´ actions and perceptions are shaped by the context in which they participate, while at the same time shaping their context through their practices. This dialectic of being created in a context and of creating the context in which one is involved is of great importance for the present study. Policy enactment includes the processes of interpretation and reinterpretation of educational policies. These processes are transformed into different types of actions¸ for example, unconscious, ignored, nonlinear, ad hoc solutions, and re-invention. In other words, there is a great capacity for action on the part of school authorities to interpret, reinterpret, or ignore the policy signals that come from superiors. The actors have both interpretive and action power and participate independently in policy development themselves. Institutional, organizational, economic, political, and societal contexts are also important (Taylor et al., 1997 ). How school authorities meet and link into the local circumstances, and it becomes important to make basic political governance visible. New policy will be interpreted, reformulated, and transformed based on how school authorities perceive what needs to be preserved and what needs to be changed to address the shortage of teachers.

Framing the results in light of policy enactment theory, the relation between policy and practice from the school authorities' perspective can be clarified, but also how policy is interpreted and re-contextualized in this specific context. On this basis, we want to contribute in this article to a continued discussion about school authorities' perceptions of the current crisis and help to clarify connections between internal and external explanations and solutions to teacher workforce problems. As school authorities have the ultimate legal responsibility for their own school unit, it is of greatest interest to investigate how they handle the shortage of teachers and interpret, reinterpret, and use upcoming policies.

Aiming to describe school authorities’ experiences with the teacher shortage, we used a descriptive qualitative design for our study. The overall aim was to explore and explain the current state of the teacher shortage and possible solutions from the perspective of school authorities in Sweden.

The research questions are as follows:

What are the regional and national tendencies concerning the teacher shortage within the next 5 years?

What regional and national solutions do school authorities propose in the short and long term?

The empirical data come from a web survey with background questions and open questions about the current situation of the teacher shortage and their views on solutions for the future. Respondents answered in their own words, which we subsequently subjected to inductive thematic content analysis involving scrutiny only of the text.

4.1 Participants and process

This study was based on answers from 55 school authorities in Sweden via a web survey using the Netigate survey accounting program. The respondents came from all over the country and from municipalities of different sizes. The survey was based on group selection; therefore, no dropout of individuals was included in the survey. Only surveys with complete answers were processed and analyzed. The web survey was sent to 12 regional networks for school authorities for participation. Twelve of Sweden's universities have special departments and regional development networks, which is a collaboration forum for municipalities, independent preschools, and schools and the university. In each network, the municipality is represented by a school authority. It is estimated that the survey reached 150 school authorities out of 290. Of these 150 people, 55 answered the survey. Therefore, the sample is considered a convenience sample.

The informants who answered the survey, however, came from municipalities both large and small as well as rural areas. All participating persons were informed of the project’s aims and current ethical principles of research (Vetenskapsrådet, 2017 ). Data were collected in the fall of 2020. All responses were compiled into a single text unit consisting of 20 A4-sized pages of text in 12-point Times New Roman using Microsoft Word. Responses spanned five lines of text on average but varied by a few words.

4.2 Thematic analysis

Data were analyzed using inductive thematic content analysis, which is a method for systematic and gradual classification of data to identify patterns and themes more easily. Content analysis of open answers showed thematic differences (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005 ). The analysis started with several readings of the data to gain a sense of the content. The analysis occurred in four steps: (1) We Footnote 2 read through the text several times to get a sense of the content; (2) we divided the text into meaning units (i.e., words, sentences, or paragraphs with the same content), guided by the aim of the study and the research questions, and condensed them; and (3) we compared the condensed meaning units and sorted them into categories based on similarities and differences in content (see Table 1 ). We read the entire text (analysis unit) repeatedly to gain an understanding. Based on sentences or phrases, we condensed the content into categories that reflected the central message. These subcategories constituted the manifest content of the texts that were ultimately used to find categories (Krippendorf, 2019 ).

Finally, as the researchers and authors of this article, we met and discussed the analysis thoroughly until we reached a consensus. This resulted in further refinement of themes, which resulted in a final thematization (Figs.  1 and 2 ).

Thematic map of tendencies. The blue ovals correspond to the five main categories, and the gray ovals correspond to the subcategories

Thematic map of possible solutions. The blue ovals correspond to the five main categories, and the gray ovals correspond to the subcategories

Inductive coding is, by definition, not tied to a theoretical framework (Braun and Clarke, 2006 ), so the coding is driven by people’s responses. Therefore, a theoretical framework was not considered when developing the web survey. Instead, we wanted an authentic account of the school authorities’ perspectives on the upcoming situation to compare the results with research and official statistics and, at a later stage, with the results of other countries.

4.3 Trustworthiness

To achieve trustworthiness, we formed a purposeful sample based on selection criteria to enrich the variations in the phenomena being studied. We have described the different steps taken during analysis and the research process, as well as presented verbatim quotations in the results, all of which contribute to the trustworthiness and credibility of the findings and enable readers to assess their validity (Polit and Beck, 2008 ). To ensure credibility as researchers, we worked together closely throughout the analysis (Krippendorff, 2019 ). If data were based on interviews, more in-depth answers could be obtained. The study's limitation is that it is based on 55 Swedish school authorities' perceptions of the teacher shortage.

5 Results and analysis

The results obtained from the analysis are presented in the order of the research questions. In Figs.  1 and 2 , we present an overview of the main categories and subcategories found to answer the research questions. The results from the thematic analysis are presented thereafter.

5.1 Regional and national tendencies within the next 5 years

In the answers from the first research question, concerning regional and national tendencies within the next 5 years in terms of the teacher shortage according to school authorities, we found three main themes: the acceleration problem, difficulties in finding fully trained teachers, and mental attitudes (see Fig.  1 ).

One of the main themes, difficulties in finding fully trained teachers , refers to teachers having to be fully trained and certified. This category indicates a formal eligibility. Teachers must have a certification to become permanent employees and to be allowed to set grades. The respondents pointed to this fact and indicated that it causes two major problems: (a) The teachers who are fully trained are overloaded with increasing responsibility, for example with grading, and (b) a large number of non-academically trained teachers lead to lower quality in schools and teaching. A quote may illustrate this:

A great shortage of certified teachers leads to the certified teachers having to take greater responsibility for several classes and lead the untrained teachers. This is to ensure the quality of teaching and grading.

Furthermore, the answers point to accelerating problems from several different aspects: geographical areas, different teachers’ professions, specific subjects, and personnel problems. This category, unlike the previous one, points to an ongoing process that is alarming. Problems finding fully trained teachers in some low socioeconomic areas and rural schools are palpable. The teacher categories that have the largest recruitment problems are teachers in school educare centers and preschool teachers. Subjects for which it is particularly difficult to recruit teachers are mathematics and science, as well as handicrafts and modern languages.

Concerning personnel problems , the answers point to retirement, dropouts of both teachers and students, sick leave, and the increasing student base. All the above factors create a complexity in the problem of the teacher shortage. A telling quote from a respondent may summarize the situation:

…a large number of uneducated people, shortcomings in the equality of students, increased workload on fully trained teachers, passivity from employers who do not invest in finding solutions, prioritizing funds for training teachers in a work-integrated teacher education that fills actual gaps in existing organizations, and an insufficiently pragmatic approach from the university in problem solving. A crisis commission is needed at national and regional level to work with the issue; the Education Act is treated as a step where the student’s right to quality-assured teaching is not taken seriously enough.

Another theme that the respondents pointed to was mental attitude, partly toward teachers in general and partly toward knowledge and education. The teachers’ profession is questioned by various actors, which is harmful for the whole profession and its status. The answers also included fears of a tendency to “despise knowledge.” The answers indicate that there are other actors who in a negative way interfere in the debate and thus create a negative image of the profession. Here is one example from the empirical data:

There has been a shift in power within the school context which, for example, manifests itself in parents becoming demanding and feeling entitled to decide what the right way is for working and/or intervening for their own and others' children.

The respondents demand positive messages about the teaching profession. “We need front figures who can make good publicity for a rather depressed profession” is a telling comment. The mental pressure from external actors is, above all, not what newly graduated teachers have prepared for. Regarding mental attitudes, respondents also mentioned that it does not pay much to train as a teacher because, according to one respondent, there is “…educational contempt and you can work as an unauthorized person with a reasonably good salary.”

5.2 Solutions for the future

Concerning the second research question, about regional and national solutions within the next 5 years in terms of the teacher shortage according to school authorities, five main themes emerged: higher salaries, flexible solutions for becoming teachers, higher status, better working environment, and “others.”

By far, the most common answer was that higher salaries are a crucial part of dealing with the shortage of teachers. Although today’s teacher salaries are considered quite high, Footnote 3 even higher salaries are necessary for both teachers and principals. When higher wages are advocated, it is in combination with other efforts. The following quote may illustrate the salary situation:

Higher salaries are a cure in the near future, but what is really needed is a belief in the school, setting the educators’ mission high, valuing competence and professionalism, and increasing the school’s autonomy.

The salary situation also promotes relocation of teachers between workplaces and regions, because teachers often take the jobs that pay the most. In other words, there is competition between municipalities for fully trained teachers.

Another theme was to create flexible solutions for those who already have a foundation to build on to both validate their knowledge and create “fast tracks.” There are certainly already some such programs in Sweden for further training of teachers (VAL), further training of foreign teachers (ULV), and additional teacher training (KPU), but these must be supplemented, and the throughput must increase. This is how a respondent expressed himself:

Another concrete proposal was offering individuals from other professions with relevant competence the opportunity for validation of knowledge and a shorter path to the teaching profession. “Educate the uneducated who have good references within the school…Make it easier to make career changes through validation.” However, the importance of such fast tracks not being at the expense of the quality of education was emphasized. It should also be emphasized that there was skepticism toward shortened education, as this risk undermining the content of the profession.

The theme of higher status for the teaching profession was also a common response from the informants. It is partly about creating a culture and social climate in which the teaching profession is valued, and partly about highlighting positive aspects of the profession in the media and everyday life. The following is a telling quote from one respondent:

[B]ut what is really needed is a belief in the school, set the educators’ mission high, value the competence and professionalism, and increase the school’s autonomy. The whole community needs to stand behind the school so that the educators feel uplifted and respected.

Tangential to higher status is the theme of a better working environment, from working in the classroom to all administrative tasks, decreasing stress, implementing digital solutions, and reducing the number of children per class. Other areas emphasized were support functions, working conditions, and skill competences. Support functions are about creating additional professional groups within the school, such as mentors, student coaches, and teaching assistants, partly to make teachers’ everyday lives easier, and partly to involve more adults in the schools. Comments concerned working conditions, good leadership, work climate, physical and mental well-being, and attractiveness of the workplace. The following two quotes may exemplify this:

We need national priorities in the work environment, so you see the profession as fun and strengthening, which you do not get today. It is mostly stress and bad conditions. …a good job with a good pedagogical leader is most important in the long run—that you as a teacher have the chance to further your education to feel that you are developing and thus can lead the collegial learning at your school.

Solutions that could facilitate ease in teachers’ everyday lives, such as digital solutions, fewer teaching hours, reduced number of pupils in the classroom, and two-teacher systems, were also described. Opportunities for teachers to develop in the profession were concretized with, for example, various career paths, further education, and collegial learning. Other themes included proposals for closer collaboration between universities and schools, better research connections for teachers, and more flexible teaching opportunities, such as distance education.

One reflection is that only three comments mentioned the historical development within Swedish schools regarding all the many policy implementations.

6 Discussion and conclusion

In this concluding chapter, the results of the study are first summarized followed by conclusions.

6.1 Discussion of the outcome

This study dealt with the teacher shortage in Sweden from the perspective of school authorities. The results of this study provide an overview of 55 school authorities’ views on the shortage of teachers in Sweden, as well as possible solutions from the actors legally closest to the business in the short and long term. Policy enactment theory is used in study to understand and interpret internal and external explanations and solutions to teacher workforce problems.

According to the empirical results, a significant concern for the serious situation within the next 5 years can be deduced. School authorities largely described the picture that emerges from national statistics (Skolverket, 2019a , b , c , 2020 ), namely shortages in specific subjects and certain teacher categories, as well as regional differences. Personnel problems such as dropouts, stress, and workload are also taken seriously. Attitudes about the teaching profession that appears in the media are evident, according to school authorities. Critical voices degrade the status of the profession. This was also pointed out in the research (e.g., Edling and Liljestrand, 2019 , which indicates that it is mostly the negative voices and voices from outside the field that is heard. Even teachers themselves see their status as very low in society and their perceptions of professional status are lower than in many other OECD countries (Skolverket, 2014 ; 2019d ). Responsible ministers point out that the teaching profession should become more attractive but do not suggest how the general attitude toward the profession can be changed (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020a , b , c ). Related to the theme of mental attitudes, according to the participants, was also the public’s attitude about Swedish schools in general. Hultén ( 2019 ) also pointed out how the question of knowledge has divided the view of what a Swedish school is, reduced to a “flum school” by some actors. Simplified or stereotypical notions are a problem in this context. In summary, the answers to the first research questions were not real news, and the answers are consistent, and no clear internal explanations of the school authorities' responsibilities could be found in the empirical data.

Answers to the second research question, concerning what regional and national solutions school authorities propose in the short and long term, showed the following overarching themes: higher salaries, flexible solutions for becoming teachers, higher status, and better working environments.

Higher salaries could be seen as surprising because teachers’ salaries have increased over the last 10 years, but notably, it concerns special teacher groups, for example, subject teachers and those who have been commissioned as first teachers. However, this increase has not applied to the same extent to preschool teachers and teachers in school educare centers. The government has drawn attention to this issue, and the teacher salary has increased since 2016 for preschool teachers and teachers in educare centers at an average of 2600 SEK per month (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020a ). Although the right or the opportunity to increase teachers' salaries is available for school authorities, financial control and contributions from the state are needed. They have legal rights but not always financial ones.

School authorities also ask for flexible solutions and “fast tracks” for persons who already have a background in the profession. There are already a couple of alternatives for the further training of teachers (VAL), further training of foreign teachers (ULV), and additional teacher training (KPU), as well as work-integrated teacher education (AIL), which the government continues to build and invest in. Even places of admission for teacher training education have increased (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020b ). A critical question to ask is how effective these fast tracks have been and how they can be improved.

The really radical proposal to attract recruitment potential presented by the National Union of Teachers (Lärarnas Riksförbund, 2020 ) has not been proposed by the school authorities or the government. There are also few descriptions of the teaching staff’s age structure or the possibility of being able to keep teachers who are “65-plus.” It is common knowledge that the teaching profession has a high average age, but there are no concrete suggestions on how to keep them in the profession for a few more years. They are undeniably needed.

Higher status is in demand by the actors within the school, as well as the school authorities. The media debate seems to largely highlight negative aspects of the teaching profession (c.f. Edling and Liljestrand, 2019 ; Hultén, 2019 ). Even in comparison with the OECD, the value of the teaching profession in society is also lower for Swedish teachers and principals (Skolverket, 2014 ), and a vanishingly small portion of high school teachers believes that the teaching profession has high status (TALIS, 2018). This is also expressed in many of the answers. A fundamental question is what higher status means. Other fundamental questions include who will be the code bearers for this change, and how can this new mental attitude be shaped? Judging by the answers, the informants in this question may show a transformed attitude, but also a more one reactive approach.

The Swedish ministers for school and education also point out that they should contribute to “a more attractive teaching profession” by, for example, working toward career steps in the profession, higher salaries, relief from administrative tasks, and better skills development (Ekström and Ernekrans, 2020a ). Although the concept of more attractive is quite general, responsible ministers have nevertheless pointed to a number of factors that can lead to higher attractiveness for the profession. In this question, it can be stated that the formulation arena (politicians) meets the realization arena (school authorities), which can lead to positive results. School authorities have every opportunity to act upon the new political reforms that have been signaled. However, some of these are in question—for example, career steps and individual salaries (Riksrevisionen, 2017 ).

Many of the respondents’ answers included a better working environment for teachers with many concrete proposals. International studies have shown that good working conditions significantly improve teachers’ ability to work, the probability that they will remain in the profession and also students' learning (Berry et al., 2019 ; Borman and Dowling, 2017 ; Johnsson et al., 2005 , 2011 ). Some proposals have not been identified by the responsible ministers in the improvement proposals, which is why a dialog between these two actors would be desirable. However, it appears from the government's national and international initiatives that valuing and supporting the teaching profession and supporting the well-being of teachers (OECD, 2021 ) are high on their agenda. However, the question is what financial frameworks the school authorities will have.

6.2 Conclusions

The conclusions of this study show that the school authorities de facto perceive the shortage of teachers as very serious, and they have many different and varied answers on how the problem can be solved. Some of the proposals are in line with the government’s intentions, and others extend more on a concrete level. Some of the proposals are also in line with the views of other actors, whereas really radical proposals are lacking. Because they are highly responsible for school activities, they should be more actively involved in creating both working conditions and resources that make teachers want to stay in the profession. This study does not directly indicate proactive work on the issue. From policy enactment theory, one could say that the proposals and solutions that emerge are fairly ad hoc (cf. Ball et al., 2012 ) and that they have re-contextualized a status queue in the issue of teacher shortages. For school authorities, there are ideas and inspiration for how they could highlight the issue addressed by an American research institute (American Institute for Research, 2016 ). A summary of their recommendations is as follows: “Kickstart collaborative, constructive, data-informed policy dialogs to obtain, consensus on the problem and the possible solutions…Support rigorous and usable teacher supply-and-demand studies” (pp. 14–15).

In this study, two problematic aspects emerged: Partly how the status of teachers should be raised, and partly how a comprehensive solution to the teacher shortage should be developed. Concerning higher status for the teaching profession, the question is to define what it really means. How can this be achieved? Who should take the lead in contributing to this? Concerning solving the teacher shortage, several school actors and researchers have requested a uniform and comprehensive solution, which is the only reasonable option in this vulnerable situation. One conclusion that the reforming politicians have reached to deal with the issue is that the overall picture is more like a patchwork quilt. It is patched and repaired a bit everywhere without a holistic perspective. The most concrete example is focusing on the recruitment potential mentioned by the National Union of Teachers (Lärarnas Riksförbund, 2020 ), namely, a broad solution that aims to reach the so-called teacher reserve and implement a supplementary teacher program (KLP). Another proposal would be to convene a national council on the issue where, of course, school authorities would have an important role. Their voices are needed in the debate and in the solutions, and this study has shown this. However, the problem remains that in the answers, nothing has emerged about a holistic approach where the school authorities use their position being proactive to make the teaching profession attractive with, for example, concrete measures that improve the working environment and diversified teaching services.

Last but not least, the results of this study show a lack of an important perspective in current discussions, both from the media and various school actors, namely, the consequences of all the various political reforms (cf. Håkansson Lindqvist et al., 2021 ). Most of the responses from school authorities referred to reasons for the shortcomings in the near future, which also appear in media discussions. The real causes can probably be traced further back in time. However, the important question to ask is whether we have learned from history, and how we can avoid mistakes in the future. The criticism from various actors remains (Ahnborg, 2017 ; Skolinspektionen, 2014 ). This also indicates that school authorities make little use of the “free space” available to take an interpretive precedence in the issue and in a constructive way transform prevailing conditions about teacher shortages (cf Ball et al., 2012 ). In other words, school authorities could be more active in interpreting and re-contextualizing this issue.

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Boström, L. What is the problem and how can we solve it? School authorities’ perceptions of the shortage of teachers in Sweden. Educ Res Policy Prac 22 , 479–497 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-023-09350-7

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About half of americans say public k-12 education is going in the wrong direction.

About half of U.S. adults (51%) say the country’s public K-12 education system is generally going in the wrong direction. A far smaller share (16%) say it’s going in the right direction, and about a third (32%) are not sure, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in November 2023.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand how Americans view the K-12 public education system. We surveyed 5,029 U.S. adults from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16, 2023.

The survey was conducted by Ipsos for Pew Research Center on the Ipsos KnowledgePanel Omnibus. The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey is weighted by gender, age, race, ethnicity, education, income and other categories.

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

A majority of those who say it’s headed in the wrong direction say a major reason is that schools are not spending enough time on core academic subjects.

These findings come amid debates about what is taught in schools , as well as concerns about school budget cuts and students falling behind academically.

Related: Race and LGBTQ Issues in K-12 Schools

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say the public K-12 education system is going in the wrong direction. About two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (65%) say this, compared with 40% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. In turn, 23% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans say it’s headed in the right direction.

Among Republicans, conservatives are the most likely to say public education is headed in the wrong direction: 75% say this, compared with 52% of moderate or liberal Republicans. There are no significant differences among Democrats by ideology.

Similar shares of K-12 parents and adults who don’t have a child in K-12 schools say the system is going in the wrong direction.

A separate Center survey of public K-12 teachers found that 82% think the overall state of public K-12 education has gotten worse in the past five years. And many teachers are pessimistic about the future.

Related: What’s It Like To Be A Teacher in America Today?

Why do Americans think public K-12 education is going in the wrong direction?

We asked adults who say the public education system is going in the wrong direction why that might be. About half or more say the following are major reasons:

• Schools not spending enough time on core academic subjects, like reading, math, science and social studies (69%)
• Teachers bringing their personal political and social views into the classroom (54%)
• Schools not having the funding and resources they need (52%)

About a quarter (26%) say a major reason is that parents have too much influence in decisions about what schools are teaching.

How views vary by party

Americans in each party point to different reasons why public education is headed in the wrong direction.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say major reasons are:

• A lack of focus on core academic subjects (79% vs. 55%)
• Teachers bringing their personal views into the classroom (76% vs. 23%)

In turn, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to point to:

• Insufficient school funding and resources (78% vs. 33%)
• Parents having too much say in what schools are teaching (46% vs. 13%)

Views also vary within each party by ideology.

Among Republicans, conservatives are particularly likely to cite a lack of focus on core academic subjects and teachers bringing their personal views into the classroom.

Among Democrats, liberals are especially likely to cite schools lacking resources and parents having too much say in the curriculum.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Schools are using research to try to improve children's learning—but it's not working

E vidence is obviously a good thing. We take it for granted that evidence from research can help solve the post-lockdown crises in education—from how to keep teachers in the profession to how to improve behavior in schools, get children back into school and protect the mental health of a generation.

But my research and that of others shows that incorporating strategies that have evidence backing them into teaching doesn't always yield the results we want.

The Department for Education encourages school leadership teams to cite evidence from research studies when deciding how to spend school funding. Teachers are more frequently required to conduct their own research as part of their professional training than they were a decade ago. Independent consultancies have sprung up to support schools to bring evidence-based methods into their teaching.

This push for evidence to back up teaching methods has become particularly strong in the past ten years. The movement has been driven by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), a charity set up in 2011 with funding from the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government to provide schools with information about which teaching methods and other approaches to education actually work.

The EEF funds randomized controlled trials —large-scale studies in which students are randomly assigned to an educational initiative or not and then comparisons are then made to see which students perform better. For instance, several of these studies have been carried out in which some children received one-on-one reading sessions with a trained classroom assistant, and their reading progress was compared to children who had not. The cost of one of these trials was around £500,000 over the course of a year.

Trials such as this in education were lobbied for by Ben Goldacre , a doctor and data scientist who wrote a report in 2013 on behalf of the Department for Education. Goldacre suggested that education should follow the lead of medicine in the use of evidence.

Using evidence

In 2023, however, researchers at the University of Warwick pointed out something that should have been obvious for some time but has been very much overlooked—that following the evidence is not resulting in the progress we might expect.

Reading is the most heavily supported area of the EEF's research, accounting for more than 40% of projects . Most schools have implemented reading programs with significant amounts of evidence behind them. But, despite this, reading abilities have not changed much in the UK for decades.

This flatlining of test scores is a global phenomenon . If reading programs worked as the evidence says they do, reading abilities should be better.

And the evidence is coming back with unexpected results. A series of randomized controlled trials, including one looking at how to improve literacy through evidence , have suggested that schools that use methods based on research are not performing better than schools that do not.

In fact, research by a team at Sheffield Hallam University have demonstrated that on average, these kinds of education initiatives have very little to no impact .

My work has shown that when the findings of different research studies are brought together and synthesized, teachers may end up implementing these findings in contradictory ways. Research messages are frequently too vague to be effective because the skills and expertise of teaching are difficult to transfer.

It is also becoming apparent that the gains in education are usually very small, perhaps because learning is the sum total of trillions of interactions. It is possible that the research trials we really need in education would be so vast that they are currently too impractical to do.

It seems that evidence is much harder to tame and to apply sensibly in education than elsewhere. In my view, it was inevitable and necessary that educators had to follow medicine in our search for answers. But we now need to think harder about the peculiarities of how evidence works in education.

Right now, we don't have enough evidence to be confident that evidence should always be our first port of call.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Provided by The Conversation

How to support your students while living costs remain high

As the cost of living remains high, universities are spending millions of pounds on additional support for students. Maddy Godin explores some key guiding principles for helping students to thrive in their studies amid financial pressures

Maddy Godin

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Rising living costs impact every aspect of student life, including studies, social lives, health and well-being. A 2023 survey of Russell Group students found that 94 per cent had concerns about the cost of living, one in four regularly went without food and other necessities and more than half had stopped participating in extracurricular activities. 

The challenges are compounded by the government’s failure to raise maintenance loans in line with inflation; students accessing the maximum loan are now almost £2,000 worse off than if loans had kept up with inflation since 2021.

Universities are stepping up to help as much as they can, but it can look like an overwhelming problem to tackle. Drawing on some of the most impactful projects we have seen, here are some key principles for effective student support.

Cash is often king

There is a significant gap between the real cost of university and the government support available. And with parental earnings thresholds frozen since 2008, the assumption that parents can top up the difference simply isn’t feasible for many families. Direct cash assistance is one of the most effective ways to help people: it’s simple to implement, and students can choose how to spend it to meet their needs.   

Universities should therefore prioritise hardship funds and bursaries where they can and offer targeted support for their most vulnerable groups. But remember that this vulnerable group is growing as middle-income students also feel the squeeze. Some universities have responded by broadening the criteria for guaranteed support, which, at Queen Mary University of London, resulted in 39 per cent of undergraduates being automatically awarded the Queen Mary Bursary.

It’s also beneficial to make hardship funds available throughout the academic year, not just when students enrol. Even a small grant can keep a student afloat if something unexpected happens – an accommodation problem, a broken laptop or an emergency dentist’s bill – so flexible financial support can make a big difference, preventing students from taking on unnecessary and dangerous debt. 

Look beyond the essentials 

Financially disadvantaged students can miss out on many aspects of the student experience, widening the existing disadvantage gap. If a student is worried about how to pay a gas bill, they’re probably not going to pay for a gym membership or upgrade their old laptop. Universities should think creatively about where they put funding to enhance different aspects of the student experience.

A fantastic example of this is the University of Warwick’s long-running “Rock Up & Play” programme , which offers free opportunities to get involved in sports and has welcomed more than 2,300 participants so far this academic year. Open to the university’s student and staff community and covering a wide range of sports including swimming, netball, dodgeball, squash, trampolining, ultimate frisbee and even esports, the programme removes the financial barriers to participating in organised sport, enabling all students to enjoy the associated health and social benefits. There are inclusive options, such as walking football, sensory-friendly table tennis and women-only sessions, and some are also open to the local community at a low cost.

UCL and the University of Edinburgh also operate successful activity and participation grants which allow students to benefit from extracurricular activities, while the University of Southampton offers a technology grant and the University of Manchester provides a work experience bursary.

• Resource collection: Helping students through the cost-of-living crisis
• Creating safe spaces for students to talk about financial difficulties
• Making higher education accessible for students with unmet financial need

Team up with your students

Universities should not make these decisions at the senior level alone. Students give vital insights into where support is most needed, and how it can best be delivered. 

Some of the most successful schemes involve cooperation between universities and their student unions. When Queen’s University Belfast teamed up with its students’ union to mitigate the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, the result was a food pantry donating more than 50 types of food and other essential products, which so far has been accessed more than 11,000 times since September 2023, and given out more than 2,500kg of rice and 1,000kg of pasta. It includes a kitchen for students to cook meals on site to reduce spending on cooking equipment and energy, and has won praise from students for providing foodstuffs – “It’s great for things like spices so you can experiment with recipes without the expense,” said one student – as well as employment opportunities: “I work in the pantry so not only does it provide me with income, I also get my pasta and herbs every week!” said another.

Don’t think you can solve all the problems on your own

Russell Group universities collectively spend tens of millions on additional support, and there is much that the sector can continue to do to help. However, this is a systemic issue, and not one that universities can solve alone.

One of the strengths of UK universities is their ability to embed themselves into the local community, providing many opportunities for effective partnerships that deliver well-rounded support. This could be working with local allies on safe and affordable housing – like in Durham, where Durham University and its student union teamed up with their local MP, parish and county councils to lobby government for student housing support – negotiating meaningful student discounts on your city’s transport networks or ensuring students can access health and well-being services both on and off campus.

Universities can also use their collective voices to push for wider systemic changes. We are urging government to not only reassess student maintenance loans, uplifting them in line with real and historic inflation rates, but to re-establish maintenance grants and review the parental earnings thresholds that determine loan amounts. Combining local university projects with a solid bedrock of government-backed support is the way to ensure effective, holistic support for students who have been a vulnerable but often overlooked casualty of the cost-of-living crisis.

Maddy Godin is a policy researcher (higher education) at the Russell Group.

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Wednesday briefing: Why the UK is looking abroad to solve its teaching shortage

In today’s newsletter: The government is hiring teachers and trainees in Jamaica and elsewhere to help plug the gaps. But can this really solve the issue at home – and is it creating new ones abroad?

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Good morning.

There is no shortage of horror stories from those who work in British schools. Teachers are grappling with dwindling resources, expanding work loads and meagre pay.

With this in mind, it should be no surprise that schools are struggling to recruit and retain staff. Last year , according to an analysis by the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), the government in England missed recruitment targets by 48%. Even subjects like English , historically a discipline with plenty of trainees, are for the first time ever struggling to recruit. The problem is compounded by the fact that more teachers than ever are leaving the profession or retiring. In the 2021-2022 academic year , 40,000 teachers resigned from state schools – almost 9% of the teaching workforce – and a further 4,000 retired.

It seems that no number of inspirational adverts by the Department for Education can reverse this trend. The government’s response to the shortage has been to export the problem by recruiting teachers and trainees from other countries, especially Jamaica, to work in British schools. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, has described the plan as “at best a short-term sticking plaster for a handful of schools”.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Guardian education editor Richard Adams about what this new overseas recruitment trend reveals about a crisis in teaching. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

Israel-Gaza war | The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza seems likely to worsen after charities announced they were suspending operations in the territory in the aftermath of an Israeli drone attack which repeatedly targeted a clearly identified convoy of international aid workers, killing seven. Rishi Sunak has called for an urgent investigation into the deaths of the three British aid workers who were among the dead.

Taiwan | A 7.7 magnitude earthquake, the strongest to hit Taiwan in 25 years , has killed four and injured at least 50, causing building collapses, power outages and landslides on the island, and sparking initial tsunami warnings in southern Japan and the Philippines.

Water industry | Workers in the water industry say they have been physically assaulted and feel unsafe working alone for fear of attack amid a public backlash over sewage dumping. More than one in three UK water employees have been verbally abused at work, according to a survey of almost 1,300 staff conducted by the GMB union.

Ofsted | Ofsted’s former chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, has refused to concede that her organisation made errors in its handling of the inspection that contributed to the death of the headteacher Ruth Perry.

Levelling up | Councils have called for an independent review of Boris Johnson’s levelling up policy, as local authorities count the cost of years of hype, disappointment, bureaucratic delay and “begging bowl” culture.

In depth: ‘Many teachers leave for lower-paying jobs – it’s not just the money’

The government using migration to plug gaps in the workforce is not unique to teaching. The NHS, social care and agriculture are all sectors that have been actively recruiting foreign workers – the numbers for teaching are comparatively small. Last year, 1,100 work visas were issued to qualified secondary school teachers, twice as many as the previous year and well above the 205 issued in 2021. But, this could just be the start, Richard says.

The causes behind the crisis

Teaching as a profession has become less attractive for a host of reasons. Though many point to the more general problems that plague the public sector like low wages and poor working conditions, the story is a bit more complex than that.

“Many teachers leave for lower-paying jobs, so that tells you it’s not just the money,” Richard says. The workload has become one of the biggest issues for teachers. At 53 hours a week , teachers work more than the average adult in the UK. One leaked study found that a quarter of teachers were working 12-hour days and another found that two in five teaching staff in the UK worked 26 hours for free each week, or 5.5m hours a year combined. Unions have also flagged the creeping problem of technology, with teachers complaining that apps and emails have created an “unreasonable expectation” that they will always be available.

Another issue that regularly features in teachers surveys is bad behaviour. “I think that’s one of the things that people outside schools have real difficulty understanding or appreciating because it’s so difficult to quantify,” Richard says. And it’s not just poor behaviour from students, it’s also parents and management that is making life increasingly difficult for teachers.

Teaching is also slightly out of step with the modern world of work which tends towards a more flexible working environment. Young teachers are watching their peers, who have graduated into a workforce where working from home and flexibility are the norm, while they remain in rigid working environments.

The tactics to recruit

So with all these issues, how has the government reacted? Schools in England have been deploying an “aggressive’’ recruitment drive, using advertising, seminars and directly approaching teachers in Jamaica, and even using people there to spread the news. The new addition is that ministers in England are now also offering a £10,000 international relocation payment for qualified teachers and graduates who specialise in physics and foreign languages to come and train here as teachers. “The government is filling spaces in teacher training courses in England with people from overseas which is interesting considering the government’s rhetoric around migration is that it is too high,” Richard says.

And it’s not just the government, one of the country’s leading academy trusts , the Harris Federation, has been recruiting teachers from Jamaica for five years, flying their staff out to recruit specialist teachers directly. Sir Dan Moynihan, the CEO of the trust, has said the recruitment crisis means schools “have to be creative” to find high quality teachers.

The fallout for Jamaica

Jamaica has long experienced a high flow of emigration, and the outflow of teachers has been a particular problem for the island nation for years. In the past, the US was the primary recruiter and beneficiary of the outflow but the large number of high quality teaching training institutions and the fact that it is an English-speaking country has attracted the attention of the British government and other wealthy nations who have turned to poorer countries to fix their staffing problems.

Predictably, this has led to substantial brain drain : “They’re losing lots of young graduates and are having real troubles filling vacancies. Schools are having to cut top courses because they can’t find qualified teachers, they’re sharing teachers with other schools, they’re livestreaming classes to other schools and the government has recently changed the rules so that retired teachers can come back and work in the classroom and not lose their pensions,” Richard says.

The teacher shortage is not a uniquely British problem, though it is particularly bad here. There is currently an international shortage of teachers – 44 million more teachers are needed globally if education is to be provided to every child, according to new figures from Unesco. The problem will not be solved by shuffling the few teachers around to plug gaps as they appear.

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It’s hard to believe it was only 30 years ago that the last man imprisoned for being gay in the UK was released from military prison, but in a fascinating interview Chris Godfrey discovers that David Bonney (pictured above) is still suffering as a result of his treatment by the RAF. Toby Moses, head of newsletters

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Football | Manchester United defender Raphaël Varane has said concussions have damaged his body as he stressed the importance of creating more awareness among players around the dangers of heading. “My seven-year-old son plays football and I advise him not to head the ball,” Varane told L’Equipe. “Even if it doesn’t cause any immediate trauma, we know that in the long term, repeated shocks can have harmful effects. Personally, I don’t know if I’ll live to be 100, but I do know that I’ve damaged my body.”

Rugby union | Sam Whitelock, the most capped player in All Blacks history, will retire from professional rugby at the end of the season, the 35-year-old lock said on Tuesday . Whitelock played 153 test matches since his international debut in 2010 and was part of the All Blacks sides that won the World Cup in 2011 and 2015.

The front pages

The Israeli strike on aid workers in Gaza dominates the front pages on Wednesday. The Guardian leads with “Charities halt Gaza aid after drone attack kills seven staff”. The Times says “Outcry at aid worker deaths” while the Mirror’s front page reads “Killed trying to feed starving kids”.

The Telegraph says “PM demands answers after Israel air strike kills Britons”, while the i takes a similar line with “UK demands answers after Israeli strike kills seven aid workers”. The Mail reports “Three UK forces veterans killed by Israeli strike”. The Sun says “SBS hero killed in Gaza air strike”.

Finally, the Financial Times has “Tesla and BYD’s falling car sales stoke sceptacism over speed of electric shift”.

Today in Focus

Israel divided: Netanyahu’s coalition crisis

A cabinet split over military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews and large street protests demanding the release of hostages are threatening the prime minister’s grip on power. Bethan McKernan reports from Jerusalem .

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A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

The Guardian’s environment team have unveiled a new prize – invertebrate of the year – to highlight the underloved but vital creatures we take for granted. With a shortlist of 10 humble animals from the swallowtail butterfly to the barrel jellyfish, the award celebrates “animals of wondrous diversity, unique niches and innovative and interesting ways of making a living on this planet,” writes Patrick Barkham in his introduction to the series.

So which of our 1.3 million species of “spineless hero” will win: the glowworm? The minotaur beetle? Rishi Sunak? Stay tuned to find out.

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And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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Ken Hersh: American institutions can solve America’s problems

Invest in our institutions to keep them strong for the next generation..

By Ken Hersh

12:00 PM on Apr 6, 2024 CDT

Our great nation has been through a lot in the past two centuries, but through it all, our institutions have held.

Think about the tests our institutions have faced — slavery, the Civil War, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, ending Jim Crow, Watergate, impeachments, political assassinations and an attempted insurrection. Our system was designed to bend but not break, even with its built-in inefficiency created by decentralization and checks and balances.

This resiliency makes me optimistic about our ability to deal with today’s challenges, even when confidence in our institutions is at a historically low point , with Congress earning the trust of only 8% of Americans, according to Gallup. But each of us must do our part to keep our institutions robust — from those formally established by the Constitution to the important, but less-discussed foundational institutions such as family, faith and community.

Not all institutional structure emanates from Washington, D.C. I would argue that the most important pillars can’t find a 202 area code. The micro institutions of our families and role in the broader community impact our daily lives more than outrageous rhetoric from politicians that has left so many of us without a political home .

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It’s time that we all begin to act big in small ways. While political dysfunction is easy to talk about, think about the harm it can do if it prevents you from caring for those closest to you or working on a problem that most directly impacts you.

Start small and work up from there. While two neighbors may philosophically disagree on politics, they may work together on a local issue that would improve the quality of health care available for their children. Family, community and faith-based units are great sources of stability.

Last May, I was asked to be the keynote speaker at the National Day of Prayer luncheon hosted by the Thanks-Giving Foundation here in town. Originally shocked that they’d ask one of the more secular Jews in the community, I accepted the challenge to support the foundation’s goal of making North Texas a better place. I prepped for the event by meeting with the inspirational Rabbi David Stern. For a lightly observant but more importantly cultural Jewish American, I used the occasion to reinforce my own commitment to civility and citizenship as cornerstone values for a healthy community.

I believe a great city should have world-class cultural institutions, public spaces and social safety nets for those who need a helping hand. I try to direct my spare time and available resources to these institutions. While the needs may seem infinite and beyond my individual capacity to carry, my hope is that I can serve as one example for others to follow.

If we invest in institutions, we will be teaching civics lessons without even trying. Modeling good citizenship is a necessary first step in passing along our democratic values to the next generation. We are comfortable modeling and discussing table manners – why not add a few democratic principles while you’re at it? Make sure the children in your life understand how our government works. Take them with you to vote or attend a public meeting.

And support and encourage teachers to do the same in the classroom. Our students’ knowledge and skills in democratic citizenship, constitutional democracy, and history are falling , according to the Nation’s Report Card .

I am encouraged by how receptive the nation was when the Geroge W. Bush Presidential Center led 12 other presidential foundations and centers last fall in a statement reaffirming the importance of our democratic institutions. A visitor to the Bush Museum recently shared with us that she read the statement and realized we are all working “together to solve the problems we face as a country.” We have a team of policy experts hard at work supporting pluralism and developing leaders capable of incorporating opposing views as they address today’s challenges.

The easiest way the average person can defend our institutions is by engaging. It starts at the ballot box. Stay informed, and vote in every election, including off-year, runoff, and primary elections. Serve on juries when called and raise your hand when you see a community need. These all build models for others to emulate and, heck, it might just feel good to be constructive while others rant.

By showing up, practicing civility, and participating, you’re strengthening our democracy. But you don’t have to participate in everything. Pick one or two things that speak to you, research the topic, including from sources that may be opposed to your general views. By doing this, you begin to model civility, instead of chaos. Once you appreciate the issue, get involved and respect your fellow American. Remember, you cannot love the country while simultaneously hating half its citizens. Respect for pluralism is foundational to the quality of the life we’ve built.

Once you’ve found your voice, you can ensure that our institutions aren’t stagnant. In the wake of past crises, the public helped our institutions evolve. The constitutional amendments abolishing slavery and ensuring the right to vote for born and naturalized Americans came out of the Civil War. Women’s suffrage required years of advocacy. Revisions to the rules on presidential succession followed assassinations and war. The Voting Rights Act followed the civil rights movement 100 years later, and it took steady public participation to drive that one home.

Today’s challenges may require similar evolutionary changes to our system. We can and should engage in healthy and legitimate debate about such things as the primary system, term limits and gerrymandering reform — all without demonizing our fellow citizens. We are on the same American team. We should want our leaders to succeed because we want our country to succeed.

So stay confident that the institutions of our lives are resilient. Whether here at home, in Washington, or the statehouse, if we don’t quit on them, they will be there for us and future generations. If we do quit on them, who knows who will step in to shape them — maybe the same people this moderate conservative fears are filling the void when the silent majority remains silent.

Ken Hersh is President and CEO of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Editor’s note: On March 17, The Dallas Morning News published a column by Ken Hersh which gave advice for citizenship habits that can help readers navigate this election year. This column is one in a series that expands on those ideas.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here . If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at [email protected]

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Breaking down the gender wage gap in Utah: How much of it is due to discrimination, and what can be done?

Does utah have the largest wage gap in the country that depends on how you analyze the data..

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Derek Miller, President and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber and Pat Jones, CEO of the Women's Leadership Institute, release a proposal on how to close the gender wage gap in Utah during a news conference at the Salt Lake Chamber on Friday, Nov. 30, 2018.

I think it’s important to accurately describe a problem in order to solve it.

A perfect example of that is the gender wage gap. Many of the headlines you read are about how large the wage gap is, with the most recent reports saying the median woman in Utah makes 73 cents for every dollar paid to the median man. Advocates have created a holiday called “Equal Pay Day,” representing the number of days a woman works “for free” in an average year in order to match a man’s salary; this year, it took place on March 12.

The numbers are designed to shock you and they probably should — they are true.

But conservative advocates on the other side have a valid point: Once you adjust for controllable factors like occupation, experience, and education, the difference between the sexes shrinks dramatically. And they’ve used that to argue that state laws requiring equal pay shouldn’t be passed.

Here’s my thesis: The strength of both arguments detracts from solving the real situation.

Utah has the second-largest pay gap in the nation, according to U.S. census data, but only a fraction of that is due to employer discrimination. That employer discrimination needs to be addressed. The remaining amount of the pay gap comes from various societal and cultural phenomena. Those also need to be addressed.

Let’s dig in.

The current situation

Payscale is a company that tracks pay structure and makes recommendations to businesses on how they can make their wages competitive in the labor marketplace. Overall, 627,000 people have taken Payscale’s survey over the last two years about how much they make, their occupation, and other relevant factors. That’s an impressive sample size, though one the company admits is likely skewed toward those with a college degree.

Here’s what the survey found as the median wage gap among all 50 states.

As you can see, Utah women typically make just 75 cents on the dollar compared to Utah men. That’s also quite close to the 73.1 cent average reported by the Census Bureau, which is promising from a data point of view.

But what happens if you control for every compensable factor? Match job to job, experience to experience, education to education, and so on? This is the kind of data that companies like Payscale can have that the Census Bureau doesn’t.

The gap significantly shrinks — now Utah women make 97 cents to the dollar compared to Utah men.

The whole Payscale report is worth reading. It further breaks down the controlled and uncontrolled data by job, industry, race, education, age, work-from-home status, and much more. Some jobs, like truck drivers and religious directors, still have massive wage gaps even if you account for every factor.

Removing the discrimination portion of the wage gap

There are other estimates of the discrimination portion of the wage gap in Utah that are larger than 3%. For example, one University of Utah thesis put it at 14%. I think, given the Payscale tilt toward college-educated workers, that 3% is likely an underestimation. But let’s just go with 3%, for the sake of argument.

A 3% gap in pay simply due to discrimination is still hugely significant and needs to be addressed. That Utah women are being bilked out of thousands of dollars in salary per year needs to change.

Forty-three states in the nation have an equal pay law. Utah isn’t one of them. We’re the only state in the intermountain region not to have such a law, in fact. (Utah State University has an excellent report on the laws in all 50 states.)

What Utah does have is a wage anti-discrimination law. So what’s the difference? As always, it’s in the details.

Let’s choose Idaho as the counter-example — a state just as or more conservative than Utah. Utah’s law, meager as it is, exempts specific religious entities and any employer with fewer than 15 employees, or any employer asking people to work less than 20 weeks in a year. That’s a lot of employers who are allowed to discriminate! Idaho’s law has no such exemptions.

In Idaho, those discriminated against are allowed to and encouraged to take up a lawsuit in a relevant court. Utah’s law, meanwhile, forces those with a claim to go through the Utah Antidiscrimination and Labor Division of the Utah Labor Commission.

If an employee wants to sue their employer in Utah, they would have to get permission from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before filing a case in federal court. But the UALD is the only process allowed under Utah law.

That’s a big deal because the UALD has proven to have trouble enforcing the law. A 2017 audit revealed that the division rules in favor of the employee just .7% of the time. In nearby states, the average is about 5.3%. That’s an especially big deal for those who lose their claims: Idaho’s law also prevents retaliation by employers on employees who seek action under their equal pay law, which Utah’s law doesn’t.

Utah’s law also has a statute of limitations, asking workers to file claims within 180 days of the discriminatory act. Idaho’s law is three years.

Maybe I can appeal to Utah’s Legislators via their competitive instincts: There is no reason for Idaho to have a better law than Utah on this matter. You’re gonna allow Idaho to keep things fair while Utah languishes? Those guys up north? Those wackadoodles play on blue football fields and are proud of potatoes! We can’t lose to them!

Addressing other factors

But the truth remains that the largest portion of Utah’s wage gap isn’t due to employer discrimination alone.

I thought this thesis from Curtis Miller at the U.’s economics school was well done. Essentially, using census data and fancy analytics, it tries to extract which causes can explain Utah’s wage gap. The different industries in which men and women work? The choice of occupation within an industry? Is it different levels of experience or other qualifications, referred to as an “endowment gap?” Overtime hours worked?

According to Miller, the endowment gap and industry are the largest factors. Interestingly, Miller’s analysis of the national data doesn’t show an endowment gap between men and women — if anything, women are more likely in their fields of interest to have experience or other qualifications nationally, but in Utah, the reverse is true. (Industry of employment differences are still a large driver of the wage gap nationwide and in Utah.)

As you probably know, Utah women are more likely to be mothers than those in other states. But in wage analysis, there’s what’s called the “motherhood penalty.” Mothers are more likely to take time off of work than fathers after the birth of a child, which in itself can lead to fewer opportunities for career advancement.

But even among those who take the same amount of time off work, the perceptions are different. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’s report on the wage gap in Utah noted that mothers were also nearly twice as likely as fathers to say taking time off had a negative impact on their careers. “Among those who took leave from work in the past two years following the birth or adoption of their child, 25 percent of women said this had a negative impact at work, compared with 13 percent of men,” the report says.

There’s an education gap in Utah that doesn’t exist in other states. Nationally, more women get graduate degrees than men, by a 13% to 12.4% score. In Utah, 9.3% of Utah women and 14.1% of Utah men earn graduate degrees. Those with higher degrees generally make more money. This, too, explains a statistically significant part of the gap.

Finally, the choice of an occupation within a profession represents a small portion of the gap in Utah. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’s report notes that women make up two-thirds of those who make minimum wage or just over it, for example.

But age, citizenship status, overtime hours worked, and public vs. private sector status didn’t measurably contribute to Utah’s wage gap, according to Miller’s work.

In the end, we can make inroads in these issues. Utah should get with the times and pass a comparable equal pay law to other states. Then, it should make strides in supporting women in achieving higher levels of education and higher-paying industries.

Breaking down the wage gap into its component parts doesn’t serve to minimize it — in fact, it serves to identify places where we can make real changes, especially at the legislative level. Let’s push these improvements forward.

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