Framing Education as a Public Good

Fernando Reimers

• Ideas Matter to Public Education

• Ideas are Developed through Dialogue

• Value of Global Coallitions to Advance Public Education

Three Contributions…

Three Important Ideas…

• professional and trade interests of educators are intertwined

• collaborative government-union approaches to strengthening education are more productive

• efforts to strengthen the teaching profession should be aligned with an ambitious vision of environmental sustainability, human rights, democracy and social justice

A little history

1802, first public office to oversee education

1828 Ministry of public instruction

US Illiteracy Rates (%) for 14 years and older

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

1) public education was not built in a day, or even in a few years, it is a historical project that spanned multiple generations,

2) it was a project that was simultaneously about educational ideas about purpose, content and method, and a political project of mobilization of support,

3) the project has had detractors and different points in history, and most importantly, that the project is not over, it is up to us to define the course of this project over the next century.

Seven Challenges

to Public Education

Ideology

Economic Adjustment.

Inequality

USA Educational Attainment 25 years and over

Rise

Democratic

Expectations

Expanding Aspirations

• From Access to Learning Outcomes

• Expanding Definitions of Literacy

• Expanding Expectations of Agency

Expanding Aspirations

Benjamin Bloom 1956

Lorin Anderson 1990

• Reading literacy: An individual’s capacity to: understand, use, reflect on and engage with written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate in society.

PISA Literacy Studies

• Mathematical literacy: An individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgements and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen.

• Scientific literacy: An individual’s scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions, to acquire new knowledge, to explain scientific phenomena, and to draw evidencebased conclusions about science-related issues, understanding of the characteristic features of science as a form of human knowledge and enquiry, awareness of how science and technology shape our material, intellectual, and cultural environments, and willingness to engage in science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen.

Transformation

of

Work

The best way to predict the future… is to create it. Peter Drucker.

The best way to predict educate for the future… is to create educate to invent it.

Innovation

Demography

608,783,000 Children 5-9 years old

608,783,000 Children 5-9 years old

608,783,000 Children 5-9 years old

• As people are living longer they will need to develop new skills for a long life, including managing their health and learning to learn

• And we will want and need to learn throughout life.

Professional Substantive Conversation

Curriculum, Pedagogy, Learning and Teaching

Labor Force with High Levels of

Educational Attainment

Labor Force with High Levels of

Educational Attainment

Internationally Competitive Curriculum

World Standards

Internationally Competitive Curriculum

World Standards

Knowledge and Skills about the World and

Globalization

Knowledge and Skills about the World and

Globalization

Global Competence

Economic Risks

• Food price volatility• Oil price spikes• Major Fall in the US$• Slowing Chinese economy (<6%)• Fiscal crises• Asset price collapse• Retrenchment from globalization (developed)• Retrenchment from globalization (emerging)• Burden of regulation• Underinvestment in Infrastructure

Geopolitical Risks

• International terrorism• Nuclear proliferation• Iran• North Korea• Afghanistan Instability• Transnational crime and corruption• Israel-Palestine• Iraq• Global governance gaps

Environmental Risks

• Extreme weather• Drought and Desertification• Water Scarcity• National Catastrophes (cyclone)• National Catastrophes (earthquakes)• National Catastrophes (island flooding)• National Catastrophes (coastal flooding)• Air pollution• Biodiversity loss

Societal Risks

• Pandemic

• Infectious disease

• Chronic Diseases

• Liability Regimes

• Migration

Technological Risks

• Critical information infrastructure breakdown

• Nanoparticle toxicity

• Data fraud/loss

Imagine…

A world

of empowered

global citizens

Standing on the shoulders of giants…

To help the young…

Invent the Future