Excellence In Education As A National Priority

 

Excellence In Education As A National Priority 

We know that the future of education is in our hands. Successful educational institutions are the future of all nations, and they must be preserved and improved.We want to help them do so.We believe that, with your support, we can achieve that goal.So we are asking you to help us preserve and improve education by becoming one of our supporters.

Your contribution will allow us to continue our mission to provide the highest standards of student learning and educational advancement for all children at every stage in their lives.The amount you pledge will directly impact the quality of life for students at every level throughout the country; it will also help us pay for great teachers who inspire their students to reach their full potential, and who live outside the strict boundaries of financial constraints that have long held back education in many communities across the country.

 

1.1 Problem definition

Is it possible to make learning a national priority?

It’s not something politicians like to talk about. In fact, since the 1970s, education has been a highly partisan issue. Conservative Republicans have fought against federal funding of public schools through their “school voucher” proposals and have been successful in getting states to take this position. But this is not a partisan issue. What we are talking about is returning more of what is good in our schools to the community at large.

We are talking about giving students more control over their education (and thus giving them more power), but we also want to give teachers more freedom, so that they can teach and students receive the best education possible.

So why do we care? Because as a nation we are losing ground economically, socially and culturally. Our bet is that if we put our energy into improving our schools and teaching students what they need to know, there will be huge economic benefits:

 

1.2 Problem explanation

In science, there is a striking correlation between problems and discoveries. The more difficult new problems that scientists face, the more creative they are.Educational researchers have long observed this relationship. A few decades ago, in the United States, researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University and several other institutions published a paper on the “Educational Problem Concept” (EPC), which focused on how to identify and solve educational problems.

In their final paragraph, they said:It is worth mentioning that this paper was initially meant for a special issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology entitled “Research with Specialists” (or “RWS”). However, due to editorial concerns it was decided that the article was too short to fit into such an issue.

 

1.3 Problem analysis

There are a lot of solutions to the problem of education, but they all boil down to some combination of:

• A decent school system with proper resources and teacher training

• An effective curriculum that fosters creativity, learning and critical thinking (as much as possible in a given discipline)

• An adequate supply of teachers — in other words, good ones.

The fact that all these solutions are “solutions” is the point. They are not “solutions” because they can be implemented by anyone, anywhere on any budget. Just because something is a solution doesn’t make it a solution for you; it just makes it a solution for you.

So you want to know: how do you find them? How do you learn from them? How do you evaluate them? Where does that leave us as people who want to teach ourselves? It leaves us with three questions:

• What is “better” than what we do now?

• What is different about our current system?

• How can we make our current system better?

 

2. Review of the literature

As a nation, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of education. We’ve been at it for decades now, and there’s plenty of literature to back it up. Even if we had the time to read it all, though, I am sure there are people out there who have read many more books than us.I’m not asking you to take my word for this.

 If you have time and are interested in reading some more (or perhaps even having some expert help), here is a quick overview of what is out there.

There are two basic categories: academic research that supports teaching excellence and administrative studies that support the concept of “school improvement” as an outcome of good education (which is also used to justify state spending on education).

A third category includes work that draws on research into learning, but does not explicitly consider how best to achieve or measure it. This is by no means comprehensive but enough for a start on identifying some research that can support your thinking about how best to improve learning in your organization or school:

 

3. Theory building and hypothesis development

For most of human history, learning was not a primary or even a secondary concern for people. While the development of technology and farming provided the population with an important means to an increase in food production and shelter, they did not see education as essential to their ongoing survival.If you look at the first generations of humans who came out of Africa and spread across Europe, they had little need for education.

The few languages they spoke were local dialects with no interest in expanding beyond their own region. Learning consisted of memorizing facts or memorizing poems or songs that could be sung by a harpist and it was not considered part of the job requirements for any tribe or group.

It wasn’t until European explorers brought back knowledge from other parts of the world that people began to wonder about what else might be out there — why didn’t all these other cultures have writing systems? What did this mean for their future?The ability to communicate information in more than one language gave them an advantage over others.

But even with this advantage, “survival skills” were still needed: hunting, gathering food (and avoiding being eaten), building shelters (which we will discuss later), caring for children, maintaining relationships with friends and family members, maintaining order in large groups etc. As Europeans expanded into other parts of the world they brought their own expertise — some better than others — but all had a place in society as long as they didn’t try to push too hard!

There are too many examples here for me to cite them all but I want you to notice something: even though each individual part may seem

 

4. Methodology & Data Collection

Learning is a complex process; it is not simply about acquiring knowledge (and there are certainly ways of doing that). It is about how the knowledge is applied in particular situations, and the ability to do so consistently.“I have seen great teachers, but I have also seen terrible ones.

That’s because great teachers are people who know what they are doing” – Bryce Epps We often think of learning as a set of mechanical steps: looking up information, copying it to a hard drive, pasting it into an online course and finally taking an exam. There are many other ways to learn and there are many different methods which will be used in any given context.

This can be especially true when learning in a group.Each group needs its own approach based on the skills & goals of its members as well as individual differences (noted above).

Learning becomes more complicated for every member of a group if each member has different goals from each other and therefore different approaches to learning.

Learning becomes more complicated still if the goals go beyond simply memorizing facts and include understanding how to apply one’s knowledge in particular contexts or on specific tasks.The way you study will reflect how you learn best – perhaps not knowing something is easier than knowing something, but that does not mean you should ignore other parts of your education experience which may provide valuable context for your new knowledge.

 

5. Findings and Discussion (Including Limitations)

To advance our country’s future, we need to improve the quality of education that our children receive. Unfortunately, we do not have a national standard for how well our schools are doing. Our school system is so under-resourced that it is hard for even highly-qualified teachers to teach effectively.

We need to make sure every child in this country receives a high-quality education.Recently, we released the results from the 2015 ESEA Benchmarks Report (E-Rate Benchmarks) . Based on a nationwide survey of more than 27,000 educators (more than 60% were in K-12 schools), this report provides some interesting findings about how schools are performing.

 While it may be troubling that only about half of all states have fully implemented ESEA, we can learn a lot from these findings and make progress towards improving the state of education in America.

The report shows that:

• States with strong accountability systems show improved performance when it comes to student achievement. In states where students consistently achieve at or above a particular standard, there's less room for improvement.

This is true both at the state and district levels; but it's especially true at the district level where school performance can be worse than in states with weaker accountability systems because districts have fewer resources available to them.

• State and district leaders are working together to improve their efforts – more often than not they are collaborating with each other rather than working separately. The result is better results for every child because these leaders work as one team so they can find solutions for individual schools or districts rather than being isolated from one another by geography or politics.

That is why it matters so much that we continue to build strong partnerships across sectors, regions and states within our nation's education system – because together we can do great things for our children."