Russell Quaglia: From Dreaming to Doing
Post written by Laura Varlas How would you rate your ability to put your dreams into practice? How would you rate your students? Aspirations—having goals and being inspired in the present to pursue them—challenge us to match our dreams with actions, explained Russell Quaglia at his lively 2014 ASCD Annual Conference general session. But for many students, he added, aspirations get lost in the limb
Post written by Kit Harris, ASCD Research
ASCD continually seeks to provide solutions to the challenges that face educators of all levels. A recentASCD SmartBrief ED Pulse poll sought to explore which of the predictions of a 2001 OECD report its readers felt were actually emerging.
More than a decade ago, a report (PDF) on the future of schooling by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) outlined several predictions of where schooling was headed. These predictions were divided into three major scenarios, the "status quo extrapolated," a "re-schooling" scenario, and a "de-schooling" scenario. Within each scenario, there were several options about the future of education. This report has been used widely to inform policy debate and professional development in many countries.
Two of the trends rose to the top, chosen as the ones closest to coming true, with each garnering about a third of the respondents: that there is increased involvement of the private sector in running schools(34 percent), originally part of the "status quo extraploated," and teachers leave the profession en masse; satisfaction with education drops (31 percent), originally a "de-schooling" scenario. Interestingly, these two scenarios were the two that were re-classified after the original report came out. The first one (mass market) became a "de-schooling" scenario and the second one (mass meltdown) became a separate "crisis-situation" category.
Following these two, there was one more choice that was selected by a substantial percentage of the respondents: that federal and state departments maintain primary control of school systems (25 percent), another "status quo extrapolated" element. The other options were not selected by more than 10 percent of these readers.
 |
| This survey question was included in ASCD SmartBrief, a free daily e-mail news service that provides summaries and links to major education stories and issues, which has more than 215,000 subscribers. Using ED Pulse, the weekly online poll, data was collected from 487 readers, starting on April 17, 2014. Online surveys do not provide a random sample, as participants are self-selected, meaning that a margin of sampling error cannot be calculated or quoted. In addition, the population and sample are limited to those with access to computers and an online network. However, online surveys have been shown to produce results that have proven to be reliable predictors of outcomes, including election results. If you have a question on education that you would like to see addressed in a future ED Pulse poll, feel free to submit it in the comment section below, along with any other comments. |
Kit Harris is the marketing research lead at ASCD. The quantitative and qualitative research work done is in support of strategic initiatives in marketing, membership, product/program/service development, and conferences/meetings. Harris started her career in Chicago at a marketing research firm, then moved to D.C. to serve as the research director at advertising agency Earle Palmer Brown & Associates. Prior to coming to ASCD, she ran her own research firm.
Follow the Whole Child Symposium conversation here on the blog, share your thoughts in the comments and by e-mail, and pose your questions on Twitter using the hashtag #WCSymposium2014.
Learn more at www.ascd.org/wcsymposium.
Back to Basics: From Quick Fixes to Sustainable Change
School improvement conversations usually focus on quick fixes, those strategies thought to make immediate improvements to student achievement. While this model may work well for some, kids (and their teachers) remain unconvinced because their needs were never really considered to begin with—just their test scores. Even so, schools are encouraged to implement these overly simplistic strategies in s
4-28-14 The Whole Child Blog — Improving Schools: Back to Basics—Struggling with Semantics — Whole Child Education
Improving Schools: Back to Basics—Struggling with Semantics — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGImproving Schools: Back to Basics—Struggling with SemanticsApril 28, 2014 by Sean Slade"Back to the basics." It's a phrase that's tossed around much but has varying definitions depending on the speaker and audience. For some, "back to the basics" means focusing on