The Global Education Reform Movement (Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg’s apt term) is advancing privatization, competition, choice, testing, accountability, data-driven decision-making tied to test scores. It’s wreaking havoc in this country and in other parts of the world.
Here is a comment from a reader in India:
| Come to India and see what’s happening. The governments have abdicated their responsibility of educating the masses, and privatization of education is the current rhetoric. Nobody has a clue as to how public education should be organized, leaving the door wide open for fly-by-night operators. Thr future is bleak, but we Indians have elevated living in denial to a fine art. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, It’s very disturbing that countries in the international community are now following the US plan to privatize public education, such as reported here by a reader in India and as previously reported by readers in Saudie Arabia and Brazil. Rhee went to the UK recently to spread her ed “reform” agenda there, too.
I noticed you have both International and Global Education Reform Movement categories, but I didn’t see either of them listed on your homepage under Blog Topics. Would it be possible to add them there?
I think that too many people in the US assume that what they hear in the popular media about American education is specific to the US. For example, few seem to realize that other nations, such as the UK, also have research indicating that poverty negatively impacts children’s school performance and outcomes, and how the single pronged approach to mediating poverty through education is ineffective there as well, due to so many unaddressed out-of-school factors influencing poor children.
Few Americans are aware of how other countries have been facing pertinent issues similar to ours, such as concerns about how so much drilling and testing has led to lower levels of creativity in China, and how Korea is addressing a glut of college degrees and lack of jobs for graduates. I think few Americans are also aware of the model school system in Finland and how addressing equiting issues is one of the ways they were able to turn schools around there.
Just a suggestion regarding adding those categories to the list of Blog Topics, as some of us might want to be able to tweet reporters and be able to refer them to the International or Global Education Reform Movement page, so folks can see the bigger picture. (Might they be combined, such as under Global Trends?)