A new international organization has released five case studies of low- and middle-income nations, demonstrating that PUBLIC EDUCATION WORKS.
I received this mailing:
We are delighted to launch a new important piece of research on public education, titled “Public education works: lessons from five case-studies in low- and middle- income countries”. The study shows that well-organised public education systems are possible and working everywhere, with political will and use of locally relevant practices.
It showcases positive examples of public education in different contexts and settings. The cases – from Bolivia to Namibia, including Vietnam – challenge the disseminated idea that public education needs privatisation for quality and point to a rights-aligned and socially committed definition of quality – including the aim for social inclusion and equity, the engagement of community and local actors, valuing teachers and respecting local culture. It concludes that public education must be the way forward for building more equal, just and sustainable societies.
The research was produced collaboratively by 12 organizations and is part of GI-ESCR’s continuous efforts to reverse the adverse impact of the commercialisation of education in the context of the unprecedented expansion of private-sector involvement in education.
The launch of this study is a follow-up to the publication of a policy brief released ahead of the Global Partnership for Education summit in July 2021. Its release during the virtual session of the World Bank’s Civil Society Policy Forum adds to the call on the World Bank and other investors to prioritize their support for public education in their efforts to build back more resilient and equitable education systems for all.
The research is available in three formats: a Working paper, Research brief and Policy brief.
To support the publicity of this new, exciting research, please share widely.
#PublicEducationWorks
READ the Working paper or Research brief here
GI-ESCR is a non-governmental organisation that believes transformative change to end endemic problems of social and economic injustice is possible only through a human rights lens.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is no surprise that public schools work around the globe. Public education is the most efficient use of resources. Private options often cost more for a worse service. So-called choice is a mythology designed to lure people into private systems that divide people by race and class.
NPE Action posted an interesting article from Chalkbeat written by parent in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. She shows how too much choice impedes the public school mission of bringing diverse students together. Her community has so many options among private, Catholic, lottery, charter, gifted and talented schools that the local public school her daughter attends is 98% Latino. Has anyone ever calculated how much the transportation costs, pollution and traffic congestion this creates? Why has education become a boutique business? Life was a whole lot simpler when children could just walk to their neighborhood public school, and, yes, children can get a good education there. https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/30/22700863/jackson-heights-queens-school-desegregation
Why has education become a boutique business?
Because parents are tired of what public schools are doing to children. I dumped the public system because I just couldn’t fight anymore and the only way to get out of the box was to just bust out and leave. I believe in the idea of “public education”, but what is in a lot of our schools is not anything like what a public education should be. These are some of the reasons that I (and other parents) have left.
1. Common Core….inane drill and kill….rinse/repeat
2. too much testing, testing, testing
3. too much “canned” SEL to boost test scores
4 over emphasis on test scores…unhealthy competition
5. seeing children as nothing but a score
6. too much data collection
7. too much emphasis on 2 subjects (bullet point ELA and wonky Maths)
8. lack of resources for science, art, music, PE
9. the push for AP classes, numerous rounds of the SAT/ACT/AP tests
10. too much emphasis on computers in the classroom
11. lack of recess (lower grades) or free periods
And NO, I don’t want vouchers! When the state gives money, it always wants something in return….my list from above! Yes, life was simpler when school was closer to home….but it was also more chaotic in many other ways.
interesting that twenty years ago NCLB originators got away with pushing these test-dependent “reforms” in the name of desperately needing to change the status quo—and now people see this all as today’s public school status quo
Public schools are suffering from too much emphasis on the wrong things. Most of it is due to politics and outside influences like the commodification of education.
So if public schools want to keep students and families, they need to stop with the wrong things! I know it’s politics, but most people don’t. Parents complained about CCSS and we still have it. Parents complained about the testing and it’s still firmly entrenched and gets worse yearly. Parents complained about overcrowding and they got more crappy portables for classrooms.
Parents just want their kids happy and mentally healthy in a school setting that sees them as human beings and not a data point or future workhorse (if I had to hear STEM/College & Career Ready one more time, I would have blown my brains out!). My son’s private school is like my public HS from the late 70’s early 80’s except that it’s all boys, there’s a dress code and there is a religion class every year (this year it’s world religions). Yes, I pay for it…..but it’s the only time he has ever enjoyed school. I really wish that public schools were more enjoyable for more kids.
Your reasons for avoiding your public school make sense; they are the effects of over-testing caused by the push for privatization. Your opponent is privatization in your decision, dripping with irony, to attend private school. Privatization is destroying public education.
LCT…..I know it’s a Catch 22, but I must do what is right/good for my child (and many parents in MD are doing this). My kid’s private HS has been around since 1845 so it has been “competing” with the public system for a long time now. The Principal is a graduate of the school and his wife is a public school teacher. Many of the teachers are alumni and many are former public school teachers who left because of “reforms” (common core/over testing). It feels like a HS prior to Nation at Risk.
He is learning and he’s happy and he likes school. He’s respected as a human being and in return he respects his teachers/staff…which means that I don’t have to have meetings/phone calls with admin due to bad behavior about not doing his “packets” of common core drivel.
I have a sister who retired out of the public school system after 30+ years of teaching and giving her life to her students/career. She had always hoped to retire into substitute teaching 1-2 days a week to stay busy but she refuses to set foot into a public school due to all the testing and other “reforms” that made teaching a nightmare for her and did harm to her students.
I had a “choice” and opted to pay for that choice. The school doesn’t take $$$ from our small voucher system nor do I want them to. I would love if our public schools went back to a holistic form of educating youth instead of testing them to death in the name of US News & World Report status….but that just won’t happen.
I know. But my public school students are happy and learning too. Just saying.
I think Americans will deeply regret abolishing public education and I fear none of the ed reform engineers of privatizing the K-12 system will ever be held accountable for the outcomes of their “reinvention”.
They’ve never been held accountable for anything. The experiments fail, they’re buried or denied, and the same exact people retain high level position in ed reform for decades. There’s almost no turnover and there are no dissenters.
Diane—
I am a retired proofreader/typesetter. I graduated the New York School of Printing in 1960 and went on to a rewarding career in the printing and publishing fields.
I successfully tutored a Haitian immigrant girl for 10 years in writing. She was semi-literate when I began. She is now a Registered Nurse with a Masters Degree in her field.
I have recently begun to do the same with a Dominican who is now a dental assistant, but has a goal of becoming a practicing dentist.
I get much satisfaction from doing this, despite the odds against achieving success. I think that if we are going to educate the masses of people in their current state of disillusion with formal education we have to do it with a personal commitment to ourselves. We can and must revitalize all of our communities.
Not Left Back
Ronald, you are making a difference!
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
A study produced by 12 organizations working cooperatively proves/shows that well-organized public education systems are possible and working everywhere, with political will and the use of the locally relevant practice. There is no need to allow publicly funded, private sector, secretive and often corrupt and abusive (children and teachers) charter schools to complete in the U.S. with public schools for public money.
A decade ago, I read essays in Foreign Affairs touting privatization as THE solution (to a problem that didn’t exist). I wonder if the folks here realize the importance of a research paper like this one by GI-ESCR refuting the neoliberal privatization stance in a forum of the internationally minded. It’s huge. The times, they are a’changing.
File this, as Basil Fawlty would say, under the “bleeding obvious.” At least to some of us.