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What education policy experts are watching for in 2022

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, daphna bassok , daphna bassok nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @daphnabassok stephanie riegg cellini , stephanie riegg cellini nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy michael hansen , michael hansen senior fellow - brown center on education policy , the herman and george r. brown chair - governance studies @drmikehansen douglas n. harris , douglas n. harris nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy , professor and chair, department of economics - tulane university @douglasharris99 jon valant , and jon valant director - brown center on education policy , senior fellow - governance studies @jonvalant kenneth k. wong kenneth k. wong nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy.

January 7, 2022

Entering 2022, the world of education policy and practice is at a turning point. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the day-to-day learning for children across the nation, bringing anxiety and uncertainty to yet another year. Contentious school-board meetings attract headlines as controversy swirls around critical race theory and transgender students’ rights. The looming midterm elections threaten to upend the balance of power in Washington, with serious implications for the federal education landscape. All of these issues—and many more—will have a tremendous impact on students, teachers, families, and American society as a whole; whether that impact is positive or negative remains to be seen.

Below, experts from the Brown Center on Education Policy identify the education stories that they’ll be following in 2022, providing analysis on how these issues could shape the learning landscape for the next 12 months—and possibly well into the future.

I will also be watching the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking sessions and following any subsequent regulatory changes to federal student-aid programs. I expect to see changes to income-driven repayment plans and will be monitoring debates over regulations governing institutional and programmatic eligibility for federal student-loan programs. Notably, the Department of Education will be re-evaluating Gainful Employment regulations—put in place by the Obama administration and rescinded by the Trump administration—which tied eligibility for federal funding to graduates’ earnings and debt.

But the biggest and most concerning hole has been in the  substitute teacher force —and the ripple effects on school communities have been broad and deep. Based on personal communications with Nicola Soares, president of  Kelly Education , the largest education staffing provider in the country, the pandemic is exacerbating several problematic trends that have been quietly simmering for years. These are: (1) a growing reliance on long-term substitutes to fill permanent teacher positions; (2) a shrinking supply of qualified individuals willing to fill short-term substitute vacancies; and, (3) steadily declining fill rates for schools’ substitute requests. Many schools in high-need settings have long faced challenges with adequate, reliable substitutes, and the pandemic has turned these localized trouble spots into a widespread catastrophe. Though federal pandemic-relief funds could be used to meet the short-term weakness in the substitute labor market (and mainline teacher compensation, too ), this is an area where we sorely need more research and policy solutions for a permanent fix.

First, what’s to come of the vaccine for ages 0-4? This is now the main impediment to resuming in-person activity. This is the only large group that currently cannot be vaccinated. Also, outbreaks are triggering day-care closures, which has a significant impact on parents (especially mothers), including teachers and other school staff.

Second, will schools (and day cares) require the vaccine for the fall of 2022? Kudos to my hometown of New Orleans, which still appears to be the nation’s only district to require vaccination. Schools normally require a wide variety of other vaccines, and the COVID-19 vaccines are very effective. However, this issue is unfortunately going to trigger a new round of intense political conflict and opposition that will likely delay the end of the pandemic.

Third, will we start to see signs of permanent changes in schooling a result of COVID-19? In a previous post on this blog, I proposed some possibilities. There are some real opportunities before us, but whether we can take advantage of them depends on the first two questions. We can’t know about these long-term effects on schooling until we address the COVID-19 crisis so that people get beyond survival mode and start planning and looking ahead again. I’m hopeful, though not especially optimistic, that we’ll start to see this during 2022.

The CTC and universal pre-K top my list for 2022, but it’s a long list. I’ll also be watching the Supreme Court’s ruling on vouchers in Carson v. Makin , how issues like critical race theory and detracking play into the 2022 elections, and whether we start to see more signs of school/district innovation in response to COVID-19 and the recovery funds that followed.

Electoral dynamics will affect several important issues: the selection of state superintendents; the use of American Rescue Plan funds; the management of safe return to in-person learning for students; the integration of racial justice and diversity into curriculum; the growth of charter schools; and, above all, the extent to which education issues are leveraged to polarize rather than heal the growing divisions among the American public.

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The global education crisis – even more severe than previously estimated

Ellinore carroll, joão pedro azevedo, jessica bergmann, matt brossard, gwang- chol chang, borhene chakroun, marie-helene cloutier, suguru mizunoya, nicolas reuge, halsey rogers.

In our recent   The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery report (produced jointly by UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank), we sounded the alarm: this generation of students now risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value, or about 14 percent of today’s global GDP, because of COVID-19-related school closures and economic shocks. This new projection far exceeds the $10 trillion estimate released in 2020 and reveals that the impact of the pandemic is more severe than previously thought . 

The pandemic and school closures not only jeopardized children’s health and safety with domestic violence and child labor increasing, but also impacted student learning substantially. The report indicates that in low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in  Learning Poverty  – already above 50 percent before the pandemic – could reach 70 percent largely as a result of the long school closures and the relative ineffectiveness of remote learning.

Unless action is taken, learning losses may continue to accumulate once children are back in school, endangering future learning.

Figure 1. Countries must accelerate learning recovery

Severe learning losses and worsening inequalities in education

Results from global simulations of the effect of school closures on learning are now being corroborated by country estimates of actual learning losses. Evidence from Brazil , rural Pakistan , rural India , South Africa , and Mexico , among others, shows substantial losses in math and reading. In some low- and middle-income countries, on average, learning losses are roughly proportional to the length of the closures—meaning that each month of school closures led to a full month of learning losses (Figure 1, selected LMICs and HICs presents an average effect of 100% and 43%, respectively), despite the best efforts of decision makers, educators, and families to maintain continuity of learning.

However, the extent of learning loss varies substantially across countries and within countries by subject, students’ socioeconomic status, gender, and age or grade level (Figure 1 illustrates this point, note the large standard deviation, a measure which shows data are spread out far from the mean). For example, results from two states in Mexico show significant learning losses in reading and in math for students aged 10-15. The estimated learning losses were greater in math than reading, and they disproportionately affected younger learners, students from low-income backgrounds, and girls.

Figure 2. The average learning loss standardized by the length of the school closure was close to 100% in Low- and Middle-Income countries, and 43% in High-Income countries, with a standard deviation of 74% and 30%, respectively.

While most countries have yet to measure learning losses, data from several countries, combined with more extensive evidence on unequal access to remote learning and at-home support, shows the crisis has exacerbated inequalities in education globally.

• Children from low-income households, children with disabilities, and girls were less likely to access remote learning due to limited availability of electricity, connectivity, devices, accessible technologies as well as discrimination and social and gender norms.
• Younger students had less access to age-appropriate remote learning and were more affected by learning loss than older students. Pre-school-age children, who are at a pivotal stage for learning and development, faced a double disadvantage as they were often left out of remote learning and school reopening plans.
• Learning losses were greater for students of lower socioeconomic status in various countries, including Ghana , Mexico , and Pakistan .
• While the gendered impact of school closures on learning is still emerging, initial evidence points to larger learning losses among girls, including in South Africa and Mexico .

As a result, these children risk missing out on much of the boost that schools and learning can provide to their well-being and life chances. The learning recovery response must therefore target support to those that need it most, to prevent growing inequalities in education.

Beyond learning, growing evidence shows the negative effects school closures have had on students’ mental health and well-being, health and nutrition, and protection, reinforcing the vital role schools play in providing comprehensive support and services to students.

Critical and Urgent Need to Focus on Learning Recovery

How should decision makers and the international community respond to the growing global education crisis?

Reopening schools and keeping them open must be the top priority, globally. While nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied, and in most cases, they offered a poor substitute for in-person instruction. Stemming and reversing learning losses, especially for the most vulnerable students, requires in-person schooling. Decision makers need to reassure parents and caregivers that with adequate safety measures, such as social distancing, masking, and improved ventilation, global evidence shows that children can resume in-person schooling safely.

But just reopening schools with a business-as-usual approach won’t reverse learning losses. Countries need to create Learning Recovery Programs . Three lines of action will be crucial:

• Consolidating the curriculum – to help teachers prioritize essential material that students have missed while out of school, even if the content is usually covered in earlier grades, to ensure the curriculum is aligned to students’ learning levels. As an example, Tanzania consolidated its curriculum for grade 1 and 2 in 2015, reducing the number of subjects taught and increasing time on ensuring the acquisition of foundational numeracy and literacy.
• Extending instructional time – by extending the school day, modifying the academic calendar to make the school year longer, or by offering summer school for all students or those in need. In Mexico , the Ministry of Public Education announced planned extensions to the academic calendar to help recovery. In Madagascar , the government scaled up an existing two-month summer “catch-up” program for students who reintegrate into school after having left the system.
• Improving the efficiency of learning – by supporting teachers to apply structured pedagogy and targeted instruction. A structured pedagogy intervention in Kenya using teachers guides with lesson plans has proven to be highly effective. Targeted instruction, or aligning instruction to students’ learning level, has been successfully implemented at scale in Cote D’Ivoire .

Finally, the report emphasizes the need for adequate funding. As of June 2021, the education and training sector had been allocated less than 3 percent of global stimulus packages. Much more funding will be needed for immediate learning recovery if countries are to avert the long-term damage to productivity and inclusion that they now face.

Learning Recovery as a Springboard to an Accelerated Learning Trajectory

Accelerating learning recovery has benefits that go well beyond short-term gains:  it can give children the necessary foundations for a lifetime of learning, and it can help countries increase the efficiency, equity, and resilience of schooling. This can be achieved if countries build on investments made and lessons learned during the crisis—most notably, with a focus on six areas:

• Assessing student learning so instruction can be targeted to students’ learning levels and specific needs.
• Investing in digital learning opportunities for all students, ensuring that technology is fit for purpose and focused on enhancing human interactions.
• Reinforcing support that leverages the role of parents, families, and communities in children’s learning.
• Ensuring that teachers are supported and have access to practical, high-quality professional development opportunities, teaching guides and learning materials. 
• Increasing the share of education in the national budget allocation of stimulus packages and tying it to investments mentioned above that can accelerate learning.
• Investing in evidence building - in particular, implementation research, to understand what works and how to scale what works to the system level.

It is time to shift from crisis response to learning recovery. We must make sure that investments and actions for learning recovery lay the foundations for more efficient, equitable, and resilient education systems—systems that truly deliver learning and well-being for all children and youth. Only then can we ensure learning continuity in the face of future disruption.

The report was produced as part of the  Mission: Recovering Education 2021 , through which the  World Bank ,  UNESCO , and  UNICEF  are focused on three priorities: bringing all children back to schools, recovering learning losses, and preparing and supporting teachers.

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Best Education Essays of 2021: Our 15 Most Discussed Columns About Schools, COVID Slide, Learning Recovery & More

A full calendar year of education under COVID-19 and its variants gave rise to a wave of memorable essays in 2021, focusing both on the ongoing damage done and how to mitigate learning loss going forward.

While consensus emerged around several key themes — the need for extensive, in-depth tutoring, the possibilities presented by unprecedented millions in federal relief dollars for schools, the opportunity for education reimagined — there was far less agreement on whether to remediate or accelerate, which health and safety measures schools should employ, even how dire the shortage of teachers and school staff really is. 

From grade-level standards and hygiene theater to lessons from the Spanish flu and homeschooling, here are the 15 most read and buzzed-about essays of 2021:

Analysis: Focus on Grade-Level Standards or Meet Students Where They Are? How an Unintentional Experiment Guided a Strategy for Addressing Learning Loss

Learning Recovery: What’s the best way to support learning recovery in middle-grade math? Should schools stay focused on grade-level standards while trying to address critical learning gaps as best as they can? Or should they systematically address individual students’ unfinished learning from prior years so they can ultimately catch back up — even if that means spending meaningful time teaching below-grade skills? As educators and administrators wrestle with those questions as they prepare to return to school in the fall, contributor Joel Rose offers some guidance inadvertently found in a study of Teach to One , an innovative learning model operated by New Classrooms Innovation Partners, the nonprofit where he is co-founder and CEO. That research found performance in schools with accountability systems that focused on grade-level proficiency (and thus prioritized grade-level exposure) grew 7 percentile points, while those that operated under systems that rewarded student growth (and thus prioritized individual student needs) grew 38 points. While the study was never intended to compare results across schools in this way, the stark difference between the two groups could not be ignored. Math is cumulative, and the path to proficiency often requires addressing unfinished learning from prior years. For the middle grades, administrators and policymakers would be wise to question the grade-level-only gospel as they begin to plan students’ educational recovery. Read the full analysis . 

Lessons from Spanish Flu — Babies Born in 1919 Had Worse Educational, Life Outcomes Than Those Born Just Before or After. Could That Happen With COVID-19?

History: Contributor Chad Aldeman has some bad news: The effects of COVID-19 are likely to linger for decades. And if the Spanish Flu is any indication, babies born during the pandemic may suffer some devastating consequences . Compared with children born just before or after, babies born during the flu pandemic in 1919 were less likely to finish high school, earned less money and were more likely to depend on welfare assistance and serve time in jail. The harmful effects were twice as large for nonwhite children. It may take a few years to see whether similar educational and economic effects from COVID-19 start to materialize, but these are ominous findings suggesting that hidden economic factors may influence a child’s life in ways that aren’t obvious in the moment. Hopefully, they will give policymakers more reasons to speed economic recovery efforts and make sure they deliver benefits to families and children who are going to need them the most. Read the full essay .

Pittman & Darling-Hammond: Surveys Find Parents Want Bold Changes in Schools — With More Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom

Future of Education: Whatever they thought of their schools before the pandemic struck, parents now have strong opinions about what they want them to provide. They are looking beyond fall reopenings to rethink schooling, and they care about having good choices for interest-driven learning opportunities beyond the classroom . Two national parent surveys released in May shed new light on how to think about the often-used phrase “more and better learning.” Among the key findings, write contributors Karen Pittman and Linda Darling-Hammond: Parents want bold changes in schools, to make public education more equitable and learner-centered. But they also believe that home, school and extracurriculars play complementary roles in imparting the broad set of skills children need for their future success. This means educators and policymakers must support learning that extends beyond the school day, the school walls, the school staff and the traditional school approaches. Read the full essay .

High-Quality, High-Dosage Tutoring Can Reduce Learning Loss. A Blueprint for How Washington, States & Districts Can Make It Happen

Personalized Learning: There is near-unanimous, bipartisan agreement that tutoring is among the most promising, evidence-based strategies to help students struggling with learning loss . Decades of rigorous evaluations have consistently found that tutoring programs yield large, positive effects on math and reading achievement, and can even lead to greater social and motivational outcomes. It isn’t just the research community buzzing about tutoring — it is gaining momentum in policy circles, too. Which means there is a real opportunity — and responsibility — to design and deliver tutoring programs in a way that aligns with the research evidence, which is fortunately beginning to tell us more than just “tutoring works.” Contributors Sara Kerr and Kate Tromble of Results for America lay out a blueprint for how Washington, states and local school districts can make high-quality, high-dosage tutoring happen .

COVID-19 Raised Fears of Teacher Shortages. But the Situation Varies from State to State, School to School & Subject to Subject

Teacher Pipeline: Is the U.S. facing a major teacher shortage? Relatively low pay, a booming private sector and adverse working conditions in schools are all important elements in whether teaching is becoming an undesirable profession. But, writes contributor Dan Goldhaber, the factors that lead to attrition are diverse, so treating teachers as a monolith doesn’t help in crafting solutions to the real staffing challenges that some schools face. There is no national teacher labor market per se, because each state adopts its own rules for pay, licensure, tenure, pension and training requirements. And nationally, tens of thousands more people are prepared to teach than there are available positions. But while some schools have applicants lined up when an opening becomes available, others, typically those serving economically disadvantaged students, draw far fewer candidates. And schools tend to struggle to find teachers with special education or STEM training. The pandemic certainly raises concerns about teacher shortages; what is needed is a more nuanced conversation about teacher staffing to come up with more effective solutions to real problems. Read the full essay .

Clash of Cultures, Clash of Privilege — What Happened When 30 Low-Income Students of Color Were Admitted to Elite Prep Schools

Analysis: Programs like Prep for Prep and A Better Chance have long been regarded as groundbreaking solutions to the lack of diversity in the nation’s most elite prep schools. Teens who join these types of programs undergo a transfer of privilege that starts with their education and bleeds into every facet of their lives, forever altering their trajectory with opportunities that otherwise would likely be unattainable. But what assumptions do these programs subscribe to? And what lessons can be found in the experiences of the participants? In her Harvard senior thesis, contributor Jessica Herrera Chaidez followed 30 participants in a program that grants select socioeconomically disadvantaged students of color in the Los Angeles area the opportunity to attend famed independent schools. She found that the experiences of these students can be understood in various forms of twoness associated with this transfer of privilege, an internal struggle that begins with their introduction to the world of elite education and will come to mark them for their entire lives in a way that they aren’t even able to comprehend yet. Read more about her findings, and what some of these students had to say .

Steiner & Wilson: Some Tough Questions, and Some Answers, About Fighting COVID Slide While Accelerating Student Learning

Case Study: How prepared are district leaders, principals and teachers as they work to increase learning readiness for on-grade work this fall? That’s the question posed by contributors David Steiner and Barbara Wilson in a case study examining how a large urban district sought to adapt materials it was already using to implement an acceleration strategy for early elementary foundational skills in reading . Among the insights to be drawn: First, planning is critical. Leaders need to set out precisely how many minutes of instruction will be provided, the exact learning goals and the specific materials; identify all those involved (tutors, specialists, and teachers); and give them access to shared professional development on the chosen acceleration strategies. Second, this requires a sea change from business as usual, where teachers attempt to impart skill-based standards using an eclectic rather than a coherent curriculum. It is not possible to accelerate children with fragmented content. All efforts to prepare students for grade-level instruction must rest on fierce agreement about the shared curriculum to be taught in classrooms. What we teach is the anchor that holds everything else in place. Read the full essay .

Schools Are Facing a Surge of Failing Grades During the Pandemic — and Traditional Approaches Like Credit Recovery Will Not Be Enough to Manage It

Student Supports: Earlier this year, failing grades were on the rise across the country — especially for students who are learning online — and the trend threatened to exacerbate existing educational inequities. The rise in failing grades appears to be most pronounced among students from low-income households, multilingual students and students learning virtually . This could have lasting consequences: Students with failing grades tend to have less access to advanced courses in high school, and a failing grade in even one ninth-grade course can lower a student’s chances of graduating on time. Addressing the problem, though, won’t be easy. In many school systems, the rash of failed courses could overwhelm traditional approaches to helping students make up coursework they may have missed. In a new analysis, Betheny Gross, associate director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, implored school and district leaders to be especially wary of one long-established but questionable practice: credit recovery. Read more about her warning — as well as her recommendations for how districts should seek to reverse this learning loss .

Riccards: The 1776 Report Is a Political Document, Not a Curriculum. But It Has Something to Teach Us

Analysis: The 1776 Report was never intended to stand as curriculum, nor was it designed to be translated into a curriculum as the 1619 Project was. It is a political document offered by political voices. But, writes contributor Patrick Riccards, dismissing it would be a mistake, because it provides an important lesson . The American record, whether it be measured starting in 1619 or 1776, is hopeful and ugly, inspiring and debilitating, a shining beacon and an unshakable dark cloud. American history is messy and contradictory; how we teach it, even more so. For years, we have heard how important it is to increase investment in civics education. But from #BlackLivesMatter to 2020 electioneering to even the assault on the U.S. Capitol, the basics of civics have been on display in our streets and corridors of power. What we lack is the collective historical knowledge necessary to translate civic education into meaningful, positive community change. The 1776 Report identifies beliefs espoused by our Founding Fathers and many Confederates and reflected by those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. They are a part of our history that we must study, understand, contextualize and deconstruct. The 1776 Report becomes the proper close to the social studies lessons of the past four years. As the next chapter of American history is written, it is imperative to apply those lessons to significantly improve the teaching and learning of American history. Our nation’s future depends on better understanding our past .

There’s Lots of Education Data Out There — and It Can Be Misleading. Here Are 6 Questions to Ask

Student Data: Data is critical to addressing inequities in education. However, it is often misused, interpreted to fit a particular agenda or misread in ways that perpetuate an inaccurate story . Data that’s not broken down properly can hide gaps between different groups of students. Facts out of context can lead to superficial conclusions or deceptive narratives. In this essay, contributor Krista Kaput presents six questions that she asks herself when consuming data — and that you should, too .

Educators’ View: Principals Know Best What Their Schools Need. They Should Have a Central Role in Deciding How Relief Funds Are Spent

School Funding: The American Rescue Plan represents a once-in-a-generation federal commitment to K-12 schools across the country. The impact will be felt immediately: The $122 billion in direct funding will support safe school reopenings, help ensure that schools already providing in-person instruction can safely stay open and aid students in recovering from academic and mental health challenges induced and exacerbated by the pandemic. How these funds are distributed will shape the educational prospects of millions of students, affecting the country for decades to come. As they make rescue plan funding decisions, write contributors L. Earl Franks of the National Association of Elementary School Principals and Ronn Nozoe of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, states and districts should meaningfully engage and empower school principals throughout all phases of implementation. Principals, as leaders of their school buildings and staff, have unequaled insights into their individual schools’ needs and know which resources are required most urgently. Read the authors’ four recommendations for leveraging this expertise .

Case Studies: How 11 States Are Using Emergency Federal Funds to Make Improvements in College and Career Access That Will Endure Beyond the Pandemic

COVID Relief: The Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund gave states more than $4 billion in discretionary federal dollars to support K-12 schools, higher education and workforce initiatives. These were welcome resources, coming just as the pandemic accelerated unemployment and exacerbated declining college enrollment, hitting those from low-income backgrounds hardest. But as contributors Betheny Gross, Georgia Heyward and Matt Robinson note, most states have invested overwhelmingly in one-time college scholarships or short-term supports that will end once funds run out. In hopes of encouraging policymakers across the country to make more sustainable investments with the remaining relief funds, the trio spotlights efforts in 11 states that show promise in enduring beyond COVID-19. Read our full case study . 

In Thousands of Districts, 4-Day School Weeks Are Robbing Students of Learning Time for What Amounts to Hygiene Theater

School Safety: Last April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made clear that having good ventilation and wearing masks consistently are far more effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19 than disinfecting surfaces. This clarification was long overdue, say contributors Robin Lake and Georgia Heyward of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, as scientists had long suspected that deep cleaning and temperature checks are more hygiene theater than a strategy for limiting the spread of an airborne virus. Thousands of school districts, however, had already built complex fall reopening plans with a full day for at-home learning. The result was a modified four-day week with students receiving significantly reduced live instruction. Eliminating a full day of in-person teaching was always a high-cost strategy from an education standpoint; now there is confirmation that it was totally unnecessary. Lake and Heyward argue that we cannot afford to throw away an entire day of learning and student support based on a false scientific premise .

Teacher’s View: How the Science of Reading Helped Me Make the Most of Limited Time With My Students & Adapt Lessons to Meet Their Needs

First Person: March 12, 2020, was contributor Jessica Pasik’s last typical day in the classroom before COVID-19 changed everything. When her district closed, she assumed, as did many, that it was a temporary precaution. But with each passing week, she worried that the growth in reading she and her first-graders had worked so hard for would fade away . Many pre-pandemic instructional approaches to teaching reading were already failing students and teachers, and the stress of COVID-19 has only exacerbated these challenges. When Pasik’s district reopened for in-person classes in the fall, they were faced with difficult decisions about how to best deliver instruction. One factor that helped streamline this transition was a grounding in the science of reading. Having extensive knowledge of what they needed to teach allowed educators to focus on how they would teach, make the most of the limited instructional time they had with students and adapt lessons to meet their needs. There are multiple factors that teachers cannot control; one person alone cannot make the systematic changes needed for all children to reach proficiency in literacy. But one knowledgeable teacher can forever change the trajectory of a student’s life. Students will face many challenges once they leave the classroom, but low literacy does not need to be one of them. Read her full essay .

Homeschooling Is on the Rise. What Should That Teach Education Leaders About Families’ Preferences?

Disenrollment: With school closures, student quarantines and tensions over mask requirements, vaccine mandates and culture war issues, families’ lives have been upended in ways few could have imagined 18 months ago. That schools have struggled to adapt is understandable, writes contributor Alex Spurrier. But for millions of families, their willingness to tolerate institutional sclerosis in their children’s education is wearing thin. Over the past 18 months, the rate of families moving their children to a new school increased by about 50 percent , and some 1.2 million switched to homeschooling last academic year. Instead of working to get schools back to a pre-pandemic normal, Spurrier says, education leaders should look at addressing the needs of underserved kids and families — and the best way to understand where schools are falling short is to look at how families are voting with their feet. If options like homeschooling, pods and microschools retain some of their pandemic enrollment gains, it could have ripple effects on funding that resonate throughout the K-12 landscape. Read the full essay .

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Different Ways to Think About COVID, Schools & Repairing Students’ Lost Learning

By Bev Weintraub

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Remote learning turned spotlight on gaps in resources, funding, and tech — but also offered hints on reform

“Unequal” is a multipart series highlighting the work of Harvard faculty, staff, students, alumni, and researchers on issues of race and inequality across the U.S. This part looks at how the pandemic called attention to issues surrounding the racial achievement gap in America.

The pandemic has disrupted education nationwide, turning a spotlight on existing racial and economic disparities, and creating the potential for a lost generation. Even before the outbreak, students in vulnerable communities — particularly predominately Black, Indigenous, and other majority-minority areas — were already facing inequality in everything from resources (ranging from books to counselors) to student-teacher ratios and extracurriculars.

The additional stressors of systemic racism and the trauma induced by poverty and violence, both cited as aggravating health and wellness as at a Weatherhead Institute panel , pose serious obstacles to learning as well. “Before the pandemic, children and families who are marginalized were living under such challenging conditions that it made it difficult for them to get a high-quality education,” said Paul Reville, founder and director of the Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE).

Educators hope that the may triggers a broader conversation about reform and renewed efforts to narrow the longstanding racial achievement gap. They say that research shows virtually all of the nation’s schoolchildren have fallen behind, with students of color having lost the most ground, particularly in math. They also note that the full-time reopening of schools presents opportunities to introduce changes and that some of the lessons from remote learning, particularly in the area of technology, can be put to use to help students catch up from the pandemic as well as to begin to level the playing field.

The disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 outbreak became apparent from the first shutdowns. “The good news, of course, is that many schools were very fast in finding all kinds of ways to try to reach kids,” said Fernando M. Reimers , Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice in International Education and director of GSE’s Global Education Innovation Initiative and International Education Policy Program. He cautioned, however, that “those arrangements don’t begin to compare with what we’re able to do when kids could come to school, and they are particularly deficient at reaching the most vulnerable kids.” In addition, it turned out that many students simply lacked access.

“We’re beginning to understand that technology is a basic right. You cannot participate in society in the 21st century without access to it,” says Fernando Reimers of the Graduate School of Education.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard file photo

The rate of limited digital access for households was at 42 percent during last spring’s shutdowns, before drifting down to about 31 percent this fall, suggesting that school districts improved their adaptation to remote learning, according to an analysis by the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge of U.S. Census data. (Indeed, Education Week and other sources reported that school districts around the nation rushed to hand out millions of laptops, tablets, and Chromebooks in the months after going remote.)

The report also makes clear the degree of racial and economic digital inequality. Black and Hispanic households with school-aged children were 1.3 to 1.4 times as likely as white ones to face limited access to computers and the internet, and more than two in five low-income households had only limited access. It’s a problem that could have far-reaching consequences given that young students of color are much more likely to live in remote-only districts.

“We’re beginning to understand that technology is a basic right,” said Reimers. “You cannot participate in society in the 21st century without access to it.” Too many students, he said, “have no connectivity. They have no devices, or they have no home circumstances that provide them support.”

The issues extend beyond the technology. “There is something wonderful in being in contact with other humans, having a human who tells you, ‘It’s great to see you. How are things going at home?’” Reimers said. “I’ve done 35 case studies of innovative practices around the world. They all prioritize social, emotional well-being. Checking in with the kids. Making sure there is a touchpoint every day between a teacher and a student.”

The difference, said Reville, is apparent when comparing students from different economic circumstances. Students whose parents “could afford to hire a tutor … can compensate,” he said. “Those kids are going to do pretty well at keeping up. Whereas, if you’re in a single-parent family and mom is working two or three jobs to put food on the table, she can’t be home. It’s impossible for her to keep up and keep her kids connected.

“If you lose the connection, you lose the kid.”

“COVID just revealed how serious those inequities are,” said GSE Dean Bridget Long , the Saris Professor of Education and Economics. “It has disproportionately hurt low-income students, students with special needs, and school systems that are under-resourced.”

This disruption carries throughout the education process, from elementary school students (some of whom have simply stopped logging on to their online classes) through declining participation in higher education. Community colleges, for example, have “traditionally been a gateway for low-income students” into the professional classes, said Long, whose research focuses on issues of affordability and access. “COVID has just made all of those issues 10 times worse,” she said. “That’s where enrollment has fallen the most.”

In addition to highlighting such disparities, these losses underline a structural issue in public education. Many schools are under-resourced, and the major reason involves sources of school funding. A 2019 study found that predominantly white districts got $23 billion more than their non-white counterparts serving about the same number of students. The discrepancy is because property taxes are the primary source of funding for schools, and white districts tend to be wealthier than those of color.

The problem of resources extends beyond teachers, aides, equipment, and supplies, as schools have been tasked with an increasing number of responsibilities, from the basics of education to feeding and caring for the mental health of both students and their families.

“You think about schools and academics, but what COVID really made clear was that schools do so much more than that,” said Long. A child’s school, she stressed “is social, emotional support. It’s safety. It’s the food system. It is health care.”

“You think about schools and academics” … but a child’s school “is social, emotional support. It’s safety. It’s the food system. It is health care,” stressed GSE Dean Bridget Long.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo

This safety net has been shredded just as more students need it. “We have 400,000 deaths and those are disproportionately affecting communities of color,” said Long. “So you can imagine the kids that are in those households. Are they able to come to school and learn when they’re dealing with this trauma?”

The damage is felt by the whole families. In an upcoming paper, focusing on parents of children ages 5 to 7, Cindy H. Liu, director of Harvard Medical School’s Developmental Risk and Cultural Disparities Laboratory , looks at the effects of COVID-related stress on parent’ mental health. This stress — from both health risks and grief — “likely has ramifications for those groups who are disadvantaged, particularly in getting support, as it exacerbates existing disparities in obtaining resources,” she said via email. “The unfortunate reality is that the pandemic is limiting the tangible supports [like childcare] that parents might actually need.”

Educators are overwhelmed as well. “Teachers are doing a phenomenal job connecting with students,” Long said about their performance online. “But they’ve lost the whole system — access to counselors, access to additional staff members and support. They’ve lost access to information. One clue is that the reporting of child abuse going down. It’s not that we think that child abuse is actually going down, but because you don’t have a set of adults watching and being with kids, it’s not being reported.”

The repercussions are chilling. “As we resume in-person education on a normal basis, we’re dealing with enormous gaps,” said Reville. “Some kids will come back with such educational deficits that unless their schools have a very well thought-out and effective program to help them catch up, they will never catch up. They may actually drop out of school. The immediate consequences of learning loss and disengagement are going to be a generation of people who will be less educated.”

There is hope, however. Just as the lockdown forced teachers to improvise, accelerating forms of online learning, so too may the recovery offer options for educational reform.

The solutions, say Reville, “are going to come from our community. This is a civic problem.” He applauded one example, the Somerville, Mass., public library program of outdoor Wi-Fi “pop ups,” which allow 24/7 access either through their own or library Chromebooks. “That’s the kind of imagination we need,” he said.

On a national level, he points to the creation of so-called “Children’s Cabinets.” Already in place in 30 states, these nonpartisan groups bring together leaders at the city, town, and state levels to address children’s needs through schools, libraries, and health centers. A July 2019 “ Children’s Cabinet Toolkit ” on the Education Redesign Lab site offers guidance for communities looking to form their own, with sample mission statements from Denver, Minneapolis, and Fairfax, Va.

Already the Education Redesign Lab is working on even more wide-reaching approaches. In Tennessee, for example, the Metro Nashville Public Schools has launched an innovative program, designed to provide each student with a personalized education plan. By pairing these students with school “navigators” — including teachers, librarians, and instructional coaches — the program aims to address each student’s particular needs.

“This is a chance to change the system,” said Reville. “By and large, our school systems are organized around a factory model, a one-size-fits-all approach. That wasn’t working very well before, and it’s working less well now.”

“Students have different needs,” agreed Long. “We just have to get a better understanding of what we need to prioritize and where students are” in all aspects of their home and school lives.

“By and large, our school systems are organized around a factory model, a one-size-fits-all approach. That wasn’t working very well before, and it’s working less well now,” says Paul Reville of the GSE.

Already, educators are discussing possible responses. Long and GSE helped create The Principals’ Network as one forum for sharing ideas, for example. With about 1,000 members, and multiple subgroups to address shared community issues, some viable answers have begun to emerge.

“We are going to need to expand learning time,” said Long. Some school systems, notably Texas’, already have begun discussing extending the school year, she said. In addition, Long, an internationally recognized economist who is a member of the  National Academy of Education and the  MDRC board, noted that educators are exploring innovative ways to utilize new tools like Zoom, even when classrooms reopen.

“This is an area where technology can help supplement what students are learning, giving them extra time — learning time, even tutoring time,” Long said.

Reimers, who serves on the UNESCO Commission on the Future of Education, has been brainstorming solutions that can be applied both here and abroad. These include urging wealthier countries to forgive loans, so that poorer countries do not have to cut back on basics such as education, and urging all countries to keep education a priority. The commission and its members are also helping to identify good practices and share them — globally.

Innovative uses of existing technology can also reach beyond traditional schooling. Reimers cites the work of a few former students who, working with Harvard Global Education Innovation Initiative,   HundrED , the  OECD Directorate for Education and Skills , and the  World Bank Group Education Global Practice, focused on podcasts to reach poor students in Colombia.

They began airing their math and Spanish lessons via the WhatsApp app, which was widely accessible. “They were so humorous that within a week, everyone was listening,” said Reimers. Soon, radio stations and other platforms began airing the 10-minute lessons, reaching not only children who were not in school, but also their adult relatives.

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The Education Crisis: Being in School Is Not the Same as Learning

First grade students in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province are learning the alphabet through child-friendly flash cards. Their learning materials help educators teach through interactive and engaging activities and are provided free of charge through a student’s first learning backpack. © World Bank 

THE NAME OF THE DOG IS PUPPY. This seems like a simple sentence. But did you know that in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, three out of four third grade students do not understand it? The world is facing a learning crisis . Worldwide, hundreds of millions of children reach young adulthood without even the most basic skills like calculating the correct change from a transaction, reading a doctor’s instructions, or understanding a bus schedule—let alone building a fulfilling career or educating their children. Education is at the center of building human capital. The latest World Bank research shows that the productivity of 56 percent of the world’s children will be less than half of what it could be if they enjoyed complete education and full health. For individuals, education raises self-esteem and furthers opportunities for employment and earnings. And for a country, it helps strengthen institutions within societies, drives long-term economic growth, reduces poverty, and spurs innovation.

One of the most interesting, large scale educational technology efforts is being led by EkStep , a philanthropic effort in India. EkStep created an open digital infrastructure which provides access to learning opportunities for 200 million children, as well as professional development opportunities for 12 million teachers and 4.5 million school leaders. Both teachers and children are accessing content which ranges from teaching materials, explanatory videos, interactive content, stories, practice worksheets, and formative assessments. By monitoring which content is used most frequently—and most beneficially—informed decisions can be made around future content.

In the Dominican Republic, a World Bank supported pilot study shows how adaptive technologies can generate great interest among 21st century students and present a path to supporting the learning and teaching of future generations. Yudeisy, a sixth grader participating in the study, says that what she likes doing the most during the day is watching videos and tutorials on her computer and cell phone. Taking childhood curiosity as a starting point, the study aimed to channel it towards math learning in a way that interests Yudeisy and her classmates.

Yudeisy, along with her classmates in a public elementary school in Santo Domingo, is part of a four-month pilot to reinforce mathematics using software that adapts to the math level of each student. © World Bank

Adaptive technology was used to evaluate students’ initial learning level to then walk them through math exercises in a dynamic, personalized way, based on artificial intelligence and what the student is ready to learn. After three months, students with the lowest initial performance achieved substantial improvements. This shows the potential of technology to increase learning outcomes, especially among students lagging behind their peers. In a field that is developing at dizzying speeds, innovative solutions to educational challenges are springing up everywhere. Our challenge is to make technology a driver of equity and inclusion and not a source of greater inequality of opportunity. We are working with partners worldwide to support the effective and appropriate use of educational technologies to strengthen learning.

When schools and educations systems are managed well, learning happens

Successful education reforms require good policy design, strong political commitment, and effective implementation capacity . Of course, this is extremely challenging. Many countries struggle to make efficient use of resources and very often increased education spending does not translate into more learning and improved human capital. Overcoming such challenges involves working at all levels of the system.

At the central level, ministries of education need to attract the best experts to design and implement evidence-based and country-specific programs. District or regional offices need the capacity and the tools to monitor learning and support schools. At the school level, principals need to be trained and prepared to manage and lead schools, from planning the use of resources to supervising and nurturing their teachers. However difficult, change is possible. Supported by the World Bank, public schools across Punjab in Pakistan have been part of major reforms over the past few years to address these challenges. Through improved school-level accountability by monitoring and limiting teacher and student absenteeism, and the introduction of a merit-based teacher recruitment system, where only the most talented and motivated teachers were selected, they were able to increase enrollment and retention of students and significantly improve the quality of education. "The government schools have become very good now, even better than private ones," said Mr. Ahmed, a local villager.

The World Bank, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the UK’s Department for International Development, is developing the Global Education Policy Dashboard . This new initiative will provide governments with a system for monitoring how their education systems are functioning, from learning data to policy plans, so they are better able to make timely and evidence-based decisions.

Education reform: The long game is worth it

In fact, it will take a generation to realize the full benefits of high-quality teachers, the effective use of technology, improved management of education systems, and engaged and prepared learners. However, global experience shows us that countries that have rapidly accelerated development and prosperity all share the common characteristic of taking education seriously and investing appropriately. As we mark the first-ever International Day of Education on January 24, we must do all we can to equip our youth with the skills to keep learning, adapt to changing realities, and thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy and a rapidly changing world of work.

The schools of the future are being built today. These are schools where all teachers have the right competencies and motivation, where technology empowers them to deliver quality learning, and where all students learn fundamental skills, including socio-emotional, and digital skills. These schools are safe and affordable to everyone and are places where children and young people learn with joy, rigor, and purpose. Governments, teachers, parents, and the international community must do their homework to realize the promise of education for all students, in every village, in every city, and in every country. 

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Recognizing and Overcoming Inequity in Education

About the author, sylvia schmelkes.

Sylvia Schmelkes is Provost of the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

22 January 2020 Introduction

I nequity is perhaps the most serious problem in education worldwide. It has multiple causes, and its consequences include differences in access to schooling, retention and, more importantly, learning. Globally, these differences correlate with the level of development of various countries and regions. In individual States, access to school is tied to, among other things, students' overall well-being, their social origins and cultural backgrounds, the language their families speak, whether or not they work outside of the home and, in some countries, their sex. Although the world has made progress in both absolute and relative numbers of enrolled students, the differences between the richest and the poorest, as well as those living in rural and urban areas, have not diminished. 1

These correlations do not occur naturally. They are the result of the lack of policies that consider equity in education as a principal vehicle for achieving more just societies. The pandemic has exacerbated these differences mainly due to the fact that technology, which is the means of access to distance schooling, presents one more layer of inequality, among many others.

The dimension of educational inequity

Around the world, 258 million, or 17 per cent of the world’s children, adolescents and youth, are out of school. The proportion is much larger in developing countries: 31 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and 21 per cent in Central Asia, vs. 3 per cent in Europe and North America. 2  Learning, which is the purpose of schooling, fares even worse. For example, it would take 15-year-old Brazilian students 75 years, at their current rate of improvement, to reach wealthier countries’ average scores in math, and more than 260 years in reading. 3 Within countries, learning results, as measured through standardized tests, are almost always much lower for those living in poverty. In Mexico, for example, 80 per cent of indigenous children at the end of primary school don’t achieve basic levels in reading and math, scoring far below the average for primary school students. 4

The causes of educational inequity

There are many explanations for educational inequity. In my view, the most important ones are the following:

• Equity and equality are not the same thing. Equality means providing the same resources to everyone. Equity signifies giving more to those most in need. Countries with greater inequity in education results are also those in which governments distribute resources according to the political pressure they experience in providing education. Such pressures come from families in which the parents attended school, that reside in urban areas, belong to cultural majorities and who have a clear appreciation of the benefits of education. Much less pressure comes from rural areas and indigenous populations, or from impoverished urban areas. In these countries, fewer resources, including infrastructure, equipment, teachers, supervision and funding, are allocated to the disadvantaged, the poor and cultural minorities.
• Teachers are key agents for learning. Their training is crucial.  When insufficient priority is given to either initial or in-service teacher training, or to both, one can expect learning deficits. Teachers in poorer areas tend to have less training and to receive less in-service support.
• Most countries are very diverse. When a curriculum is overloaded and is the same for everyone, some students, generally those from rural areas, cultural minorities or living in poverty find little meaning in what is taught. When the language of instruction is different from their native tongue, students learn much less and drop out of school earlier.
• Disadvantaged students frequently encounter unfriendly or overtly offensive attitudes from both teachers and classmates. Such attitudes are derived from prejudices, stereotypes, outright racism and sexism. Students in hostile environments are affected in their disposition to learn, and many drop out early.

It doesn’t have to be like this

When left to inertial decision-making, education systems seem to be doomed to reproduce social and economic inequity. The commitment of both governments and societies to equity in education is both necessary and possible. There are several examples of more equitable educational systems in the world, and there are many subnational examples of successful policies fostering equity in education.

Why is equity in education important?

Education is a basic human right. More than that, it is an enabling right in the sense that, when respected, allows for the fulfillment of other human rights. Education has proven to affect general well-being, productivity, social capital, responsible citizenship and sustainable behaviour. Its equitable distribution allows for the creation of permeable societies and equity. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. One hundred eighty-four countries are committed to achieving this goal over the next decade. 5  The process of walking this road together has begun and requires impetus to continue, especially now that we must face the devastating consequences of a long-lasting pandemic. Further progress is crucial for humanity.

Notes  1 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , Inclusive Education. All Means All , Global Education Monitoring Report 2020 (Paris, 2020), p.8. Available at https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2020/inclusion . 2 Ibid., p. 4, 7. 3 World Bank Group, World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education's Promise (Washington, DC, 2018), p. 3. Available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018 .  4 Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación, "La educación obligatoria en México", Informe 2018 (Ciudad de México, 2018), p. 72. Available online at https://www.inee.edu.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/P1I243.pdf . 5 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , “Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4” (2015), p. 23. Available at  https://iite.unesco.org/publications/education-2030-incheon-declaration-framework-action-towards-inclusive-equitable-quality-education-lifelong-learning/   The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.   

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David Wallace-Wells

Why children are missing more school now.

By David Wallace-Wells

Opinion Writer

The raw data looks inarguably bad: The share of American children missing at least 10 percent of school days nearly doubled over the course of the pandemic, leaving perhaps more than six million more students “chronically absent” than had been in the 2018-19 school year.

And this spring, as we trudged into our fifth year with Covid, the absenteeism crisis succeeded pandemic learning loss and the mental health of teenagers as a new touchstone in what are now yearslong arguments about the wisdom of school closings in 2020 and 2021. Almost everything about school performance and the well-being of children and adolescents now seems to orbit the duration of remote learning in one school year, which lives on years later as the gravitational center of our retrospective universe. But before the link between those closings and absenteeism hardens into a new conventional wisdom, I want to offer a few notes of additional context, which together suggest, I think, that we are doing ourselves a disservice by fashioning every aftereffect of those years into a weapon to be used in an ideological crusade.

First, as it was with learning loss , chronic absenteeism does not appear to be a uniquely American problem arising from the specific way we handled school closings during the pandemic but something of a global phenomenon. It can be seen almost everywhere you look, in the aftermath of Covid, including a lot of places that took quite different approaches to school during the pandemic.

How can I say that? The most recent available national numbers show that 26 percent of American students missed at least 10 percent of school in 2022-23. In Sweden, reports from the National Agency for Education showed considerable increases in student absences across the first two years of the pandemic. In Britain, chronic absenteeism jumped from 11.7 percent of children before the pandemic to 23.5 percent in 2022-23. In Belgium, the problem has grown by 90 percent , and in New Zealand, more than 45 percent of children missed at least 10 percent of school days . In Japan, where schools reopened for good in June 2020, there had never been a year in the prior decade when more than 300,000 children registered “prolonged absence,” and most years in the 2010s the number hovered around 200,000. In 2021, it crossed 400,000, and in 2022, 450,000.

Second, in the United States, the relationship between how long schools remained remote and how much absenteeism they later experienced looks pretty modest — perhaps one slice of the story, but only one slice of it. In a high-profile study published in January, Stanford’s Thomas Dee found that the length of remote schooling at the state level explained only about 20 percent of the variation in increased absenteeism. In another paper published the same month by the American Enterprise Institute, Nat Malkus crunched the numbers at the district level and found a slightly smaller relationship: Chronic absenteeism in those districts with the most in-person schooling grew by 12 percentage points, while in those with the most remote schooling, rates had grown by 14 percentage points; in the districts in between, the rates had grown by 13 percentage points. The differences, in other words, were negligible, especially given the large increases observed everywhere. When The Times updated some of his analysis, Malkus summarized it like this: “The problem got worse for everybody in the same proportional way.”

Malkus believes that absenteeism is the biggest problem facing American schools today, but he’s quite firm that we shouldn’t see in those numbers a morality play about remote learning. “If I could have drawn a neat line between the two data sets — school closures and chronic absenteeism — I would have. But I can’t,” he told me. “The districts that were closed longer do have a marginally higher problem. But how much of the difference does it explain? Not very much.”

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David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: The Winning Ways of a Losing Strategy: Educationalizing Social Problems in the US

• Social Context of Education

This post is a paper I published  Educational Theory  in 2008.  Here’s a  link  to the original.  In is included as a chapter in my new book,  The Ironies of Schooling .

In this essay, I examine the paradox of educationalization in the American context. I argue that, like most modern Western societies, the United States has displayed a strong tendency over the years for educationalizing social problems, even though schools have repeatedly proven that they are an ineffective mechanism for solving these problems. I start by examining the ways in which the process of educationalizing social problems is deeply grounded in American beliefs, social processes, political and organizational tensions, and structural possibilities. These include utility, individualism, optimism, professional interest, political interest, political opportunity, structural limits, and formalism. Then I examine the roots of education’s failure in the role of social reform agent. Finally, I close with an analysis of why we continue to pursue educationalization in the face of its ineffectiveness.

Hope you find this interesting.

THE WINNING WAYS OF A LOSING STRATEGY: EDUCATIONALIZING SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES

Modern Western societies have shown an increasing tendency to educationalize social problems, and nowhere is that tendency more pronounced than in the United States.1 We ask education to ameliorate race and class inequality through school desegregation, compensatory coursework, programs to reduce prejudice, and free lunches. We ask it to counter gender inequality by developing gender-neutral textbooks and encouraging girls to pursue studies in science and math. We ask it to attack public health problems by hiring school nurses, requiring vaccination for students, and providing classes in health and physical education. We ask it to pro- mote economic competitiveness by developing programs in vocational and career education and by adapting its curriculum to the skill needs of the knowledge economy. We ask it to reduce crime by requiring school attendance, developing school discipline codes, and mandating courses in good citizenship. We ask it to promote sexual responsibility through sex education, traffic safety through driver education, healthy eating through nutritional education, and preservation of natural resources through environmental education. American society asks its system of education to take responsibility for remediating all of these social problems, and for the most part educators have been eager to assume the burden.

At the heart of this process of educationalization, however, is a puzzling paradox. Education is perhaps the greatest institutional success of the modern era. It grew from a modest and marginal position in the eighteenth century to the center of modern societies in the twenty-first, where it consumes an enormous share of the time and treasure of both states and citizens. Key to its institutional success has been its facility at educationalization — its ability to embrace and embody the social reform missions that have been imposed upon it. Yet education has been remarkably  unsuccessful  at carrying out these missions. It has done very little to promote equality of race, class, and gender; to enhance public health, economic productivity, and good citizenship; or to reduce teenage sex, traffic deaths, obesity, and environmental destruction. In fact, in many ways it has had a negative effect on these problems by draining money and energy away from social reforms that might have had a more substantial impact. As David Bridges notes in his contribution to this symposium, educationalization has consistently pushed education to expand its scope well beyond both what it  should  do and what it  can  do, and the result is a record of one failure after another.2

So how are we to understand the success of this institution in light of its failure to do what we asked of it? One way of thinking about this is that education    may not be doing what we ask, but it is doing what we want. We want an institution that will pursue our social goals in a way that is in line with the individualism  at the heart of the liberal ideal, aiming to solve social problems by  seeking  to  change the hearts, minds, and capacities of individual students. Another way of putting this is that we want an institution through  which  we  can  express  our  social goals without violating the principle of individual choice that lies at the center of the social structure, even if this comes at the cost of failing to achieve these goals. So education can serve as a point of civic pride, a showplace for  our ideals, and a medium for engaging in uplifting but ultimately inconsequential disputes about alternative visions of the good life. At the same time, it can also serve as a convenient whipping boy that we can blame for its failure to achieve our highest aspirations for ourselves as a society. In this sense, then, we can understand the whole grand educational enterprise as an exercise in formalism. We assign formal responsibility to education for solving our  most pressing social problems in light of our highest social ideals, with the tacit understanding that by educationalizing these problem-solving efforts we are seeking a solution that is more formal than substantive. We are saying that we are willing to accept what education can pro- duce — new programs, new curricula, new institutions, new degrees, new educational opportunities — in place of solutions that might make real changes in the  ways in which we distribute social power, wealth, and honor.

In this essay, I explore the nature of educationalization in the American context. The rationale is this: We cannot come to understand the growth of educationalization in the United States — in the face of education’s continuing failure to fix the social problems assigned to it — unless we consider some of the social needs that this process expresses and the social functions (apart from fixing the problem) that this process serves. In line with this aim, I start by examining the ways in which the process of educationalizing social problems is deeply grounded in American beliefs, social processes, political and organizational tensions, and structural limitations. Then I examine the roots of education’s failure in the role of  social reform agent. Finally, I close with an analysis of why we continue to pursue educationalization in the face of its ineffectiveness.

HOW EDUCATIONALIZATION IS GROUNDED IN AMERICAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY

The tendency to educationalize social problems arises in response to a number of characteristics of American culture and society. In particular, it is grounded in the following social principles, practices, and possibilities: utility, individualism, optimism, professional interest, political interest, political opportunity, structural limits, and formalism.

Utility : The urge to educationalize social problems arises from a deep American commitment to the idea that education both is and should be socially useful. It would be nice if education had intrinsic value — as a source of enlightenment, aesthetic stimulation, or personal enjoyment — but that is not why we pour such enormous amounts of time, effort, and money into it. We do so primarily because we see this as a critically necessary investment in the improvement of polity, economy, and society. Its value is extrinsic. One social goal that has driven American education over the years is democratic equality — the effort to produce the competent citizens needed to sustain a democratic society. The idea is to provide citizens with the knowledge, skills, and civic commitments they need in order to function effectively in political life, and to head off social problems such as criminality, narrow self-interest, and radical inequality that might undermine democratic politics. A second social goal of education has been social efficiency — the effort to create productive workers for a growing economy. From this perspective, the issue is human capital production, which means not only supplying workers with the productive skills they need to contribute to economic prosperity but also providing remedies for social problems that might undermine worker productivity, such as poor health, bad attitude, and weak work discipline. A third social goal that has driven education is social mobility — the effort to provide access to social opportunity. This means that education should give individuals the skills they need to enhance their social prospects, which reinforces their commitment as citizens and workers while simultaneously heading off social problems (such as class and race conflict, social alienation, and apathy) that might threaten this commitment.3

Individualism : Liberal democracies in general are prone to emphasize individualism in interpreting social life, but this tendency is particularly prominent in  the United States, and it is critical in helping us understand why in  the United  States education is seen as a useful institution for solving social problems.4

American individualism tends to reduce social problems to individual problems, locating the root cause of everything from poverty and illness to criminality and racism in the capacities and motives of individuals. If these are the primary roots of social problems, then education is the natural solution, because its central focus is on changing the capacities and motives of individual students. For example, consider the problem of racism. Leah Gordon’s finely textured study of the link between individualism and educationalization in the United States shows how, in the years after World War II, American social science shifted from a sociological view of racism (seen as a function of social structure and intergroup relations) to a psychological view (seen as a function of personal prejudice).5 The result was to provide strong intellectual reinforcement for two educational efforts to attack racism — the racial desegregation of schools and the development of instructional programs to under- mine race prejudice — which sought to accomplish this end by equalizing individual capacity building and changing individual beliefs. Of course, if race is seen as a problem arising from social structure or status group competition rather than individual prejudice, then the educational solution makes no sense. But when we individualize the problem, we make education the obvious site for solving that problem.

Optimism : Another major ground for educationalizing social problems that is also characteristically American is a faith in progress. We are a perennially optimistic people, believing that social improvement is not just possible but likely. In part this is an extension of individualism, which portrays personal will as more powerful than social constraint, but it also connects with a faith in utility. If we want education to be useful in solving social problems, and if we believe it is effective in this pursuit because it is able to attack the roots of these problems in individual capacities and motives, then we have reason to be optimistic about the possibility that educational reform will be able to produce social progress. James March discusses this mindset in a rich essay titled ‘‘Education and the Pursuit of Optimism,’’ which opens by noting: ‘‘The modern history of American education is a history of optimism. We have believed in the successes of our past and the good prospects for our future.’’6 Education has become our all-purpose tool for realizing our hopes to improve society by fixing its problems; but once we invest all our hopes in the vehicle of educationalization, we can no longer afford to find failure in the enterprise of educational reform:

By insisting that great action be justified  by great hopes, we encourage a belief in the possibility of magic. For example, read the litany of magic in the literature on free schools, Montessori, Head Start, Sesame Street, team teaching, open schools, structured schools, computer-assisted instruction, community control, and hot lunches. Inasmuch as there appears to be little magic    in the world, great hopes are normally difficult to realize. Having been seduced into great expectations, we are abandoned to a choice between failure and delusion. The conversion of hopes into magic and magic into delusion describes much of modern educational history. It  continues to be a dominant theme of educational reform in the United States.7

Professional Interest : Building on the foundation of a commitment to utility, individualism, and optimism, we have constructed an educational profession with a strong interest in extending the reach of educationalization. The profession attracts people who have a vision of saving the world by fixing the child. This means educators do not have to be conscripted into the ranks of the educationalizers; they volunteer for duty, eager to take on new missions and work their magic on new problems. In his account of educationalization in contemporary Great Britain, Bridges shows how this tendency is fed by the idealism of the educators, who share ‘‘an honest conviction that they can thereby contribute in some general or more specific way social benefit, perhaps even help to build a better world.’’8 But he also notes a strong element of self-interest in the willingness of educators to take on new social problems, since this brings in new resources to support the educational enterprise:

The elementary point is that if educational institutions can convince government that they are the ones who can deliver on social and economic change, then they can call in the addition- al financial support that is attached to advancing such policies. In some circumstances this additional support is, of course, simply money in and money out, but in other circumstances some of it can be siphoned off to support what the institution might regard as its core agenda.9

In this way, then, educationalizing social problems offers educators the opportunity to do good and do well at the same time

Political Interest : Like educators, politicians also have an interest in promoting educationalization that combines the idealistic and the pragmatic. One of the primary motives for seeking political leadership is the urge to fix social problems, and education offers a credible mechanism for accomplishing this. Operating within the cultural frame of utility, individualism, and optimism, it seems only natural for an American major, governor, or president to ask education to take on the responsibility for carrying out the desired reform, which educators are only too eager to accept. If the problem exists at the individual level and school is the primary tool for tinkering with the skills and beliefs of individuals, then there is no better place to turn for help. Of course, schools also offer some pragmatic political advantages over other, more direct mechanisms for social engineering. Particularly in the American context, where schooling is radically decentralized and loose coupling is the organizational norm, promoting social reform through educational reform is notoriously slow and indirect. The push for change needs to move from the state government to the state educational bureaucracy, local school districts, individual schools, and individual classrooms, where teachers need to carry out the reform in the instruction of individual students. As Richard Elmore and Milbrey McLaughlin point out in their book on the problem of school reform in the United States,  Steady Work , school change and political policy operate on radically different timelines:

There is abundant evidence that the time it takes reforms to mature into changes in resource allocation, organization, and practice is substantially longer than the electoral cycles that determine changes in policy. Elected officials can generate new policies at a much greater rate than schools can implement them. Policy reforms are generated on ‘‘electoral time,’’ but they are implemented on ‘‘administrative time’’ and ‘‘practice time.’’10

By the time the mayor or governor is leaving office after four or at most eight years, the school reform process may  just be getting in gear. This  time lag allows  the politician to enjoy all the benefits of initiating a major effort to solve a social problem without ever having to take responsibility  for  the  outcomes  of  this  reform effort, which occur on someone else’s watch. The next leader can  easily blame the failure of the problem solving effort on the flaws in the predecessor’s policy. Or — and this is a particular political advantage that comes from educationalizing social problems — both new leader and old can always blame the educational system for failing to carry out  the  reform  effectively.  So  the  politician  can have it both ways — taking credit for initiating reform and blaming the failure of reform on the schools, which then means initiating  a  new  educational  reform to make schools more effective in solving the problem  the  next  time  around. This why Elmore and  McLaughlin  call  school  reform  ‘‘steady  work.’’ Both as savior and whipping boy, educationalizing social problems is an indispensable political tool.

Political Opportunity : Another factor that makes educationalization attractive to politicians is that schools are readily accessible to their influence. They may not be effective in solving the social problem, but they are an institutional arena that politics can affect. As Bridges points out, the government already owns the schools; they are already established in every community (no need to hire staff, set up an organizational structure, or rent offices); they already have the children of the com- munity under their control and subjected to programs designed to shape their skills and beliefs; and the system is quite used to receiving new mandates from above and undergoing continual retraining for the latest reform effort.11 Educationalization may not be the right tool, but it is the tool at hand.

Structural Limits : The urge to educationalize social problems also arises from a pragmatic consideration of what kinds of social reforms are feasible within the limits of the social and political structure of a liberal democracy. This is particularly true in the United States, where the liberal component of liberal democracy is emphasized more heavily than in most Western European countries. In a system such as ours, which values individual liberty more than the public good and which values the freedom to accumulate and dispose of property more than the benefits that derive from greater equality, the most direct mechanisms for resolving social problems have already been removed from the table. Americans are unwilling to deal with medical problems by adopting universal health care, so they rely on the weak reed of school nurses and health education programs. They are unwilling to redistribute wealth and subsidize income in order to equalize social opportunity, so instead they offer the opportunity for more education in the hope that this will allow individuals to get ahead in society. They are unwilling to attack the structural roots of racial inequality, such as by desegregating the racially homogeneous neighborhoods that most Americans live in, so they opt instead for desegregating schools and increasing the number of black and brown faces in school textbooks. Under these kinds of restrictive limits on what is socially and politically possible, schools often look like the best option for attacking the problems at hand.

Formalism : Ultimately, all of these elements, which provide the foundation of the pattern of educationalizing social problems, lead to a willingness to accept a response to social problems that is more formal than substantive. Schools may not be able to do much to resolve these problems, but they do align nicely with our cultural values and our sociopolitical structure, and they do stand as a formally credible if not substantively effective way to respond to demands for reform. In this way, educationalization rests on a kind of confidence game. We believe that schools are a good way to deal with social problems, in part because they express our values (utility, individualism, and optimism) and in part because they are accessible to the reformist impulse in a way that other institutional arenas are not. So we assign them the responsibility for resolving these problems, but we are unable to accept the possibility that they are not up to the task. In this way, as March points out, optimism leads to magical thinking and eventually delusion. At best, we are willing to accept what schools can do as sufficient. So we accept educational opportunity as a proxy for social opportunity and multicultural textbooks as a proxy for a multicultural society. At worst, we can always blame schools for getting it wrong and then demand that they redouble their efforts to reform them- selves in order to reform society. Either way, we need to keep the faith that educationalization works. This is not a con game in the criminal sense, with con artists deliberately duping the suckers. Instead it is a form of good salesmanship, where the first principle is to sell yourself first. We sell ourselves on the value of education in solving social problems, and then we buy what we are selling. The whole thing rests on the uncertain foundation of our collective willingness to continue in believing the con. As March notes, delusion can lead to disillusion; but so far, the con of educationalization is holding steady.

THE GENERALIZED FAILURE TO ACCOMPLISH SOCIAL GOALS THROUGH EDUCATION

So we come back to the central problem, which is that the effort to educationalize social problems in the United States has been enormously successful even though educationalization has been a failure at solving these problems. Consider the fate of the three social goals I have identified as central to the educational systems in the United States and in other modern liberal democracies.

Democratic Equality : Perhaps the strongest case for an educational goal that has actually had an impact on school and society is the goal of democratic equality. At the formative stage in the construction of a nation-state, virtually any- where in the world, education seems to play an important role. A variety of historical studies make a strong case in support of this proposition in the United

States and elsewhere.12 The key contribution in this regard seems to be the formation of a national citizenry out of a collection of local identities, and the primary mechanism is to bring a disparate group of individuals in the community together under one roof and expose them to a common curriculum and a common set of social experiences. These are among the few things that schools do well. The content of the course of study and the nature of the pedagogy is less important than the fact of commonality. But once the state is in motion and citizenship is no longer problematic, the ongoing contribution of schools to the goal of democratic equality is harder to establish, which makes this a weak rationale for the ongoing expansion of educationalization in developed societies.

Social Efficiency : In the discourse of educational policy, the goal of social efficiency is alive and well. It is one of the fundamental beliefs of contemporary economics, international development, and educational policy that education plays a central role in economic development as a valuable investment in human capital.13 Whereas this may be the case at particular points of development (such as the start of industrialization) and for particular kinds of education (elementary schooling), the evidence is less convincing for this proposition at a general level. Other studies suggest a more complex story.14 Maybe educational investment spurs economic growth, but maybe societies start investing more heavily in education as a result of economic growth — because they can afford to and because to do so is a sign of their emergence as modern nation-states. So it is unclear whether educationalization is having anything more than a sporadic impact on human capital development.

Social Mobility : In liberal democracies, the hope springs eternal that expand- ing educational opportunity will increase social mobility and reduce social inequality. This has been a key factor in the rhetoric of the American educational reform movements for desegregation, standards, and choice. But the evidence for this hope is simply missing. Education does provide opportunity for individuals to improve their social position, but this does not translate into change in the social structure. Rates of social mobility have not increased over time as educational opportunity has increased, and societies with more expansive educational systems do not have higher mobility rates. As Raymond Boudon and others have shown, the problem is that increases in access to education affect everyone, so that those who have more education continue to enjoy that advantage as educational attainment increases across the board.15 The same lack of effect appears in relation to social equality as well, since the Gini index of inequality seems to be unrelated to degree of educational access, either across societies or within societies over time. The effort to educationalize the problem of social inequality, therefore, seems to be based more on delusion than reality.

These three goals, however, do gain expression in educational systems in at least two significant ways. First, they maintain a highly visible presence in the  rhetoric  of education, as the politics of education continuously pushes these goals onto the schools and the schools themselves actively express their allegiance to these same goals. Second, schools adopt the  form  of these goals into their structure and process. Democratic equality persists in the formalism of social studies classes, school assemblies, and an array of political symbols that cover the walls of schools. Social efficiency tends to persist in the formalism of vocational classes, career days, and standards-based testing. Social mobility tends to persist in the formalism of student hierarchies arranged according to their accumulations of grades, credits, and degrees.

ROOTS OF THE FAILURE OF EDUCATIONALIZATION TO RESOLVE SOCIAL PROBLEMS

A primary reason for the failure of the educational system to realize the social goals expressed in it is that these goals reflect the core tensions within a liberal democracy, which push both school and society in conflicting directions. One of those tensions is between the demands of democratic politics and the demands of capitalist markets. A related issue is the requirement that society be able to meet its collective needs while simultaneously guaranteeing the liberty of individuals to pursue their own interests.

Democratic equality represents the political side of our liberal democratic values, focusing on the role of education in building a nation, forming a republican community, and providing citizens with the wide range of capabilities required for effective participation in democratic decision making. The other two goals represent the market side of liberal democracy. Social efficiency captures the perspective of employers and taxpayers, who are concerned about the role of education in producing the human capital that is required by the modern economy and that is essential for economic growth and general prosperity. From this perspective, education’s primary function is to provide for the full range of productive skills and forms of knowledge required in the complex occupational structure of modern capitalism. Social mobility captures the perspective of educational consumers and prospective employees, who are concerned about the role of educational credentials in signaling to the market which individuals have the productive skills that qualify them for the jobs with the highest levels of power, money, and prestige.

The collectivist side of liberal democracy is expressed by a combination of democratic equality and social efficiency. Both aim at having education provide broad social benefits, with both conceiving of education as a public good. Investing in the political capital of the citizenry and the human capital of the workforce benefits everyone in society, including those families who do not have children in school. In contrast, the social mobility goal represents the individualist side of liberal democracy. From this perspective, education is a private good, whose benefits accrue only to the student who receives educational services and owns the resulting educational credentials, and its primary function is to provide educational consumers with privileged access to higher level jobs in a zero-sum competition with other prospective employees.

With this mix of goals imposed on it, education in liberal democracies has come to look like an institution at odds with itself. After all, it is being asked simultaneously to serve politics and markets, promote equality and inequality, construct itself as a public good and private good, serve collective interests and individual interests. Politically, its structure should be flat, its curriculum com- mon, and enrollment universal; economically, its structure should be hierarchical, its curriculum stratified, and enrollment scaled by high rates of attrition. From the perspective of democratic equality and social efficiency, its aim is socialization, to provide knowledge that is usable for citizens and workers; from the perspective of social mobility, its aim is selection, to provide credentials that allow access to good jobs, independent of any learning that might have occurred in acquiring these credentials.

In this sense, then, these educational goals represent the contradictions embedded in any liberal democracy, contradictions that cannot be resolved without removing either the society’s liberalism or its democracy. Therefore when we project our liberal democratic goals on schools, we want them to take each of these goals seriously but not to implement any one of them beyond modest limits, since to do so would be to put the other equally valued goals in significant jeopardy. This is what I meant when I said earlier that education accomplishes what we want rather than what we say. We ask it to promote social equality, but we want it to do so in a way that does not threaten individual liberty or private interests. We ask it to promote individual opportunity, but we want it to do so in a way that does not threaten the integrity of the nation or the efficiency of the economy. As a result, the educational system is an abject failure in its ability to achieve any one of its primary social goals. It is also a failure in its ability to solve the social problems assigned to it, since these problems cannot be solved in a manner that simultaneously satisfies all three goals. In particular, social problems rooted in the nature of the social structure simply cannot be resolved by deploying educational programs to change individuals. The apparently dysfunctional outcomes of the educational system, therefore, are not simply the result of bad planning, deception, or political cynicism; they are an institutional expression of the contradictions in the liberal democratic mind.

But there is another layer of impediment that lies between social goals and their fulfillment through education, and that is the tension between education’s institutionalized goals and its organizational practices. This is a story about cause and effect, and especially about the impact of the latter on the former. Schools gain their origins from social goals, which they dutifully express in an institutional form. This results in the development of school organization, curricula, pedagogies, professional roles, and a complex set of occupational and organizational interests. At this more advanced stage, schools and educators are no longer simply the object of social desire; they become major actors in the story. As such, they shape what happens in education in light of their own needs, interests, organizational patterns, professional norms, and pedagogical practices. And this then becomes a major issue in educational reform. Such reforms are what happens after schooling is already in motion organizationally, when society seeks to assign new ideals to education or revive old ones that seem to be in disuse, thus initiating an effort to transform the institution toward the pursuit of different ends. But now society is no longer able simply to project its values onto the institution it created to express these values; instead it must negotiate an interaction with an ongoing enterprise. As a result, reform has to change both the values embedded in education and the formal structure itself, which may well resist.

One organizational factor that makes schooling a difficult medium for solving social problems, especially in the United States, is the loose coupling of the educational system.16 In American schools the parts of the system operate as semi- autonomous segments rather than integrated components of a single entity. The relative independence of states from the federal government, districts from the state government, schools from the district, classrooms from the principal, and students from the teacher provides a strong buffer against even the most earnest efforts from above to carry out social policy through the instruction of students.

A second organizational factor that undermines the effects of educationalizing social problems is that school administrators exert only weak control over class-room instruction.17 The structure of teaching-as-work in the United States is such that school administrators have traditionally been lacking the basic levers of power that enable employers in most occupational settings to motivate employee compliance with their boss’s wishes. Because of tenure rules, they cannot punish teachers who fail to follow policy directives; and because of union contracts and the absence of opportunities for promotion, they cannot reward teachers who bring instructional practice in line with policy.

A third organizational factor that interferes  with  the  effectiveness  of  schools as agents of social policy is the peculiar nature of teaching as a mode of professional practice.18 Teaching is an extraordinarily complex effort to change students in valued directions, which cannot be codified into a set of standard procedures with proven effectiveness. Teachers’ success as professionals is  entirely  dependent  on the cooperation of their students, who only learn if they choose to; and this need to gain cooperation is made more difficult because the student is a conscript. Finally,   in order to motivate the active cooperation of conscripted clients, teachers need to develop a distinctive teaching persona that will allow them to develop an instructionally fruitful relationship with students. Once this persona is established, teachers are highly reluctant to change it in order to carry out the latest social mission   that comes to them from above.19

WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO EDUCATIONALIZE SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE FACE OF FAILURE?

I have been arguing that when we educationalize social problems, we are expressing a willingness to accept the kinds of formal and symbolic outcomes that education can actually provide — things like instructional programs and educational credentials — in place of a concrete resolution to the problem itself. This is because, when we get right down to it, a liberal democracy is primarily interested in having the educational system embrace and institutionalize the central values of the culture in its language and in the system’s formal structure. In line with institutional theory,20 I am arguing that we hold schools responsible for expressing our values rather than for actually realizing them in practice, that schools are institutional expressions of cultural values whose persistence is less a result of their effectiveness in carrying out those goals in practice than of their ability to represent those goals in formal terms. They are expert at meeting our expectations of what school is rather than at implementing social goals.

To  say that schools are ineffective in realizing social goals, however, is not to  say that schools do not have an effect. In fact, they have been remarkably effective   at reshaping society in their own image. By educationalizing social problems, we have educationalized society itself. One source of education’s impact is  funding . Governments spend an extraordinary portion of their annual budgets on the educational system, from preschool through the most advanced graduate programs at universities. Families and individuals invest an enormous amount of money in

direct costs for school supplies, tutoring, test preparation, uniforms, college counseling, and especially for college tuition, fees, and loans. And then there is the opportunity cost of what students could have been earning if they were not in school. A second source of education’s impact is  time . Education devours some- where between twelve and twenty-five years of a person’s life just in attending classes in a modern developed society. In addition, the institution absorbs  the  efforts of the largest profession in modern societies — educators — plus a large number of collateral personnel who support the educational enterprise. A third source of education’s impact is  process . Education forces families and governments and businesses to organize themselves around academic schedules, academic priorities, academic activities, academic procedures, and academic credentials.

The grammar of schooling21 is not just a structure that shapes education and preserves its form over time; it is also a discursive and behavioral pattern that shapes the way society functions. This process of educationalizing society is in part an unintended consequence of the process of educational organization building, kicked off by our need to find institutional expression of our ideals and our faith in the efficacy of individual solutions to social problems. But this process does have its social uses, which help reinforce and preserve the expansion of education once it is in motion. The educationalization of society integrates society around a set of common experiences, processes, and curricular languages. It stabilizes and legitimizes a social structure of inequality that otherwise may drive us into open conflict. It stabilizes and legitimizes government by providing an institution that can be assigned difficult social problems and that can be blamed when these problems are not solved. It provides orderly and credible processes for people to live their lives, by giving employers grounds for selecting a workforce, workers a mechanism for pursuing jobs, and families a mechanism for passing on privilege and seeking social opportunity, even if the rhetorical rationales for these processes (human capital, individual merit) lack credibility. Most of all, it gives us a mechanism for expressing serious concern about social problems without actually doing anything effective to solve those problems. In this sense, then, the ability of schools to formalize substance — to turn anything important into a school subject or a school program or a school credential — is at the heart of their success in educationalizing society.

Therefore,  the  history  of  education  is  the  history  of  formalism,  as  Emile Durkheim noted toward the end of his review of ‘‘the evolution of educational thought’’ across 1,000 years of European history:

In this way we can explain a law to which I have frequently drawn attention and which, in fact, governs the whole of our academic evolution. This is the fact that from the eighth century onwards we have moved from one educational formalism to another educational formalism without ever managing to break the circle. In different periods this formalism has been successively based on grammar, on logic or dialectic, then on literature; but in different forms it has always been formalism which has triumphed. By this I mean that throughout this whole period the aim of education has always been not to give the child positive knowledge, the best available conception of the way specific things really are, but to generate in him skills which are wholly formalistic, whether these consist in the art of debate or the art of self-expression.22

Education transforms social goals into institutionalized expressions of those goals. Even though it does not realize these goals, education does create a set of educational forms — structures, processes, currencies, and languages — that play useful roles for society. The grammar of schooling is not only an expression of the organizational inertia of the educational system but also a mechanism by which it shapes society. So in educationalizing social problems, we may not be doing much to resolve these problems but we are doing a great deal to school ourselves.

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David Labaree

Vol. 25 No. 1 (2024): Current Issues in Education’s Spring Issue

Welcome to the Spring issue of Current Issues in Education, where we embark on a journey through the dynamic landscape of contemporary educational research. In this edition, we are delighted to present a collection of insightful papers that delve into critical topics shaping the field of education today.

As we navigate the complexities of education, one recurring theme that emerges from our exploration is the pursuit of equity and social justice. From examining the limitations in education in regards to developing the possible selves of young Black men through Hip Hop-based education (Robinson, 2024) to identifying barriers to parental involvement in early childhood education (Wildmon et al., 2024) or beginning teachers’struggles in regards to students’ and their own social-emotional development and needs (Martin, 2024), the papers in this issue underscore the importance of ensuring equitable access to quality education for all learners. Through rigorous inquiry, the authors shed light on the challenges faced by marginalized communities and advocate for inclusive practices that empower every student.

Another prominent theme that permeates the research presented here is the need for adaptability and resilience in education. Whether it is navigating the transformation of courses between different modalities in higher education (Bernauer et al., 2024) or responding to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (Scheopner Torres & D’Souza, 2024), educators and institutions must be flexible and innovative to meet learners' evolving needs, which are changing rapidly due to broader societal demands (e.g., Caddy & Sandilands, 2019).The papers in this issue provide valuable insights that can help in building resilient educational systems capable of withstanding 21st-century challenges and re-emphasize the importance of communities, both those of practice and local, in shaping the experiences of teachers and students. 

As lead editors, we extend our gratitude to the authors for their dedication to advancing knowledge in the field of education. We also express appreciation to the reviewers and editorial team for their meticulous attention to detail and commitment to academic excellence.

We invite you to immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of research presented in this issue, engage with the findings and insights, and join us in the ongoing dialogue surrounding the future of education. Together, let us work towards building a more equitable, resilient, and inclusive educational landscape for generations to come.

Warm regards,

Tipsuda Chaomuangkhong and Bregje van Geffen

Lead Editors of Current Issues in Education

References:

Bernauer, J.A., Fuller, R.G., & Cassels, A.M. (2024). Transforming courses across teaching modalities in higher education. Current Issues in Education, 25 (1). https://doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol25iss1.2157

Caddy, J., & Sandilands, R. (2019). Analytical Framework for Case Study Collection Effective Learning Environments . OECD.

Martin, P.C. (2024). Teacher SEL Space: Addressing Beginning Teachers’ Social Emotionalm Learning in a Support Group Structure. Current Issues in Education, 25 (3). https://doi.org/10.14507 /cie.vol25iss1.2186

Robinson, S. R. (2024). Hip Hop, social reproduction, and the possible selves of young Black men. Current Issues in Education, 25 (1).   https://doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol25iss1.2143

Scheopner Torres, A., & D’Souza, L. A. (2024). Pipeline disruption: The impact of COVID-19 on the next generation of teachers. Current Issues in Education, 25 (1). https://doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol25iss1.2125

Wildmon, M.E., Anthony, K.V., & Kamau, Z.J. (2024). Identifying and navigating the barriers of parental involvement in early childhood education. Current Issues in Education, 25 (1).  https://doi.org/10.14507/cie.vol25iss1.2146

Picture: " Education is All " by cogdogblog is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

Teacher SEL Space: Addressing Beginning Teachers’ Social Emotional Learning in a Support Group Structure

Identifying and navigating the barriers of parental involvement in early childhood education, pipeline disruption: the impact of covid-19 on the next generation of teachers, transforming courses across teaching modalities in higher education, hip hop, social reproduction, and the possible selves of young black men, make a submission, journal summary.

Current Issues in Education ( CIE; ISSN 1099-839X) is an open access, peer-reviewed academic education journal produced by doctoral students at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College of Arizona State University. The journal’s mission is to advance scholarly thought by publishing articles that promote dialogue, research, practice, and policy, and to advance a community of scholarship.

CIE publishes articles on a broad range of education topics that are timely and have relevance nationally and internationally. We seek innovative scholarship that tackles challenging issues facing education using various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. CIE welcomes original research, practitioner experience papers, and submissions in alternative formats.

Authors wishing to submit a manuscript for peer review must register for a journal account and should examine our author guidelines . As an open-access journal, authors maintain the copyright to their published work. 

To enhance diversity and inclusion in scholarly publication, and support a greater global exchange of knowledge, CIE does not charge any fee to authors at any stage of the publication process. 

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New UNESCO global report highlights critical role of early childhood care and education

Co-published by UNESCO and UNICEF, the new report  delivers on a commitment made at the 2022  World Conference on ECCE , when 155 countries committed to ensuring that every child gets at least one year of free, compulsory pre-primary education and to work towards dedicating at least 10% of education budgets to this crucial life stage.

“Investing in our youngest children brings the greatest returns , both socially and economically. It is the best investment a country can make. The price of inaction can be very high, as our work shows,” said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education at the launch of the report during the  Stocktake of Transformative Actions in Education event  on 17 June 2024.

Ms Giannini highlighted that the efforts to get early childhood education at the top of the global agenda is paying off: 95% of countries have now reported action on ECCE since the 2022 Transforming Education Summit, up from 40% who made initial national commitments.

Key challenges

The report advocates for the promotion of ECCE to prepare children for school. This includes developing programmes that enhance literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional skills, essential for robust educational outcomes. 

Three key action areas need particular attention: 

• Access : We are in a learning crisis. Without immediate action, 37% of the world’s children –over 300 million – won’t reach minimum reading proficiency by 2030. To reach SDG 4.2 dedicated to early childhood learning, we need to enroll 1.4 million children every year until 2030.
• Teacher shortages and qualifications : Many children, especially the most disadvantaged, are taught by underqualified teachers. In low-income countries, only 57% of pre-primary teachers have the necessary training. We need 6 million more pre-primary educators and teachers by 2030.
• Funding : ECCE is severely underfunded. We need an additional [$21] twenty-one billion US Dollars annually to meet national goals for pre-primary education through to 2030.

Nine recommendations

The report presents concrete recommendations on how governments and the international community can tackle global learning and well-being challenges by promoting an integrated early childhood care and education ecosystem that better supports children and families. 

Key among these are putting young children at the centre of our policies, boosting funding from both domestic and international sources, strengthening global partnerships, and expanding the right to education to ensure every child has a solid educational foundation. 

The report also underscores the need for a legally binding international framework to establish the right to ECCE is underscored, aiming to set clear state obligations, promote accountability, and ensure adequate funding for early education sectors. This is considered as critical to preventing the deepening of the global education crisis. 

The report's key findings and recommendations were presented to stakeholders at a launch event on 17 June. The event will include discussions current initiatives under the  Global Partnership Strategy  to promote ECCE equity and inclusion. 

The new ECCE report was published with the support of GPE, ILO, OECD and The LEGO Foundation.

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A bibliometric analysis of artificial intelligence in language teaching and learning (1990–2023): evolution, trends and future directions

• Published: 22 June 2024

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• Ma Huiling   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6834-3195 1 , 2 ,
• Lilliati Ismail 2 &
• Han Weijing 2   nAff3  

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The advancement and application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has introduced innovative changes in language learning and teaching. In particular, the widespread utilization of various chatbots as foreign language learning partners showcases their remarkable potential contribution to the field. Nevertheless, there are currently few studies that encompass extensive and holistic reviews and analyses of the relevant literature during this period. The study employs bibliometric analysis and a systematic review of representative research to present trends, the current status and future directions of AI research in language teaching and learning, providing language educators, policymakers, and research scholars with visually accessible and comprehensive insights. Results indicate that the field is in its early stages of development, growing rapidly with significant research potential. The study identified the most productive and influential sources, institutions, authors and countries and provided a summary for the most representative papers in the research field. Through keyword analysis, the study delineates the evolutionary progression of AI in the domain of language teaching and learning across different time periods, identifies prevailing research trends and proposes future research directions. Results indicate that influential research in this realm predominantly focuses on refining technological solutions and conducting empirical studies on AI applications in language teaching and learning. This highlights significant interest in the effectiveness of AI in language education and its implementation methods. However, research on the application of AI in language education is still in its infancy. Therefore, the study advocates for increased empirical research on AI’s specific applications in language listening, speaking, reading, and writing, as well as the development of more effective pedagogical approaches. Furthermore, the findings reveal a lack of attention given to various concerns and challenges associated with AI utilization in language teaching and learning, such as concerns regarding academic integrity, content authenticity, potential bias, privacy and security issues, and environmental concerns. At present, there is a lack of suitable solutions or regulatory frameworks proposed to address these concerns adequately.

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Data availability.

The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Fakulti Pengajian Pendidikan, UPM, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Seri Kembangan, 43400, Selangor, Malaysia

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Ma, H., Ismail, L. & Han, W. A bibliometric analysis of artificial intelligence in language teaching and learning (1990–2023): evolution, trends and future directions. Educ Inf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12848-z

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