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Malaysia has highest level of English proficiency in Asia - Latest - New Straits Times - 0 views

  • climbed two notches higher to 11th place from 13th position last year in the EF English Proficiency Index which saw over 60 countries being surveyed.
  • Malaysia, which was placed in the ‘High Proficiency’ category, had overtaken Singapore who fell behind to 12th position in the world ranking. Malaysia scored 58.99 points in the survey while neighbouring Singapore received a 58.92 score.
  • The analysis of evolving English proficiency over a six-year period (2007 to 2012 inclusive) uses test data from nearly five million adults.   EF Academic Affairs and Research Network head Dr. Christopher McCormick said: “Comparison of countries with their neighbours, trading partners, and rivals provides a fascinating study in divergent national priorities and educational policies worldwide,”
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  • some Asian countries, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, have transformed their English proficiency over the six-year period.
  • “China has also improved, although less dramatically. Japan and South Korea, despite enormous private investments, have declined slightly,” the statement said.
  • English language skills were improving in Brazil, Russia, India, and China.   “This year, India and Russia have moved ahead of China, and Brazil is closing in fast.
  • “While the rest of Europe is already proficient in English or steadily working towards that goal, France is on an entirely different trajectory.”     However, the EF found that the Middle East and North Africa were the weakest regions in English.
  • 06 November 2013
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    "Malaysia has the highest English language proficiency level in the entire Asian region, according to a latest research by Swiss-based international education company EF Education First (EF)."
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School is a prison - and damaging our kids - Salon.com - 0 views

  • When schools were taken over by the state and made compulsory, and directed toward secular ends, the basic structure and methods of schooling remained unchanged. Subsequent attempts at reform have failed because, though they have tinkered some with the structure, they haven’t altered the basic blueprint.
  • The top-down, teach-and-test method, in which learning is motivated by a system of rewards and punishments rather than by curiosity or by any real, felt desire to know, is well designed for indoctrination and obedience training but not much else
  • many of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs and innovators either left school early (like Thomas Edison), or said they hated school and learned despite it, not because of it (like Albert Einstein)
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  • As a society, we tend to shrug off such findings. We’re not surprised that learning is unpleasant. We think of it as bad-tasting medicine, tough to swallow but good for children in the long run. Some people even think that the very unpleasantness of school is good for children, so they will learn to tolerate unpleasantness, because life after school is unpleasant. Perhaps this sad view of life derives from schooling. Of course, life has its ups and downs, in adulthood and in childhood. But there are plenty of opportunities to learn to tolerate unpleasantness without adding unpleasant schooling to the mix. Research has shown that people of all ages learn best when they are self-motivated, pursuing questions that are their own real questions, and goals that are their own real-life goals. In such conditions, learning is usually joyful.
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Why I am Teaching My Son Sarcasm | Blog | Autism Speaks - 0 views

  • the doctor showed Tate a lot of faces that illustrated different emotions. Tate failed to identify almost all of them correctly. The doctor asked him what a smile and a frown had in common and he said, “Both faces are round.” There were many, many more gaffes and blunders over the two days of testing. Some made us laugh and many showed me just how much language Tate does not understand.
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http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=18&n=3 - 0 views

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    Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation. Volume 18, Number 3, February 2013 
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WORLD DECLARATION ON HIGHER EDUCATION FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: VISION AND ACTION - 0 views

  • WORLD CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION   Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Action 9 October 1998   WORLD DECLARATION ON HIGHER EDUCATION FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: VISION AND ACTION
  • Convinced that education is a fundamental pillar of human rights, democracy, sustainable development and peace, and shall therefore become accessible to all throughout life and that measures are required to ensure co-ordination and co-operation across and between the various sectors, particularly between general, technical and professional secondary and post-secondary education as well as between universities, colleges and technical institutions,
  • Article 9 - Innovative educational approaches: critical thinking and creativity
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  • (a) In a world undergoing rapid changes, there is a perceived need for a new vision and paradigm of higher education, which should be student-oriented, calling in most countries for in-depth reforms and an open access policy so as to cater for ever more diversified categories of people, and of its contents, methods, practices and means of delivery, based on new types of links and partnerships with the community and with the broadest sectors of society.
  • new information technology does not reduce the need for teachers but changes their role in relation to the learning process and that the continuous dialogue that converts information into knowledge and understanding becomes fundamental.
  • (d) New methods of education will also imply new types of teaching-learning materials. These have to be coupled with new methods of testing that will promote not only powers of memory but also powers of comprehension, skills for practical work and creativity.
  • (b) Higher education institutions should educate students to become well informed and deeply motivated citizens, who can think critically, analyse problems of society, look for solutions to the problems of society, apply them and accept social responsibilities.
  • Higher education institutions should lead in drawing on the advantages and potential of new information and communication technologies, ensuring quality and maintaining high standards for education practices and outcomes in a spirit of openness, equity and international co-operation by:
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100 Terrific Cheat Sheets for K-12 Teachers | Teaching Degree.org - 0 views

  • Cheat sheets have a bad rap as a way for students to succeed on tests without actually knowing the information, but now it’s time for them to have a more positive place in education. Cheat sheets can offer a succinct way for students to study their lessons and provide an excellent boost to what you are already teaching them in class. Cheat sheets can provide helpful information for teachers too. Browse through this selection to find cheat sheets for a variety of subjects.
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Why America's teachers are enraged - CNN - 0 views

  • Thousands of teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public sector workers have camped out at the Wisconsin Capitol, protesting Republican Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to reduce their take-home pay -- by increasing their contribution to their pension plans and health care benefits -- and restrict their collective bargaining rights.
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Diagnostic, Formative & Summative Assessments - What's the difference? - 0 views

  • This post will attempt to give a very brief overview of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments, how they can be used to inform instruction and how to implement them in the classroom.
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Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Resources for Learning SAT Vocabulary - 0 views

  • Today, all of the sophomores and juniors in my school are taking the PSAT. That got me thinking about some of the many resources designed to help students learn PSAT and SAT vocabulary that I've come across over the last few years. Here are five resources worth checking out.
  • Vocab Ahead is a great service offering hundreds of videos designed to help students learn SAT and ACT vocabulary words.
  • Bubba Brain is a simple site packed with review games for students preparing for the SAT and AP exams.
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  • Vocab Sushi is designed to help students prepare for standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, and more.
  • EduFire is a tutoring service offering live video lessons.
  • Flashcard Flash is a handy little search engine designed for one purpose, helping you find sets of flashcards.
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Library of Instant Lessons (Published Article by Bibi Boarder) - 0 views

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    Make life easier by building up a library of ready-made lessons for yourself or your teaching staff to copy and cut as required.   Though relatively easy, it can prove a godsend during the busy season when time is short, or when standing in for absent colleagues.
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Inclusive Education In Malaysia Education Essay - 0 views

  • Inclusive education in Malaysia originated from the ‘special education’ agenda as defined in the Education Act 1996 (1998) and its approach is referred to this tradition.
  • These mandates are intended to promote equal rights and access to education for persons with disabilities. The ‘educability’ criterion assumes that there are children who are uneducable within the public school system and thus these children are catered to within community-based rehabilitation (CBR) settings (MOE, 2006). CBR programmes are government-initiated, centre-based programmes at the community level aimed to provide education that emphasises therapy and rehabilitation to children with learning disabilities (Kuno, 2007). CBR programmes are quite detached from the mainstream school system. However, in practice, the division between both provisions is less definite, and students who should benefit from them become victims of bureaucratic procedures (Adnan & Hafiz, 2001).
  • Malaysia embarked on the first stage when the first school for the blind was opened in 1929, followed by a school for the deaf very much later in 1954
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  • These schools were initiated under the programs of the Ministry of Social Welfare with the help of religious missionaries. Malaysia entered its second stage when professional preparation programs for special education were formally established by the Ministry of Education in 1961. Lacking its own expertise and technology, Malaysia entered its third stage when it began importing knowledge and expertise by sending its education professionals abroad for research degrees and in-service attachments in special needs education in the 1980s and 1990s, and attempting to customize what was learned to its national conditions. Malaysia’s participation in international workshops and activities of the UN and UNESCO and subsequent reforms as reflected in the Education Act (1998) describes the active development of policy and changes in practices during this period. In 1993, the first preservice teacher preparation leading to a Bachelor of Education degree program in special needs education was initiated in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The program was developed alongside a collaborative project in curriculum development with three universities in the United Kingdom, namely, the Universities of Manchester, Birmingham and Cambridge (Jelas, 1996; 1999).
  • The terms ‘special needs’ introduced in the Education Act 1996 (1998) are defined as follows: “Pupils with special needs’ means pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities” And ‘inclusive education’ is introduced as part of the continuum of services available for children with special needs: “Special education programme” means – A programme which is provided in special schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment; An integrated programme in general schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities; and An inclusive education programme for pupils with special needs and who are able to attend normal classes together with normal pupils” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 341)
  • However, the eligibility for special education placement is based on the ‘educability’ of children as assessed by a team of professionals. This is documented in the Act, which states: “(1) For government and government-aided schools, pupils with special needs who are educable are eligible to attend the special education programme except for the following pupils: physically handicapped pupils with the mental ability to learn like normal pupils; and pupils with multiple disabilities or with profound physical handicap or severe mental retardation. A pupil with special needs is educable if he is able to manage himself without help and is confirmed by a panel consisting of a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD, as capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 342) The eligibility dilemma
  • While the current public policy for children with special educational needs, particularly those categories of children classified as experiencing ‘learning disabilities’ have access to regular schools as stated in the Act, the ‘educability’ criteria contradicts the goals of providing equal education opportunities as stipulated in the United Nation’s Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993), The Salamanca Statement (1994) and the Biwako Millenium Framework for Action (UNESCAP, 2002).
  • Foreign experts are initially relied upon to provide the knowledge and to encourage its development prior to the emergence of a profession within a country. The first professionals to provide services are usually trained abroad. The second stage followed this first stage, in which colleges and universities established programs and departments to teach the discipline and prepare the professionals. The second stage leads to the third stage, in which colleges and universities import developed from abroad to achieve standards that characterised the discipline in more developed nations. During this stage, the concepts, theories and models of implementation found in the more developed countries are taught, applied and tested; some of which may transfer more successfully than others.
  • Before special programmes were available, students with special needs were described by their characteristics and by the instructional challenges they presented to teachers. When the education system began to respond to the needs of each emerging group of special needs students, services were established and eligibility criteria determined. From that point on, a child was identified (for school and placement purposes) as having or experiencing a ‘special educational need’ and if he or she is “able to manage him or herself without help” (Education Act 1996, 1998), the child will be eligible for a given programme or service. This process was repeated as each new group of special needs students emerged – for example, children with visual and hearing impairments in the 1960s, children with mild intellectual in the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and children with dyslexia.
  • in the Education Act 1996 (1998) that the perspectives of professionals (“a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD” p. 342) have the most power in determining the way children are categorised and whether these children are “capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998)
  • policy makers and professionals continue to see special schools and classes as well as categories as having an important place in provisions. Responses at the Ministerial level revealed an emphasis on diversity and acceptance of human characteristics as problematic and that learning difficulties are technical problems that require specialised discipline knowledge that cannot be dealt with in the “normal classes with normal children” (Education Act 1996, 1998 p. 341).
  • The National Report on the development of education states: Inclusion in Malaysia subscribed to the concept of placing SEN students into mainstream classes to be educated alongside their peers, either with or without additional support, and within the present school system. This concept of IE (inclusive education) might not be in line with the ideal concept based on “acceptance, belonging and about providing school settings in which all disadvantaged children can be valued equally and be provided with equal educational opportunities … (MOE, 2004, p. 28),
  • Even though inclusive education was implemented at the policy level more than 10 years ago and school participation has rapidly increased quantitatively, Malaysia is far from reaching its goal of providing “a responsive education path for every child and youth with SEN” (MOE, 2004)
  • The emphasis on the ability “to cope with mainstream learning” seemed consistent with the integration models that came about in the 1980s. Integration models mainly focused on placing students with mild disabilities, identified and “diagnosed” as having special needs in mainstream schools. In such models, students must adapt to the norms, expectations, styles, routines and practices of the education system instead of the education system adapting to the learner (UNESCO, 2008). The integrated programme is the dominant format for delivering services to special needs students in Malaysia, then and now.
  • Once placed, few special education students returned to the regular education class on full-time basis. Although the special classroom and special schools continued as options, integrated programmes (placement in regular classrooms) for students with visual and hearing impairments are available with support from the resource teacher
  • Historically, the disenchantment of many special educators and the concern of the efficacy of the prevailing approach (Ainscow, 1994; Meyen & Skrtic, 1995; Sorrells, Rieth & Sindelar, 2004; Stainback & Stainback, 1992) raised questions about how best to assure a quality and equitable education for students with disabilities and spawned the push for a more inclusive approach to special education programming. While these reforms were mandated in the United Nations Declarations and UNESCO’s Framework of Actions on special needs education of which Malaysia’s policy on inclusive education subscribes to, the focus on diagnosis, prescription, and intervention continued to be central to determining eligibility and making placement decisions. Thus, although special education practices had changed, the grounding assumptions of human pathology and organisational rationality (Biklen, 2000; Oliver, 1996; Skrtic, 1991) have not been critically examined. In this context, special education is used to maintain and legitimise exclusion of students with disabilities within a school culture and system characterised by competition and selection (Skrtic, 1995; Corbett, 1999; Slee, 2001; Kearney & Kane, 2006).
  • While the philosophical basis of including SEN students into mainstream schools is accepted as a policy, the continued legitimization of paradigms that exclude SEN students is also acknowledged by rationalising between the “ideal” and the “not-so-ideal” concept of inclusive education. This ambivalence is reinforced by the following statements: Prior to inclusion, especially in the early part of their formal education, SEN students are equipped with relevant basic skills and knowledge to enable them to cope with mainstream learning. Only those who are diagnosed capable to cope with mainstream learning would be included fully or partially. (MOE, 2004, p. 29)
  • In principle, Malaysia is committed to providing education for all with the implementation of compulsory education in 2003 as evident by a high participation rate of 98.49 per cent (MOE, 2004). This statement of intent towards compulsory education for all which was an amendment of the Education Act 1996, however, did not include children with disabilities
  • The radical perspective that leads to a reconceptualisation of special educational needs have been well documented for the past twenty years (Barton, 1988; Lipsky & Gartner, 1989; Ainscow, 1991; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1994; Clark et. al., 1998; Donoghue, 2003) and critiques argued and showed evidence how the education system creates rather than remediate disabilities (Skrtic, 1991; Corbett, 1999; Vlachou, 2004; Carrington & Robinson, 2006). The new perspective on special educational needs is based on the view that the way forward must be to reform schools in ways that will make them respond positively to pupil diversity, seeing individual differences as something to be nurtured. But, as cautioned by Ainscow (1994): This kind of approach is only possible in schools where there exist a respect for individuality and a culture of collaboration that encourages and supports problem-solving. Such cultures are likely to facilitate the learning of all pupils and, alongside them, the professional learning of all teachers. Ultimately, therefore, this line of argument makes the case that increasing equity is the key to improvements in schooling for all. (Ainscow, 1994, p12)
  • Education in Malaysia is driven largely by an examination–oriented system characterised by curriculum rigidity and rote learning rather than critical and independent thinking. Like schools in Singapore and Hong Kong (Poon-McBrayer, 2004), school leadership are in great pressure to compete for the best examination results in terms of the percentages of passes and the number of A’s acquired by students in public school examinations
  • The culture of elitism compels parents to prepare their children to be accepted into high ranking or fully residential schools which usually achieve high scores in examination results.
  • Although the ‘intertwining of the standards and inclusion agenda’ can lead to positive consequences (Ainscow et al, 2006), the emphasis on the preparation and drill for the public examinations therefore, left little or no time for teachers to accommodate individual learning needs of students in general. Media reports on schools’ and students’ performance intensify competition and further marginalise SEN students, who, to a large extent are not expected to compete. Competing priorities make it more difficult for schools to fully include children with SEN.
  • Continued advancement of special needs education in Malaysia will require bifocal perspectives. One focus has an international perspective and requires Malaysians’ awareness of the international body of literature and trends in practice that enables them to take advantage of the knowledge and experience gained by those in other countries. Malaysia may also profit especially from knowledge provided by its Asian neighbours namely Japan, India and China, or other countries that seems to be struggling with many of the same issues.
  • effective special needs education services require awareness of social and educational traditions, social philosophies that manifest in schooling and school culture and ways of resolving conflict that may be unique to one country and the impact these qualities have on general and special needs education services (Peters, 2003).
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The Nordic countries: The next supermodel | The Economist - 0 views

  • The Nordics cluster at the top of league tables of everything from economic competitiveness to social health to happiness.
  • lucky timing: the Nordics cleverly managed to have their debt crisis in the 1990s
  • Development theorists have taken to calling successful modernisation “getting to Denmark”
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  • In the 1970s and 1980s the Nordics were indeed tax-and-spend countries.
  • To politicians around the world—especially in the debt-ridden West—they offer a blueprint of how to reform the public sector, making the state far more efficient and responsive.
  • They have avoided both southern Europe’s economic sclerosis and America’s extreme inequality.
  • But tax-and-spend did not work: Sweden fell from being the fourth-richest country in the world in 1970 to the 14th in 1993.
  • Denmark and Norway allow private firms to run public hospitals. Sweden has a universal system of school vouchers, with private for-profit schools competing with public schools. Denmark also has vouchers—but ones that you can top up.
  • Government’s share of GDP in Sweden, which has dropped by around 18 percentage points, is lower than France’s and could soon be lower than Britain’s. Taxes have been cut: the corporate rate is 22%, far lower than America’s. The Nordics have focused on balancing the books. While Mr Obama and Congress dither over entitlement reform, Sweden has reformed its pension system (see Free exchange). Its budget deficit is 0.3% of GDP; America’s is 7%.
  • The performance of all schools and hospitals is measured. Governments are forced to operate in the harsh light of day: Sweden gives everyone access to official records. Politicians are vilified if they get off their bicycles and into official limousines. The home of Skype and Spotify is also a leader in e-government: you can pay your taxes with an SMS message
  • Nordics have been similarly pragmatic. So long as public services work, they do not mind who provides them
  • the Nordics also offer something for the progressive left by proving that it is possible to combine competitive capitalism with a large state: they employ 30% of their workforce in the public sector, compared with an OECD average of 15%
  • They are stout free-traders who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic companies: Sweden let Saab go bankrupt and Volvo is now owned by China’s Geely. But they also focus on the long term—most obviously through Norway’s $600 billion sovereign-wealth fund—and they look for ways to temper capitalism’s harsher effects.
  • Denmark, for instance, has a system of “flexicurity” that makes it easier for employers to sack people but provides support and training for the unemployed, and Finland organises venture-capital networks.
  • Public spending as a proportion of GDP in these countries is still higher than this newspaper would like, or indeed than will be sustainable.
  • All Western politicians claim to promote transparency and technology. The Nordics can do so with more justification than most.
  • Their levels of taxation still encourage entrepreneurs to move abroad
  • Too many people—especially immigrants—live off benefits
  • pressures that have forced their governments to cut spending, such as growing global competition, will force more change. The Nordics are bloated compared with Singapore, and they have not focused enough on means-testing benefits
  • Nordics are part of the answer. They also show that EU countries can be genuine economic successes. And as the Asians introduce welfare states they too will look to the Nordics: Norway is a particular focus of the Chinese
  • You can inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations. But you need to be willing to root out corruption and vested interests.
  • A Swede pays tax more willingly than a Californian because he gets decent schools and free health care
  • The main lesson to learn from the Nordics is not ideological but practica
  • you must be ready to abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum
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    SMALLISH countries are often in the vanguard when it comes to reforming government. In the 1980s Britain was out in the lead, thanks to Thatcherism and privatisation. Tiny Singapore has long been a role model for many reformers. Now the Nordic countries are likely to assume a similar role.
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No child left behind: (Relative) equity in Finnish schools -  Inside classroo... - 0 views

  • not only is Finland a top performer in all three subjects tested in PISA, they manage to do so while making schooling equitable.
  • The aim of day-care is to support balanced growth, development and learning as well as promoting the personal well-being of all children, which means that by the time they start formal school at age 7, Finnish children that would have been behind developmentally at age 5 have had the time and the support to catch up. 
  • In Finland, although there is no formal education until age 7, most students attend preschool at 6, and day-care is available to all children under this age. This day-care is provided by the local authority in over 90% of cases, and its cost is dependent on the size and income of the family (bigger families pay less per child, and low income families pay nothing). 
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  • all classes are mixed ability.
  • high expectations of all students, and these are to meet the objectives set out in the national curriculum.
  • These mixed ability classes would be difficult for teachers to handle if it weren't for three things: thorough teacher education - teacher training includes a significant focus on differentiation and how to support students at all levels;small class sizes - the estimated average size is 14.1 (although some research suggests class size doesn't affect student performance); anda well staffed student support system - special teachers that provide in class support and take out small groups are qualified teachers with further qualifications in special education.
  • There are two types of special classes. The type described above is called the E class, and there is one in each year. These classes are smaller than the others, and they have the same teacher for most subjects (who should be a qualified teacher with an extra qualification in special needs, but in practice these are in short supply). Students can move in and out of this class, but in practice they usually stay there for most subjects, occasionally joining another class if they have a strength in a particular area.
  • Those with severe or specific special needs still attend mainstream school, but are in a class of their own somewhere in the district. Each school has its own specialism. This may mean travelling a little while to get there, as only one or two schools will have an autistic class for example. 
  • There isn't really special provision for gifted students
  • brighter students help struggling students in class which enhances their own understanding
  • if students are motivated, you can't stop them learning - gifted students will take the books and teach themselves (one of the teachers who told me this had four degrees but had come from a tiny school in the countryside).
  • Finland has only small differences in performance between schools (a measure closely associated with equality), and most students go to their local schools (to age 15).
  • Selection only happens in two situations: where students are applying to language emersion schools (and the student has to speak the language to a certain level), and where students are applying for a certain class in a school that is the school's specialism, such as Music or Sports (these classes have the same basic curriculum with additional Music or Sports lessons). There are no grammar schools, and very few private schools (and even these have to follow the national curriculum).
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Equity, democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education - 1 views

  • Although in the long run, neoliberalism has a track record of undermining equity and democracy, in the short run it has directed attention to education needs that have been inadequately addressed
  • what teacher education in the US can do to advance equity and democracy in five areas: recruitment and admission, early fieldwork, professional coursework, student teaching, and on-going professional development
  • three neoliberal pressures teacher education: (1) away from explicit equity-oriented teacher preparation, and toward preparing teachers as technicians; (2) away from defining teacher quality in terms of professional knowledge, and toward defining it terms testable content knowledge; and (3) toward shortening university-based teacher education or by-passing it altogether. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of collaborating with underserved communities as a way of pushing back against neoliberalism.
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  • Although in the long run, neoliberalism has a track record of undermining equity and democracy, in the short run it has directed attention to education needs that have been inadequately addressed.
  • neoliberalism has a track record of undermining equity and democracy, in the short run it has directed attention to education needs that have been inadequately addressed
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How does RTI differ from previous approaches to providing interventions? | Center on Re... - 0 views

  • when you really look at what RTI is, it’s more of a preventative framework as opposed to a pre-referral and that really is the big difference.
  • In a pre-referral strategy what we see is we wait till a student fails in some way, is recognized as failing, is referred to a team, folks try to come up with an intervention that will, in a sense, remediate that deficit before we make a referral to special ed
  • in RTI we’re really looking at a preventative framework and we use, what we refer to as screening tools, to predict who may be at risk for failure as opposed to waiting until a kid fails before they are referred
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  • in a preventative model those students who are screened and who might be at risk for poor learning outcomes then receive interventions to prevent them from having struggles in the future, and those students who then don’t respond to highly qualified or highly effective interventions may be referred to special ed
  • when we talk about RTI at the RTI Center we’re looking at it as a school-wide, prevention framework. So core instruction is really part of that prevention and all students should have access to that and those students who are struggling or who may be at risk of struggling are identified through those screening tools that are reliable and valid
  • In an effective, preventative RTI framework what you would end up seeing is that students who are struggling may start moving through the tiers in an upward fashion, but the majority of those students, if their intervention at secondary and tertiary are effective, would then move to less intensive tiers
  • the purpose of school is to prepare students for post-secondary outcomes
  • all students are RTI kids and if you are just looking at RTI as an intervention only then it may really be that you’re addressing deficits as opposed to intervening early to prevent those poor learning outcomes
  • this is very different from a pre-referral model in which students tend to take a one-way street up so they are no longer performing at a rate that we would expect them so then we intervene and then they may be referred. But, very few of those in a pre-referral model actually move back down to less-intensive tiers
  • In kindergarten we’re preparing them for elementary, in elementary for middle school and we want to adequately prepare them, not only for state tests, but this bigger success in school
  • part of what special ed’s role is is to prevent those students from experiencing struggles that they may have had, had they not had special ed
  • RTI is not really just another name for a pre-referral model and instead is this larger school-wide prevention model is really the key to making sure that students, all students, are successful.
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Scandinavia school science slowcoach Norway gets left behind in PISA polls / News / The... - 0 views

  • “We must have higher ambitions than staying around the average level among OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries,” declared the Minister at Tuesday’s press conference in Oslo.
  • Norway is within the OECD (mean) average bracket when it comes to the sciences (494), and slightly below it in math (501). But these are still not results, “we can be satisfied with,” added Minister Isaksen.
  • The PISA 2012 survey results were slightly different when it came to Norwegian students’ reading skills. They have improved since the last time, albeit just slightly, with 503 in 2009, against 504 now – though female pupils still did better than their male peers.
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  • “I am convinced that teachers want more professional input,” declared Minister Isaksen.   “Good teachers will have the opportunity to be even better with our teacher boost,” he concluded.
  • below Finland with its 524 points, Norway also comes second amongst the Nordics. Denmark gets 496 points, while Iceland and Sweden ‘tie’ with 483. The OECD’s mean average is 496.
  • Math skill levels measured by the PISA 2012 presented a significant decline of 9 points compared to 2009 (external link) to 489.As a Nordic country, Norway also trails Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. These countries got 519, 500, and 493, respectively. Sweden got 478. Norway’s scores when it came to science subjects also dropped compared with 2009, getting 500 against 495 now (external link).
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