Educating Everyone

 The odds are weighed heavily against achieving the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of ensuring by December 2015 that every school-age child is actually in school. With children in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria literally in the firing line in recent months, the immense scale of the challenge could not be more apparent. After all, fulfilling the promise of universal education demands that even those in the most difficult circumstances, such as child refugees and children in combat zones, can safely acquire a basic education.

Academic research suggests that no country can enjoy sustained prosperity – and none can avoid the middle-income trap – without large-scale investment in high-quality education. This is particularly true for today’s knowledge-based economy, in which companies value themselves according to their human, not just physical, assets, and stock exchanges assess intellectual, in addition to physical, capital.

Education has long been viewed as the number one guarantor of income, wealth, status, and security. Yet millions of people have consistently been left out or left behind, with nearly half of the world’s children still lacking access to basic education.

To be sure, for the first five years after the MDGs were introduced, significant progress was made, with enrollment in primary and lower-secondary schools increasing by 1.5% annually. On that trajectory, the enrollment rate would have reached 97% worldwide by 2022, with Sub-Saharan Africa reaching that level by 2026.

But, after 2005, progress stalled. As a result, only 36% of children in the world’s poorest countries complete lower-secondary schooling. By 2030, that rate will have increased, but only to 54%.

Unsurprisingly, girls in rural communities face the biggest obstacles. Today, some three-quarters of girls do not receive basic primary education; in 2030, half will still be missing out. Likewise, some 90% of girls today are unable to complete secondary education; by 2030, that figure will have declined by only 20%. And, whereas boys in Sub-Saharan Africa will have to wait until 2069 for universal access to primary education, girls will have to wait until 2086. As for lower-secondary education, it will take almost a century, if current trends persist, to ensure access for all girls in Sub-Saharan Africa.

None of this squares with global leaders’ promise to develop the talents of all of the world’s children. A recent study indicates that Africa is so far behind in terms of educational opportunity that in 2025 just 2% of young adults in their early thirties in Rwanda, Chad, Liberia, and Malawi – and only 3% in Tanzania and Benin – will have a college or university education. Such low levels of tertiary education make it impossible not only to hire qualified teachers for the next generation, but also to staff medical centers and clinics with fully trained health professionals – failures that perpetuate the seemingly endless cycle of poor education, bad health, unemployment, and poverty.

Of course, a few African countries – such as Algeria, Nigeria, and Egypt – might manage to buck the trend. But even in South Africa – currently Africa’s most advanced country – 10% of young adults, at most, will have college or university degrees by 2045.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, a bold education campaign led by Malala Yousafzai is helping to increase the share of young adults with a tertiary education, which stood at a measly 7% in 2010. But the gains are slight; even by 2045, the share is unlikely to exceed 15%. Nepal is expected to experience faster growth in tertiary education, but its lower base means that the 2045 level will likely be around 16%.

Even a major emerging economy like India will progress by only 11% from 2010 to 2045, reaching just 23% – far below the level suggested by the global reputation of its institutions of higher education. Meanwhile, in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, the share of young adults with college or university degrees will reach 80-90%.

The assumption that economic development and technological progress will inevitably expand opportunities for all is little more than wishful thinking. In reality, unless a concerted effort is made, the distribution of educational – and thus economic – opportunity will become increasingly unequal in the coming years.

But the real divide is not between the educated and the uneducated; it is between those with access to education and those who want it. These long-neglected people will continue pressing governments and international organizations until every person’s fundamental right to education is respected. And the next stop in their campaign is the United Nations General Assembly in New York, with hundreds of young people, representing all countries, gathering to demand change from world leaders.

As school doors reopen around the world, the international community should renew its commitment to ensuring that every child, everywhere, has a chance to walk through them.

Writer: Gordon Brown

Source: Project Syndicate

The Best Language for Math

What's the best language for learning math? Hint: You're not reading it.

Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish use simpler number words and express math concepts more clearly than English, making it easier for small children to learn counting and arithmetic, research shows.

The language gap is drawing growing attention amid a push by psychologists and educators to build numeracy in small children—the mathematical equivalent of literacy. Confusing English word names have been linked in several recent studies to weaker counting and arithmetic skills in children. However, researchers are finding some easy ways for parents to level the playing field through games and early practice.

Differences between Chinese and English, in particular, have been studied in U.S. and Chinese schools for decades by Karen Fuson, a professor emerita in the school of education and social policy at Northwestern University, and Yeping Li, an expert on Chinese math education and a professor of teaching, learning and culture at Texas A&M University. Chinese has just nine number names, while English has more than two dozen unique number words.

The trouble starts at "11." English has a unique word for the number, while Chinese (as well as Japanese and Korean, among other languages) have words that can be translated as "ten-one"—spoken with the "ten" first. That makes it easier to understand the place value—the value of the position of each digit in a number—as well as making it clear that the number system is based on units of 10.

English number names over 10 don't as clearly label place value, and number words for the teens, such as 17, reverse the order of the ones and "teens," making it easy for children to confuse, say, 17 with 71, the research shows. When doing multi-digit addition and subtraction, children working with English number names have a harder time understanding that two-digit numbers are made up of tens and ones, making it more difficult to avoid errors.

These may seem like small issues, but the additional mental steps needed to solve problems cause more errors and drain working memory capacity, says Dr. Fuson, author of a school math curriculum, Math Expressions, that provides added support for English-speaking students in learning place value.

It feels more natural for Chinese speakers than for English speakers to use the "make-a-ten" addition and subtraction strategy taught to first-graders in many East Asian countries. When adding two numbers, students break down the numbers into parts, or addends, and regroup them into tens and ones. For instance, 9 plus 5 becomes 9 plus 1 plus 4. The make-a-ten method is a powerful tool for mastering more advanced multi-digit addition and subtraction problems , Dr. Fuson says.

Many U.S. teachers have increased instruction in the make-a-ten method, and the Common Core standards adopted by many states call for first-graders to use it to add and subtract. First-graders' understanding of place value predicts their ability to do two-digit addition in third grade, according to a 2011 study of 94 elementary-school children in Research in Developmental Disabilities.

The U.S.-Asian math-achievement gap—a sensitive and much-studied topic—has more complicated roots than language. Chinese teachers typically spend more time explaining math concepts and getting students involved in working on difficult problems. In the home, Chinese parents tend to spend more time teaching arithmetic facts and games and using numbers in daily life, says a 2010 study in the Review of Educational Research by researchers at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the University of Hong Kong.

When Chinese preschoolers enter kindergarten, they're ahead of their U.S. counterparts in the adding and counting skills typically taught by Chinese parents. They're also one to two years ahead on a skill their parents don't teach—placing numbers on a number line based on size, according to a 2008 study of 29 Chinese and 24 U.S. preschoolers by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

In math, one concept builds on another. By the time U.S. students reach high school, they rank 30th among students from 65 nations and education systems on international achievement exams, while Chinese and Korean students lead the world.

The negative impact of English is apparent in a 2014 study comparing 59 English-speaking Canadian children from Ottawa, Canada, with 88 Turkish children from Istanbul, ranging in age from 3 to 41/2 years. The Turkish children had received less instruction in numbers and counting than the Canadians. Yet the Turkish children improved their counting skills more after practicing in the lab with a numbered board game, according to the study, co-written by Jo-Anne LeFevre, director of the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario. Turkish students learning to count in their native language "mastered it more quickly" than the children learning in English, Dr. LeFevre says.

Dr. LeFevre is among a growing group of researchers exploring how parents can help instill number skills early. Children whose parents taught them to recognize and name digits and practice simple addition problems tended to do well on such kindergarten tasks as counting and comparing numbers, says a 2014 study of 183 children and their parents in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, co-written by Dr. LeFevre.

Board games can offset some of the disadvantages of speaking English, though only if played in a specific way. Some kindergartners who played a board game with the numbers 1 through 100 lined up in straight rows of 10 improved their performance at identifying numbers and placing numbers on a number line, according to a 2014 study led by Elida Laski, an assistant professor of applied and developmental psychology at Boston College. The rows of 10 helped children see that the number system is based on tens.

But the children improved only if researchers had them count aloud starting with the number of the square where they had landed; if children landed on square 5 and spun a 2, for example, they would count, "6, 7." This skill, called "counting on," is useful in early arithmetic. Kids who counted starting with "1" for every turn improved their performance only half as much.

Games such as "Chutes and Ladders" can have the same effect if children count on with each turn, Dr. Laski says. Studies show games without numbers in the squares, or set up in a winding or circular pattern, such as Candy Land, don't provide the same benefits.

Just drawing a board game on paper or cardboard and playing it with a preschooler a few times can firm up counting skills. "It's definitely more fun than doing a work sheet, and just as valuable," Dr. Laski says.

Children whose parents exposed them to number games and showed they enjoyed playing with numbers tended to have better skills, according to the 2014 study co-written by Dr. LeFevre.

Math teacher Andrew Stadel wants to pass on his interest in math to his 4-year-old son Patrick. A videogame, "Hungry Guppy" by Motion Math, based in San Francisco, drew Patrick's attention at age 2; players drag together bubbles with dots to add them, then feed them to a fish. He is now playing its successor for older kids, "Hungry Fish." Patrick is "curious about what numbers will pair up to make the desired sum," and if he makes a mistake, "there's not a huge penalty and it's not deflating to him," Mr. Stadel says.

Such videogames build fluency in doing calculations, freeing mental energy for learning. A game called "Addimal Adventures" by Teachley teaches different strategies for addition, showing "there's more than one way to solve a problem," says Allisyn Levy, vice president of an educational digital-game line, GameUp, offered by BrainPOP, New York City, a creator of animated educational content.

Ten-year-old Luke Sullivan of Marietta, Ga., says a game called "Addition Blocks" by Fluency Games of Smyrna, Ga., helped him learn when he started playing it two years ago. "You realize it's educational, but then you start to enjoy it," Luke says.

Writer: Sue Shellenbarger

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Why Equality is actively harmful to Equity

A few weeks ago, I gave a keynote speech to a large group of youth involved in philanthropy, along with a few of their parents and mentors. My topic was “The Role of Equity in Philanthropy.” It was awesome that we had kids ages 8 to 24 engaged in grantmaking and other aspects of philanthropy. They were smart and hungry and full of hope and possibilities, bright minds not yet beaten down to a haggard shell haunted by endless grant rejections and complex community dynamics and the sudden dawning realization of the ephemerality of existence, cowering in the supply closet on a fold-out cot, cradling a stuffed unicorn while Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” plays softly from a phone.

(What, like your Friday nights are soooo much more exciting.)

“As budding philanthropists,” I said to the youth, “you have probably seen the illustration of the difference between Equality and Equity. You know, the drawing of those kids standing on those boxes looking over a fence at people playing baseball.”

As if on cue, two kids came up to the stage with a drawing they had done earlier of the iconic image on easel paper. I stuck it to the lectern. “Get used to this image,” I said, “Have it burned into your mind. Because you will not be able to avoid it. It will haunt your dreams.”

Equality and Equity are frequently brought up in our field, oftentimes with colorful metaphors like “Equality is making sure everyone gets a pair of shoes, but Equity is ensuring that everyone’s shoes actually fits them.” A female colleague of mine once said, “Think about bathrooms. Equality is about men and women both having bathrooms. But Equity is ensuring that…uh…there’s more toilet paper in the women’s bathroom, because we need it more…” 

Whatever the metaphor, there seems to be this general belief that Equity is an advanced version of Equality, or that they both are great but in different ways. But in the past few years, I’ve seen more and more evidence that Equality actually prevents Equity from succeeding. Equality is a strong force, and we are drawn to its sexy and hypnotic, but ultimately destructive power. Here are a few areas, some discussed in previous posts, where Equality’s gravity pulls us into its deadly orbit:

Our hiring system, where Equality brainwashed us to solicit resumes and covers, toss out any applications with typos, and reject applicants who are not charismatic interviewees. Everyone gets an equal chance. Screw the fact that many people, like me, do not have English as their first language, so they may make a few mistakes. Or that some applicants are hard workers but they just suck at interviews. 

Our grant application process is entirely framed around Equality: The same equal process, equally accessible to all, where the best written applications score the most points and win. This disregards, for example, the fact that grassroots organizations, especially those led by communities of color, may not have the staff support or resources to write the best applications, even for funding designed to support these communities.

The challenges facing single-ethnicity organizations. Nonprofits that are focused on a particular ethnic community face having to constantly defend themselves. When I was ED of my previous organization, the Vietnamese Friendship Association, I remember one person I met being incredibly offended after finding out where I worked. “Why can’t you serve everyone?” she asked, visibly indignant. Being multicultural is more in line with our ideas of Equality, which explains why it is often easier to find funding when you “serve everyone” versus doing a really good job serving one particular community.

In society, we see examples of how compelling and harmful Equality is:

Colorblindness. People who insist they don’t see color have bought into the concept of Equality. But we in this sector know that when we don’t see color, we also don’t see institutionalized racism and oppression and the role we may be playing in perpetuating it. The insistence on the Equality of not seeing color actively prevents all of us from addressing these entrenched challenges.   

All lives matter. Same goes with those who insist that “all lives matter” in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. They are indignant, as if the focus on Black lives somehow negates the importance of other lives. All lives matter is about Equality, while Black Lives Matter is about Equity. And just like with colorblindness, when we fall into this trap of Equality, it becomes much harder to effectively see and tackle systemic injustice.

The bias toward Equality has led to all sorts of harmful philosophies and practices, from bootstrapping to trickle-down economics to taking away food stamps from families where kids don’t make good grades.

The last few years, Equity has been everywhere. You can’t avoid it. Funders are putting it on their websites and RFPs. We have summits on it. We put up images of those three kids and the boxes and the baseball game, and everyone goes, “Yeah, that totally makes sense! Equity is awesome! All those kids can now see the game!”

But what I have observed, after talking to organizations led by communities that are of color, LGBTQ, disabled, rural, or some combination of the above, is that we are all still frustratingly governed by Equality. The concept of Equality is compelling because it is easier to understand, less messy, and less risky than Equity. Equality requires less effort to grasp. True Equity takes time, energy, and thoughtfulness. It requires us to reexamine everything we know and change systems and practices that we have been using for hundreds of years. This is often painful and uncomfortable. So we openly flirt with Equity while still staying firmly in the arms of Equality. The boxes are rarely moved. The little kid still struggles to see over the fence. 

So, what do we do about it?

The youth I talked to were thoughtful as we dissected the image of the kids on the boxes. What is so wrong about being “short”? Why are the kids only looking at a game and not playing in it? Why is there a fence there in the first place? Who are the owners and coaches for the game?  

Encouraging our youth leaders to think differently is critical. But all of us have a lot to do to render the abstract into actual practices. I have brought up some potential solutions in previous posts (change hiring practices, change grantmaking processes, invest in ethnic organizations, support leaders of color, take more risks, etc.). But the important thing is that we in the nonprofit sector, a sector whose primary reason for existing is to help correct the injustices in the world, need to recognize the true nature of Equality and move away from it. It is not just a harmless, less sophisticated cousin of Equity. It is a comforting but destructive illusion.

In an ideal world, Equality would be a great outcome to aspire to. But in this current reality, Equality is often an insidious force, a weed disguised as a flower that prevents the seeds of Equity from germinating. And if we are truly serious about Equity, we have to walk a different path. Because, like Green Day says in their song, before they changed it: “I walk a lonely road/the only one that I have ever known/don’t know where it goes/but it is a safe and comforting illusion of progress that will prevent any actual systemic change required to achieve true Equity and social justice.”

Source: Non Profit With Balls