International Education News

This week, IEN’s reposts an article from The Central Square Foundation exploring the early childhood education landscape in India, emphasizing significant state-level initiatives. The article focuses particularly on Uttar Pradesh’s progress in aligning its programs with the central NIPUN Bharat Mission, which aims to ensure children are school-ready by age six. The authors delve into the 12-week school readiness curriculum piloted in Aligarh, showcasing its promising early results, thereby illustrating the shift from policy to practice in Indian states. The article is written by Lokeshwaran Nagaraj and Sanjay Koushik and the full article was originally published on Oct 23, 2024. This post is the second in a series on early childhood education that includes articles from Norway (Norway law decrees: Let childhood be childhood) and China (next week).

90% of brain development happens before the age of six. Neuroscience indicates that early preventive intervention is more efficient and produces favourable outcomes than remediation later in life^[1]. Development research around the globe shows that investment in early childhood education (ECE) is one of the most effective investments for societal outcomes. With eight crore children in the 3-6 age group in India, strengthening the delivery of ECE becomes a critical piece for the country’s development.

Challenges and Systemic Issues

While both the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and National ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) Policy 2013 recognise the critical importance of investing in young learners, we find several challenges leading to poor learning levels of children before they enter Grade 1. These challenges include:

• Fragmented Governance: the unclear division of responsibilities between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) creates confusion and inefficiencies in ECE programme delivery.
• Budget Constraints: insufficient funding allocation limits the ability to hire dedicated educators and develop quality infrastructure.
• Lack of Qualified Teachers: the absence of dedicated qualified ECE educators across the country hampers the quality of early education.
• Enrollment Patterns: parental demand for structured educational environments impacts enrolment, with only one-third of children, aged between five to six years, attending Anganwadis^[2]. Many children under the age of six years are enroled in Grade 1 without adequate school readiness.

Addressing these challenges is essential to establishing dedicated pre-primary sections and ensuring qualified educators are in place, forming a foundational solution to enhance ECE in India. 

Momentum for ECE in India

India has seen a growing momentum to prioritise ECE in the recent years, despite existing challenges. Both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Women and Child Development are making sustained efforts to enhance early childhood education. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 underscores the necessity of providing universal, equitable and quality early childhood care and education, emphasising a play-based approach to ensure optimal child development. This policy shift marks a significant turning point in recognising the importance of early education.

The National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stages (NCF-FS 2022) and the recently released Aadharshila framework establish clear standards for states to develop quality ECE programmes. Furthermore, NITI Aayog has incorporated early education into its annual plans, emphasising key areas for early childhood care and education as part of broader developmental goals under Viksit Bharat @ 2047. These plans prioritise strengthening the Anganwadi system and integrating ECCE with primary education, focusing on quality infrastructure, teacher training and curriculum development. Notably, the total budget allocation for ECE by states increased from approximately ₹900 crores in 2022-2023 to around ₹1,300 crores in 2024-2025 — a 46.75% increment,  indicating a growing commitment to improving early education in the country.

State-level Initiatives: Uttar Pradesh as an Exemplar

In 2024, Uttar Pradesh (UP) secured ₹388.97 crore to improve ECE, one of the highest across the country. What is heartening is that, unlike many other states that focus solely on infrastructure, Uttar Pradesh’s budget allocations also encompass budgets allocated for recruiting and training dedicated ECE educators, educator training and teaching and learning materials (TLM), highlighting a comprehensive commitment to enhancing ECE. UP has identified the importance of having dedicated ECE educators to maximise available learning time in pre-primary classrooms. The state has streamlined its recruitment processes, establishing clear qualifications, selection protocols and procurement processes to ensure the hiring of qualified educators.

The state is also aligning its programmes with the central NIPUN Bharat Mission, which aims to ensure that children are school-ready by the age of six . To this end, it has mandated the entry for children to Grade 1 to 6 years and established convergence between the Department of School Education and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). By declaring 60,137 co-located Anganwadis as Balvatikas, the state places the responsibility for education on the Department of Basic Education while the ICDS focuses on health and nutrition.

• Programmatic Enhancements and Impact

In line with its commitment to early childhood education, Uttar Pradesh has taken significant steps to strengthen programmatic inputs. The state has seen notable success in Grades 1 to 3 by adopting a structured pedagogy approach, which is now being adapted for ECE. For instance, a 12-week school readiness curriculum has been developed for the Balvatika grade (ages 5 to 6) in co-located Anganwadis. This curriculum aligns with the NCF-FS and Uttar Pradesh – State Curriculum Framework, focusing on foundational literacy, numeracy and social-emotional development. It provides educators with a clear and structured plan to prepare children for formal schooling.

The rollout of this curriculum in Aligarh has yielded promising early results. Learning time in classrooms has doubled, with new materials enabling Anganwadi workers (AWWs) to allocate time more effectively across developmental domains — from literacy to play-based learning.

• Positive Feedback from Anganwadi Workers (AWWs)

1. 60% of AWWs appreciated the curriculum manual for its clear daily and weekly routines and a well-defined progression of activities.
2. 73% of AWWs found that children could easily navigate the workbooks, leading to greater engagement in the classroom.

Qualitative feedback from AWWs highlights the creative and engaging nature of the activities, which maintain children’s interest throughout the school day. One AWW remarked,

“The materials are easier to understand than anything we have used before. All we need to do is focus on teaching.” (Navita Nirmal | Anganwadi Worker | Pala Sahibabad, Aligarh)

This experience has provided valuable insights for designing effective ECE programmes, emphasising the importance of practice-based training, instructional videos and reward and recognition systems to build teacher capacity. Simple, user-friendly materials featuring clear text and intuitive visuals are essential to reduce preparation time and help educators focus on delivering effective instruction within their constraints. By building on these experiences, Uttar Pradesh aspires to be a pioneer in realising the vision of the NEP 2020. Learnings from early adopters like Uttar Pradesh can help accelerate the country’s journey toward strengthening ECE, ultimately delivering quality early learning for all children in the country.

Through this landscaping of the current state of ECE in India, we have focussed on the positive momentum for moving from policy to practice with states like UP emerging as exemplars. To realise the full potential of ECE, continued investment, comprehensive programmatic enhancements and a commitment to addressing systemic barriers are essential. 

By prioritising early childhood education and realising its pivotal role as step zero of foundational literacy and numeracy, India can ensure that all children are equipped for success in their educational journeys and beyond.

^[1] The Science of Early Childhood Development (InBrief). Retrieved from http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu., 2017, Center on the Developing Child
^[2] ASER 2022

In this Scandinavian country, early childhood education is a national priority, enshrined in law. This week, as part of a series that will includes articles from India and China on early childhood education, IEN repost’s a piece by Jackie Mader published originally by The Hechinger Report exploring the Norwegian approach to early childhood education that aims to foster social equality, emotional resilience, and lifelong well-being.

OSLO — It was a July afternoon in 2011 when a car bomb exploded just a few blocks from Robert Ullmann’s office. Because it was the summer, only two employees from Kanvas, his nonprofit that manages 64 child care programs around Norway, were at their desks on the third floor of a narrow, nondescript building in central Oslo. Although the floor-to-ceiling glass windows shattered when the bomb exploded at 3:25 in the afternoon, both members of his team were unhurt.

When I arrived at Ullmann’s office a few months ago to interview him about Kanvas, he led me to one of the windows that looks out over Møllergata street. Just past the rusty roof of the building across the road, we could see the top of Regjeringskvartalet, a cluster of government offices, the target of that car bomb. “That’s our ‘Capitol Hill,’” Ullmann explained. The complex never reopened after the blast, which killed eight and injured more than 200. A few hours later, the far-right extremist behind the bombing opened fire at a youth summer camp on an island 24 miles from central Oslo, killing 69 people, most of them teenagers and young adults affiliated with the youth wing of the country’s Labor Party. 

The violent attack, extraordinarily rare for Norway, affected Ullmann deeply.

“I started some reflection,” he said as we stood by the window. “How can a young guy come up here and become a terrorist?” In the context of his work with young children, the goal became very clear. “What’s important is that everyone feel they’re included,” he said.

Ullmann’s conclusion embodies one of Norway’s goals for its citizens: to build a nation of thriving adults by providing childhoods that are joyful, secure and inclusive. Perhaps nowhere is this belief manifested more clearly than in the nation’s approach to early child care. (In Norway, all education for children 5 and under is referred to as “barnehagen,” the local translation of “kindergarten.”) To an American, the Norwegian philosophy, both in policy and in practice, could feel alien. The government’s view isn’t that child care is a place to put children so parents can work, or even to prepare children for the rigors of elementary school. It’s about protecting childhood.

“A really important pillar of Norway’s early ed philosophy is the value of childhood in itself,” said Henrik D. Zachrisson, a professor at the Centre for Research on Equality in Education at the University of Oslo. “Early ed is supposed to be a place where children can be children and have the best childhood possible.”

On a drizzly Thursday morning this spring in south Oslo, at Preståsen Kanvas-barnehage, one of Kanvas’ child care programs, children roamed around an expansive play yard, building sandcastles under a large evergreen tree and zooming down a hill on bikes. On an adjacent playground, children shrieked as they splashed through a large puddle. As more children were drawn to the water, rather than caution them about getting wet, a teacher handed them buckets to have at it.

There was a clear focus on inclusion: Children with disabilities, who would often be segregated in American child care programs, were included in activities, at times with the help of a city-funded aide. Posters on some kindergarten walls showed pictures of common items or requests so children who were still learning to speak Norwegian could point to what they needed. Children were learning about the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. A rack of free clothes and boots was parked inside the front lobby, with instructions for parents to take what they needed.

“Kindergarten is so important to level out social inequities,” said Ullmann as we drove to a second site run by Kanvas. “In Norway, we think it’s democratic that everyone can have the same opportunities and move out of being poor. Social differences are something Norway does not accept.”

I traveled to Norway in April, disillusioned after nine years of reporting on child care in the U.S., where parents often pay exorbitant sums for care that comes with no guarantee of quality and relies on underpaid workers. I was eager to see a country that prioritizes child care and generously subsidizes that system, two things that feel wholly out of reach in the United States. 

Norway’s model comes from a deep-seated belief that creating productive, contributing members of society starts at birth. The country offers robust social support for residents, making occurrences like the 2011 attacks that much more shocking. Investing in early childhood is seen “both as an investment for the society and an investment for the child,” said Kristin Aasta Morken, program leader of the city of Oslo’s initiative for upbringing and education. Unlike in America, no attempts have been made to lower age requirements for kindergarten teachers or increase student-teacher ratios and group sizes, and there have been few debates over whether child care is ruining children or families. Ironically, Norway’s policies have been inspired in part by American studies that found language gaps between higher- and lower-income children, as well as a high return on investment for early childhood programs.

“The argument I’ve heard is that if you don’t send your children to kindergarten, then you steal some possible experiences from them,” said Adrian Kristinsønn Jacobsen, a doctoral candidate at Norway’s University of Stavanger who studies nature-based early childhood science education and is a parent of two young children. “You sort of don’t give them the chance to play with other children so much, for instance, or get to know other adults.”

At a time when the U.S. has yet to meaningfully invest in widespread, high-quality child care for all, especially for infants and toddlers — and federal child care spending, provided to states through block grants, reaches only 13 percent of eligible American children — Norway provides an example of what affordable, universal, child-centric early care can look like.

To be sure, there are important contexts behind each country’s approach. Norway, a democracy with a figurehead monarchy, is home to about 5.5 million people, about 82 percent of whom are of Norwegian ancestry, across a space roughly the size of Montana. The U.S. has 62 times the number of residents and a far more diverse population. Norway is a top producer of oil which helped generate a per capita household income that was over $104,000 in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund. In 2022, per capita household income in the U.S. was about $77,000.

The countries’ priorities are different as well. Each year, nearly 1.4 percent of Norway’s GDP is spent on early childhood programs, compared with less than 0.4 percent in America. Public funding covers 85 percent of operating costs for child care programs. The tuition parents pay has been capped at 2,000 kroner (about $190) a month for the first child, with a 30 percent discount for the second. Tuition for a third child is free. This applies to both public and private programs, including in-home centers, giving parents some choice. Programs receive funding based on the number of children served, with sites drawing double the amount of money for each child under 3 to account for lower student-teacher ratios. 

Norwegian children are guaranteed a spot in a kindergarten after they turn 1, around the time many parents’ paid leave ends. All kindergartens are governed by the same framework and requirements, designed to protect the sanctity of the early years. If parents don’t send their children to child care, they receive financial assistance to keep them at home.

Norwegians are so serious about the right to child-centric early care, they wrote it into law. The country’s Kindergarten Act, which took effect in 2006, states that child care programs must acknowledge “the intrinsic value” of childhood. Programs must be rooted in values including forgiveness, equality, solidarity and respect for human worth. Through kindergartens, children are meant to learn to take care of each other and develop friendships. Programs are ordered to respect children, “counteract all forms of discrimination” and contribute to a child’s well-being and joy. They must be designed around the interests of children and provide activities that allow children to develop their “creative zest, sense of wonder and need to investigate.”

That doesn’t mean kids run free all day, though at times it can look like that. “If you’re standing outside a Norwegian kindergarten or just passing through, I would think you are looking at chaos,” said Anne Karin Frivik, head of kindergartens in the Bjerke borough of north Oslo. “But for us on the inside, it’s organized chaos. The autonomy of the child, the child’s own ability to choose and to learn and to interact, it’s very, very highly appreciated.”

About 7 miles north of Oslo, Sylvia Lorentzen’s two child care programs straddle a narrow, winding road amid the lush forests that encircle part of the city, offering limitless opportunities for children to immerse themselves in nature. Throughout the year, those in Lorentzen’s care ski, sled, swim, canoe, climb rocks and rest in hammocks. Around age 4, they learn how to safely use a knife. Then they huddle together outside, whittling wooden figures out of sticks to practice. At 5, they are cutting logs with a saw and building fires. 

By 11 on a Tuesday morning this spring, it was barely above freezing, but toddlers at one of Lorentzen’s programs, Turi Sletners Barnehave, had yet to set foot inside. Bundled up in colorful snowsuits and boots, they crunched through several inches of snow blanketing their picturesque play yard, splashed through muddy puddles and giggled as they chased Lorentzen’s petite, playful dog around the yard.

“Children should feel more like it’s a second home,” said Lorentzen. “We take the kids into our heart and we take good care of them.”

As the morning wore on, the five toddlers made their way up a gentle slope and stepped inside a large tent, modeled after one commonly used by the Indigenous Sami people of Northern Europe. There, the children crowded around a metal firepit and peered at the remnants of their last bonfire.

“What did you find?” their teacher, Paula García Tadeo, asked in Norwegian as a child held up some charcoal remnants. García looked closely and nodded, before instructing the child to put it back.

Another child reached into the remnants and started to taste an ashy piece of wood.

“Don’t eat it,” Garcia said calmly.

“In the kindergarten in Norway, the children find their own food!” Lorentzen joked to me, laughing. “Don’t write that!”

After a bit more exploring and singing some nursery rhymes, the toddlers set off across the play yard. Some wandered over to watch a rushing stream a few feet away, and others stumbled through the snow before sitting down to rest. The more confident walkers among them marched ahead, toward the warm meal that awaited them inside.

For Lorentzen and many other early educators here, this sort of laid-back morning, marked by child-led outdoor exploration, signifies how childhood and child care should look. Nature and outdoor play are staples of Norwegian culture. There’s even a word for it: “friluftsliv,” which translates to “outdoor life.” Norwegians are so protective of this outdoor time, they have a saying, “There is no bad weather, just bad clothes.” It’s standard for Norwegian kindergartens to have rows of cubbies just inside the door to the play area to store layers of spare clothes, rain and snow gear, boots and mittens.

Some of this outdoor focus is baked into the country’s 63-page kindergarten framework, based on the national law, which dictates the content that must be covered, staff responsibilities and kindergartens’ general goals. The framework focuses heavily on play, a word that is repeated 56 times in the English version of the document. Programs are required to facilitate a good childhood, with “well-being, friendships and play.” Learning about nature and the environment is one of the framework’s seven learning goals for children, and programs are instructed to “use nature as an arena for play.” Much of the other content, like health and movement, communication and art, is taught while children are playing, either inside chaotic-looking classrooms or while traipsing through forests.

In rain, snow or wind, children at Turi Sletners, and in programs across the country, spend their days climbing trees and getting muddy. Toddlers nap outside, bundled inside puffy, miniature sleeping bags affixed to their strollers. During the summer, Norwegian children in kindergartens spend, on average, 70 percent of their time outside. In winter about a third of the time is outside. The country’s embrace of nature is likely a factor in its high international happiness ratings, given that research has found spending time in nature can decrease anxiety and improve cognition.

Researchers have found that Norway’s kindergartens have positive effects on academic success and the adult labor force. “Putting all the pieces together, it’s a pretty consistent set of evidence that there are fairly long-term effects” of Norway’s early childhood programs, said the University of Oslo’s Zachrisson. “Which is funny, because what they do the first year is walking around in the woods eating sand and hugging trees, and [it] is super interesting to try to think of what causes them to do much better on the math test in fifth grade.”

It may be because play is the main way children learn, and Norwegian kindergarten days are overflowing with just that.

At Blindern Barnestuer, a child care program run out of four wooden houses across the street from the University of Oslo, children roam for hours, playing in a magical, expansive play yard while their parents research and teach at the university. On an April afternoon, a group of children crowded around a teacher sitting at a bench outside as he painted various insects on their faces on request.

Other kids chased each other up gentle hills as a nearby pirate flag, suspended from the branches of a knobby tree, waved. A group of preschoolers traversed an obstacle course constructed of wooden pallets and boards, clutching each other’s coats for stability. Some climbed trees and dangled from branches.

As Anne Gro Stumberg, one of the kindergarten’s lead teachers, known as a “pedagogical leader” in Norway, showed me around the outdoor play space, I commented on how Norwegians seemed to have a much higher risk tolerance for children’s play. In addition to the fire and knives that I had seen at other programs, preschoolers chased each other with brooms, fell several feet from tree limbs and stood on swings, things that gave me, a cautious American, pause. Nary a Norwegian looking on, however, batted an eye.

“We allow them to experience, and if they fall down, so what?” Stumberg said. 

I asked if she’s had many injuries among the children. 

She thought for a moment. “I can’t remember having one injury, not a serious injury,” she said. 

Stumberg sees endless lessons for children through play. At Blindern, teachers purposefully avoid teaching formal academics, like letters and numbers, unless a child is expressly interested in them. “We think that’s what they’re going to learn in school,” she said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to try to learn [reading] before school. There are so many other things that are very important, like all of the social skills, and how to move and do things on your own and to be able to have your own limits.”

This can only happen, Norway believes, with trained, qualified staff. The national framework instructs staff to behave as “role models,” and Norway’s law is strict about student-teacher ratios and qualifications. Programs are required to have one pedagogical leader, someone with a multiyear college degree or comparable education, per seven children under the age of 3, and one per 14 children older than that. Each leader is supported by two other teachers, who often have less education. For children under age 3, there may be no more than three children for each staff member, and there is a maximum of six children per staff for older children. In America, by contrast, no state has a ratio that low for toddlers. In some states, as many as 12 2-year-olds are assigned to one teacher, who is subject to far fewer training requirements than a peer in Norway.

At Jarbakken Barnehage, in northwest Oslo, director Mailinn Daljord said qualified teachers are vital, as they have a challenging job. One of the most critical lessons is teaching children emotional regulation, a skill that is imperative as children grow. “I want [children] to like being in kindergarten,” she said, as we sat in her office, surrounded by rows of early childhood pedagogy books and a pile of donated, toddler-sized skis. “But I also want them to feel disappointment, sadness and disagreement with others, because here we have grownups that will help them with their emotions, so they will learn to handle those situations on their own when they get older.”

Like Ullmann, one thing Daljord does not want children to experience is bullying or exclusion. As we spoke, she went on her computer to pull up Jarbakken’s annual plan, something every kindergarten must create to explain how it will meet the requirements of the law. This year, Daljord is especially focused on interactions and inclusion. Teachers gather small groups of children during play to provide support with interactions and give them ample opportunity to form connections with peers. During the year, Daljord’s teachers meet to evaluate how much they interact with individual children, a practice Ullmann spoke of as well. Daljord uses a scale: Green means frequent interaction with a child, yellow occasional, red infrequent. Then the kindergarten zeroes in on those getting less interaction. Often, those are the most challenging children, Daljord said.

“You need to do something to make sure all the kids are getting the same, and that they are seen and acknowledged for the person they are,” she said.

Later in our visit, as Daljord walked me through the bright kindergarten, housed in a boxy, modern building surrounded by outdoor play spaces, I was struck by the freedom children had. They could move from room to room and play with other groups of children, as long as they stayed in the area designated for their age group. As we toured, Daljord pointed out what children were learning about: dinosaurs, insects and the life cycle of plants. All around us, children scurried in and out of play areas — the word “classroom” is not used in Norwegian child care settings — laughing and chasing friends. While teachers engaged small groups of children in spontaneous activity at times, for the most part, the emphasis was on child-led play.

Daljord agreed that children in Norway have “way more” freedom — and responsibility — than in America. She told me a story that, to her, demonstrated the former. Nearly a decade ago, while visiting a park in the United States with her then almost 3-year-old daughter, she was approached by an American parent who chastised her for sitting on a bench while her daughter ran free. “Child abuse,” Daljord recalled the woman telling her. She said Daljord “needed to watch her, and stay close.”

Daljord seemed amused by the whole interaction. “Different culture,” she said, as she recalled the story.

Norway’s early childhood policies are indeed part of a distinctly different culture. In 2020, UNICEF ranked Norway No. 1 among 41 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and European Union countries for conditions that support child well-being. Norway spends 3.3 percent of its GDP on family benefits, one of the highest rates among OECD nations, and about three times what the United States spends. In 2020, the medical journal The Lancet ranked Norway first out of 180 countries in a “child flourishing index.” That same year, UNICEF ranked Norway third among 41 wealthy countries in child well-being, as measured by mental well-being, physical health and academic and social skills. The United States, by comparison, ranked 36th. Norway also ranks highly in work-life balance, meaning even if children attend kindergarten, parents still spend hours with them each day, parents and educators told me.

Perhaps in part thanks to these circumstances, children and their families fare well in Norway. Child mortality and poverty rates in Norway are low, and most children report good family relationships. International test scores from before the pandemic showed Norwegian teenagers performing at or above international averages in science, math and reading, though scores have fluctuated over recent years, with the arrival of more immigrants, who tend to score lower on such tests. Nearly 86 percent of Norwegians graduate from high school, and 55 percent earn a college degree. College tuition is free for Norwegian and European Union residents at the country’s public universities. 

Many of the Norwegians I interviewed spoke of a strong cultural expectation that adults contribute to Norway’s economy. More than 72 percent of the country’s labor force works, 10 percentage points higher than in America. Norway’s child care policy has supported this.

Many of Norway’s values are uniquely Scandinavian and deep-rooted. But as my visit went on, I began to wonder if part of Norway’s no-nonsense, easy-breezy approach was because many of the things that keep American parents up at night, like school shootings, mass shootings — pretty much shootings of any kind — aren’t things Norwegian parents told me they regularly, if ever, think about. Norway has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Maybe in America, the strict, highly regulated approach we continue to take when it comes to child care is an attempt to control what we can for our children in a life where so many things feel very much out of our control.

I ran this theory by Ullmann as we drove to one of his kindergartens. I told him some of the things I worry about with my own children: If I hear sirens near my child’s school, is it America’s next school shooting? If I’m at a concert or mall, where will I hide my child if someone opens fire? Do Norwegians ever worry about those things?

Ullmann was so horrified, he missed the exit on the freeway. “That’s really very sad,” he said sympathetically, glancing at me as he took the next exit, crossed over the highway and headed back in the opposite direction.

To be sure, aspects of Norway’s kindergarten system are still being developed, and the country must adapt as its population becomes more diverse. Its first step was expanding access, experts told me. Between 2003 and 2018, the percentage of children ages 1 to 5 attending kindergarten increased from 69 percent to 92 percent. Now, the country is focusing on improving quality and targeting children who are behind in language development.

When it comes to kindergartens, “we’ve known for some time that the quality varies,” said Veslemøy Rydland, a professor at the University of Oslo and one of the lead researchers for the Oslo Early Education Study, a research project into multiethnic early childhood programs that was launched in 2021. Despite standardized requirements, finding staff for lower-income kindergartens, where turnover rates are higher, can be difficult.

As kindergartens have developed a stronger footing, the country is contending with a changing demographic and growing social inequality, testing its devotion to equity and progressive social values. Kindergartens are seeing this firsthand. Over the past decade, the number of “minority-language” children, kids with two parents who speak a language that is not native to the Scandinavian countries or English, has nearly doubled. Almost 20 percent of children in kindergarten primarily speak a language other than Norwegian, and in some cities as many as 35 percent of children are minority-language speakers. During the past decade, child poverty rates rose.  

Part of my goal in visiting Norway was to see how, and if, the country’s system and approach to child care has been able to meet the growing needs of more diverse children. Not all of Norway’s early childhood researchers are convinced that the country’s informal approach to learning works as its demographics evolve.

“This pedagogy has been doing a great job in protecting childhoods … and giving children the opportunity to explore,” said Rydland, At the same time, Rydland said when children have that much freedom, they may not be exposed to activities that could be beneficial, like whole-group reading, simply because they aren’t interested in them. “That might be the same children that are not exposed to shared reading at home,” Rydland said. “That’s the challenge with this pedagogy … I think it works better in a more homogenous society than what we have now, with much more social differences.”

There have been efforts to find a middle ground between the playful freedom inherent to Norwegian kindergartens and a more structured setting.

In Oslo, Rydland leads Språksterk, an initiative run by the University of Oslo, kindergartens in five Oslo districts and officials with the city of Oslo. The project, which roughly translates to “strong language skills” in English, is funded by the city and the Research Council of Norway and is aimed at improving adult interactions with children and ultimately enhancing language development. It’s one of several special projects and interventions in Oslo targeting children and families who are the most in need.

Like many Norwegian initiatives, Språksterk aims to “try to make the social inequalities less,” said Helene Holbæk, who develops projects for children in the Bjerke borough.

Grønland Torg is one of 80 kindergartens participating in Språksterk to help a growing number of immigrant children master the Norwegian language. Fifty-nine children attend Grønland Torg, and they altogether speak 40 different languages.

On a spring afternoon, teacher Hilde Sandnes sat on the floor of her room for 1-year-olds, next to a small cardboard box shaped like a birdhouse, as 11 children lumbered around the room, some playing alone while others interacted with the room’s two other teachers. Sandnes invited a toddler near her to come look at a collection of small, felt stuffed animals shaped like birds stacked inside the cardboard birdhouse, which had been sewn by her mother for the bird unit the children were embarking on. A child reached inside and pulled out a duck, proudly naming it in Norwegian.

Sandes repeated it and pulled out another bird, waiting to see if the child could identify it.

“Stork!” he proclaimed, a word that is the same in both English and Norwegian.

The child looked back over at the duck and excitedly proclaimed something in Norwegian.

“He told me the duck is taking a bath,” Sandnes said.

While kindergartens like Grønland Torg are attempting to adapt for immigrants, educators say not all newcomers are sold on the Norwegian model. Children who have immigrated to Norway are eligible to attend kindergarten soon after arriving, and their parents pay the same low rate, or lower, based on income. Educators said families new to Norway who enroll their children often struggle to accept the Norwegian approach to child care, expecting more academics or structure.

Many families choose not to enroll their children at all, an unintended consequence of a generous but divisive social policy in Norway: cash-for-care, which pays parents who stay home with their children. The idea is to support parents who wish to keep their children home longer — toddler enrollment in Norway’s kindergartens is lower than for older age groups — or sustain families if a child can’t get a spot in a kindergarten. Norwegian educators say children new to Norway are the ones who could benefit the most from child care and exposure to Norwegian language, yet are less likely to enroll before the subsidy expires when children turn 3.

At the same time, kindergartens are reckoning with how to support a steady rise in children with disabilities. Seventy percent of the country’s programs enroll children who qualify for special education support.

As these needs have grown, Oslo has responded with sufficient funding, educators told me. For students with disabilities, the city pays for and sends in specialists for added support. While these services are required for children under Norwegian law, national experts said the quality and extent of services can vary by city.

In America, the quality of publicly funded early learning programs is often scrutinized, especially in the pre-K years. I wondered how the Norwegian government makes sure all this public money is in fact leading to high-quality kindergartens that are adequately serving children.

While there is copious federal tracking of staffing numbers as well as quality and parent satisfaction metrics, Norwegians are skeptical of monitoring and measuring children’s development and do not focus much on the cost-benefit argument around early education. Norwegians largely see early childhood programs as a good that “leads to more equal and happy childhoods,” said Zachrisson from the University of Oslo. “This is what the public discourse is about,” he added. The value of Norway’s early childhood services is not contingent on long-term effects.

Elise Kristin Hagen Steffensen, director of Barnebo Barnehage in north Oslo, described a system based on trust. Programs report issues to their municipality as small as forgetting to lock a window or as big as teacher mistreatment of children. Hagen Steffensen regularly writes reports for the city to explain how her school is meeting various parts of the law’s requirements, and officials may visit, especially if they’ve heard a kindergarten is struggling. There is also copious federal tracking of staffing numbers as well as quality and parent satisfaction metrics. Programs failing to meet regulations face no fines, however; educators were somewhat confused when I asked about penalties for failing to meet regulations, as can be the norm in America. Instead, they told me, local kindergarten officials help programs improve.

“That approach is just the Norwegian model,” said Hagen Steffensen. “I like that very much.”

This sense of trust seemed so inherent to Norwegians that they were baffled that I was asking questions about it. One afternoon, as Frivik, head of kindergartens in Bjerke borough, walked me to a bus stop, she pointed out how fences are few and far between in Norway. The country’s “right to roam” law allows individuals to freely and responsibly enjoy “uncultivated” areas, regardless of who owns them. I mentioned that fit right in with the level of trust I discovered, both by the government toward residents and residents toward the government.

“Nobody regularly checks or scans my Metro ticket to make sure I paid,” I pointed out.

“Why wouldn’t you pay?” Frivik asked me.

Looking forward, Norway’s early educators and experts aren’t quite ready to declare success in building their system, especially as demographics change. They want to see higher quality across kindergartens and more teachers in the classroom to reduce student-teacher ratios, which are already low by American standards.

Ullmann, too, thinks there is still room for improvement. “If you take the money and the structural quality that we offer in Norway, yeah, compared to every other country in the world, these are more or less the most expensive kindergartens in the world,” Ullmann said. “It’s fantastic when you compare it to every other country.” But, he added, even that may not be enough when it comes to the youngest of children, on whom the future rests.

Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at (212) 678-3562 or mader@hechingerreport.org.

This story about Norwegian children was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, with support from the Spencer Fellowship at Columbia Journalism School. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

In this month’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview, Miguel Órdenes explores the factors influencing teacher motivation in the context of educational reform. Órdenes argues that while extrinsic incentives can play a role in motivating teachers, they must be balanced with intrinsic factors, such as a sense of purpose and service. Órdenes is an Assistant Professor and faculty member of the Educational Leadership Program at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago Chile. He holds a Sociology degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a Master’s degree and PhD in Education from the University of California, Berkeley. His research centers on the relationship between educational policy, school
improvement, and teacher motivation. The LtC series is produced by Elizabeth Zumpe and colleagues from the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. A pdf of the fully formatted interview is available on the LtC website.

Lead the Change (LtC): The 2025 AERA theme is “Research, Remedy, and Repair: Toward Just Education Renewal.”  This theme urges scholars to consider the role that research can play in remedying educational inequality, repairing harm to communities and institutions, and contributing to a more just future in education. What steps are you taking, or do you plan to take, to heed this call? 

Miguel Órdenes (MO): I believe that education researchers have made significant progress in deepening our understanding of the large-scale oppressive forces that produce and perpetuate harm for disadvantaged communities. However, we still have a considerable gap in understanding how change can emerge under such challenging conditions. School leaders and teachers facing socioeconomic adversity are constrained by these oppressive forces, which limit their capacity to drive change. For instance, the pernicious effect of high poverty, inequality, marginalization, or institutionalized racism are forces that systematically oppress and constrain the possibilities of action of millions of educators worldwide. Yet, educators must strive to create fairer, more humanized environments where students can succeed beyond societal expectations. This raises critical questions for researchers: How can we support the concrete efforts of educators in the face of these struggles? How can we provide actionable solutions to their practical dilemmas and help them find a way forward? 

Addressing large-scale oppressive forces requires considerable energy from educators within schools and local systems. My research has precisely focused on understanding this energy, which is manifested in teacher commitment and work motivation. Teacher commitment functions as a  stabilizing force in shaping behavior, enabling educators to maintain consistent, high-quality behaviors over time (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001). My focus is specifically on teacher commitment to students facing socioeconomic adversity. While such commitment is crucial for supporting disadvantaged students, sustaining it can be challenging when educators are systematically exposed to overwhelming students’ needs that exceed their professional and personal capacities. In my work in Chile, I have explored the social and organizational conditions, as well as the personal characteristics, that either nurture or weaken teacher commitment to students (Órdenes, 2018).

Teacher work motivation is another critical form of energy that drives educators’ effort in their work. Understanding this phenomenon is crucial for creating work environments that unleash individuals’ full potential and direct their efforts where they are more impactful. For example, some of my research has examined how governance mechanisms and organizational designs in the U.S. and Chile can enhance or undermine teacher motivation, with the aim of providing insights to policymakers and educational leaders (as I discuss further below). 

While understanding these sources of energy—commitment and motivation—is essential, it is only part of the equation. As W.E. Deming famously remarked, education often sets miracle goals without providing a method to achieve them (Bryk, 2021). To address this challenge, I have turned to continuous improvement frameworks, particularly the Design-Based School Improvement approach (Mintrop, 2016). This methodology offers a way to channel the energy within educational organizations into productive problem-solving efforts aimed at improving schools. In Chile, I have engaged in Research-Practice Partnerships (Coburn et al., 2013) to explore how these ideas help school leaders address practical challenges and pressing needs. I have also incorporated these ideas into leadership training programs for Chilean educators, developing resources to support school leaders in improving their schools. I firmly believe that deep, lasting change comes from within. By understanding the sources of energy in schools—teacher commitment and motivation—and using continuous improvement methods to direct that energy, we can contribute to building more equitable and successful learning environments. I am convinced that if we want to support remedy and repair for schools and communities, this intersection of human energy and continuous improvement is a crucial area where researchers may focus to help educators create meaningful and lasting change.

“I firmly believe that deep, lasting change comes from within. By understanding the sources of energy in schools—teacher commitment and motivation—and using continuous improvement methods to direct that energy, we can contribute to building more equitable and successful learning environments.”

LtC: Much of your research has examined the intersection of extrinsic drivers in education and teacher motivation in high-poverty schools and districts operating in a variety of contexts, including in Chile and the United States. What are some of the major lessons that practitioners and scholars of Educational Change can learn from your work?

MO: One of the central questions that drives my passion is how, and under what conditions, we can unleash people’s potential in schools and local systems—to resist oppression or to support meaningful change in education. To address these questions, I have focused on school improvement, specifically examining teacher motivation and commitment within the broader tensions between incentive-based policies, value-normative frameworks, and the effects and experiences of poverty. This is a vast topic, but I will highlight a key insight derived from research conducted by my colleagues and I in the U.S. and Chile (e.g., Mintrop, Órdenes, et al., 2018; Mintrop & Órdenes, 2017; Órdenes et al., 2023; Órdenes & Ulloa, 2024), which I believe is crucial for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners.

Motivating teachers to invest effort in their work and direct it productively is not an easy task. Since Lortie’s (1975)foundational work, we know that teachers are primarily motivated by intrinsic factors such as joy, purpose, and service commitments. However, this is not the whole story. Like any other workers, teachers are also concerned with practical matters, including workload, working conditions, and compensation (Mintrop & Órdenes, 2017; Watt & Richardson, 2008). In other words, they are sensitive to extrinsic aspects of their job. These two sources of energy—intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives—combine to fuel the complex process of teaching in schools. 

The challenge of motivating teachers, therefore, lies in designing strategies that balance intrinsic motivation with external drivers in a way that reinforces, rather than undermines, teachers’ inherent desire to teach. If we idealize teachers through moralistic lenses—such as viewing them just as heroes or social justice warriors—we risk dehumanizing them, particularly those working in difficult conditions. Teachers are also professionals who need supportive working conditions, opportunities for career advancement, and environments that allow them to thrive personally and professionally. To foster effective, high-quality teaching, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations must be recognized. Policies and organizational designs that rely on extrinsic drivers—such as summative evaluations, performance goals, and rewards—must address this dual challenge: they must both mobilize intrinsic motivations to sustain effort and use external incentives to reinforce teachers’ ethical and effective commitment to their work.

Any motivational strategy must be designed with a deep understanding of teachers as professionals driven by a range of motives, and attention must be paid to the complexity of their work. This requires policymakers, scholars, and practitioners to challenge prevailing moral assumptions about teachers and instead develop an empirical understanding of the teaching workforce. It also requires making explicit the implicit assumptions underlying teachers’ work to better understand what is necessary to improve practice.

“Any motivational strategy must be designed with a deep understanding of teachers as professionals driven by a range of motives, and attention must be paid to the complexity of their work”

LtC: In 2021, you co-authored the book, Resoluci Resolución de problemas para la mejora continua: Una guía práctica para líderes escolares, with Rick Mintrop and published by LOM Ediciones. This book is an adaptation and Spanish-language version of Rick Mintrop’s Design-based School Improvement: A Practical Guide for Education Leaders, published by Harvard Education Press in 2016. The book describes a design-based model for continuous improvement in schools and districts and cases of educational leaders engaging in these methods. How did your earlier research shape your interest in this model? What do you hope practitioners and scholars in Latin America and beyond can take from this work to foster better school systems for all students?

MO: I am a sociologist focused on educational change. Before becoming a sociologist, however, I was trained as a software developer, which provided me with an intuitive understanding of design principles. There is a complementary relationship between software development and design thinking (Parizi et al., 2022), as both approaches focus on solving complex problems through user-centered innovation. Design thinking offers a mindset and methodology that can enhance the software development process by introducing creativity, empathy, and rapid prototyping to the technical and logical aspects of building software. 

The parallels between my previous work as a software developer and my current focus on applying continuous improvement ideas to educational change are significant. This earlier experience shaped my attention to practice and my approach to educational change research. Obviously, the human complexity involved in school change processes far exceeds the scope of software development. Applying design principles to human systems requires consideration of cultural aspects, interpersonal relationships, subjective perspectives, and moral concerns that are intricately intertwined with practitioners’ behaviors, all of which can significantly influence school improvement processes and outcomes. So, applying these principles to support change processes with human beings within schools have been a very challenging but rewarding process.

Regarding the book, the original 2016 version was written in English with a focus on schools and leaders in a North American context. To make the book relevant for and responsive to the needs and challenges of a Latin American audience, we meticulously worked to adapt the ideas and concepts to the policy and cultural context and added real-life cases based in Chile. Additionally, the updated version includes lessons learned from the years following the 2016 edition’s publication. Our primary aim with this book is to support and inspire educational leaders in Latin America to foster bottom up and collective agency within schools and local systems (Mintrop & Órdenes, 2021). Latin America has a legacy of authoritarian regimes and top-down hierarchical decision-making that has likely influenced educators’ ways of thinking about leadership and improvement. Therefore, our book is a step forward in offering an alternative approach that humanizes improvement processes by centering leaders’ attention on people, their practical work, and their motivation to generate meaningful change. 

This book encourages leaders to carefully consider and understand the practical problems and needs that education professionals face in their daily work. We invite leaders to think in the change process in the educators’ next level of work (City et al., 2009), considering motivation and adult learning as a launching pad to change. We also encourage leaders to create organizational learning dynamics as an essential part of the continuous improvement process. To achieve these objectives, this book provides a method for structuring the improvement process through a problem-solving logic that consists of sequential learning opportunities created iteratively and refined through trial and error until a satisfactory outcome is achieved. By approaching problem-solving in this way, we hope school leaders will avoid implementation overload and the misalignment between external programs and internal school needs that often hinder school improvement efforts. We also aspire to contribute to the development of a new mindset and skillset among practitioners in Latin America, encouraging them to think about school improvement beyond a compliance mindset, which is deeply rooted among school leaders in the region.

LtC: Educational Change expects those engaged in and with schools, schooling, and school systems to spearhead deep and often difficult transformation. How might those in the field of Educational Change best support these individuals and groups through these processes?

MO: My quick answer is to promote collaboration among all actors and help channel their efforts coherently to solve urgent practical problems. However, several challenges preclude productive collaboration among stakeholders involved in educational change. One central challenge, in my view, is bridging the persistent gap between research and practice. As a field, we are acutely aware of the limited usefulness and impact of educational research in improving quality and equity in education (OECD, 2022). Unlike sectors such as engineering or medicine, education lacks established modes of production and institutional channels that facilitate the transfer and use of research evidence to inform practical decision-making (Bauer & Fischer, 2007). Moreover, the traditional model of research production does not enjoy strong credibility among education professionals (Burkhardt & Schoenfeld, 2003). As a result, research activity and its findings often fail to connect productively with the pressing practical challenges encountered by those responsible for delivering educational services.

What I find particularly inspiring is how colleagues in the U.S. are actively shifting towards more collaborative research approaches aimed at directly serving practice (The Collaborative Education Research Collective, 2023). In this context, the rise of Research Practice Partnerships (RPPs) has emerged as a promising strategy for nurturing ecosystems where key stakeholders can collaboratively develop new modes of research production that are more in tuned with practice. Supporting and encouraging such collective efforts is crucial. 

While this is an exciting direction, it is not without significant challenges. The research field remains heavily constrained by entrenched traditions: the way researchers are trained, the incentive structures that guide their work, the institutional conditions under which research is conducted, and the cultural norms about the purpose of research. These factors all present obstacles to bridging the research-practice divide.

In Chile, for example, there are no strong incentives for researchers to engage deeply with practice, nor are there research training programs that focus on practice-based research—such as EdDs. Furthermore, we lack funding mechanisms to support sustained collaborations between researchers and practitioners. Despite these barriers, I believe we must persist. As a field, we need to actively support and engage in RPPs as a new institutional pathway for reshaping research production. I am convinced that through these efforts we will improve our chances of having a meaningful chance to support transformation and improvement in educational practice.

“As a field, we need to actively support and engage in RPPs as a new institutional pathway for reshaping research production.”

LtC: Where do you perceive the field of Educational Change is going? What excites you about Educational Change now and in the future? 

MO: We are currently witnessing an exciting paradigm shift in the field of educational change. The disappointing results of previous approaches to change schools—such as prescriptive programs, focusing on mere ‘implementation’ of best practices, and high-stakes accountability—has led educational actors to seek new ideas for improving schools and systems. Over the last decade, there has been a clear movement away from the so-called “what works” paradigm, which focused on identifying research-based strategies as the gold standard (Yurkofsky et al., 2020). Instead, the field is embracing the continuous improvement movement, which seeks to understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions. 

I believe that this shift requires more than just methodological adjustments; it demands a deeper transformation in how we understand and engage with educational practice and practitioners. Two aspects of this shift excite me. First, while the continuous improvement movement aims to create meaningful change solving urgent practical problems in daily educational practice, I wonder, what do we mean by “practice”? Practice is not as straightforward as it seems. It refers to the emergent reality that arises from daily interactions where social structure and individual agency intersect (Bourdieu, 2007; Spillane, 2009). Practice is dynamic, uncertain, and context-specific. In their work there is no question practitioners need guidance and structured processes, but they also must rely on intuition, improvisation, and experiential learning—factors that can sometimes elude traditional research (Schön, 1987). To foster effective change, I believe, we need to more deeply understand the nature of practice itself. 

Secondly, fostering change in practice requires understanding how to create conditions that support people’s capacity for change. Here by ‘change’, I refer to changing people’s observable behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes—what they actually do on a daily basis in their work.  While the continuous improvement movement offers strong frameworks for structuring change, I believe, it can be enhanced by integrating insights from behavioral change research. Fields such as organizational change, motivation theory, behavioral economics, adult learning, and the like provide valuable ideas for understanding how people learn, adapt, and sustain new behaviors and practice. By drawing on these interdisciplinary perspectives, educational change efforts can address the human factors that drive deeper and sustained transformation. Personally, I find these two potential ways very inspiring for my own research and practice.

References

Bauer, K., & Fischer, F. (2007). The educational research-practice interface revisited: A scripting perspective. Educational Research and Evaluation, 13(3), 221–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803610701626150

Bourdieu, P. (2007). El sentido práctico. Siglo XXI Editores.

Bryk, A. S. (2021). Improvement in action: Advancing quality in America’s schools. Harvard Education Press.

Burkhardt, H., & Schoenfeld, A. H. (2003).Improving educational research: Toward a more useful, more influential, and better-funded enterprise. Educational Researcher, 32(9), 3–14.

City, E. A., Elmore, R. F., Fiarman, S. E., & Teitel, L. (2009). Instructional rounds in education: A network approach to improving teaching and learning (6th ed.). Harvard Education Press.

Coburn, C. E., Penuel, W. R., & Geil, K. E. (2013). Research-practice partnerships: A strategy for leveraging research for educational improvement in school districts. William T. Grant Foundation.

Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. University of Chicago Press.

Meyer, J. P., & Herscovitch, L. (2001). Commitment in the workplace: Toward a general model. Human Resource Management Review, 11(3), 299–326.

Mintrop, H. (2016). Design-based school improvement: A practical guide for education leaders. Harvard Education Press.

Mintrop, R., & Órdenes, M. (2017). Teacher work motivation in the era of extrinsic incentives: Performance goals and pro-social commitments in the service of equity. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 25, 44–44.

Mintrop, R., & Órdenes, M. (2021). Resolución de problema para la mejora continua: Una guía práctica para líderes educativos. LOM.

Mintrop, R., Órdenes, M., Coghlan, E., Pryor, L., & Madero, C. (2018). Teacher evaluation, pay for performance, and learning around instruction: Between dissonant incentives and resonant procedures. Educational Administration Quarterly, 54(1), 3–46.

OECD. (2022). Who cares about using education research in policy and practice?: Strengthening research engagement (Educational Research and Innovation). OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/d7ff793d-en.

Órdenes, M. (2018). Commitment as struggle: Teachers serving students in the face of socioeconomic adversity [Doctoral thesis]. University of California, Berkeley.

Órdenes, M., Treviño, E., Escribano, R., & Carrasco, D. (2023). Teacher motivation in Chile: Motivational profiles and teaching quality in an incentive-based education system. Research in Education, 116(1), 3–28.

Órdenes, M., & Ulloa, D. (2024). The design of a professional career ladder for teachers: Do extrinsic incentives trigger intrinsic motivation for improving teaching – the case of Chile. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2024.2400776

Parizi, R., Prestes, M., Marczak, S., & Conte, T. (2022). How has design thinking being used and integrated into software development activities? A systematic mapping. Journal of Systems and Software, 187, 111217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2022.111217

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. Jossey-Bass.

Spillane, J. P. (2009). Engaging practice: School leadership and management from a distributed perspective. In A. Hargreaves & M. Fullan (Eds.), Change wars (pp. 201–219). Solution Tree Bloomington, IN.

The Collaborative Education Research Collective. (2023). Towards a field for collaborative education research: Developing a framework for the complexity of necessary learning. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Watt, H. M. G., & Richardson, P. W. (2008). Motivations, perceptions, and aspirations concerning teaching as a career for different types of beginning teachers. Learning and Instruction, 18(5), 408–428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2008.06.002

Yurkofsky, M. M., Peterson, A. J., Mehta, J. D., Horwitz-Willis, R., & Frumin, K. M. (2020). Research on continuous improvement: Exploring the complexities of managing educational change. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 403–433. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X20907363

In the third part of this three-part interview, Tapio Lahtero discusses the impact of the pandemic on student learning and concludes with reflections on Finland’s efforts to develop more interdisciplinary curriculum and to reform upper secondary matriculation exams. The first part of the interview focused on how the schools Lahtero leads responded initially to the school closures and how they developed their digital competence (Leading when following is not required). The second part addressed how the schools Lahtero leads continued to carry out their key role as teacher training schools and addressed concerns about students’ mental health (Sustaining teacher education and supporting students’ mental health).

Lahtero serves as the Administrative Principal of both Teacher Training Schools of the University of Helsinki – Viikki Teacher Training School and Helsinki Normal School. He also leads the principal training program of the University of Helsinki and has written extensively on issues of leadership in Finland.  This post is one part of a continuing series looking at what aspects of schooling and education are and are not changing following the school closures in different education systems. For more from the series, see “What can change in schools after the pandemic?” and “ We will now resume our regular programming.  Previous interviews and posts have also looked at developments in the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Finland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Vietnam.

Thomas Hatch (TH):  What about learning loss – in the US, there’s a lot of talk about learning loss and that students test scores have gone way down and that some may never recover. I know that there has not been as much of a discussion about this in Finland, but have you seen any evidence of this kind of effect on academics or on particular groups of students such as immigrant students or those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds?

Tapio Lahtero (TL): Some students dropped out during COVID, but not that many in our schools. It is not only because of us, though; it is because of the socioeconomic environment around our schools. But I know that in some schools, there were dropouts and teachers couldn’t get into contact with them. Some students didn’t participate in virtual meetings, and even some students who did, wouldn’t turn on their cameras, so we couldn’t tell what was happening with these students. Maybe learning loss is the wrong word for this. Maybe it’s more like “pupil loss.” We lost these students. We don’t know where they are. This is, of course, quite a bad thing, especially because this often happened with the students who had the most difficulties before COVID. However, when it comes to the so-called “average” student there was not as much direct effect on academics, but these mental issues contributed to learning loss indirectly.

“in some schools, there were dropouts and teachers couldn’t get into contact with them…so we couldn’t tell what was happening with these students. Maybe learning loss is the wrong word for this. Maybe it’s more like “pupil loss.” We lost these students. We don’t know where they are.”

TH: You’ve talked about a number of changes you made in response to COVID, including changing the digital environment, particularly in terms of meetings and communication; some new digital tools are being used; and you’ve hired some additional special educators or other staff. Are there any other major changes you’ve made?  For example, many in the US are trying to implement more tutoring, are there other things that you’ve had to do now that you haven’t had to do before?

TL: The school is like an athlete who needs continuous training. When the match begins, they should be in good condition, technically sound, and well-prepared. If there are significant difficulties with teachers not trusting each other or lacking trust in the principal, then we are in trouble. All these aspects need to be in good condition for the school to function effectively. Now, with uncertainty about when the “match” (normal operations) will start, we need to stay vigilant and maintain readiness. It’s crucial to have a solid foundation in various aspects for the school to function well.

The school is like an athlete who needs continuous training. When the match begins, they should be in good condition, technically sound, and well-prepared.

TH:  I’ve used this metaphor as well. I think it’s part of the global lesson, although we already knew it in some ways. When schools or school systems were already in good condition, they took a hit, and staggered, maybe even got knocked down, but they could get up. Other schools and systems that were already struggling are more like boxers in the sixth round who have already been knocked down a few times. When they get hit, they go down, and it takes them much longer to get back up.

TL: Yes, and let’s think about my relationship with my Dean [my boss]. I don’t need to be afraid of our Dean. What would happen if I was afraid of making a mistake? Maybe because of that I wouldn’t have the courage to do anything.  But I don’t need to be afraid, and that’s why I have the courage to do these things.

TH:  That’s fascinating. I’d like to get your take on a couple of other things before we end. Have you seen what I would call “micro-innovations” that your teachers have developed during COVID to help them teach specific skills or topics?

TL: Yes, we have a good example from one our math teachers, Päivi Kivelä. It started before COVID when she was a new teacher. After just two weeks working here, she went to one of our Assistant Principals and said, “I can’t work here; this school is too old.” She said “I have a method, and I need two smartboards – one ‘passive’ and one ‘active.’” The Assistant Principal asked me what to do. I said, “We have to try these boards. I want to see what exactly happens.” We found out that the active” board was a touchscreen where she wrote and calculated mathematical examples, and then her work was transmitted to all the pupils’ computers. Afterward, students could review the examples, and they could see the result, but also the steps the teacher went through. The passive board is just a typical screen for the teacher or student to project examples or answers. And then other math teachers in the school noticed and said they wanted to use this method too. So we put more of these dual screens in our classrooms.

When COVD started, they could use this same method for remote teaching by using a touchscreen laptop computer. Microsoft was so interested in this method that they made their own video [in Finnish] about what Päivi was doing. This is a good example because it is a new pedagogical solution that saves evergy and helps students to learn. Now, this solution has been adopted more widely by our chemistry and physics teachers as well.

TH:  That’s a fabulous example! I also wanted to ask you about Finland’s efforts to develop more of what in the US we call interdisciplinary learning. Here in Finland you call it transversal or phenomena-based learning, and when I was in Finland the last time in 2016, the latest curriculum reform was being discussed, including the importance of pursuing more phenomena-based learning. Now, on this visit, I haven’t heard much talk about it.  Have you seen any innovations in your schools in terms of transversal or phenomenon-based learning?

TL: You actually can’t find the word phenomenon-based learning in the national curriculum. Our new curriculum is quite nice, but I cannot find any major differences with earlier curricula. Some of the same kind of ideas about phenomenon-based learning were found in earlier curriculums. When the new core curriculum came out in 2016 some people and the media started to talk a lot about phenomenon-based learning because, of course, they found the idea very cool. But we haven’t talked that much more about it because it already happens. We use the method every day in primary school education and quite a lot also in lower and upper secondary school education. There may be more now than before, but I think we don’t find a lot of schools where the whole thing is phenomenon-based learning.

TH:  But the latest curriculum does say every student should engage in a module with transversal learning every year?  How do you make sure that happens?

TL: Yes, and we make sure that happens, but not by measuring. I know it happens. In primary school, our teachers have co-teaching sometimes, and I know when they have co-teaching, they do projects that are organized around some phenomenon. It’s a quite normal way for them to teach, and it has been going on for some time. But we have changed our system in some ways. For example, in the Viikki school, where we have more space, all three first grade teachers are in one classroom, and they can group things flexibly, and they have a special education teacher who is the fourth teacher in the room. They have projects where they put different subjects together. And if you read their timetables, it cannot say that this lesson is math; they feel they’re teaching in a different way. In lower secondary school where we have subject teachers, we don’t have as many possibilities, but we also have some co-teaching projects. For example, history teachers, physics teachers, and mother tongue teachers have a yearly project together, and I know all our students go through this project. Every year, we also have other yearly projects. For example, we have a “Light Week” in the fall, and during this week, at the whole school level, we have different projects that link different subjects together to study light and electricity.

TH:  I also wanted to ask you about the upper secondary schools and the matriculation exams. I know that a reform has been passed, but that right now students who do well on the mathematics exams have a better chance of getting in to university. Have you seen any positive or negative effects of that?

TL:  Negative. You can say that the higher level of education always leads the orchestra. What happens in the university always leads what happens at the upper secondary level; and the upper secondary schools leads the orchestra for the lower secondary schools.  When students in lower secondary schools want to get into high-level upper secondary schools, they are very interested in their grades in mathematics, mother tongue, and so on. When we have these weeks for projects, some pupils and parents don’t like that because they are just focused on getting high grades in the subjects. Now, our upper secondary school students know that the system is that you need high grades in mathematics. Even if you want to study history, you need high grades in mathematics. If you want to pursue law or become a medical doctor, you need high grades in mathematics. So all of them want to take mathematics, but they struggle because they dislike mathematics, but they have to do it because it is so important both for the exam and for their grade point average if they want to go to university. Now, they have changed the system, and in the fall of 2024, our new students in lower secondary school they knew that the university system is going to be a bit different when they get there. I hope it’s even possible for people who love history and want to study history at the university to concentrate on history. We really hope this helps the situation. Students could choose more languages, more humanistic studies, and more.

This week, IEN scans the headlines reporting on this year’s OECD Education at a Glance for 2024. Published on September 10th 2024, this year’s report focuses particularly on equity and disparities in opportunities at every level of education. Every year, the report also summarizes recent developments in access, participation, and progress in education across countries. Overall, secondary attainment improved as have educational and labour-market outcomes for youth most at risk of falling behind. The earnings gap between females and males shrank, but girls and women continue to earn less than boys and men, despite outperforming them on most measures. The headlines about the report compiled in this scan, highlight issues such as decreases in education funding and increases in teacher-student ratios in some countries. For some historical context, see IEN’s coverage of previous reports: Education at a Glance 2023 Scan, Education at a Glance 2022 Scan, Education at a Glance 2021 Scan, Education at a Glance 2019 Scan.

Global

Financial incentives not enough to fix teacher shortages across the OECD, EducationHQ

“Teacher recruitment woes are not unique to Australia, with a major new OECD report finding many countries are grappling with critical staff shortages, along with an ageing workforce that carries a marked gender imbalance.“

Albania

OECD report: Albania far from the EU and last in the region for digital skills, CNA.al

Australia

New report highlights inequity in Australia’s schools, The Educator

“Australia significantly underperforms against most OECD countries when it comes to investing in public
schools, new data shows.“

Australia spending more on private schools than other developed nations, Nine News

“The gap in Australia’s education system has been revealed in new research examining
global schooling trends.”

Brazil

Brazil’s compulsory schooling surpasses OECD average, Agência Brasil

Finland

Education at a Glance: Major gender differences in education paths found among OECD countries – international comparison shows Finland’s situation remains largely unchanged, Finnish Government

“The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published its Education at a Glance, an annual publication of indicators describing education systems.”

Hungary

Ministry: OECD acknowledges achievements of Hungarian public education, The Budapest Times

“A high proportion of children in Hungary receive pre-school education, while the
ratio of children to teachers and the number of students who drop out or repeat a grade is below average…”

Ireland

Ireland ranks last in investment in education in OECD, RTE

“The organisation’s latest Education at a Glance report places Ireland last out of 34 countries when it comes to the proportion of its GDP that it invests in education.”

Irish principals condemn ‘vacuous’ OECD review which missed ‘severe deprivation’ in some schools, The Irish Times

Italy

Italian female college graduates earn half the income of men, Agenzia ANSA

“Young women with a university degree in Italy on average earn roughly half the income of their male counterparts, or 58%, the widest gender gap recorded in the 38-country area of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD), according to a report out on Tuesday.”

Korea

Young Korean women are more educated, less employed than men, OECD finds, The Hankyoreh

Korean teachers handling larger classes, but starting pay lags behind OECD average, The Korea Herald

Portugal

Immigrant students up by 160%, The Portugal News

“The number of immigrant students in Portuguese schools has increased by 160% over the last five years, and the Ministry of Education is preparing a set of mechanisms for schools to integrate these children and young people.”

Portuguese families lead in preschool spending, The Portugal News

Spain

School enrolment for 0 to 3-year-olds in Spain rises ten points in a decade, exceeding OECD and EU averages, La Moncloa

Türkiye

Türkiye’s school enrollment hits 98.8% for ages 6-14 in 2023, Daily Sabah

“In Türkiye, as of 2023, the school enrollment rate for the 6-14 age group was 98.8%, while the education participation rate for the 15-19 age group was 73%.”

United Kingdom

UK among nations with lowest spending per child on pre-primary education – OECD, Guardian-Series

“In early childhood education, expenditure per child in the UK is around 6,893 dollars (£5,272), according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) latest Education at a Glance study. This is compared with around 11,735 dollars (£8,976) per child on average across OECD countries with data available.”

UK primary class sizes among biggest in industrialised world, report finds, The Guardian

“Only Chile exceeds UK’s 27 pupils a class in OECD study, with UK pupil-teacher ratio also among highest.”

In this month’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview, Lauren Yoshizawa shares her insights on how research can remedy educational inequality and contribute to a more just future in education. Drawing from her work at the intersection of school improvement efforts and research use, Yoshizawa emphasizes the importance of contextual understanding, theoretical frameworks, and local expertise in addressing educational inequities. Yoshizawa is an Assistant Professor of Education at Colby College. Her research focuses on policy implementation and understanding when and how educational organizations change The LtC series is produced by Elizabeth Zumpe and colleagues from the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. A pdf of the fully formatted interview is available on the LtC website.

Lead the Change (LtC): The 2025 AERA theme is “Research, Remedy, and Repair: Toward Just Education Renewal.” This theme urges scholars to consider the role that research can play in remedying educational inequality, repairing harm to communities and institutions, and contributing to a more just future in education. What steps are you taking, or do you plan to take, to heed this call?

Lauren Yoshizawa (LY): My answer to this question draws on two different areas of my work. Most of my
previous research has been positioned at the intersection between school improvement efforts and research use. The conventional way of understanding the role of research in supporting school improvement is through “instrumental use”—the idea that decision-makers will select and implement programs and practices based on available evidence of their effectiveness. Yet based on my research, I agree with others who have pointed out that evidence that something is effective is not the same thing as having a theory for why or how to get there. For example, when policies and tools that promote instrumental use are put into practice, they can yield narrow thinking about effectiveness (i.e., something either is or is not effective, has a large effect size or not) and about decision-making (i.e., to do something or not), while obscuring other ways that research can contribute to one’s thinking. A significant but often overlooked benefit of research is in providing frameworks for understanding problems and solutions (e.g., Farrell & Coburn, 2016; Trujillo, 2016).

Recently, I have been doing more work on rural education in my teaching and scholarship, which has also shaped my thinking about the power of theory and context in studying educational inequality. In a forthcoming chapter on “Educational Politics and Spatial Injustice,” I explain that it is not enough to document the fact that educational opportunities are unequally distributed across geography. To meaningfully inform policy and practice, our understanding of geographic inequities should be grounded in and contribute to theories on the spatiality of power, privilege, oppression, and representation. For example, research on educational access shows that where schools are closed, where new schools are opened, and where colleges are established tends to recreate and exacerbate racial and socioeconomic inequality (Buras, 2011; Hillman, 2016; Tieken & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019). As these scholars explain, theory helps us see that this is neither coincidental nor unavoidable but reflects capitalist and postcolonial systematic disinvestment in rural and urban communities, and structural racism that shapes how people value and divide neighborhoods and attempt to accumulate advantage. Furthermore, as many others have argued (e.g., Butler & Sinclair, 2020; Morrison et al., 2023), research and practice with marginalized and peripheralized communities, including rural ones, should consider the importance of place, of local voices and knowledges, and of problematizing simplified deficit narratives.

Therefore, when I think about the role that research can play in remedying educational inequality, I think of research that provides a conceptual roadmap for changing schools, that questions implicit assumptions about what problems demand what solutions, that sheds light on how change actually happens, and that draws on local, contextualized expertise. To emphasize these points, my courses rely heavily on partnerships with local schools, start with students listening to educators and decision-makers, and focus on articulating theories of change. I have spent the last few years in my research also listening to teachers describe their schools, their practice, and their efforts to change it. In my next research project, I plan to develop and partner with a network of rural teachers here in Maine who want to work on practitioner research. I hope this will be a way of building evidence about the unique and strengths concerns of rural schools and engaging educators in the process of using research to critically reflect on their practice (Penuel & Gallagher, 2017; Rust, 2009).

“When I think about the role that research can play in remedying educational inequality, I think of research that provides a conceptual roadmap for changing schools.“

LtC: In your research, you have observed and interviewed state, district, and school leaders to understand how they think about research and using research. What might practitioners and scholars take from this work to foster better school systems for all students?

LY: My work on research use corroborates other recent studies showing that decision-makers believe it is possible for research to be relevant, trustworthy, and valuable to their work (e.g., Penuel et al., 2016). But my study on how states and districts adapted and implemented the ESSA evidence requirements to fit their contexts revealed that the research community can do better. I see two major takeaways.

First, scholars should be attentive to the goals and concerns of practitioners who are trying to use research. In my 2021 article on states’ implementation of the evidence requirements embedded in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), I found that there are multiple ways to interpret the purpose of using research. Some state administrators suggested that the important thing is that, in the end, schools are using evidence-based practices regardless of whether or how they encounter research itself. From this perspective, the role of research is simply to circumscribe a set of promising practices, and the real challenge of improving schools rests on careful implementation. Other state administrators created resources and structures to guide educators through the process of consulting research when evaluating interventions and making decisions. And others focused on building their own repositories of local evidence. In my article, I wrote that these varied approaches reflected administrators’ perceptions of necessary tradeoffs between rigor and relevance, or between focusing either on “good” (research-informed) decisions or good implementation (of research-based practices). That is, administrators were skeptical that research existed that was well-designed with significant results and in contexts that could generalize to their diverse districts, or they saw evidence of effectiveness as separate from tools that helped them understand how to enact effective practices. Therefore, education researchers can make deliberate efforts to counteract what is sometimes seen as urban-centricity, studying what works in small schools and rural schools and schools serving different student populations, and/or highlighting to what degree and why they see their findings generalizing across school and student contexts. And researchers can more explicitly explain their findings contribute to a synergistic understanding of a particular phenomenon, combined with others’ work across a more diverse set of research methodologies. For example, an effectiveness study could highlight in-depth qualitative studies on what those interventions look like in the classroom and suggest practical measures that teachers could use to study their own implementation.

Second, making research useful to practitioners requires a focus on making research meaningful. In my 2022 follow-up study on district-level implementation of the evidence requirements, I suggest that policy efforts to simplify the process of research use (e.g., to distill considerations of research quality into single ratings, to consolidate findings in short summaries) may have unintentionally made it more difficult for practitioners to figure out how to integrate research into their own grounded understanding of what works and why. Drawing on a conceptual framework of research and practice as separate “cultural worlds” (Coburn et al., 2013), I examined the ways that research-based tools spanned the research-practice gap. I studied how practitioners made use of tools such as handbooks and templates that indicated where and how research should be used, and resources such as the What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence for ESSA repositories that summarize research conclusions. Such tools can capture particular understandings from the research community and bring them into practitioners’ decision-making meetings, but they also can lose context and nuance. I found that educators used these tools, but with more attention to compliance than to making meaning from research. I call this in part a problem of incommensurability between research-based knowledge—as simplified, packaged, and elevated by these tools— and educators’ deep practice-based knowledge. If scholars and policymakers want to support the meaningful use of research for improving schools, they might imagine what it would look like to articulate research findings, their value, and their implications in ways that, as CochranSmith and Lytle (1999) would put it, make them open to interpretation, interrogation, and integration with educators’ own knowledge.

“Making research useful to practitioners requires a focus on making research meaningful.”

LtC: Your work has explored policy implementation in schools and districts
operating in a variety of contexts, including some facing pressure to improve. What are some of the major lessons that practitioners and scholars of Educational Change can learn from your work?

LY: My research on evidence requirements has highlighted some of the challenges and unintended consequences involved in using policy pressure to bring about change, particularly when the expected change is very complex. Using research meaningfully to support school improvement often requires collaborative routines, trusting relationships with researchers or research brokers, and new ways of thinking—all things that take time to build, and therefore can be difficult or even illogical to impose or import. As I and others have argued (e.g., Weiss et al., 2008), evidence requirements have been incredibly powerful in shifting behaviors and increasing the presence of evidence, but it is not clear if the resulting practices can always be called meaningful research use. In their case, Weiss and colleagues observed practitioners consulting lists of approved evidence-based programs without reviewing any of the research about them, a response to pressure that focused on following the letter of the requirements (i.e., to have, in the end, adopted a qualifying program) but not their spirit (i.e., the considered integration of research findings into decision-making).

While I observed some of the same patterns, more commonly—and surprisingly—I found leaders who prioritized the spirit over the letter of the ESSA or their state regulations. They recognized that the goal of changing practitioners’ relationship to and habits of mind around research and evidence required a long-term plan. That is, they focused on a theory of change and made a roadmap. One state administrator, for example, envisioned a developmental trajectory for research use. She laid out a plan to help practitioners start by conducting their own research to build curiosity for evidence, and to make research relevant not by translating the work of others but by studying oneself. Building from this experience, practitioners could then gradually develop the skills and dispositions to seek, use, and conduct rigorous research.

By some definitions, some of what I observed above could be labeled as ceremonial responses to policies, or a lack of implementation fidelity. But I think of it instead as an example of leaders making policy pressure meaningful—related to “crafting coherence” (Honig & Hatch, 2004), but specifically about filling in the why and how when interpreting policy demands. I therefore see two lessons about trying to bring about improvement through accountability pressure and imposing requirements. First, my studies of research use raised concerns that maybe the very requirement of research use got in the way of it being done effectively and meaningfully, at least while practitioners were still learning; pressure is sometimes too blunt a policy tool to be appropriate across a long, complex change process. Rather, when I watched practitioners make their earnest efforts to meet the new ESSA evidence requirements in the first year of their implementation, I wished there was more guidance and accommodation acknowledging how short-term implementation might look different from long term implementation, and more articulation of what it might look like to develop over time as a research-using school or district. Second, given the multitude of external demands that typically face schools, leaders must consider when it might be important to buffer practitioners from particular pressures, so that they can focus their attention on the process of working toward a goal rather than on compliance (Honig & Hatch, 2004; Park et al., 2013).

LtC: Educational Change expects those engaged in and with schools, schooling, and school systems to spearhead deep and often difficult transformation. How might those in the field of Educational Change best support these individuals and groups through these processes?

LY: Recently, I interviewed teachers in the state of Maine about changes they made to their curricular or instructional practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I was interested to hear from the ground up about how teachers conceived of change and made it happen. Over two rounds of interviews, first in spring 2023 and then again in spring 2024, my research team asked teachers to walk us through a change in their thinking and practice that they made during the pandemic and that they found to be impactful. We also interviewed about a dozen school and district leaders. Preliminary analysis has revealed some insights about what it takes for teachers to make change and what might support them. Building on Coburn’s (2003) conceptualization of depth in reform implementation, I coded each teacher’s change as low (surface level or external to teaching and learning) or high (involving teacher beliefs or how students interact with the curriculum and others). Almost half of the changes were low in depth when we interviewed teachers in 2023. These tended to be changes that started right away in the spring of 2020 and were made in response to some requirement or school or district professional development (e.g., to adopt a particular technology). But when we interviewed teachers again in 2024, a small group of these teachers described how their changes had increased in depth. As conditions changed in schools post-pandemic, they pivoted and figured out whether to drop the new practice, keep it, or adapt it. One possible takeaway is that a little cognitive dissonance may prompt teachers to reflect on not merely whether a new practice is better, but why and whether that “why” can be enacted in other ways.

I found a similar phenomenon when analyzing interviews with teachers and leaders who engaged in changes related to socioemotional learning (SEL). Teachers and leaders expressed a variety of interpretations and framings of SEL (e.g., an expression of care versus an area of professional knowledge). Sometimes the framing of SEL helped to draw connections between different parts of
teachers’ work and unify a school staff, but also sometimes the framing made it difficult to push for deeper change. The way SEL was framed depended on how leaders tried to acknowledge and clarify both the ways in which new SEL practices built on familiar practices and understandings and the ways in
which it would involve a learning curve. These findings build on some well-known truths about educational change. Teachers need time for sustained engagement with new practices and for critical reflection. Sometimes focusing on ease of implementation or simple effectiveness (i.e., “it works”) might shortcut those aspects of the change process. Making change seem familiar can be motivating, but
familiarity can lead to assimilating reforms into existing frameworks rather than deeper changes in thinking and practice (Spillane et al., 2002). Leaders can carefully reframe a change in ways that highlight where it differs from prior conceptions, and thereby motivate teachers to engage over a longer trajectory of professional learning needed to make that change.

LtC: Where do you perceive the field of Educational Change is going? What excites you about Educational Change now and in the future?

LY: As I discussed previously in this publication, what excites me most about the field of Educational Change right now is the opportunity to study how the pandemic opened a window for new thinking, new imperatives, and new practices—and which changes persist. As described above, my recent research has primarily focused on teachers’ experiences in the pandemic and the new possibilities they envisioned and made happen in their classrooms. I see this as a time to think broadly and search widely for examples of how schooling changed, bring them to light, and learn what really makes a window of
opportunity for change. The pandemic shed light on two important avenues for work in educational change. First, the pandemic brought attention to the salience of geography and spatiality, from
transportation and internet access and how access to these resources shape inequitable access to education, to reconsidering what constitutes a “learning space.” Second, there is heightened awareness of the importance of collegiality in schools after the pandemic disrupted many of those routines and norms, and there is a need in many places to figure out ways to address teacher isolation and rebuild
structures and cultures of collaboration. In my research about teachers’ responses to the pandemic, I was struck by how many teachers described a process of problem-solving, innovating, struggling, and learning almost entirely on their own. That is why I am so excited that colleagues in my region of central
Maine are taking steps to build new partnerships and networks between our districts, colleges, and universities to bring educators together and set some shared goals for professional development, research, and teaching.

References:

Buras, K. L. (2011). Race, charter schools, and conscious capitalism: On the spatial
politics of whiteness as property (and the unconscionable assault on black New Orleans). Harvard Educational Review, 81(2), 296-331.

Butler, A., & Sinclair, K. A. (2020). Place matters: A critical review of place inquiry and spatial methods in
education research. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 64-96.

Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking scale: Moving beyond numbers to deep and lasting change. Educational Researcher, 32(6), 3-12.

Coburn, C. E., Penuel, W. R., & Geil, K. E. (2013). Research-practice partnerships: A strategy for leveraging research for educational improvement in school districts.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in
communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249-305. https://doi.org/10.2307/1167272

Farrell, C. C., & Coburn, C. E. (2016). What is the conceptual use of research, and why
is it important? William T. Grant Foundation. http://wtgrantfoundation.org/conceptual-use-research-important

Hillman, N. W. (2016). Geography of college opportunity: The case of education deserts. American Educational Research Journal, 53(4), 987-1021.

Honig, M. I., & Hatch, T. C. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16-30.

Morrison, D., Annamma, S. A., & Jackson, D. D. (2023). Critical race spatial analysis: Mapping to understand and address educational inequity. Taylor & Francis.

Park, V., Daly, A. J., & Guerra, A. W. (2013). Strategic framing: How leaders craft the meaning of data use for equity and learning. Educational Policy, 27(4), 645-675.

Penuel, W. R., Briggs, D. C., Davidson, K. L., Herlihy, C., Sherer, D., Hill, H. C., . . . Allen, A.-R. (2016). Findings from a national study on research use among school and district leaders.

Penuel, W. R., & Gallagher, D. J. (2017). Creating research practice partnerships in education. ERIC.

Rust, F. (2009). Teacher research and the problem of practice. The Teachers College Record, 111(8), 1882-1893.

Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J., & Reimer, T. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational research, 72(3), 387-431.

Tieken, M. C., & Auldridge-Reveles, T. R. (2019). Rethinking the school closure research: School closure as spatial injustice. Review of Educational research, 89(6), 917-953.

Trujillo, T. (2016). Learning from the past to chart new directions in the study of school district effectiveness. Thinking and acting systemically: Improving school districts under pressure, 11-47.

Weiss, C. H., Murphy-Graham, E., Petrosino, A., & Gandhi, A. G. (2008). The fairy godmother—and her warts: Making the dream of evidence-based policy come true. American Journal of Evaluation, 29(1), 29-47.

Yoshizawa, L. (2021). Fidelity, rigor, and relevance: How SEAs are approaching the ESSA evidence requirements. Educational Policy, 37(2), 463-498. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048211029025

Today, we roundup some of the many headlines that discuss the banning of cellphones as students head back to school in many parts of the world. Part 1 of this year’s Back-to-School scan provided an overview of some of the many election-related education stories that have appeared in the press as the new school year begins in the northern hemisphere (Politics, Policies, and Polarization: Scanning the 2024-25 Back-To-School Headlines in the US). Part 2 brought together stories addressing the cost of supplies, shortages – particularly of bus drivers, hot weather and other issues (Supplies, Shortages, and Other Disruptions? Scanning the Back-to-School Headlines for 2024-25).

Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones , The New York Times

Cellphone bans in schools take center stage amid mental health crisis, ABC News

There are cellphone bans in schools around the world. Do any of them work?, CBC News

What Research Shows About Smartphone Bans In Schools, Science Friday

Saying phones should be banned in schools is easy. Actually doing it is a lot more complicated, Yahoo! News

School Cellphone Bans Complicated by Logistics, Politics and Violence, Politico

Do smartphone bans work if parents push back?, USA Today

Parents push back on school cellphone bans, K-12 Dive

78% of parents polled want their children to have cellphone access during the school day in case there’s an emergency. Some 58% said cellphone access is needed so parents can get in touch with their children and find out where they are, and 48% said contact is needed to coordinate transportation.

Why do parents oppose cell phone bans? They want to reach their kids if ‘the worst happens.’, Chalkbeat

Cellphone Bans Around the World

Back to School in Central Europe… With or Without Phones, Balkan Institute

European schools crack down on mobile phone use over health concerns, Yahoo! News

Back to school: France tests smartphone ban in 200 middle schools, EuroNews

The state does not contribute to funding this test ban, leaving the financial burden to the country’s departments responsible for funding middle schools, some of which consider it too heavy.

France to trial ban on mobile phones at school for children under 15, The Guardian

Mobile phones to be banned in Greek schools from September, Euronews

Hungary sacks principal for opposing new phone ban in schools, The Strait Times

Netherlands: Nationwide ban on phones in schools underway, DW

Cell phones, smart watches, and tablets are now banned for pupils at Dutch primary and secondary schools. The Dutch government called them a “distraction” that reduces academic performance and social interaction.

Schools in Singapore impose phone bans to reduce distractions, rekindle social interaction, The Strait Times

Cellphone Bans in Canada

On the first day of school, Canada’s new student cellphone bans will face a crucial test, The Globe And Mail

Cellphones will be banned in Ontario classrooms when students return next week. Here is how it will work, CP24

Ontario’s new school cellphone ban has started. Why we should prepare for ‘a hard transition’, Toronto Star

B.C. brings in ‘bell-to-bell’ school cellphone ban, CBC

B.C.’s phone ban in schools: What students and parents/guardians need to know, Vancouver Sun

Cellphone bans in Maritime schools should increase academic performance, says school psychologist, CTV News

We are constantly having parts of our brain being drawn to the phone…So, by just either having it on the desk, in our backpack or in our pocket, as long as it’s in reach of us, our brain is continuously thinking about that. And that diverts the attention away from what the teachers are saying… – Clinical and school psychologist Todd Cunningham

Parents hung up on Manitoba’s school cell phone ban, The Winnipeg Sun

How will the new school cellphone bans actually be enforced?, CBC

Cellphone Bans in the United States

Schools across the U.S. restrict cellphones amid growing behavior, mental health, academic concerns, CBS News

Educators…worry that constant access to social media can adversely impact kids’ mental health. A number of studies have made that correlation, finding that time spent on platforms like Instagram and TikTok can lead to anxiety, depression and low self-esteem as kids get harassed or embarrassed online and compare their lives with the polished and carefully curated narratives crafted by others.

A Look at State Efforts to Ban Cellphones in Schools and Implications for Youth Mental Health, KFF

Back To School But Not To Screens: States Ramp Up Cellphone Bans, Forbes

Eight states have already enacted laws about cell phone use in K-12 schools, including outright bans in Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and South Carolina…Several others are inching closer to doing the same.

Cell Phone Ban Wagon, The Grade

Cellphone bans becoming more common in California schools, EdSource

‘It’s completely wreaking havoc’: Phone ban in Bay Area schools off to a rough start, SF Gate

Many Connecticut schools are banning cellphones ahead of new school year, and more could follow, CT Insider

Indiana’s cellphone ban means less school drama. But students miss their headphones, NPR

‘We’re not there yet,’ Eric Adams says of NYC-wide school cellphone ban, Chalkbeat New York

Back to school for many NYC students means turn off your cell phone, even without a citywide ban, New York Daily News

South Carolina Board of Education approves statewide cellphone ban, WCBD

Several Texas school districts adopt cellphone bans in classroom. Here’s a list, Austin American-Statesman

Schools across Wisconsin are limiting cell phone use this year, Wisconsin Public Radio

For some historical perspective on how the issues have evolved since the school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic, explore the back-to-school headlines from previous years:

• Fall 23: Crises and Concerns: Scanning the 2023-24 Back-To-School Headlines (Part 1) Natural Disasters, Climate Change and the Start of School in 2023: Scanning the Back-to-School Headlines (Part 2); Educational Issues in the News Across the US: Scanning the Back-to-School Headlines (Part 3)
• Fall 22: Hope and trepidation: Scanning the back-to-school headlines in the US; “Over it” but unable to escape it: Going back to school with Covid in 2022; Going back to school in 2022 (Part 3): Scanning headlines from around the world; 
• Fall 21: Going back to school has never been quite like this (Part 1): Pandemic effects in the US; Going back to school has never been quite like this (Part 2): Quarantines, shortages, wildfires & hurricanes;
• Fall 20: What does it look like to go back to school? It’s different all around the world…;
• Fall 19: Headlines around the world: Back to school 2019 edition.