Education in a Multicultural Society

"As the coronavirus pandemic spread through the country, a common (socially distanced) conversation among friends and families compared how many hours of remote learning kids were getting. Preliminary results from a new survey of school districts confirm what many parents learned through the Zoom grapevine. The number of hours your kids got varied wildly depending on where you happen to live. But the amount of time was not the only difference, according to a recent survey: the type of instruction students received also diverged dramatically."

"Student placement can determine a child’s likelihood of academic success or failure. That’s why so many parents focus on getting their children into the “right” school."

"Thanks to initiatives such as the Federal E-Rate program, which provides discounted Internet access and funding for schools and districts, most students now have the ability to get online while in school. However, once students head home, they may lack high speed Internet as well as a device other than a smartphone, resulting in what policymakers now term the homework gap."

"When Robert Runcie became superintendent of Broward County (FL) Public School District (BCPS) in 2011, he faced more than academic challenges. As the sixth-largest school district in the country, serving over 275,000 public and public charter school students, BCPS boasts an extremely diverse student population representing over 200 countries and over 190 languages."

"If you buy it, you better use it. That especially holds true for K-12 school officials who altogether spend more than $8.3 billion on education software each year, according to estimates from the Software and Information Industry Association."

"In Finland, a speeding ticket can cost six figures. That’s because the country, like several of its European neighbors, fines offenders a percentage of their income, instead of a flat rate. The idea is that the financial punishment ought to fit one’s privilege in society."

"If you’re an education entrepreneur who is looking to break into education, here’s a tip: technology is not the only area where teachers need assistance."

"As agencies like UNESCO call for global citizen education, in an aim to create peaceful and sustainable societies, online education is being increasingly used to boost cross-cultural dialogues and promote shared values through empathy and compassion-building."

"Asking the right questions is a skill. It requires insight driven by experience, a strong base of existing knowledge and deep understanding of the problem or discussion. It’s not easy to do. It is, though, a crucial part of the learning process. That’s why it saddens me that, on the subject of equity in education as recently reported in the New York Times, we’re collectively stuck asking questions we knew the answers to decades ago."