Chee, who is also a sheep farmer, runs an elementary school 45 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona. Many children travel more than two hours each way from their homes on the reservation. They are immediately immersed in a “no excuses” culture, as the first Native American school to become a member of a national college prep program. He expects each of his students to plan for college.
When Chee first started teaching school, he would ask his fourth graders where they were going to college. “They had no idea,” he said. “I would say what profession do you want to go into, and they would say, ‘What are you talking about? »
Chee, who has also significantly improved his literacy rate, takes his students to visit college campuses while they are still in elementary school. They have lunch in a cafeteria at Arizona State University, where Chee is earning a doctorate, and learn about the different programs and courses they could take. They’re “learning the logistics of applying to college,” Chee said.
The conference gave me the opportunity to learn how UNESCO spends years compiling data and looking for common themes. I spoke with Manos Antoninis, who leads the Global Education Monitoring Report, which analyzes data used by policymakers around the world to strengthen their education systems. Because the conference took place before the election, we did not consider what would happen to UNESCO’s relationship with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who severed ties with the group during his first term. The relationship was restored under President Joe Biden; Since then, Trump has not spoken about it.
Antoninis said he hopes the report will spark new ways to develop, recruit and support school leaders, many of whom have come to Brazil to exchange success stories and learn from the inclusion of profiles and comparisons of more than 200 countries. Antoninis stressed the importance of reaching both the poorest and richest countries to collect data.
“An American reader should read the monitoring reports to open their eyes to diversity in equality,” he told me. “You see it in your country, but not in the scale of how people live elsewhere or in the low quality of learning. Some are so far behind.
It’s not always easy to read lengthy reports and listen to the beat of bad news and anxieties that often accompany the latest troubling education reports. I’m counting on my colleague, Proof Points columnist Jill Barshay, to help me interpret the latest NAEP and PISA results by explaining trends and highlighting issues that seem to have gotten worse since the global pandemic. This is one reason why I look forward to moderating a discussion on resilience among global education leaders in Hong Kong next month.
I hope to have the chance to meet more leaders like Chee, understand the numbers, and learn how a school leader can change lives. Chee told me that several of his students have graduated from college in recent years. He cherishes the moments.
“Some of my former students are now teachers, and they come to class and visit us,” Chee said. “Or a family will come and say, ‘Hey, my son is finishing college; my daughter graduated and it all started here.
This story about school management was written by Liz Willen and produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register at Hechinger Newsletter.
