This post is the summary of the part II and part III, from the same book of last week. The book with the title above published in 2008 at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/Raising_Student_Learning_in_LAC_Document.pdf
Acknowledging the significance of student learning is only the first step toward improving it. The real challenge lies in understanding how student learning is achieved and identifying policies that can improve it. Learning hinges on myriad factors that can touch on seemingly unrelated variables, from a parent´s education and societal values regarding education to school infrastructure. Historically, education policy has focused on providing easily quantifiable inputs (money, infrastructure, textbooks) to schools and systems. But improving educational inputs does not necessarily guarantee that learning will take place. Empirically identifying the extent to which and how different variables contribute to student learning is difficult, for multiple reasons. Factors influencing learning may fall on the student side or the school side, or they may be part of the education system as a whole. These factors are numerous and complex and may affect students differently. Moreover, they may interact with one another to produce unexpected outcomes. Researches have used education production functions to try to measure the complex relations betweeen individual, family, school, and institutional characteristics on the one hand and endowments and learning outcomes on the other. By identifying which school inputs, or combination of inputs, may be most effective at improving school quality and outputs, this research has great potential utility for education policy makers. To date, however, it has not offered as much guidance to policy makers as originally hoped. Little consensus has emerged over how to create accurate models for education quality. This report approaches the issue of raising student learning by examining student-side, school-side, and system variables. Student arrive at school with a series of endowments and behaviors that influence their learning.The endowments and behaviors of student are influenced by their families and households, those of school are affected by teachers and administrative authorities. The economic, social, and political context of a country provides the background for these interactions. Student performance tends to be higher in wealthier countries, but the relation between GDP and average scores is not very strong. The lesson to be drawn fom this evidence is that how resources are spent on education seems to be much more important than how much is spent. The debate on education financing underscores the difficulty researchers have had in identifying exactly what contributes to students learning. Of course, money must matter, students need access to a minimum standard of resources and materials. Political commitment to student learning affects not only funding but also the types of educational policies put into place. Elected officials often care about showing results while they are in office. While progress in expanding access to schools can be achieved in relatively short periods of time, improving student learning outcomes is a medium to long-term proposition. Thus, unless they are under pressure from the electorate, elected officials are not often willing to be held accountable for improving student learning. Education systems are a mirror of society: Latin America's inequities are reflected in who gets educated, what students learn, and how students and teachers interact. How parents and communities value education can affect how decisions are made at the school level and beyond. Parents' and students' appreciation of good-quality education can not be taken for granted. However, parents do not always educate themselves about their children's schooling or necessarily value school quality over other factors. The social value of education is also reflected in the value placed on the teaching profession, the prestige of teachers in the community, and in turn, the training and salaries teachers receive and the profile and number of people entering the teaching profession. In Latin America the teaching profession carries little prestige. Research has found that student-side factors explain most of the variation in learning outcomes. Some of these endowments are inherent characteristics. Others, such as early literacy, are more flexible and responsive to the decisions and actions of parents, communities, and governments. Household factors and the support students receive at home have been viewed as having the greatest effect on success in school. Research shows that parents' education and occupation are strongly related to their children's learning in the classroom. Such effects can vary according to context. Books in the home have a consistently strong and positive affect on student performance. According to the OECD, an increase of one standard deviation on the PISA Test index of home educational resources and cultural possessions is associated with an average increase of 12 points in reading. Studies examining student and household factors all point to the same conclusion: family background have the largest effects on student performance. This finding calls for policy interventions that mitigate the effects of disadvantageous family background on educational performance. Researchers and policy makers have tried to understand just how school-side factors affect student achievement by examining differences across classroom, schools, and countries. Two categories of factors can influence how schoolaffect student learning: school characteristics (such as class size, materials, and time spent in school) and teacher characteristics (such as teacher behavior, knowledge, and teaching methodologies). A teacher's impact on student learning outcomes is cumulative and long lasting. An ineffective teacher potentially reduces a student's performance for years, several ineffective teachers in a row may compound such an effect. Latin America lags behind OECD countries in the quality of its initial teacher education and ongoing professional development, according to a study carried out by World Bank. While countries such as Chile and Uruguay have made efforts to attract talented students to teaching through schorlarship programs. Ensure that all school have effective teachers, for this many kinds of incentives exist. These include, among others, adequate school infrastructure and educational materials, the internal motivation to improve students' lives, the opportunity to grow professionally, and nonsalary benefits such as pensions, job stability. In most countries, teachers cite working conditions as one of the critical factors affecting their performance. Many teachers-education policies in OECD countries, describe below, reflect these new concepts of quality. These policies can help guide countries in the region as they focus on upgrading initial education, improving in-service opportunities, and collecting information on results. 1) Create a profile of teacher competencies to guide teachers in their learning and facilitate alignment of teacher education, development, and certification. 2) Treat teacher education as a career-long process. 3) Understand the value of flexibility. 4) Recognize that new teachers need special support. 5) Integrate teacher education with school development. 6) Promote professional learning communities. 7) Evaluate programs in a systematic manner. The promise that ICTs can expand access to education and improve teaching and learning process has contributed to their rising profile in education among developing and developed countries. Computer use at home is associated with better test performance. Studies find weak albeit negative effects of student-teacher ratios on achievement, and these affects become even weaker for higher student-tecaher ratios. OECD finds that as the student-teaching ratio rises above 25, there is a continuous decline in school performance in all PISA subjects. In contrast, a study by OECD does not find a performance advantage of smaller student-teacher ratios. The way in which schools and schools sytems are organized and administered can have a bearing on how much students learn and on the equitability of student learning opportunities. The factors that influence student learning are complex and difficult to measure. Moreover, because every child is different, as is every classroom, school, community, and nation, no single intervention will meet the needs of all students, schools. Some common lessons can nevertheless be drawn from the most recent research on student learning in Latin america and the rest of the world. Which policies can raise student learning? 1) Prepare student for primary school. 2) Provide conditional cash transfers. 3) Provide merit pay, evaluate teaching policies, and review the assignment of teachers to schools. 4) Use resources effectively. 5) Give schools more autonomy.
