Notes on a special issue.
The fact that one of the most prestigious international journals of political-sociological analysis is to stop the crisis of education and lifelong learning (lifelong and life-wide) with a comparative perspective is certainly an element worth important.
The galaxy of Le Monde, on the other hand, has a magazine devoted specifically ("Le Monde de l'education") and a newspaper that devotes an accurate observation to the news and to report on training in different international scenarios. Training policies are the first to suffer from the government in a dark age in which they seem unable to understand the potential and benefits of a serious investment for its cultural output is from the political crisis is the economic crisis gripping the equally Western world.
Le Monde Diplomatique (in Italy you can read through the work of drafting the Manifesto) devoted, in fact, a Dossier on educational policies within its October issue. The interventions of the international paper quality and intent is respected.
USA. Educational policies, a challenge for Obama.
The first article of the special is signed by the American professor Diane Ravitch, former Minister of Education and with Bush and with Bill Clinton, a technique, in fact. On the other hand Ravitch, who teaches at New York's University, is the mother of the No Child Left Behind Act (Neessun boy left behind) in 2001 that provides educational programs, "malleable" to the needs of each student and will be completed in 2004 by bipartisan reform of the law IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), which incorporates a concept dear to the liberal education of American thought since the doctrines of John Rawls on the "social justice" and that lent his advice (this time in Bush junior), the eminent philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Diane Ravitch points out the importance that had in its 2001 federal law the opportunity for younger socially disadvantaged to be able to take advantage of free training courses and the importance of marriage more efficiently in basic education programs (we are in so-called Mandatory school, the "mandatory training") the teaching of Letters and Science and mathematics. Ravitch lingers - and critical - on the system of the Charter School (midway between the private and public schools because they receive state funding even if founded by parents' associations unmet public education). In particular, Professor Ravitch criticizes Barack Obama's policies tend to favor public funding for charter schools based on the assessments of teachers according to the results obtained by their students. This criticism is present in the current literature and Roland Fryer of Harvard University presented evidence of the need for statistical and economic freedom-based educational input rather than outcome-based. According to Professor Fryer, in fact (Fryer is the youngest African American ever to win a scholarship to Harvard), students must be ensured adequate education regardless of their actual results (records) school.
Efficacy school under a lens. The debate on the effectiveness
school is on the first floor in Europe, when the State demand the teachers to do more with fewer resources and in which teachers and students deal with the reduction of time devoted to learning. In France, the sociologist Parisian Sandrine Garcia shows how effectively the school time devoted to teaching is over in one year by 936 hours to 864 hours yearly, after the reforms put in place by Sarkozy and the government's financial Fillon. Garcia wonders what today are the institutions to which you are assigned the task of democratic and egalitarian of which, historically, the French government had instructed the education system (is historical fact, the mission of the Prime Minister of the Third Republic, Jules Ferry for a "free school, secular and compulsory"). Finally, Garcia even takes care of Adam Smith's argument states that when the public sector should be to guarantee your freedom to release substantial educational and training mechanisms the role of the "invisible hand" of the market. There is, in short, an economic issue of "internationalization" of public policy, public education and its externalities (negative if anything, certainly not profitable in the short term). Garcia complains, however, that the government policy of cuts careless ones operated by the French government, have transferred the burden on families of any educational failure. On the other hand, the teachers are forced to deal with each in itself a situation of political chaos with regard to political learning. The slogan in unison: "Je n'ai jamais vu tel a bazaar!
Prospects international recognition of educational skills.
After an interesting article on the failed promises of democratic government headed by the Japanese Yukio Hatoyama (driving a short PDJ government from September 2009 to June 2010), is followed by a comparative analysis of the European situation of the education sector RPL / RVA (where RPL stands for Recognition of Prior Learning, or for Recognition of Knowledge Base and RVA for accreditation of valid identification). The article, signed by Nico pour une école démocratique Hirtt dell'Appel, lingers about the Warning of the need for increased international vocational training policies can combine learning with technical learning "Humanistic" and ideal-values. According to the author, the skills you need to do now pin, in this regard is the knowledge of foreign languages, math, a technological culture, the social and relational skills, sense of initiative and a spirit of ' creativity and flexibility.
Mattia Baglieri
