critical problems in education

Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

To receive weekly articles,  sign-up here  

Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

Senior Adviser, Education

Join the Conversation

• Share on mail
• comments added

What education policy experts are watching for in 2022

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, daphna bassok , daphna bassok nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @daphnabassok stephanie riegg cellini , stephanie riegg cellini nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy michael hansen , michael hansen senior fellow - brown center on education policy , the herman and george r. brown chair - governance studies @drmikehansen douglas n. harris , douglas n. harris nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy , professor and chair, department of economics - tulane university @douglasharris99 jon valant , and jon valant director - brown center on education policy , senior fellow - governance studies @jonvalant kenneth k. wong kenneth k. wong nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy.

January 7, 2022

Entering 2022, the world of education policy and practice is at a turning point. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt the day-to-day learning for children across the nation, bringing anxiety and uncertainty to yet another year. Contentious school-board meetings attract headlines as controversy swirls around critical race theory and transgender students’ rights. The looming midterm elections threaten to upend the balance of power in Washington, with serious implications for the federal education landscape. All of these issues—and many more—will have a tremendous impact on students, teachers, families, and American society as a whole; whether that impact is positive or negative remains to be seen.

Below, experts from the Brown Center on Education Policy identify the education stories that they’ll be following in 2022, providing analysis on how these issues could shape the learning landscape for the next 12 months—and possibly well into the future.

I will also be watching the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking sessions and following any subsequent regulatory changes to federal student-aid programs. I expect to see changes to income-driven repayment plans and will be monitoring debates over regulations governing institutional and programmatic eligibility for federal student-loan programs. Notably, the Department of Education will be re-evaluating Gainful Employment regulations—put in place by the Obama administration and rescinded by the Trump administration—which tied eligibility for federal funding to graduates’ earnings and debt.

But the biggest and most concerning hole has been in the  substitute teacher force —and the ripple effects on school communities have been broad and deep. Based on personal communications with Nicola Soares, president of  Kelly Education , the largest education staffing provider in the country, the pandemic is exacerbating several problematic trends that have been quietly simmering for years. These are: (1) a growing reliance on long-term substitutes to fill permanent teacher positions; (2) a shrinking supply of qualified individuals willing to fill short-term substitute vacancies; and, (3) steadily declining fill rates for schools’ substitute requests. Many schools in high-need settings have long faced challenges with adequate, reliable substitutes, and the pandemic has turned these localized trouble spots into a widespread catastrophe. Though federal pandemic-relief funds could be used to meet the short-term weakness in the substitute labor market (and mainline teacher compensation, too ), this is an area where we sorely need more research and policy solutions for a permanent fix.

First, what’s to come of the vaccine for ages 0-4? This is now the main impediment to resuming in-person activity. This is the only large group that currently cannot be vaccinated. Also, outbreaks are triggering day-care closures, which has a significant impact on parents (especially mothers), including teachers and other school staff.

Second, will schools (and day cares) require the vaccine for the fall of 2022? Kudos to my hometown of New Orleans, which still appears to be the nation’s only district to require vaccination. Schools normally require a wide variety of other vaccines, and the COVID-19 vaccines are very effective. However, this issue is unfortunately going to trigger a new round of intense political conflict and opposition that will likely delay the end of the pandemic.

Third, will we start to see signs of permanent changes in schooling a result of COVID-19? In a previous post on this blog, I proposed some possibilities. There are some real opportunities before us, but whether we can take advantage of them depends on the first two questions. We can’t know about these long-term effects on schooling until we address the COVID-19 crisis so that people get beyond survival mode and start planning and looking ahead again. I’m hopeful, though not especially optimistic, that we’ll start to see this during 2022.

The CTC and universal pre-K top my list for 2022, but it’s a long list. I’ll also be watching the Supreme Court’s ruling on vouchers in Carson v. Makin , how issues like critical race theory and detracking play into the 2022 elections, and whether we start to see more signs of school/district innovation in response to COVID-19 and the recovery funds that followed.

Electoral dynamics will affect several important issues: the selection of state superintendents; the use of American Rescue Plan funds; the management of safe return to in-person learning for students; the integration of racial justice and diversity into curriculum; the growth of charter schools; and, above all, the extent to which education issues are leveraged to polarize rather than heal the growing divisions among the American public.

Early Childhood Education Education Policy Higher Education

Governance Studies

Brown Center on Education Policy

Annelies Goger, Katherine Caves, Hollis Salway

May 16, 2024

Sofoklis Goulas, Isabelle Pula

Melissa Kay Diliberti, Elizabeth D. Steiner, Ashley Woo

Featured Topics

Featured series.

A series of random questions answered by Harvard experts.

Explore the Gazette

Read the latest.

Footnote leads to exploration of start of for-profit prisons in N.Y.

Should NATO step up role in Russia-Ukraine war?

It’s on Facebook, and it’s complicated

How covid taught america about inequity in education.

Harvard Correspondent

Remote learning turned spotlight on gaps in resources, funding, and tech — but also offered hints on reform

“Unequal” is a multipart series highlighting the work of Harvard faculty, staff, students, alumni, and researchers on issues of race and inequality across the U.S. This part looks at how the pandemic called attention to issues surrounding the racial achievement gap in America.

The pandemic has disrupted education nationwide, turning a spotlight on existing racial and economic disparities, and creating the potential for a lost generation. Even before the outbreak, students in vulnerable communities — particularly predominately Black, Indigenous, and other majority-minority areas — were already facing inequality in everything from resources (ranging from books to counselors) to student-teacher ratios and extracurriculars.

The additional stressors of systemic racism and the trauma induced by poverty and violence, both cited as aggravating health and wellness as at a Weatherhead Institute panel , pose serious obstacles to learning as well. “Before the pandemic, children and families who are marginalized were living under such challenging conditions that it made it difficult for them to get a high-quality education,” said Paul Reville, founder and director of the Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE).

Educators hope that the may triggers a broader conversation about reform and renewed efforts to narrow the longstanding racial achievement gap. They say that research shows virtually all of the nation’s schoolchildren have fallen behind, with students of color having lost the most ground, particularly in math. They also note that the full-time reopening of schools presents opportunities to introduce changes and that some of the lessons from remote learning, particularly in the area of technology, can be put to use to help students catch up from the pandemic as well as to begin to level the playing field.

The disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 outbreak became apparent from the first shutdowns. “The good news, of course, is that many schools were very fast in finding all kinds of ways to try to reach kids,” said Fernando M. Reimers , Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice in International Education and director of GSE’s Global Education Innovation Initiative and International Education Policy Program. He cautioned, however, that “those arrangements don’t begin to compare with what we’re able to do when kids could come to school, and they are particularly deficient at reaching the most vulnerable kids.” In addition, it turned out that many students simply lacked access.

“We’re beginning to understand that technology is a basic right. You cannot participate in society in the 21st century without access to it,” says Fernando Reimers of the Graduate School of Education.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard file photo

The rate of limited digital access for households was at 42 percent during last spring’s shutdowns, before drifting down to about 31 percent this fall, suggesting that school districts improved their adaptation to remote learning, according to an analysis by the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge of U.S. Census data. (Indeed, Education Week and other sources reported that school districts around the nation rushed to hand out millions of laptops, tablets, and Chromebooks in the months after going remote.)

The report also makes clear the degree of racial and economic digital inequality. Black and Hispanic households with school-aged children were 1.3 to 1.4 times as likely as white ones to face limited access to computers and the internet, and more than two in five low-income households had only limited access. It’s a problem that could have far-reaching consequences given that young students of color are much more likely to live in remote-only districts.

“We’re beginning to understand that technology is a basic right,” said Reimers. “You cannot participate in society in the 21st century without access to it.” Too many students, he said, “have no connectivity. They have no devices, or they have no home circumstances that provide them support.”

The issues extend beyond the technology. “There is something wonderful in being in contact with other humans, having a human who tells you, ‘It’s great to see you. How are things going at home?’” Reimers said. “I’ve done 35 case studies of innovative practices around the world. They all prioritize social, emotional well-being. Checking in with the kids. Making sure there is a touchpoint every day between a teacher and a student.”

The difference, said Reville, is apparent when comparing students from different economic circumstances. Students whose parents “could afford to hire a tutor … can compensate,” he said. “Those kids are going to do pretty well at keeping up. Whereas, if you’re in a single-parent family and mom is working two or three jobs to put food on the table, she can’t be home. It’s impossible for her to keep up and keep her kids connected.

“If you lose the connection, you lose the kid.”

“COVID just revealed how serious those inequities are,” said GSE Dean Bridget Long , the Saris Professor of Education and Economics. “It has disproportionately hurt low-income students, students with special needs, and school systems that are under-resourced.”

This disruption carries throughout the education process, from elementary school students (some of whom have simply stopped logging on to their online classes) through declining participation in higher education. Community colleges, for example, have “traditionally been a gateway for low-income students” into the professional classes, said Long, whose research focuses on issues of affordability and access. “COVID has just made all of those issues 10 times worse,” she said. “That’s where enrollment has fallen the most.”

In addition to highlighting such disparities, these losses underline a structural issue in public education. Many schools are under-resourced, and the major reason involves sources of school funding. A 2019 study found that predominantly white districts got $23 billion more than their non-white counterparts serving about the same number of students. The discrepancy is because property taxes are the primary source of funding for schools, and white districts tend to be wealthier than those of color.

The problem of resources extends beyond teachers, aides, equipment, and supplies, as schools have been tasked with an increasing number of responsibilities, from the basics of education to feeding and caring for the mental health of both students and their families.

“You think about schools and academics, but what COVID really made clear was that schools do so much more than that,” said Long. A child’s school, she stressed “is social, emotional support. It’s safety. It’s the food system. It is health care.”

“You think about schools and academics” … but a child’s school “is social, emotional support. It’s safety. It’s the food system. It is health care,” stressed GSE Dean Bridget Long.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo

This safety net has been shredded just as more students need it. “We have 400,000 deaths and those are disproportionately affecting communities of color,” said Long. “So you can imagine the kids that are in those households. Are they able to come to school and learn when they’re dealing with this trauma?”

The damage is felt by the whole families. In an upcoming paper, focusing on parents of children ages 5 to 7, Cindy H. Liu, director of Harvard Medical School’s Developmental Risk and Cultural Disparities Laboratory , looks at the effects of COVID-related stress on parent’ mental health. This stress — from both health risks and grief — “likely has ramifications for those groups who are disadvantaged, particularly in getting support, as it exacerbates existing disparities in obtaining resources,” she said via email. “The unfortunate reality is that the pandemic is limiting the tangible supports [like childcare] that parents might actually need.”

Educators are overwhelmed as well. “Teachers are doing a phenomenal job connecting with students,” Long said about their performance online. “But they’ve lost the whole system — access to counselors, access to additional staff members and support. They’ve lost access to information. One clue is that the reporting of child abuse going down. It’s not that we think that child abuse is actually going down, but because you don’t have a set of adults watching and being with kids, it’s not being reported.”

The repercussions are chilling. “As we resume in-person education on a normal basis, we’re dealing with enormous gaps,” said Reville. “Some kids will come back with such educational deficits that unless their schools have a very well thought-out and effective program to help them catch up, they will never catch up. They may actually drop out of school. The immediate consequences of learning loss and disengagement are going to be a generation of people who will be less educated.”

There is hope, however. Just as the lockdown forced teachers to improvise, accelerating forms of online learning, so too may the recovery offer options for educational reform.

The solutions, say Reville, “are going to come from our community. This is a civic problem.” He applauded one example, the Somerville, Mass., public library program of outdoor Wi-Fi “pop ups,” which allow 24/7 access either through their own or library Chromebooks. “That’s the kind of imagination we need,” he said.

On a national level, he points to the creation of so-called “Children’s Cabinets.” Already in place in 30 states, these nonpartisan groups bring together leaders at the city, town, and state levels to address children’s needs through schools, libraries, and health centers. A July 2019 “ Children’s Cabinet Toolkit ” on the Education Redesign Lab site offers guidance for communities looking to form their own, with sample mission statements from Denver, Minneapolis, and Fairfax, Va.

Already the Education Redesign Lab is working on even more wide-reaching approaches. In Tennessee, for example, the Metro Nashville Public Schools has launched an innovative program, designed to provide each student with a personalized education plan. By pairing these students with school “navigators” — including teachers, librarians, and instructional coaches — the program aims to address each student’s particular needs.

“This is a chance to change the system,” said Reville. “By and large, our school systems are organized around a factory model, a one-size-fits-all approach. That wasn’t working very well before, and it’s working less well now.”

“Students have different needs,” agreed Long. “We just have to get a better understanding of what we need to prioritize and where students are” in all aspects of their home and school lives.

“By and large, our school systems are organized around a factory model, a one-size-fits-all approach. That wasn’t working very well before, and it’s working less well now,” says Paul Reville of the GSE.

Already, educators are discussing possible responses. Long and GSE helped create The Principals’ Network as one forum for sharing ideas, for example. With about 1,000 members, and multiple subgroups to address shared community issues, some viable answers have begun to emerge.

“We are going to need to expand learning time,” said Long. Some school systems, notably Texas’, already have begun discussing extending the school year, she said. In addition, Long, an internationally recognized economist who is a member of the  National Academy of Education and the  MDRC board, noted that educators are exploring innovative ways to utilize new tools like Zoom, even when classrooms reopen.

“This is an area where technology can help supplement what students are learning, giving them extra time — learning time, even tutoring time,” Long said.

Reimers, who serves on the UNESCO Commission on the Future of Education, has been brainstorming solutions that can be applied both here and abroad. These include urging wealthier countries to forgive loans, so that poorer countries do not have to cut back on basics such as education, and urging all countries to keep education a priority. The commission and its members are also helping to identify good practices and share them — globally.

Innovative uses of existing technology can also reach beyond traditional schooling. Reimers cites the work of a few former students who, working with Harvard Global Education Innovation Initiative,   HundrED , the  OECD Directorate for Education and Skills , and the  World Bank Group Education Global Practice, focused on podcasts to reach poor students in Colombia.

They began airing their math and Spanish lessons via the WhatsApp app, which was widely accessible. “They were so humorous that within a week, everyone was listening,” said Reimers. Soon, radio stations and other platforms began airing the 10-minute lessons, reaching not only children who were not in school, but also their adult relatives.

Share this article

You might like.

Historian traces 19th-century murder case that brought together historical figures, helped shape American thinking on race, violence, incarceration

National security analysts outline stakes ahead of July summit

‘Spermworld’ documentary examines motivations of prospective parents, volunteer donors who connect through private group page 

Six receive honorary degrees

Harvard recognizes educator, conductor, theoretical physicist, advocate for elderly, writer, and Nobel laureate

Everything counts!

New study finds step-count and time are equally valid in reducing health risks

Bridging social distance, embracing uncertainty, fighting for equity

Student Commencement speeches to tap into themes faced by Class of 2024

• High contrast
• Press Centre

Search UNICEF

The state of the global education crisis, a path to recovery.

The global disruption to education caused by the COVD-19 pandemic is without parallel and the effects on learning are severe. The crisis brought education systems across the world to a halt, with school closures affecting more than 1.6 billion learners. While nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied greatly and were at best partial substitutes for in-person learning. Now, 21 months later, schools remain closed for millions of children and youth, and millions more are at risk of never returning to education. Evidence of the detrimental impacts of school closures on children’s learning offer a harrowing reality: learning losses are substantial, with the most marginalized children and youth often disproportionately affected.

The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery charts a path out of the global education crisis and towards building more effective, equitable and resilient education systems.

Files available for download

Related topics, more to explore, unicef goodwill ambassador millie bobby brown calls for ‘a world where periods don’t hold us back’ in new video for menstrual hygiene day.

10 Fast Facts: Menstrual health in schools

UNICEF Chief Catherine Russell meets Pope Francis in a call for peace and protection of children affected by poverty, conflict and climate crises

Shipment of newest malaria vaccine, R21, to Central African Republic marks latest milestone for child survival

clock This article was published more than  2 years ago

Public education is facing a crisis of epic proportions

How politics and the pandemic put schools in the line of fire

A previous version of this story incorrectly said that 39 percent of American children were on track in math. That is the percentage performing below grade level.

Test scores are down, and violence is up . Parents are screaming at school boards , and children are crying on the couches of social workers. Anger is rising. Patience is falling.

For public schools, the numbers are all going in the wrong direction. Enrollment is down. Absenteeism is up. There aren’t enough teachers, substitutes or bus drivers. Each phase of the pandemic brings new logistics to manage, and Republicans are planning political campaigns this year aimed squarely at failings of public schools.

Public education is facing a crisis unlike anything in decades, and it reaches into almost everything that educators do: from teaching math, to counseling anxious children, to managing the building.

Political battles are now a central feature of education, leaving school boards, educators and students in the crosshairs of culture warriors. Schools are on the defensive about their pandemic decision-making, their curriculums, their policies regarding race and racial equity and even the contents of their libraries. Republicans — who see education as a winning political issue — are pressing their case for more “parental control,” or the right to second-guess educators’ choices. Meanwhile, an energized school choice movement has capitalized on the pandemic to promote alternatives to traditional public schools.

“The temperature is way up to a boiling point,” said Nat Malkus, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “If it isn’t a crisis now, you never get to crisis.”

Experts reach for comparisons. The best they can find is the earthquake following Brown v. Board of Education , when the Supreme Court ordered districts to desegregate and White parents fled from their cities’ schools. That was decades ago.

Today, the cascading problems are felt acutely by the administrators, teachers and students who walk the hallways of public schools across the country. Many say they feel unprecedented levels of stress in their daily lives.

Remote learning, the toll of illness and death, and disruptions to a dependable routine have left students academically behind — particularly students of color and those from poor families. Behavior problems ranging from inability to focus in class all the way to deadly gun violence have gripped campuses. Many students and teachers say they are emotionally drained, and experts predict schools will be struggling with the fallout for years to come.

Teresa Rennie, an eighth-grade math and science teacher in Philadelphia, said in 11 years of teaching, she has never referred this many children to counseling.

“So many students are needy. They have deficits academically. They have deficits socially,” she said. Rennie said that she’s drained, too. “I get 45 minutes of a prep most days, and a lot of times during that time I’m helping a student with an assignment, or a child is crying and I need to comfort them and get them the help they need. Or there’s a problem between two students that I need to work with. There’s just not enough time.”

Many wonder: How deep is the damage?

Learning lost

At the start of the pandemic, experts predicted that students forced into remote school would pay an academic price. They were right.

“The learning losses have been significant thus far and frankly I’m worried that we haven’t stopped sinking,” said Dan Goldhaber, an education researcher at the American Institutes for Research.

Some of the best data come from the nationally administered assessment called i-Ready, which tests students three times a year in reading and math, allowing researchers to compare performance of millions of students against what would be expected absent the pandemic. It found significant declines, especially among the youngest students and particularly in math.

The low point was fall 2020, when all students were coming off a spring of chaotic, universal remote classes. By fall 2021 there were some improvements, but even then, academic performance remained below historic norms.

Take third grade, a pivotal year for learning and one that predicts success going forward. In fall 2021, 38 percent of third-graders were below grade level in reading, compared with 31 percent historically. In math, 39 percent of students were below grade level, vs. 29 percent historically.

Damage was most severe for students from the lowest-income families, who were already performing at lower levels.

A McKinsey & Co. study found schools with majority-Black populations were five months behind pre-pandemic levels, compared with majority-White schools, which were two months behind. Emma Dorn, a researcher at McKinsey, describes a “K-shaped” recovery, where kids from wealthier families are rebounding and those in low-income homes continue to decline.

“Some students are recovering and doing just fine. Other people are not,” she said. “I’m particularly worried there may be a whole cohort of students who are disengaged altogether from the education system.”

A hunt for teachers, and bus drivers

Schools, short-staffed on a good day, had little margin for error as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept over the country this winter and sidelined many teachers. With a severe shortage of substitutes, teachers had to cover other classes during their planning periods, pushing prep work to the evenings. San Francisco schools were so strapped that the superintendent returned to the classroom on four days this school year to cover middle school math and science classes. Classes were sometimes left unmonitored or combined with others into large groups of unglorified study halls.

“The pandemic made an already dire reality even more devastating,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, referring to the shortages.

In 2016, there were 1.06 people hired for every job listing. That figure has steadily dropped, reaching 0.59 hires for each opening last year, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. In 2013, there were 557,320 substitute teachers, the BLS reported. In 2020, the number had fallen to 415,510. Virtually every district cites a need for more subs.

It’s led to burnout as teachers try to fill in the gaps.

“The overall feelings of teachers right now are ones of just being exhausted, beaten down and defeated, and just out of gas. Expectations have been piled on educators, even before the pandemic, but nothing is ever removed,” said Jennifer Schlicht, a high school teacher in Olathe, Kan., outside Kansas City.

Research shows the gaps in the number of available educators are most acute in areas including special education and educators who teach English language learners, as well as substitutes. And all school year, districts have been short on bus drivers , who have been doubling up routes, and forcing late school starts and sometimes cancellations for lack of transportation.

Many educators predict that fed-up teachers will probably quit, exacerbating the problem. And they say political attacks add to the burnout. Teachers are under scrutiny over lesson plans, and critics have gone after teachers unions, which for much of the pandemic demanded remote learning.

“It’s just created an environment that people don’t want to be part of anymore,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “People want to take care of kids, not to be accused and punished and criticized.”

Falling enrollment

Traditional public schools educate the vast majority of American children, but enrollment has fallen, a worrisome trend that could have lasting repercussions. Enrollment in traditional public schools fell to less than 49.4 million students in fall 2020 , a 2.7 percent drop from a year earlier .

National data for the current school year is not yet available. But if the trend continues, that will mean less money for public schools as federal and state funding are both contingent on the number of students enrolled. For now, schools have an infusion of federal rescue money that must be spent by 2024.

Some students have shifted to private or charter schools. A rising number , especially Black families , opted for home schooling. And many young children who should have been enrolling in kindergarten delayed school altogether. The question has been: will these students come back?

Some may not. Preliminary data for 19 states compiled by Nat Malkus, of the American Enterprise Institute, found seven states where enrollment dropped in fall 2020 and then dropped even further in 2021. His data show 12 states that saw declines in 2020 but some rebounding in 2021 — though not one of them was back to 2019 enrollment levels.

Joshua Goodman, associate professor of education and economics at Boston University, studied enrollment in Michigan schools and found high-income, White families moved to private schools to get in-person school. Far more common, though, were lower-income Black families shifting to home schooling or other remote options because they were uncomfortable with the health risks of in person.

“Schools were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t,” Goodman said.

At the same time, charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded, saw enrollment increase by 7 percent, or nearly 240,000 students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. There’s also been a surge in home schooling. Private schools saw enrollment drop slightly in 2020-21 but then rebound this academic year, for a net growth of 1.7 percent over two years, according to the National Association of Independent Schools, which represents 1,600 U.S. schools.

Absenteeism on the rise

Even if students are enrolled, they won’t get much schooling if they don’t show up.

Last school year, the number of students who were chronically absent — meaning they have missed more than 10 percent of school days — nearly doubled from before the pandemic, according to data from a variety of states and districts studied by EveryDay Labs, a company that works with districts to improve attendance.

This school year, the numbers got even worse.

In Connecticut, for instance, the number of chronically absent students soared from 12 percent in 2019-20 to 20 percent the next year to 24 percent this year, said Emily Bailard, chief executive of the company. In Oakland, Calif., they went from 17.3 percent pre-pandemic to 19.8 percent last school year to 43 percent this year. In Pittsburgh, chronic absences stayed where they were last school year at about 25 percent, then shot up to 45 percent this year.

“We all expected that this year would look much better,” Bailard said. One explanation for the rise may be that schools did not keep careful track of remote attendance last year and the numbers understated the absences then, she said.

The numbers were the worst for the most vulnerable students. This school year in Connecticut, for instance, 24 percent of all students were chronically absent, but the figure topped 30 percent for English-learners, students with disabilities and those poor enough to qualify for free lunch. Among students experiencing homelessness, 56 percent were chronically absent.

Fights and guns

Schools are open for in-person learning almost everywhere, but students returned emotionally unsettled and unable to conform to normally accepted behavior. At its most benign, teachers are seeing kids who cannot focus in class, can’t stop looking at their phones, and can’t figure out how to interact with other students in all the normal ways. Many teachers say they seem younger than normal.

Amy Johnson, a veteran teacher in rural Randolph, Vt., said her fifth-graders had so much trouble being together that the school brought in a behavioral specialist to work with them three hours each week.

“My students are not acclimated to being in the same room together,” she said. “They don’t listen to each other. They cannot interact with each other in productive ways. When I’m teaching I might have three or five kids yelling at me all at the same time.”

That loss of interpersonal skills has also led to more fighting in hallways and after school. Teachers and principals say many incidents escalate from small disputes because students lack the habit of remaining calm. Many say the social isolation wrought during remote school left them with lower capacity to manage human conflict.

Just last week, a high-schooler in Los Angeles was accused of stabbing another student in a school hallway, police on the big island of Hawaii arrested seven students after an argument escalated into a fight, and a Baltimore County, Md., school resource officer was injured after intervening in a fight during the transition between classes.

There’s also been a steep rise in gun violence. In 2021, there were at least 42 acts of gun violence on K-12 campuses during regular hours, the most during any year since at least 1999, according to a Washington Post database . The most striking of 2021 incidents was the shooting in Oxford, Mich., that killed four. There have been already at least three shootings in 2022.

Back to school has brought guns, fighting and acting out

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which maintains its own database of K-12 school shootings using a different methodology, totaled nine active shooter incidents in schools in 2021, in addition to 240 other incidents of gunfire on school grounds. So far in 2022, it has recorded 12 incidents. The previous high, in 2019, was 119 total incidents.

David Riedman, lead researcher on the K-12 School Shooting Database, points to four shootings on Jan. 19 alone, including at Anacostia High School in D.C., where gunshots struck the front door of the school as a teen sprinted onto the campus, fleeing a gunman.

Seeing opportunity

Fueling the pressure on public schools is an ascendant school-choice movement that promotes taxpayer subsidies for students to attend private and religious schools, as well as publicly funded charter schools, which are privately run. Advocates of these programs have seen the public system’s woes as an excellent opportunity to push their priorities.

EdChoice, a group that promotes these programs, tallies seven states that created new school choice programs last year. Some are voucher-type programs where students take some of their tax dollars with them to private schools. Others offer tax credits for donating to nonprofit organizations, which give scholarships for school expenses. Another 15 states expanded existing programs, EdChoice says.

The troubles traditional schools have had managing the pandemic has been key to the lobbying, said Michael McShane, director of national research for EdChoice. “That is absolutely an argument that school choice advocates make, for sure.”

If those new programs wind up moving more students from public to private systems, that could further weaken traditional schools, even as they continue to educate the vast majority of students.

Kevin G. Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, who opposes school choice programs, sees the surge of interest as the culmination of years of work to undermine public education. He is both impressed by the organization and horrified by the results.

“I wish that organizations supporting public education had the level of funding and coordination that I’ve seen in these groups dedicated to its privatization,” he said.

A final complication: Politics

Rarely has education been such a polarizing political topic.

Republicans, fresh off Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia governor’s race, have concluded that key to victory is a push for parental control and “parents rights.” That’s a nod to two separate topics.

First, they are capitalizing on parent frustrations over pandemic policies, including school closures and mandatory mask policies. The mask debate, which raged at the start of the school year, got new life this month after Youngkin ordered Virginia schools to allow students to attend without face coverings.

The notion of parental control also extends to race, and objections over how American history is taught. Many Republicans also object to school districts’ work aimed at racial equity in their systems, a basket of policies they have dubbed critical race theory. Critics have balked at changes in admissions to elite school in the name of racial diversity, as was done in Fairfax, Va. , and San Francisco ; discussion of White privilege in class ; and use of the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” which suggests slavery and racism are at the core of American history.

“Everything has been politicized,” said Domenech, of AASA. “You’re beside yourself saying, ‘How did we ever get to this point?’”

Part of the challenge going forward is that the pandemic is not over. Each time it seems to be easing, it returns with a variant vengeance, forcing schools to make politically and educationally sensitive decisions about the balance between safety and normalcy all over again.

At the same time, many of the problems facing public schools feed on one another. Students who are absent will probably fall behind in learning, and those who fall behind are likely to act out.

A similar backlash exists regarding race. For years, schools have been under pressure to address racism in their systems and to teach it in their curriculums, pressure that intensified after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Many districts responded, and that opened them up to countervailing pressures from those who find schools overly focused on race.

Some high-profile boosters of public education are optimistic that schools can move past this moment. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last week promised, “It will get better.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said, “If we can rebuild community-education relations, if we can rebuild trust, public education will not only survive but has a real chance to thrive.”

But the path back is steep, and if history is a guide, the wealthiest schools will come through reasonably well, while those serving low-income communities will struggle. Steve Matthews, superintendent of the 6,900-student Novi Community School District in Michigan, just northwest of Detroit, said his district will probably face a tougher road back than wealthier nearby districts that are, for instance, able to pay teachers more.

“Resource issues. Trust issues. De-professionalization of teaching is making it harder to recruit teachers,” he said. “A big part of me believes schools are in a long-term crisis.”

Valerie Strauss contributed to this report.

The pandemic’s impact on education

The latest: Updated coronavirus booster shots are now available for children as young as 5 . To date, more than 10.5 million children have lost one or both parents or caregivers during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the classroom: Amid a teacher shortage, states desperate to fill teaching jobs have relaxed job requirements as staffing crises rise in many schools . American students’ test scores have even plummeted to levels unseen for decades. One D.C. school is using COVID relief funds to target students on the verge of failure .

Higher education: College and university enrollment is nowhere near pandemic level, experts worry. ACT and SAT testing have rebounded modestly since the massive disruptions early in the coronavirus pandemic, and many colleges are also easing mask rules .

DMV news: Most of Prince George’s students are scoring below grade level on district tests. D.C. Public School’s new reading curriculum is designed to help improve literacy among the city’s youngest readers.

The Challenges of Curriculum Design

• Posted June 1, 2022
• By Jill Anderson
• K-12 System Leadership
• Learning Design and Instruction

Ed.L.D. class marshal Simone Wright, Ed.L.D.’22, refers to her in education as a calling. And her decision to pursue her calling, she says, is because education touches everyone and can be transforming for students — especially for Black students — in ways that can lead to an improved society. 

“I really needed the time to think about what it meant to drive change at scale,” she says of being part of the Ed.L.D. Program. “The opportunity to cultivate the skills to lead at scale and influence change. And some of that was the network, but some of it was also really leaning into the opportunity to think a little bit more intentionally about what change I wanted to have.”

The former Teach For America teacher, who spent years working in the public schools and charter schools in various capacities, leaned fully into the experience, especially her residency at the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) as the special adviser to the chief academic officer. She longed for a project that would allow her to lead among different constituenst both inside and outside of the NYCDOE. When the NYCDOE undertook the development of a rigorous, inclusive, and affirming K–12 English Language Arts and Math Curriculum — one that would reflect the diverse experience of the million plus students it served — Wright jumped at the opportunity.

“The project really did push me to bridge the lines of thinking around how the community perspective could inform a teaching and learning strategy and practices,” she says. 

While she did not think that the core of her work at NYCDOE would disrupt the process in which the education space traditionally develops curriculum, she admits that going through the design process, she has realized the value and need for a more user-centered approach to curriculum design.

Here, Wright discusses working at NYCDOE, the challenges of curriculum design, and what it means for a curriculum to be truly culturally responsive. 

Why curriculum design?  When I started my residency, I was involved in everything. New York City was preparing to welcome every student back to in-person learning and had devised a strategy around academic recovery to leverage the ESSER dollars to really accelerate learning as we returned to full in person learning. One of the components of this plan was to develop a culturally responsive Math and ELA curricula that was reflective of the diverse experiences of our students across New York City. I knew that as an aspiring Chief Academic Officer that this particular project would further prepare me to lead teaching and learning at scale, but I also saw this project as a place where there was some additional capacity needed. 

Everyone was kind of talking about culturally responsive curriculum and I believed in the notion of it, but I didn't fully understand what we meant when we said it. I think that curiosity really pushed me in a way to lean in and learn more. 

How did you approach the need for a culturally responsive curriculum? The notion of us building our own curriculum was rooted in the real call to action from different constituents for our student experiences being reflected in their learning. There wasn't a product already built by a vendor that indicated the rich diverse experiences of the students and communities across New York City. As mentioned above, this curriculum was a part of our larger academic recovery strategy, and we believed that after almost two years of hybrid and blended learning, this was really an opportunity to reimagine the student learning experience. While representation of our students and community experiences that are historically underserved was a key driver to this work, we saw this as an opportunity to provide educators with a high-quality tool that could support them with increasing student outcomes for our most historically underserved student populations — Black and Brown students, multilingual learners, and student with disabilities. Curriculum has not always been explicitly designed to equip teachers to meet the needs of each student, particularly our most vulnerable.

How did this play out?   We designed a participatory curriculum design strategy, leading with engagement. Historically engagement when it comes to curriculum usually only entails educators and typically engages educators after the core components have been developed. We developed an approach to design curricula that is responsive to the insights of students, families, educators, and community members. We launched citywide engagement where we asked them, "What are your most meaningful learning experiences?" "What would you want to see in this curriculum?" Other core components of design included continuous loops and cycles of feedback with different constituents to ensure the curricula was responsive to their feedback and high-quality (e.g. standards aligned etc.).  

It’s interesting to think of curriculum design happening within a community. What did you hear from parents and the community?  There was a true call to action around ensuring learning experience really prepared students for the skills they would need to be successful post-K–12, both cognitively and experientially.

There was a lot about how do you ensure school prepares students to navigate the world and ensuring that learning experience really set them up with a level of like thinking required to be successful. 

What does a more user-centered approach to curriculum design look like?  I think it starts with really understanding the end user's experience with curriculum, specifically students and teachers. Curriculum is a core tool to really ensuring that teachers have the knowledge and skill to effectively ensure each student is learning. The teacher facing side is one piece of it, but we actually have to look at how curriculum is informing student performance. 

We have to consider, how does curriculum inform the actual student experience in the classroom? Are students engaged? Can they explain what they're learning? Do students feel comfortable asking questions? Are they empowered to really challenge the ideas or add to the ideas that are coming up in classrooms? Curriculum can be one of the foundational tools to informing a rich classroom experience. If we cannot understand the educator experience — what's working, what's not — we can't strengthen the effectiveness of this tool. 

Once NYCDOE announced that we were building out this curriculum, it attracted a lot of attention from different stakeholders across the ecosystem. We were able to leverage a lot of thought partners in helping us think through this idea of a more user-centered curriculum that really lifted the perspectives of students, families, educators, community members and other constituents, to strengthen a critical and foundational element of teaching and learning. There’s research and education reports that talk about how curriculum is actually one of the most cost effective way to transform student achievement. Most teachers actually say that their curriculum is not aligned with standards and it detracts from their ability to effectively teach students. It's one of the things that we haven't really grappled with as a larger ecosystem as to how we could make it better. New York City really set out to do that. 

Why do you think curriculum has yet to really be challenged in a certain way?  I don't actually know that there are that many people with the expertise to challenge how we approach curriculum development and those with the expertise, do not necessarily have the capacity. A lot of the shifts to make curriculum effective for students fall on teachers. I remember as a teacher, I could never say, "Oh, the curriculum you gave me was bad." I was accountable to ensuring that whatever I put in front of my kids met there learning needs. I took that onus on myself to make those shifts and make those edits, which is unfortunate because that's time I could have spent analyzing student work and really thinking about other ways to strengthen instruction. 

The latest research, perspectives, and highlights from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Related Articles

Planting Roots of Righteousness

Stand Up for Mother Earth!

The do’s and don'ts of empowering young children in the face of climate change

Writing Student-Friendly Climate Curriculum for Teachers

Trade Schools, Colleges and Universities

Join Over 1.5 Million People We've Introduced to Awesome Schools Since 2001

Trade Schools Home > Articles > Issues in Education

Major Issues in Education: 20 Hot Topics (From Grade School to College)

By Publisher | Last Updated August 1, 2023

In America, issues in education are big topics of discussion, both in the news media and among the general public. The current education system is beset by a wide range of challenges, from cuts in government funding to changes in disciplinary policies—and much more. Everyone agrees that providing high-quality education for our citizens is a worthy ideal. However, there are many diverse viewpoints about how that should be accomplished. And that leads to highly charged debates, with passionate advocates on both sides.

Understanding education issues is important for students, parents, and taxpayers. By being well-informed, you can contribute valuable input to the discussion. You can also make better decisions about what causes you will support or what plans you will make for your future.

This article provides detailed information on many of today's most relevant primary, secondary, and post-secondary education issues. It also outlines four emerging trends that have the potential to shake up the education sector. You'll learn about:

• 13 major issues in education at the K-12 level
• 7 big issues in higher education
• 5 emerging trends in education

13 Major Issues in Education at the K-12 Level

1. Government funding for education

School funding is a primary concern when discussing current issues in education. The American public education system, which includes both primary and secondary schools, is primarily funded by tax revenues. For the 2021 school year, state and local governments provided over 89 percent of the funding for public K-12 schools. After the Great Recession, most states reduced their school funding. This reduction makes sense, considering most state funding is sourced from sales and income taxes, which tend to decrease during economic downturns.

However, many states are still giving schools less cash now than they did before the Great Recession. A 2022 article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes that K-12 education is set to receive the largest-ever one-time federal investment. However, the CBPP also predicts this historic funding might fall short due to pandemic-induced education costs. The formulas that states use to fund schools have come under fire in recent years and have even been the subjects of lawsuits. For example, in 2017, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the legislature's formula for financing schools was unconstitutional because it didn't adequately fund education.

Less funding means that smaller staff, fewer programs, and diminished resources for students are common school problems. In some cases, schools are unable to pay for essential maintenance. A 2021 report noted that close to a quarter of all U.S. public schools are in fair or poor condition and that 53 percent of schools need renovations and repairs. Plus, a 2021 survey discovered that teachers spent an average of $750 of their own money on classroom supplies.

The issue reached a tipping point in 2018, with teachers in Arizona, Colorado, and other states walking off the job to demand additional educational funding. Some of the protests resulted in modest funding increases, but many educators believe that more must be done.

2. School safety

Over the past several years, a string of high-profile mass shootings in U.S. schools have resulted in dozens of deaths and led to debates about the best ways to keep students safe. After 17 people were killed in a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida in 2018, 57 percent of teenagers said they were worried about the possibility of gun violence at their school.

Figuring out how to prevent such attacks and save students and school personnel's lives are problems faced by teachers all across America.

Former President Trump and other lawmakers suggested that allowing specially trained teachers and other school staff to carry concealed weapons would make schools safer. The idea was that adult volunteers who were already proficient with a firearm could undergo specialized training to deal with an active shooter situation until law enforcement could arrive. Proponents argued that armed staff could intervene to end the threat and save lives. Also, potential attackers might be less likely to target a school if they knew that the school's personnel were carrying weapons.

Critics argue that more guns in schools will lead to more accidents, injuries, and fear. They contend that there is scant evidence supporting the idea that armed school officials would effectively counter attacks. Some data suggests that the opposite may be true: An FBI analysis of active shooter situations between 2000 and 2013 noted that law enforcement personnel who engaged the shooter suffered casualties in 21 out of 45 incidents. And those were highly trained professionals whose primary purpose was to maintain law and order. It's highly unlikely that teachers, whose focus should be on educating children, would do any better in such situations.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), giving teachers guns is not the answer. In a March 2018 survey , 74 percent of NEA members opposed arming school personnel, and two-thirds said they would feel less safe at work if school staff were carrying guns. To counter gun violence in schools, the NEA supports measures like requiring universal background checks, preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns, and banning assault weapons.

3. Disciplinary policies

Data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in 2021 suggests that black students face disproportionately high rates of suspension and expulsion from school. For instance, in K-12 schools, black male students make up only 7.7 percent of enrollees but account for over 40% percent of suspensions. Many people believe some teachers apply the rules of discipline in a discriminatory way and contribute to what has been termed the "school-to-prison pipeline." That's because research has demonstrated that students who are suspended or expelled are significantly more likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued guidelines for all public schools on developing disciplinary practices that reduce disparities and comply with federal civil rights laws. The guidelines urged schools to limit exclusionary disciplinary tactics such as suspension and expulsion. They also encourage the adoption of more positive interventions such as counseling and restorative justice strategies. In addition, the guidelines specified that schools could face a loss of federal funds if they carried out policies that had a disparate impact on some racial groups.

Opponents argue that banning suspensions and expulsions takes away valuable tools that teachers can use to combat student misbehavior. They maintain that as long as disciplinary policies are applied the same way to every student regardless of race, such policies are not discriminatory. One major 2014 study found that the racial disparities in school suspension rates could be explained by the students' prior behavior rather than by discriminatory tactics on the part of educators.

In 2018, the Federal Commission on School Safety (which was established in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Florida) was tasked with reviewing and possibly rescinding the 2014 guidelines. According to an Education Next survey taken shortly after the announced review, only 27 percent of Americans support federal policies that limit racial disparities in school discipline.

4. Technology in education

Technology in education is a powerful movement that is sweeping through schools nationwide. After all, today's students have grown up with digital technology and expect it to be part of their learning experience. But how much of a role should it play in education?

Proponents point out that educational technology offers the potential to engage students in more active learning, as evidenced in flipped classrooms . It can facilitate group collaboration and provide instant access to up-to-date resources. Teachers and instructors can integrate online surveys, interactive case studies, and relevant videos to offer content tailored to different learning styles. Indeed, students with special needs frequently rely on assistive technology to communicate and access course materials.

But there are downsides as well. For instance, technology can be a distraction. Some students tune out of lessons and spend time checking social media, playing games, or shopping online. One research study revealed that students who multitasked on laptops during class scored 11 percent lower on an exam that tested their knowledge of the lecture. Students who sat behind those multitaskers scored 17 percent lower. In the fall of 2017, University of Michigan professor Susan Dynarski cited such research as one of the main reasons she bans electronics in her classes.

More disturbingly, technology can pose a real threat to student privacy and security. The collection of sensitive student data by education technology companies can lead to serious problems. In 2017, a group called Dark Overlord hacked into school district servers in several states and obtained access to students' personal information, including counselor reports and medical records. The group used the data to threaten students and their families with physical violence.

5. Charter schools and voucher programs

School choice is definitely among the hot topics in education these days. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was a vocal supporter of various forms of parental choice, including charter schools and school vouchers.

Charter schools are funded through a combination of public and private money and operate independently of the public system. They have charters (i.e., contracts) with school districts, states, or private organizations. These charters outline the academic outcomes that the schools agree to achieve. Like mainstream public schools, charter schools cannot teach religion or charge tuition, and their students must complete standardized testing . However, charter schools are not limited to taking students in a certain geographic area. They have more autonomy to choose their teaching methods. Charter schools are also subject to less oversight and fewer regulations.

School vouchers are like coupons that allow parents to use public funds to send their child to the school of their choice, which can be private and may be either secular or religious. In many cases, vouchers are reserved for low-income students or students with disabilities.

Advocates argue that charter schools and school vouchers offer parents a greater range of educational options. Opponents say that they privatize education and siphon funding away from regular public schools that are already financially strapped. The 2018 Education Next survey found that 44 percent of the general public supports charter schools' expansion, while 35 percent oppose such a move. The same poll found that 54 percent of people support vouchers.

6. Common Core

The Common Core State Standards is a set of academic standards for math and language arts that specify what public school students are expected to learn by the end of each year from kindergarten through 12th grade. Developed in 2009, the standards were designed to promote equity among public K-12 students. All students would take standardized end-of-year tests and be held to the same internationally benchmarked standards. The idea was to institute a system that brought all schools up to the same level and allowed for comparison of student performance in different regions. Such standards would help all students with college and career readiness.

Some opponents see the standards as an unwelcome federal intrusion into state control of education. Others are critical of the way the standards were developed with little input from experienced educators. Many teachers argue that the standards result in inflexible lesson plans that allow for less creativity and fun in the learning process.

Some critics also take issue with the lack of accommodation for non-traditional learners. The Common Core prescribes standards for each grade level, but students with disabilities or language barriers often need more time to fully learn the material.

The vast majority of states adopted the Common Core State Standards when they were first introduced. Since then, more than a dozen states have either repealed the standards or revised them to align better with local needs. In many cases, the standards themselves have remained virtually the same but given a different name.

And a name can be significant. In the Education Next 2018 survey, a group of American adults was asked whether they supported common standards across states. About 61 percent replied that they did. But when another group was polled about Common Core specifically, only 45 percent said they supported it.

7. Standardized testing

During the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) years, schools—and teachers—were judged by how well students scored on such tests. Schools whose results weren't up to par faced intense scrutiny, and in some cases, state takeover or closure. Teachers' effectiveness was rated by how much improvement their students showed on standardized exams. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which took effect in 2016, removed NCLB's most punitive aspects. Still, it maintained the requirement to test students every year in Grades 3 to 8, and once in high school.

But many critics say that rampant standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in education. They argue that the pressure to produce high test scores has resulted in a teach-to-the-test approach to instruction in which other non-tested subjects (such as art, music, and physical education) have been given short shrift to devote more time to test preparation. And they contend that policymakers overemphasize the meaning of standardized test results, which don't present a clear or complete picture of overall student learning.

8. Teacher salaries

According to 2021-22 data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in most states, teacher pay has decreased over the last several years. However, in some states average salaries went up. It's also important to note that public school teachers generally enjoy pensions and other benefits that make up a large share of their compensation.

But the growth in benefits has not been enough to balance out the overall low wages. An Economic Policy Institute report found that even after factoring in benefits, public-sector teachers faced a compensation penalty of 14.2 percent in 2021 relative to other college graduates.

9. The teaching of evolution

In the U.S., public school originated to spread religious ideals, but it has since become a strictly secular institution. And the debate over how to teach public school students about the origins of life has gone on for almost a century.

Today, Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is accepted by virtually the entire scientific community. However, it is still controversial among many Americans who maintain that living things were guided into existence. A pair of surveys from 2014 revealed that 98 percent of scientists aligned with the American Association for the Advancement of Science believed that humans evolved. But it also revealed that, overall, only 52 percent of American adults agreed.

Over the years, some states have outright banned teachers from discussing evolution in the classroom. Others have mandated that students be allowed to question the scientific soundness of evolution, or that equal time be given to consideration of the Judeo-Christian notion of divine creation (i.e., creationism).

Some people argue that the theory of intelligent design—which posits that the complexities of living things cannot be explained by natural selection and can best be explained as resulting from an intelligent cause—is a legitimate scientific theory that should be allowed in public school curricula. They say it differs from creationism because it doesn't necessarily ascribe life's design to a supernatural deity or supreme being.

Opponents contend that intelligent design is creationism in disguise. They think it should not be taught in public schools because it is religiously motivated and has no credible scientific basis. And the courts have consistently held that the teaching of creationism and intelligent design promotes religious beliefs and therefore violates the Constitution's prohibition against the government establishment of religion. Still, the debate continues.

10. Teacher tenure

Having tenure means that a teacher cannot be let go unless their school district demonstrates just cause. Many states grant tenure to public school teachers who have received satisfactory evaluations for a specified period of time (which ranges from one to five years, depending on the state). A few states do not grant tenure at all. And the issue has long been mired in controversy.

Proponents argue that tenure protects teachers from being dismissed for personal or political reasons, such as disagreeing with administrators or teaching contentious subjects such as evolution. Tenured educators can advocate for students without fear of reprisal. Supporters also say that tenure gives teachers the freedom to try innovative instruction methods to deliver more engaging educational experiences. Tenure also protects more experienced (and more expensive) teachers from being arbitrarily replaced with new graduates who earn lower salaries.

Critics contend that tenure makes it difficult to dismiss ineffectual teachers because going through the legal process of doing so is extremely costly and time-consuming. They say that tenure can encourage complacency since teachers' jobs are secure whether they exceed expectations or just do the bare minimum. Plus, while the granting of tenure often hinges on teacher evaluations, 2017 research found that, in practice, more than 99 percent of teachers receive ratings of satisfactory or better. Some administrators admit to being reluctant to give low ratings because of the time and effort required to document teachers' performance and provide support for improvement.

11. Bullying

Bullying continues to be a major issue in schools all across the U.S. According to a National Center for Education Statistics study , around 22 percent of students in Grades 6 through 12 reported having been bullied at school, or on their way to or from school, in 2019. That figure was down from 28 percent in 2009, but it is still far too high.

The same study revealed that over 22 percent of students reported being bullied once a day, and 6.3 percent reported experiencing bullying two to ten times in a day. In addition, the percentage of students who reported the bullying to an adult was over 45 percent in 2019.

But that still means that almost 60 percent of students are not reporting bullying. And that means children are suffering.

Bullied students experience a range of emotional, physical, and behavioral problems. They often feel angry, anxious, lonely, and helpless. They are frequently scared to go to school, leading them to suffer academically and develop a low sense of self-worth. They are also at greater risk of engaging in violent acts or suicidal behaviors.

Every state has anti-bullying legislation in place, and schools are expected to develop policies to address the problem. However, there are differences in how each state defines bullying and what procedures it mandates when bullying is reported. And only about one-third of states call for school districts to include provisions for support services such as counseling for students who are victims of bullying (or are bullies themselves).

12. Poverty

Student poverty is a growing problem. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that as of the 2019-2020 school year, low-income students comprised a majority (52 percent) of public school students in the U.S. That represented a significant increase from 2000-2001, when only 38 percent of students were considered low-income (meaning they qualified for free or discounted school lunches).

The numbers are truly alarming: In 39 states, at least 40 percent of public school enrollees were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, and 22 of those states had student poverty rates of 50 percent or more.

Low-income students tend to perform worse in school than their more affluent peers. Studies have shown that family income strongly correlates to student achievement on standardized tests. That may be partly because parents with fewer financial resources generally can't afford tutoring and other enrichment experiences to boost student achievement. In addition, low-income children are much more likely to experience food instability, family turmoil, and other stressors that can negatively affect their academic success.

All of this means that teachers face instructional challenges that go beyond students' desires to learn.

13. Class size

According to NCES data , in the 2017-2018 school year, the average class size in U.S. public schools was 26.2 students at the elementary level and 23.3 students at the secondary level.

But anecdotal reports suggest that today, classrooms commonly have more than 30 students—sometimes as many as 40.

Conventional wisdom holds that smaller classes are beneficial to student learning. Teachers often argue that the size of a class greatly influences the quality of the instruction they are able to provide. Research from the National Education Policy Center in 2016 showed smaller classes improve student outcomes, particularly for early elementary, low-income, and minority students.

Many (but not all) states have regulations in place that impose limits on class sizes. However, those limits become increasingly difficult to maintain in an era of budget constraints. Reducing class sizes requires hiring more teachers and constructing new classrooms. Arguably, allowing class sizes to expand can enable districts to absorb funding cuts without making reductions to other programs such as art and physical education.

7 Big Issues in Higher Education

1. Student loan forgiveness

Here's how the American public education system works: Students attend primary and secondary school at no cost. They have the option of going on to post-secondary training (which, for most students, is not free). So with costs rising at both public and private institutions of higher learning, student loan debt is one of the most prominent issues in education today. Students who graduated from college in 2022 came out with an average debt load of $37,338. As a whole, Americans owe over $1.7 trillion in student loans.

Currently, students who have received certain federal student loans and are on income-driven repayment plans can qualify to have their remaining balance forgiven if they haven't repaid the loan in full after 20 to 25 years, depending on the plan. Additionally, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program allows qualified borrowers who go into public service careers (such as teaching, government service, social work, or law enforcement) to have their student debt canceled after ten years.

However, potential changes are in the works. The Biden-Harris Administration is working to support students and make getting a post-secondary education more affordable. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Education provided more than $17 billion in loan relief to over 700,000 borrowers. Meanwhile, a growing number of Democrats are advocating for free college as an alternative to student loans.

2. Completion rates

The large number of students who begin post-secondary studies but do not graduate continues to be an issue. According to a National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report , the overall six-year college completion rate for the cohort entering college in 2015 was 62.2 percent. Around 58 percent of students completed a credential at the same institution where they started their studies, and about another 8 percent finished at a different institution.

Completion rates are increasing, but there is still concern over the significant percentage of college students who do not graduate. Almost 9 percent of students who began college in 2015 had still not completed a degree or certificate six years later. Over 22 percent of them had dropped out entirely.

Significant costs are associated with starting college but not completing it. Many students end up weighed down by debt, and those who do not complete their higher education are less able to repay loans. Plus, students miss out on formal credentials that could lead to higher earnings. Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2021 students who begin college but do not complete a degree have median weekly earnings of $899. By contrast, associate degree holders have median weekly wages of $963, and bachelor's degree recipients have median weekly earnings of $1,334.

Students leave college for many reasons, but chief among them is money. To mitigate that, some institutions have implemented small retention or completion grants. Such grants are for students who are close to graduating, have financial need, have used up all other sources of aid, owe a modest amount, and are at risk of dropping out due to lack of funds. One study found that around a third of the institutions who implemented such grants noted higher graduation rates among grant recipients.

3. Student mental health

Mental health challenges among students are a growing concern. A survey by the American College Health Association in the spring of 2019 found that over two-thirds of college students had experienced "overwhelming anxiety" within the previous 12 months. Almost 45 percent reported higher-than-average stress levels.

Anxiety, stress, and depression were the most common concerns among students who sought treatment. The 2021 report by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) noted the average number of appointments students needed has increased by 20 percent.

And some schools are struggling to keep up. A 2020 report found that the average student-to-clinician ratio on U.S. campuses was 1,411 to 1. So, in some cases, suffering students face long waits for treatment.

4. Sexual assault

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that more than 75 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to law enforcement, so the actual number of incidents could be much higher.

And the way that colleges and universities deal with sexual assault is undergoing changes. Title IX rules makes sure that complaints of sexual assault or harassment are taken seriously and ensuring the accused person is treated fairly.

Administrators were also required to adjudicate such cases based on a preponderance of evidence, meaning that they had to believe that it was more likely than not that an accused was guilty in order to proceed with disciplinary action. The "clear and convincing" evidentiary standard, which required that administrators be reasonably certain that sexual violence or harassment occurred, was deemed unacceptable.

Critics argued that the guidelines failed to respect the due process rights of those accused of sexual misconduct. Research has found that the frequency of false sexual assault allegations is between two and 10 percent.

In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era guidelines. The intent was to institute new regulations on how schools should handle sexual assault allegations. The changes went into effect on August 14, 2020, defining sexual harassment more narrowly and only requiring schools to investigate formal complaints about on-campus incidents officially filed with designated authorities, such as Title IX coordinators. The updated guidelines also allow schools to use the clear and convincing standard for conviction.

Victims' rights advocates were concerned this approach would deter victims from coming forward and hinder efforts to create safe learning environments.

The Biden administration is expected to release their proposed revisions to Title IX in October 2023 which could see many of the Trump administration changes rescinded.

5. Trigger warnings

The use of trigger warnings in academia is a highly contentious issue. Trigger warnings alert students that upcoming course material contains concepts or images that may invoke psychological or physiological reactions in people who have experienced trauma. Some college instructors provide such warnings before introducing films, texts, or other content involving things like violence or sexual abuse. The idea is to give students advance notice so that they can psychologically prepare themselves.

Some believe that trigger warnings are essential because they allow vulnerable people to prepare for and navigate difficult content. Having trigger warnings allows students with post-traumatic stress to decide whether they will engage with the material or find an alternative way to acquire the necessary information.

Critics argue that trigger warnings constrain free speech and academic freedom by discouraging the discussion of topics that might trigger distressing reactions in some students. They point out that college faculty already provide detailed course syllabi and that it's impossible to anticipate and acknowledge every potential trigger.

In 2015, NPR Ed surveyed more than 800 faculty members at higher education institutions across the U.S. and found that around half had given trigger warnings before bringing up potentially disturbing course material. Most did so on their own initiative, not in response to administrative policy or student requests. Few schools either mandate or prohibit trigger warnings. One notable exception is the University of Chicago, which in 2016 informed all incoming first-year students that it did not support such warnings.

6. College accreditation

In order to participate in federal student financial aid programs, institutions of higher education must be accredited by an agency that is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. By law, accreditors must consider factors such as an institution's facilities, equipment, curricula, admission practices, faculty, and support services. The idea is to enforce an acceptable standard of quality.

But while federal regulations require accreditors to assess each institution's "success with respect to student achievement," they don't specify how to measure such achievement. Accreditors are free to define that for themselves. Unfortunately, some colleges with questionable practices, low graduation rates, and high student loan default rates continue to be accredited. Critics argue that accreditors are not doing enough to ensure that students receive good value for their money.

7. College rankings

Every year, prospective college students and their families turn to rankings like the ones produced by U.S. News & World Report to compare different institutions of higher education. Many people accept such rankings as authoritative without truly understanding how they are calculated or what they measure.

It's common for ranking organizations to refine their methodologies from year to year and change how they weigh various factors—which means it's possible for colleges to rise or fall in the rankings despite making no substantive changes to their programs or institutional policies. That makes it difficult to compare rankings from one year to the next, since things are often measured differently.

For colleges, a higher ranking can lead to more visibility, more qualified applicants, and more alumni donations (in short: more money). And the unfortunate reality is that some schools outright lie about test scores, graduation rates, or financial information in their quest to outrank their competitors.

Others take advantage of creative ways to game the system. For example, U.S. News looks at the test scores of incoming students at each institution, but it only looks at students who begin in the fall semester. One school instituted a program where students with lower test scores could spend their first semester in a foreign country and return to the school in the spring, thus excluding them from the U.S. News calculations.

Rankings do make useful information about U.S. colleges and universities available to all students and their families. But consumers should be cautious about blindly accepting such rankings as true measures of educational quality.

5 Emerging Trends in Education

1. Maker learning

The maker movement is rapidly gaining traction in K-12 schools across America. Maker learning is based on the idea that you will engage students in learning by encouraging interest-driven problem solving and hands-on activities (i.e., learning by doing). In collaborative spaces, students identify problems, dream up inventions, make prototypes, and keep tinkering until they develop something that makes sense. It's a do-it-yourself educational approach that focuses on iterative trial and error and views failure as an opportunity to refine and improve.

Maker education focuses on learning rather than teaching. Students follow their interests and test their own solutions. For example, that might mean creating a video game, building a rocket, designing historical costumes, or 3D-printing an irrigation system for a garden. It can involve high-tech equipment, but it doesn't have to. Repurposing whatever materials are on hand is an important ideal of the maker philosophy.

There is little hard data available on the maker trend. However, researchers at Rutgers University are currently studying the cognitive basis for maker education and investigating its connection to meaningful learning.

2. Moving away from letter grades

Many education advocates believe that the traditional student assessment models place too much emphasis on standardization and testing. They feel that traditional grading models do not sufficiently measure many of the most prized skills in the 21st-century workforce, such as problem-solving, self-advocacy, and creativity. As a result, a growing number of schools around the U.S. are replacing A-F letter grades with new assessment systems.

Formed in 2017, the Mastery Transcript Consortium is a group of more than 150 private high schools that have pledged to get rid of grade-based transcripts in favor of digital ones that provide qualitative descriptions of student learning as well as samples of student work. Some of the most famous private institutions in America have signed on, including Dalton and Phillips Exeter.

The no-more-grades movement is taking hold in public schools as well. Many states have enacted policies to encourage public schools to use something other than grades to assess students' abilities. It's part of a larger shift toward what's commonly known as mastery-based or competency-based learning, which strives to ensure that students become proficient in defined areas of skill.

Instead of letter grades, report cards may feature phrases like "partially meets the standard" or "exceeds the standard." Some schools also include portfolios, capstone projects, or other demonstrations of student learning.

But what happens when it's time to apply to college? It seems that even colleges and universities are getting on board. At least 85 higher education institutions across New England (including Dartmouth and Harvard) have said that students with competency-based transcripts will not be disadvantaged during the admission process.

3. The rise of micro-credentials

Micro-credentials, also known as digital badges or nanodegrees, are mini qualifications that demonstrate a student's knowledge or skills in a given area. Unlike traditional college degrees that require studying a range of different subjects over a multi-year span, micro-credentials are earned through short, targeted education focused on specific skills in particular fields. They tend to be inexpensive (sometimes even free) and are typically taken online.

Some post-secondary schools are developing micro-credentialing partnerships with third-party learning providers, while other schools offer such solutions on their own. A 2020 Campus Technology article stated 70 percent of higher education institutions offer some type of alternative credentialing.

Micro-credentials can serve as evidence that students have mastered particular skills, but the rigor and market worth of such credentials can vary significantly. Still, they are an increasingly popular way of unbundling content and providing it on demand.

4. Flipped classrooms

A growing number of schools are embracing the notion of flipped learning. It's an instructional approach that reverses the traditional model of the teacher giving a lecture in front of the class, then sending students home to work through assignments that enhance their understanding of the concepts. In flipped learning, students watch lecture videos or read relevant course content on their own before class. Class time is devoted to expanding on the material through group discussions and collaborative learning projects (i.e., doing what was traditionally meant as homework). The instructor is there to guide students when questions or problems arise.

Provided that all students have access to the appropriate technology and are motivated to prepare for each class session, flipped learning can bring a wide range of benefits. For example, it allows students to control their own learning by watching lecture videos at their own pace; they can pause, jot down questions, or re-watch parts they find confusing. The model also encourages students to learn from each other and explore subjects more deeply.

Flipped learning is becoming widespread in all education levels, but it is especially prevalent at the college level. In a 2017 survey , 61 percent of college faculty had used the flipped model in some or all of their classes and another 24% of instructors were considering trying it.

5. Social-emotional learning

There is a growing consensus that schools are responsible for fostering students' social and emotional development and their cognitive skills. Social-emotional learning (SEL) focuses on helping students develop the abilities to identify their strengths, manage their emotions, set goals, show empathy, make responsible decisions, and build and maintain healthy relationships. Research has shown that such skills play a key role in reducing anti-social behavior, boosting academic achievement, and improving long-term health.

Every state has developed SEL competencies at the preschool level. The number of states with such competencies for higher grades is growing.

Explore Your Educational Options

Learning about current issues in education may have brought up some questions that could hold the key to the future you want to build. How do I get the skills I need for my chosen career? How can I learn more about the programs offered at trade schools near me ?

You can get started right here, right now. You can get started right here, right now. The search tool below will narrow down the best options based on your zip code. And these vocational schools are eager to provide the information you need to decide on the right fit for you.

Related Articles

Where do you want to study?

What do you want to study?

What's your {{waterMark}} code?

"I recommend using Trade-Schools.net because you can find the program that you are interested in nearby or online. " Trade-Schools.net User

• Technical Support
• Find My Rep

You are here

Critical Issues in Education An Anthology of Readings

• Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. - University of Miami, USA
• Description
• Provides strong introductory materials: The editor has developed this as a course text and therefore provides original contributions to contextualize and shape the selections into a meaningful whole. He offers commentary and analysis throughout in the form of original essays, head notes, and questions that help students engage with the anthologized readings.
• Follows a comprehensive development of themes: A compilation of many of the most significant readings about education in the west, the book is organized into seven thematic units—The Aims of Education; Society and Education; Compulsory Education and the Transmission of Culture; Sexuality and Education; Race; Multiculturalism, and Education; Social Class and Education; and Technology and Education.
• Stimulates critical thinking: The editor includes readings that are important, provocative, and inherently interesting, and that encourage readers to critically reflect on the meaning of education and schooling in American culture. In addition, discussion questions for each of the eight thematic units facilitate classroom discussion.  

Intended Audience: This is an ideal supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate courses on the foundations of education such as Foundations of Education; Historical Foundations of Education; Philosophical Foundations of Education; and Issues in Education. It will also be a welcome addition to individual scholars' bookshelves.     Meet the author! http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/vita

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

For assistance with your order: Please email us at [email protected] or connect with your SAGE representative.

SAGE 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 www.sagepub.com

“The text is flexible for a variety of approaches in a number of different classes and maintains a comprehensive stance toward the range of historical, contemporary, and modern educational thought.”

"Found it stimulating and relevant."

we are using this as a recommended resource for all MS Curriculum & Instruction students

I might use this in the future with a graduate level foundations of education class. I like the articles that are chosen and it would be a great supplement to class.

• A compilation of many of the most significant writings about education in the west. 
• Editorship by a nationally-known figure. 
• Original contributions by the editor to contextualize and shape the selections into a meaningful whole.

Sample Materials & Chapters

For instructors, select a purchasing option, related products.

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Advance Articles
• Special Issues
• Virtual Issues
• Trending Articles
• IMPACT Content
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access Options
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Author Resources
• Read & Publish
• Why Publish with JOPE?
• About the Journal of Philosophy of Education
• About The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
• Editorial Board
• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

• < Previous

What are the Bounds of Critical Rationality in Education?

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Christiane Thompson, What are the Bounds of Critical Rationality in Education?, Journal of Philosophy of Education , Volume 38, Issue 3, August 2004, Pages 485–492, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0309-8249.2004.00399.x

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Since Dilthey we have become used to thinking of reason as having a cultural and historical setting . If we take this insight seriously, then critical rationality or critical thinking can no longer be conceived of as context-free skills . This paper takes up the line of thought that is elaborated by Christopher Winch in his ‘Developing Critical Rationality as a Pedagogical Aim’ and seeks to explicate it by drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘language games’ and on the re-evaluation of ‘thinking’ by Theodor Ballauff (a German philosopher of education who was influenced by Martin Heidegger) . The overcoming of a solipsistic and idealistic conception of thinking raises questions regarding the pedagogical settings and aims, as well as the problems over the limits of critique in education . A comparison of Ballauff’s and Winch’s positions reinforces the sense of the significance of critique: although the role of critical rationality within education is ambiguous and precarious, the investigation of autonomy (as an educational goal) shows that critique cannot be limited in any straightforward way .

In ‘Developing Critical Rationality as a Pedagogical Aim’, Christopher Winch explores the ambiguous role of critical rationality in late modern societies and (consequently) its problems arising within the context of concrete educational practice. 1 Being able to take up a critical stance is crucial in the different facets of life, as Winch seeks to show by investigating the challenges we face in order to change or improve our situation as citizens, workers and individuals. At the same time, however, critical rationality could bear negative implications for liberal society by provoking precisely that mentality or attitude that questions or even contradicts the ideals of that society. Education and educational practices that intend to provoke critical rationality are confronted with precisely this problematic, that is, they need to take a position regarding the ambiguity of critical rationality. To what extent is critical rationality a desirable pedagogical aim? The counterpart to this question of necessity is that of possibility: Is it at all possible to ‘make’ somebody think critically with respect to his or her life-goals, citizenship or even contributions as worker in a company—and if so, how? These questions form Winch’s guiding perspective in his article when evaluating commonly held conceptions of critical rationality and their relationship to autonomy and education; they reflect the philosophical framework of critical rationality.

In my comment, I would like to bring into view this framework and point out the different systematic problems that the concept of ‘critical rationality’ entails. Here, I also want to compare Winch’s argumentation with a position in the contemporary German philosophy of education, specifically the pedagogical conception proposed by Theodor Ballauff (1911–1995). His unique approach might offer a means of comparison to Winch’s investigation and direct our attention to aspects that have not yet been exhaustively discussed. Finally, I would like to address the necessary scope of critique in the liberal society by offering some criticism regarding the excessively used concept of ‘autonomy’ in pedagogical discourse.

Christopher Winch critically evaluates the strongly held position of critical rationality within the English speaking tradition, that is, the position that critical rationality is to be regarded as a cognitive and context independent skill based on deductive logic. This definition of critical rationality entails the assumption that formal logic forms a sufficient basis for enabling and legitimating critique. Winch’s objections to this point are indeed plausible. A large number of disputes cannot be settled by uncovering ‘faults’ in the logic of argumentation. Rather, people argue from different background assumptions (often not being aware of them); they have subject-specific ways of truth validation as well as forms of argumentation; their reasoning cannot be translated into formal logic without hindrance.

What is formulated, here, in logical terms can also be made plausible by referring to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later conception of language games. Wittgenstein denies that there exists one form of rationality or argumentation that would universally serve every subject matter or form of dialogue ( Wittgenstein, 2001 ). Rather, the configuration of arguments is dependent on specific rules or norms that determine whether a proposition is true or false and even whether a proposition is meaningful in the first place. As an example one can take Mendel’s discoveries in genetics (an example also used by Foucault in his discourse analysis ( Foucault, 1992 )). The biologists of Mendel’s time could not follow his ideas because he was speaking of objects , methods and a theoretical horizon that differed radically from the prevailing biological discourse. Although addressing what he considered a biological problem, Mendel’s work was, at first, not recognised—for his propositions were not in alignment with the structure of the leading language game of nineteenth-century biology. The meaning and validity of a proposition depend on the underlying rules or norms of the corresponding language game. One needs to be acquainted with them in order to be able to regard a given argument as plausible. The overall consequence is that one cannot arrange for a general argumentation topology to match any subject area (cf. Ruhloff, 2004 ). In contrast to the assumption that there exists a language game that would encompass all other games (that is, a super language game), one finds that arguments are given at a certain occasion to which they are inextricably linked ( Ruhloff, 2004 ). In other words, they pertain to concrete contexts including the ‘signature’ of specific discourse practices (which are, in turn, shaped by historical, cultural, epistemological etc. dimensions). The term ‘argument’ is, therefore, misleading insofar as it implies an entity to be unequivocally determined by logical means.

Consequently, it seems questionable that there can be a context-free skill of critical thinking or critical rationality. It is, then, doubtful that the teaching of critical rationality can be limited to the ‘technique’ of argumentation. However, if critical rationality does not simply merge in the application of a merely logical procedure, the question arises of how one can be taught to be critical and thus: what it means to be a ‘critical individual’.

These questions have—in different ways—preoccupied the Western tradition of the philosophy of education as Winch illustrates with a reference to Plato, whose disputes with the Sophists were indeed centred around the question of how the citizens could acquire the ability to responsibly and critically participate in the Polis. Today, these issues, surrounding the possibility of critical rationality, remain relevant. In contemporary German philosophy of education, efforts have been undertaken to clarify these questions and determine the scope of possible answers. Theodor Ballauff proposed a very unusual conception of critical rationality that I would like to introduce in the following (cf. Ballauff, 2004 ).

Ballauff attempted to re-shape critical rationality by going back to thinking and describing it on a phenomenal level. In his re-evaluation of thinking, he included the ideas of prominent philosophical figures such as Heidegger and Lyotard; for they both criticised the Western philosophical tradition in its understanding of thinking and rationality. Ballauff takes up Heidegger’s criticism of the Aristotelian definition of human being as a zoon logon echon —as a reason possessing living being . Is thinking something that can be regarded as a faculty or capability that we have at our disposal? Ballauff suspects that we are overlooking important aspects of ‘thinking’ when we understand it as a function of the subject. Instead of putting the origin of thought into the thinking subject, Ballauff suggests (following Heidegger) that it is from the already granted openness or ‘disclosedness’ of thinking that we come to terms with ourselves and the world. In other words, thinking is given to us—Ballauff also denotes it as a ‘gift’ that makes the world present to us. Furthermore, ‘we’ ourselves (only) come-to-being in the light of thinking. One could say that thinking is transcendental, that is, it is the condition for the possibility of the world.

Speaking from a philosophical point of view, Ballauff seeks to avoid the subject-object dichotomy as well as the problems inherent to a solipsistic and idealistic conception of ‘thinking’. The latter can be contextualised by the phenomenological term ‘horizon’ that Ballauff attributes to thinking. Thinking is structured and limited (to be more precise) in specific ways. These horizons or structures are comparable to Wittgenstein’s idea of language games: thinking takes place on the basis of specific rules and norms or, as Ballauff puts it, pre-judices . Here, Ballauff makes use of another concept that originally stems from the phenomenological or hermeneutical tradition: Gadamer used the term in order to describe the historicity of understanding ( Gadamer, 1990 ). Similarly, Ballauff uses the concept ‘pre-judice’ to denote our cultural, historical etc. situatedness. We understand the world on the basis of assumptions and ideas that are taken for granted ( Ballauff, 1988 ). Whereas Gadamer stresses that prejudices are something productive for our historical understanding, Ballauff is eager to emphasise both the enabling as well as the limiting function of prejudices in thinking. It is an ambiguous concept that calls into question the total self-transparency and self-sufficiency that hermeneutics seems to suggest. According to Ballauff, prejudices guide our thoughts in a rarely noticed fashion. However, it is still important and meaningful to achieve clarity regarding our prejudices in thought. Following Wittgenstein’s thoughts on certainty, prejudices do not gain their certainty because of their plausibility but because they form the unthematised ground or basis for specific language games ( Wittgenstein, 1971 ). This unawareness is also recognised by Winch who points out that (everyday) argumentations are mostly enthymematic.

This very concise exposition of Ballauff’s conception allows for the determination of the problem of critique and consequently, that of critical rationality. According to Ballauff, critical rationality or critical thinking is far from being a skill or ability that just needs to be applied correctly. Rather, we need to turn towards our own prejudiced thinking and reconsider the underlying statements and assumptions that have not come to our attention—and we need to do this time and again. Ultimately, we are never free from prejudices because thinking always remains bound to unthematised conditions. The blind spot in the eye that moves with our changing view might be a useful illustration of this point. This makes critique a very difficult as well as ambiguous task. It might be that positions and their underlying premises that had previously been plausible become later questionable and possibly dismissed. Another consequence is that the predicate ‘critical’ cannot be applied to a person in the sense of a feature or characteristic. For Ballauff, critical thinking becomes a momentary activity in thought, in which I perform a change of perspective. However, this does not necessarily make me a critical person in every respect nor does it guarantee critique.

From here, one can point out the similarities and differences between Winch’s and Ballauff’s approaches to critical rationality and the corresponding traditions. They both attempt to bring into view that by referring to the question of critical rationality, one touches all the different areas of human life today. While Winch analyses the three dimensions ‘vocational’, ‘individual’ and ‘civic’ on the way to the conclusion that in all of these dimensions critical rationality cannot be dismissed, Ballauff uses a wide definition of thinking to show (bringing in the term ‘pre-judice’) the general necessity of critical thinking.

Where Winch and Ballauff have the most in common has already been pointed out—that is, the dependency of both critique and of argumentative plausibility on context. As a consequence, both conceptions advert that critical rationality is a precarious pedagogical aim. The possibilities of making somebody gain a critical stance and maintain it appear to be severely compromised in the light of the self-limitations of critique: if critique remains a limited and specific task, then how can we formulate critical rationality as the result of a pedagogical process ? This question somewhat implies another question regarding our own role as teachers who offer specific rational standards and draw upon a privileged standpoint in the classroom. In a manner similar to the modern paradox ‘How am I to develop the sense of freedom in spite of restraint?’ ( Kant, 1960 , pp. 27–28), we are forced to ask: how can we make students think critically ? Winch speaks of the systematic scrutiny of authoritative claims that eventually has to reach the educational setting of critical rationality itself. Ballauff attempts to reflect the latter in his pedagogical terminology. What Ballauff concludes from taking critical rationality seriously is the criticism of terms like ‘instruction’ that imply that learning and education could be reduced to a technique or a mere transmission of information. However, it does not follow that learning and education are entirely independent of ‘techniques’ and of other human beings who support the educational processes (which is also an age-related issue).

Ballauff claims that children and adolescents should neither be regarded as the ‘objects’ nor as the ‘subjects’ of learning. For Ballauff, education is centred around the issues that matter (not the learner, the teacher or the society). Yet, these issues do not form a body of knowledge to be transmitted. Rather, they should allow for an unrestricted discussion and critical evaluation, where the students take an active part. Analogously to Kant, who thinks that freedom and morality cannot be cultivated in a merely mechanical fashion, Ballauff points out that the development of critical rationality does not emerge in processes of instruction . An educational arrangement that is supposed to espouse critical rationality will always have to be open for discussing its own institutional and didactical setting.

Here, the point is reached where discussions about the actual possibilities of espousing critical rationality include the questions of its desirable limitations for the liberal society. Winch considers the desirable extent of critical rationality in reference to the goals that society attributes to education, specifically the preparation for life as introduction to a normative order of society. The distinction between a strong and a weak autonomy can illustrate this consideration. Should individuals be allowed to decide (independently of the moral code of society) on their course of life? Or alternatively, should the choice of life-goals be in accordance with the society? Either way, the choice is still left to the individual; they only differ regarding the degree of critique that is considered acceptable. Here, Winch does not argue explicitly for one position but points out the difficulties that confronts both options. Briefly, it should be pointed out that Winch sees the contradicting pedagogical aims regarding critical rationality and tradition as not having been exhaustively debated. Nevertheless, it is, according to Winch, possible to argue for critical rationality in a thoroughgoing way: In the different areas of life, Winch states, critique plays a constitutive role that exceeds the connotation of negation and destruction of the traditional. Therefore, it is inevitable for modern societies to accept the risks that critical rationality might entail for them.

Ballauff has reservations regarding the heavily used and proclaimed concept of autonomy today: it is a concept that might require a critical evaluation itself. If we discuss the concept of critical rationality on the basis of the possibility of autonomous life-goals, then the scope of critique might be immensely restricted. The concept seems to bear a one-sidedness: to claim that we are or should be ‘in command of our lives’ (autonomy is the Ancient Greek term for ‘giving oneself the law’) does not reflect adequately our life conditions (a life that is essentially shared with others and located in a specific social context; cf. Meyer-Drawe, 1990 ). This is not to say that autonomy is generally impossible and that we are always determined in our course of life. Both extremes fail to capture our situation, that is, the possibility that we (can) take a stance toward something and make a decision, but at the same time are ‘locked’ in a perspective. It is here that the precarious role of critique lies: both the determinist perspective (impossibility of critique, submission to society) as well as the subjectivist perspective (unproblematic reference point of critique, autonomous life-plan) are the result of a one-sided perspective of the relationship between the individual and the society (cf. Bourdieu, 1993 ). Ballauff mentions another important aspect regarding the usage of the concept of autonomy today. Looking more closely, this attractive term is applied to very specific contexts (for example, economic contexts). Ballauff suspects that the rhetoric of autonomy leads us to believe that we are the author of our plans, while at the same time, we are more and more forced to follow others’ thoughts and plans and submit ourselves to specific choices. Michel Foucault has investigated modern forms of individualisation and elaborated their disciplinary traits ( Foucault, 1977 ). In other words, autonomy appears to be a form of discipline: the control that is exerted within the society is transferred into the interior. Thus, the freedom and flexibility that the term ‘autonomy’ suggests might distract us from the fact that a very specific understanding of ourselves is implied in it, an understanding that is, in turn, hardly criticised. Ballauff emphasises the immunisation against critique regarding concepts like ‘autonomy,’‘modernisation’ and so on. It seems impossible to question the processes behind them without being accused by a supposedly humanistic position.

Therefore, I propose that critical rationality needs to exceed the dimension of possible choices for life-goals. With respect to Winch’s contribution, I would like to argue that the debate between weak and strong autonomists does not go far enough in order to assess the necessity of critique: We particularly need to critically evaluate the setting in that we are given choices. Reminiscent of Socrates’ elenctic method in the early Platonic dialogues, the ‘sceptical view’ has to be applied in order to make visible which choices are not given to us, and which choices are excluded by choosing . Critical rationality, or critical thinking especially, has to focus on those particular issues that are taken for granted and thus rarely become the focus of our attention. To an extent, this includes our (supposedly) own requests and interests. Lastly, I would like to bring into view the self-centredness in the rhetoric of autonomy, where everybody is focused on him- or herself. In this interpretation, the educational system functions as a means of the production of personal progress and success. The autonomy or focus on oneself is the necessary complement to school selection and the so-called learning society, where everyone continuously must prove his or her flexibility ( Masschelein, 2001 ). Should this perspective itself not be scrutinised?

These arguments concerning ‘autonomy’ show that the ‘preparation for life’ cannot form a sufficient scope for determining the critical rationality that is required today. In contrast to Winch, Ballauff calls into question the seemingly undisputable idea of education as ‘preparation for life’. The pretensions and demands of critique are radical in that it is impossible to exclude issues from critique in advance. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to associate the wide scope of critique with the dogmatic refusal of our everyday life or nihilism. Critique does not happen for the sake of critique or dissolution. Its significance lies in the support to enable the discussion of unquestioned perspectives and open alternatives.

Correspondingly, critical rationality in the classroom amounts neither to destruction nor to rejection, but rather implies constitutive provocations of ‘getting to know’ what was formerly taken for granted. Therefore, Ballauff does not solely advocate the critical pedagogical category of ‘emancipation’. Emancipation and participation form the two complementary sides of the critical endeavour, that is, criticism is impossible without knowledge and taking part regarding the formerly held standpoint. Without such an intensive argumentation (regarding our prejudices) we would just remain unaware of how much we are still ‘walking on the very same paths’ as before. Dörpinghaus has recently presented fragments of a ‘didactics of retardation’ that follows along these lines: instead of continuously attempting and requiring critique as ‘progress’ and ‘advancement,’ a strong emphasis is put on self-clarification through the analysis of language games within the language community ( Dörpinghaus, 2002 ).

In conclusion, I want to offer a few brief comments on the issue of the necessity and possibility of critical rationality today. Contemporary philosophical and pedagogical discourse is preoccupied with the historical and cultural relativity of reason. It seems difficult to show the necessity of critical rationality today for one can no longer refer to uniform rational standards. Furthermore, one has to face a ‘rigid discourse’ today: whenever pointing out the relativity of reason one is often challenged to react to the problems of relativism and the danger to the liberal society and so on. Here, my concern is that we are forced into extreme dichotomies, such as universalism versus relativism or autonomy versus heteronomy. However, these dichotomies fail to grasp the problems that we are actually facing. Are these not strategies that either limit our scope of critique or even undermine our critical efforts? The rigorous breach and mutual exclusiveness that is postulated between modernity and postmodernity might restrict and corrupt our options of discourse. A quote from Foucault’s ‘What is Enlightenment?’ might elucidate this ‘blackmail of Enlightenment’. One is presented a stark alternative ‘either accept the Enlightenment and remain within the tradition of its rationalism (this is considered a positive term by some and used by others, on the contrary, as a reproach); or else you criticise the Enlightenment and then try to escape from its principles of rationality (which may be seen once again as good or bad)’ ( Foucault, 1990 , pp. 45–46).

I would like to conclude this response with the reminder that ‘critical rationality’ is not only a difficult and precarious pedagogical aim but that its theoretical discussion is itself faced with severe difficulties.

All references to Winch are to the preceding paper in this volume.

Ballauff , T. ( 1988 ) Beiträge zu einer skeptischen Paideutik (kritischen Bildungslehre), in: Pädagogische Skepsis , W. Fischer zum 61. Geburtstag, edited by D.-J. Löwisch , J. Ruhloff and P. Vogel ( Sankt Augustin , Academia ), pp. 99 – 108 .

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Ballauff , T. ( 2004 ) Pädagogik als Bildungslehre , edited by A. Poenitsch and J. Ruhloff ( Baltmannsweiler , Schneider Verlag ).

Bourdieu , P. ( 1993 ) Sozialer Sinn. Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft ( Frankfurt am Main , Suhrkamp ).

Dörpinghaus , A. ( 2002 ) Logik der Rhetorik: Grundriss einer Theorie der argumentativen Verständigung in der Pädagogik ( Würzburg , Königshausen & Neumann ).

Foucault , M. ( 1977 ) Uäberwachen und Strafen: Die Geburt des Gefängnisses ( Frankfurt am Main , Suhrkamp ).

Foucault , M. ( 1990 ) Was ist Aufklärung?, in: E. Erdmann , R. Frost and A. Honneth (eds) Ethos der Moderne: Foucaults Kritik der Aufklärung ( Frankfurt am Main and New York , Campus ).

Foucault , M. ( 1992 ) Die Ordnung des Diskurses , Inauguralvorlesung am Collège de France, 2 December 1970 ( Frankfurt am Main , Fischer Taschenbuch ).

Gadamer , H.-G. ( 1990 ) Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik ( Tübingen , Mohr Siebeck ).

Kant , I. ( 1960 ) Education , trans. A. Churton ( Michigan , The University of Michigan Press ).

Masschelein , J. ( 2001 ) The Discourse of the Learning Society and the Loss of Childhood , Journal of Philosophy of Education , 35 . 1 , pp. 1 – 20 .

Meyer-Drawe , K. ( 1990 ) Illusionen von Autonomie: Diesseits von Ohnmacht und Allmacht des Ich ( München , Kirchheim ).

Ruhloff , J. ( 2004 ) Verbesserung des Argumentierens mittels Topik? oder: Argumente haben einen Anlass!, in: A. Dörpinghaus and K. Helmer (eds) Topik und Argumentation ( Würzburg , Königshausen und Neumann ).

Wittgenstein , L. ( 1971 ) Über Gewissheit ( Frankfurt , Suhrkamp ).

Wittgenstein , L. ( 2001 ) Philosophical Investigations , trans. G. E. M. Anscombe ( Cambridge , Blackwell Publishing ).

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to Your Librarian
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1467-9752
• Print ISSN 0309-8249
• Copyright © 2024 Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

EDU 5000 — Critical Issues in Education

This course provides an overview of the challenges that students with moderate disabilities encounter in their lives. The class will explore how disabilities are identified, what necessary steps are taken to refer students for evaluations in the Special Education process, characteristics of students with disabilities, general issues of evaluation approaches, and research-based accommodations and interventions including the use of assistive technology devices and behavioral interventions. State and federal laws as well as an overview of local and national support agencies are also reviewed.

Request Information

Explained: Importance of critical thinking, problem-solving skills in curriculum

F uture careers are no longer about domain expertise or technical skills. Rather, critical thinking and problem-solving skills in employees are on the wish list of every big organization today. Even curriculums and pedagogies across the globe and within India are now requiring skilled workers who are able to think critically and are analytical.

The reason for this shift in perspective is very simple.

These skills provide a staunch foundation for comprehensive learning that extends beyond books or the four walls of the classroom. In a nutshell, critical thinking and problem-solving skills are a part of '21st Century Skills' that can help unlock valuable learning for life.

Over the years, the education system has been moving away from the system of rote and other conventional teaching and learning parameters.

They are aligning their curriculums to the changing scenario which is becoming more tech-driven and demands a fusion of critical skills, life skills, values, and domain expertise. There's no set formula for success.

Rather, there's a defined need for humans to be more creative, innovative, adaptive, agile, risk-taking, and have a problem-solving mindset.

In today's scenario, critical thinking and problem-solving skills have become more important because they open the human mind to multiple possibilities, solutions, and a mindset that is interdisciplinary in nature.

Therefore, many schools and educational institutions are deploying AI and immersive learning experiences via gaming, and AR-VR technologies to give a more realistic and hands-on learning experience to their students that hone these abilities and help them overcome any doubt or fear.

ADVANTAGES OF CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING IN CURRICULUM

Ability to relate to the real world:  Instead of theoretical knowledge, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills encourage students to look at their immediate and extended environment through a spirit of questioning, curiosity, and learning. When the curriculum presents students with real-world problems, the learning is immense.

Confidence, agility & collaboration : Critical thinking and problem-solving skills boost self-belief and confidence as students examine, re-examine, and sometimes fail or succeed while attempting to do something.

They are able to understand where they may have gone wrong, attempt new approaches, ask their peers for feedback and even seek their opinion, work together as a team, and learn to face any challenge by responding to it.

Willingness to try new things: When problem-solving skills and critical thinking are encouraged by teachers, they set a robust foundation for young learners to experiment, think out of the box, and be more innovative and creative besides looking for new ways to upskill.

It's important to understand that merely introducing these skills into the curriculum is not enough. Schools and educational institutions must have upskilling workshops and conduct special training for teachers so as to ensure that they are skilled and familiarized with new teaching and learning techniques and new-age concepts that can be used in the classrooms via assignments and projects.

Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are two of the most sought-after skills. Hence, schools should emphasise the upskilling of students as a part of the academic curriculum.

The article is authored by Dr Tassos Anastasiades, Principal- IB, Genesis Global School, Noida. 

Watch Live TV in English

Watch Live TV in Hindi

• Open access
• Published: 21 May 2024

Health profession education hackathons: a scoping review of current trends and best practices

• Azadeh Rooholamini   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9638-7953 1 &
• Mahla Salajegheh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0651-3467 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  554 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

While the concept of hacking in education has gained traction in recent years, there is still much uncertainty surrounding this approach. As such, this scoping review seeks to provide a detailed overview of the existing literature on hacking in health profession education and to explore what we know (and do not know) about this emerging trend.

This was a scoping review study using specific keywords conducted on 8 databases (PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, PsycINFO, Education Source, CINAHL) with no time limitation. To find additional relevant studies, we conducted a forward and backward searching strategy by checking the reference lists and citations of the included articles. Studies reporting the concept and application of hacking in education and those articles published in English were included. Titles, abstracts, and full texts were screened and the data were extracted by 2 authors.

Twenty-two articles were included. The findings are organized into two main categories, including (a) a Description of the interventions and expected outcomes and (b) Aspects of hacking in health profession education.

Hacking in health profession education refers to a positive application that has not been explored before as discovering creative and innovative solutions to enhance teaching and learning. This includes implementing new instructional methods, fostering collaboration, and critical thinking to utilize unconventional approaches.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Health professions education is a vital component of healthcare systems to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to provide high-quality care to patients [ 1 ]. However, with the advent of innovative technologies and changing global dynamics, there is a growing need to incorporate new educational methods to prepare medical science students for the future [ 2 ].

Although traditional methods can be effective for certain learning objectives and in specific contexts and may create a stable and predictable learning environment, beneficial for introducing foundational concepts, memorization, and repetition, however, they may not fully address the diverse needs and preferences of today’s learners [ 3 ]. Some of their limitations may be limited engagement, passive learning, lack of personalization, and limited creativity and critical thinking [ 4 ].

As Du et al. (2022) revealed the traditional teaching model fails to capture the complex needs of today’s students who require practical and collaborative learning experiences. Students nowadays crave interactive learning methods that enable them to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world situations [ 5 ].

To achieve innovation in health professions education, engaging students and helping them learn, educators should use diverse and new educational methods [ 6 ]. Leary et al. (2022) described how schools of nursing can integrate innovation into their mission and expressed that education officials must think strategically about the knowledge and skills the next generation of students will need to learn, to build an infrastructure that supports innovation in education, research, and practice, and provide meaningful collaboration with other disciplines to solve challenging problems. Such efforts should be structured and built on a deliberate plan and include curricular innovations, and experiential learning in the classroom, as well as in practice and research [ 7 ].

The incorporation of technology in education is another aspect that cannot be ignored. Technology has revolutionized the way we communicate and learn, providing opportunities for students to access information and resources beyond the traditional education setting. According to the advancement of technology in education, hacking in education is an important concept in this field [ 8 ].

Hack has become an increasingly popular term in recent years, with its roots in the world of computer programming and technology [ 9 ]. However, the term “hack” is not limited solely to the realm of computers and technology. It can also refer to a creative approach to problem-solving, a willingness to challenge established norms, and a desire to find new and innovative ways to accomplish tasks [ 10 ]. At its core, hacking involves exploring and manipulating technology systems to gain a deeper understanding of how they work. This process of experimentation and discovery can be applied to many different fields, including education [ 11 ].

In education, the concept of “hack” has become popular as educators seek innovative ways to engage students and improve learning outcomes. As Wizel (2019) described “hack in education” involves applying hacker mentality and techniques, such as using technology creatively and challenging traditional structures, to promote innovation within the educational system [ 12 ]. These hacking techniques encompass various strategies like gamification, hackathons, creating new tools and resources for education, use of multimedia presentations, online forums, and educational apps for project-based learning [ 9 ]. Butt et al. (2020) demonstrated the effectiveness of hack in education in promoting cross-disciplinary learning in medical education [ 13 ]. However, concerns exist about the negative connotations and ethical implications of hacking in education, with some educators hesitant to embrace these techniques in their classrooms [ 7 , 14 ].

However, while the concept of hack in education has gained traction in recent years, there is still a great deal of uncertainty surrounding its implementation and efficacy. As such, this scoping review seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on hacking in health profession education (HPE), to explore what we know (and do not know) about this emerging trend. To answer this research question, this study provided a comprehensive review of the literature related to hacking in HPE. Specifically, it explored the various ways in which educators are using hack techniques to improve learning outcomes, increase student engagement, and promote creativity in the classroom.

Methods and materials

This scoping review was performed based on the Arksey and O’Malley Framework [ 15 ] and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement to answer some questions about the hacking approach in health professions education [ 16 ].

Search strategies

The research question was “What are the aspects of hacking in education?“. We used the PCC framework which is commonly used in scoping reviews to develop the research question [ 17 ]. In such a way the Population assumed as learners, the Concept supposed as aspects of hacking in education, and the Context is considered to be the health profession education.

A systematic literature search was conducted on June 2023, using the following terms and their combinations: hack OR hacking OR hackathon AND education, professional OR “medical education” OR “medical training” OR “nursing education” OR “dental education” OR “pharmacy education” OR “health professions education” OR “health professional education” OR “higher education” OR “healthcare education” OR “health care education” OR “students, health occupations” OR “medical student” OR “nursing student” OR “dental student” OR “pharmacy student” OR “schools, health occupations” OR “medical school” OR “nursing school” OR “dental school” OR “pharmacy school”) in 8 databases (PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, PsycINFO, Education Source, CINAHL) with no time limitation. (A copy of the search strategy is included in Appendix 1 ). To find additional relevant studies, we conducted a forward and backward searching strategy by checking the reference lists and citations of the included articles.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Original research reporting the different aspects of hacking in health professions education and published in English was included. We excluded commentaries, editorials, opinion pieces, perspectives, reviews, calls for change, needs assessments, and other studies in which no real interventions had been employed.

Study identification

After removing the duplicates, each study potentially meeting the inclusion criteria was independently screened by 2 authors (A.R. and M.S.). Then, the full texts of relevant papers were assessed independently by the 2 authors for relevance and inclusion. Disagreements at either step were resolved when needed until a consensus was reached.

Quality assessment of the studies

We used the BEME checklist [ 18 ], consisting of 11 indicators, to assess the quality of studies. Each indicator was rated as “met,” “unmet,” or “unclear.” To be deemed of high quality, articles should meet at least 7 indicators. The quality of the full text of potentially relevant studies was assessed by 2 authors (A.R. and M.S.). Disagreements were resolved through discussion. No study was removed based on the results of the quality assessment.

Data extraction and synthesis

To extract the data from the studies, a data extraction form was designed based on the results of the entered studies. A narrative synthesis was applied as a method for comparing, contrasting, synthesizing, and interpreting the results of the selected papers. All outcomes relevant to the review question were reported. The two authors reviewed and coded each included study using the data extraction form independently.

A total of 645 titles were found, with a further four titles identified through the hand-searching of reference lists of all reviewed articles. After removing the duplicate references, 422 references remained. After title screening, 250 studies were considered for abstract screening, and 172 studies were excluded. After the abstract screening, 73 studies were considered for full-text screening, and 177 studies were excluded due to reasons such as:1. being irrelevant, 2. loss of data, and 3. language limitation. 22 studies were included in the final analysis. The 2020 PRISMA diagram for the included studies is shown in Fig.  1 . The quality was evaluated as “high” in 12 studies, “moderate” in 7 studies, and “low” in 3 studies.

PRISMA flow diagram for included studies

The review findings are organized into two main categories: (a) Description of the interventions and expected outcomes and (b) Aspects of hacking in health profession education.

Description of the interventions and expected outcomes

The description of the studies included the geographical context of the interventions, type, and number of participants, focus of the intervention, evaluation methodology, and outcomes. Table  1 displays a summary of these features.

Geographical context

Of the 22 papers reviewed, 11 studies (45.4%) took place in the United States of America [ 7 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ], two studies in Pakistan [ 13 , 29 ], one study performed in international locations [ 30 ], and the remainder being in the United Kingdom [ 31 ], Germany [ 32 ], Finland [ 33 ], Australia [ 34 ], Austria [ 35 ], Thailand [ 36 ], Africa [ 37 ], and Canada [ 38 ].

Type and number of participants

Hacking in HPE interventions covered a wide range and multiple audiences. The majority of interventions targeted students (17 studies, 77.2%) [ 7 , 13 , 20 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Their field of education was reported differently including medicine, nursing, engineering, design, business, kinesiology, and computer sciences. Also, they were undergraduates, postgraduates, residents, and post-docs. Ten interventions (45.4%) were designed for physicians [ 13 , 19 , 21 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 33 , 35 ]. Their field of practice was reported diverse including psychology, radiology, surgery, and in some cases not specified. Eight (36.3%) studies focused on staff which included healthcare staff, employees of the university, nurses, care experts, and public health specialists [ 13 , 22 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 35 ]. Interestingly, nine of the hacking in HPE interventions (40.9%) welcomed specialists from other fields outside of health sciences and medicine [ 13 , 19 , 22 , 25 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 33 , 35 ]. Their field of practice was very diverse including engineers, theologians, artists, entrepreneurs, designers, informaticists, IT professionals, business professionals, industry members, data scientists, and user interface designers. The next group of participants was faculty with 5 studies (22.7%) [ 7 , 23 , 32 , 34 , 36 ]. An intervention (4.5%) targeted the researchers [ 27 ]. The number of participants in the interventions ranged from 12 to 396. Three studies did not specify the number of their participants.

The focus of the intervention

The half of interventions aimed to improve HPE (12 studies, 54.5%) [ 7 , 13 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 34 , 38 ], with a secondary emphasis on enhancing clinical or health care [ 19 , 22 , 25 , 29 , 33 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. Two studies highlighted the improvement in entrepreneurship skills of health professions [ 19 , 20 ]. One study aimed to improve the research skills of health professionals [ 27 ].

Evaluation methodology

Methods to evaluate hacking in HPE interventions included end-of-program questionnaires, pre-and post-test measures to assess attitudinal or cognitive change, self-assessment of post-training performance, project-based assessment through expert judgment and feedback, interviews with participants, and direct observations of behavior.

Hacking in HPE interventions has resulted in positive outcomes for participants. Five studies found high levels of satisfaction for participants with the intervention [ 21 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 37 ]. Some studies evaluated learning, which included changes in attitudes, knowledge, and skills. In most studies, participants demonstrated a gain in knowledge regarding awareness of education’s strengths and problems, in the desire to improve education by enhancement of awareness for technological possibilities [ 7 , 13 , 19 , 21 , 23 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 38 ]. Some studies found improving participant familiarity with healthcare innovation [ 19 , 22 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 33 , 36 , 37 ]. Some participants reported a positive change in attitudes towards HPE as a result of their involvement in hacking interventions. They cited a greater awareness of personal strengths and limitations, increased motivation, more confidence, and a notable appreciation of the benefits of professional development [ 20 , 21 , 29 , 34 ]. Some studies also demonstrated behavioral change. In one study, changes were noted in developing a successful proof-of-concept of a radiology training module with elements of gamification, enhancement engagement, and learning outcomes in radiology training [ 28 ]. In a study, participants reported building relationships when working with other members which may be students, faculty, or healthcare professionals [ 7 ]. Five studies found a high impact on participant perceptions and attitudes toward interdisciplinary collaboration [ 22 , 26 , 27 , 36 , 38 ].

Aspects of hacking in health profession education

The special insights of hacking in HPE included the adaptations considered in the interventions, the challenges of interventions, the suggestions for future interventions, and Lessons learned.

Adaptations

The adaptations are considered to improve the efficacy of hacking in HPE interventions. We found that 21 interventions were described as hackathons. Out of this number, some were only hackathons, and some others had benefited from hackathons besides other implications of hacking in education. Therefore, most of the details in this part of the findings are presented with a focus on hackathons. The hackathon concept has been limited to the industry and has not been existing much in education [ 39 , 40 ]. In the context of healthcare, hackathons are events exposing healthcare professionals to innovative methodologies while working with interdisciplinary teams to co-create solutions to the problems they see in their practice [ 19 , 22 , 24 , 25 , 30 , 41 , 42 ].

Some hackathons used various technologies for internal and external interactions during the hackathon including Zoom, Gmail, WhatsApp, Google Meet, etc [ 37 ]. . . Almost all hackathons were planned and performed in the following steps including team formation, team working around the challenges, finding innovative solutions collaboratively, presenting the solutions and being evaluating based on some criteria including whether they work, are good ideas with a suitable problem/solution fit, how a well-designed experience and execution, etc. For example, in the hackathon conducted by Pathanasethpong et al. (2017), the judging criteria included innovativeness, feasibility, and value of the projects [ 36 ]. Also, they managed the cultural differences between the participants through strong support of leadership, commitment, flexibility, respect for culture, and willingness to understand each other’s needs [ 36 ].

Despite valuable adaptations, several challenges were reported. The hackathons faced some challenges such as limited internet connectivity, time limitations, limited study sample, power supply, associated costs, lack of diversity among participants, start-up culture, and lack of organizational support [ 13 , 19 , 25 , 28 , 30 , 34 , 37 ]. Some interventions reported the duration of the hackathon was deemed too short to develop comprehensive solutions [ 37 ]. One study identified that encouraging experienced physicians and other healthcare experts to participate in healthcare hackathons is an important challenge [ 26 ].

Suggestions for the future

Future hackathons should provide internet support for participants and judges, invite investors and philanthropists to provide seed funding for winning teams, and enable equal engagement of all participants to foster interdisciplinary collaboration [ 37 ]. Subsequent hackathons have to evaluate the effect of implementation or durability of the new knowledge in practice [ 19 , 28 ]. Wang et al. (2018) performed a hackathon to bring together interdisciplinary teams of students and professionals to collaborate, brainstorm, and build solutions to unmet clinical needs. They suggested that future healthcare hackathon organizers a balanced distribution of participants and mentors, publicize the event to diverse clinical specialties, provide monetary prizes and investor networking opportunities for post-hackathon development, and establish a formal vetting process for submitted needs that incorporates faculty review and well-defined evaluation criteria [ 22 ]. Most interventions had an overreliance on self-assessments to assess their effectiveness. To move forward, we should consider the use of novel assessment methods [ 30 ].

Lessons learned

Based on the findings of hackathons, they have developed efficient solutions to different problems related to public health and medical education. Some of these solutions included developing novel computer algorithms, designing and building model imaging devices, designing more approachable online patient user websites, developing initial prototypes, developing or optimizing data analysis tools, and creating a mobile app to optimize hospital logistics [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 36 ]. Staziaki et al. (2022) performed an intervention to develop a radiology curriculum. Their strategies were creating new tools and resources, gamification, and conducting a hackathon with colleagues from five different countries. They revealed a radiology training module that utilized gamification elements, including experience points and a leaderboard, for annotation of chest radiographs of patients with tuberculosis [ 28 ].

Most hackathons provide an opportunity for medical health professionals to inter-professional and inter-university collaboration and use technology to produce innovative solutions to public health and medical education [ 7 , 23 , 26 , 30 , 37 , 38 ]. For example, one study discussed that hackathons allowed industry experts and mentors to connect with students [ 37 ]. In the study by Mosene et al. (2023), results offer an insight into the possibilities of hackathons as a teaching/learning event for educational development and thus can be used for large-scale-assessments and qualitative interviews for motivational aspects to participate in hackathons, development of social skills and impact on job orientation [ 32 ].

The participants’ willingness to continue working on the projects after the hackathons was also reported in some papers [ 13 , 29 , 33 ]. One study highlights the potential of hackathons to address unmet workforce needs and the preference of female surgeons for small-group discussions and workshops [ 24 ]. Craddock et al. (2016) discussed that their intervention provided a unique opportunity for junior researchers and those from developing economies who have limited opportunities to interact with peers and senior scientists outside their home institution [ 27 ].

Dameff et al. (2019) developed and evaluated a novel high-fidelity simulation-based cybersecurity training program for healthcare providers. They found significant improvements in the knowledge and confidence of participants related to clinical cybersecurity after completing the simulation exercise. They also reported high levels of satisfaction with the training program [ 21 ].

This scoping review provided a detailed overview of the existing literature on hacking in health profession education and explored what we know (and do not know) about this emerging trend. Our results emphasized the increasing pattern of utilizing hacking in HPE for enhancing teaching and learning, problem-solving, and product generation. Our findings revealed that elements of hacking in HPE can include; innovation, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. Innovation is a critical element of hacking in education that holds different meanings for different disciplines. Those involved in HPE consider innovation to create new tools and resources [ 7 , 28 ], hackathons [ 13 , 19 , 20 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ], gamification [ 28 ], and simulation-based training [ 21 ].

This study by introducing a different perspective or a new application of hacking that has not been explored before allows for a broader understanding of hacking and its potential positive applications in HPE. Although it does mention “hacking,” it does not refer to the malicious or illegal activities often associated with the term [ 43 , 44 ]. The results of this study indicate incorporating hacking into HPE aimed at improving education and enhancing clinical or healthcare had positive outcomes in learning, attitudes, knowledge, and skills. Embracing hacking in HPE revolutionizes traditional teaching methods, promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, leverages cutting-edge technologies, and cultivates a culture of lifelong learning, ultimately enhancing clinical outcomes and the healthcare system as a whole [ 13 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 , 38 ].

This study reveals that hackathons are more prominent in the United States of America (USA) education system compared to other countries due to the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship [ 7 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. It is important to note that while hackathons are more prominent in the USA, they are also gaining popularity in other countries [ 13 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. This mindset directly contributes to designing effective interventions and driving innovation across different countries and regions around the world. In comparison to other educational interventions, in hacking within education studies, the geographical context, the focus of the intervention, and outcomes can play a significant role in shaping the educational intervention. The relationship between them can be explained through Socio-cultural theory which emphasizes the influence of social interactions and cultural factors in learning and development [ 45 ]. According to this theory, factors such as cultural values, societal norms, availability of technological resources, access to educational opportunities, and collaboration with local communities all play a role in shaping the outcomes of hacking in education. In light of the findings, creating a positive impact on education through “hacking” as innovation requires adaptations and overcoming challenges. Adaptations could involve modifying traditional teaching methods, incorporating new technologies into the learning process, or adopting new pedagogical approaches, such as project-based learning or blended learning [ 40 ]. Adapting education through hacking means finding innovative solutions to improve teaching methods, student engagement, and overall learning outcomes [ 46 ]. Challenges refer to the obstacles or barriers that educators, leaders, or organizations may face when trying to implement innovative changes in education could be related to resistance to change, lack of resources or funding, bureaucratic hurdles, or simply the complexities of navigating a rapidly changing educational landscape [ 47 ]. Therefore, driving positive change requires leading with creativity, perseverance, and collaboration [ 48 ]. In this way, different leadership and management approaches and models can help to create change. For example, studies show that Kotter’s 8-Step Change theory can be considered a guide for educators to lead innovation in education through hacking [ 49 ].

With a clear definition of innovation, the next is to consider how to systematize and embed a culture of innovation within the educational organization. An important component of this strategy is tying innovation to professional, school, and university priorities. Innovation is a human-centered endeavor and requires key stakeholders’ engagement to identify challenges and opportunities. Our findings emphasized that while meeting with multiple stakeholders is critical, developing other champions of an innovation focus is essential. Consider resources available in developing internal and external advisory members, local entrepreneurs, or leaders in innovation roles. Other strategies can be used to guide the design and development of innovation programs including co-design sessions, focus groups, and the use of external consultants.

Faculty members are the main actors of change and the most effective source of creativity in education. They have a significant role to play in driving change in education by preparing the ground for creativity, adapting to new changes, and stimulating change within the classroom. They can create a positive and innovative learning environment that benefits both students and the entire organization [ 50 , 51 ].

For many faculty members, innovation will be a new area of inquiry. Hence, based on our findings we recommend to the planners and organizers of faculty development programs to design and implement some programs about innovation in the teaching and learning process considering these three key elements: building knowledge, acquiring skills in applying rigorous innovation methodologies to identifying and solving problems, and generating opportunities to participate in innovation activities can way to develop an interest in innovation and elevate it as a school goal and priority [ 51 , 52 ].

Overall, these findings demonstrate that the hackathon effectively met its objectives in the case of HPE by promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, building relationships, facilitating learning, developing innovation, knowledge acquisition, practical problem-solving skills, cross-disciplinary tools for teaching and learning, and inquiry-based learning. In addition, findings reveal the positive outcomes of hackathons in HPE including increasing confidence levels as innovators, enhancing awareness of technological possibilities for future healthcare givers, improved familiarity with healthcare innovation and teaching entrepreneurship, improving engagement, and learning outcomes in training, high participant satisfaction, and increased motivation with the program. Also, Hackathon in HPE emphasizes the role of multidisciplinary teams and technology in solving medical education problems and encourages disciplinary collaborations to improve data collection and analysis [ 7 , 13 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. A potential gap of knowledge in this study is the lack of research on the long-term impact and sustainability of hacking in HPE. While the study highlights the positive outcomes of incorporating hacking into education, it does not delve into the long-term effects or address the potential challenges in maintaining and sustaining these innovative practices. Additionally, there is limited mention of the assessment methods used to measure the effectiveness of hacking in education, which could be an area for further investigation.

Some limitations of this study are including, this comprehensive study includes a straightforward research question, a predefined search strategy, and inclusion and exclusion criteria for studies that summarize all relevant studies, allowing for a detailed understanding of the available evidence. This had some limitations when it came to collecting eligible articles. Since this review extracted only published research, there are educational interventions that are reported at conferences but have not yet been published in the literature. The moderate quality of full-text studies is indeed a limitation of this study. Future research should consider including higher-quality full-text studies to enhance the robustness of the findings.

Although we searched for articles using general keywords, these were limited to hackathon keywords. Further research is needed to conduct hackathons in HPE to drive sustained innovation and crowd-source solutions. First, research should investigate how to enhance faculty and student engagement and retention to foster hackathons in HPE. Second, a multidisciplinary study is crucial to strike a balance between embracing innovation and evaluating its impact to ensure its successful integration into the education system. Third, future research could focus on exploring the long-term impact, sustainability, and assessment methods of incorporating hackathons in HPE.

Hacking in the health profession educational context refers to the positive applications in teaching and learning that have not been explored before. Embracing hacking requires adaptations, overcoming challenges, and driving change through creativity, perseverance, and collaboration. The goal of hacking in health profession education is to create a more dynamic, adaptable, and effective educational system that meets the needs of all learners and prepares them for success in the rapidly evolving 21st-century economy.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Van Schalkwyk SC, Hafler J, Brewer TF, Maley MA, Margolis C, McNamee L, et al. Transformative learning as pedagogy for the health professions: a scoping review. Med Educ. 2019;53(6):547–58.

Article   Google Scholar  

Green M, Wayne DB, Neilson EG. Medical education 2020—charting a path forward. JAMA. 2019;322(10):934–5.

Koolivand H, Shooreshi MM, Safari-Faramani R, Borji M, Mansoory MS, Moradpoor H, et al. Comparison of the effectiveness of virtual reality-based education and conventional teaching methods in dental education: a systematic review. BMC Med Educ. 2024;24(1):8.

Saini S, Kamath G, Mathew M, DSouza D. Case based interprofessional learning versus traditional teaching methods for medical, nursing, and physiotherapy students. Internet J Allied Health Sci Pract. 2024;22(1):27.

Google Scholar  

Du L, Zhao L, Xu T, Wang Y, Zu W, Huang X et al. Blended learning vs traditional teaching: the potential of a novel teaching strategy in nursing education-a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nurse Educ Pract. 2022:103354.

Gyimah N. Assessing technological innovation on education in the world of coronavirus (COVID-19). Annal Immunol Immunotherapy. 2022;4(1):000158.

Leary M, Villarruel AM, Richmond TS. Creating an innovation infrastructure in academic nursing. J Prof Nurs. 2022;38:83–8.

Záhorec J, Nagyová A, Hašková A. Teachers’ Attitudes to Incorporation Digital Means in Teaching Process in Relation to the Subjects they Teach. Int J Eng Pedagogy. 2019;9(4).

Barpi F, Dalmazzo D, De Blasio A, Vinci F. Hacking higher education: rethinking the EduHack course. Educ Sci. 2021;11(2):40.

Kim HJ, Jang HY. Sustainable technology integration in underserved area schools: the impact of perceived student change on teacher continuance intention. Sustainability. 2020;12(12):4802.

Iglesias-Sánchez PP, Jambrino-Maldonado C, de las Heras-Pedrosa C. Training entrepreneurial competences with open innovation paradigm in higher education. Sustainability. 2019;11(17):4689.

Wizel M, editor. Teachers as Hackers: Implications for 21st Century Teacher Education. 7th Teaching & Education Conference; 2019; London: Lesley University.

Butt WA, Shahood Q, Farooqi WH, Ghias K, Sabzwari S, Mian A. Healthcare hackathons: fostering medical education through innovation in a developing country: a case study from Pakistan. BMJ Innovations. 2020;7(1):1–6.

Maimon D, Louderback ER. Cyber-dependent crimes: an interdisciplinary review. Annual Rev Criminol. 2019;2:191–216.

Arksey H, O’malley L. Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework. Int J Soc Res Methodol. 2005;8(1):19–32.

Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. Int J Surg. 2021;88:105906.

Pollock D, Peters MD, Khalil H, McInerney P, Alexander L, Tricco AC, et al. Recommendations for the extraction, analysis, and presentation of results in scoping reviews. JBI Evid Synthesis. 2023;21(3):520–32.

Buckley S, Coleman J, Davison I, Khan KS, Zamora J, Malick S, et al. The educational effects of portfolios on undergraduate student learning: a best evidence Medical Education (BEME) systematic review. BEME Guide 11 Med Teacher. 2009;31(4):282–98.

Preiksaitis C, Dayton JR, Kabeer R, Bunney G, Boukhman M. Teaching principles of Medical Innovation and Entrepreneurship through hackathons: Case Study and qualitative analysis. JMIR Med Educ. 2023;9(1):e43916.

Kagan O, Sciasci NG, Koszalinski RS, Kagan DH, Leary M, Nadel H. Nurses’ confidence in starting a new venture, startup or project in the context of nurse-led hackathons: results of prehackathon survey. Nurs Outlook. 2023;71(3):101961.

Dameff CJ, Selzer JA, Fisher J, Killeen JP, Tully JL. Clinical cybersecurity training through novel high-fidelity simulations. J Emerg Med. 2019;56(2):233–8.

Wang JK, Roy SK, Barry M, Chang RT, Bhatt AS. Institutionalizing healthcare hackathons to promote diversity in collaboration in medicine. BMC Med Educ. 2018;18(1):1–9.

Saffari SS, Frederick Lambert R, Dang L, Pagni S, Dragan IF. Integrating student feedback during Dental Curriculum Hack-A-thon. BMC Med Educ. 2018;18:1–6.

Ruzgar NM, Ahuja C, Kristin EY, Sallam A, Rosenthal R, Killelea B. How we do it: creation of a workforce development-focused track at a surgical hackathon. J Surg Educ. 2020;77(5):1028–32.

Cooper K, Siefert A, Weinreb J. Skills beyond the Reading room: training in innovation and collaboration at a radiology hackathon. J Am Coll Radiol. 2018;15(3):466–8.

Silver JK, Binder DS, Zubcevik N, Zafonte RD. Healthcare hackathons provide educational and innovation opportunities: a case study and best practice recommendations. J Med Syst. 2016;40:1–7.

Cameron Craddock R, Margulies S, Bellec D, Nolan Nichols P, Alcauter B, Barrios SA et al. F,. Brainhack: a collaborative workshop for the open neuroscience community. GigaScience. 2016;5(1):s13742-016-0121-x.

Staziaki PV, Santinha JA, Coelho MO, Angulo D, Hussain M, Folio LR. Gamification in radiology training module developed during the society for imaging informatics in medicine annual meeting hackathon. J Digit Imaging. 2022;35(3):714–22.

Butt WA, Shariff A, Khan S, Mian AI. Global surgery hackathons: a Case Study from Pakistan. Surg Innov. 2021;28(4):496–501.

Wang JK, Pamnani RD, Capasso R, Chang RT. An extended hackathon model for collaborative education in medical innovation. J Med Syst. 2018;42:1–8.

Kienzler H, Fontanesi C. Learning through inquiry: a global health hackathon. Teach High Educ. 2017;22(2):129–42.

Mosene K, Kleinesper C, Prokop G, Caroli F, Teufel D, Berberat PO et al. OPEN Hackathon at the TUM School of Medicine, Germany. GMS J Med Educ. 2023;40(2).

Kolog EA, Sutinen E, Nygren E. Hackathon for learning digital theology in computer science. Int J Mod Educ Comput Sci. 2016;8(6):1.

Brand G, Collins J, Bedi G, Bonnamy J, Barbour L, Ilangakoon C, et al. I teach it because it is the biggest threat to health: integrating sustainable healthcare into health professions education. Med Teach. 2021;43(3):325–33.

Ströckl DE, Perchtaler M, Oberzaucher J, editors. Interdisciplinary Hackathons-A method to embed digitization in Healthcare Education. dHealth; 2022.

Pathanasethpong A, Soomlek C, Morley K, Morley M, Polpinit P, Dagan A, et al. Tackling regional public health issues using mobile health technology: event report of an mHealth hackathon in Thailand. JMIR mHealth uHealth. 2017;5(10):e8259.

Babatunde AO, Brimmo FO, Arama UO, Onyinyechi MG, Josephat KA, Osiene AO. A Public Health Hackathon for Medical Students in Africa: Process, Outcome and Recommendations. medRxiv. 2023:2023.01. 28.23284802.

Muñoz-Leija MA, Paul BR, Shi G, Dixit I, Quiroga-Garza A, Elizondo-Omaña RE, et al. THE HIVE: a multidisciplinary approach to medical education. Eur J Anat. 2021;25(1):101–6.

Oyetade KE, Zuva T, Harmse A. Factors influencing Hackathon Adoption for Learning Information Technology (IT) programming modules. TEM J. 2022;11(3).

Horton PA, Jordan SS, Weiner S, Lande M, editors. Project-based learning among engineering students during short-form hackathon events. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition; 2018.

Walker A, Ko N. Bringing medicine to the digital age via hackathons and beyond. J Med Syst. 2016;40:1–3.

Ahmed R, Mian AI. A case for global surgery in Pakistan: implementation through Multi-disciplinary Engagement. JPMA J Pakistan Med Association. 2019;69(1):S98–100.

Clarke R, Youngstein T. Cyberattack on Britain’s National Health Service—a wake-up call for modern medicine. N Engl J Med. 2017;377(5):409–11.

Grimes S, Wirth A. Holding the line: events that shaped healthcare cybersecurity. Biomedical Instrum Technol. 2017;51(s6):30–2.

Mahn H, John-Steiner V. Vygotsky and sociocultural approaches to teaching and learning. Handbook of Psychology, Second Edition. 2012;7.

Wizel M. Preparing educational hackers. Contemporary pedagogies in teacher education and development. IntechOpen; 2018.

Ávila LV, Leal Filho W, Brandli L, Macgregor CJ, Molthan-Hill P, Özuyar PG, et al. Barriers to innovation and sustainability at universities around the world. J Clean Prod. 2017;164:1268–78.

Matthew CT, Sternberg RJ. Leading innovation through collaboration. Innovation through collaboration. Volume 12. Emerald Group Publishing Limited; 2006. pp. 27–52.

Kotter J. The 8-step process for leading change. Kotter Int. 2012.

Potter EM. Perceptions of Creativity among Faculty in Higher Education. 2013.

Steinert Y, Mann K, Centeno A, Dolmans D, Spencer J, Gelula M, et al. A systematic review of faculty development initiatives designed to improve teaching effectiveness in medical education: BEME Guide 8. Med Teach. 2006;28(6):497–526.

Steinert Y. Perspectives on faculty development: aiming for 6/6 by 2020. Perspect Med Educ. 2012;1:31–42.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

This study was conducted with the financial support of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Technology of Kerman University of Medical Sciences (project number: 402000210).The role of the funding body was to provide support for data collection and analysis.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Development Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

Azadeh Rooholamini & Mahla Salajegheh

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

AR and MS formulated the research idea, extracted data, and performed the analysis of the data, wrote the manuscript, and edited the draft of the paper. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mahla Salajegheh .

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval and consent to participate.

The Ethics Committee of Kerman University of Medical Sciences approved the study (No: IR.KMU.REC.1402.251).

Consent for publication

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1

Rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Rooholamini, A., Salajegheh, M. Health profession education hackathons: a scoping review of current trends and best practices. BMC Med Educ 24 , 554 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05519-7

Download citation

Received : 05 December 2023

Accepted : 06 May 2024

Published : 21 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05519-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Medical education
• Health profession education

BMC Medical Education

ISSN: 1472-6920

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]

Open to talent? How scientists assess merit and diversity in hiring

• Published: 27 May 2024

Cite this article

• David R. Johnson 1 &
• Brandon Vaidyanathan 2  

Universities and research institutes increasingly emphasize diversity in hiring scientists. The organizational practice of considering personal characteristics of scientists seemingly conflicts with an institutional norm of universalism in which rewards are allocated according to pre-established impersonal criteria. How do scientists view the relationship between merit and diversity in hiring? This study addresses this question through an analysis of in-depth interviews with 119 physicists and biologists in the US, the United Kingdom, India, and Italy. The results point to three broad patterns. First, most scientists regard insufficient diversity in science as a problem but not all view personal characteristics as critical to appointment processes. Second, organizational diversity initiatives generate adverse effects for underrepresented scientists and research organizations. Finally, some scientists argue that the notion of merit should be reframed to consider personal characteristics of scientists. Such patterns demonstrate how competing goals of organizational and institutional reward systems generate normative conflict in science.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Scientists in India (South Asian) and Italy (White) are more likely to espouse this view.

P-SV-DJ-18-IN-3265.

B-SV-BN-05-IT-6995.

B-SV-CK-06-US-19391.

B-SV-CS-04-IT-6909.

B-SV-BR-14-UK-13321.

B-SV-DJ-02-US-19169.

P-SB-BN-10-IT.

P-SV-PP-03-IN-3818.

B-SV-NS-25-US-20143.

B-SV-DJ-11-US-19221.

P-SV-CS-03-IT-11523.

B-SV-OR-05-US-18887.

P-SV-CK-16-US-21441. Race indicated as “Other” on the survey.

B-SB-BR-16-US.

B-SV-BR-23-US-19204.

B-SB-NS-12-UK.

B-SV-AU-11-UK-12317.

B-SV-DJ-12-UK-13264.

P-SV-CK-03-UK-17600.

B-SV-BV-08-US-18680.

P-SV-AU-02-UK-18221.

P-SV-NS-21–16,506.

B-SV-NS-22-UK-12297.

B-SV-OR-03-US-20610.

Blair-Loy, M., & Cech, E. A. (2022). Misconceiving merit: Paradoxes of excellence and devotion in academic science and engineering. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo Academicus. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Cole, S., Cole, J. R., & Simon, G. A. (1981). Chance and consensus in peer review. Science, 214 (4523), 881–886.

Article   Google Scholar  

De Angelis, G., & Grüning, B. (2020). Gender inequality in precarious academic work: Female adjunct professors in Italy. Frontiers in Sociology, 4 , 87. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00087

Devine, P. G., Forscher, P. S., & Cox, W. T. (2017). A gender bias habit-breaking intervention led to increased hiring of female faculty in STEMM departments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 73 , 211–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.07.002

Dobbin, F., Schrage, D., & Kalev, A. (2015). Rage against the iron cage: The varied effects of bureaucratic personnel reforms on diversity. American Sociological Review, 80 (5), 1014–1044.

Etzkowitz, H. (1989). Entrepreneurial science in the academy: A case of the transformation of norms. Social Problems, 36 (1), 14–29.

Feder, T. (2024). State anti-DEI laws sow uncertainty in public colleges and universities. Physics Today, 77 (4), 22–25.

Finkelstein, M. J., Conley, V. M., & Schuster, J. H. (2016). The faculty factor: Reassessing the American academy in a turbulent era. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Garcia, G., Koren, E., & Cuellar, M. (2020). Assessing color-neutral racial attitudes of faculty at Hispanic-serving institutions. AERA Open, 6 (3), 1–14.

Gasman, M., Kim, J., & Nguyen, T.-H. (2011). Effectively recruiting faculty of color at highly selective institutions: A school of education case study. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4 , 212–222.

Gieryn, T. F. (2022). Cultural boundaries of science: Credibility on the line. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Guetzkow, J., Lamont, M., & Mallard, G. (2004). What is originality in the humanities and the social sciences? American Sociological Review, 69 (2), 190–212.

Gurin, P., Dey, E., Hurtado, S., & Gurin, G. (2002). Diversity and higher education: Theory and impact on educational outcomes. Harvard Educational Review, 72 (3), 330–367.

Hadley, C. R. (2023). Small Campus, Big Issues: Leading the new diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 27 (2), 19–35.

Hamilton, L. T., & Nielsen, K. (2021). Broke: The racial consequences of underfunding public universities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Hermanowicz, J. C. (2019). The degradation of merit. Society, 56 (4), 340–347.

Jehn, K., Northcraft, B., & Neale, M. (1999). Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict, and performance in workgroups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44 , 741–763.

Johnson, D. R. (2017). A fractured profession: Commercialism and conflict in academic science . Johns Hopkins University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Johnson, D. R., & Hermanowicz, J. C. (2017). Peer review: From “sacred ideals” to “profane realities”. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 485–527). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. (2006). Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71 (4), 589–617.

Kelly, B. T., Gayles, J. G., & Williams, C. D. (2017). Recruitment without retention: A critical case of Black faculty unrest. Journal of Negro Education, 86 , 305–317.

Knights, D., & Richards, W. (2003). Sex discrimination in UK academia. Gender, Work & Organization, 10 (2), 213–238.

Kurup, A., & Raj, A. (2022). Changing patterns of work–life balance of women scientists and engineers in India. Science, Technology and Society, 27 (4), 485–501.

Lawrence, T., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (2011). Institutional work: Refocusing institutional studies of organization. Journal of Management Inquiry, 20 (1), 52–58.

Leong, N. (2021). Identity capitalists: The powerful insiders who exploit diversity to maintain inequality. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Liera, R. (2020). Equity advocates using equity-mindedness to interrupt faculty hiring’s racial structure. Teachers College Record, 122 (9), 1–42.

Loder, N. (1999). Gender discrimination ‘undermines science.’ Nature, 402 (6760), 337–337.

Long, J. S., & Fox, M. F. (1995). Scientific careers: Universalism and particularism. Annual Review of Sociology, 21 (1), 45–71.

MacArthur, B. (2021). Truth and beauty in physics and biology. Nature Physics, 17 (2), 149–151.

Merton, R. K. (1973). The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Mitroff, I. I. (1974). Norms and counter-norms in a select group of the Apollo moon scientists: A case study of the ambivalence of scientists. American Sociological Review, 39 (4), 579–595.

National Science Board, National Science Foundation. (2019). Science and engineering indicators 2020: Science and Engineering Labor Force. Science and Engineering Indicators 2020. NSB-2019–8. Alexandria, VA. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/ . Accessed 15 Jan 2023.

Need, A. C., & Goldstein, D. B. (2009). Next generation disparities in human genomics: Concerns and remedies. Trends in Genetics, 25 (11), 489–494.

Park, J. J., & Denson, N. (2009). Attitudes and advocacy: Understanding faculty views on racial/ethnic diversity. The Journal of Higher Education, 80 (4), 415–438.

Posselt, J. R. (2014). Toward inclusive excellence in graduate education: Constructing merit and diversity in PhD Admissions. American Journal of Education, 120 (4), 481–514.

Posselt, J. (2016). Inside graduate admissions: Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Price, M. (2020). Diversity statements divide mathematicians. Science, 367 (6475), 239.

Purdie-Vaughns, V., Steele, C. M., Davies, P. G., Ditlmann, R., & Crosby, J. R. (2008). Social identity contingencies: How diversity cues signal threat or safety for African Americans in mainstream institutions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94 (4), 615.

Rhoades, G. (2014). The higher education we choose, collectively: Reembodying and repoliticizing choice. The Journal of Higher Education, 85 (6), 917–930.

Smith, D. G., Turner, C. S. V., Osei-Kofi, N., & Richards, S. (2004). Interrupting the unusual: Successful strategies for hiring diverse faculty. Journal of Higher Education, 75 , 133–160.

Stevens, M. L. (2009) Creating a class: College admissions and the education of elites. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Stevens, M. L., & Roksa, J. (2011). The diversity imperative in elite admissions. In L. M. Stulberg & S. L. Weinberg (Eds.), Diversity in American higher education: Toward a more comprehensive approach (pp. 63–73). Routledge.

Google Scholar  

Stone, J., Pinn, V. W., Rudick, J., Lawrence, M., & Carlyn, M. (2006). Evaluation of the first 10 years of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health: Selected findings. Journal of Women’s Health, 15 (3), 234–247.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. New York, NY: Sage Publications.

van Dijk, H., Kooij, D., Karanika-Murray, M., De Vos, A., & Meyer, B. (2020). Meritocracy a myth? A multilevel perspective of how social inequality accumulates through work. Organizational Psychology Review, 10 (3–4), 240–269.

White-Lewis, D. K. (2020). The facade of fit in faculty search processes. The Journal of Higher Education, 91 (6), 833–857.

World Bank. (2021). Research and development expenditure (% of GDP). UNESCO Institute for Statistics. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS

Zuckerman, H., & Merton, R. K. (1971). Patterns of evaluation in science: Institutionalisation, structure and functions of the referee system. Minerva, 66–100.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Educational Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA

David R. Johnson

Department of Sociology, Catholic University, Washington, DC, USA

Brandon Vaidyanathan

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David R. Johnson .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Johnson, D.R., Vaidyanathan, B. Open to talent? How scientists assess merit and diversity in hiring. High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01244-8

Download citation

Accepted : 16 May 2024

Published : 27 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01244-8

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Reward systems
• Higher education
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Peter DeWitt's

Finding common ground.

A former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and leadership coach, DeWitt provides insights and advice for education leaders. He can be found at www.petermdewitt.com . Read more from this blog .

12 Critical Issues in Education Due to the Coronavirus

• Share article

At the end of December, I posted a column focusing on 12 critical issues facing education in 2020 . Although I stick by all of them, I clearly missed a very big critical crisis that we are now facing in 2020, and that is Covid-19.

If you told me that we would be seeing thousands of people around the world contracting a disease, the NBA suspending its season, March Madness canceled (although we are experiencing our own March Madness right now), Disney World and Disneyland closing, countries closing their borders to prevent the spread of the disease, and the U.S. president doing briefing sessions every single day to announce new precautions, I would have thought it was the trailer to a new Hollywood blockbuster.

I kept waiting for Will Smith to enter into the movie at any time. We now know that this is our reality, and not a movie at all.

For full disclosure, I go through a daily dose of feeling optimistic that we will all get through this and a few moments of sadness at the state of the world. So, because I clearly missed a critical issue on my list from the end of 2019, I thought I would offer a list of critical issues that are developing because of the coronavirus.

Most times, writing is my way of working through an issue, and one of the feelings that I am consistently trying to come back to is that, through all of the devastation this has occurred around the world, we need to find moments of positivity.

12 Critical Issues These education- and child-focused issues are not written in any particular order, although there are a few that are unlike anything we have ever seen. Every day we learn more, and that contributes to the list because so much of our world is living through the unknown, but we know that that will change soon and we will have much more information.

The most important issue in the world, and for humanity, is the health and safety of everyone. There have been thousands of deaths due to the Coronavirus, which is devastating. The world has stopped, tried to come together, and we are all trying to take every precaution we can to be healthy and safe. The list that follows is not meant to minimize the deaths, but rather open up a discussion about how this virus has impacted leaders, teachers, families and students where education is concerned.

The 12 critical issues we are seeing are: One billion students out of school - Perhaps out of all the issues, this is the one that is most critical. UNESCO reports “1,254,315,203 affected learners, 72.9 percent of total enrolled learners, and 124 countrywide closures.

We don’t we have coronavirus toolkits - Leaders, teachers, and staff had to scramble because they did not have coronavirus toolkits. The reality is that this is not something you learn about in your preservice teaching programs, nor do you learn about it in leadership school. Leaders learn how to work through most emergencies (i.e., flooding, school shootings, sudden death of a student or staff member, etc), but a virus that prevents students from going to school for months is not one of them. Corwin Press created a free resource kit for leaders in case they still need one. Please find it here .

Feed the children - According to US News and World Report , over 30 million students across the country receive free and reduced-price lunch. For those of us who work or have worked in schools, we know there are families that do not always fill out the paperwork, so that is why I put over 30 million students. When all is said and done, this will be one of the saddest issues that most people will learn during this crisis. I have had many friends and family members who said they had no idea that so many children go hungry. Thank you to the thousands of volunteers across the country who are working to get these students fed.

Parents as homeschool teachers - My niece is a bartender at a popular restaurant chain that has closed down. She and her husband have three children who are really great kids, and as much as she loves them, she never considered homeschooling. Now she doesn’t have a choice, along with millions of other parents and caregivers around the world. It’s important that they remember that they are not expected to do all of the things that teachers do during the day. Many school districts are making this a time of review for students. Kudos to all of the parents and caregivers who are stepping up to the plate during this difficult time.

Teacher appreciation - Over the last decade, I have felt like people do not appreciate teachers, or even, public education. The rhetoric around teaching has not been kind, but over the last two weeks, a lot of that has changed. People are now understanding that teaching is not easy, and they have seen their child’s teachers step up and provide opportunities for learning through online resources, and all of this happened during a time when they had zero time to prepare. Can we please start appreciating our teachers and leaders a bit more?

High-stakes tests canceled - On March 15 th , I wrote this blog asking if this is now the time to cancel high-stakes testing . At that time, most state education departments had not canceled high-stakes testing although students were at home learning through quickly developing online methods. Thankfully, all standardized-testing requirements have been waived.

Too many resources, too little time - This will be addressed again later in the list, but one of the issues taking place this week is that parents and caregivers were hit with too many resources. We know this is better than having none at all, which is what other parents and caregivers may be experiencing right now. To further exacerbate the issue, many organizations and consultants are offering resources to teachers and leaders. Most are in an effort to help, so we just need to do our best to choose one that is credible and we can use, and begin using it.

Seniors in high school lose out - Remember your senior year in high school or college? Our present seniors in high school and college are losing out on their last semester. There have been many on social media who say they need to get over it, but the reality is that this is a time when they would be experiencing closure with their friends and their studies and getting ready to transition into the next phase of their lives. Now that next phase seems so uncertain. This is when we long for the simple times, but their simple times will have one less experience to long for.

Inequities - The coronavirus pandemic is highlighting one thing that most of us knew already. Some schools have countless resources to share with families and caregivers, and other schools have very little at all. Some families have wireless, and one parent or caregiver can stay home and work, while they try to homeschool at the same time, and others are being forced to stay home, and only have homework packets to provide to their children.

Habits need to change - We have finally found the time to say that students can play several times a day, and it is OK. Teachers have found that they need to home in on what is most important when it comes to educating students from afar, and that the control freak in all of us needs to take a break, because we do not have full control in this situation. Principals and school leaders are finding that there are many issues that can be solved in emails, and others that need more clarity.

Science - There has been a steady push for STEM over the last decade, and a global pandemic is one more way to get our students interested in science and technology. Whether it be helping more in isolation learn how to connect, or the next doctor who will create a vaccine, this is a time when people are greatly understanding the role of science.

Additionally, what we are learning is that the world is healing itself a bit these days . Carbon emissions are down for obvious reasons, and cities like Venice are seeing that the water is clearer than it has in decades, and there has been an increase in sea life showing up. Perhaps a bit of a silver lining in a cloud of doubt?

Social-emotional learning - One of the topics that I write about quite often is that of social-emotional learning, and it is the topic that gets the most pushback, because critics say there is no place for it in school. During this time, social-emotional learning is one of the most important things we can learn.

In the end When all of this is said and done, I hope we do not have to hear the words “social distancing” and “self-quarantine” for a long, long time. For most of us, this may be one of the most difficult times we will experience. When I am feeling overwhelmed, I turn to my meditation practices and connect with family.

I hope that you are all finding your way through this, doing your best to stay healthy and not hoard toilet paper, and will learn to slow down and continue the slowdown after all of this is over.

In the wildly popular play “Hamilton,” the famous line is, “Immigrants. We get the job done.” Maybe we can change that a bit and say, “Humans. We get the job done.”

If you would like a moment to take a break from the stress of watching news, Check out this fun video created by the Salinas Union High School district’s Japanese teachers in Salinas, Calif.

Peter DeWitt, Ed.D. is the author of several books including his newest release Instructional Leadership: Creating Practice Out Of Theory (Corwin Press. 2020). Connect with him on Twitter or through his YouTube channel .

Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

The opinions expressed in Peter DeWitt’s Finding Common Ground are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

Sign Up for EdWeek Update