OLDaily

Does digital education research have an integrity problem?
Neil Mosley, 2022/06/24

"One might argue that it has become quite vogue to position yourself as anti-tech, tech sceptical or critical when it comes to digital technology in education," writes Neil Mosley. "It has become the veneer to have and the standpoint to personally signal if you want to align yourself and be publicly accepted into certain crowds and tribes." This does indeed describe some crowds and tribes (examples of which he cites in the article). But I think a fair-minded assessment of the field as a whole that does less cherry-picking and surveys a wider literature would find enough advocacy, punditry and sketchy research to satisfy all points of view. As even Mosley himself admits, "Whenever, I read corporate research I'm probably more highly attuned to the potential of bias... I expect more from academic research." Well, I expect more from corporate research; having a profit motive does not relieve anyone of the responsibility to seek the truth.

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Let the Metadata Wars Begin
Todd A Carpenter, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2022/06/24

This article is ostensibly about the efforts of Clarivate to break what it calls OCLC's (think Dublin Core) "monopoly" over publication metadata. It feels like an argument for a commercial system rather than a more open and public system. But I can't be certain; there's a lot of obfuscation in the article. But one thing is true: "The availability of open citations, the discussions about open identifiers for institutions, and the questions around open infrastructure all hinge around the ecosystem of data — who controls it, and what can be done with the data once it is aggregated." All of this, to me, creates an argument for open data. But I'm sure some - commercial publishers, say - will disagree.

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How can we make education systems fairer for children?
Annie Brookman-Byrne, Bold, 2022/06/24

"Today, education is still primarily concerned with promoting economic growth," argues Nienke van Atteveldt in this interview. "This focus has profoundly shaped assessments and the way most education systems work, which is to emphasise individual test scores. This is not the best way to enable children to flourish, because it increases often unfair competition... I would like to see a new mindset in education, one that treats all trajectories as equally valid as long as children are learning new things and continuing to progress." He continues, " We had already recognised that "learning to know", which is one of UNESCO's four pillars of education, was only part of the story. The other pillars are learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together. We looked at how these various elements influence one another." Related: The International Science and Evidence-based Education Assessment.

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Money for Children's Education, Not Schools
Center for Education Reform, 2022/06/24

This short post excepts from a paywalled Wall Street Journal article setting out the talking points for the current round of education reform advocacy. "The government will spend nearly $250,000 on each of her children. Yet she won't have much of a say in how the dollars are spent. Without her consent, the bureaucrats who run the public schools will build facilities, hire teachers and plan curriculum that may leave her children far behind their peers, all at exorbitant prices."

I can see the argument for putting the money directly into parents' hands. They would be able to make choices that the current system doesn't support. And I'm not going to fall into the trap of saying that these would be bad choices, or that parents would spend the money on themselves. No, let's address the core point head on: the private sector does not provide social services more efficiently than the public sector. If it did, the U.S. health care system wouldn't be such a mess. If it did, we'd be comfortable with private road, police and fire services. If it did, charter schools would already outperform much less well-funded public schools. If it did, we'd outsource the military function to mercenaries. The core of the WSJ article is based on a lie.

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