Chee, who is also a shepherd, runs an elementary school 45 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona. Many children travel more than two hours each way from their homes on the reservation. As part of the first Native American school to become a member of a national college preparatory program, they are immediately thrust into a “no excuses” culture. He expects all of his students to plan for a college education.
When Chi first started teaching school, he asked his fourth grade students which college they were going to. “They had no idea,” he said. “If you say what job you want to do, they’ll say, ‘What are you talking about?'”
Qi, who has also significantly improved literacy rates, visits university campuses while the students are still in elementary school. They have lunch in the cafeteria at Arizona State University, where Chi is pursuing his Ph.D., and learn about the different programs and classes he might take. They “learn the process of applying to universities,” Chee said.
The conference gave us the opportunity to learn how UNESCO spends years compiling data and searching for common themes. I spoke to Manos Antoninis, director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, which analyzes data used by policymakers around the world to strengthen education systems. Because the meeting was held before the election, it did not take into account what would happen to UNESCO’s relationship with UNESCO after President-elect Donald Trump severed ties with the agency during his first term. The relationship was re-established under President Joe Biden. Mr. Trump has said little about the matter since then.
Mr Antoninis said he hopes the report will spark new ways to develop, recruit and support school leaders, many of whom will be exchanging best practices and profiled in more than 200 countries. Visited Brazil to learn from and include comparisons. Antoninis emphasized the importance of reaching out and collecting data from both the poorest and richest countries.
“American readers should read the Oversight Report and look at diversity in equality,” he told me. “You see it in your country, but you don’t see it in the poor quality of how people live or learn in other parts of the world, some of whom are far behind.”
It’s not always easy to read through a long report or endure the throbbing and hand-wringing of bad news that often accompanies the latest disturbing education report. I joined my colleague Proof Point columnist Jill Barshay in the latest NAEP and PISA data by explaining trends and pointing out problems that seem to have gotten worse since the global pandemic. I hope you can help me interpret the results. This is one of the reasons I’m looking forward to moderating a discussion on resilience among global education leaders in Hong Kong next month.
I look forward to the opportunity to meet more leaders like Chi, put the numbers behind the numbers, and learn how school leaders can change lives. Mr. Chee told me that several students have graduated from university in recent years. He cherishes the moment.
“Some of my former students are now teachers and they come to the classroom and visit us,” Chee said. “Or a family comes in and says, ‘My son is graduating from college. My daughter graduated.’ And that’s where it all started.
This article about school leadership was written by Liz Willen and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.
