In short, coverage of K-12 education in the news media is on the rise — up 7.7 percent in 2014 over the average of the 25-year span.
Not surprisingly, local news outlets provide the most education news coverage. In fact, local news outlets commit 6.82 percent of their air time to cover K-12 education or schools. That’s nearly three times higher than the national news coverage average at just 2.3 percent. What’s more is that local education news coverage appears to be on the rise.
From 2010 to 2014, the top education news story topic (by far) was sports, garnering 13.6 percent. At a distant second was special events (5.1 percent), followed by education funding (5 percent) and academic subjects (4.65 percent).
As far as groups of people, students get the most mentions at 62 percent, followed by administrators (42.7 percent), teachers (28.3 percent) and parents (23.5 percent).
Coverage of educational policy is on the decline though — down 36 percent in 2014 over the 25-year average. Within the education policy category, funding and school choice were the most-covered topics. These two topics garnered 2.5 times MORE coverage than all other educational policy reporting combined (10 other specific issues).
Looking ahead, the report forecasts that school choice, school safety and state education standards will continue to rise in news coverage. Teacher issues, funding, federal programs and class sizes will continue to decline.
I can’t say I’m very surprised that local outlets provide K-12 education the most coverage, but I was surprised to see that funding and federal programs are seeing less air time. I’d be interested to see an update of this report in another 5 years to find out if the trends in K-12 educational coverage continue on the same path.
Problematic Internet Use is now considered to be a behavioral addiction with characteristics that are similar to substance use disorders.
Individuals with PIU may have difficulty reducing their Internet use, may be preoccupied with the Internet or may lie to conceal their use.
A recent studythat I coauthored with UNC Chapel Hill doctoral students Wen Li and Jennifer O’Brien and UNC professor Matthew O. Howard examines this new behavioral addiction.
Perhaps not surprisingly, individuals with PIU have been found to experience several negative mental health problemswhich could include depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), hostility, social phobias, problematic alcohol use, self-injurious behavior and trouble sleeping (i.e., sleep apnea, nightmares, insomnia, and struggling to stay awake during the daytime).
Our study is the first to look at how PIU affects family relationships among U.S. university students. Intriguingly, we found that college students with PIU report effects that are both negative and positive.
Measuring PIU and its problems
To better understand PIU, we focused on students whose Internet use was excessive and created problems in their lives.
Study participants were undergraduate or graduate students enrolled at UNC Chapel Hill. We required that participants be individuals who were spending more than 25 hours a week on the Internet (time that was not related to school or work). Additionally, participants had to report experiencing at least one health, relationship or emotional problem due to PIU.
To recruit our participants, our team sent out an email on a Friday evening. We were not sure if this would be a good time to reach students, but we were surprised that within two hours, 39 students responded. Of those who responded to our email, 27 students attended our four focus groups and completed our questionnaires.
Roughly half (48.1 percent) of our participants were considered “Internet addicts.” These participants answered “yes” to five or more of our eight questions (e.g., preoccupation; inability to control use; lying about use; depressed or moody when trying to stop).
Another 40.7% were considered to be “potential Internet addicts.” These participants answered “yes” to three or four items. All of the participants met the criteria for PIU using the Compulsive Internet Use Scale, a 14-item scale that included items like difficulty stopping; sleep deprivation; neglect obligations; feelings of restlessness, frustration or irritation when Internet is unavailable.
We used focus groups, which are group conversations guided by a facilitator, to discuss shared experiences or knowledge regarding PIU. Each focus group had six to eight participants.
Here is what we found
Three key themes emerged in the conversations: (1) family connectedness, (2) family conflict/family disconnection, and (3) Internet overuse among other family members.
We had examples of positive connections. Some participants reported that the Internet connected them to their families. For example, participants discussed using Skype, Facebook or email to maintain relationships with family while they were away at college.
A student we call Hannah explained:
But like using Skype helps keep you connected and also when we are at home we watch a movie together, it’s like family time, you know. And um, like you know, if we read the same, like article, then we can talk about it on Skype.
Another student, Lisa said:
I hate talking on the phone. So, that allows me a way to stay connected and especially with my mom who would… Normally, I would just not respond to her at all, but now we have an email dialogue going. That helps us stay more connected.
Despite the positive consequences that participants discussed, we found that across the focus groups, participants spent more time talking about the negative consequences of Internet use.
For these participants, Internet use caused family relationships to disconnect or become conflicted.
Instead of interacting with their family when they were at home, participants reported that they were “on the computer the whole time.” One participant described ignoring her family during her visits home as a result of her Internet use:
My grandma and my parents will complain about my Internet use because I will be sitting in front of the TV and I’ll have my laptop and so will my little sister. We’ll be sitting in front of the TV on our laptops not talking to each other. So, my parents will complain about that.
Andrew said,
I think for me, this year I went home and one of the reasons was just was to have more family time, but what I ended up really doing was staying on my computer pretty much the whole time, which was kind of defeating the purpose of actually going home.
Steve described how his Internet use affected a visit with his brother and his friends at a sports bar:
At one point we’re all watching the basketball game, and all four because we’re all on our phone, and he looked at us and he said, ‘Really guys, I am here for two days, you all just wanna [sic] be on Twitter and Facebook?’ So, while it can enhance with setting up social situations, it can also detract from them once you were actually in them…Yeah, he was very just like…He flew out for the weekend. You know he spent US$300 on an airplane ticket just to sit there and watch me on Facebook.
It’s not just the students
It may not be surprising that college students with PIU reported that members of their families also overuse the Internet.
Some participants expressed frustration at the lack of boundaries or rules in place for their younger siblings or other relatives. A participant we called Melissa shared about her little brother:
He just turned four, but they got him an iPad. Like, which I don’t agree with. I think it’s so stupid, but he is always, always on it. He gets really defensive if you try to take it away or put boundaries on it or something like that.
Small children are getting addicted to their devices as well. Tia Henriksen, CC BY
Hannah, for example, described a cousin whose Internet gaming has impaired his vision, but he is unable to stop playing:
My cousin, he is addicted to video games. And he’s like, I think he is like 10, 12, something like that, I don’t remember. I feel like it’s a stupid game, there’s no deepness to it. You kill someone. They die. You get killed, it starts over again. He can play that for eight hours straight without moving. His eyes are really bad right now. He can’t control himself.
Participants described their parents’ PIU as well. Several participants described their parents as “constantly checking email” for their work. Others described their parents as regularly on computers, phones or iPads “on Facebook” or “browsing.”
My mom talks about me using the phone at the table when we’re eating, cause like if there’s a break in conversation, ‘Oh, Facebook opportunity’ [others laughed and she laughed too]. And then, like, somehow in my mind [the] conversation is over, but it’s really not. So then she’s like ‘You’re always on your phone, what are you doing?’ But then, like two minutes later, she is checking the weather. So I don’t know [she laughed].
A few participants shared that they were the only ones in their family with PIU.
Cindy explained that her family was from another country, which may explain their low Internet use,
I find that I don’t really have family members with an Internet problem, and I am the only one who grew up here. So, that might be…
Gina said,
My parents are technophobes. They don’t even know how to turn on computers.
Although our sample size is small, we followed rigorous approaches to ensure that we obtained the best possible data. We conducted focus groups until we achieved data saturation, which means that when we reviewed the final focus group no new themes were discovered.
The conclusions come through loud and clear. PIU exists and it affects family relationships. While those effects may be both positive and negative, those who suffer adverse consequences from PIU may have difficulty addressing their PIU because of requirements to use Internet for classes via online assignments (e.g., writing blogs), online courses and materials accessed online.
Few things make us as competitive as getting our children into the right school. That is why families are willing to spend so much money either moving house to get into a good state school’s catchment area or sending their children to a fee-paying school.
But the vast majority are stuck with the local school, good or bad. So how can we create a level playing field for students? Unfortunately, it seems we are still a long way away as too many teachers continue to exhibit a tendency towards gender stereotyping by making assumptions about what girls or boys are suited to, such as boys being “better” at science. But, as outlined in a recent report, there are actually simple ways to avoid this.
Obvious actions
The report by the Institute of Physics highlights what can be done to ensure that boys and girls are offered the same opportunities and encouragement to pursue each and every subject. The IOP’s initial motivation for the work is the paucity of girls proceeding to Physics A-level: a mere 20-25% of the A-level cohort.
The factors at work in schools that affect the progression of girls to physics post-16 were detailed in a 2012 report. Building on this first report was another, which demonstrated that gender stereotyping is as damaging for boys, putting them off subjects such as Psychology and English. This third and most recent report aims to identify actions that every school could and should take to eradicate this unnecessary stereotyping, in order to ensure that all children can follow their dreams and fulfil their potential in whatever direction it lies.
Common examples of stereotyping include telling a girl “you do maths like a boy” (I’m not even sure I know what that means) or, perhaps even worse, “girls can’t do maths”. Too many parents have asked me how they could influence teachers to stop giving such negative messages to their daughters.
The actions seem so obvious. They include identifying a senior champion and providing training to counter stereotyping. Also, it should not need to be spelled out – yet it clearly does – that there should be a strict policy that all subjects are presented equally to students in terms of their relative difficulty and teachers refrain from making any remarks about how difficult they find particular subjects. Similarly obvious is the recommendation that sexist language should be treated as being just as unacceptable as racist and homophobic language and that all teachers should receive training on unconscious bias and equality and diversity awareness.
For all in or interacting with the teaching profession, whatever your subject speciality or at whatever level, I would recommend you read the full list of proposals and, if you have time, the full report.
A recent newspaper article illustrates the problem well. The head of Frances Holland School in London, one of those fee-paying schools wealthier families aspire to get their girls into (it is a single-sex school), was quoted as saying on motherhood and career: “I believe there is a glass ceiling – if we tell them there isn’t one, we are telling them a lie.” She added that: “Young girls have massive options these days and some of them will make a decision that they don’t want to combine everything and that is as valid as making the decision that you do want to combine everything.”
This doesn’t go quite as far as the headline, which read “Girls must choose career or motherhood, says top head”, implied, but it does suggest that those who do try both won’t get very far. It’s a deeply damaging message and dispiriting to see it run in a national paper.
Surely this is not the advice we should be giving to young girls making crucial decisions about their futures. Why aren’t teachers acting according to the IOP guidelines and treating boys and girls in the same way? By and large, babies have two parents who, once the pregnancy and birth are over, should be working out how, as a pair, they can bring up the child. A head teacher who implies it is the mother’s sole responsibility has neither caught up with the law about parental leave nor our changing society’s expectations.
A recent report claimed that the mother was the main earner in a third of families (the bulk of these being low-income families). Head teachers have a responsibility to encourage aspirations and not to deter dreams. They should make sure that their pupils are aware of reality but not smothered by anachronistic views.
Positive role models
That girls are still discouraged from subjects such as maths and physics by teachers, as well as peers, parents and the media, is deeply disappointing. Forty years ago, this would perhaps have seemed less surprising. Indeed, back then, it was probably the norm.
Shortly before the report was published, I engaged in a public conversation with Dame Carol Robinson, a prize-winning chemist who holds the unique distinction of being the first woman to hold a chair in chemistry at both Cambridge and Oxford (where she now is). I was trying to tease out what motivated her, how she had set out on her career and how it had unrolled.
Even a brief conversation with her highlights her most unusual career path, starting with the fact that she left school at 16. She left in part because of the lack of encouragement she received from both school and family to stay in education of any sort. She simply wasn’t expected to make a career for herself, so education presumably seemed irrelevant. In fact, while working at Pfizer in Kent she was able to get further qualifications.
Ultimately, she moved back into full-time education to complete a PhD in Cambridge – without ever getting a first degree. After that she took eight years out to bring up her three children before going back to work. Yet now she is an acclaimed professor, and a fellow of the Royal Society with many awards to her name. (You can listen to the whole conversation here.)
Surely she is proof of the fact that not only can women be successful in the physical sciences, but that you can get to the top of the game and still be a mother, indeed still have a period as a stay-at-home mother. You might think that would not need saying, but apparently it does. Even today.
In a generation, perhaps aspirations – for boys and girls, regardless of subject, class ethnicity or any other irrelevant category – really will mean we have reached equity. I have to live in hope, but we are clearly a long way off that happy state as yet.
We’ve all heard of studies claiming that attractive people enjoy advantages, such as earning more money and are generally perceived as being smarter. Two economists, Rey Hernandez-Julian and Christina Peters, set out to determine exactly why this is. They hypothesized that perhaps other factors come into play such as confidence, various personality traits or greater effort given, not solely appearance that influences these benefits. They set out to Metropolitan State University of Denver to test their theory, with some interesting results.
Overall, attractive students did receive better grades than their less attractive peers. However, when taking online courses, more attractive students didn’t receive better grades. The more attractive the student, the larger the difference in grades between traditional and online classes. In other words, in virtual classes where students couldn’t be seen, the difference in grades between the more and less attractive students narrowed.
Peters, an associate professor at MSU Denver told the Washington Post, “we really thought it was just that more attractive people have other personality traits, other skills. But it does appear to be some type of actual discrimination on the part of the professors. That surprised us.” The study also determined that better looking professors were ranked higher by their students as well.
Though more attractive students did receive higher grades in traditional in-person classes, the difference was small. For example, the deviation would be from an A- to a B+ for the less attractive student. Still the fact that the bias exists at all is concerning.
The question now becomes if professors do possess these biases, how can they be fixed? It is likely not being done intentionally so it will take a commitment to consciously not grading in a biased fashion to avoid. Is it even possible to enforce something like that?
What do you think? Do attractive students fare better in class?
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest post by Craig Kemp
This year as I reflect on 4 terms of amazing learning within my school here in Singapore I asked the students about their highlights. Using twitter in the classroom was one of those.
This year we trialled the use of Twitter as a tool to support student learning in the classroom. One major impact was its use in the development of a new modern learning environment that is currently being implemented ready for the 2015 school year.
I asked the students involved a little bit about their use of Twitter to dig a little deeper into what makes them tick when learning through Social Media. Here are some of their responses:
I remember the thrill of getting instant replies
I loved the ideas that we got from people from all over the world
The ideas we got from other students and teachers were amazing because we didn’t think of them but they were so great and we are using them in the design of our learning environment
It was a great way to see other people’s opinions
It felt a little strange at first because we didn’t know who we were talking to, but once we read their profiles we felt more comfortable
It was really exciting because there were so many different ideas and opinions to choose from
People that replied to our questions were friendly and kind
Everyone was willing to help
Within an hour we got to ask more than 15 questions and get answers to all of them
We got several links, videos and articles to help us with our research in a 1 hour lesson
It was amazing to connect with other students and teachers who have been through the same situation as us
We made some connections that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t used Social Media
We discussed ideas with a designer that we ended up connecting with via Google Hangouts
All in all this was an incredible experience that I highly recommend to all educators. WIth the support of my school and utilising the excellent digital citizenship skills of my students we were able to master Social Media use. Bring on 2015 and the successful use of social media to support a more diverse range of learning.
Craig is a New Zealand born educator with over 10 years experience both in the classroom and in leadership. He is an enthusiastic, 21st century change agent that is passionate about every aspect of education and making a difference.
Many of the world’s leading economies can do more to help struggling teenagers to get a better level of education that will equip them for later life. A new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), looking at why low-performing students fall behind at school, has found that much remains to be done to reduce the number of children that perform poorly in maths, reading and science skills.
One of the most striking aspects of the report is just how many children are low performers, even in highly-developed nations such as the UK, Australia, or the US. I find it shocking that one in six children in the UK has a low level of reading comprehension skills – 17% of those tested in both the UK and US, and 14% in Australia.
The new report is based on data taken from the OECD-funded Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest and most influential educational survey. It aims to raise educational standards by providing detailed information about successful and less successful educational systems.
Every three years, 15-year-old children around the world take the two-hour PISA test. It focuses on some of the most fundamental academic skills: reading comprehension, mathematics, and science literacy. The new report is based on the 2012 PISA round, in which nearly half a million children participated.
The average score in OECD countries for each skill is around 500 PISA points. For example, in the UK, children’s scores in reading comprehension ranged from 121 to 788 points, with a national average of 499 points. Low performance is defined as a score below (approximately) 400 PISA points. According to the OECD, a low performer does not have the skills required to participate fully in a modern society.
The numbers of low performers in mathematics are worse than in reading – 22% in the UK, 20% in Australia and 26% in the US. Of course, it is possible that a child is a low performer in only one of the skills, but the numbers of children performing poorly in all of the three skills is still worryingly high: 11% in the UK, 9% in Australia, 12% in the US and 13% in France.
Which countries do best
There are considerable differences between countries. Those that generally score highly in PISA are, unsurprisingly, also the countries with the fewest low performers. Generally, East Asian countries and economic regions are successful in PISA(with the Chinese cities Shanghai and Hong Kong leading the league table) and have relatively few low performers. But there are European countries that have a similar level of success. For example, Estonia has one of the highest PISA scores in Europe, and only 3% of children are low performers in all three skills, leading the European league table.
There are no simple explanations for why some countries do better than others – many factors play a role. These include the educational levels and income of parents, their engagement, and whether or not children live in an urban or rural area. We should not only look at the leaders of the league table, but also at countries which are culturally and geographically similar.
Take Ireland, for example, which has 10% low performers in reading and 17% in mathematics and has seen a considerable reduction in low performers between 2006 and 2012. In Ireland, only 7% of low-performing children skipped school at least once in the two weeks before the PISA test, compared to 27% in the UK and 45% in Australia. Ireland’s data also shows a lower level of segregation by educational achievement. Such comparisons suggest that dealing more effectively with truancy and a more equal distribution of low performers across schools might help to drive down the numbers of low performers in other countries.
These gender gaps are also reflected in the new report. As the graph above shows, more boys than girls are low performers in reading and science, whereas more girls are low performers in mathematics. Policies aimed at reducing gender inequalities have so far not been effective in resolving these gaps. A new approach is needed.
One of the problems that the report does not address is that countries with a larger mathematics gap often have a smaller reading gap and vice versa. This is enormously challenging, because some of the countries, such as Iceland or Finland, that are able to eliminate the mathematics gap affecting girls, have a particularly large reading gap affecting boys.
How to raise achievement
The final chapter of the report lays out a series of policies to tackle low performance levels. It gives examples of successful approaches, which include language training for non-native speakers and improving the quality of pre-primary education, which has happened in Germany. It also suggests that schools could foster high academic expectations, and use networks of schools to disseminate best practise.
It concludes that the percentage of low performers in any country can be reduced within a couple of years, if government is willing to reform the education system. While the number of low-performing children in the OECD is disappointingly high, with the appropriate educational reforms, based on evidence, a lot can be done to improve the situation.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest post by Jim Milton
In my travels abroad last year to visit some international higher education clients, I was very encouraged by the progress that many of them have made in raising the quality and accessibility of higher education through technology. It was also clear to me that the U.S. higher education system remains the gold standard for the rest of the world. There is no more respected or admired system, even as we face growing challenges domestically.
From São Paulo to Mumbai, these institutions look not only to our most venerated Ivy League schools and research institutions as the touchstones for their own growth and success, but they also recognize the sheer number of choices in the United States – from career schools to community colleges to faith-based institutions – along with the diversity of students across income levels and backgrounds.
Back home, though, we see a superstorm of challenges that could threaten our standing as the beacon for higher learning throughout the world. Not only are skyrocketing tuition and student-loan debt posing a threat to an otherwise inclusive and diverse higher education landscape, there are now widening skills gaps in the job market that threaten the continued growth and success of our economy.
This is particularly true of “mid-skills” jobs, which require some post-secondary education but less than a four-year degree (e.g., systems and network specialists, healthcare workers, paralegals, mechanics, welders, retail and manufacturing workers). According to a survey of more than 800 human resources executives throughout the country by Accenture, 69 percent of employers say that their inability to attract and retain mid-skills talent frequently affected the performance of their companies1.
One reason for the mid-skills gap has to be today’s deeply ingrained mindset that the bachelor’s degree is the only viable path to productive, successful lives. Many of us wisely establish prepaid tuition plans for our children when they are very young, but typically with four-year institutions in mind. It’s what William Symonds, Director of the Global Pathways Institute at Arizona State University, calls the “one road to heaven” approach2. But even if 80 percent of U.S. high school students graduate and go on to four-year institutions, and 50 percent of those students drop out of college, the road comes up short for 60 percent of students in our system.
To use my own family as an example, all three of my children were on the path to traditional colleges from an early age, including my son, who went straight from high school to Drexel University in Philadelphia—clearly a great school. But he left after a year and then completed a few additional classes at a community college. Ultimately, he was drawn to the restaurant business. After attending a brief restaurant management training program through his company, he now manages one of the locations, earning a good salary with profit sharing and plenty of opportunity for career growth. How much sooner would he have landed on the right career path if we had guided him to other education options early on? Why not a culinary or restaurant management program? What could the high school counselor have suggested to him?
Decades ago, high schools in this country offered both vocational and college preparatory tracks, but today, vocational programs are either nonexistent or stigmatized as a last resort. Instead, high schools push students en masse toward four-year institutions, eliminating a key way that young people are introduced to these kinds of careers.
While community colleges continue to add more career-oriented programs, the fact remains that they are doing double and triple duty on limited budgets. They prepare students to transfer to four-year institutions and provide remedial education to students who are lacking certain academic fundamentals, as well as offer career programs that quickly fill up from the demand.
This brings us to proprietary career schools. Sometimes lost in the negative news around this sector is that many of these schools provide the best path to those critical mid-skill careers. These colleges produce 51 percent of associate degrees in computer science and information technology, including mid-skill positions – such as network administrators and programmers – that are so critical to our economy3. What’s more, a study by Northwestern University economist Jonathan Guryan observes that only 18 percent of associate-degree students and 12 percent of students who are enrolled in certificate programs at for-profit institutions have nonprofit alternatives in the same fields of study nearby4.
Career schools also play a critical role in continuing education. Mid-skill workers who have already completed postsecondary programs can gain new skills and credentials based on industry needs. Take cybersecurity, for example. Whether it’s healthcare, IT or business, there is an incredible need for those with baseline occupational expertise to gain additional training in cybersecurity. Career schools adapt quickly to workforce demands like these.
In comparing one system or approach to another, we often get lost in the fact that they have different but equally important missions in our economy. Traditional four-year institutions provide the foundation for future leaders and innovators across industries. Community colleges remain an important link and partner to those four-year institutions. Career schools, with their emphasis on mid-skill careers and highly focused, flexible and affordable programs, will continue to be an indispensable part of that higher education mosaic. Diversity remains our strength.
Technology’s Role in this Evolution
The solutions to our challenges in higher education aren’t limited to filling the mid-skills gap or embracing any one model. Containing costs and student loan debt, increasing student retention and improving outcomes are top priorities for public, private and proprietary institutions alike.
What’s encouraging to see both here in the United States and abroad is that more traditional schools are embracing new technology and delivery models (and, dare I say it, business practices) to improve results. They are reaching more diverse candidates through enabling technologies and offering them more ways to succeed, including online learning, flexible terms and hybrid delivery models.
Traditional institutions are becoming as adept at serving the single mother of two who’s pursuing her nursing degree part time as they are the student right out of high school. They are offering competency-based programs, stackable credentials and other nontraditional alternatives to help students to achieve their goals faster and more cost-effectively.
Each new innovation or academic model will have its challenges. Institutions, as well as state and federal agencies, are still trying to create uniform standards for competency-based education, for example. What’s important is to keep encouraging new ideas, keep the ball rolling on them and have a flexible enough foundation to adapt and change with the needs of our economy—this is how our higher education system will continue to be the envy of the world.
____
Jim Milton is CEO of Campus ManagementCorp., a global solutions provider to higher education.
References:
Finding the Middle. How businesses can manage the talent pipeline to close the middle-skills employment gap. Accenture. 2014. accenture.com
Male university graduates earn more than their female counterparts and the pay gap will likely increase with the more time spent in the workforce, according to new research.
A study by Graduate Careers Australia found an aggregate gender wage gap of 9.4% in favour of male graduates, which decreased to 4.4% when allowances were made for controls such as the courses studied by males and females.
This means more males enrol in courses with higher earnings such as engineering, whereas humanities, which provide less monetary return, are studied mainly by women.
However, the 4.4% gender wage gap couldn’t be explained by these factors, and is potentially due to inequalities in workplaces.
When looking at specific occupations, the study found male graduate nurses and primary school teachers earned more than their female counterparts.
Statistics from 2013 show the gender wage gap across the board in Australia is 17.5%, leading to the conclusion that the pay gap increases with time in the workforce.
Author of the study Edwina Lindsay said this greater figure examines the aggregate gap within the broader Australian labour market, and does not control for vital determinants which may mediate the gap, such as age and career breaks in employment which stem from family responsibilities.
However, she said many studies have shown the pay gap widens with age.
Ms Lindsay said females need to be given more information about career choices and should be encouraged to consider training for occupations that are often traditionally thought of as male roles.
“Implementing education campaigns and programs that encourage the participation of women in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) during secondary schooling could see the aggregate wage gap in favour of males reduced for future generations,” she said.
Currently, field of education choices of men and women can be influenced by gender stereotypes socialised at a young age, she said.
“This may help to explain the notable differences in the fields of education studied by young men and women in Australia.”
Eva Cox, Professorial Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney, said the debate shouldn’t be how to get women in to these higher paying jobs, but rather why jobs dominated by males are better paid than jobs dominated by females.
“The question here ignored is whether salaries are higher because of more intrinsic value in a STEM degree, or whether the gender composition of the workforce influences the way it is valued,” she said.
“On that basis one can question whether the differences between fields of education pay levels are in themselves gender biased. Why is engineering of so much more value than social work?”
Ms Cox said rather than thinking of ways to get more women in higher paid areas, we need to raise pay rates in feminised occupations.
To remedy the gap, we need to address gender-based direct and indirect discrimination so assumptions aren’t made about the industries, careers, positions and job assignments for women, she said.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest column by Brooke Chaplin
College is a time of great change for students who are used to living under their parents’ rules and protection. While some will commute and still live at home, a majority of students live on campus, and first-timers may be in for a rude awakening. These are just a few challenges students may encounter as they adjust to college life. Time Management Students just getting to college may not be accustomed to taking responsibility for their own schedule. They may have always had parents waking them up in the morning and nagging them to do their homework. Now, it’s up to you to get up for class and be diligent about completing assignments. Organizational aids can be a big help if you learn to use them right; a solid day planner is of great use for keeping track of what needs to be done and when. Schools are great to provide most schedules and assignment due dates in disclosures and websites, but for your own aid, make sure you put them all in one schedule or planner you can update and check yourself. Eating Healthy Eating properly can be problematic in college. If you don’t have a built-in plan for food, you may be tempted to just skip as many meals as possible in order to save money and time. If you don’t eat enough, you won’t have the energy you need for good study habits or optimum physical health, and if you do have a meal plan, you might be tempted to overeat, since food is so freely available. Pay attention to your food intake so you can try to avoid that dreaded Freshman 15. What’s more, if you do eat an especially large meal, try to make up for it with an extra-long walk around campus. College life can be very conducive to exercise, so if you are diligent, it should even out. Avoiding Drugs If you’ve never been exposed to drugs or alcohol before, college can be a very dangerous time. Make sure you are always aware of what you are putting into your body and resist the temptation to experiment with illegal substances since the dangers far outweigh any potential benefits. Trying new things can always be fun and is part of the college experience, but make sure you do so safely and legally and with people you’re comfortable with. If you find yourself getting hooked, don’t be afraid to go to a professional for help. Or if you have a friend suffering the ill effects of drugs or alcohol abuse, gather some friends and stage an alcohol intervention to encourage them to find help. What is an intervention? If you’re not sure, you might need to seek out a service that can get you the right information on who should be there and what to say. Staying Debt-Free Chances are, you’re already paying student loans or taking them out for the first time, but you don’t want to add credit cards into the mix. Credit card companies prey on college students with enticing introductory offers. Before you know it, you’re thousands of dollars in debt as you spend money you don’t really have. Do yourself a favor and stick with cash and savings during your college career. These are just a few tips that will help to make your college experience more enjoyable. College is full of important lessons, and many do not occur in the classroom. Stay safe and smart, and your education will be worth the ride.
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Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening. For more information on getting help with drugs, or if you have a friend suffering the ill effects of drugs or alcohol abuse, gather some friends and stage an alcohol interventionto encourage them to find help. What is an intervention? If you’re not sure, you might need to seek out a service that can get you the right information on who should be there and what to say
Technology has the power to greatly improve equality in learning opportunities in K-12 classrooms. Not every school can afford the latest high-priced learning management software, but what if all you needed was internet access?
I recently had the opportunity to demo the personalized learning platformKiddom and learned about a lot of cutting-edge features that are streamlining teaching.
Kiddom was co-developed by serial entrepreneur Ahsan Rizvi, former alternative educator Abbas Manjee, and growth engineer Jordan Feldstein. Manjee is a teacher by trade who once worked with at-risk students in the South Bronx. During his 6 years as a public school teacher Manjee used the technology available to him (not much, and not very advanced) to figure out ways to better teach to the individual student. His system worked but wasn’t as streamlined as he knew it could be. Manjee also knew from talking with other teachers that their own students could benefit from a streamlined system and with the added expertise of Rizvi and Feldstein, that hunch became a reality.
Today, tens of thousands K-12 teachers use Kiddom, some just for the gradebook feature and others for the full-platform experience.
See, what Kiddom creators got right is this: most teachers are haphazardly using multiple resources, aggregating on their own, and using a less-than-stellar grade book option because it’s all they have at their disposal. All of that takes up too much time and can frankly lead to some understandable frustration. Kiddom cuts right to the heart of that conundrum by consolidating resources and placing everything a teacher needs for lesson planning, grading, classroom organization, student tracking, and assessments in a central, easy-to-use hub.
Kiddom contains standards for all 50 states and updates its offerings when those standards change, making it easy for teachers to lesson plan and write assessments. In addition to classroom teachers, homeschool parents and groups have also signed on with Kiddom as a way to create lessons, track progress, and monitor state academic standards.
The end goal of Kiddom tools is not to simply automate assessments, though. It’s to create richer, more engaging projects by providing more time (and accessible content) for teachers. It’s amazing what educators can develop for students when they aren’t being overburdened with constant quick-fire assessment creation, grading, prepping for high stakes tests, and related tasks. Kiddom frees up that bandwidth so teachers can provide better learning experiences for students.
Teacher Influence
Teacher input is important to growth of the Kiddom platform, so the company has a team of advisors called the “brain trust” that use the platform and offer insight and feedback. Anyone can apply to be part of the brain trust group, and there are also less formal teacher message boards and forums that give teachers access to answers right away.
Some of the unique features of Kiddom include:
A teacher’s control center, with detailed reports on student progress that inform next-step instructional details.
Content library, with material for assignments, quizzes, videos, games and more. Some of the content partners include Khan Academy, CK-12, IXL, and CommonLit.
Third-party integration, so teachers can sync with other classroom management tools they already use, like Google Drive.
Direct teacher-student feedback.
Concise rubrics for students that guide them on what they should be doing and when.
Easy setup, with one-click student roster setup from Excel, Google or Clever.
Student access to real-time reports on what they’ve accomplished, what is still assigned, and where they need improvement.
Alignment and sharing ability for assessment material based on Common Core, state, or custom requirements.
The Kiddom mobile app, giving students and teachers all the classroom resources on-the-go.
The affordability of Kiddom (it’s free for teachers and students) makes it a smart tool for classroom management. Providing equity in resources is so important in our at-risk student populations and I’m so impressed that this message is at the heart of what Kiddom offers. I like that a public school teacher is part of Kiddom’s leadership team and that classroom teachers continue to drive improvements on the platform.
To sign up for Kiddom for free and request a demo, head to Kiddom.co.
