Posts
Unpacking the Learning Crisis
The Meddlers
UNESCO, the World Bank, and Education Development
UNESCO, the World Bank, and Education Development
Financing Education through Domestic Taxation
Financing Education through Domestic Taxation
How did School Based Management become an approach to educational governance found across the world? Where did it come from and what institutions advanced the idea globally?
Today I speak with Brent Edwards, an Associate Professor of Theory and Methodology in the Study of Education at the University of Hawaii. He has spent over a decade researching the phenomenon of School Based Management. In his search for democratic alternatives to dominant education models, he has shown in various publications how market fundamentalism is embedded inside the very idea of School Based Management.
Citation: Edwards, Brent, interview with Will Brehm, FreshEd, 165, podcast audio, July 29, 2019. https://www.freshedpodcast.com/dbrentedwardsjr/
Transcript, Translation, and Resources:
Critiquing School Based Management
The World Bank hasn’t always made loans to education. Post-World War II, the Bank focused mainly on infrastructure. Even when it did start lending to education in the 1960s, it used the idea of manpower planning, the process of estimating the number of people with specific skills required for completing a project. Only in the 1970s did the World Bank begin to think of education in terms of rates of return: the cost-benefit calculation that uses expected future earning from one’s educational attainment.
The introduction of rates of return inside the World Bank was no easy process. The internal fights by larger-than-life personalities were the stuff legends are made from. Yet, these disputes often go unnoticed, hidden behind glossy reports and confidence.
Today Stephen Heyneman takes us back in time when he introduced rates of return to the World Bank. He discusses how he used them to his advantage and how he ultimately lost his job because of them.
Stephen Heyneman is Professor Emeritus of international education policy at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He served the World Bank for 22 years between 1976 and 1998.
Citation: Heyneman, Stephen, interview with Will Brehm, FreshEd, 155, podcast audio, May 20, 2019. https://www.freshedpodcast.com/heyneman/
Transcript, Translation, and Resources:
World Bank, Rates of Return & Education Development
The Global Diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfers
Critiquing the World Development Report
The Global Partnership for Education is a powerful multi-stakeholder organization in educational development. It funnels millions of dollars to develop education systems in dozens of low-income countries. Yet the board of directors of the organization strategically avoids some of the most important and controversial topics in education today.
My guest today, Francine Menashy, has researched the Global Partnership for Education and the ways in which its board of directors avoids the topic of low-fee private schools, which is a heavily debated idea in both education policy and research.
Francine Menashy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership in Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She researches aid to education and non-state sector engagement, including the policies of international organizations, companies, and philanthropies.
Her research discussed in today’s show was funded through a fellowship with the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.
Citation:Menashy, Francine, interview with Will Brehm, FreshEd, 33, podcast audio, July 21, 2016. https://www.freshedpodcast.com/francinemenashy/
Transcript, translation, and resources:
Global Partnership for Education