Dr. Paul Jungbluth is a professor from the University of Maastricht, and he shared a different perspective on the Dutch educational system than what we had heard up to that point. He said that, not surprisingly, people give you different information depending upon their roles in the system. The Office of the Inspectorate has high potential to create change in the school system, but they are currently only looking at the lowest performing schools. As for information coming from the Ministry of Education, one has to ask: How accurate is the information? How relevant is it? Is the data they gather relevant to schools, or only to the bureaucracy? Dr. Jungbluth advocates for "academic grounded criticism," that is, policies that are based upon research evidence rather than the whim of the day. He said it looks as though there is a shift in policy every 4 years (when politicians change office), but in reality, things stay relatively the same. This is also true in the United States.
His criticism of the statistics included the remark that by changing the criteria, you create a better chance that you will achieve the goal. This was exactly the question I wanted to ask when we visited the Ministry of Education. The goals for reducing the drop-out rate (they call it "early school leaving") is given in absolute numbers (35,000, for example). My question is: What percentage is that of the total population? Since the total school population is shrinking every year, the absolute number may be a way to appear to be making progress while the relative percentage of drop-outs may not be decreasing as much as it appears to be.
Dr. Jungbluth considered the ranking of PISA scores for students in Holland compared to other students internationally a "non-discussion." He said students are not engaged because the test is not important to them personally. (I wonder what measurement is used to compare US students to European students since we do not give the PISA test.) He also said that it was difficult to get a sufficient sample size, thought the reason for this was not clear. He said the score on this test is only important to the Ministry of Education. In the US, a comparable test might be the SAT, which *is* important to students because it determines what kind of college they can get into. Here, the CITO test at age 12 is the only real high-stakes test.
The Netherlands is a very "class-aware" society. The demonstrations we observed at The Hague against budget cuts toward culture and the arts are driven by the upper class protesting new policies by politicians who were elected by the lower class who do not want to pay for the arts. I believe we have similar tensions in the United States.
Most religions and churches here have lost their identity, according to Dr. Jungbluth. The ancient division between Protestant and Catholic which exists in education really isn't reflected in society. The ROLE of Christian schools has changed from exercising spiritual/moral leadership to budget management. Remember, all public and private schools, whether religiously affiliated or not, are funded by the government here. (Question: Does it matter from whom you get your funding? Does that influence the character/culture of a school? Remember Rob Nijhoff's comment that there is no such thing as neutrality.)
If education does not achieve the aspirations of the parents and the children, we (the Netherlands or society at large) become a "society at risk," Jungbluth says. Then education does not have the support of the middle class. Even when all stay in school until age 18, the lowest 20% of students perceive there is nothing of benefit there for them. These days, the best way to attract children to a school is to tout special programs for the gifted. This is seen in the US with the charter school movement.
Dr. Jungbluth proposed the radical notion that multi-culturalism is a project of the elite as a benefit to them. It doesn't just mean "multi-color," but it is also reflective of class differences. When you preserve class differences, you preserve the position of the elite in the class system. I do not think this is such a radical idea. In economics, cultural dualism in an economy prevents the non-dominant culture from progressing economically. In Mexico, isolated Indian tribes who do not speak Spanish cannot trade or be educated, and are then relegated to the permanent underclass. I witnessed this first-hand as a missionary kid in the 1960's. Jungbluth said children who know English as a second language need to learn the "mother tongue" of the country in which they live.
The second speaker was Dr. Trudie Schils from the school of business and economics at Maastricht University. She deals mainly with educational statistics. She said that pre-school education implies that mothers should work outside the home. What is interesting about this cultural phenomenon is that, in her research, she found that parental expectations are the best predictor of whether children will follow the pre-university (highest) educational track in the Netherlands. There expectation *at the child's age of 4* is a more powerful predictor of performance than the CITO test! Jungbluth had reported a statistic that the education level of the mother was predictive of educational attainment as well.
As much as we have heard about the multi-track educational system in Holland, it was good to hear from the Christian Union party at The Hague, as well as Drs. Jungbluth and Schills, to know that healthy debate continues in this democratic society, as it does in ours.
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