Academy for Educational Development

Somewhere on a mountaintop in Peru a little girl is about to finish the sixth grade. She loves school, and wants to continue. But that may not be possible for her because the nearest secondary school is 20 miles away.









Meanwhile, in the United States, a 2005 survey showed that only 20 percent of high school students feel that school challenges them and encourages them to work hard and meet high expectations.











Although beginning from different starting points, all nations around the world are encountering challenges in creating effective secondary education systems that contribute to their country's economic development.











To address these issues, on November 8 AED brought together a group of experts in U.S. education and in the education systems of developing countries for a one day conference called “The Imperative of Secondary Education Reform: A Global Conversation.”











More and more attention is being paid to secondary education reform in all countries, which is why the time was ripe for this kind of conference, said Denise Glyn Borders, director of the AED U.S. Education Group.













“In the past our focus has been on primary and post-secondary education. Only recently have we been forced to acknowledge the importance of secondary education due to increased pressures from the workplace, institutions of higher education, and the public,” Dr. Borders said. “These groups strongly believe that children are not being prepared to respond to myriad global demands, even though they have the propensity to do so.”











John Merrow, executive producer of The Merrow Report on PBS and president of Learning Matters, moderated the morning panel discussion. The panel included Robin Horn, education sector manager of the World Bank, Michael Cohen, the president of Achieve, Inc., and Katherine Namuddu from the Rockefeller Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya.











During the morning’s guided discussion and the afternoon brainstorming session, participants talked about issues such as teacher preparation and professional development, standards, assessment, education finance, the use of information technology, and curriculum reform.











These discussions will be used as the foundation to plan a future, larger conference at AED on secondary education reform.











“Secondary education is a brief period in a person’s life—4-6 years, but…as a cornerstone of formal educational preparation for further learning, earning, and life, it is foundational,” said   Mary Joy Pigozzi, director of the AED Global Learning Group. “This is what makes it so critical, yet we know that even the countries that have invested heavily in secondary education reform are concerned that they may not have it right.”