Tuesday 24 August 2010

PISA Under Examination: Opening of the Symposium

The opening of the symposium was by a panel with Miguel Pereyra, Robert Cowan, Guadalupe Gonzalez Tano, Pilar Teresa Diaz, and German Gonzalez.

Guadalupe Gonzales Tano spoke of:
  • a clear imbalance in education
  • cautions about these surveys
  • how surveys such as PISA show places to improve within an education system
  • the benchmarks they provide
Pilar Teresa Diaz spoke of:
  • PISA as an international phenomenon
  • how PISA highlights the main problems of society and education
  • how PISA diagnoses global problems
  • the sensitivity needed with these surveys
  • the controversy of PISA, as PISA leaves nobody indifferent
  • the fundamental problems in comparative education
  • how PISA promotes improvement in education
  • how PISA needs to encourage in-depth analysis
  • the positive transformation of education
  • how PISA points out the problems we face
German Gonzalez spoke of:
  • PISA as a popular phenomenon
  • his role as director of the museum of education
  • Plato's views on education: the greatest beauty of body and soul
  • how today's world is interested in other aspects of education, as in the economic side
  • how PISA needs people with know-how
Miguel Pereyra spoke of:
  • the founding of CESE in London (1961)
  • the symposium, which focuses on PISA, the most complete international assessment thus far
  • the media storm following the release of PISA scores
  • the OECD creating the best form of international comparison
  • how perhaps PISA has become the OECD's "unwanted child"
  • the International Education Statistics, InES, which reoriented the efficiency of international indicators in 1986
  • PISA's birth in 1986
  • how PISA is often misinterpreted
  • the difficulty in actual comparison
  • how PISA is more than a ranking, it is a tool for the governance of education, and someday will be an international tool for world governance
  • the symposium would highlight the problems of PISA and the puzzle that PISA represents
  • the problematic scope of PISA -- it illustrates the systems that aren't working
  • the media's interpretation of PISA as an X-Ray or snapshot of schools and education systems
  • PISA's definition of "literacy," not concerned with didactics
  • the "horserace" that PISA has generated
  • how PISA measures not only performance, but also school functions
  • how PISA's measurement of education is problematic: it comes with rich data and a reservoir of empirical data
  • how PISA goes far beyond a test of economic or educational achievement
  • how PISA permeates everything

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