The InformED Report for April 21, 2017 opened with a survey of people who live and work abroad, and the countries they rated highest for their children’s education. Its main news was from Washington: in March, the Supreme Court had ruled unanimously in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, setting a higher standard for the progress public schools must plan for students with disabilities. The edition closed with PHIT America, a charity putting sports equipment and physical education support into schools that had cut back on both.
In this edition
- In an InterNations survey of 14,300 expats, Finland, Singapore and Switzerland ranked top for quality of education.
- The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Endrew F. that a student’s education program must be “appropriately ambitious,” in a case that could affect 6.5 million special education students.
- Advocate John McLaughlin called Endrew F. the most important Supreme Court special education decision in 35 years.
- PHIT America and Under Armour donated sports equipment to four schools, and PHIT America said it had helped nearly 300 schools in two years.
The countries expats rate highest for education
Business Insider’s Will Martin reported on a survey by InterNations, a network for people who live and work abroad. It asked 14,300 expats, representing 174 nationalities and living in 191 countries or territories, to rate 43 aspects of life abroad on a scale of 1 to 7, and the article ranked the 13 countries whose education expat parents rated best. Finland came first, with 70 percent of expat parents there calling the quality of education excellent, against a global average of 21 percent. Singapore and Switzerland followed, then South Korea, Hong Kong and Israel.
The survey measures the views of a particular group: internationally mobile families, whose choices and expectations may differ from those of local parents. It is a guide to how those parents experience a country’s schools, and it is a different kind of evidence from a test such as PISA. Its value for educators is as a reminder of what families notice first when they judge a school system, including quality, cost and how easy it is to find a place.
The Supreme Court rules on special education
NPR’s Anya Kamenetz and Cory Turner reported the ruling. In Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, a Colorado family had asked their district to pay for private school tuition because they felt their son Endrew, who has autism and ADHD, was not making enough progress in public school. On March 22, 2017, the Court ruled unanimously, setting aside the appeals court’s decision and sending the case back. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts held that schools must meet a more demanding standard than “merely more than de minimis” progress, and that a child’s educational program must be “appropriately ambitious” in light of the child’s circumstances. The Court declined to set out a single formula for what appropriate progress looks like.
Families and advocates welcomed the decision. Amanda Morin, a parent and advocate with Understood.org, said she could now tell a school system that her child was “legally entitled to make progress.” John McLaughlin of Autism IDEA called Endrew F. the most important Supreme Court special education decision in 35 years. In his account, the Court’s 1982 Rowley decision had come to be read as requiring only a floor of opportunity, especially for children with more severe disabilities, and that reading had made relations between parents and schools more combative.
Some public school groups made a quieter point to NPR: that “appropriately ambitious” planning was already the norm in many districts, so the ruling might change less in practice than its supporters hoped. For district leaders, the practical work was the same either way. Individualized education programs would be judged on whether their goals were genuinely challenging for the individual student and whether the school could show progress toward them. Reviewing goal-setting practice, and the training special education teams receive, was the obvious place to start.
InformED Report spotlight: PHIT America puts schools back in motion
The spotlight went to Jim Baugh, founder of PHIT America, whose name stands for Personal Health Investment Today. WTOP’s Kristi King reported that Baltimore-based Under Armour had sponsored donations of sports equipment to four schools: Kelly Miller Middle School and Ross Elementary School in Washington, D.C., and New Song Academy and Jeffers Hill Elementary in Baltimore. PHIT America uses money from corporations and individual donors to support school physical education with equipment, curricula, training and, in some cases, transportation, and said that with the nonprofit Kids in the Game it had helped nearly 300 schools in the past two years.
Baugh argued that “the sit-and-learn approach to education is failing us,” and said that nearly half of American high schools offered no gym class while many schools had cut recess. He pointed to research linking daily activity with better school performance. Those are an advocate’s figures and summary, but they point to a real choice in school scheduling: when time for physical activity is cut to make room for academic work, schools may be giving up something that supports the academic work itself.
Sources
- Will Martin, “The 13 countries with the best quality education in the world, according to expats,” Business Insider, March 28, 2017.
- Anya Kamenetz and Cory Turner, “This Week In Education: Supreme Court Rules On Special Ed; Senator Slams Vouchers,” NPR, March 25, 2017.
- John McLaughlin, “Impact Of Supreme Court Decision For Special Education Community,” Autism IDEA, March 2017.
- Kristi King, “Under Armour joins with charity to promote fitness,” WTOP, March 24, 2017.
About the InformED Report
The InformED Report is edCircuit’s short news program on education. This edition first ran on April 21, 2017. In 2026, edCircuit re-presented it with a new anchor and this full written account. Both report the stories as they stood on that date and link the original reporting, so readers can see exactly where each claim came from.
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