Rebecca Winthrop is a senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution.

 

Her research focuses on education globally, with special attention to the skills young people need to thrive in work, life, and as constructive citizens. She advises governments, international institutions, foundations, civil society organizations, and corporations on education issues.

 

Winthrop has authored numerous articles, reports, books, and book chapters, including most recently Leapfrogging Inequality: Remaking Education to Help Young People Thrive with Adam Barton and Eileen McGivney. Her work has been featured in the BBC, Newsweek, Time Ideas, NPR, Economist, and The Financial Times, among others.

 

Rebecca joins us to discuss Brooking’s new taskforce assembled to guide the next generation of community schools in the US, the scale of the learning loss in the US, building back better, and much more.

 

Listen to the full episode for a special section featuring Global Education Editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Jack, discuss the key outcomes of the discussion.

 

Timestamps:

 

00:00:00: Introduction

00:04:02: What’s been keeping Rebecca busy this past year?

00:07:22: Brooking’s Next Generation Schools Task Force

00:16:12: What’s the scale of the learning loss?

00:17:22: The effects of COVID are felt very differently

00:21:04: Are we really building back better?

00:28:16: Bringing students, parents, and teachers onboard with change

00:35:34: What the Biden-Harris administration can do in 2021

00:38:16: Lightening the bureaucratic load of testing in schools

00:42:28: Why is it so hard to change or replace programs?

00:45:02: The role of parents and family engagement education

00:47:06: What would it take to get us to leapfrog and not revert?

00:49:24: Andrew Jack’s initial response

00:52:42: A remote world raising the status of teachers

00:53:58: Are schools going to revert or fundamentally change?

00:58:26: The UK debate on extending the academic year

01:02:34: Reopening schools – where we stand globally

01:05:48: Academic discipline cut to identifying learning loss

01:08:36: What policymakers are thinking

01:11:45: The role of media in supporting education

 

Read Brooking’s Report on the next generation of Community Schools: brook.gs/3l7kx4P

 

Subscribe to the Financial Times: ft.com/education

 

Follow Rebecca Winthrop: twitter.com/RebeccaWinthrop

 

Follow Andrew Jack: twitter.com/AJack