School Trustee Misbehaviour: What’s the Source of the Dysfunction?

Elected school trustees are perhaps the lowest rung on the ladder of Canadian local democratic governance.  Yet, for a civic-minded community of ‘do-gooders’,  they seem to get into a an awful lot of hot water and often make headlines across Canada for all the wrong reasons.  Some local trustees have been suspended for conflicts of interest or openly criticizing senior staff members in public; others have been found to be utterly incapable of overseeing gigantic financial operations. A few crackpots have sued their own school board over various matters.  In some provinces, such as Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the Minister of Education has labelled the entire elected board “dysfunctional” and dismissed them from public office.

One leading school school board advocacy group, the Alberta School Boards Association, was so embarrassed by such matters that they went so far as to  produce a giant apologia, entitled “Trustees Behaving Badly,” published in in its December 2010 newsletter.   http://www.asba.ab.ca/natlegalnews/dec10/files/main_promo.html  The ASBA article not only reviewed the sordid litany of school trustee misbehaviour, but also felt compelled to provide professional advice to help school boards rein in “inappropriate school trustee behaviour” and reassure “their communities and electors that someone is minding the store.”

A wayward Calgary Catholic Board trustee, Michael O’Malley, was removed from office in 2007  for various offenses, including  breaches of confidentiality, costing taxpayers $750,000 in legal fees. In 2009-10, B.C.’s Langley School Board was investigated for poor financial controls, leaving taxpayers $13.5 million in the hole.   More recent school board woes in Ontario have centred on a succession of conflict of interest cases, virtually engulfing the Toronto District Catholic School Board. Three long-serving Toronto public school trustees were sued for conflict of interest on the  very eve of the October 2010 municipal elections.

Three times in the past five years Nova Scotia Ministers of Education have intervened — in Halifax, the Strait Region, and the South Shore — to dismiss the entire cast of elected school trustees. In each case, the Minister and Department claimed that the elected trustees had become “dysfunctional” and deserved to be dismissed from public office. Among those disposable trustees were a fair number of honest, public-spirited, and respected local citizens. Firing the trustees once, maybe, twice, possibly, but a third time —has not only rendered school boards a laughing stock, but made it patently obvious that the entire system of local education governance needs to be completely reformed if it is to survive much longer.

The real source of the “dysfunction” lies not so much with the personal deficiencies of  trustees, but with the straightjacket rules constraining their actions and rendering them politically impotent. Instead of trashing publicly elected trustees, it’s high time we looked at the Education Act and the strictly limited powers and responsibilities assigned to our elected representatives.

The Nova Scotia Education Act, unlike the Municipal Government Act, entrusts real authority to the Superintendents and strictly limits the powers and duties of our elected representatives.  Newly-elected school board members, flush with initial enthusiasm, quickly find themselves bound by a very restrictive code of conduct and behaviour, much like that of children in school. Individual trustees do not officially exist as policy initiators  and no role whatsoever is even assigned them in representing the interests and views of their constituents.  Most local municipal councillors would find such ‘class behaviour’ regulations laughable.     http://gov.ns.ca/JUST/regulations/regs/edmin.htm

The Good Governance Guidelines, produced by Howard Windsor for the reconstituted Halifax School Board in August 2008, are a major source of the dysfunction. The corporate governance model adopted is rather outdated, imposing  a very strict clinical, management-driven governance apparatus, separating  “policy” and “operations.” The role of the elected board is limited to hiring and evaluating the Superintendent, setting annual goals and priorities, developing written policies, overseeing board finances, and fulfilling other ‘clean-up’ duties.. http://www.hrsb.ns.ca/files/Downloads/pdf/board/Governance_Discussion_Paper.pdf    It is not a true model of “shared leadership” nor does it encourage any of what Harvard governance expert Richard Chait would term “generative thinking” and shared decision-making.

Two years later, Nova Scotia further tightened the reins and became the first province in Canada to introduce legislation to discipline individual trustees.  Since 2010, an Oath of Office (Schedule C) and Code of Ethics (Schedule D) has been added to the provincial regulations. Stricter governance guidelines have been a total bust, leaving elected trustees with far less to do and much more to complain about in the performance of their critical democratic role

Elected municipal councils, under the Nova Scotia Municipal Act, are granted “broad authority” and the province “respects their right to govern municipalities in whatever ways the councils consider appropriate” within their area of jurisdiction.  During the Municipal training sessions after the 2008 elections, newly –elected councillors were properly introduced to their representative roles and further assured that their powers were broadly defined and “not narrowly and with undue strictness.”

Devaluing the elected boards, labelling trustees dysfunctional, and subjecting them to a public flogging is no way to strengthen the democratic basis of our public education system.  Appointing another retired provincial bureaucrat to represent the concerns of local communities is a further slap in the face.

Without elected school boards, there is no real public accountability or transparency in the Primary to Grade 12 education system. Reforming local education governance should start with the Education Act and regulations – and focus on clarifying and strengthening the democratic powers of our local, elected representatives. In December 2009, Ontario at least recognized the problem and made an effort to improve school board effectiveness.  http://news.ontario.ca/edu/en/2009/12/school-board-governance-in-ontario-1.html  Only when this issue is fully addressed in all provinces can we insist that elected trustees hold the administration accountable for improving quality and standards.

Give elected trustees the right to speak up on behalf of their school communities at the Board instead of simply being the Board’s salesperson in the community. Unless and until elected trustees are simply given a more meaningful role and recognized as legitimate democratic representatives, you can expect recurrent governance crises in the future and more calls for abolishing all school boards.

Why do curious, independently-minded elected school trustees so often find themselves in hot water with senior administration and the provincial ministries?  What explains their tendency to go “rogue” or “dysfunctional”?  Would reforming the Education Act sections defining and limiting their roles make any real difference? 

The State of Canadian K-12 Education: Why is the Pattern So Chequered?

Holding up a mirror to the Canadian K to 12 education system produces a dozen or so jarring images. Over the past year, surveying the 10 provinces and three territories, a chequered pattern emerges with quality standards and student performance all over the map.

For every hopeful sign, troubling concerns represent trends which may, borrowing Dr. Paul Cappon’s apt turn-of-phrase, “leave us internationally-challenged” in the years ahead.

What stands out in the national educational landscape? My own Our Kids Report Card  of the best and worst of 2011 in education offers a few surprises.

THE BEST—HOPEFUL SIGNS

• Hitting a Plateau With the Help of Alberta and Ontario
Canadian 15-year-olds achieved respectable results on the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests released Dec. 7, 2010. Driven by Alberta and Ontario’s improved results, Canada finished eighth among 65 OECD countries in mathematics, seventh in science and fifth in reading. When the PISA results sunk in in early 2011, it became clear that Canada had plateaued and five of the top 10 countries were Asian, led by Shanghai (China), Singapore and Korea.

• Driving Higher IB Standards
Only 141 of the 1,926 high schools offering the full International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme are located in Canada, but they definitely punch above their weight. A handful of the 14 full diploma “IB World Schools” belonging to the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) ranked among the world’s finest. A brand new cohort of 11 Nova Scotia public high schools also achieved respectable results in May 2011, when 84.7 per cent secured a pass, compared to only 70.3 per cent across North America.

• B.C.’s Online Learning Renaissance
A November 2011 report on K-12 Online Learning, authored by Wayne State University’s Dr. Michael K. Barbour, lauded British Columbia for its innovative leadership in promoting and expanding online learning. Working in collaboration with the B.C. Teachers Federation, that province leads the way with some 88,000 of Canada’s 206,000 registered students, spread over 68 different distance education programs.

• Setting the Early Learning Pace
An Early Childhood Education report, released in November and inspired by the late Dr. Fraser Mustard’s research, called for greatly expanded universal programs to give kids the best possible start in life. Quebec’s $7-a-day program earned that province top spot on a new Childhood Education Index, followed closely by P.E.I. on the strength of its new full-day kindergarten and fresh start initiatives.

• Toronto’s Multiple Choice School Initiative
On Nov. 17, the Toronto District School Board trustees decided to move forward with the final stage in its Africentric school pathway, pledging to establish the first secondary school within the next two years. In addition, the TDSB also approved opening nine elementary alternative learning options, including two academies specializing in boys’ and girls’ leadership, three in sports, two in health and fitness, and two in vocal music.

THE WORST—TROUBLING SIGNS

• Cyberbullying in Schools
The suicide of Mitchell Wilson of Pickering, Ont., an 11-year-old bullying victim suffering from muscular dystrophy, shone new light on the growing incidence of horrendous new forms of bullying. In Nova Scotia, Wayne MacKay, chair of a Cyberbullying Task Force, declared that he was “overwhelmed by the extent of the problem,” after receiving more than 5,000 online responses and meeting with 35 focus groups totalling 1,000 students from across the province.

• Muslim Prayer in School Controversy
On July 8, 2011, the Toronto District School Board touched off a firestorm of controversy when it issued an official statement that the Muslim students attending Valley Park Middle School in North York had a “constitutional right” to pray during school hours. Although the school was 80 to 90 per cent Muslim and had been quietly allowing it on Friday afternoons for a year, it became the latest test case reopening a deeply divisive public issue.

• Withering of Canada’s Education Monitoring Council
On Oct. 10, 2011, Dr. Paul Cappon released the final report of the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) and raised serious questions about Canada’s drifting K to 12 education system. When CCL disappears in March 2012, an “enormous vacuum” will be left at the very centre of our national education leadership as we soldier on without any effective means for setting Canada-wide performance goals.

• Firing of Elected School Boards
Nova Scotia Education Minister Ramona Jennex shocked everyone in late November 2011 by dismissing the entire elected South Shore school board, the third such action in five years. This time the minister faced a stiff public backlash when local parents rallied to protest the mass firing and to stop pending school closures. Earlier in the year, P.E.I.’s Doug Currie also wielded the axe, firing the entire Eastern P.E.I. School Board, again in the wake of prolonged school closure skirmishes.

Gazing into 2012, spotting the sun amid the gathering clouds requires concentration. Teachers will go into schools each day, as always, performing yeoman service without hearing enough in the way of appreciation. Without the CCL around, provincial education ministers will likely feed off their own glowing media releases, leaving us to muddle through in a more competitive international world. It would likely take an “Occupy the Schools” movement in rural and small town Canada to arrest the relentless process of “big box” consolidation gobbling up small community schools. Let’s hope that the tiresome “War Games” waged by the paid mouthpieces of the “key stakeholders” will subside, so we can focus first, last and always on what’s really best for students.

Why is the overall pattern so chequered? Without the Canadian Council on Learning, where can we look for independent, reasonably balanced assessments of public policy issues?  Will 2012 be the year that we rise to the global challenge, open the provincial windows, and start putting students first in education? 

Student Re-Engagement: Why is Engaging Students Such a Challenge?

Getting children and teens to offer information about school can often be more difficult than pulling teeth.  “What did you do in school today?” usually elicits the all-too-familiar response: “Nothing.” Did anything interesting happen?  “Nope.”  Did you like it? “It was O.K.”  What began is a routine question, ends up becoming a rather futile daily inquisition.

Renowned American child psychologist Michael Thompson once described this daily after-school ritual as “interviewing for pain.”  Parenting experts in Canada are so concerned about the matter that they actually offer “do’s and don’ts to increase your child’s willingness to share useful and important information about his school experience.” http://www.canadianparents.com/article/what-did-you-learn-in-school-today

The question “What did you do in school today?” even became the theme for a national study, conducted by J. Douglas Willms, Sharon Friesen and Penny Milton for the Canadian Education Association, in collaboration with the Canadian Council on Learning and school districts across Canada.  The CEA initiative’s first report, in May 2009, attempted to tackle the question of student engagement in the classroom, including the possible connections among adolescent learning, student achievement and effective teaching.

A Canadian Student Survey in 2007-2008, involving 32,000 students in 93 schools covering 10 different school districts turned up some troubling results.  Too many students are disengaged from learning in school; gaps in student achievement levels persist; and there is growing concern about whether the current models of schooling prepare all young people for future success in life and the workplace.    http://www.ccl-cca.ca/pdfs/otherreports/WDYDIST_National_Report_EN.pdf

The key findings were startling: Overall levels of social and academic engagement were quite low, but intellectual engagement was even lower in the schools. Levels of intellectual engagement declined significantly from  grades 6 to 12, dropping from 60% to less than 40% of all students. While students continued to feel a “sense of belonging,” they also reported a major drop in regular attendance.

School and class climate were surveyed extensively, but students were not asked an obvious question: What lay at the root of the lack of intellectual engagement?  Simply put, were they BORED by the academic expectations in class?

The original Tell Them From Me survey, designed by Willms and Patrick Flanagan, is not really intended to get at the root of the problem.  It’s an an assessment system that measures a wide variety of indicators of student engagement, wellness, classroom atmosphere, and school climate, focusing heavily on outside influences affecting learning outcomes. Among the areas covered are: perceptions of testing, involvement in sports teams and clubs, attendance, hours spent watching TV, a sense of belonging, post-graduation goals, bullying, self esteem, student anxiety and depression.   http://www.changelearning.ca/~cl/programs/tell-them-me-canadian-students-speak-about-their-schools

The CEA-funded survey, in fact, asks everything except whether students are challenged enough academically or to high enough behavioural standards.   Indeed, the CEA’s initiative is now looking to students themselves to help solve the myriad social problems that have, for generations, bedeviled the system. “CEA believes, ” we are told in a remarkably naive proclamation,  that ” students have an important part to play in shaping how we tackle these issues, think about learning environments, and consider the purposes of schooling.”   http://www.cea-ace.ca/programs-initiatives/wdydist

Why do leading Canadian educators continue to focus on the branches rather than the roots of the problem of student disengagement?  With over 60% of high schoolers reporting a lack of “intellectual engagement,” why look outside the system for the answer?  Was John Taylor Gatto completely wrong 20 years ago when he warned in Dumbing Us Down (1992) that the “hidden curriculum” of compulsory state schooling had a “deadening effect” on learning? Could it be that sound, challenging curriculum provides the best guarantor of student engagement?

Firing of Elected School Boards: Who Gains from Suspending Local Democracy?

For the third time in the past five years, a Nova Scotia School Board has been fired by a provincial Minister of Education, a remarkable record for a province with only nine elected education boards.  Last year, Prince Edward Island Education Minister Doug Currie also wielded the axe, firing the entire Eastern PEI School Board in the wake of prolonged school closure skirmishes.

On Tuesday November 29, 2011, Nova Scotia’s Education Minister Ramona Jennex shocked everyone in Atlantic Canada by announcing that the elected South Shore Regional School Board (SSRSB) had been “fired” for breaching its code of ethics and proper governance practices.  Acting on a School Board Review report produced by Deloitte management consultants, she told the twelve member Board of Trustees in Bridgewater, NS, that they had been dismissed from office.  She also announced that the Board had not only been been sacked, but replaced with a senior educrat, Judith Sullivan-Corney, formerly a Deputy Minister with the Nova Scotia Government. (Media Advisory -”Minister Moves to Take Control of SSRSB” -  NSDoE, 29 Nov. 2011)

The Minister’s unilateral decision stunned the Chair of the SSRSB veteran Trustee Elliott Payzant, and his 12-member elected who had asked the Minister in June 2011 to audit their governance practices to clear the air.  The small Board, established in 2004 with only 32 schools and 7,400 students, had certainly captured the Minister’s attention. It all started in late February 2011 when the elected Trustees voted 10 to 2 to suspend the school closure review process affecting 12 of the 32 schools, overturning a staff recommendation. Superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake was completely miffed, since the only two supporting the process were her Board Chair and Vice-Chair Gary Mailman, the Trustee supposedly overseeing governance matters.

The real catalyst for the public controversy was the South Shore weekly, The Progress Bulletin,which had used a Freedom of Information (FOIPOP) request to unearth hundreds of private e-mails suggesting improper governance practices.  Those revelations, covered extensively in the South Shore News and The Chronicle Herald, suggested that a group of 4 to 8 trustees were meeting and strategizing to save their community schools, in the wake of their controversial  earlier decision to close the historic Lunenburg Academy. When the e-mails were made public, it was also clear that  Trustee Karen Reinhardt and Board Chair Payzant  were both deeply involved in the behind-the-scenes politicking.       http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2011/072611/letters/index006.php

The initial Halifax Chronicle Herald editorial (Nov. 30, 2011), accepted the Minister’s decision and reasoning at face value.  Closer scrutiny of the Deloitte report (22 November 2011) led governance experts to draw different conclusions.  http://www.ednet.ns.ca/pdfdocs/school_boards/PerformanceReviewReportSSRSB.pdf   The Management Consultants hired by the DoE brought a corporate governance philosophy to their task, assessing the elected Board according to a clinical model seemingly unaware of the complexities and intricacies of local politics and the trustee’s representational role in the system.

The governance template used to assess the South Shore Board reflected the same managerial orientation.  By assuming that the Superintendent was the “gatekeeper” and source of  all agenda information, the political actions of trustees taking autonomous policy positions and giving voice to public concerns were seen as destabilizing for the system.  Some elected trustees acted inappropriately, particularly in the realm of  conflict of interest, and deserved sanctions. On three of six criteria, the elected Board was found in contravention of the governance regulations, but they were judged to be following provincial budget and policy directives.  None of the actual recommendations specifically referenced dismissing the entire board.  That move was clearly the Minister’s decision.

The “One-Woman-Board,” Ms. Sullivan-Corney, received a slap happy reception from the Superintendent and senior staff in the Bridgewater Board Office. That response stood in stark contrast to the growing media criticism and the chill felt by South Shore parents left without trustees in the local communities.  Four or five of the “fired” Trustees were highly respected local citizens, most notably Marg Forbes of Bridgewater and Lunenburg physician Dr. John Jenkins.  Some Trustees like Reinhardt were mavericks who stood up strongly for local communities.

Denied their public voice, South Shore parents were not about to be silenced by the Minister or the Superintendent. Within three days, groups of parents in Hebbville, Petite Riviere, Chester, and Lunenburg began to complain loudly about the decision, expressing fear that many of the 12 threatened schools would now be closed.  Parent Sherry Doucet of Hebbville spoke out in The Chronicle Herald  and Michelle Wamboldt of Petite Riviere was galvanized into action, pushing forward with plans to hold a Small School Summit on January 21, 2012 at the NSCC in Bridgewater.    http://thechronicleherald.mobi/novascotia/38279-south-shore-parents-fear-schools-will-be-closed-after-all

Previous decisions to fire Nova Scotia school boards, taken in 2006 ( HalifaxRSB and StraitRSB) by former Education Minister Karen Casey, went far more smoothly. Defenders of small schools now carry much more influence, the “dismissed” Trustees won far more sympathy among the public — and the usual public backlash against all School Boards fizzled when the real underlying issues surfaced.

Public statements by Vic Fleury, Chair of the NSSBA, that the School Board Association was never consulted before the axe fell simply added fuel to the fire. Faced with mounting public concern, the Nova Scotia Department of Education was compelled, a week later, to send out 24,000 leaflets by mail in an attempt to reassure worried parents and families.  A one-woman-board was now presented as the answer for those seeking to be heard. http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/40544-education-department-reassures-parents-after-school-board%E2%80%99s-firing

How common in North America is the practice of dismissing elected School Boards?  Why have Nova Scotia Education Ministers come to use that power with such frequency?  What is wrong with the School Board governance model as presently conceived in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island?  What can be done to reform school board governance and, at the same time, to restore public confidence in local education democracy?

The EdCamp Movement: What are Teachers Seeking — and for What Purpose?

An EdCamp Movement is spreading rapidly across the United States and beginning to pop-up in various places in Canada.  Since the first EdCamp in Philadelphia in May 2009, a series of one-day unconferences have been held attracting flocks of mostly younger teachers and IT zealots aspiring to be “21st century educators.” So far, over sixty-four such ‘open concept’ gatherings have been held across North America, including events in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City.  http://edcamp.wikispaces.com/  Apostles of the EdCamp Movement see building these constellations of teachers as the gateway to “revolutionary professional learning” and potentially ‘The Next Great Thing’ in education.

What’s inspiring the EdCamp Movement?  When asked, Dan Callahan, a recognized Co-Founder and Grade 6 LS /IT teacher, provides a rather blunt answer: “Most PD stinks!”  http://dancallahan.net/about-geekteacher   Dan (aka The Geek Teacher) is definitely not alone in trashing what North American school districts inflict on teachers as many as 10 days each school year.  It’s also a particularly damning criticism, given the millions of dollars poured each year into “in-servicing” the nation’s teachers.

Professional Development (or PD) has long been a dirty word for many regular teachers, essentially something done to them rather than with them.  Initiators of EdCamps like Mary Beth Hertz (Philadelphia) and M.E. Steele-Pierce (Cincinnati) seek to create “powerful experiences” that actually meet the needs and interests of classroom teachers.  “Unconferences,” Steele-Pierce believes, ” are part of the learning revolution. They’re participant driven professional learning gatherings.”  http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/07/unconference-revolutionary-professional-learning/

Organizers of EdCamps go to great lengths to ensure that, like the British BarCamps,  the events provide “an ad hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.”   All EdCamps are free to participants, non-commercial, organized in an initial morning session, and count upon participants to be presenters.   They appeal to the tech-savvy because they are created in Wikispace and all feature live blogging and tweeting to spread the word to the wider community.

EdCamps were started initially as teacher-driven, crowd-sourced gatherings, but have now been adopted by new wave “21st century educators” such as Vancouver’s David Wees.  Some Canadian EdCamps have become fronts for the rump of the “progressive” movement in public education.  In Toronto, the EdCamp held October 15, 2011 at York University was actually conceived and spearheaded by Stephen Hurley, a veteran educator who blogs regularly for  the Canadian Education Association. ( http://teachingoutloud.org/)

The Toronto EdCamp was captured on video and posted on the Wikispace site, just like the original EdCamp Philly. http://www.edcampto.org/  While billed as being inclusive, the York University event attracted a crowd of mostly wide-eyed young teachers, education professors, and faculty of education students looking for their first jobs.  “Doing your own Thing” at a PD session was something of a revelation to the  most zealous participants, far too young to remember Summerhill, the Hall-Dennis Report, or the sixties.

Critics of the EdCamps see the Movement as the progeny of educational idealists and “21st century” IT promoters seeking a kind of escape from the recent era of educational standards, testing, and accountability. Even veteran teacher activists like Doug Little of The Little Education Report remain skeptical of what looked much like a “summer camp” for grown-ups.  Most Ontario parents, including Annie Kidder and People for Education, find themselves on the outside looking-in during the camp meetings.

Long-time education reformers like Malkin Dare, founder of the Canadian Society for Quality Education, do not look kindly on the core philosophy and implicit purpose of EdCamps. “My preference would be for teachers who went to conferences to learn how to hone their teaching of basic – and not-so-basic – skills and knowledge,” she recently wrote. ” Personally, I would rather that my children’s teachers didn’t view themselves as change agents, for I see this as an attempt to tamper with the parents’ job, nor do I believe that children should be allowed to determine what they learn – since this approach will inevitably leave random gaps in what should be a solid foundation.”   http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/two-different-schools-of-thought/

Why is the EdCAmp Movement gaining some traction among teachers in the public education system?  What are young and enthusiastic teachers really looking for — and what do they need to improve their craft?  Why do so many EdCamp participants emerge from the sessions describing it as their “best PD experience ever’?  If that is so, are we blowing millions on PD for teachers that has little or no actual impact on the quality of, or passion for, teaching?

Online Learning: What’s Thwarting Progress and Student Access?

Today’s junior and senior high school students are increasingly cyber-savvy, hungering for more opportunities to use technology inside the schools, and eager to participate in genuine collaborative learning .  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/don-tapscott/logged-on-to-learn/article1853529/  Mobile learning technology has been adopted almost en mass by the Net Generation and by today’s so-called “screenagers,”  but the vast majority of Canadian  public schools remain “locked-down” to the free use of such devices outside of designated rooms or access points.

Why are Canada’s public school systems so resistant to online learning and virtual schooling?  Educational futurists may trumpet the “21st Century Skills,” but the regulatory system conspires against any and all initiatives that challenge the status quo, based upon regulations that determine when, how, and where teaching and learning take place. One of the prime obstacles to online learning remains the teachers unions, powerful organizations that exercise hidden influence over everything that happens in the schools. http://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/1862

Recent annual reviews of the state of  Online Learning in Canada have demonstrated that the rigid structuring of schooling constitutes the greatest obstacle in Canadian provincial education systems. Two Canadian provinces, British Columbia and Alberta, are now recognizing the enormous potential of “blended learning” combining regular  “bricks and mortar” instruction with expanded online learning opportunities. Ontario has the most disjointed system, managed by a rather diffuse E-Learning Consortium. Of all the provinces, Prince Edward Island has no real policy and Nova Scotia stands out as being the most restrictive when it comes to online learning.

The Nova Scotia Teachers Union, representing 9,800 teachers, staunchly defends the provincial Collective Agreement, a 191-page contract, which spells out, in exacting detail,  the number of days of instruction, school day  hours, class sizes, and every aspect of school working conditions.  http://www.ednet.ns.ca/pdfdocs/collective -agreements/teachers_provincial_agreement_english.pdf    Most of these hard-won rights achieved in the mid-1970s essentially put teachers ahead of kids in the system.

Like most Canadian teacher unions, the NSTU is dead set against “Virtual Schools” and defends classroom “seat-time” rules which limit online learning to a supplemental role in the P-12 public system.  When information technology innovations arise, the union instinctively resists the introduction of “lighthouse” Information Technology programs because of concerns over the “digital divide” and the system’s inability to guarantee “equality of service “ for all students. http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/society-societe/stories-histoires/story-histoire-eng.aspx?story_id=139

Technology may be transforming our everyday life, but Nova Scotia public schools are lagging in fully embracing the potential of the Internet and in integrating online learning into the system.  E-learning courses and programs as well as virtual schools are popping-up in Ontario (Virtual High School) and British Columbia, but remain few and far between in Nova Scotia’s school system.

At the elementary and secondary school level (P-12), regular “brick-and-mortar” schools are acquiring computer hardware and software, connecting them to the Internet, installing wireless networks, and offering in-service training in ICT (Information Communication Technologies) to both novice and experienced teachers.  http://www.ccl-cca.ca/pdfs/E-learning/E-Learning_Report_FINAL-E.PDF

In spite of provincial law and regulations, distance education student enrolments are holding their own, given the limits imposed by structural impediments, regulatory constraints, and budgetary restraint programs.  The infrastructure in a surprising number of public schools now enables Internet access, student portals, digital libraries, and networks that support laptops, handheld and other portable devices.

The province of Nova Scotia  has initiated and is developing a highly centralized , province-wide online learning program – the Nova Scotia Virtual School (NSVS). http://nsvs.ednet.ns.ca/m19/  It provides a central course management platform and delegates to the eight school boards the responsibility for providing course content written by practicing classroom teachers.

Since Nova Scotia has tended to lag behind in providing province-wide high speed Internet access, concerns about the urban-rural “digital divide” exert considerable influence on educational policy-making.  Although Nova Scotia has no P-12 distance education legislation, it is heavily regulated in the Teachers’ Contract with the NSTU.

The Nova Scotia regulatory regime pays utmost respect to negotiated teacher rights.  Some 11 specific clauses in the Agreement limit the provincial government’s freedom of action in providing online learning.  All online instructors must be certified teachers, employed by the public board, and are protected by provisions limiting their number of instructional days and working hours and guaranteeing them personal days as well as dedicated preparation and marking time.

Distance education is treated like a regular in-school program with supervisors, dedicated facilities space, and class groups limited to 20-25 students.   A provincial Distance Education Committee, with teacher union representation (four of 8 positions) exists to address “issues surrounding distance education.”

Online learning has a world of potential for promoting freer, more open access to the Internet and opening the door to new innovations taking better advantage of “e-Learning 2.0.”  Here again, Nova Scotia exemplifies the defensive reflex.  Virtually all NS  e-learning programs consist mainly of instructional packets, delivered to students as teacher-evaluated assignments. Newer e-learning opportunities for students are few and far between, even in urban schools.

Social learning with Facebook and Twitter also remains extremely rare across Canada, as is the use of social media software such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and virtual worlds.   Few traditional classroom teachers use social networking unless they are communicating with their own professional colleagues. http://www.themarknews.com/articles/2368-should-schools-friend-facebook

Virtual schools are on the horizon and offer a glimmer of hope for realizing the enormous potential in meeting the needs of today’s learners. With education authorities and unions acting in collusion with one another, the sky (in cyberspace) has definite limits for kids.

What’s the real source of resistance to Online Learning in Canadian public education? Do education authorities see the contradiction in supporting “21st Century Skills” initiatives while maintaining restrictive regulatory regimes?  What will it take to unlock and tap into the full potential of online learning and virtual schools?   

“Do-Over” Student Evaluation: What Lesson Does Pardoning Cheaters Teach?

Cheaters do not really prosper in schools, but many are now being given a “second chance.”   In a few Canadian and American school districts, giving students a second chance to pass tests, examinations, and other assignments, has actually become accepted as “student assessment” policy promoting a unique 21st century concept of “fairness.”  In Newfoundland’s largest school board, the Eastern School District, the policy was changed in October 2011 so students cheating or plagiarizing will no longer be assigned a mark of zero.  http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1075276–cheating-students-get-second-chance-in-newfoundland

The Newfoundland and Labrador school board’s policy change is not what it seemed – an isolated and rather bizarre deviation from sound education policy. The tradional “automatic zero” is dying a slow death, aided and abetted by student assessment experts, and being supplanted by “do-over” evaluation practice in schools across North America. The Eastern School Board Superintendent Ford Rice was quite accurate when he claimed that the policy was driven by “current literature in education” and was “consistent in philosophy” with policies in other boards across Canada.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/nl-evaluation-regulations-20111005.pdf

Publicly announcing the Newfoundland school board’s new policy is what really sparked a firestorm of protest. President of the provincial Teachers’ Association Lily Cole spoke out, saying that teachers were not only frustrated but very unhappy with the policy which took responsibility for teaching “responsibility, respect, honesty, and values” away from regular teachers. “This just takes it out of our hands,” she told both CBC News and The Toronto Star.

“Students will not be given zeros for cheating,” Rice insisted, because the Board’s educational philosophy was to “separate student behaviour from learning to give us a true picture of what the student knows.”  Rising to defend the new student cheating policy on the airwaves was perhaps the leading exponent of “do-over” student assessment, Ontario education consultant Damian Cooper.  In the old system, he claimed, students who “failed at the test” were “tossed onto the heap ” and branded “non-achievers or low-achievers.”   http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2011/10/25/nl-cheating-student-reaction-teachers-1025.html

A close examination of newly revised Student Assessment policies in a cross-section of school boards in Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ohio is most revealing. Most of the policies are like that of the Halifax Regional School Board (C.007 Program, 1.2.6.4), clearly separating the evaluation of student achievement from that of student behaviour.  Indeed, many use the same wording when separating the two and virtually identical to that found in Damian Cooper’s book, Talk About Assessment.  http://damiancooperassessment.com/talk.html  In his more recent offering, Redefining Fair, he goes even further in trying to dispel “outdated beliefs regarding fairness” in so-called “mixed-ability classrooms.”

What’s really happening in the strange world of student assessment?  A small band of learning assessment experts, led by Damian Cooper and one of his mentors, Scarborough consultant  Ken O’Connor, The Grade Doctor, exert a tremendous influence over school administrators and consultants with little or no background in testing or evaluation. “First and foremost,” O’Connor preaches, ” accuracy requires that behaviours and attitudes be separated from achievement, so that grades are pure measures of achievement.”  According to this iron dictum, late penalties, absence, academic dishonesty, or even bonus marks have no place in determining student grades. And furthermore, awarding percentage marks is unacceptable because “no one can accurately describe 101 levels” of proficiency. http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/503-newvoices.aspx

Student assessment experts like Damian Cooper pop up everywhere because most school boards are desperate to improve their idiosyncratic, autonomous, teacher-driven student evaluation practices. Over the 2009-10 school year, Cooper was hired to give “Tools for Assessment” Workshops from one end of the country to another, including prominent recorded talks in Vancouver, Barrie,ON,  and Sackville, NB.  From July 5 to 8, 2010, he was the sole presenter a a two-day intensive Workshop, entitled “Fostering Assessment Literacy in Our Schools” sponsored by the CMEC -Atlantic section, and funded by NB Education and all four teachers unions.

How were Damian Cooper’s assessment theories seeded in the Maritimes?  Look no further than the the Assessment Summit, held in late August 2009, at Halifax’s World Trade and Convention Centre.  Close to 600 school officials and teachers attended the extravaganza headlined by Damian Cooper, Ken O’Connor, and Rick Stiggins, head of Educational Testing Service (ETS) Assessment from Portland, Oregon.

A Media Advisory issued by the NSTU left no doubt about the actual purpose of the education Summit. ” These most distinguished assessment experts,” the SSRSB’s Sue Taylor-Foley stated,” will illustrate the fundamental purpose of assessment is not to rate, rank, and sort students, but rather to provide meaningful feedback that leads to improved student learning.”  The core theme, she emphasized, was to promote “Common Assessment” across schools in Nova Scotia and beyond.  http://www.nstu.ca/images/pklot/MA_NSELC09.pdf

Since the Newfoundland cheating policy change hit the news, an eerie silence has descended upon Student Assessment Divisions in most Canadian school boards.  Superintendent Rice and NLSBA Executive Director Brian Shortall, supported by Cooper, have been fending off a wave of vocal opposition, leveled by irate parents, taxpayers, teachers and high school students.  Over 75% of all respondents to a CBC News St. John’s  poll were adamantly opposed to “pardoning” student cheaters.  On the CBC Radio Maritime Magazine show (October 29), “Mind the Gap,”  Shortall offered a rather feeble defense of the change and received some tacit support from NB Superintendent Karen Branscombe (NB District 2, Moncton).

Not every Canadian school board has given up on curbing student cheating and plagiarism. The Toronto and District School Board policy on “Academic Honesty” stands out as a prime example.  “Cheating and plagiarism will not be condoned,” the TDSB policy (PR613) proclaims. What happens if a student violates that policy?  “A mark of zero may be awarded for the assignment in question and a repeated pattern of academic dishonesty may result in an escalating severity of consequences.”

Giving student cheaters a second chance is symptomatic of profound changes now underway in student assessment policy.  Where is the educational research to support the student evaluation theories being espoused by Damian Cooper and his cohorts?  Does separating completely student achievement from student behaviour in the evaluation process make any real sense — and what are the likely consequences? Should student cheaters be pardoned in our schools?  Taking the larger view,  is all of this threatening to produce what might be called a “do-over” generation?

Childhood and Innocence: Who is Under Siege -and from What?

Joel Bakan, author of the 2004 best seller The Corporation, has returned with a controversial sequel entitled Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children . His earlier book was also turned into an award winning documentary film that exposed the insidious evils of corporate influence in our everyday lives. If the modern corporation was human, Bakan claimed, it would be a certifiable psychopath. In Childhood Under Siege, he attempts to extend his now familiar thesis into the realm of childhood. http://www.5min.com/Video/Joel-Bakan-Talks-About-Childhood-Under-Siege-517127244

    As a committed social progressive, Bakan claims to have been called into action to protect our kids from the faceless, soul-less, rapacious corporation.      Since its publication, the book has attracted mostly favourable attention, particularly on CBC Radio and TV, where the Michigan-born UBC law professor is often treated as a popular media personality.

Today’s Canadian parents and families may not be so quick to swallow Bakan’s sweeping interpretation of their situation. When looking for guidance, they are more likely to find the answers in Carl Honore’s more compelling 2008 book Under Pressure: How the Epidemic of Hyper-Parenting is Endangering Childhood.  It covers the same territory, offering a far more complex, multi-layered analysis and reaching radically different conclusions. http://www.carlhonore.com/?page_id=5

In Childhood Under Siege, parents and children are depicted as innocents who represent easy prey for the corporation. From the outset, Bakan comes-off as a rather naive and protective parent who is startled to discover that his 11-year-old son’s “really cool” Internet games site is a gateway to such appalling “kiddie” fare as “Whack Your Soul Mate” and “Boneless Girl.” That horrible revelation, according to the author, is really what prompted him to resume his war against corporate influence in North American life.

Bakan goes on to chronicle how “big business” targets and exploits children in a multitude of subtle and under-handed ways. It has happened, he claims, because of government’s failure to intervene, allowing child protection laws to erode and giving free reign to corporations and their heartless, money-driven “marketers.”

For today’s kids, Balkan shows that it’s a dangerous world out there. Spending hours and hours online exposes them to cyberworlds and social media which feed teenage narcissism and promote deranged, highly competitive and unhealthy values. Relentlessly targeted by red haired clowns (McDonalds) and hipster icons (Starbucks), they come to pester their parents for fast food, junk snacks, and sugary, high voltage drinks.

Sections of the book do deliver a profoundly important message. Bakan is at his best when exposing what is termed “Big Pharma.” Here his overarching thesis hits closer to the mark. In many cases, big pharmaceutical companies have not only smothered negative scientific studies, but also co-opted medical professionals to create a popular culture where drugs solve everything –and where kids actually label themselves “ADHD” before being seen by a doctor.

Balkan’s litany of sins perpetuated by big businesses knows few limits. It’s the corporations that pollute the child’s playroom environment with toxins, turn a blind eye to noxious gases, exploit child labour, and promote “market-driven” reforms in public education.

In taking a big scope, Bakan covers much territory and his sweeping analysis tends to reflect a clear presentist bias. Paying more attention to the history of childhood would have yielded deeper insights into the cyclical pattern of exaggerated parental worries, including the supposed corrupting influence of such blights as 19th century “dime novels,” The Simpsons, and South Park.

Though the book tends to focus on the United States, Balkan tries to demonstrate that Canadian children are also being victimized in similar fashion. He knows the law and effectively documents the holes in child protection laws in Canada as in the U.S. Raising red flags about creeping corporate influence in Canadian public education through privately-managed charter schools, standardized testing, and rampant commercialization simply does not wash.

Thoughtful critics have already begun to dismiss Childhood Under Siege as a sincere, well-intended book which falls short of expectations. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/childhood-under-siege-how-big-business-targets-children-by-joel-bakan/article2143228/  While The Corporation was very convincing in exposing the extent of corporate influence, the sequel runs aground in the complex, multi-faceted realm of childhood, parenting, and family life.

Parents play a much bigger role than Bakan ever acknowledges and, truth be told, “hyper-parenting” is threatening to produce a generation of “coddled kids.” Today’s kids teenagers are also mighty savvy when it comes to “The Pester Factor,” bugging their harried parents into buying the latest version of every consumer item.

The author shows a surprisingly naive faith in the capacity of government to safeguard our children. Looking to government to solve most matters, as Bakan does, will find little resonance with those who are already sceptical of the friendly state. After all, as German sociologist Max Weber once warned us, “parcelling out-of-the soul” is common to all bureaucracies, public as well as private.

Why is Bakan’s Childhood Under Siege being hailed as “an important book” for parents and policy-makers? How well founded are the scare stories aimed at exposing the supposed evils of corporate influence in Canadian public education? Who is really under siege — kids, parents, or the family? What’s the primary source of the problem – rampant materialism, big business influences, the decline of family values, or the stressful pace of life?

The State of Canadian Learning: What Hard Lessons Lie Ahead?

Canada has an “enormous vacuum” at the centre of its national education leadership and needs to set national goals for the system, Dr. Paul Cappon declared on October 10, 2011, while releasing his Final Report on behalf of the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL). That was also the key recommendation in the report entitled What is the Future of Learning in Canada? and delivered as parting advice before the CCL wraps up its operations when federal funding disappears at the end of March 2012. http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Home/index.html

“One of our problems in Canada, of course, is that we have very little information nationally about how we’re doing,” said Cappon, Canada’s leading authority on international educational standards. “For example, we don’t even know how many graduates we have in any particular year in any particular area, whether it’s fisheries or forestry or carpentry, so we can’t match labour market demand to labour market supply. Those kinds of national reporting systems of data are very important for a country to be able to decide where to put its resources and to be able to move forward.” http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/create-new-body-to-ensure-canada-meets-learning-goals-report-urges-131495398.html

Cappon makes a compelling case that Canada needs a new federal, intergovernmental agency to oversee the Canadian educational system. He told the Canadian Press that the current Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, of which he was CEO for eight years, is ineffective as a co-ordinating body because everything is done on a consensus basis and it refuses to co-operate with the federal government on education matters.

The final report of CCL recommends that there be something else as well, namely a national Council of Ministers on Learning. The federal-provincial body could provide national leadership in learning, similar to what is done by a ministerial council in Australia, or the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Union. Cappon said a Canadian version would see the provinces, territories and federal government work together to set and meet goals, and report transparently to the Canadian public. In the European model, he said member states have an open method of co-ordination to try to converge their policies and priorities in education, even though they’re all sovereign in education, like Canadian provinces.

What stands in the way of establishing a stronger national presence? “Territoriality” was the word Cappon used to describe the greatest inhibiting factor. It would, he told Canadian Press, take “tremendous public pressure to move in this direction,” although he saw some political will for such a model among small provinces and French language minorities.

Cappon and the Canadian Council on Learning also announced a final cross-Canada speaking tour to promote the report’s recommendations. “What I’m hoping,” he said in Ottawa, “is that when people realize that Canada is slipping down the international learning curve we’re not going to be able to compete in the future unless we get our act together.”

The final CCL National Report Card makes reference to the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Scores reveal that Canadian 15-year-olds have relatively strong sets of skills in reading, math and science, but they’ve been slipping relative to other countries and in some cases in absolute terms.

The bright spots for Canadian education, recognized in the CCL report, are in early elementary education, where preschoolers enjoy free play, and are introduced early to reading. The Canadian K-12 system is also still recognized as among the most inclusive and democratic in the world.At the post-secondary level, Canadians can rest assured that there is high participation, a high rate of graduation and a high proportion of immigrants are being university educated.

Having recognized the Canadian system’s strengths, the CCL report doesn’t mince any words when it comes to identifying problem areas. A number of other troubling trends are highlighted in the council’s report, which noted that about one-quarter of kids enter school without being ready, either because of behavioural or learning problems. In addition, Cappon told Canadian Press that boys are now lagging in education and slipping markedly compared with girls from kindergarten to Grade 12. He also re-stated his long-standing concerns about adult illiteracy, as well as the paltry state of private sector funding for post-secondary level research in Canada.

The impending closing of the Canadian Council on Learning will be a sad day for all who believe in raising educational standards and ensuring that the current generation is properly prepared for future success. Dr. Cappon’s final Report Card does offer a rather gloomy prognosis. And, reading between the lines, The Globe and Mail’s Education Reporter Kate Hammer shares my concerns over the CCL’s demise.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadian-education-awaits-a-hard-lesson-watchdog-warns/article2197017/

It’s time to step back and look at the big picture: What is the actual state of learning in Canada? How accurate is Dr. Cappon’s final report in diagnosing the situation, particularly in K-12 education? If the CCL is correct, what hard lessons lie ahead for Canada and Canadians?

Private Schools vs. Public Schools: Why Do Private School Students Achieve Better Results?

A recent Toronto Star series,produced by investigative reporters Robert Cribb and Jennifer Yang, created a sensation by conveying the strong impression that private schools inflate student marks and some privately-owned Toronto high schools operate as virtual “credit mills.” http://www.thestar.com/printarticle/1054778 The second expose was a gripping undercover story, once again highlighting the perennial problem of so-called VISA schools operating beyond the irreproachable scrutiny of Ontario’s Ministry of Education inspectorate. Since 2009, the Toronto Star also reported that the Ontario MOE had received dozens of complaints about “private schools,” including many about the greatest ‘credit mill’ of them all, Scarborough’s notorious “Toronto Collegiate Institute.” http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/1055379–star-investigation-slacking-off-gets-high-marks-at-this-high-school

Slacking-off can earn students high marks at the TCI Summer School, but so what? Most struggling high school students have known for years that the easiest route to re-gaining a Mathematics or Science high school credit is by attending Summer School anywhere. The Toronto Collegiate Institute is, by most accounts, only the most blatant example of the practice, common in both public and private education. For the most part, simply “putting in the hours” guarantees you a credit and a touched-up mark.

News stories like the Toronto Star series attempt to blacken the reputation of not only ‘fly-by-night’ private schools, but also to sully the reputation of Canadian private schools, including some of Canada’s outstanding independent schools. http://www.cais.ca/ Indeed, someone with only a passing acquaintance with Canadian private school world or an ideological axe to grind, might easily be taken-in by such clap-trap.

Students who attend private schools tend to perform “significantly better “ on international achievement tests, so stories about the so-called soft standards in such schools should be taken with a grain of salt. A new August 2011 report, commissioned by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), confirms this while painting a more complicated picture, factoring in a socio-economic analysis of the results. Given the OECD’s mandate, the detailed analysis focused as much on the perceived educational value of private schools as on reporting the actual student performance results. http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/6/43/48482894.pdf

In the August 2011 study reported in PISA in Focus, private school students at 14-years-of-age were compared with the much larger public school cohort using results from the 2009 Program of International Standards and Assessment (PISA). Based upon straight results, private school students in 36 OECD countries, including Canada, scored 30 points higher in PISA reading scores, essentially equivalent to three-quarters of a year’s worth of formal schooling. The private school performance edge, according to the OECD researchers, was attributable to three key factors: the competitive school environment, greater teacher autonomy in deciding curriculum and allocating resources, and the ability to attract higher performing socially-advantaged students.

The OECD study bore deeper into the results for reading performance. Comparing socially-advantaged students from public schools with their private school counterparts, the OECD study claimed, effectively narrowed the advantage or removed it entirely in 13 of the 16 countries showing significant differences in raw results. Some three-quarters of the 30 point advantage disappeared when OECD compared the two socio-economically advantaged groups of students. The study of PISA reading results compared public and private schools, across the range of countries, in relation to four key criteria: higher (positive) socio-cultural-economic status; disciplinary climate; material resources for instruction; and shortage in supply of teachers.

The PISA in Focus report provided a valuable picture of the state of private education across the 36 OECD countries. The percentage of students attending private schools was reported, showing a great variation among the countries. Those with the highest percentages were Macao-China ((95%), Hong Kong-China (92%) and Dubai-UAE (69%) and the lowest were the former Eastern Bloc countries. The United States (7%) and Canada (6%) were well below the OECD average of 15% private school enrolment. It also demonstrated that all private schools are not alike, making a clear distinction between private independent schools (like those in Dubai and Canada) and private government-dependent schools ( such as most in Macao, Hong Kong, Ireland, and Chile).

The OECD study, like many applying SES factors, is inclined to explain away the sharp variations in actual results. The report’s contention that public schools with comparable student populations offer the same advantages is problematic because it’s difficult for parents to determine which public schools are better than others. While private schools and socially advantaged public schools do benefit the students attending them, the OECD study claims that private schools, perhaps because of their smaller numbers, do not “raise the level of the school system as a whole.”

The sweeping conclusions reached by the OECD report authors will certainly be challenged by great numbers of students, parents, and staff. Why? Because their appraisal will be based upon more than SES benchmarked comparative test results, and they are likely far more familiar with the true advantages– for better or worse — of a private school education.

What was behind the sensationalist Toronto Star story painting all private schools with the same tarred brush? Why do private school students, worldwide, tend to perform better on student achievement assessments? If some socially-advantaged “public schools” do produce better student results, why do public school promoters continue to insist that all schools provide a good education? What is it about private schools that explains why their students tend to perform “significantly better” when assessed on a level playing field?