Alternative schools and programs are growing by leaps and bounds across North America, inside as well as outside of the public system. One 2003 Education Evolving study described such programs as the “quiet giant” in the public sector and since September 2009 the Toronto Board of Education has opened more alternative schools than ever before, bringing its total to over 40 different elementary and secondary schools.
Nova Scotia provides a stark contrast. Alternative-education programs here are few and far between and yet the Halifax Regional School Board is on the verge of cutting Youth Pathways and Transitions (YPT), the only Board-wide program serving harder to reach secondary school students.
Treating the YPT as a strictly “temporary transitional program” is bad enough. Presenting the issue as a simple cost-cutting measure further emphasizes how ‘out-of-sync’ the region’s largest public school system has become under the current administration.
Cancelling the YPT program has outraged the students and parents directly impacted, but they have been left twisting in the wind. The Board administration sequestered in Burnside says it will save $652,000 and remains resolute. “Kids not Cuts” may be the Nova Scotia Teacher Union’s latest media message, but where were they when YPT was slated for cancellation? Actions speak louder than those pricey ads.
Cutting alternative programs may save educational dollars short-term, but effectively excludes sizeable numbers of “at risk” students with longer-term social costs, reflected in higher crime rates, increased health care costs, and longer welfare rolls.
The three brave YPT students, Sophie McConnell, Shannon Simpson, and Emma Latta, who have spoken out are typical of thousands of students “saved” each year by alternative high school programs. It’s shameful that it was left to these Halifax students and their parents to stand-up for the hundreds of Nova Scotian students not being well-served in traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ schools.
“Alternative education programs,” according to Education Evolving, have been “highly successful in serving a population of students not served well in traditional settings.” And that essential research finding has been echoed in many recent studies.
Since the founding of the SEED School in Toronto in the mid-1960s, alternative schools in Canada’s larger cities have proven to be hardy plants. In the United States, Minnesota serves as a prime example of their runaway success. By 2003, some 77,000 of the state’s 411,840 Grade 7-12 students attended such programs, fully one-fifth of all students.
Since the mid-1970s, American and Canadian school districts have turned to such schools and programs to close the ‘achievement gap’ and to raise graduation levels. Outside of the Maritimes, it has been part of a concerted two-pronged strategy to create new and different schools as well as to improve existing mainstream schools.
Alternative programs have also proven effective in promoting innovative teaching methods and learning activities. “Alternative program leaders,” one U.S. study noted, “ have much to teach leaders” in regular schools and counterbalance the smothering homogeneity promoted by the overzealous pursuit of standardized testing and accountability.
Since Youth Pathways and Transitions opened in 2004, it has served as a vital safe haven for junior or senior high schoolers who either skipped classes or were suspended for extended periods. To say that YPT has “saved” hundreds of students from the educational scrap heap is no exaggeration.
The Halifax Regional Board has limited the scope of YPT and refuses to accept the need for even one self-standing alternative school. Little or no effort is made to advise parents or students of its existence, unless it becomes a school of last resort. In that sense, the HRSB treats it like a first generation “drop-in” program rather than a fully-evolved innovative, cutting-edge alternative school.
Public education in Nova Scotia, even in HRM, offers a strictly limited range of school options, unlike Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, or Vancouver. In the Toronto District Board, the city’s 37 alternative programs in 2007-08 enrolled 3,583 students or less than 97 students per school. Each had its own unique character, but was specially designed to “fit the student.”
In a school system putting students first, YPT would not be on the chopping block. It would be seen as a potential model for creating uniquely different schools geared to the specialized needs of students and satisfying growing parental expectations for human scale alternatives to “big box” elementary and “airport terminal” high.
Given the proven sucess of alternative schools and programs in serving hard to reach students, why are they still vulnerable to educational cuts? Why do Canadian school districts continue to thwart their growth and expansion? Is it because alternative programs tend to foster an organizational culture more conducive to the development of self-standing alternative schools? What will it take to overcome the barriers to change, particularly in the Maritimes and much of rural Canada?
Alternative high schools are worth saving. While serving as a Toronto Board Trustee and teaching in the system, I was sometimes asked especially about alternative high schools, and why do I support them when they might weaken the larger high schools?
I said first they are small, they draw from all areas not just one but most important, if these kids were not in these alternative schools, most of them would not be in any schools.
“Given the proven sucess of alternative schools and programs in serving hard to reach students, why are they still vulnerable to educational cuts?”
Because they do better than their public school counterparts they’re cut because they threaten “the blob” empire – in short alternatives make the norm look bad. Can’t have that, can we?
Cutting the alternatives isn’t a move that considers students, it’s a face-saving strategy by those who feel most threatened and are doing the cutting.
“What will it take to overcome the barriers to change, particularly in the Maritimes and much of rural Canada?”
Expanded choice for all:
for educators – so they can decide for themselves who represents their interests, and that of the students.
for parents – so that they can exercise their choices in an educated way both in and outside the system
In rural Canada using new technologies to reach and educate those populations as to what their choices are makes empowers them.
We need a new culture of education in this country that includes choice in the landscape.
The language of choice needs to become familiar on a broad-based level.
One of your former students, Theo Caldwell, now has a TV Show and might well be an ally in making the case for school choice and more alternative programs. There’s a new opportunity there that would be a great start in helping break down the myths of choice and begin to help teachers, parents and,yes, even those elected trustees who have seen their roles totally eroded. Trustees can become something other than a liaison and first responder to their education community in a system made for the 21st century, instead of continuing to force a new system through old ideas and old notions.
Oh, and breaking the union monopoly will follow once teachers begin to be seen as independent entities and not part of the flock.
Surveying the Greater Toronto Region, I am amazed at the number and range of alternative schools and programs that have mushrooomed over the past 20 years.
Our Kids Go to School has posted a fascinating summary of the private and independent “Alternative Schools” at http://www.oukids.net/alternative-schools.php
Of the 54 alternative schools, all but 6 are based in Ontario and none in the Maritimes. The sheer number of Montessori schools is staggerhng and suggests that parents are willing to pay significant tuition fees for a genuinely different elementary and secondary school program.
In Ontario, as well, parents can opt for either a public school or a Catholic separate school in most urban localities. That provides yet another alternative.
The educational world certainly looks different when viewed from outside of the Toronto orbit. That is why Educhatter plays a useful role in providing broader perspective on the Canadian educational scene. Having said that, we would really benefit from hearing more about the educational challenges in Quebec, the Prairie West, and BC.
In Alberta, Edmonton, Calgary, and to a certain extent smaller centres like Lethbridge and Red Deer, provide a vast number of alternative schools. A visit to Edmonton’s alternative schools [ http://programs.epsb.ca/alternative-programs ] shows a number of alternatives that Toronto families could only dream of, including religious offerings and traditional model schools. Calgary, in response to the high demand for spaces in public charter schools, has also offered more alternative schooling. Calgary’s Foundations for the Future Charter Academy, a traditional model school, has five campuses and a waiting list of thousands.
All western provinces offer some version of partial public funding for private schooling. For more information see:
http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/parents/canada-choices.html
What will it take to overcome the barriers to change, particularly in the Maritimes…
————————————————————————-
Some political will and a significant high profile pilot project in NS. A Minister of Education with some flxibility, vision and a sense that cutting schools like YPT is a punitive measure without sound judgemnt.
The back to back ads by the gov. and the teachers unions are a pale reminder of an on going conflict at the expense of students.
We are going to mount a rally this Saturday June 4 in Halifax. Here is the info on the Facebook group. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=221023467909167
Catherine Levy of Choice Words is driving this and has been able to get quite a bit of support via the Kids Not Cuts movement by the teachers union. Whatever works. There will be media and I think there will be lots of people. Come out and join us!
Those students and parents from YTP have a done a great job of sticking up for themselves by going in to a HRSB meeting and telling the folks there how much the program means to them. it was awesome, actually. The push back on the system is growing!
There is a gigantic difference between public alternative schools which are quite popular and which BTW are 90% “Deweyist” in their orientation vs charter or private schools that seek public funding but not public accountability.
There is no appetite for this which is why no politicians support it.
I was campaigning in the Riding John Tory wanted to represent in 2007. Canvassers went door to door with a simple message “do you think private schools should get public tax money?”
The answer of course, was a resounding no and cost Tory the seat and the election.
When it comes to “public” alternative schools, I still do not support separation of students by gender, race, faith, orientation…. whatever. Bad idea.
stick to the topic Doug, you are already off the rails.
The Toronto Board of Education’s total is over 40. The YPT program in NS could soon be history.
You would think welfare costs, crime, health care costs, poverty would be of concern to you here.
Below is a link to a news story from BC, that presents a different picture on alternative public schools.
“In its zeal to prevent children from attending private schools, the Kamloops district has gone out of its way to promote schools of choice. Those now include French immersion, Beattie School of the Arts, the Bert Edwards Science and Technology school, and the Montessori program at Aberdeen elementary.
But, starting with the name, this policy is having unintended consequences.
If the above-named facilities are schools of choice, what does this say about the rest of the lot? They are schools of second choice?
Knowingly or not, the district has created the illusion that schools of choice, which are really more correctly alternative schools, are somehow elevated above neighbourhood schools.”
http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20110304/KAMLOOPS0302/110309913/-1/kamloops/district-catering-to-alternative-schools
“There is no covert plan, of course, to give short shrift to neighbourhood schools. But district officials should recognize by subtle and not-so-subtle ways they are creating perceptions that are damaging to public schools and the teachers at every institution.
Neighbourhood schools are the building blocks of neighbourhoods, home to excellent teaching and where the majority of students attend, students who will go on to be professors, cooks, carpenters and physicians.
Their attributes shouldn’t go unrecognized and be pushed to the side in order to cater to a minority of parents asking for something different.”
It raises valid points, where alternatives are available. But more importantly, it raises questions on how the public education system markets itself within the public school system and the public alternative schools,
The public school system, appears to be the standard box, with variations in demographics, all offering the same program more or less. But some public schools offer a bit more than the standard box. The local school down the road from me, has an excellent music program. The choir group will be going to Ottawa this summer. But one will never know it by looking at the school board site, what public schools specializes in, such as music or art. Another area, that one will never know about, are teachers within schools who specializes or have the training, in a particular field. The grade school down the road from me, has two SE teachers that are qualified to teach SMT, an Orton-Gillingham method. Or a school that is about 60 Ks from my community, that has teachers trained in 4 reading programs for dyslexics. Teachers who paid their own expenses to received the training. And yet, there is no information on the board sites, stating that a school offers some extras over and above the garden variety school. In order to find out, one would have to go down to the school, and even here the information may not be given freely. And once again, parents are back to obtaining information from other parents and others in a community. If one wanted to go shopping in the public school system, it will required a lot of foot work and time to obtained the information, before one could reduced the list down to 5 or less schools.
As for public alternative schools, they do get the press, a special section on the school board sites, and lots of attention from the school boards and the ministries. That is the alternative schools that is offering a theme, such as environment, or a more personalized education.
“Alternative schools in Toronto, Ontario, are meant to give students more of a personalized education with a focus on independent learning and self-discipline. Students learn real-world skills with regard to time management, improvisation and critical thinking. Usually smaller in size, these schools create intimate ties between students and staff that allow for the convenient and optimal structuring of academic schedules as well as extra-curricular activities.”
Read more: Public Alternative Schools in Toronto, Ontario | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6118266_public-alternative-schools-toronto_-ontario.html#ixzz1ODuLP0T3
The ones that do not received so much press, are the alternative schools for students at risk. And yet, they offer specialized programming, one to one, as well as innovative learning. But from what I have observed, the schools for at risk students, suffered from a bad image. Perhaps it is, because the information is scanty. Scanty in NL, especially the alternative for suspended students.
“The Pathfinder Learning Centre is an alternate educational facility integrating computer-managed curriculum with traditional and innovative teaching and learning opportunities for at risk individuals aged 16 – 30.
Our aim is to enable students to achieve a high school diploma by focusing on the emotional, social, and educational needs of each individual. We seek to accomplish this goal through specialized programs and partnerships with other social agencies.”
http://www.k12.nf.ca/pathfinder/pathfind.htm
And a more recent one coming to NL:
“The Department of Public Safety and The YMCAs of Quebec announced today at a press conference held at the YMCA-YWCA of Northeast Avalon in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, in the presence of the Honourable Vic Toews, Canada’s Public Safety Minister and Stéphane Vaillancourt, President and CEO of The YMCAs of Quebec, the federal government’s funding of $691,000 over five years for provincial implementation of the Alternative Suspension program created by The YMCAs of Québec.
Alternative Suspension is an initiative that allows youth who have been temporarily suspended from school to turn their suspension into a positive experience that promotes personal development and autonomy. In 1999, the YMCAs of Québec created the Alternative Suspension program, in collaboration with the National Crime Prevention Centre, Centraide / United Way of the Greater Montreal and the Commission scolaire de Montréal, in order to promote the school success of youth in Mile-End, a neighbourhood in the heart of Montreal.”
http://www.ynortheastavalon.com/news_feb22_11.php
If the public education system, marketed itself where the success of a 12 year old learning to read, using a dyslexic program at one school, or a 17 year old getting his life back on track at one of the Pathfinder schools, even though it may reflect a bad image to the public education system. If the public education system insists on keeping their standard box, with Dewey-speak programs, than they should be big enough to admit that under the current model, not all students will have their needs met. Some students will need alternative schooling, even the students who are in the alternative schools with a theme.
It is really sad to see the Halifax board not standing up, and figure a way to save the program, and begin a few more around the province.
“The Halifax Regional Board has limited the scope of YPT and refuses to accept the need for even one self-standing alternative school. Little or no effort is made to advise parents or students of its existence, unless it becomes a school of last resort. In that sense, the HRSB treats it like a first generation “drop-in” program rather than a fully-evolved innovative, cutting-edge alternative school.”
The Halifax board needs to own up, they too have played a role in the students’ lives, for not meeting their needs earlier on. Now the students need a hand up, because their greatest fear is the same fear that has haunted them most of their lives, failure in the classroom. Just like the school board in my area, needs to own up to their role, that they played in my child’s life, putting her through an unnecessary ordeal, by not providing for her needs. If it was left up to the school board, my child could have been one of the students that need a hand-up.
I really believe, that cuts are made to the hard to reach students, simply based on their own biases and misconceptions. Much the same way, cuts are made to the SE students, or cuts are made to the tutor programs for the low achievers. Educrats simply think no one cares what happens, because they don’t care much either.
I support public school alternatives, (but not private schools or charters) interestlingly many directors sell public alternatives as the antidote to charters.
The more public sector choice, the less private demand for choice.
if that’s the case then Doug then why don’t you advise the parents who send their children to your private school to the public alternative?
Fair question, given your contradictory answer to steven.
Yes Doug, how about it?
We have a very specific clientele from China alone that wants very small classes, less than 15, usually less than 10. very flex approach etc.
We do not believe in public support for private schools.
All students are visa, public schools will not let them choose the school and the classes are too big. We need to improve their English very rapidly but we don’t believe in ESL, a real dead end. Our kids take Gr 9-12 English.
The kids are very bright math science is fine but 1-2 years behind in English. We reject many students.
public schools will not let them choose the school and the classes are too big…
———————————————————————-
the very reason alternative schools are a reasonable option Doug. Now if you had a public alternative…
Exactly steven! “public” for everyone else but the not for the students of his VIP Academy.
The contradictions just keep on coming.
A model of educational hypocrisy if we’ve ever needed a reminder – we have living proof right here.
Public charter school? Ya right.
While from other provinces Toronto may look good by comparison, in reality there very little school choice.
Percentage wise I think the total number of students attending either public alternative schools or private schools is less than 10%, I would think more likely somewhere arount 5%.
If there is any official statistic I think it would be enlightening.
Unless one of the parents is catholic, the parents do not have the choice to send their child to a catholic school even if they are of a different christian denomination.
Other than French immersion there are very few public elementary alternative programs and a parent cannot actually choose them for his child. Let me explain.
Access to the few schools that offer PYP IB or MYP IB is based on cachement area so one cannot choose that program other than by buying a house or renting in that area.
Another elementary program is the gifted program.
( By the waym the contents and curriculum of the gifted program doesn’t seem to be standardized in any way. Each location offering a gifted program seems to be doing different things. )
Anyway, one cannot choose to have their child in the gifted program. In TDSB and different from other surrounding boards in GTA, not all the children are evaluated for giftedness. In TDSB the teacher has to recommend the student be tested and from what I hear they usually only recommend 1 to 3 students out of 20-25. There is a lot of subjectivity build into the recommendation for evaluation.
The French immersion program is very popular in most areas of TDSB. I wasn’t interested because I don’t have a high opinion of the French they learn but a neighbour eight houses down from me was interested and applied to have his daughter in French immersion. In our cachement area the French Immersion program had room for about 40 students and they received about 145 applications for them. The selection was done by lottery.
Another detail … with the exception of the IB programs and perhaps just a few others at high school level, all the public alternative programs offered in TDSB seem to be about anything but academics.
So yes .. maybe choice in Toronto looks better with the relatively long list of alternative schools.
The reality is that the only public choice available to all parents if they win the lottery for it or if there is not a lot of demand for it in the area where they live is French immersion.
In my opinion the alternative schools are mostly window dressing to show that supposedly there is lots of choice in the public system. Of the existing few alternatives even fewer are the sort of programs that some of the people in this discussion seem to want: programs accountable for results, programs proven to have worked with different types of students or – God-forbid that would be elitist – academic oriented programs!
concerned parent – in my region the Catholic system is open to any who wish to attend. A parent need not be Catholic – so it is VERY much a choice option within the system.
Goes for both the elementary and secondary Catholic school here.
The Catholic schools are also the only schools which carry French Immersion, use Jolly Phonics in primary and didn’t opt for the balanced school day schedule, AND still offer a K-8 option for parents.
The public elementary offers something different.
Alternative programs at the TDSB are overwhelmingly initiated by parents. There has been zero interest in “traditional” education. They have had every opportunity to come forward.
What I love is you say there is no choice but then have an incredibly long post on each of the many options and why you don’t like each one.
Please re-read my last comment.
My post is not about how I don’t like the choices but how the choices are not actually available.
At elementary level the only choice of a non-catholic parent is French immersion if his child’s application wins the lottery for the French immersion program. That’s it.
Also, in Toronto Sun ,Christina Blizzard has an article this morning-Catholic Teachers will walk out in September to show support for anyone but the Conservatives.As usual,it is all about themselves and not about Johnny.Children and parents get stuck with these Unions with no alternatives.That`s what must change,we need to level the playing field.
Imagine,walking out BEFORE the election.
This should be illegal,I hope they throw them out on their ………
About alternative program in Halifax,I understand they are saving $625,000.
A student centric system would say,let`s see..
2 Superintendents have to go as well as a few TA`s.
A common refrain from the educrats – ” There has been zero interest in “traditional” education. They have had every opportunity to come forward.”
In Ontario, the educrats will do everything in their power to stopped alternative schools that are academic in their essence. What schools might that be – the traditional school.
In the Wikipedia – “Traditional education or back-to-basics refers to long-established customs found in schools that society has traditionally deemed appropriate. Some forms of education reform promote the adoption of progressive education practices, a more holistic approach which focuses on individual students’ needs and self-expression. In the eyes of reformers, traditional teacher-centered methods focused on rote learning and memorization must be abandoned in favor of student-centered and task-based approaches to learning. However, many parents and conservative citizens are concerned with the maintenance of objective educational standards based on testing, which favors a more traditional approach.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_education
However in the 21st Century, the difference lies between traditional and progressive schools, are the approaches, and not as the progressive advocates would like us to believe, rote learning and memorization. The differences lies in the approaches, where a student who is struggling in a progressive school, the fault lies with the student and not the methods and approaches of the school. A modern day traditional school, the fault lies with the methods and instruction of the school.
As I stated before, there is a reason why traditional alternative schools are not in the picture in Ontario. The educrats do no want them, because the modern day traditional school will make the progressive schools look bad, in terms of achievement, and well-rounded students that have both feet on the ground.
In February of this year, SQE ran a series of articles on this very topic.
1. If You Build it, They Will Come
” Against this is the sad story of York Region’s Flowervale School, as chronicled in our newsletter archives. Flowervale was a regular public school that was experiencing declining enrolment and so was reinvented as a “traditional” public school in 1999. One of our readers, Educhatter, was a trustee on the York Region board at that time, and this was his baby. As you will learn if you read our newsletter article, the school was an immediate hit, with a long waiting list. Despite its location in a blue-collar area of Markham, the school shot up to and remained at or near the top of the EQAO rankings for the entire province. But then Educhatter moved on and before long the school board decided to kill the program. Here’s its epitaph. ”
http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/if-you-build-it-they-will-come/
2. It Was Built, They Came, But Than It Was Torn Down
“St. Francis of Assisi Separate School in Stroud, ON (near Barrie) opened its doors in January, 1994. Under the leadership of a wonderful principal, the grade 1 teachers wrought seeming miracles, using a phonetic reading program called Open Court. By June, every grade 1 child was reading, and almost all were one or two grade levels ahead. The teachers were thrilled. The parents were delighted. The children were bursting with pride. The community, too, sat up and took notice. As word spread, some parents had their children baptized into the Catholic faith so they could go to St. Francis. But the school board was not pleased. ”
http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/it-was-built-they-came-but-then-it-was-torn-down/
3. They Won’t Build It
“Our group, which we called Parents for Learning, spent a lot of time developing a credible and detailed proposal for a traditional school. For example, we had a curriculum, school uniforms, a school crest, and the names of hundreds of parents who wanted to send their kids to our school. We also talked to many board officials and individual trustees before formally bringing our proposal to the school board. The first time we presented our proposal to the board, we were turned down flat. Moreover, some of the trustees were very rude, calling us names, for example Puritans, farmers, and élitists. We were very determined however, and continued to politely ask for our school. School board officials then appeared to adopt a policy of waiting us out, sporadically asking for more information and scheduling the occasional meeting. The project ended with a whimper, not a bang, as it gradually became clear to us that we would get our traditional school when pigs began to fly, if then.
This experience, and that of the other groups around the province, brought home to us the futility of asking for a traditional school. I suspect that we learned the hard way what other dissatisfied parents instinctively know – Ontario school boards will never never never never never set up traditional schools and there is no point wasting time asking for one.”
http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/they-wont-build-it/
The choice that is available, only exists on the seal approval of the progressive educrats. The believers of pseudo-science techniques, where failure is assigned to the student, and the rest of society. At the moment, the progressive educrats have the political and power to make the rules. But the final outcomes in society, will be the undoing of their political and power base. And the costs to repair the damage, because it was done right the first time around.
The “if you build it they will come” approach is not how it works. Most alternative schools are initiated by parents or teachers. The “traditional” crowd needs to do the heavy lifting to initiate a school, not wait around for someone else to do it.
There appears to be no interest since there is no demand for “traditional” education.
No point in asking for one Doug, when one looks at Flowervale as an example. But than again, you are a prefect example of an educrat, that practices the craft of the educrats onto the public, wasting tax dollars, and creating profits within. And on the other hand, open up a private school, and do the exact opposite attending to the needs of your students.
Yet Doug, you are perfectly happy with dead-ending students in the public education system. Especially those who struggled with reading, writing and numeracy issues, their journey is filled with dead ends, compliments of the educrats.
If it makes you feel better to blame others, go for it. Same old teacher bashing.
Doug, what you consider “teacher bashing” is just simple criticism. You are flogging a dead horse.
Alternative schools seem to work well because they reach those that do not always suceed in a one size fits all system.
steven – I’ve learned that the old stand-by retort of “teacher-bashing” is designed to shut down discussion when either those trying to reform the system are touching a nerve and coming close to the truth, OR is used when parents begin to know too much and also get too close to the truth.
Very glad that there’s no chance in Doug shutting down the discussion, parents or educators posting here.
A new report from the National Academies of Science finds that test-based incentives have not consistently generated positive effects on student achievement. The report examines incentive programs that impose sanctions or offer rewards for students, teachers, or schools on the basis of students’ test performance. School-level incentives — like those of No Child Left Behind — produced some of the larger effects observed, but gains were concentrated in elementary-grade mathematics, and were small in comparison with hoped-for improvements. Evidence also suggests that high school exit exam programs decrease the rate of high school graduation without increasing student achievement. The report also confirms that attaching incentives to test scores can encourage teachers to focus narrowly on material tested, resulting in only partial knowledge of subject matter by students; test scores often then give an inaccurate picture of what students actually know. Policymakers and researchers should design and evaluate alternate approaches to using test-based incentives, according to the report. Use of incentives should be rigorously evaluated to determine what works and what does not. In addition, research on and development of new incentive-based approaches must not displace investment in other aspects of the education system, such as improvements in curricula and instructional methods, which are important complements to the incentives themselves.
See the report | Back to top
High school graduation exit exams would be a step forward as a minimal reality check on the aquired skills. If any high school exit exam were implemented in Ontario today I’m sure it would be at a minimal level – that is at least 2 grade levels behind what a high school graduate should have mastered – to ensure that a majority of our students passes it.
Just like the grade 10 tests – which are testing skills that are lower than grade level – even a minimal level high school exit exam would be helpful.
High school is too late. It is not mainly the student’s fault that they weren’t taught properly for 12 years and that they were passed from one grade to the other without having mastered the skills.
Clear expectations and a stop to social promotion should start in grade 1 in order to help our kids and not just label them for the failure of a system that us, the adults, have imposed on them.
Obviously clear expectations for each grade and puting a stop to social promotion would not solve problems on their own. It is just a means to make everybody wake up and acknowledge problems earlier rather than later.
They would serve as feedback to the teachers as to how well they are doing and as a wake up call for parents that not everything is hunky dory and that they have to take action regarding their child.
If we have this feedback early and we let schools and teachers choose how to achieve the results – as opposed to imposing child-centered approaches on everybody – then we can really evaluate curricula and teaching methods effectiveness based on more realistic data.
Actually the experiment has already happened on a large scale in US. The results showed that the direct instruction type curriculum and teaching approaches had the best results.
Mr. Doug, what exactly would make a parent trust that a public system that shoves down everybody’s neck the progressive dogma is capable of delivering a quality “traditional” education?
How many of the current elementary teachers have a clue of what we mean by “traditional” education?
How many have the skills to teach reading phonetically in a correct way, not just by paying lip service? How many know how to teach a young child how to hold a pencil correctly? How many are capable of writing cursive fast themselves?
If they don’t have basic math skills themselves, if they did not learn grammar and correct spelling in school themselves how exactly would they be capable of competently teaching a “traditional” curriculum?
excellent post!
The truth of the matter is that unless we try out more choices within and outside of the system, and see for ourselves what works and what doesn’t we’ll be no further ahead.
Doug uses the same fear-mongering techniques as the rest of those who have the most to fear from parents becoming empowered.
Not to mention individual class room teachers who, if they started their own movement to look elsewhere for who represents their interests and their vision the most, might give up their traditional unions for something new and different. That would empower teachers like no one’s business.
Doug, a balanced report for a change – Improved Approaches Should Be Developed and Evaluated
Just like the standard testing in Canada, needs to be improved. I believe the problem lies with the student’s ability to express themselves, and not the knowledge. Standard testing in Canada, is for the most part are criterion reference testing, for grades 3, 6, and 9.
“Criterion-referenced tests (CRTs) are intended to measure how well a person has learned a specific body of knowledge and skills. Multiple-choice tests most people take to get a driver’s license and on-the-road driving tests are both examples of criterion-referenced tests. As on most other CRTs, it is possible for everyone to earn a passing score if they know about driving rules and if they drive reasonably well.
In contrast, norm-referenced tests (NRTs) are made to compare test takers to each other. On an NRT driving test, test-takers would be compared as to who knew most or least about driving rules or who drove better or worse. Scores would be reported as a percentage rank with half scoring above and half below the mid-point (see NRT fact sheet). ”
http://fairtest.org/criterion-and-standards-referenced-tests
One weakness of a CRT – “On a standardized CRT (one taken by students in many schools), the passing or “cut-off” score is usually set by a committee of experts, while in a classroom the teacher sets the passing score. In both cases, deciding the passing score is subjective, not objective. Sometimes cut scores have been set in a way that maximizes the number of low income or minority students who fail the test. A small change in the cut score would not change the meaning of the test but would greatly increase minority pass rates.”
But from a parent’s viewpoint, it is the poor writing skills of students that prevents students from expressing their knowledge. The big elephant in the room, are the foundational skills in reading, writing and numeracy, and the number of students in a classroom, with accommodations. The average class after grade 3, over half of the class, are accommodated to support reading, writing and numeracy weaknesses. It points directly to the curriculum and instruction, where foundation skills such as grammar, spelling, handwriting, fluency and other basic skills are not emphasized, compared to the knowledge content. Educrats in Canada, and even in their own literature, has expressed their disdain for fundamental skills. They rather see students after 12 years of schooling, to expressed the ideology and dogma of a Utopian world of what could be, rather than what it is.
What is amazing, are the teachers’ unions who would like to see the CRTs go bye-bye. Throughout the years, I have never read expressing the poor writing, reading and numeracy skills that students processed, which limits the knowledge that a student has. If the union did that, the educrats who are responsible for curriculum, instruction and training would have no where to hide from the wrath of parents, and the public. It is only an educrat that would come up with inventive spelling, and than decide that no formal spelling instruction is needed. “Those who favor inventive spelling tend to believe in constructivism, a theoretical perspective on learning (an epistemology) grounded in postmodernism and holism. Constructivists believe that knowledge is created by individuals in a social context. Because knowledge is cultural, there are no right answers. In terms of inventive spelling, constructivists are likely to believe that the child is inventing spellings in accord with his or her understanding of language and print. These spellings are neither right nor wrong; they reflect the child’s development as a speller.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_spelling
No one has to wonder why, the dyslexics are served poorly by the educrats, who would rather keep their development in language at the bottom of the barrel. Direct explicit instruction for all students in the foundation skills, will do wonders, but unions and educrats would rather shove the progressive dogma down everybody’s throat. Including keeping the hard copies of the CRTs from parents’ prying eyes. The parents would be up in arms, demanding spelling, grammar, and the rest of the basics are put back in, and especially the parents who thought their children should have done better, than a 3 out of 5.
Here is a typical column in a newspaper on spelling and educrats.
“Alas, this is just one example of how public education is going farther away from the traditional ways of teaching that have been used for the last 100 years. It’s a sop to the academic world where education academics spin out new theories about how teaching should be done; not that they know what they’re talking about, but by creating flakey new teaching theories, academics can publish new textbooks and the pinheads can continue to exist in their little educrat bubbles.
The result is a constantly changing curriculum that confuses teachers, parents and students. The “new-new” math curriculum is another example of how teaching theories have gone off-kilter. In “new-new” math, students learn several ways to add, subtract and multiply. The result is a bunch of confused kids who can’t do any kind of math well. (Most teachers have learned to adapt to this crazy curriculum by “supplementing” instruction, that is, teach it the way they want to despite what the book says.)
A lot of schools, not just Blackshear, have gotten caught up in these half-baked teaching methods. Most parents are totally unaware of just how poorly their children are being instructed in some schools in the state. Teachers are being forced to teach unproven methods just because it’s the “hot” theory of the day.
In his final sentence, the principal of Blackshear admitted that his school “tries to rely on the most current research based strategies.”
That’s educratic bunk, Mr. Principal. The result of your “research based strategies” will be a bunch of little kids from Blackshear who can’t spell worth a darn and who will struggle throughout their academic careers.
“Inventive spelling” is a cop out. Why not teach “real” spelling?”
http://www.mainstreetnews.com/archives/10137-COLUMN-Inventive-spelling-another-educrat-outrage.html
Well the pinheads in their educrat bubbles if they are not going to change their ways, choice is the only option left since many students keep hitting the dead ends in pubic schooling.
“
Dear concerned parent,
“High school is too late. It is not mainly the student’s fault that they weren’t taught properly for 12 years and that they were passed from one grade to the other without having mastered the skills.
Clear expectations and a stop to social promotion should start in grade 1 in order to help our kids and not just label them for the failure of a system that us, the adults, have imposed on them”
I agree with you wholeheartedly.It has become extremely taxing for all of us who know the truth to continuously listen to Doug`s dribble and support of the status quo.
All students have weak foundations and will tell you themselves they didn`t know how ill prepared they were for University till they got there.
Buy something in a store from a young person,they struggle with all the foundation math ,addition,percentages to calculate tips and discounts;most people in business discuss it,they wonder how the children got through with a H.S. certificate.
Yes,it is a vicious circle,and a great deal has to change for the improvements to be legitimate and not more smoke and mirrors.
We had HS exit exams in Ontario in my era. Everybody HATED them. They held kids back one year, failed them and the subsequently went on to get a BA easily so they were failed needlessly.
The recent study by the National Academy of Sciences says the same thing. Some students fail but education does not improve as a result. WITHOUT the test, many would have easily received a BA or college diploma.
HS exit exams serve no useful purpose unless your hope is to discourage potentially successful post secondary students or waste their time.
How many studies do we need that failing students causes them to do even worse before reformers stop the nonsense on social promotion?
We have one of the world’s best school systems in Ontario. Who is better? Really, who is better?
Mr. Doug, what exactly would make a parent trust that a public system that shoves down everybody’s neck the progressive dogma is capable of delivering a quality “traditional” education?
How many ways do you want it?
1) The public school system won’t give us traditional schools. (Initiate them as alternatives yourself).
2) We don’t but if we did they would not allow us to continue and there are no trained teachers.
3) Boo hoo, start your own private schools then. (We can’t afford to attend them because the government won’t pay for them.)
4) The public has been very clear, they do not support public money for private schools. 70% would vote to abolish the RC system in a referendum.
Time to face reality. You will not get public money in Ontario for private schools. As budgets become tight the school boards in BC are demanding either give us more money or end support for private largely Evangelical but also Jewish and Muslum schools. The Muslum school is already being accused of spreading hatred against Jews and preaching anti-westernism.
When did they stop social promotion, Doug?
Repeating a grade, without the remediation is just as bad as social promotion, without the remediation. Somehow in both cases, the students are expected to picked it up through osmosis in a progressive school.
“Progressive Tradition
One is the modern progressive tradition represented by American philosopher John Dewey and his followers in the US, by the post-WWI New Schools Movement in Great Britain, by the Steiner (Waldorf) schools on the European continent and, in the 1960s, by the Hall-Dennis (Committee on Aims and Objectives of Education) and Worth (Commission on Educational Planning) reports for Ontario and Alberta. This tradition stresses both the need to accommodate curriculum and teaching to the stages of child development and the gradual integration of the child into adult society through planned experiential learning. Within the tradition, education is also viewed as a major vehicle for social reform and for the broad dissemination of democratic principles and practices.”
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002535
Sounds pretty much what is happening in the average school, without taking into account the cognitive development of a child. Planned experiential learning, I will assume is code for child-centered learning.
Further down in the above link, for alternative schooling – “The term “alternative school” first came into general usage in Canada with the establishment in the early 1970s of several small elementary and secondary schools under the jurisdiction of public boards of education. In Toronto, parent-teacher co-operative elementary alternative schools organized along the lines of the family-grouped, activity-based British Infant Schools were established. The term “alternative” was adopted partly to distinguish these schools from the independent, parent-student-teacher-run “free” schools that preceded them (and from which some of them actually evolved) and to emphasize the boards’ commitment to options within the public system. With the increasing emphasis on educational pluralism and choice in the 1970s, the alternative-school label was adopted by many newer, independent private schools wishing to identify themselves as alternatives to “mainstream” public education. ”
A fairly new kid on the block, or at least it is the first time I have bumped into it.
“The Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) was founded in 1989 by Jerry Mintz. AERO is a branch of the School of Living, a non-profit organization founded in 1934 by Ralph Borsodi. AERO’s goal is to advance student-driven, learner-centered approaches to education. AERO is considered by many to be the primary hub of communications and support for educational alternatives around the world. Education Alternatives include, but are not limited to, Montessori, Waldorf (Steiner), Public Choice and At-Risk, Democratic, Homeschool, Open, Charter, Free, Sudbury, Holistic, Virtual, Magnet, Early Childhood, Reggio Emilia, Indigo, Krishnamurti, Quaker, Libertarian, Independent, Progressive, Community, Cooperative, and Unschooling. One of AERO’s areas of expertise is democratic process and democratic education, but equally important is the networking of all forms of educational alternatives. It is through our work and mission that we hope to create an education revolution.
AERO’s mission is to help create an education revolution to make student-centered alternatives available to everyone.”
http://www.educationrevolution.org/aboutus.html
Interesting site, plus there is a few articles, videos that are of interest.
A report called, “STUDENT VOICES
Why School Works For Alternative High
School Students
Click to access whyschworks.pdf
The major finding, “the major
finding of the study is that students all want the same thing, regardless of their
background or the environment they study in.
“Respect me for who I am, require me to do my best, give me the help I need to achieve it.”
Although no surprise to me, students that were interviewed, expect teachers to have high expectations of their students. The soft bigotry of low expectations, is almost a given in our progressive schools, and child-centered pedagogy. YPT and other alternative schools for at risked students, for the first time these students are respected for who they are, and are given the correct help for them to achieve. Low expectations are not a given, compared to the regular schools.
If Ontario did have the world’s best system, than why does the biggest board, have some of the lowest rankings, and the largest budget. Keep in mind, the board has the greater number of alternative schools, and choice for their students. One would think, they wouldn’t have any problems of achievement, considering the private educational services growth in tutors, self-help, and soon to be, solar panels on a few school roofs. Including the OISE, where the latest experimental instruction, is learning dance steps, while learning fractions, or a piece of history in the classroom.
Here is a school that has been around for a long time, going back to the 1970s.
” The Alternative High School was started in September 1974 by a group of parents who were looking for “another way” for their sons and daughters to acquire a high school diploma. It was part of a movement towards alternative education which swept North America in the late sixties and early seventies. Coming under the jurisdiction of the Calgary Board of Education in 1975, the school is now open to all students who meet the entrance requirements.
The school philosophy has evolved from the original A.S. Neill Summerhill approach to a more structured one of providing a highly personalized, informal and democratic learning situation for academically capable students who have not met with success in a regular high school learning environment.
The Alternative High School is presently housed in the Clinton Ford Center, previously the Clinton Ford Elementary School (named in honor of the former Chief Justice of Alberta 1957-1961). The school has 8 classrooms, an art room, a small gymnasium, and an all purpose breakfast/meeting/classroom. Classrooms, hallways, and lockers are decorated artistically by students as part of the Art program.
There is an off-campus classroom at the Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre that is associated with AHS. Two teachers and approximately thirty students are in the classroom. The purpose is to transition graduates back into their schools.”
http://www.cbe.ab.ca/schools/view.asp?id=133
http://schools.cbe.ab.ca/b863/default.htm
And Doug, they too have exit exams as well.
I don’t buy it Doug, public exams in grade 12 or third and fourth level courses in academic or advance, does not cause the drop-outs. Since there is a second and third tries, either by rewriting the exam or retake the course over, and than write it. Most students are dropping out, because of their weak skills in the foundations. What is commonly heard by the students who dropped out, is that they could not do the work, and keep up with their classmates. But this occurs around the age of 16 or so, unless they have a rule like Ontario has, that keeps the students in school until the age of 18. Wasn’t this rule imposed, because of the number of students dropping out, and not directed at the students, who have the skills more or less, to handled the work of academic or advance?
I for one am glad there is public exams in my province. It certainly keeps students focused on their studies. It is really quiet in my neighbourhood, because the teens are in their own homes studying for the exams, and not getting into trouble.
Alternative schools inside and outside of the public schools, is a choice that should be here in spades in Canada. A traditional progressive school does little for addressing the student’s learning needs, unless one counts the social engineering taking place, that replaces the actual education of a child. Talk to any parent who has a child with learning disabilities, trying to get help in a progressive school for their reading, writing and numeracy problems. Than Doug, go look up the stats, on the achievement rates of LD students.
steven
Doug, what you consider “teacher bashing” is just simple criticism. You are flogging a dead horse.
Alternative schools seem to work well because they reach those that do not always suceed in a one size fits all system.
Steven,
I have said before that I am very supportive of PUBLIC alternative schools, I was heavily involved in establishing 2 alternative schools. I do not support separation of students by race gender or religion however. This is evil.
Do not confuse PRIVATE alternatives with PUBLIC alternatives. I sat on the Alternatives committee at the Toronto Board that established new alternatives every year.
no one is confused Doug.
But once again the problems surrounding YPT are school board related. Poor judgement, poor long term vision, and punitive results.
Of course you’re supportive of PUBLIC education Doug, but you’re also supportive of PRIVATE education.
You want it all ways – hyprocritical or not.
“I do not support separation of students by race gender or religion however. This is evil.”
So are you saying that your private school that is for Chinese students is evil? Or do you want this served to you all ways with a little hypocrisy a la carte?
Blaming teachers for any of the shortcomings of the education system constitutes “teacher bashing” in the view of teachers. Just ask them.
The shortcomings of the system are caused by the lack of dollars..
But mainly by the level of poverty in the community.
Bad teachers ARE responsible for educations shortcomings.
Many teachers will admit this – the good teachers always know who the weaker teachers are.
It doesn’t take parents and even students to figure this out either.
Doug calls uses name-calling – we call it the truth.
Truth hurts and even effective teachers will admit that they can be part of the problem.
The ones who do deserve serious bashing are those who milk the system and expect that they are entitled to their entitlements.
“Experts” who have mired us in the system could also stand a flick of their ears.
The only thing that hasn’t been tried with any coordination and on a grand scale is choice, but that’s all about to change.
teachers, like you Doug, are not infailable, even if they do have a union using the chidren as a shield.
http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/an_overemphasis_on_teachers/
One sided to say the least. Not one word on teaching training. Not one word on teachers colleges. Not one word on the tax system. Not one word on centralization of the public school system. Not one word on the lack of freedom and autonomy for schools and teachers. Not one word on the curriculum, that would probably have any good teacher pulled their hair out by the end of the day. Not one word, on some of the crazier stuff that is brought to the schools by the educrats, such as learning fractions to dancing steps.
Unemployment in this case, is being used as the reason for the achievement gap. Next time, it will be race, and the next time will be tax system. The author has quite a collection of articles all in education, and it is his way of making a living. Hence, one will never see articles on the state of teaching training, teacher colleges, text book publishers, and the many different interests that siphons funding away from the students. And he will never investigate the waste of educrats, unless it is the educrats that want merit pay, or to fire poor teachers.
If he is so worry about unemployment for the future graduates, where was he when the manufacturing jobs first started going overseas, and still are. Even in England, a student can go on an on-line school from India. Now that is a new way of shipping jobs overseas to India, and it is teachers.
Well Doug, the low-level educrat doing the work of the high-level ones eh?
Doug, you really mean unions, the ones that have the thumb screws over the teachers, along with the other educrats who ensure compliance at the lower levels. Meaning students, teachers, and parents are micro-managed to death by thou shall not rules. Thou shall not rules on all things that do not match up to the cult of progressivism, hatch not on science, but a set of ideas that are more in keeping with the accords of a religion cult.
Criticism is just, and last time I check it is not a crime. What is a crime is what is happening inside the schools. At the end of grade 3, 40% or more are at below grade level in all aspects or part in reading, writing and numeracy. Another crime, is the willful inability of assessing grade 1 students in reading, writing and numeracy problems. Going to the beginning, when a child is registered, the crime of not asking the questions, that pertains to the development of the child, and not the SEC and personal belief structures of the parents, which is not any of your business in the first place. If the public school board really care about kids who are low-income, than systematic explicit phonics, would be the reading instruction. It would allow them to catch up quickly. But no, it is against the progressivism cult mandates, and the list of excuses goes on for the students who do and never will fit in the one-sized fits all model, that rather brainwash then educate the children.
Criticism is just, because the product rests at the school level, the final outcomes of progressivism taking bits and pieces of science to make them fit into progressivism cult, just to make some educrats money on their books. In my opinion some of them couldn’t run a fruit stand, much less milk a cow, if their life depended on it.
Alternative schools will go beyond what is the standard at the Toronto Board. Beyond the standard curriculum, instruction, of the current alternative public schools with the progressivism agenda of social engineering. As for democratic principles being practices in the public schools, not much of that is going on at least for parents, but there is a final outcome that speaks volumes on the progressive schools – the low turn out of young people at the polls, and the lack of participation in the democratic process. And back in the early 70s, the educrats thought it was a problem. There was no problem back then, but than they went to work to destroying the history curriculum, created inventive spelling, dumped the basics, and anything else that did not fit into their progressivism cult. Now, there is a problem, and a big one. Most of it is brewing in the cities of Canada, and the incubator was public education educrats.
The critical issue issue is that OECD says our 15 year olds read as well as the world’s best and better than almost everybody, this you simply cannot deny. I keep asking for the proof of a better country and I never hear one.
The unions are very popular with the teachers. That is where the wages, pensions, benefits and working conditions come from. The teachers are very well aware that without the union, they would be in deep trouble.
One American governor wants an annual vote as to whether the union can continue. I actually support that because every teachers’ union would get an annual vote of over 90%. They know the consequences.
Reformers don’t like unions because unions resist reactionary reform and fund opponents.
Tough.
I think Nancy’s post raises a very important point – Criterion-referenced tests (CRTs) are intended to measure how well a person has learned a specific body of knowledge and skills and these are the types of tests we need.
Such tests already exist and they may be cheaper to administer than the current EQAO tests. The EQAO tests are such that the results cannot be compared from one year to the other in a statistical relevant way. One might wonder why the government has chosen tests with such a weakness ..
The EQAO contents and grading can be changed from year to year; such changes influence the results and make them impossible to compare from one year to another. For anybody who understands basic math and reads about tests it is obvious that changes in percentages from year to year (unless they are big statistically that is at least > 10%) mean nothing. Results 2% better then last year on a test that has changed and has a lot of room for subjectivity in grading does not represent an improvement trend the way the ministry is trying to present it.
But of course who cares and how many people are knowledgeable enough about math and testing?
I think, and please correct me if I am wrong, that the CAT is a criterion referenced test, whose results ARE comparable from one year to another. If there is a will the means already exist.
And let’s stop the silliness! All one has to do to verify if a student can read or not at the end of grade 1 is to ask them to read 2 or 3 paragraphs. All one has to do to verify that the same student can write would be to dictate let’s say 3-4 sentences.
Same thing with math.
How long would that take all in all? 5 minutes per student for reading, 10 minutes plus 50 min verifying the work for a class of 20 for another 3 minutes per student for writing and another let’s say 15 min per student for math.
Are we saying that we cannot spend 30 min per student per year to asses their skill level?
Really, let’s start using our common sense!
Hopefully, and I would be glad to be proven wrong, when we administer such criterion referenced tests we will find out that with a few rare exceptions explainable by severe illness all our kids know how to read, write and do basic math.
I would be the first to apologize for being so negative about our public education system in Ontario.
If not, we have work to do and such tests would tell us exactly what we need to work on and how far we are.
ConcernedParent – Never heard of a CAT, but I did find one called Computer Adaptive Testing.
Utah State – The basic idea of CAT is that test items are selected by the computer to individually match the ability level of each student. In this manner, the test is tailored to each student. […] With CAT, the computer begins by choosing an initial item, usually one at an intermediate level of difficulty, to administer to the student. If the student answers the item correctly, a more difficult item is selected next for administration. If the student’s answer is incorrect, an easier item is selected next for administration. This process of selection and evaluation is carried out by the computer throughout the test. By “adapting” the difficulty level of the items selected, the computer is able to accurately measure student ability using far fewer items than a traditional paper assessment. […] The basis of CAT has been well-researched and its theoretical foundations are well established in the testing literature. Conceptually, because CAT capitalizes on the power of the computer to deliver a more efficient test, it is a compelling alternative to consider with the introduction of online assessments. – Walter D. Way, “Practical Questions in Introducing Computerized Adaptive Testing for K-12 Assessment,” Research Report 05-03 (March 2005).”
http://utahpubliceducation.org/2011/05/17/why-computer-adaptive-testing/
“The State Board intends to implement CAT as a replacement for CRTs statewide by 2014. The cost of this new testing structure is not cheap. It amounts to almost $6 million per year in additional funding to develop a test based upon the Utah Common CORE (which has been recognized as the Gold Standard of educational standards). Further, the State Board has determined that a 3:1 ratio of students to computers is needed to optimize the system. That amounts to another $30 million per year of additional funding. Notwithstanding the costs, the new assessment protocol is worth every cent. Our children must compete in the world market place. In order to compete, they need to have a solid educational foundation. CAT is a good way to ensure that they have that foundation.”
Prefer this over any CRT testing. Due to the weaknesses of the CRT testing, the focus is on lifting the medium achievers to higher standards. What usually happens, is the lowest achievers are forgotten about from one year to the next. CAT testing can be compared from one year to the next, and also could be a reflection on teaching, as well as curriculum and instruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computerized_adaptive_testing
The above link is a wikipedia link – all about CAT and than some.
The CAT is the Canadian Achievement Test. It is not criterion-referenced. It is norm-referenced.
http://www.spsd.sk.ca/division/ourresults/catversion3.html
There is also a version 4.
CAT = Canadian Achievement Test
Actually, I realized that the test I had in mind was CTSB = Canadian Test of Basic Skills which is normed, reliable and for which there is historical data for this test from the ’60s.
Normed and reliable means we can meaningfully compare the results of the CTSB test from one year to the next.
What would be really interesting would be to test a big enough sample of today’s students so that we could compare their performance against the typical performance of ’60s student.
“Kids not Cuts” is the Nova Scotia Teachers Union’s latest PR campaign theme and they are pouring thousands of dollars ($100,000+) into a propaganda blitz to discredit Education Minister Ramona Jennex and the NDP government. Youth Pathways and Transitions is on the chopping block and hundreds of TAs are living in fear of being cut, but the NSTU is so flush with funds that it is running full-colour half page ads and TV spots during CBC-TV’s The National.
Sincere school reformers unfamiliar with the ways of the fox may well find themselves fooled into believing that the NSTU actually believes in change for the better in education. Taking back education in Nova Scotia will not happen until “the fox is out of the schoolhouse.”
Education Minister Jennex is being pilloried for “calling a spade a spade.” On the eve of the most recent protest, she issued this statement:
“Nova Scotia is fortunate to have dedicated teachers and support staff, committed parents and bright students who care about the future.
Not unlike other provinces, Nova Scotia’s education system is facing a number of fiscal and demographic challenges. Over the next 3 years, there will be 7,000 fewer students in our schools and 1,000 teachers will be eligible to retire. At the same time, our costs continue to escalate.
We can no longer afford to ignore these facts. Status quo is simply not an option.
That’s why I met with each of the province’s school boards a few months ago. I asked them to take a serious look at their administration costs and reduce the number of consultants they hire. I have also made it clear that funding for special education must be protected.
The budget targets school boards were given were designed to put children and learning first while ensuring the province continues to live within its means. Our funding levels must be matched with the decline in student enrolment.
Yesterday, I was pleased to hear that the Halifax Regional School Board will keep 40 contract teachers who were previously given layoff notices. Through hard work, HRSB has found efficiencies and savings that won’t impact the classroom.
I am confident other school boards will follow HRSB’s leadership and will make the right decisions for the future of our children.” ( 3 June 2011)
Comment:
Who are you to believe?
The NSTU and friends have turned on Jennex and the NDP… Is it because they have dared to challenge the status quo? Since when has the party of social democracy turned on “ordinary working people”? If you can find thousands for ads and millions for PD, why not step-in to save a few hundred TAs?
When it comes to marching, be sure it’s in the right direction… When was the last time you saw a picket at the NSSBA HQ? Or a protest in front of the NSTU? Perhaps it’s time to hold the “system partners” accountable in public education.
Good post Paul.
“Not unlike other provinces, Nova Scotia’s education system is facing a number of fiscal and demographic challenges. Over the next 3 years, there will be 7,000 fewer students in our schools and 1,000 teachers will be eligible to retire. At the same time, our costs continue to escalate.
We can no longer afford to ignore these facts. Status quo is simply not an option.”
It’s the same everywhere it would seem. It’s costing more to educate fewer and fewer students.
Why is it costing more? Because as enrollments drop salaries increase across the board for those who educate our kids AS WELL as those TOO WELL PAID bureaucrats who may never see the inside of a classroom but who feel somehow entitled to their entitlements and less inclined to account for how tax dollars are spent.
It’s not affordable or sustainable.
In N.S. as elsewhere there should be an equation in place that suggests that if “x” number of students leave the system then there should be a shedding of an equivalent no. of both educators and bureaucrats paralleling the drop in enrollment.
The fact that it’s costing more to mire too many students in mediocrity is one that an aging population will not tolerate too much longer.
Here is a link of the CAT – I remembered the CAT well in my school days. And be a lot cheaper too in the long run.
While I was looking for the link, private schools are using them as well. One was boasting of students making it to the 90th percentile.
Click to access CV-12-15.pdf
“The Canadian Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) are trusted group assessment tools that will enable you to identify student achievement in major curriculum areas including vocabulary, reading, language, mathematics, and science.
How will Canadian Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) help you in
the classroom?
With the results from CTBS, you will be able to:
• Identify at-risk and gifted students
• Make decisions for grouping students
• Plan instructional emphases
• Measure growth of learning
• Evaluate effectiveness of instruction
• Report back to parents on student progress
Is it reliable?
Yes! Canadian Tests of Basic Skills were developed through trials and use with over 50,000 Canadian students, and normed on over 40,000 Canadian students in Grades K–12, to ensure reliability of results. They
were also co-normed with the Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test (CCAT) to allow for accurate comparison of achievement and ability levels.”
In one swoop, identified the at-risked and gifted students, and I think teachers in the classroom would be able to planned better, and parents be able to help their own kids, since it pretty easy to figure out the problem areas. Funny, how my mother would walk in, worried about my weak areas in grammar and spelling, and the teachers would say quite the opposite. I scored high, but it really did not reflect the grades at the school level. I spent quite a few hours over the school years, explaining to the guidance counselor why my grades did not reflect my potential.
I do not know if it could be compared fairly, since the knowledge of the 60s was far less, than the knowledge today. Oh well, the good news, the CAT is up-to-date and still being used.
I use 4 free tests before I begin remediation-the IOTA-Crest 1 and 2-Schonell and Stanford Achievement test.Also if anyone read the research they would see that a phoneme test is important-
You can see even with a child in grade 1 or Grade 5 or Grade 12,not only what the score is-Grade Level but through analysis you can easily see what holds the students back-
A-Lack of phonemic awareness-they read the word cat as car or vice versa-they read the word quit as skip etc..easy to see they guess-don`t know the sounds and can`t blend for reading or segment for spelling-
In 3 months of daily remediation,teachers who learn how to teach reading and spelling can change everything for a student.
All of us who are trained can get sometimes as much as 2 grade level improvements in 3 months-
As Margaret Wente from the Globe said 2-3 years ago-oh no,rather than teachphonics,they teach metacognition to 5 year olds.
As far as alternative schools getting the ax,fight like (&*%^ and don`t let it happen.We all watched the brave brave mothers who fought tooth and nail to get their Afrocentric school in Toronto-it was a sight to behold-nothing was going to stop them.We may be uncomfortable with it but they said”what can we do,60% of our kids are dropping out?”
Joanne, to your statement, “,rather than teach phonics,they teach metacognition to 5 year olds.”
I had to look at the word metacognition. No wonder, kids like my child, felt dumb. Or they thought they were dumb.
Just reading the first few paragraphs brought the nightmare school nights at my home to my mind. I rather forget, but…………….
“Metacognition” is one of the latest buzz words in educational psychology, but what exactly is metacognition? The length and abstract nature of the word makes it sound intimidating, yet its not as daunting a concept as it might seem. We engage in metacognitive activities everyday. Metacognition enables us to be successful learners, and has been associated with intelligence (e.g., Borkowski, Carr, & Pressley, 1987; Sternberg, 1984, 1986a, 1986b). Metacognition refers to higher order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Activities such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress toward the completion of a task are metacognitive in nature. Because metacognition plays a critical role in successful learning, it is important to study metacognitive activity and development to determine how students can be taught to better apply their cognitive resources through metacognitive control.”
http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm
Isn’t this putting the cart first before the horse?
yes-they should learn to read first-or at least simultaneously-in our view of course Nancy,we`re not educrats.
Sadly, social-democratic parties have often gone down this cutting role before (Bob Rae anyone). They get no credit because the people who love it are already Tories and the people who hate it are social democrats. The NS-NDP will simply cost themselves the next election by cutting.
Reducing the number of teachers as enrolement declines means that low enrolement schools will close FOR SURE.
Declining enrolement ought to be seen as a time to lower class sizes and introduce Early Childhod Education.
Those who actually want to cut education, Tory, Liberal or NDP are brain dead reactionaries who will destroy the future of Nova Scotia or whereever they cut.
Ask yourself this question. Is China cutting (no) is Korea cutting (no) is India cutting (no).
China or Korea? Oh yeah, old democracies eh Doug? Today in the news, or rather yesterday, a 17 year old in China, sold his kidney to buy an i-pad. His kidney sold for $3000 Canadian. And the Chinese government states there is no black market for organs, just like there is no organ harvesting at the prisons. Hah!
Doug, you should start reading the news over in that part of the world, and count your blessings in Canada. The cuts being made must be done, but can be made by looking at the boards and administration. Eliminate the consultants, and get back to educating. Eliminate the waste, and fancy parties (no doubt), and start using the computer if someone wants to have a video conference.
Can’t wait for the Ontario election to be over with, I wonder where the cuts will be…………….
Parents and taxpayers should go and start protesting in front of the provincial school board headquarters and the union headquarters. Both arms, loved to closed down schools, because it means more money for them. That game will be ending soon, and hopefully a new formula where the students will count, rather than the current one.
Click to access KidsNotCutsAdsCombined.pdf
http://kidsnotcuts.ca/
What should be done,or shall I say,my idea,I am referring to lower enrolment and so much less money for the schools as a result,try truly improving K-3,smaller classes,better trained teachers,phonics,arithmetic,no social promotion.
Grade 4 and up,slightly larger classes and Grade 9 and up,very large classes with tons of technology.
It is like a total inability to debate Nancy, the POINT is that our COMPETITION are NOT cutting back on education.
Nobody ADVOCATES that we adopt a Chinese model for government however, the idea that we can cut education spending without hurting our economy standard of living and way of life is a brain dead proposition.
http://hechingerreport.org/content/what-can-we-learn-from-finland-a-qa-with-dr-pasi-sahlberg_4851/
So Jo Anne is this you, actually earning a living in the private sector pushing phonics?
Would you say that gives you a conflict of interest?
http://www.remediationplus.com/events.shtml
Finland a population of a little over 5 million, the size of maybe Newfoundland. At least the geographic landscape would match somewhat. They have barrens too.
Totally different economic system, different governance, and a much different education struction. Plus each community, including the mayor is in charge of the education needs for the community.
Sitting in Toronto, can give a myopic viewpoint, Go out and see the country, and than come back. Go read their own newspapers Doug, they tell a different story. Sure they are increasing funding, but they still dealing trying to get children to go pass grade 8, and that isn’t easy in rural parts of Asia. There is no free ride in places like China, and there is trade-offs. I somehow like the trade-offs here, rather than the trade-offs in places like China or South Korea. As for copying Finland, unionists and educrats would not like to trade-off their power and influence, nor would they be able to demand more money to the public. Rather hard to do it in Finland, since their set-up is much different than other places , and pretty well the public education is not politicized as in North America.
A Finland teacher would be shocked as to what goes on in the classroom, and quality of instruction regarding reading, writing and numeracy in the primary and junior grades.
And I don’t care about the so-called competition, take their education figures with a grain of salt, one never knows how reliable they are. The PISA testing, is meant as one of the economic indicators, for the G20 countries, and not to be used by public education systems of countries to high-five each other, and put out press releases. Yet when the Fraser rankings come out, there is howls and squeals coming from the educrats and unionists, saying it is not fair. I prefer them over PISA, because it brings a clearer picture to the real reality on the ground. And even clearer picture emerges from the Sunshine data on SQE, and the amount of funding increases in the last 7 years or so. And way above inflation rate, heating fuel, transportation, utilities.
You would be very wrong Nancy and nobody would take you seriously. The WORLD takes the PISA/TIMSS data seriously because they are countries. Korea is also different, so what. The FI rankings are within a country, the SES is the reason and everybody knows it but there is no reason a rich nation like the USA is 19 places behind Finland.
The reasons behind the Finland miracle are becoming clear.
Teachers are trusted
Only education experts have the power
Teacher training is very high
Poverty is VERY low
The Finland system was bad as late as the 1970s. It was revamped and rebuilt. Now it is the best.
Yeah sure Doug, but unions and educrats are not willing to give up their power to pick anything will do – the kinds of things where final outcomes are ignored. Starting off with reading instruction – whole language would be tossed out in favour of systematic explicit phonics or its equivalent. In Finland, since the Finnish language sounds exactly as it sounds. and have far fewer phonemic sounds, it takes a year only to teach reading, and in the second year, they can concentrate on content.
You do not see Finland teachers beating down the door to come to Canada, nor do you see Finland students beating down the door to come to teachers’ colleges. At least they trained the teachers in reading instruction based on systematic explicit phonics and so unlike the Canadian teachers’ college and their whole language approach. Whole language approach = many poor readers. Thus ensuring to maintain the class structure of the SEC factors, as some have said, the very educrats who preaches a different tune, but practices another tune from what they preach.
The advent of alternative schools for at-risked students is another signed of the failure of the public education system to addressed students learning needs from the beginning. The system is built around the model of waiting to fail, rather than the practices of preventive failure. It is the failure of the public education system and its educrats, to addressed the learning/educational needs of all the students, and the communities. It is why choice is sitting on the doorsteps of the public education system, because the public is no longer willing to accept the education fate of their children in the educrats’ hands. Just like I was no longer willing to accept the educrats’ take on LD and the prescription of mediocrity and low expectations.
http://www.education.ucsb.edu/school-psychology/CSP-Journal/PDF/CSP-2001-post(v6).pdf#page=47
Retaining children at grade level (flunking them) is far worse than promoting them.
I would say grade retention is a form of child abuse.
Helping children K-3 to get their academic grounding and remediating their weaknesses is the kindest sweetest most worthwhile endeavour any school system can have.
Burying your head in the sand and sending them along without the basics of literacy and arithmetic is a form of child abuse.
Educational malpractice is not teaching students the above.
Education malpractice is to keep telling a child in so many ways, that they are not as capable, nor smart enough to master the basics in 12 years of schooling.
“Now imagine being a student who has completed 13 years of schooling, yet lacks the necessary tools to succeed in today’s workforce – lacking access to and knowledge of technology, literacy, and critical thinking skills. Regardless of their abilities entering school, all students are expected to master the same standards, and are prescribed a curriculum before their needs are assessed. Those unable to meet the curriculum standards are homogeneously grouped and “overmedicated” with intensive programs that assume students can be cured using the same antidote; this is instructional malpractice.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3614/is_201007/ai_n54718461/
Grade retention Doug, is one of the many ineffective methods used by educrats, when responding to instructional failure. Instructional malpractice, under educational malpractice is in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The day is coming when the educrats and the unions, are going to being paying for educational malpractice insurance. Real shame, when it could have been all prevented in the first place, but than again educrats and unionists have a disdain for the science.
There is a Supreme Court case?Really?
Please send me information?
Joanne –
“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday asked the Obama administration for its views on whether a parent may bring a negligence claim against a school district that allegedly failed to identify a high school student’s disabilities.
The justices asked the U.S. solicitor general’s office to weigh in on the issue raised under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The case involves an appeal filed by the Compton, Calif., school district of two lower court rulings that the mother had a valid legal claim under the IDEA that the district had failed to identify her daughter’s disabilities.
According to court papers, when the student was in 10th grade, her teachers became concerned that her work was “gibberish and incomprehensible” and that she had failed every class. The school district referred the girl to a mental health counselor, who recommended that the student be evaluated for learning disabilities. The district did not follow the recommendation, and it promoted the girl to the 11th grade.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2011/04/justices_seek_us_views_on_spec.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
It is being closely watch by the educrats, and their army of lawyers for obvious reasons. I think it would be the tipping point, where the U.S. public education system, will go under a total transformation in instruction, training based on the science and the elimination of whole language instruction
Doug,
“The shortcomings of the system are caused by the lack of dollars..
But mainly by the level of poverty in the community.”
This statement is an abominable excuse-the money goes mainly to teacher salaries and if the teacher is not trained due to pedagogical warfare by educrats that makes no sense in the light of uncontestable research and is transferred to students who then don`t learn,the statement that it`s all about money is akin to saying if the Dr.had a higher salary he could cure your pneumonia.
The genesis of the difficulties in schools-K-2
Click to access CIMSE.pdf
Jo Anne,
All the research says “social promotion” as you folks like to call it, is much preferred to “flunking” children. The children retained at grade level do much worse in the future that those promoted.
The psychological damage of failing is so severe that kids shut down and stop trying.
Doug, if you really cared about the kids – the psychological damage of the failure of the public education system to teach the necessary tools of learning – the foundation skills of literacy, numeracy and other basic skills, necessary to navigate in society causes far more damage to society, than retaining a child. The prescriptions offered by the educrats, in response to failure, forms the framework where a student relives the failures over and over. The educrats prescriptions reinforces the failures of the past, because the prescriptions are ineffective. Social promotion causes future emotional damage, where the student discovers he or she can no longer do the regular school work. The educrat’s prescription, is to dumbed down the work without providing the effective means to remediate the weaknesses. Soft bigotry of low expectations of the educrats has the starring role, in repeating the cycle of reinforcing the reliving of failures of the past.
Should be structured as K-3 skills development-no one fails-try to get them at the same level on many things -greenhouse emissions knowledge is not as important as learning to read,spell write and do arithmetic-the curriculum stuff is the fun.
Change the system.No one fails and everyone is seen as equal-the real life stuff and consequences can occur later.
You love the status quo.Give me the money-well there isn`t any and there will be less and less-adjust!
SQE has an interesting video on Japan’s education system.
So unlike the child-centered philosophies of the NA education system, where it can lead to dead-ending students.
I can do without the insulting language Nancy. My life has been dedicated to “kids”. The fact that I disagree with your POV does not mean that I don’t care about kids.
The research studies are in Nany. Your opinion is not what matters. The kids have been tracked in many studies. Those “retained” do worse than those moved on.
You are giving “opinions”. I am giving meta analysis of academic studies.
You just don’t know what you are talking about.
Jo Anne,
The 70% of education budgets paid to teachers salaries has made us one of the top education jurisdictions in the world.
The more you pay the better teachers you get.
Yes Doug, retention studies are numerous studying the psychological effects, coming from all angles. In particular, the viewpoint of the costs of retention from the administration viewpoint. Social promotion on the other hand can be found in the field of psychology, relating the emotional damage to self-esteem, self-image and the closing of future doors into adulthood.
Both are policies formulated by educrats, to respond to students not meeting the expected outcomes of a grade. Either way, both policies are ineffective to remediate the learning weaknesses of the students, that caused the failure to meet the standard outcomes. Why? Effective remediation of reading, writing and numeracy are not present in our schools. Effective intervention is not present in our schools. Nor is there effective prevention practices to prevent many of the reading, writing and numeracy problems in the first place.
Even paying teachers top dollar, will still not change the outcomes of students who are either socially promoted or retained for a year. Nor will it change the current practices of the education system. All it will do, by providing top dollar under the current training and structure of the system, will limit the school’s ability to provide preventative interventions, effective remediation based on the science, and keep on using social promotion and retention as the main platform and vehicle as the replacement for students who are not meeting the academic expectations.
Reading Rockets statement, is very much like the statements of those who oppose both social promotion and retention.
“For children experiencing academic, emotional, or behavioral difficulties, neither grade retention nor social promotion is an effective remedy. If educational professionals are committed to helping all children achieve academic success and reach their full potential, we must discard ineffective practices, such as grade retention and social promotion, in favor of “promotion plus” specific interventions designed to address the factors that place students at risk for school failure.”
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/23376
The educational malpractice that the U.S. Supreme court has agree to be heard, is also based on the practices of social promotion, rather than using effective intervention practices.
Once again Doug, the topic is about alternative schools.
Your presumed “meta anaysis” is just vapid judgementalism… a cheap way of replacing serious study. Much like the cheap pundits in the info-tainment world.
What other cuts could be made by the school board in order to preserve the YPT program?
exactly steven!
At what point do we take the process of making decisions like this OUT of the hands of politicians, experts and bureaucrats and let individual communities decide?
It may be that what’s cut in one community is not cut somewhere else.
Give more power to local schools and their communities to decide what to keep and what to cut.
It’s time we broke free from the notion that bigger is better and empower communities to reclaim their schools because seriously folks the politicos, and bureaucrats aren’t doing a bang-up job.
Steven, we could streamline our school boards and save more than enough to run YPT. a bunch of us are going to sit in the HRSB meeting this Wednesday night to watch them debate and see how they vote. Wanna come out?
Peggy, preparing for exhibit in Fredericton, but would like to be there.
Ramona needs to intervene and challenge the board to consider more admin. cuts. If they could do it for the 40 teachers they can do it for YPT.
Or the gov. could cut back on it’s TV propaganda re education and shift funds toward the program. Every penny counts nowadays.
Agreed! Good luck with the exhibit!
The teacher’s union can definitely push hard, so we parents will just have to do what we can ,push as hard as we can and hope for the best. There is a huge need to unite the parent voices. easier said than done.
Also, the “social promotion” thing, I do think it can be devastating for a child to be held back a whole year. kids have many strengths as well as weaknesses. There was talk of keeping my youngest daughter back in grade P. It would have been a big mistake.I’m so glad I never even considered it for a second. In a few cases, of a September baby, slightly behind their peers starting out, yes, have them repeat the grade if the parents agree. but don’t make a child of grade 2 or 3 repeat the grade. find out how to help them, have the resources available. don’t punish them with the double whammy of taking them out of their social group and then making them go through that grade again with no supports.
I think it is a little bit just speaking louder to someone who speaks a foreign language. That’s not going to work. The teachers will need to change what they are doing to teach the student, not just do it all over again the same way for another whole year.
Steven,
Hardly me doing the meta analysis, the overwhelming view of those who have studied the problem is that social promotion is much preferred to failing students.
Those who oppose “social promotion” need to know that under their proposition kids do even worse.
“Those who oppose “social promotion” need to know that under their proposition kids do even worse.”
So doing worse in your eyes Doug, is providing remediation and preventive interventions, so children can meet the standard outcomes of each grade. You rather have a child be socially promoted from one grade to the next, that is not meeting the bare minimum of achievement.
Repeat again from Reading Rockets and what is repeated in much of the research in social promotion and retention:
““For children experiencing academic, emotional, or behavioral difficulties, neither grade retention nor social promotion is an effective remedy. If educational professionals are committed to helping all children achieve academic success and reach their full potential, we must discard ineffective practices, such as grade retention and social promotion, in favor of “promotion plus” specific interventions designed to address the factors that place students at risk for school failure.”
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/23376
Don`t take the bait-you made your point very well.
Just breathe,he`s counting on a response so he can continue to misconstrue,,,
Sure, with that in mind, you do not seem to be cognizant of the potential loss of the YPT program. Are you still on planet mediocracy? Or would you care to add some ideas related to the topic.
So Nancy is saying that “failing” students and retaining them in a grade is ill advised. Correct.
Either social promotion or retention is ill-advised without providing the effective remediation to correct the underlying weaknesses of low achievement or in this case not meeting the standard achievement outcomes of each grade.
And stop twisting my words to suit your own agenda of protecting your own self-interests.
You were pretty clear, failing kids is bad. NOBODY supports social promotion without support.
Many people may know (or not know) that Chester (call me Checker) Finn is considered the Dean of the American education reform conservative movement.
Lucky for us, it sure sounds like he likes Ontario education.
http://educationnext.org/edblog/
Support in the current public education system consists of dumbed down curriculum, accommodations to support the basic skills that are not taught, leading to social promotion. In a typical high school classroom, over half are now being accommodated due to poor reading, writing and numeracy problems. In my youngest’s grade 10 class, over half the class is being accommodated to address their poor foundation skills. Only one has an identified exception in language, and the rest do not. What is fair about sending high school graduates out into the world, where students would be expecting to be accommodated, but are rudely awaken the world does not accommodate, unless one has an identified disability. And even at that, persons with disabilities may still not be accommodated. It is why I have ensured that my youngest has the foundation skills so crucial to navigate the world, and to entered into post-secondary studies. Skills that are not taught in the K to 12 system.
Either way, the supports that are provided in the K to 12 system, are not effective supports for retention or social promotion students. Even here, the educrats fail the students by pushing the default button of soft bigotry of low expectations. It is easier to dumb down the work, rather than to provide effective remediation.
By the way, Finn was just comparing the education structure of Canada to United States.
“The more useful example for us among those he has examined is Ontario, for Canada has no federal education department nor (to my knowledge) any involvement by the national government in the delivery or financing or even policy-setting for primary-secondary education. Marc never quite resolves the extent to which Ontario sticks out like a structural sore thumb, nor does he quite draw the lesson that might be most applicable here: American education surely needs a major overhaul of its education governance before it can successfully put into place the other changes in policy and practice that Marc urges (and that these other countries do). And yes, that will lead us away from “local control” as traditionally defined and operationalized in U.S. education. But it will and should lead us not to Washington but to a proper redefinition of the role of states (akin to Canadian provinces) and to the roles of individual schools, parents, and choice. Marc’s biggest blind spot, at least within the context of U.S. education reform circa 2011, is his “system knows best, just get the system right” mindset and his dismissal of the potential of competition and choice, properly structured and appropriately accountable, for accelerating the change we need in American education.”
Good luck on that one, sorting out 50 states and the federal laws of United States. I bet American citizens would not be too please, to have even less influence than the Canadian citizens over the fate of their children’s education.
Nancy,
If you were actually a teacher, you would realize that there is a big difference between teaching and learning.
Basic skills are taught over and over and over again but not necessarily fully learned.
They all try their best. If you were in the job the same thing would be true. No matter who is in the job, the results would be the same.
In the world’s best hospitals, people die. The world’s best law firms lose cases, it is the same in education.
Some kids have difficulty learning, some kids don’t try for many reasons, that is the way the world is.
Canadians run what most of the world considers to be an excellent model system.
I keep asking, have you come up with a better country yet? Other than Finland or possibly Korea.
What skills would they be Doug?
Not the same skills that parents pay good money to tutors to acquire?
Not the same skills that parents reteach at home, after school?
Not the same skills that parents buy software to practice, and promote mastery?
If hospitals and law firms have the same rate as in public education, with 48 % of people having low literacy and numeracy skills, that has increase from 42 %, only 4 % of the LD population go on to post-secondary education after grade 12, anywhere between 25 to 40 % of first year students in a post-secondary institute are taking a remediation course in the basics of writing or numeracy or both, and 50 % of the adult population has low literacy skills. The public would be screaming to shut them down. But alas, its education and the educrats like you Doug, only care about their interests, and any failures is blamed on the person, their intelligence, their behaviour, and anything else besides themselves and their pseudo-theories. Low literacy and numeracy skills all can be completely corrected using the science, the same science that is disdain by the educrats.
As in one recent Fraser ranking, “I realize that modern educators don’t like using percentages, but they are a very clear means of comparison, and in this case it would suggest that 14 of the schools in the district have turned in test scores ranging from 10% – 48%, and again,using an old fashioned yard stick, that means that 14 schools out of 25 are failing to teach the basics of reading, writing and ‘rithmetic. To say that the next 5 schools turning in results of 51 – 59% actually passed is being a bit generous, so if they were added it would mean that 19 out of 25 district 68 schools are failing to teach the basics.”
“It would be hard to think that Nanaimo has been able to assemble so many ‘un-teachable’ young people in one place and clearly the problem and solution more than likely lies with the methods and teachers being charged with preparing the next generation.”
“As much as the teachers, and their unions are opposed to testing, I am reminded of an old saying that has stuck with me many years:
“Figures don’t lie, and liars don’t figure”.
http://www.nanaimo-info-blog.com/2011/02/fraser-institute-nanaimo-report-cards.html
Now Doug, what skills would they be?
The same skills found in alternative programs for at-risked students, that educrats cut first, along with cuts made in remediation of the basics? The very thing that is most needed for the under-achievers and low achievers always gets cut first, with little outcry from the unions, the educrats.
Here is another stat or rather a piece of homework for you – The percentage of students in high school are not taking academic/advance courses? And how the figure fits in nicely with the Namaimo percentages, the grade 3 stats in standard testing, and the percentage of people with low-literacy and numeracy skills.
“
We have the world’s best readers compared to all other nations.
Fraser Institute labelled one school “the worst school in BC” so CBC investigated. The school was on a native reservation. Huge numbers of the kids has FAS, almost nobody had a job, family violence was common. Almost none of the parents had graduated ELEMENTARY school.
They investigted the school and found the best teachers that they had ever seen. You would not survive one day in those classrooms Nancy.
Naniamo has a well below average income in BC terms with a historic industry based on lumbering and mining.
This is the classic no achievement demographic in Canada, resource extraction hinterland.
I have been making this case from the very beginning but thanks for underlining the case that social class is the most powerful influence on education.
Teacher bashing is not good politics it seems.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2011/06/gauging_new_governors_popularity_following_education_overhauls.html
Nanaimo had a population of 78,692 people in 2006, which was an increase of 7.8% from the 2001 census count. The median household income in 2005 for Nanaimo was $45,937, which is below the British Columbia provincial average of $52,709.[7]
As for achievement – looks better than some city boards in Ontario.
http://www.sd68.bc.ca/edocuments/SD68News/publications_/studentachievem-1/content.htm
And $46,000 is the average for most regions that lies outside the big cities. Mind you, this figure has gone up as well.
As for calling the Nanaimo school district a classic classic no achievement demographic in Canada, resource extraction hinterland, and than insulting the people that live there by blaming the SEC and behaviour of people, without taking responsibility and the accountability for the role of inadequate and ineffective curriculum and instruction of the past. Doug, I wonder what stereo-types that will be used by you, to describe peoples in a region of Canada just to repeat your tiresome refrain of poverty as being the only cause for low achievement.
The public education system and how it is funded, all geared to pay anywhere between 75 to 80 percent in salaries, and decisions are made before hand especially in closing down schools by setting up the conditions. First two things to go, is the everyday maintenance of a school, and supplies. Make life miserable for everybody in the school, including the teachers. I read enough from Canadian teachers describing horrid conditions in the low income schools, and when more cuts are made, it is always made to the students who need the help more than anybody else. Most of the stories I have read, are coming out of Toronto, but there is plenty of other stories coming from other provinces. Most recent is Alberta school boards demanding more money then what has been budgeted for, from the Alberta government. The boards choices are more of the same as in Nova Scotia, layoffs, cut funding to SE, students at risked, cutting supplies, cuts to other areas and increase the school fees. And yet, few if any cuts made at the headquarters of boards, that are draped in luxury and all the amenities one could asked for. Than check out union headquarters, which is more of the same comfortable environment, while unionists play politics on the backs of children.
In Thunder Bay, 7 native teens have gone missing, and the union is silent about the issue. Par for the course where issues that does not fit in with the completing agendas of the arms of the education system, can go pound salt. If a student does meet the narrowed define criteria of the norm, created by the educrats to fit into the big box schools, force everyone to adapt to the needs of the educrats and unionists. If they can’t fit in, than they get the dumb-down curriculum and streamed to the non-academic courses by high school. No wonder why the educrats want to get rid of grades, and the unions are all aboard on that one. Get rid of the grading, and make it completely subjective, throw in the pseudo-theories of the educrats, and keep repeating the same refrains to the parents over and over again. And than the edubabble.
Tip to parents, when confronted with edubabble, asked the educrat and teachers, to repeat it in language that I can understand. If they still refuse, restate what the person said, in your own wording and understanding. It works every time on a educrat that is filled with edubabble. Educrats get real flustered when they have to explain themselves in layman’s language.
Below is just the beginning of articles throughout Ontario, and other provinces.
On questionable expenditures of school boards and ministries, while they closed down other schools.
“Everyone is concerned about schools closing in this city., but has anyone noticed that a new school opened in September last year with an enrolment of 60 students at a cost of $12.6 million? Yes, that’s right, $12.6 million of our tax dollars and yet, this French language secondary school, Michel-Gratton, on Totten Street is allowed to operate with only 60 students.
Has everyone in the Ministry of Education in Toronto and the school board in Windsor gone mad?
I think that it’s time for concerned taxpayers to demand an audit for the Ministry of Education in Toronto and the Windsor school boards.”
Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/life/school+built+students/4871605/story.html#ixzz1OYed35ma
Imagine building a new school for 60 students to the tune of $12.6 million dollars, and than the board’s next act is to lay off the librarians in the school libraries.
So Doug, again I will repeat my question that you decline to answer. Now Doug, what skills would that be?
The right wing dream comes true in Florida.
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2011/06/06/237313/rick-scott-399-diploma/
Many thanks Andrew for an example that many hear know works and works very well.
http://blogs.canoe.ca/lilleyspad/
Tune in to Byline tonight to catch this one-hour special on what TV is teaching our children.
No wonder his popularity is flling off the cliff. I smell one term wonder.
The only difference between the lefties and the righties is the nature of the propaganda with whichthey want to indoctrinate our kids. Neither is very interested in improving PUBLIC education.
Very true Andrew. Funny, but when I registered my kids for public school they never asked me what my political affiliation was, NOR did they indicate that as a parent I’d have to add to the cost of their education by hundreds of dollars per year, when alternatives might have cost less.
The only true advocates for students are parents, who when push comes to shove always side on the side of the child – not matter their political stripe.
ONLY TRUE ADVOCATE, and, I might add – first teachers.
I would not say that if there are teachers around. They would take it as a slander which it is.
So sue me, already.
Now you know why I’ve lost interest in Students First NS. The name makes for great bumper stickers but and there might be a couple of people who are sincere but the alliances being forged indicate to me that this is nothing more than one more movement whose mission it is to privatise public education funds.
Now you know why I’ve lost interest in Students First NS. The name makes for great bumper stickers but and there might be a couple of people who are sincere but the alliances being forged indicate to me that this is nothing more than one more movement whose mission it is to privatise public education funds.
You got that right Andrew. There are sincere parents in the reform movement, overwhelmingly special ed kids parents who are angry that the system did not do more for their child. There are ‘old foggie’ types who think the education system was pretty much perfect in 1954 so don’t mess with it. There are carpetbaggers who hope to make a low level buck off the system peddling ‘silver bullet’ answers like phonics. There are sincere members of oppressed groups who feel the system oppressed their children. There are the billionaires like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons, Michael Dell who want the systen to be a one trick pony for them producing human capital for the tech industry.
Finally there people who are simply ideological right wingers who hope to role back the state. There are those employers who realize that good public sector wages benefits and pensions put pressure on them to duplicate this or lose out on the skilled labour pool.
They all find each other in the ‘reform movement’ which has been around in one form or another since the 1960s. Luckily they disagree heavily about priorities and fall apart on the centralization-decentralization axis.
“Finally there people who are simply ideological right wingers …”
As opposed to your ilk – the ideological left winger.
Yes, I am a democratic socialist of the type that finds Jack Layton a tad too centrist but still the best choice overall. In my experience, only the socialists actually care about the poor kids. I reserve the right to be highly critical of the NDP when they screw up as well.
The rest of the kids will do fine in anybody’s system.
“there are old foggie types who thought the education system was perfect in 1954, so don’t mess with it.”
Doug, the most profound, insightful, honest, relevant, accurate statement you have made about yourself in a thousand and one blogs! A real Doug self portrait!
Except we hardly have the education system we had in 1954. It’s much better today but has peaked and is in decline.
so has the status quo!
We’re discussing the status of education not the status of the quo.
Actually the topic is the cutting of alternative programs, not the left right argument.
How bout it Andrew, any ideas how to save the YPT program?
Cutting two or three six-figure administration salaries might be a start.
Fix the PUBLIC education system. The special bits are part of it.
Once you pay teachers $96, 000 soon to be $100 000 in Toronto you must pay VPs more, principals more than that supers more than that associate directors more than that and directors more still. My issue has never been their wages but there are perhaps, more of them than necessary.
Shame to see a PUBLIC alternative go under. I support alternatives in principle but not all alternatives.
At 100k a year cut the number of teachers by 50% and hire 2.5 experienced EAs for the same price.
The STARR research from Tennessee has shown that more teachers in better value than more EAs
the real issue.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/25/32henig_ep.h30.html?tkn=TROFBgwzGiNAyLxywJZmcdIYB3Q1LG6ymCZx&cmp=clp-edweek
Pretty dam stupid to price themselves out of the market… oh, wait, you prefer communism.
No not a communist a social-democrat. Teachers are seriously underpaid though.
Dr.Bennett,your blog has an infestation.
Indeed. And not only is it Doug.
Hardly a single person here actually has an interest in improving PUBLIC education for ALL students.
Not only for YOUR kids but for everybody’s kids.
Vouchers and charter schools are simply an underhanded way of privatizing public funds.
Paying teachers 100k/year is simply another way of doing the same thing..
Flogging “teaching systems” is more privatisation of public funds. Teachers are perfectly capable of teaching but they are forbidden from doing so by the school boards and the corporate/political interests.
Taxpayers and students, however, are the ones being left out. Perhaps taxpayers should stop being such wimps.
“In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and families, recognize that the word voucher has been successfully discredited by enlightened Americans who believe in the public sector. So they’ve resorted to two strategies. First, they no longer use the word “vouchers.” They’ve adopted the seemingly benign phrase “school choice,” but they are still voucher advocates.” — Jonathan Kozol
Jo Anne, you have a conflict of interest. You work for a private organization that touts phonics.
Jo-Anne,
Do your blog postings increase sales?
http://www.remediationplus.com/index.htm
I hope the meeting tonight in Halifax proves the point that the YPT program is viable for all students working to attain a better education, and the staff so crucial to insuring this happens.
Ramona, it is time to put forth the realistic priorities for public education that make a difference. this program is without a doubt one of them.
Find a way!
Steven, they will still have a YPT program! it will only be for grades 10,11 and 12. The jr. grades will be handled at their home schools, they say. We actually made a difference in this one! The senior staff were the ones making the plans for the budget and the elected members were not being included in the process. So , they went back, the board gave them their “wish list” of things to keep and then senior staff started again and came out with somethin everyone could approve. not an easy task. This wouldn’t have happened at all if the public didn’t come forward and raise a ruckus!
Not to mention, Carole Olsen announced plans for a task force to study the idea of an Alternative High school! She must have read a certain blog?
Carole Olsen?
It’s all about appearances.
Here’s why I’m against social promotion, full inclusion and why the so-called “teaching approach” of differentiated instruction can never work in real life.
I’ve expressed very similar opinions in the past, but I think this posts are very good.
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2011/06/arithematic-of-differentiated.html
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2011/06/molly-on-back-to-future.html
A teacher’s post
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2011/06/arithematic-of-differentiated.html
these posts
Seems that disrespecting teachers is not a good policy in the long run.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/wisconsin-governor-scott-walkers-popularity-is-tanking-do-you-agree/question-1568509/
Luckily KIPP is no model for alternative schools.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/low-income-students-and-kipp-charter-schools/2011/06/06/AGquWhKH_blog.html?wprss=answer-sheet
Good piece that shows that policies to “stop social promotiion” are far worse than the problem it proportes to fix.
Click to access catspring2011.pdf
Andrew, you could be right, but only time will tell. Talk is cheap, but it’s words we hadn’t heard before. Irvine Carvery also said something about us needing to start to think differently about the way we are offering education here. He thought maybe they should be asking communities about how they see their children going from P to 12. We got the feeling that the message may be starting to get through and maybe they are ready to change their ways. Those are all big maybes at this point. Of course, the senior staff over on the side of the room may have another view of the whole thing. They didn’t strike me as a group that would embrace innovation. The Teacher’s Union would be another group that would resist innovation as well, I imagine. But, time marches on, new people come in with new approaches, so I believe good things await the school system onf Nova Scotia.
Innovation means nothing until the details are spelled out.
A question for Andrew and others from N.S. – how long are parents and individual educators prepared to wait for the system to improve? I think this is an important question because if the system demonstrates to you that they’re either not willing to change or you find that they’re just pacifying you, would alternative private, or some other private choice be in the cards? How will you measure the integrity of your government and boards to do right by the students and their families.
FYI
Here’s the latest from Ontario on Literacy results. It’s shameful that given the truckloads of money spent on Ontario’s public education system too many are still falling through the cracks.
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/1004651–83-of-grade-10-students-pass-literacy-test#comments
Catherine, good question. I have jumped ship for two years and we lived in Ontario for my husband’s job. I really looked forward to seeing what life could be like in a different province and had high hopes. Best two years as far as being a parent with kids in school goes. Much different feel than here. more positive vibs. Then, we moved back as planned, and we were back to square one, me banging my head against a brick wall. Then, I just stopped the day I realized my kids were very smart and they would be ok, because they came from this family and would always have support. Then, facebook and twitter came along and Educhatter found me and many others and we are realizing that we can be organized and show the boards and the governments that we want more, we expect more and our children need more.But it’s not going to happen over night.
That is my story, but others have left the province long ago, some parents are doing whatever they can to put their kids in private schools. So others have given up waiting already.
Catherine,
the 5 years my son has attended public school have been particularly turbulent on the southshore in NS.
From a massive centralization plan
to a program review
to the closure of five school including the historic Lunenburg Academy
to the constructon of an airport terminal (nearing completion) replacement school in Lunenburg
to another review of twelve more schools added to the list
to public pressure and the removal of those school from the list
to the board creating a new “Facility Review” (just a different way to close possibly 8 more schools and avoid public input
to the cancellation of reading recovery
to the cutting of special needs teachers and assistants
to the transfering of students from their old schools to the new one in mid year…
the list could go on and on. I have not even addressed some of the issues mentioned in such depth by you, Nancy and others. So sure one has to wonder if we are indeed in the midst of a crisis in education here and are there alternatives for my son?
The Zwagstra symposium was, I believe a significant first step along with the creation of the Students First initiative. Paul Bennett knows more than anyone how difficult it is to influence change in a system which does seem inflexible. This forum continues to add depth to that issue.
My first hand observations with our school board, and the mountain of apologists connected to them from politicians to SAC reps, consultants who are in the Superintendents back pocket, and even local editorialists who use our community paper as a propaganda journal for centralization at any cost in our region, tell me assessing their integrity would not be too dificult.
I believe the key to changing much it to communicate the need for change to the parents through the SAC’s around the province.
Very difficult when many of them approve of the malaise we are now in!
PS good news about the YPT program!
back to the positive though, we are feelin very good today because we know we were able to save at least part of the Youth Pathways and transitions Program. It would have been cut if the group of parents did not push back like they did with e-mails, board presentations and facebook camapigns. So ,we know we can win small battles, one at a time. It’s very encouraging. And we are not going away any time soon.
peggy – that’s very encouraging to hear. Especially that you’re not going away any time soon. Leave nothing to chance and document everything. Vehicles like Educhatter show parents and individual educators that they’re not alone in their attempt to fight back for the students. Keep holding those political and bureaucratic feet to the fire and be very open and public about your efforts, promises made AND promises broken.
My caution though is that too often we settle for less than we should expect and who decides is still often dictated from inside the system – with no input or opportunity to effect decisions.
Would not be impress with the Grade 10 literacy tests – not with what is posted on the EQAO site.
“◦49 949 (48%) were successful on the OSSLT and had also met the provincial reading standard in both Grade 3 and Grade 6. This indicates that students who meet the provincial standard early are well positioned to maintain their high achievement as they progress in their schooling.
—What do we know about these students?
•46 253 (93%) were enrolled in the academic English course, 3512 (7%) were in the applied English course and 33 (<1%) were in a locally developed course
•2094 (4%) had special education needs"
http://www.eqao.com/NR/ReleaseViewer.aspx?Lang=E&release=b11R002
It means 52 % of students are struggling with aspects in reading and writing, or both starting in the primary grades. Trying to put on a positive spin on numbers, by using language as this, "This indicates that students who meet the provincial standard early are well positioned to maintain their high achievement as they progress in their schooling.", is telling parents what they already know. Now this figure has not change much over the years, nor will it until the public education system gets rid of their whole language, illogical math curriculum, and a host of other practices that really does nothing for the quality of education that students are receiving.
I do think it is very important for parents to stepped in, no matter the obstacles and pushed for choice that is for our children, and not let the public education decide down the road later on. Something popped up in my e-mails today, that has me worried about the future direction of the educrats. At the moment it is happening in Europe, of capital venture firms and other investment firms backing the finances or buying companies outright, that have partnerships between the public sector services and private firms. Worried, because the soon to be signed European Free Trade agreement, Europe wants in on public services such as water to public education to everything in between that a government provides.
This is not the first time I have seen this, but I am seeing a lot more in the pass year as the European Free trade agreement nears. And a lot of it is in education, especially for children of special needs.
" On 14 April 2011, we successfully completed the acquisition of the Craegmoor Group and a comprehensive integration programme is currently underway. That acquisition extends our range of service provision to include a learning disabilities division, that by size is the UK's number one in its market. Furthermore, we consolidated our mental health and specialist education market positions via the addition of a further 3 Colleges and 18 mental health hospitals. The integration programme is on track and delivering the anticipated synergies. The acquisition of Craegmoor resulted in a further reduction in leverage within the business in addition to the reduction in debt levels when Priory was acquired by Advent. We expect to continue deleveraging the business moving forward. …………..
About Priory
Priory is Europe's leading independent provider of care for mental health conditions, psychological and psychiatric services including condition management programmes, secure, forensic and stepdown services, specialist education, complex care, neuro-rehabilitation services, fostering and care homes.
Priory employs over 5,000 people with a vast range of expertise and experience in over 60 hospitals, schools and care homes throughout the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Priory has approximately 2,300 patients, pupils and residents.
About Craegmoor
Craegmoor is the country's leading independent provider of support for people with learning disabilities, autism, complex needs, and mental health problems as well as older people. Craegmoor employs over 5,000 people throughout the country. Craegmoor has approximately 3,200 patients, pupils and residents. "
Here is the Priory link. "Priory Education Services is the country's leading independent provider of specialist education and care for children and young people age four upwards with special educational needs including autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), Asperger's syndrome (AS), behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD) and specific learning difficulties (SpLD) including dyslexia. Most of our students have a Statement of Special Educational Need and are funded by local authorities."
http://www.priorygroup.com/Personal-Site/Education-Services-and-Fostering/Overview.aspx
Explore it, and see if you get the same feeling as I do, it is all about behaviour and not necessarily the education of the child. Keep in mind learning disabilities is defined differently in Europe.
Could it be what the educrats have in mind, rather than dealing with the fallout on whole language, and bad math curriculum, passing the children who are not doing well over to the corporate sector and just labeled the students behavioural problems. If so, it would pushed out the smaller players, such as Bridgeway and their partnership with the public education system.
Also note, the big European corporate education providers are in the United States, at the other end providing curriculum, text books, testing, and programs for LD children. After viewing the site, let me know if you feel the same way – if we as parents do not move now, in 5 years from now choice will be only what the educrats want, and not in the best interests of children.
No Silver Bullets indeed, and this was in Forbes Magazine? OMG.
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/02/28/there-are-no-silver-bullets-in-education-reform/
“Democrats, the media, and these large foundations have all played a roll in the fight against teachers’ unions and the place of traditional public school in society. This has played nicely into the hands of Republicans like Scott Walker and Chris Christie and other GOP politicians at the state and national level who have long gunned for teachers’ unions and for a break-up of the public school ‘monopoly’”
He He Doug – If unions did the right thing in the first place, children first – make sure they all can read, write and do numeracy well, instead of handing out excuses, demanding more money, and insisting on a monopoly that only takes care of the adults at the end…..the union would not be in this place today.
Should have let the teachers in the classroom speak out a long time ago in Canada, against some of the teacher practices that are so wrong for the classroom, and better yet, insist that teachers’ college bring in the science of teaching, learning and cognitive learning, direct instruction, and all the good stuff that are excellent for kids.
“Should have let the teachers in the classroom speak out a long time ago in Canada, against some of the teacher practices that are so wrong for the classroom…’
_____________________________________________________________________
There are iconic moments in all spheres in life when something truely remarkable happens. In public education, Zwagstra has come close. One can only hope there is more like him out there willing to speak out.
There is no difference between the teachers and union. Like any democratic organization, the union represents the MAJORITY of teachers, not every teacher. Teachers can say whatever they want as individuals and do so.
The unions don’t teach anybody or develop curriculum or make laws but they DO know a great deal more about education than you do Nancy.
The popularity of American governors who picked fights with the teachers is dropping like a stone. None of them will be re-elected and we will be right back where we started.
You don’t get it Doug, the unions are being pressure from the political, economic systems and from the big corporate guys. Lots of choice in Europe Doug, but in England it seems the big guys are coming in from another angle, as well as the developing curriculum. Just a little different in the U.S., where some of the big guys are openly hostile to teachers’ unions, and some appear to be friendly. It is the unions and not the teachers. Union brass, have pushed and pushed, making demands that does little for education, besides hurting the kids’ education. Outcome, at the end of 12 years, around 40 % of kids walk out of school, with a worthless diploma, and most of the 40 % have below level skills in literacy and numeracy.
Can’t have it both ways Doug, either the union brass know about teaching, or the union brass knows a lot of getting their own way in raises. Either way, a union can’t be training teachers and at the same negotiating for raises. Conflict of interest. The product is the student, and even private unions are aware that it is the product. Can’t be bragging about product, or in this case student quality, when the other side has thousand of letters sitting on their desk, how the public education system failed their children. And yes, even on the simple things such as reading and writing.
“There is no difference between the teachers and union….”
Wrong. Many MANY individual teachers found their voices and in Ontario at least are fighting back against their union exec.. The number of individual teachers who have been calling up local radio talk shows irate at how their dues are being used politically and without their permission tells me that Doug’s myth that individual teachers and their unions are one and the same bogus.
Here’s an example of what we’re seeing more and more of in Ontario. Individual teachers challenging their union management. This is just the beginning. The unions are failing miserably in the eyes of the taxpaying public in their PR attempts so far in the run up to the Ontario provincial election.
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/09/union-denials-of-days-off-for-teachers-flawed
You are so wrong about so many things it is hard to know where to start. Vast majority of Americans support the teachers in Wisconsin, Governor Walker’s popularity like Christie in NJ are very unpopular.
You can’t admit it because it undermines your thesis but the entire world thinks Canada has one of the world’s finest education systems.
I know some day you will tell me the country that does better right? Nancy right? I can’t hear you.
As a non-teacher and a non teacher union member you are wrong time after time about how it works.
Maybe you think charters would be good alternatives.
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/
Doug, it is the myopic lens you are staring through. Big outcry from the public and teachers within the unions over their plans.
“Toronto’s public high school teachers are being offered an opportunity to skip class if they work on anti-Tory provincial election campaigns, the Toronto Sun has learned.
District 12 of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation — representing Toronto District School Board high school teachers — offered members up to two paid days off during the next school year if they attend one of two training sessions put on by the NDP and the Liberals at the union local’s Bathurst St. headquarters and commit to campaigning for candidates for either of those parties in September.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/07/teachers-targeting-ontario-tories
Dead-ending students, where union politics is first and always will be over the students. And besides, how many private sector unions can play hooky to campaigned for candidates of their choice? In the real world, they will get fired for playing hooky.
Here is another twist of dead-ending students, where unions, and all within the standard public education system have neglected their duties, for children caught between federal and provincial politics. As for unions, they failed to protect the teachers who work in the schools, and at the very least the national federation could have gone to war with Ottawa on the conditions.
“Schools filled with mice that eat children’s lunches. No playgrounds or doors that close properly. A lack of school supplies, books or gyms.
A host of these problems, found in reserve schools across Canada, are poignantly laid out in heart-wrenching letters from First Nations children — part of a report to the United Nations urging the body to investigate historic inequities in native education.
“(It’s) not fair when children are crowded in a classroom and it’s not fair that mice eat the snacks,” wrote one student named Angelique. “It’s not fun when cold winds are in the school. It’s not fun at all!”
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/schoolsandresources/article/1005122–native-children-ask-united-nations-to-probe-education-problems
Speaking about unions dead-ending students, are the credited courses run by the teacher unions, completing directly with other credited courses from other institutions. Doug, would claim that the union does not have any say about instruction, curriculum and practices inside the public schools. EFTO is a typical example, charging as much $650 for improving math outcomes in the classroom. One does not have to wonder why math outcomes for students are not improving, considering the courses being pushed by unions and how students end up in dead-end alleys, at many points in their 12 years of education.
““In North America there is very little systematic research of the mathematics programs that we use in our schools,” says Tracy Solomon, a developmental psychologist and lead author on the Sick Kids/OISE study. “For the very most part, students are taught with programs that have never been put to empirical tests.”
The prevailing approach these days, she says, is to give students real world or “contextually-rich” problems to solve, with the teacher guiding them to discover the math that underpins them.”
At the end of the article: “The program is meant to be used by teachers, because teacher guidance and explicit teaching is central to how it works. But there are workbooks parents can buy, too. The program has been developed for Grades 1 to 8. A college remedial program is under development, work is being done to create books for French immersion students and the plan is eventually to extend the whole program for Grades 9 to 12..”
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/03/getting-a-big-jump-on-math-class
Explicit teaching, cannot be found in the courses of the EFTO. Nor a Jump Math program, or many of the many different curriculum and instruction methods developed by researchers who are not certified teachers, and actual have the background to developed programs for students. Rather exciting, to see a college remedial program for Jump Math being developed. It will be the first time for many students who end up in remedial math at the college level, will for the first time enjoy math, but more importantly developed the foundation that was so neglected in the 12 years of schooling in the K to 12 system.
“You can improve both your effectiveness as a teacher and your position on the salary grid with ETFO Credit Courses.
ETFO Credit Courses are accredited by The School of Education at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and are recognized by the Qualifications Evaluation Council of Ontario (QECO) for possible grid improvement. Each course is recognized as a half credit. Please check with QECO before registering to determine suitability for your personal rating.
ETFO Credit Courses provide a unique blend of collaborative in-class experiences and enthusiastic instructors. The personal, face-to-face nature of our courses ensures our participants get the most out of their learning experience.
Our courses are held at convenient times and locations throughout the province. You can earn accreditation in just 45 hours of instruction time (36 hours minimum of classroom time.) Check our course listing for further details.
Thanks to ETFO’s commitment to low costs, each course taken for academic credit is only $475. If taken for professional growth, the cost is only $350.”
http://etfocreditcourses.ca/about/
Nancy,
You are all over the map as usual. Has anyone suggested that what the 2 unions have done in Ontario is illegal? No and protecting Ontario children from a Conservative government is the greatest protection the union could provide and really shows that they put children first because they are protecting the kids from the damage that will be inflicted on the system by a PC government. The last one nearly ruined the system and we have been 8 years trying to recover.
The problem on Native reserves is Federal. The teachers feds have been campaigning for years to improve conditions on reserve schools and off reserve schools with major Native populations but you would not know that because you are an outsider to what actually goes on.
What have the conservatives done in many years for Native education? Nothing, in fact it is worse since Harper took over.
The only problem in District 12 is that they should have been more ambitious.
Oh yeah, dead-ending students is a directive of the unions. Get serious Doug, what the people need protecting from are public sector unions, advancing their agenda and ideology unto the unsuspecting people, Last time I check, the union brass doesn’t much care on the final outcomes of students, not when their agenda is seriously threatened by political parties who actual might have policies to addressed those final outcomes. As for federal governments, no matter the stripe – perhaps the feds are looking through the lens of final outcomes. As there is a lot of federal tax money being directed at remediation of skills that should have been addressed at the K to 12 level, in all areas of the federal government. No wonder, they might not have addressed the problems of the native schools, because there is little money left since they are addressing problems dealing with the final outcomes of a heavy politicized unionized public education system, that does not have the best interests in the future education outcome of students.
Where do you get this dead ending students nonsense? The Federal gov’t is totally responsible for native education K-12.
Teachers unions are very concerned about outcomes for students that is why they lobby and negotiate for the only proven items that make a difference, smaller classes, ECE PD and higher levels of teacher education.
The PCs made a huge mess of Ontario education last time they were in. Oh boy, here come the strikes, lockouts, demonstrations, recrimination and endless fighting that characterizes a Tory regime. I can hardly wait.
Would you look at that? The reform movement has teaching 100% backwards. It is time we started respecting teachers and treating them much better the way successful countries do.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/is-the-us-doing-teacher-reform-all-wrong/2011/05/31/AGAErRFH_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein
Many reformers are frustrated because many politicians, including conservative politicians, will not legislate the reforms they support. Here is why. They all see the support dropping for Republican governors who legislate the reform agenda.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2011/06/gauging_new_governors_popularity_following_education_overhauls.html
All you are pointing out, is the politicization of public education. How about answering the role in unions who dead-end students by taking on the role of teaching training, developing courses, without regard to final outcomes of students.Or the union’s role on how they work against the goals of new reform, that does not advance the goals of the union? So the union actively works against new curriculum such as Jump Math, and would rather work with the educrats, many of them that do not have a math degree, using fuzzy math techniques and methods. As we speak, the educrats are writing out trig and calculus out of the high school curriculum. The very things that high school students need, to enter the fields of science and math. Fractions the most important fundamental to master, has been more or less been dumb-down. I am beginning to thing that eggheads or pinheads is a better name for educrats who work or developed curriculum, using philosophy rather than the science of learning.
Public sector unions do not produced anything, they provide a service. The present public education system is a monopoly, that does not have to relied on or be accountable to the public, if the service is poor or good or excellent. Regardless of service, bad outcomes are blame on the users of the services. Just have to look at garbage service, and how the public union keeps on stating that garbage service is the most dangerous job in the world. Try being a user, who puts out their garbage beyond just an inch beyond the stated boundaries – no garbage pick up for them. As for teachers’ union, their service is the education of children, from K to 12, and here we have contracts that puts constraints on how, where, when and by whom is allowed to put out the service, that in turn puts constraints on how children can avail of services at the school.
You have a very warped idea about wht the union does Nancy. First the union frustrates the reform agenda because like most people, the unions understand that the reform agenda is poorly informed, poorly researched, full of holes and in most cases counterproductive.
Just like the treatment of teachers, the “REFORM” agenda is the complete opposite of what the successful countries that are moving ahead, are doing. Where do you get the idea that the UNION opposes JUMP math? Personally I have met John Mighton and I support it. Decisions on it are not made by the union and more than DI or Phonics etc.
Canada once again has one of the world’s tiny group of outstanding school systems and does it without Korea’s long hours or Finland’s 4% poverty rate.
Do some research on the poverty-education relationship and you will see that poor people doing badly in school is the ‘iron law’ of education.
If the child has biological limitations on their learning, who’s fault is that? If the child comes from a disfunctional home, who’s fault is that? If the child suffers all of the ill effects of growing up in poverty, who’s fault is that?
Schools do their best to mitigate the problems of the home but they are not always successful, yet the reform movement fights against ECE/ELP plans, actually fights against more money, smaller classes, higher education and training plans for teachers. What are we to think of a movement that fights against all of the things that real research PROVES are the way forward in successful countries.
I just watched the John Snobelen presentation on the SQE website. Seldom in my career have I seen such a shallow, poorly informed, poorly researched, troglodyte presentation by a high school dropout in my life.
The story of “Kyle” in his address sums it up perfectly. He admits “Kyle is lazy and hates school.” but then he says the blame for Kyle’s lack of success is not on Kyle or his parents, but on the school system.
That is the most pathetic attack on the school system I have ever seen. Schools are responsible for bone lazy kids who hate school, not parents or the student himself.
P-L-E-A-S-E
Doug’s post has nothing to do with this discussion. He’s once again changing the channel.
Paul – if you let Doug’s post stand, then I think it only fair that the readers here be told the truth of Doug’s involvement during the time in Ontario when John Snobelen was Minister of Education. I’m sure it would explain Doug’s callous attack on an education minister who had the union’s number and wasn’t afraid to challenge it.
There’s a very political reason for Doug’s tirade. Let’s let the folks in on it – or strike both this post and Doug’s last one from the discussion.
OR, how about we invite folks to visit the SQE blog – School For Thought and watch the presentations there for themselves.
The fact that Doug’s spinning so hard means there’s great information over at SQE that’s hitting close to home.
He is spinning hard isn`t he?
Too bad mediocracy is their goal.I just saw Nancy`s math skills at SQE,the true number of students succeeding in Ontario Grade 10 Literacy Tests is 64%.
Thank God for the tests,we`d be in the dark otherwise.Teacher`s Unions despise these tests because it makes them look bad.
Now,if only there were consequences to poor achievements.
Yes Doug is spinning again, especially when it is obvious that he did not hear all of the presentation, from the beginning to the end.
Quote from Doug, at Crux of the Matter, in March of 2010.
““Yes I do feel there is a generally correct way to do things (Finland + ECE + small class + higher pay for teachers + adult full credit + abolish EQAO and OCT ……. And a very incorrect way to do things (ape USA,charters vouchers testing underfunding poor teacher pay etc). One is correct and good the other is evil not just incorrect. The people who propose the latter system are evil people who live off the exploitation of children. I consider the American approach a form of child abuse.”
http://cruxofthematternews.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/little-educ-report-ideological-intolerant-2-2/
Evil eh Doug? Doug certainly lives by the credo of moral relativism. In fact, it is his bible, along with a good many sitting at headquarters in public sector unions. Dead-ending students and accountability does not entered into the equation because moral relativism allows them never to take responsibility for the bad outcomes in education, or for that matter other services in the public sector. Moral relativism only allows them to take credit for the good outcomes, whether they deserve the credit or not.
http://www.am760.net/cc-common/mediaplayer/player.html?redir=yes&mps=davidsirota.php&mid=http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DENVER-CO/KKZN-AM/Wednesday 6-8 Hour 1.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&CPROG=RICHMEDIA&MARKET=DENVER-CO&NG_FORMAT=&NG_ID=&OR_NEWSFORMAT=&OWNER=&SERVER_NAME=www.am760.net&SITE_ID=650&STATION_ID=KKZN-AM&TRACK=
Check out this debate Nancy.
If you are not ashamed of Snobelen’s presentation, you are shameless. To think this dropout was actually education minister and deliberately set out to “create a crisis”.
Here is one of your “accountability” measures. As is become clearer every day, the cure is far worse than the so called disease.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12521&page=1
The scariest people in the world believe there is no moal relativism. These would include Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Baker, The Mullahs in Iran, Osama Bin Laden, and religious extremists of all types.
http://www.quickanded.com/2011/06/does-education-reform-have-to-equal-sagging-polls.html?
This the kind of choice you have in mind Nancy?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/milwaukees-voucher-progra_n_872712.html
I totally agree with what John Snobelen said: If the education system keeps pointing to the parents as being responsable for the educational outcomes of their children then let them choose their children’s education!
And I know a lot of other parents who do whole heartedly agree to that.
How come poor outcomes are only the parents’ fault or the parents’s socioeconomic fault but, supposedly, we have one of the best education systems in the world because the system is good! I mean, come on, it is funny!
Take away Kumon, take away the time parents spend teaching their children – and I don’t mean checking the homework I mean teaching – what would be left of the already mediocre grade 3 EQAO results?
I’m sure that if so many parents are so happy with the public system as the official propaganda would like them to believe, then the schools and the unions should only be happy when the parents are going to be allowed to choose their children’s education.
Surely they would rush to be the first to re-enrol their kids to the local public school out of fear that they would be put on the waiting list!
Doug, alternative programs of today are a result of the moral relativism that is practiced throughout the public education system.
“A student attains ‘higher order thinking’ when he no longer believes in right or wrong“. “A large part of what we call good teaching is a teacher´s ability to obtain affective objectives by challenging the student’s fixed beliefs. …a large part of what we call teaching is that the teacher should be able to use education to reorganize a child’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.” – Benjamin Bloom, psychologist and educational theorist, in “Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives”, p. 185, 1956
““This is the idea where we drop subject matter and we drop Carnegie Unites (grading from A-F) and we just let students find their way, keeping them in school until they manifest the politically correct attitudes. You see, one of the effects of self-esteem (Values Clarification) programs is that you are no longer obliged to tell the truth if you don’t feel like it. You don’t have to tell the truth because if the truth you have to tell is about your own failure then your self-esteem will go down and that is unthinkable.”- Dr. William Coulson, explaining Outcome Based Education (OBE)-1964”
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2008/04/ayers-and-his-cohorts-are-whats-wrong.html
And there millions of quotes from the educrats, advocating moral relativism dogma, to dodge accountability on their own practices, and bad outcomes. It is why I had to laugh comparing people who hold beliefs and values of right and wrong as opposed to beliefs of there is no right or wrong, which is the main tenet of moral relativism. Only a rascal would tried that number, of advocating that there is no right or wrong, to protect their best interests. Likewise Doug, there is always a right and a wrong, but in this world of public education, students are taught that there is no right or wrong, only relative rights or wrong. Even the real world of people across all cultures are reacting to the moral relativism of governments, the public sectors who keep on practicing moral relativism onto their citizens. All the civil unrest in the Middle-East, and in Europe are the result of moral relativism practices of the government, and their public sectors. Telling people how, when, where , what and by whom, by the selected few, can only lead to trouble as history has shown. There is even essays and papers being published condemning the moral relativism that is so deeply embedded by Western and Eastern culture. One of the reasons why Finland is successful in education, they do not practice moral relativism in their schools. The Finland’s education system, simply provides a quality education without trying to change the moral fabric of their citizens, as a whole group and on the individual level.
Like this retired teacher, who is now working doing English composition at a state university and is writing her first book.. She writes in a column, called Count Me Out…Count Me In. “On the whole, I have been rejected by an educational system that desperately needs smart, skilled, scholarly, well-read, strong teachers just like me. Administrators refuse to acknowledge our value. They reject our suggestions and diminish our concerns, simply because we advocate for our students; because we make the achievement, knowledge, and mental development of our students our main priority. Unskilled, power-hungry, and downright stupid administrators, especially, cannot forgive any teachers or parents who notice the foolish actions and the counterproductive decisions made by such leaders as they work to drag our once-owned-and-run-by-the-people public schools so far from the path of true education, destroying a culture, and a country, in the process. ”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/taylor/taylor141.html
Now I am sure, she would have made quick work addressing my child’s reading problems back in grade 1, and probably would nagged the next few teachers in the next grades that my child would not regress, due to the instruction and curriculum. Unions had made sure, at the least the ones here in Canada, thou shall not criticized the public education system, unless it is one of the goals and aims of the union. I also wonder, how long a teacher like her would last in one of the provincial education system. Not long would be my guess, since most educators work quietly doing the best that they can for their students, without stirring up the hornet nests of both the union and the board.
Here is a quote, “Intelligence is not a static structure, but an open, dynamic system that can continue to develop throughout life” Dr. Reuven Feuerstein’s revolutionary words, not yet widely accepted by the psychological and educational establishments, make an enormous difference in how we perceive the role of education. If intelligence is modifiable, and if indeed intelligence can be taught and learned, education has a much greater role than might have been previously imagined.”
http://mennta.hi.is/starfsfolk/solrunb/feuerst.htm
Dr. Feuerstein and his work, is directly the opposite of the educrats and the unionists, who rather educate students through the lens of moral relativism than actual teach students the skills and abilities needed to navigate in society. Alternative schools for at-risked students, formed for a good reason, the inability of the public education system to teach these children, the skills needed to navigate in this world. And even in my youngest child, the educrats declared developmentally slow but refused to do an assessment coming up with all kinds of excuses for the next 3 years. Than the assessment, declaring LD, and than refused to carry out the recommendations of the assessment report, and than banished my child to the SE math class for two years, scoring on the average a 97 % for the next two years. Years later, the same educrats trying to take credit for actions on their part, that this is the reason why my youngest is doing so well. Now that is moral relativism at work, the same stuff found often at the board level, where dumbing down the curriculum for LD students is the norm, rather than using effective teaching methods to addressed the learning weaknesses, to change the cognitive pathways of a LD student.
1) There are a huge number of public schools in boards with open boundary policies like TDSB that have huge waiting lists and lottaries to get in.
Parents can choose any education they want for their children, they just cannot expect the public to pay for it. We had an election on it and the idea crashed and burned. It will never return because all 3 political parties understand that it is the kiss of death to their electoral chances. It is just not worth supporting because it means you cannot win the election.
Everywhere in the world, the poor kids lag way behind middle class kids. Even the very best chater schools cannot close that gap and these schools strictly control the SE and ESL kids to keep them out.
Every legit opinion poll in Ontario shows that school choice is very unpopular. Why do you think even Tim Hudak will not even touch it?
Every experienced educator in a large board understands that the teachers in the highest achieving school in the board are no better than the teachers in the lowest achieving school in the board. In fact, the teachers in the lowest achieving schools are often better. What is the difference then if not the teachers? The difference is the SES of the students.
This is the same in every board in the world. The problems are the problems of poverty.
If you switch the entire staff from the best school and the worst school next year the results will be the same or worse. How can the problem be in the teachers? It is nott. The problem is the student’s background.
Pray tell Doug,
1. “There are a huge number of public schools in boards with open boundary policies like TDSB that have huge waiting lists and lotteries to get in. ”
The number of boards, and the few including Toronto all have a condition that is added – the condition is, if the student does not live in the catchment area, they might be put on a waiting list. So what is the number Doug, would love to hear it?
2. Choose any type of education Doug? Besides paying for a school to addressed my child’s learning weaknesses that the public school refuses to remediate, what are the choices for LD children in Ontario, other than private schools? Just love to hear the numbers on that one as well.
3. Now since Toronto is the only board dealing with relatively high numbers of low-income students, what are the real figures Doug. I seen figures as high as 40 % of the total student population depending on where one draws it from. Now mind you, living in the heart of Toronto is more expensive than living in a rural part, but take into account the the number of low-income people who are receiving subsidies in some type of public housing. Now mind you Doug, it may not make a difference since Toronto is thinking about selling off their stock of public housing to the general real estate market, to finance the repairs of the rest of the public housing. Kinda weird, especially since I live in a province where there is not a day goes by, hearing the radio ad, sponsored by the government how great public housing is, by the very people who live in public housing. Of course, it is part of the poverty reduction, and if anything any selling of public housing goes to a buyer for a low price, who are slightly above the low-income. In my area, since it is rural, a solid home, that needs some TLC can be had for 16,000 dollars. Oh well, way off topic, but Doug I would like the numbers, percentages of low-income people as well.
4. Legit opinion polls, and one can tell that policy is being formulated on opinion polls, rather than the science and common sense. No need to asked any questions about it, but how about an opinion poll on the knowledge of the general public knowing the lack of a solid foundation in the 3 Rs in our schools?
5. Well Doug, declaring that all teachers are equal in their teaching ability no matter the achievement of the school. Moral relativism at work again, on one hand teachers are all equal in their teaching ability, and on the other hand, unions demanding more money to addressed the training needs, teaching ability of the teachers. Than have the gall to state that the money is needed, is to addressed the SEC factors in all schools, and not just the low-income schools, even though all teachers are equal in teaching ability.
6. As for the switching bit Doug, what does not change is that students are not equal, nor are schools, nor are teachers’ abilities equal, nor are the supplies and resources are equal. This is an old communist ploy of the state run grocery store, that all grocery stores are the same, and it was the reason why citizens were assigned to their neigbourhood grocery store. Of course the top ranking politico, were assigned to their grocery store, where products available for sale always were the best quality, and they never ran out of food products. While the rest of them suffered long line-ups for hours at a time, only to find out that there was no more bread left. One of the reasons why the USSR went down the tubes, due to the inequality of the haves and the have-nots. Besides, when sales staff were transferred from the have stores to the have-not stores, or vice-versus, the sales staff were not all equal in their ability to sell the food, or deal with the customers. In the have-not stores, the sales clerk from the have store would create even more long line-ups, because he did not like the attitude of people who had to endure long wait lines, just to buy a loaf of bread. Just think about it Doug, or better yet, lots of articles on grocery stores in the old USSR. Than read about the public education of the haves and have-nots, and the enduring mantra of the state, all schools and the teachers are equal in resources and teaching ability.
Just want the numbers Doug, straight from the stats. That should keep you busy for a little while collecting the numbers to support your claims.
In a city the size of Toronto, we can all see the very sharp class differences from school to school. The truth is, however, whereever the class differences are sharp, the achievement differences will also be sharp.
When I was a trustee at the pre-amalgamation TBE the trustees looked at some achievement data based on SS placement. Forest Hill PS was ranked the highest school of 100 ES schools in the board (wealthiest neighbourhood naturally, Rosedale was #2). Regent Park (100% public housing) was ranked #100. A not too swift trustee representing the Forest Hill area made the ill considered comment that “her” teachers worked very hard and the teachers at Regent Park should be investigated to see why they were so low.
I spoke up to say, we have the makings of a perfect experiment here. The 2 schools are the same size. Lets switch the entire staff next year, teacheers principal, VP support staff. If you are correct, next year Regent Park will come first and Forest Hill will fall to last but it I am right, that SES overwhelms all other considerations, Forest Hill will still be #1 and Regent Park will still be #100.
Every educator, parent, “educrat” and reporter in the room understood that there was no need for the experiment. Everybody knew from the start that doing the expeiment in their head was all that was necessary.
Where I come from in Bluewater DSB (Grey and Bruce Co) everybody knows that there are big problems at Bruce Peninsula PS, the poorest school in the board with lots of Native kids and poor whites. People on the peninsula tend to be lower income. There are no problems at Hillcrest PS in Owen Sound because it serves a middle class neighbourhood.
Every community of any size is the same. People know the “good schools” but they are the good schools due to the class that walks through the front door, not due to the teachers. I do not denegrate working folks as I grew up the son of a printer and a secretary. I have nothing but respect for the people who do the heavy lifting in our society.
School results everywhere in the world are related directly almost absolutely to social
class. Your continued denial of this basic fact of the education world puts everything else you say in doubt.
The Toronto Board does a survey known as the “Every Student Survey” but it is really done by every grade 9 student. It asks a few simple questions, what does your mother do for a living what does your father do for a living, how far did they go in school, do you self describe as being from one of the following ethnic groups (Black, Portuguese, Greek…..) where did you go to elementary school, are most of your courses Applied or Academic, mayby 10 questions of this sort that can be filled out in 5 minutes.
This survey demonstrates to anyone with half a clue that educational success is OVERWHELMINGLY class based. Some races lag behind as well for historical reasons. TDSB actually gives greater resources and smaller classes to the schools on the low end. The EQAO scores also show an OVERWHELMING class based result but I doubt any of this will convince you that the teachers are not at fault Nancy because you have a closed mind to the subject. It just convinces everybody else.
One more study shows per-school IS the answer but, of course the right-wingers who oppose public ownership of sidewalks oppose it out of ideological knee jerk impulse.
Click to access 1255363885_mortuzar_sec4_pos0.pdf
Doug, you made your point.
The class effects determine education outcomes no matter what the public schools try to do.
If that is true, than we should not have public education! Public education came about because as a society we believe that socioeconomic aspects can be mitigated by education.
If it cannot, either we have the wrong type of public education or the public education is good ideea that we tried it and we found out it doesn’t work.
Sorry, I’m missing your point with the sidewalks. Who of the people you talk to oppose public ownership of sidewalks? And anyway what does that have to do with discussing the effects of socioeconomic background on achievement?
For somebody who claims to have been a teacher you surely don’t make much sense.
The GAP can be narrowed but not by the strategies favoured by the reform movement.
The way to move the entire students body ahead AND close the gap somewhat is to do the following:
Institute a radical ECE-ELP program
Lower class sizes in poor schools
encourage the best teachers to teach in poor schools with incentives (promotion is a great one)
mitigate poverty outside of schools in many ways in health housing transportation income support but especially jobs.
Another Utopian dream Doug, or the same one that you keep sprouting. What happens after one leaves Toronto, where the make-up of the student population is much different. One does not see too many immigrants heading to rural parts, but rather making a fast track to the big cities. Or does these kids get less, to benefit your grand Utopian plan. What is always missing from your equation is the instruction and curriculum. Without a solid foundation of the 3Rs, the achievement results will be the same, even if you hand everything to a low-income student on a silver platter. But than again, the Utopian plan of the left doesn’t include useful things such as a solid foundation, so the students are better able to question some of the stuff in the curriculum, and correct the wrong answers most often found in the math curriculum. If a school is going to pay $100 for a math text book, the very least one can expect is the correct answers at the back of the book.
Why don’t you and others like you, try to correct the systemic fault lines of the school system first, before trying to correct the fault lines that lie outside the school system. It is almost like you are choosing to build the foundation first that lies outside the school walls, and ignoring the fire that is burning down the school house.
And Doug, where are the numbers, I am still waiting for them. Excuses is the norm for you, but if you persist with the excuses, than provide supporting evidence of the numbers. Just like the educrats asked me many moons ago, and thought we never see her again. And yes I did, with pretty little colour graphs to show how the system was not doing right for the LD students. Dead-ending students seems to be the progressive way,
You talk about curriculum and pedagogy the way religious people talk about their religion. We (phonics DI people) know the truth and all others worship false Gods.
You believe this nonsense, I do not believe it. DI and phonics are tools in the teacher’s tool box. That is what they are. They are not a program or a one trick pony.
The critical research tell most educators that ECE and small classes and PD are the answer. What are your academic credentials Nancy? What important academic papers have you written? You are NOT an expert. I take your POV with a grain of salt.
Have you ever asked yourself WHY all of these educrats as you call them, reject your POV? I know you think it is a vast conspiracy to keep children illiterate. You sound like one of those conspiracy theorists or that guy who told us the world will come to an end 2 weeks ago.
How have we managed to have the world’s best readers with these poor methods?
Doug, you are not an expert either.
Class sizes are smaller than they were, and they are much, much smaller than other places in the world with better results.
You know, Doug, small class sizes are not a one trick pony.
>> Institute a radical ECE-ELP program
Ok we may be in some agreement of opinion here.
But … hold on a second ..Can we stop using big empty words? What do you mean by “radical”?
Why .. you mean with all that investment in early education we don’t already have a “radical” program?
You mean all that investment in early education was done without a “radical” program? Withoug a ECE program proven to insure the 7 to 1 return of tax dollars??
We just implemented whatever … free daycare to buy urban votes .. and extra teaching jobs to buy teacher’s votes?
>> Lower class sizes in poor schools
The class sizes are way lower than in other nations where the pupils are poorer and result are better.
>> encourage the best teachers to teach in poor schools with incentives (promotion is a great one)
Ok this is one is shocking! What best teachers? After all teachers are professionals and it is impossible to asses teacher performance … isn’t that what you’ve been telling us all the time?
Now all of a sudden there are teachers that are better than others?
>>mitigate poverty outside of schools in many ways in health housing transportation income support but especially jobs.
That’s not in the schools’ area of control. So what are you talking about?
Your arguments were about the schools’ influence in mitigating social factors.
Hello! .. a bit of coherence please!
I have asked 1000 times for you to name the countries that do better other than Korea (very long hours, respect for teachers) and Finland (4% child poverty rate). The STARR research from Tennessee is definitive on class size.
ELP is great but should not be seen as an add on. Education from toilet training to PhD should be totally free. That is the goal we should all be working towards.
If the educrats simply allowed teachers to teach as they know how and principals to administer the schools as they are supposed to do, much of the problems would disappear. Instead we have MOEs micro-managing school boards or passively watching public education deteriorate, school board staff lieing.misinforming the trustees and micro-managing the schools, principals and teachers.
The teachers and principals know what to do. Let tem do it and give them the resources with which to do it.
Actually I basically agree Andrew.
maybe they would… except when the dreaded school boards are factored in.
What happen to the LD students, where 95 % of their learning problems can be corrected using systematic instruction, and by the way using the quick teachers assessments called DIEBELS, a teacher in a classroom can quickly find out who will likely be at high risk for reading struggles. For my child it would be low phonemic awareness, which is common for children with major or minor speech delays. Furthermore, low income children are not exposed to an rich environment and experiences as with children with parents who have higher incomes, and as a consequence do not developed the vocabulary and stymies the growth of phonemic awareness. You should really get off the educrats’ pages, and get onto the science pages. Actually Doug, every grade 1 class would have the split of 60 to 40 or 40 to 60, where most would need phonemic awareness or less would need phonemic awareness depending on the make-up of the class.
So now Doug, back to the science and something I read in a science journal that passes through my e-mail box. The development of vocabulary can be increased by using picture books. I read it with great interest, because some pre-school children show no interest in having a story read to them. My child was one of them, and yet even though she had delayed speech, her vocabulary was quite high for a child, who only enjoyed picture books, while I create a story out of pictures. Doug, a child that does not like being read to, is usually a sign, a small sign that there will be language difficulties. It solve the mystery why my child had such a high vocabulary, and picture books helped it along despite her low phonemic awareness. Low phonemic awareness is the number one indictor that a child is at high risk for reading problems. The only trouble is, the public education system does not assessed children prior to entry into grade one, nor is it taught in a systematic explicit method.
The education system, the present one using the current curriculum and instruction are producing a lot of poor readers and writers. Low literacy skills is at the 42 % in 2007, and the new figures which have not been published yet, the word on the net, it is now at the 48 % mark. Speaking about poor writing skills, in my child’s grade 11 academic English class, grammar will be taught along with the required curriculum. Grammar that should have been taught from the beginning is a systematic explicit method in grade schools. Glad to see it, but why should a high school teacher take up the subject of grammar finding room in an already crowded agenda, the same stuff that was found unacceptable by the educrats foindicatorr grade school?
And Doug, you are the only one that believes is some magical philosophoy that children will somehow picked up the foundation in the 3 Rs without being explicity taught. Correction, add a great number of educratsphilosophyexplicitly, and Doug you are in good company. Only an educrat could come up with inventive spelling, taking the bits and pieces from the dyslexic research, that would tell you why a dyslexic spells the way they do, and applied it to the normal children. Not only keeping the dyslexics to remain bad spellers, but adding a large number of normal children, to join the much smaller group of bad spellers. Explicit systematic instruction does wonders for all, to ensure good spellers, but no the educrats believe in some magical transformation that all will become good spellers. Spell check does not help, if the child thinks the word is correct.
And now you are down to attacking the person Doug, rather than coming up with the supporting numbers to your theory and how it applies to Ontario. However, my beliefs are not nonsense, and the proof is in my 15 year old studying for exams, independently. An unlikely event, if I had left it in the hands of the educrats so many moons ago. An honour student, with a lot of sweat and tears coming from both of us, and support from the teachers. The educrats a lot of grief, with their edubabble and magical thinking. And there is a lot more others, even sitting in Toronto that either paid for the tutors or did it themselves at home or left the system entirely. Since you are such a fan on polls, how about a more constructive one, by asking high middle to high-income groups on the use of private tutors and what they used them for. A two billion dollar industry and growing, to instruct their children on the 3 Rs, that a public education system refuses to do.
>> So, is the early years program a “radical” program? Why not? The teacher’s union has heavily supported the introduction of this program. You mean the teacher’s union didn’t care about the quality of the program?
They didn’t care enough about the children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds to ask whether the program was effective in closing the gaps?
How are students going to be more prepared when they start school then?
Regarding ELP the question was whether our new program in Ontario is a good program.
Coherence please. .. you know what .. I don’t know who you really are or perhaps somebody else has started to use your name when posting but I refuse to believe somebody who says has a college degree is so utterly illogical and incoherent.
>> Class sizes? Yes, I agree with you: Korea is a very good example of large class sizes and very good results.
As for another example: ask your wife, ask the chinese students at your own private school.
>> So, can teacher’s performance be measured? Are there best teachers and we can identify them?
Click to access ont06_023393.pdf
Here is is-lots of edubabble.
The billion dollar Ontario project.
Who said I agree with magic solutions? Only you.
You extrapolate the entire problems of the education system from your families education problems.
There are many many education problems that have nothing to do with you or your daughter. In fact most education problems have nothing to do with you and your daughter.
Doug, my child is just another example of the public education failing to meet her educational needs in the fundamentals and failing to addressed her learning weaknesses, that is suited for her.
What you do not like, are parents and others bringing up examples that are in real time, and lots to choose from, no matter the income group.
a good Dr. is a well trained Dr.,a good nurse is a well trained nurse,a good teacher in the early grades is one trained to teach phonemic awareness,phonics and fluency,all leading to good spelling and reading so reading is fluid and competent,through reading efficiency vocabulary grows as does knowledge.
Those of us who read and write proficiently grow our knowledge throughout our lifetime.
We can complete tasks,homework and essays and succeed with in our educational pursuits.
Let`s be specific and stop talking about Korea,we need to worry about our kids.With Statscan reporting a 42% adult literacy problem in Canada,we have our own problems,as much as Doug and cronies wanting to state otherwise.
As you read and spell,notice how you have an internal phonemic voice which allows you to spell and read,the idea that the shape of words is the key strategy taught to our students is ridiculous;we shouldn`t have to beg to have them honour research,they should be doing it voluntarily.
Jo Anne you sell Phonics related PD for a living correct so you have a financial interest in increased phonics, kind of a conflict of interest wouldn’t you say?
Nancy, what you don’t like is that the vast # of education problems are class related and everybody knows it and the solutions have little to do with pedagogy.
What % of students are allegedly “learning disabled”?
Only 10%-we identify 20 and leave many unidentified in Ontario-
Many students start to look LD but what they really are is instructionally disabled.
The boys are really suffering with this context based,authentic language instruction.
I know this from my years in a reading clinic,we were to specialize in identified kids but saw many many kids that just didn`t know how to read.spell and write.Many were in the older grades and simply disengaged and discouraged.
The myth that is flawed that learning to read and spell is natural to human beings like learning to speak continues to be dominant and played out daily,it causes unbelievable human harm.
I agree that LD is over-identified by a significant margin. I have seen figures below 10%. One problem is that the definition has been diluted to the point that it means “you are not learning at the rate of your class cohort and we are not necessarily sure why.”
It comes about for many reasons. Boards get more for SE kids so they have -still- an incentive to find them. Secondly and more importantly when harried principals in difficult schools ask for smaller classes, more resources, more support staff they get “NO” for an answer but if they identify special ed kids they get service even if it is not the most appropriate service.
Kids in SE, especially those who do not belong there, suffer from labelling. “I guess I am dumb, the shool system says so.” and many do worse by giving up at that point.
SE kids do come from all social classes but they come overwhelmingly from poorer classes. They are not necessarily SE but suffering the effects of their environment.
Solving social issues such as poverty (a relative term since our “poor” live like kings compared to most places in the world) is not within the scope of the public education system.
Public education systems are there to provide OPPORTUNITY to all and, IMO, many have come to rely on public education to raise their children.
bang on Andrew!
I’d wager that a good % of those who are classified as LD are simply of average intelligence and lazy.
LD has become a huge cash cow for the education business. Unfortunately, those who are truly LD suffer the most due to the squandering of available resources. Merely throwing more money at the situation will only make it worse.
I’d wager that a good % of those who are classified as LD are simply of average intelligence and lazy.
your ignorance is showing.
So states one who has a product to market
I help many teachers and children-what do you and Doug do?
I have traveled and helped many First Nations communities.
Also,I`m not trying to sell here,I am commenting as you are.
My comments offer wisdom and help,yours are shallow and sarcastic,like the comments about LD.kids.
I never promoted my product,I never do.
Doug, in his desire to diminish me showed our website.
Read my story,you`ll learn something.
If you ask OECD leaders why Finland is number 1 in the world they point, among other reasons to a 4% child poverty rate which is 20% in the USA and 12-15% in Canada.
It does humour me that over at SQE they tout Governor Christie as the hero of the anti-union movement. meanwhile Governor Christie and most other Republicn governors who have tried teacher bashing are seeing their popularity fall off the cliff.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nj_gov_christie_popularity_takes_4H3lz2ByHZbMkAzTwuEyKI
If you watched what was going on in New Jersey as we all did at the SQE symposium film the Cartel,you wouldn`t make such glib remarks.
The level of corruption and lack of success is unparallelled.
Superintendents are making half a million dollars and 84% of their students are failing-oops,let`s look at the poverty levels.
It’s becoming clear after sifting through the posts here and reflecting back to Paul’s original post that in THIS small community the thirst for something different – either serious reforms to the current public system or instead of it – has the lion’s share of support.
I believe that there is a willingness among education communities to reform like never before and at the same time allow for those closest to the student – the parents and individual classroom teachers to join forces and keep start breaking down the influence and effects of “the blob”.
Very glad that folks like Joanne are out there selling phonics programs, because it sure as hell beats buying what Doug’s selling – a system that we can’t afford and is quite happy with mediocrity.
It is New Jersey, everything is corrupt including and especially the Republican Party.
You can believe whatever you want Catherine but where is the evidence other that “this is what you think.” ?
The population overwhelmingly wants more education spending which is why Tim Hudak is will ing to spend $2 million more than McGuinty. He will keep the ELP and complete it because he can read public opinion.
Hudak will say “do phonics” the system will say “sure we are already doing it.” game over.
We seem to be going in circles again…and missing some key developments, even on Father’s Day……
Lost in the recent voluminous Educhatter ramblings…the impending demise of another “Alternative School” in Sydney, Cape Breton.
Holy Angels HS in Sydney, CB, one of the few remaining Canadian publicly-funded girls schools, is about to close. After all these years and a tremendous wave of public support, the passing of Holy Angels is nothing short of a tragedy. Today’s Sunday Chronicle Herald (June 12) provides the full story:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/TheNovaScotian/1248153.html
Why is Holy Angels expendable, in the eyes of the Cape Breton School Board? Whatever happened to former Education Minister Marilyn More’s rescue mission? Closing Holy Angels is being presented as purely a “dollars and cents” decision. It looks to me like another example of thinking small and being distrustful of alternatives to the “one-size-fits-all” system.
Seems to me that it all ends up being about “dollars and cents” when it comes to educating children doesn’t it? If that’s the case then it’s not REALLY children that the system cares truly about is it?
It’s not Father’s Day yet.
The idea of single gender schools, single race schools single religion schools fails on the idea that schools, as much as possible, replicate society as mini societies where we all learn to get along is more important than any reason to segregate students from each other.
Lenin read a book on Marx!
Andrew, remember to be truly have been diagnosed with LD under the education system, there is a second factor that plays a stronger role, than the first factors of phonemic awareness, memory, sequencing, etc. which are the ones that are being tested. The second factor, is the requirement of being two grade levels behind or more.
“Learning disabilities are often identified by school psychologists, clinical psychologists, and neuropsychologists through a combination of intelligence testing, academic achievement testing, classroom performance, and social interaction and aptitude. Other areas of assessment may include perception, cognition, memory, attention, and language abilities. The resulting information is used to determine whether a child’s academic performance is commensurate with his or her cognitive ability. If a child’s cognitive ability is much higher than his or her academic performance, the student is often diagnosed with a learning disability. The DSM-IV and many school systems and government programs diagnose learning disabilities in this way (DSM-IV uses the term “disorder” rather than “disability”.)
Although the discrepancy model has dominated the school system for many years, there has been substantial criticism of this approach among researchers.[10][11] Recent research has provided little evidence that a discrepancy between formally measured IQ and achievement is a clear indicator of LD.[12] Furthermore, diagnosing on the basis of a discrepancy does not predict the effectiveness of treatment. Low academic achievers who do not have a discrepancy with IQ (i.e. their IQ scores are also low) appear to benefit from treatment just as much as low academic achievers who do have a discrepancy with IQ (i.e. their IQ scores are higher).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_disability
As Joanne states, and I can confirmed it from my viewpoint as a parent being immerse in the LD world, trying to do right for my youngest, 10 % of the population is affected has LDs, and many of them are missed altogether, or are diagnosed at the later stages in the final years of high school, and well into adulthood. I believe the increases well above the 10 %, are cases of instructional disabled, rather than a case of LD. The current discrepancy model that dominates the Canadian public education system to diagnosed LDs, the second key is to behind in achievement, and in the public school system, it means two grade levels behind or more. The first key is, “Learning Disabilities refer to a number of disorders which may affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information. These disorders affect learning in individuals who otherwise demonstrate at least average abilities essential for thinking and/or reasoning. As such, learning disabilities are distinct from global intellectual deficiency.
Learning disabilities result from impairments in one or more processes related to perceiving, thinking, remembering or learning. These include, but are not limited to: language processing; phonological processing; visual spatial processing; processing speed; memory and attention; and executive functions (e.g. planning and decision-making).”
http://www.ldac-acta.ca/learn-more/ld-defined/official-definition-of-learning-disabilities.html
Instruction practices and curriculum plays a major role, impacting the cognitive aspects of a child, and in particular in the primary grades. It does not take too long for a child to fall behind, using inappropriate instruction, such as whole language, that ignores the cognitive development of children, As Joanne has stated, “The boys are really suffering with this context based,authentic language instruction.”, because boys cognitive development pathways are slightly differently from the girls. Hence, there is more boys that are identified as the behavioural, the low achievers, and so forth, than girls. In the LD world, the ratio of identified boys to girls – 8-2.
It is far more complicated, when one takes into consideration the cognitive science and how the environment, including instruction practices impacts the cognitive development of infants to children to into adulthood. The SEC factors that Doug goes on and on about, the same SEC data that are collected by our public education system, does not and will not predict future academic achievement on its own. Nor should SEC data be used as the guide to determine education needs of students. But it is, and is the present reality of the public education system and the educrats. It is why the SE services is such a mess, because of the approaches based more on SEC and other external factors that lie outside the school, rather than remediation of the cognitive weaknesses, that are impacting learning and overall achievement. In the regular classroom, once again the SEC factors are the prominent data being used to explain low achievement, without emphasis on the cognitive weaknesses of the students. And yet, how does the public education system, explain the split of 60 and 40 of students at grade level and below grade level in reading, that repeats itself across all income groups? By the SEC factors, and where the higher one’s income is, the parents who have the means will go privately to tutors, or teach themselves if they see their children experiencing trouble, rather than waiting for their child to fail, which is the current model in place at the schools. Thus the higher-income schools, the split will vary more than the split of 60:40 in low income schools, because the parents have more options available, rather than using the public education services.
In conclusion, alternative schools provide a better means to addressed the educational and learning needs of students. Bridgeway, and alternatives like Bridgeway, addresses the cognitive needs of students, the remediation of cognitive weaknesses, learning strategies that are based on the cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and behavioural issues resulting from inappropriate instruction. The public education system is not going to change overnight, nor are the educrats who form the policies where the closing down of the Holy Angels High School becomes a causality of educrats’ policies that single gender Catholic schools, are an affront to the political correctness, the social justice policies, and the educrats theories on SEC factors. Holy Angels represent, among many examples, the inability of the public education system, to form policy around the children’s learning and cognitive needs of the students first and foremost.
“The most famous mantra was, “Use the brain God gave you.” The sisters expected much from their students but were also very encouraging. My own daughters, graduates of ‘83, ‘84 and ’89, talk about being urged to take on projects they would not have considered doing, but did so because the sisters showed such confidence in them.”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/TheNovaScotian/1248153.html
And I bet the sisters, made sure the students had the essential foundation blocks, to be able to use the brain. Use the brain God gave you, is a common saying and I even used it with my own kids. But before I used it, I always make sure that they have the essentials including the cognitive tools to be able to to do the academic tasks at hand. So unlike our public education schools, using one-fits-all-approaches, skipping or omitting vital and key foundation learning blocks, and expect achievement to happen. Than turn around, and blame achievement on the students, or any of the other SEC factors that can come in handy. It is the route of dead-ending children’s potential, and Holy Angels is one of the routes out of many examples that ensures reaching the full potential of students. The public education system and its policies leaves a large number of students in dead-end streets, where the emphasis is not on achievement but rather on the Utopian vision of educrats. Where potential of students is reach through the movement of the levels of SEC factors, rather than the instruction, curriculum and training of teachers based on the science.
Nor are low achievers simply lazy, or not motivated as some would like us to believe. If students are not given the correct instruction and tools to learn the essentials, the students cannot be expected to achieve at the same level, as other students who were given the correct instruction and tools.
The next link is a way for people to understand and experience a learning problem that LD kids experience daily, and continued to experience if they are not given the correct instruction, which usually mean direct, systematic explicit instruction, the strategies, and the practiced required to effect change within the cognitive functions of the brain.
http://www.horizon-academy.org/SiteResources/Data/Templates/t1.asp?docid=619&DocName=Virtual%20LD%20Simulation
Direct, systematic explicit instruction is effective for all children, and not just the children with learning problems. And yet it is not the standard practice in our public education system. But it is in the alternative schools, such as Bridgeway and alternatives for at-risked students. A common comment from students from the alternative, I am learning. Something that was not in their vocabulary , within the public school. Money well spent, until the public education decides to based their policies on the cognitive and learning science, and not on the needs of the adults who work within the system who have obviously finished their schooling of the K to 12 system.
steven
Lenin read a book on Marx!
Yes Mr McCarthy, red-baiting has a long but not very honourable history
Lenin read a book on Marx!
Sorry Doug, Marx wrote the book “one size fits all”. The shoe fits you so wear it!
school boards everywhere should have as many parents on them as they have educrats.
That would assure more children are kept in mind.
John Snobelen ,at the seminar stated that the system is 90% salaries,that is where we`re at so it`s quite impossible to improve it but it certainly is possible to make sure the children`s best interest are first rather than the employees of the board.
The children and parents must become the client.
Then we will just list you as not being very sophisticated in your argument. Can you site me the “one size fits all” line?
Was it in the Manifesto? The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napolean? The German Ideology?, Das Kapital? The Theses on Fauerbach? The Civil War in France? I have read a lot of Marx and i just don’r recall that line.
I would say Snobelen is wrong the system is about 85% salaries but that just means the system is 85% people. It is a labour intensive industry and it has been for decades and decades.
The “school board” is composed of trustees only plus a non-voting Director who is the secretary-treasurer of the board. The rest of the Sr staff is not part of the board, they are board employees. I would venture to say that many if not most of the trustees are parents but they are not there to represent “parents” they are elected to represent the voters of their district. Some are parents, some are grandparents, some are not.
Most people in public education consider the language of “client” “customer” “product” etc offensive because public education is NOT a business it is a critical public service.
I suggest it change.
For those who STILL say the issue is not SES:
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/1000435–wait-lists-for-special-education-double-for-low-income-students
Don’t double-speak Doug, fudging the truth for the sake of spinning a yarn or two that is more to your liking.
A school board is a corporation and with that:
“Under section 218.1 of the Education Act, the board of trustees
is required to entrust the day-to-day management of the corporate
board to its staff through the director of education. The hierarchical
accountabilities in the Education Act mean that the board of trustees
holds the director of education accountable for ensuring the policies
and processes are in place that are consistent with legislation, and board
policies and priorities. The board of trustees exercises its responsibility
for the management of the corporate board and the engagement of
school board personnel through the director of education.
As a group, trustees are responsible for ensuring that all the duties of
the board and its staff, as established in the Education Act are carried
out. For example, the duties of the board of trustees include to:
• promote student achievement and well-being;
• ensure effective stewardship of the board’s resources;
• deliver effective and appropriate education programs to its pupils;
• develop a multi-year plan; and
• monitor and evaluate the performance of the board’s director
of education.”
Click to access BoardGov.pdf
An interesting document, how the educrats have neutered the trustees, and have become the lapdogs of the educrats.Trustees no longer represent the interests of the parents or the community, Been far too many trustees kicked out for speaking on their behalf. Especially on subjects such as SE children, alternative schools, and closures of schools. Perhaps in the world of Toronto, but even their day is coming soon when someone from the new government will audit the books. I have seen caregiver far too many times in documents, much like comrade in Marxist literature. And if education is not a business, why bother with the business of having school boards become corporations, on the same business model of a private corporation. We know it already, to protect their legal rear-ends, so do not bother to answer it, I already know what your answer would be.
Doug,
It is called paraphrasing.
With your defense of the public education system “one size fits all”, it is not surprising you lack the proper definition of a school board or their responsibilities – but nice try.
Glad to have made your list!
Nothing in my post is contradicted by anything in Nancy’s post. OSSTF is also a “corporation” as well. It is neither a business or a private business and everybody but the most obtuse understand that.
I have stated repeatedly that I support most PUBLIC alternative schools. If you think everybody that opposes gender, race segregation in public education is a Marxist then there are a lot more Marxists around than anyone imagined.
I call “one size fits all” equality. Some kids have difficulty with that, I have played a strong part in creating 2 alternative schools and served on the Alternatives committee at the board Steven. What have you done?
Well, I have observed a system intolerant of placing students first and showing distain for the role of parents and their concerns. Perhaps your way has done more damage than good. Seems the “one size fits all” way has very little support for alternative schools, or special needs children for that matter. NS is a solid example of that!
What you oppose is a system that allows parents and community to make decisions in concert with their school and school board, by puting the students first. That would erode the structured control of a top heavy educrat orientated system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-baiting
No what I oppose is giving vouchers or semi-private charters any public money. This puts me in line with the overwhelming majority in Ontario at least.
I support most public sector alternatives but not alternatives that segregate children on the basis of gender or race or religion.
This puts me alongside most people but you alongside a small minority Steven.
There is no “natural right” to have your tax money back to spend as you like. If there was I want my defence budget money back to spend on schools.
Bull Doug, it is a corporation for good reason, and operates in the same fashion as a corporation in the business world.
“A corporation is a legal entity that is created under the laws of a state designed to establish the entity as a separate legal entity having its own privileges and liabilities distinct from those of its members.[1] There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter (i.e. by an ad hoc act passed by a parliament or legislature). Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration.
An important (but not universal) contemporary feature of a corporation is limited liability. If a corporation fails, shareholders normally only stand to lose their investment and employees will lose their jobs, but neither will be further liable for debts that remain owing to the corporation’s creditors.
Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like natural persons (“people”). Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state,[2] and they can themselves be responsible for human rights violations.[3] Corporations are conceptually immortal but they can “die” when they are “dissolved” either by statutory operation, order of court, or voluntary action on the part of shareholders. Insolvency may result in a form of corporate ‘death’, when creditors force the liquidation and dissolution of the corporation under court order,[4] but it most often results in a restructuring of corporate holdings. Corporations can even be convicted of criminal offenses, such as fraud and manslaughter.[5]
Although corporate law varies in different jurisdictions, there are four core characteristics of the business corporation:[6]
Legal personality
Limited liability
Transferable shares
Centralized management under a board structure”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
One sized fits all equality eh Doug? A Marxist statement , that can only come from someone who practices it. Must be some neighbour Doug, and I am sure glad that I don’t live near you. You probably watch the thief enter the house next door, and don’t bother to called the police, because the next door neighbour had far too much than you had. In your mind, it is equalizing no matter what the means and methods are.
Try being a LD student in an Inclusive classroom. You know, what the unions are jumped for, apparently with all parents under agreement. Funny thing,, I have not met a parent yet that agree to it, or even had a say. Here is the take from the LD association of Canada.
“Ministries of Education/Learning have generally opted for a controversial policy of full inclusion.3 Within this approach, the integration of remedial specialists within the general classroom is one model used to address the balance of remediation and education. This model may be more or less successful in providing support for students with LD depending on a number of factors: qualifications of the teacher and specialist, frequency and amount of time allotted per week, time for planning, and curriculum constraints. However, even under the best conditions, there is not enough time or support given to teachers to help them provide the same students (if needed) with materials in alternate format, or in a media, other than print, for the essential concepts of social studies, biology, history and geography. This implies that a number of students with LD miss out on broader learning opportunities, because they cannot easily and meaningfully access the same information as their peers.”
What usually happens Doug, the LD students loses out , inclusive for everyone else, and exclude the LD kids. It is a good thing that they have not invented a mind reader. It would be interesting in a one-sized fits all approach, what the students are thinking. But than again, the pubic education system loathes to change when new technology comes about, especially when a new device can have benefits of increasing fluency in reading for LD kids. But heck, the educrats want nothing to do with that, so they create a rule called the print disability, to prevent all, if not most from using devices unless they meet the criteria for print disability. In that corporation called a school board, they think unfair advantage and would create an inequality among the students. So all devices are banned, unless approve by the board, and the LD students are back to square one always trying to keep up with the rest of the class, but it becomes an impossible task since there decoding and other reading problems are prevented them to keep up with the rest of the class. The very device or accommodation is denied to them,in the name of equality.
Educrats, corporations, and unions are there to maintain the status-quo, the dead-ends and to keep the adults happy working to their best interests. And Doug, do not get confused between human rights and Marxist ideology. It is only a rascal that would imprint Marxist dogma on human rights, and the same rascal that would discriminate to equalized. Two opposing ideas, but what do I expect Doug, from one who practices moral relativism.
I don’t read your posts any more Nancy. They are far too long to begin with, they ramble all over the map, they are full of non sequiturs, they are highly repetitive, same old same old.
Now you and Steven have decided that anyone who opposes your POV is a Marxist. Red Baiting is a very low form of debate. You would never find someone as respectful as Paul involving himself in a stupid smear like that.
A paper by Marc S. Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy, also released last month, found that neither the extensive research Tucker examined nor international achievement data analyzed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development “have found any evidence that any country that leads the world’s education performance … has gotten there by implementing any of the major agenda items that dominate the education reform agenda in the United States,” specifically citing the “use of student performance data on standardized tests.”
Calling me illogical. Sounds to me more like the educrat many moons ago stated I had no business in questioning the grade one math curriculum, because my field was not in math. Oh how I wish, I would have taken him on who is the fastest at math up to grade 12. It is any parent’s business in questioning school practices, regardless of who they are , education level and income level. Imagine that, if you got hold of my school records, and even had a little chat with the old high school principle that I had, she is far from illogical and she has logical thought in spades. And than there is the old philosophy prof, that might have a thing or two to say about me.
As for red-baiting, you do it all the time.
“Red-baiting is by no means the sole preserve of the Right. Leftists of various stripes sometimes resort to red-baiting to distinguish themselves from those whose politics are even less compatible with prevailing opinion. Red-baiting is also a weapon to “shut down inquiry or interrogation of their political positions by using labels that are unpopular among a general public trained to…demonize and criminalize stances that are too oppositional.”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/progressive-%E2%80%9Cred-baiting%E2%80%9D
As soon as someone gets nears Doug, you bring up the labels. In this case calling me illogical in Latin. Not to worry about it, since I have been called worse. But in the end, you raise points without providing the supporting evidence. Than comes the politics and than the labeling to shut down the person. Politics should never entered into the discussion, but with educrats it is the first serving, the second and sometimes the third before they get around to provide evidence to support their stances. In your case, being very dismissive to parents experiences and observations of the education system. But like it or not, parents cannot be easily dismissed on the Internet, as they can be easily dismissed at a school meeting or a board meeting. The rules and regulations created by the educrats ensure parents voices are silenced, and only heard as the cheerleaders, and to support every policy and fad, without ever questioning if the policy or fad is sound.
Too many dead-end streets in public education, and I should know in the last 10 years I have been on too many streets that were dead-ends, and I had to start the whole process over. There is a good reason why parents called the public education system a maze, because it does take most of us close to 10 years to figure it out, and by that time our kids are almost finished the K to 12 system.
It is all about alternative education, and why it is the first thing to get cut in the public education system. A lot of red-baiting among other tactics take place in highly politicized school board meetings, and not the hard cold facts of why alternative schools are needed in the public school system. The system is not meeting the needs of students who are outside of the standard norm.
Click to access 46580959.pdf
Doug,
to earn respect you must be respectful. Your numerous blogs have a pattern of disrespect to many contributors so do not be surprised you get it back once in a while.
On another note the first comment you made on this topic was and has remained your most sensible and could have led to a more sustained perspective on your part fostering more insight and information on the subject of alternative schools. Think about solutions (even if you oppose the topic) and dialogue will improve and benefit us all.
Nancy’s comments are yes quite sustained but are also well researched and full of valuable information. Educhatter is lucky to have her insight and experience. Try reading one sometime.
I believe it hurts Doug’s ego to fail to clue-in to the fact that parents are not only on to the failings of the system and what it does or doesn’t do for students, but parents are sick to death of being treated as a necessary evil of the teaching profession by those who crow about its successes publicly but adopt a contradictory action for themselves.
Nancy stands as one example here, among many parents who are fighting back.
If that fighting back finally outs the drags on the system then so be it.
I think Doug provides this forum with continuous proof of yesterday’s mentality, hellbent on the same old lines with the same old excuses.
Parents and new ideas about reform that include MORE choice both inside and outside the system are winning the debates here.
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/ReadingFuture/index.html
I am posting this to argue how high the Literacy skills are in Canada.On researching PISA scores and their significance,they represent only a cross section of 15% of students.
Doug argues,we`re there,we have a home run,most of us know full well,something is unsettling as far as Literacy and Math in our schools.
Dr.Paul Cappon says we should not be complacent,our results are sliding.
I agree with Steve,Nancy`s posts are rich in research and perspective.
About parent representation and the closing of neighbourhood schools,that`s why there needs to be less of an insider`s club in the school boards’s boardroom.School trustees don`t represent communities any more,representatives with Directorships who would sit on boards, from the communities, need seats on those boards.
Jo-Anne has a financial interest in people thinking we have some kind of crisis. We don’t. Of course the OECD does not test every kid. It is totally unnecessary. The WORLD believes we have the best readers among 15 year olds. Do I believe we should rest on our laurels? Have I ever said that? We need to continue to cut class sizes especially in poor schools, institute ELP and do what the experts say is the best policy.
You too have a financial interest your motives too Doug. You may not want to admit it but on the public education mantra it’s all about money for you isn’t it? You’ve written as much here more than a few times.
What’s the driver for you then with respect to VIP Academy? What of the conflict that that suggests between the public good and profit?
It’s as fair a question to ask you as is yours of Joanne.
Agreed,I made all the lack of teacher training for teaching Reading,whole language and lack of early reading intervention in phonemic awareness up.
I also made up that 85% of First Nations kids are not reading and spelling by Grade 3,90% by Grade 6.
I also made up the great Literacy scores of Atlantic Canada.
Of course First Nation scores are terrible but first nations are 4% of the population. They have all of the classic problems of poverty including low educational achievement.
The Atlantic provinces long the poorest provinces in Canada have the same problem but to a lesser degree. I notice as well that as NL benefits from the oil boom, they are moving up the education data again but thanks for proving once again Jo- Anne that those problems that remain in Canada are, mainly poverty based.
Anybody believe the education problems on reserves are based on a lack of phonemic awareness P-L-E-A-S-E
Is Canada problem free when it comes to education? No. Are all of our education problems poverty based? Pretty much. Do we have more to do to fix our remaining problems? Sure.
Theses people say you are wrong-and you are so very very wrong-sad for all of us who have to put up with you,very sad.
Putting Struggling Readers on the Phast Track: Lovett, Lacerenza, Borden, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Volume 33, September October 2000
Early Interventions for Children with Reading Disabilities,Foorman,Francis,Winikates,Mehta,Schatscheinder,Fletcher,Scientific Studies Of Reading, I(3)255-276
National Reading Panel, NIH pub., No.00-4754, December 2000
A Synthesis of Research On Reading from the NICHD, Bonita Grossen , University of Oregon, November,1997
The Role of Instruction in Learning to Read: Preventing Reading Failure In At Risk Children Foorman, Fletcher, Francis , Schatschneider, Journal of Educational Psychology,1998,Vol.90,No1,37-55
Ehri, LC(1995)”Stages of development in learning to read words by sight”, Journal of Research in Reading,18,116-125.
Keys to Literacy, Beck, Fletcher, Lyons, Foorman, Francis, Moats, Whitehurst, McKeown, Washington 2002
Stanovich E.Keith, Romance and Reality ,The Reading Teacher,Vol47,No4,December 1993/Jan.1994
Lyon, Reid, Hearing On Literacy, Why Children Can`t Read, July 1997,10 am, Washington D.C.
Stanovich, K.E. and Siegel, L.S.1994, Phenotypic performance profile of children with reading disabilities: Journal of educational Psychology 86:24-53
Shaywitz.S. Overcoming Dyslexia, New York ;Knopf 2003
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Snow Burns and Griffin,1998
Stanovich &Siegel 1994
Adams, 1990, Beginning to Read, Thinking and Learning About Print, Cambridge, MA.,MIT Press
Teaching Reading is Rocket Science, What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know And Be Able To Do, June 1999, Dr. Louisa Moats
Put Reading First, The Research Building Blocks For Teaching Children To Read, K -3, June 2003
These people say you are wrong
http://www.boldapproach.org
OECD.
“The task force reminds me that proper health care and a safe and nurturing enviornment are keys to learning. We are hopeful their initiative will promote a new conversation about the next stage of education reform.”
N May
More of a mantra for the safe and nurturing enviornment for educrats. It is like unions trying to creat the image they put students first in NS. This is regressive reform Doug, especially with declining enrolment and cuts to special needs and anything else the boards can do to punish the students.
The reform movement makes me laugh Steven if it was not so sad.
Do not raise taxes
Do not close my school
Do not cut my favourite program
See the problem there Steven?
Sure, especially when you advocate smaller classes and larger budgets!
Amazing isn’t it steven. Doug wants it all ways, every way including sideways. For a guy who suggests reform makes him laugh, his posts tell a very different story. He’s not laughing at all.
Doug’s afraid that the public has had just about enough edubabble and playing Fun With Numbers or Who Do You Trust with the system wonks…..”the blob”.
Your teachers are already on the low end and smaller classes are a PROVEN improvement to learning. Check the STARR research from Tennessee.
except the NDP government in NS. doesn’t agree with you. They prefer to fund centralized capital projects (larger classes) and cut education funding. Seems to me you are out of touch with the social democratic perspective on education reform nowadays.
Strangely enough it was the conservatives who consistantly increased education funding in NS while in power. Smaller classes are achievable but only with community based education and more support for alternative schools and choice.
http://www.thelittleeducationreport.com/Classsize.html
http://www.thelittleeducationreport.com/Itisthe.html
Here is something you all can do to help out some elementary students right now! They are in the running for a 25,000$ grant to build a playground. All they have now is a cement slab and they are smack in the middle of halifax! here is the link, http://www.thekegthanksamillion.com/en/phase2/projects/show/p/345
Just register and vote and you can vote tomorrow as well! Thanks! 🙂 They are in 2nd place right now! it will be a tight finish, but you can help them out!
a worthy project by the sounds of it peggy but you do realize that the timing of your post interesting when we’re trying hard to steer the discussion away from the money?
Parents = fundraising
Just when Joanne was championing parents be included as members of boards and on par with the decision makers we get a fundraising announcement.
Parents can and will do it all it seems.
School boards are designed to represent citizens or voters, not just parents.
But they often stifle inovative teaching opportunities apparent in alternative schools in NS. Why, because they would rather maintain a top down system with controls and measures to ensure the expansion of a unsustainable mediocracy – at the expense of students and community.
a nice myth but reality is that school boards are no longer a guarantee of any sort of local reflection or representation.
Not in Ontario at least. The current gov’t has made fine work of eroding the role of trustees so badly that there’s little difference between trustee and Ministry bureaucracy.
How is it that with the serious decline in enrollments school boards don’t decrease in numbers? It sure should. Just wait until McGuinty does away with local school boards and moves to regional LHINS money suckers.
In Joanne’s link: “According to the report’s projections, by 2031 about 47% of adults will have low prose literacy skills (below IALSS Level 3) meaning that the face of low adult literacy in Canada will remain virtually unchanged for years to come. The report also provided regional literacy projections as part of its interactive PALMM tool (Projections of Adult Literacy—Measuring Movement) a free online program that gives users the ability to calculate and compare future literacy rates for 10 provinces and three territories.”
In Doug’s link: “A second observation is that too often in education policy discussions the choices are frequently framed as reform versus the status quo. The implicit idea is that there are two sides: external reformers who are pushing for progress; and
existing forces – primarily teachers, administrators and unions – who are resistant. The Canadian experience suggests a more complex analysis, in which teachers are a crucial constituency who can be enlisted in a broad reform agenda. Ironically, the more they perceive the state as the hammer, the more likely they are to entrench themselves into a unionized rather than a professional association. The Ontario experience suggests instead that by treating teachers as professionals, and including them at the table, they were able to build considerable goodwill – a critical resource for long-term and sustainable change. This is not to imply that the government was naïve – it was quite aware of the standard discussion points of union negotiations, but the government was able to direct that energy towards win-win issues like providing more professional development time. Ultimately, the Ontario government created a sustainable strategy and a clear push for improved performance in a way that included teachers, rather than alienated them.”
Low literacy skills, is one of the final outcomes that is directly connected to our public education system. Teachers unions impact the final outcomes, and even more so now, with the demand of teachers being seen as professionals, and having them included on all reform and policy discussions.
Today in the Toronto Star, I read a story about a good outcome, however it could have easily change into a bad outcome, one of the many causalities of whole language, now called multi-literacies instruction.
“So, how did such a bright, capable student have so much trouble with reading?
There was no learning disability, just shyness and initial struggles. Her self-esteem flagged over the years at Brooks Road, to the point she felt ill with dread when books were opened and students were required to read aloud.
“When I was in grade school and it was a reading day, I would be sick. Or I would go in the bathroom (to hide),” says Pellett Gillette.
Cheng taught her for Grades 5 and 6, giving her the boost in reading and confidence to begin a remarkable academic run through West Hill Collegiate, then York University.”
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/schoolsandresources/article/1006940–in-search-of-ms-smith-the-teacher-who-changed-my-life
In reading the comments, the main theme is blaming the parents, and praising the grade 5 teacher. No one asked a question, why was this student allowed to go from one grade to the next, allowing the student to remain at a grade K reading level? Often wonder about it, especially in the light of the new organization changes that have occurred since the 1990s, where the public education system has slowly evolved into a system of, “….drawing upon organizational theorists like Peter Drucker and Edwards Deming rather than economists. From this viewpoint, the problem was more to do with lack of knowledge than lack of will, and the key to motivation was not individual economic calculations but rather the chance to be part of successful and improving schools and organizations. This meant that the key ideas were less about “hard” concepts like accountability and incentives and more about “softer” ideas like culture, leadership and shared purpose. The key challenge was to create layers of organizations directed towards systemic improvement. There is also little emphasis in the Ontario strategy on “getting better people”; instead the idea is to work with what you have and upgrade their skills. In all of these respects, the Ontario model challenges more market-based theories of reform.”
Click to access 46580959.pdf
If one goes on to the teachers’ union site, the EFTO – All about the softer parts of education, and a pox to accountability. The key is all about motivation, shared knowledge, and getting parents on board, on side, and motivated to do their part. Everyone playing their part, within the required parameters and all marching to the same objectives.
Having objectives is fine, but outcomes and in particular students who do not meet the objectives of grade outcomes are just as important, and perhaps education outcomes are far more important than the overall objectives. . Or in the Star article, the failure of the school and the teachers from grades K to 4, to addressed the obvious strategies used by children to avoid reading, by finding the underlying reasons why this child was avoiding reading. It was put down to behavioural traits of the child. Given the comments, it frightens me the number of parents actually do believe the successful education outcomes, rests on the shoulders of the parents, and only parents. Dissolving all responsibility and accountability from the schools and the education system..treats final outcomes of little consequence, even though final outcomes impact all of society in many different ways, besides the obvious.
And than there is the system, the new one where everyone is collaborating with each other, except there isn’t any true collaboration to the students, parents, taxpayers, and the communities. We need to be fixed. Repaired to act like and do all things that would help to advance the objectives of the system. Doug is a typical example, focusing on the objectives, and dismissing the bad outcomes that bound to appear in all kinds of places inside the education system, The bad outcomes are the fault of the individual, because their actions were not in keeping with the objectives of the system and the educrats. After all, the educrats are the experts, and the rest of us are in need of repair, especially our cultural outlook, attitudes that do not advance the objectives. One according to the educrats, that is in need of repair, is the selfish trait, of parents looking after the best interests of our children. One example, is a parent not happy with the progress of their child, and the response but she is passing. But this parent thinks that their child is capable of much more, and goes on to tell the teacher why they think they are. After this, responses is in keeping with the objectives and within the parameters set by the educrats. A two-way conversation, exchanging information and knowledge is a rarity between parents and the system. Just like it is a rarity with Doug, because he thinks parents, communities, taxpayers, kids need to be fixed, adjusted to fit the new reality of the system and its objectives.
The how-tos do not matter, just the objectives. Nor does the bad outcomes, the low literacy rates, the increasing numbers of remediation courses at the post-secondary level, nor does the increasing numbers of LD students, nor does the very small percentages of LD children going to post-secondary, and many other ones. And in the end, there is no accountability where it matters, the programs, decisions, policies that were approved by the system, because it is all about the objectives, by any means and methods.
No, I didn’t. Sorry. Paul can take it down if sees fit. But, if makes you all feel better, I went to the last school board budget meeting to see what they were voting on for my own eyes. I already know that we have to demand our tax money gets used for education and I let others know how I feel about that. It’s why I don’t do tonnes of fundraising for my kid’s schools anymore, just a ticket purchase or two here and there. I can be quoted as saying on facebook that one hour of sitting in the school board meetings is worth hundreds of hours of fundraising and I recommended to other parents that they don’t compensate for the cuts here by doing extra fundraising.
This project is being done by a friend of mine, she has it on her facebook, so i thought i’d help them get 25,000 for some plaground equipment, seeing that all the kids have now is a concrete slab.
nothing at all wrong with the post peggy – I didn’t mean that there was. It just brought me to a full stop and I had one of those moments wondering whether we’ve actually managed to move parents any further at all OR is offering a parents the way out by more choice the only way for parents to break the chain of dependence on us by a system that’s really good at using us and our money?
I’m just one person with one opinion in the greater scheme of things.
speaking of school choice and alternatives who would have thought that in Ontario it would be the NDP looking to move forward on choice – it’s all here in this article from the TorStar
” • Elementary schooling for immigrants entirely in their mother tongue, where numbers warrant …”
http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/canada/politics/article/1007040–cohn-defensive-ndp-disowns-its-own-policies-for-ontario
This will certainly shake up a few things I’d say.
Just lik Tory policy, non binding on leaders. Almost nobody will choose that options. I work with Toronto immigants every day.
On the other hand, if English were a large component, the program would be modelled on French Immersion but will be Chinese Immersion, Italian Immersion, Portuguese
Immersion. That could work.
In the American southwest, new Mexican kids went to school in Spanish with a gradual introduction of English. When right wing governors killed it, the dropout rate for Mexican immigrants spiked.
What does UNESCO say about the poverty-education relationship?
Click to access EdPol10.pdf
I wonder if “Education Reform” kills creativity and creativity is what drives innovation and business success?
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2011/06/what_education_and_business_share.html
“creative people don’t do things by the book.”
Zwagstra had it right; sometimes they leave the manual on the shelf and work around the educrats.
“Inadequate education can thus be considered a form of poverty.”
-UNESCO
Sound advise for those considering the closure of community schools without a planning reprieve, alternative programs and alternative schools, avoiding school choice; yet fostering an inflated system fraught with educrats and punitive measures which seriously influence student achievement.
Nobody here opposes PUBLIC school choice in principle.
The reason that we don’t have private school choice in for example, Ontario is that voters have made it clear that they don’t want it so NO politicians have it on offer.
Nobody here opposes PUBLIC school choice in principle.
———————————————————————————————————————–
Nobody except school boards!
Doug does NOT speak for anyone from Ontario but himself.
Teachers KNOW how to teach phonics.
It is the boards who prevent them from doing so.
Instead, the boards force them to deliver pre-packaqged programs that cost millions that could be much better spent.
It defies logic so much that one must wonder if there isn’t some sort of scam going on.
The dominant class in education schools and ministries of education do not support phonics dominated programming. They support ‘blended’ programs.
They are invested in their own narcissistic ideology.
That`s the problem,not the teachers.
The teachers pay for their degrees and get courses that don`t teach them how to teach kids to read.
Why?
The myth that it will happen naturally and that is developmental abounds,sad thing is it`s a flawed myth,discredited completely by research.
Sad thing is as a friend of mine told me Bernard Shapiro said,show them the research,they`ll disagree with it.
They are giving and honouring opinions discredited by research.
You pretty much nailed it Joanne.
Famous quotes from SSRSB members and Superintendent.
“There is no way all these schools can stay open and I for one am not going to pay more in taxes to keep them open.”
Stated by a rep after parents questioned the need to close 12 schools on the southshore and the impact that may have on their communities.
“Keeping a school and doing absolutely nothing to it is definitly an option, but this exercise was to say, in looking at every school, what are the capital upgrades that would be needed if it was the intent of the board to keep it long term and then upgrade it.”
Stated after a board member questioned the staff about why they recommended items such as new cafeterias and gymnasiums for some schools which had not requested them.
A little dated but the critique of phonics is there.
http://www.leegoeller.com/IvsR/IvR-1.htm
Famous quotes from consultants (yes you know him Andrew) hired to review school utilization on the southshore.
“Some schools in NS kind of close themselves – when there are no grade primary students anymore.”
Dear Doug,speak not of what you know not.
To reduce reading instruction to phonics vs not is like reducing a souffle to scrambled eggs.
Reading is a phonological process in the brain,not a memorization process the way you support the instruction of the day.Interestingly,the Atlantic Ministers are working with the Universities because they know the teachers are not being trained.
I sent a long list of research to you yesterday, you should read them during the summer because you are a vehement opponent of proper instruction where 95% of students could learn.It is not poverty,that is an appalling excuse,it is that in poor environments,the child is less likely to develop phonological awareness because they are not read to and spoken to in the same way a child from a different background might be.This causes weak phonological awareness,done properly while the brain is growing,we can reverse the fate of illiteracy.
If you don`t believe me you can call Dr.Linda Siegel at U.B.C. ,one of Dr.Keith Stanovich`s research associates for many years,or should we believe you?
Are you also opposed to vaccination?
Doug, always pointing out poverty, and this time from the folks from UNESCO. The same folks that reconfigured figures, lower stats such as child labour, when there is no official number. In India it is estimated to 100,000, million and China follows next in the line-up. Except for Japan and Australia, in that part of the world, it could very well be nearing the billion mark. Everyone seems to have a take, and the poverty theory is being pushed hot and heavy, by the big corporations, and countries as the reason to justified child labour and the use of it. Meanwhile, Doug is always pushing China, Korea, as countries for policies to take on, in Canada, completely ignoring a large percentage of children who are not going to school, but working for dimes and nickles per day. But Doug, that stuff does not happen in Canada. To my surprise, yes in Canada as well as in United States. Some provinces such as BC, a 12 year old can work. So much for the Child Human Rights, of the United Nations.
It all started when I read the front page of MSN, and a press a video on child labour in India. Apparently, the World Bank is getting in on the action, offering bank accounts so they can saved and even offer interest on the money. Children in India, make 50 cents a day. I can only imagine what the interest rate would be, but it really takes the cake offering bank accounts, and not doing anything about the fees, water rates, school fees, and everything else the governments charge for access. The real reason why the children are working in the first place, to help out their families. Here is a typical justification and it is one of our own, the CIDA.
“Rather than trying to stop all child labour, it is important to ensure that children who work gain the knowledge, tools, and opportunities they need to achieve their full potential. You may have heard of children working in “sweatshops”-factories in which working conditions are poor and work hours are long-sewing GAP clothing or stitching Nike shoes. You may even have tried to protect these children by refusing to buy, or boycotting, such brand names. Yet fewer than 5 percent of child workers manufacture goods for export, and this is generally not the most harmful type of work. Research over the last decade shows that blanket bans on child labour and international campaigns to boycott certain products have resulted in many children ending up in more dangerous work situations.”
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/acdi-cida.nsf/eng/REN-218125535-PZX
The sweat shops still exist, and Apple is the latest to shut down factories in China that uses child labour. So Doug, how do you justified that private school of yours and your claims on poverty. I bet it goes down like a ton of bricks concerning your Chinese students since it is common practice and part of the culture, child labour is accepted and necessary in their economy.
“It is a testament to the failure of the Chinese government that, despite decades of spectacular economic growth, it still cannot ensure that schools in poor rural districts get sufficient funding to provide all the children in that district with a decent education, free of charge, as required by the Compulsory Education Law.
Some multi-national companies that discover child labour in their supplier factories are now trying to make those factories pay for the education of the children after they have been sent back home. But, again, if the school they are being sent back to cannot provide them with a good education, it is unlikely to benefit the child. Rather it will only really benefit the multi-national’s corporate social responsibility profile.”
http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/101016
But I supposed not eh Doug? It would hurt your bread and butter, and that would not do.
As Steven pointed out – “Inadequate education can thus be considered a form of poverty.”
And than the public education system, no matter what provinces moves to justified their actions on closing down schools, alternatives and other programs that would make a difference to the individual’s student to fostered a system of inflated values of achievement.
And you know what, we should be glad to live in Canada, because at least if a child wanted to go out pick strawberries, and not go to school as they do in Quebec, at least at the end of a 10 hours day, the child can pocket $55.00. But what is amazing, is the justifications of our international agencies and corporations are exactly the same as the justifications that are used in our public education system and the educrats. And Doug, uses the same justifications, and he thinks that by offering a place for Chinese students for a price, that they would return home to China to begin the Utopian process.
And another reason why we should be glad to be in Canada, as parents and taxpayers we can fight back. If I was starting out today, I would never fill in the blanks on any of the SEC factors, and I would instruct my children likewise. Like Peggy said, go once to a trustee’s meeting, or another kind of education meeting where educrats hang about, you might not want to jump on the band wagon of the educrats. Once cut, the funding is redirected to the educrats and never back to the students. Special education is becoming very crowded, where most SE children are fighting over less and less resources. And what about the other side the educrats. Why isn’t there any cooing by the educrats on Bridgeway, that may be a solution in other parts of the country? Why isnt there the press on programs that work, such as Bridgeway, because in the end the educrats do not support it, and would rather see it shut down, just like the global economy and its many parts, would like to keep child labour under the radar, and use it as their social contribution to poverty. Bank accounts for the child labourers, who do not go to school. Than we have the Dougs of the world, making money off the inadequacies of the system providing a service for Chinese students, because the public education one is not good enough, according to Doug. Than has the gall, to question Joanne and her reading specialist credentials, and her development of a reading instruction program for schools. And like in his last post, where he pulls up an article on phonics, where there is outright lies and sheer rhetoric, pushing educrats theories that will make the money for the textbook publishers and the rest of the educrats.
Jeanne Chall – one of the first to enter in the war on reading, and in her last work – “Chall’s last work, published posthumously, was The Academic Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom (2000). In it, she divides American instruction into “child-centered” and “teacher-centered” approaches, suggesting that the twentieth century was dominated by the former (discovery approaches) in spite of the research that supported a later theory (explicit teaching).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Chall
A lot of LD students, were helped by her, including the Reading Science Lab at Harvard. Oh how Canada lacks one and all thanks to the educrats, who spurns all things based on science. Poverty, computers, behaviour, parents and all kind of other things are in their labs, being studied, launching new theories, and completely ignoring the research that has no ideology and dogma to latch on. Rather straight forward, but like the World Bank, the educrats want nothing to do with straight forward stuff – they have to make it complicated so they can make their money, and keep the status-quo.
And Doug, you should not speak on the Atlantic provinces and make inferences on matters that you know not. Especially on NL, where total student population is 68, 716 students. It has nothing to do with the rising price of oil, nor the extra revenues from the oil. But it has a lot to do with teacher ratios, internet access, long distance learning, and downsizing of the boards to 4. But i have to admit, the school boards still act like any other school board across Canada – give parents a lot of trouble for asking questions. The rising reading rate, is mainly the slow progress of changing reading instruction to one that is based on the science, and training teachers. The SE teachers are now trained on the Orton-Gillingham method, and if they choose to do so, can get trained on other methods on their own dime. And some do. For that matter, the primary teachers in the Atlantic provinces, probably do have better training in reading instruction, than the ones from Ontario. Newfoundland teachers do not seem to have a problem in getting a job in Ontario or Alberta, working in the primary and junior grades. However Doug, this is on the radio talk shows, and where from time to time a teacher will phone in and have a chat. There is some good stuff happening in the Atlantic provinces, and in their education systems, but we do not have a Mr. Money Bags for a premier, while he taxes the rest of the taxpayers, for the excesses of the Ontario educrats.
How do you keep schools open when their are not enough students to justify a school.
One definition used in the past has been one FULL class per grade level minus one.
Say you had a K-8 school. That would mean 8 full viable classes and 1-2 split classes. Below that level, schools are probably not viable. Does that mean busing? Yes, how far? One hour in each direction. Beyond that, start looking at boarding schools.
good thing that what justifies a school isn’t YOUR criteria Doug because under-enrolled schools are open in my region.
When the community fights back reversals of closure are possible. We did it in our community and the bottom line is that the parents, school community and town were all more clued-in to the value of the school then the trustees – some of who had NEVER been in the school voted to close it.
We sure as heck don’t need a principal or teacher-librarian for each school either. Talk about a waste of money.
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6075433
Nancy, I don’t have 2 weeks to read your posts which are ‘stream of consciousness’ at best. Perhaps on my holidays.
Rural Schools and Educational Reform:
Should We Keep Rural Schools Open?
A Review of the Literature
Don’ t let the title fool you, it will show you how the education policies destroys rural life, and benefits only the educrats and unionists, without regard to the education of children. Or in another way, the educrats state one thing to the public, and practices the art of serving their best interests.
Click to access Lauzon%20-%20Should%20we%20keep%20rural%20schools%20open.pdf
The educrats are closing down schools, for their own reasons, and it has nothing to do with cost savings. The educrats as well, is preventing effective programs and policies from entering into the schools, because the programs will not produce the inefficiencies needed to support the professionalization policies of education and the repetitive cycle of needing an army, to fixed a loose shingle on a roof. Or for that matter, a student who is in need of remediation………………………
I believe this is true,it is shameful and true.
School boards have become dictatorships,it`s not right in Egypt nor is it correct in school boards.
Accountability required and voting privileges that represent the people.
For example,rural schools could share a principal and uses for the building after hours could be leased out.
If Costa Rica can do it,surely we can.You won`t see a village there without a school.
“Accountability required …”
There’s that bumper sticker again. It keeps popping up and is bandied about by those who wish to replace the current “dictatorships” with their own variety yet there has not been a single adequate definition of the term nor has there been any mention of how to measure that “accountability”.
Sorry, righties, but in my opinion you are merely the other side of the same coin. I’m not buying it.
At a certain point a school just becomes too small to be viable. Everything should be done to buttress the school, child care, community use, adult ed. but if it is not enough, it is not enough.
Much like a post office or a professional sports team, size matters.
I found an interesting site, from Europe filled with the top-level educrats. What would your opinion to the below statement, and how it would impact your life if you did not acquire fundamental skills
Professor Claxton argued that traditional pedagogies that cultivate the dispositions of what we can call the “clerical mind” are unequal to the times. For him, students who leave school with strong dispositions towards
– respect for authority ,
– accurate retention and rapid retrieval
– formulaic manipulation of unquestioned bodies of knowledge
– neatness and tidiness
– punctuality
and an aversion to learning that is slow, messy and confusing, are not equipped for the modern world.
We don’t have to wonder why schools are filled with misbehaving kids, or achievement is at the very least. Below is the qualities that are for the modern world according to this educrat.
– curiosity: wonderment, scepticism and questioning
– courage: risk-taking,c persistence and patience
– investigation: attending, researching and
– experimentation: rehearsing, playing and re-drafting
– imagination: visualisation, mental rehearsal and intuition
– reason: disciplined thinking, analysing and critiquing
– sociability: collaboration, dialoguing and giving and taking feedback
– reflection: strategising, evaluating and self-awareness
http://www.nesse.fr/nesse/nesse/activities/seminars
This passage comes from seminar 10, called Cultivating Talent
Take a look at the other seminars, a quick look a disdain for achievement performance, direct instruction, and anything else that mimics traditional schools with grades. And they certainly do not like any teaching evaluation of any kind. It is all about social justice, equality and their Utopian, with a few calling the shots in education of our children. It won’t be the parents, they be in school relearning how to think right, in their Utopian.
I am wondering how many of the top level educrats send their children to private schools, to received a traditional education. Much like Doug, where factory schools, long bus rides, bloated administration, does not equal to economies of scales. And I shall assume that you did read my link. You really should, rural Canada, provides the bottom structure for urban cites to thrive on. Weaken the bottom structure, leads to decay in the cities. Or would you like Canada to take the Chinese route, used the rural citizens as migrant workers for the big cities, that keeps the migrant workers locked up in the slum at night until 6:00 in the morning. And used the rural youth that are of not academic material, as cheaper labour for the well-to-do. You really should be asking your wealthy Chinese students, these questions. Especially the ages of their household staff of maids……………..
Isn’t it nice that we have you Nancy, you seem to know more about education than all of the people who have specialized in it their whole lives. Ya right.
Respect?
I’d say that “the people who have specialized in it their whole lives” have done a horrible job – it’s time to hand the the schools back to the communities and the taxpayers where they belong. Nix school board administrations and well-paid bureaucrats and let individual communities take back their schools.
Nancy’s trumped you so often I suppose it’s hitting a little too close to the truth for your comfort.
The future of schooling in Canada is with Nancy, parents and school communities.
Falling out of favour VERY quickly are old boys, with old notions and union mantra to match. You, thank goodness are not the future of education. Of that we can be grateful.
Let me see now…
3rd highest education system in the world….
highest percentage of postsecondary grads in the world…
about to embark on the critical reform ELP-ECE that will make us #1 in the world…
Ya pretty bad, who would want to be educated in Canada, like almost everybody…
The REAL story, all in one place. Canada’s problems are not as bad only because of advanced social programs like medicare.
http://globalcomment.com/2010/u-s-education-reform-lets-talk-race-class/
Accountability to who Andrew? What type of accountability system? Is the system very accountable to enforce their own rules, that are for the most part grants rights to parents and students? Is it accountable where the appeal process is not independent?
And accountability measures? Personally, I do not believe the measures should be directed at the teachers, but rather at the board level, and at the principals. They hold the resources and the money strings. Who is accountable for a child like mine, that was showing obvious signs of being dyslexic in grade 1, but was denied assessment and help until the beginning of grade 4. The reason being she was passing, No other reason, Andrew. Who is responsible for students sitting in a grade nine class, with over 60 % of the class sitting at below grade level in the core subjects, in various degrees? I really do not think the teacher in the classroom should be held accountable, but the ones who control the resources, funds, curriculum, instruction, teacher training, and yes, union contracts.
Who is held accountable in the current public education systems, lands at the doorstep of the lowest boy of the totem pole, the parents. At least it seems to me, since I was told it was my fault, my responsibility to take care of the basics, And when I did, I got chewed out by the same educrats for doing so.
The overwhelming majority have primarily positive experiences with the PS system which is why it is still so popular. .
Based on what? The end of the year surveys, designed by the educrats, to elicit the answers before hand? All based on maybe 100 surveys done, out of a school population 500?
Here is the latest, how satisfied people are in London.
“”A letter from lawyers hired by the London District Catholic school board ordered The Free Press to “cease and desist” publishing stories about a petition signed by more than 60% of the school’s staff. The petition said school staff didn’t feel safe because students displaying violent or threatening behaviour weren’t adequately punished.
The letter also demanded The Free Press send the board all copies and photocopies of documents received last Friday.
The staff petition, received by the board May 30 and sent anonymously to The Free Press 11 days later, said those who signed it feel students who “wilfully put teachers, their families, and/or other students at risk should be permanently removed from the school.”
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/06/14/18281476.html#/news/london/2011/06/14/pf-18281476.html
And even teachers. Hard to have a bully policy when no one at the board are enforcing the rules. And now more taxpayers money going down the tube, on lawyers. First defense, of a school board, hire the lawyers to defend the status-quo.
The problem with these “reform” movements (and many other movements) is that they more often than not represent something that is entirely different to what they state.
In my opinion, the current version of the education reform movement is more about replacing left-wing ideology with right-wing ideology.
Neither ideology is worth a hoot (again in my opinion) and has no place in education any more than does bible thumping.
http://www.dartmouthlearning.net/dlninfo/alstats.htm
All because of poverty I guess Doug and Andrew,you don`t mind if I address you at the same time ?
I certainly do mind. If you took the trouble to actually read that which is posted you would have realized that we are far from being of the same views.
And by the way, where did I ever state poverty as being a prime cause?
Click to access %7B80CD7A27-30E8-45E6-8385-F0EE19656CD4%7D.pdf
More good news about Literacy in Atlantic Canada,the literacy crisis Jo-Anne fabricated for her personal gain.
Andrew, but this is really directed at Doug, the one that insists that parents are satisfied……
It looks like the rest of the year, and who knows how long, the season of discontent and it has now materialized in Ontario, and it sure will keep the boards, unions and ministries across Canada, to the demands of a brand new group of parents and concerned citizens, called the Coalition of Quality Education.
“The political education reform movement Coalition for Quality Education
has officially launched its new website and its latest campaign ‘What
About Me‘. Started against a backdrop of community unrest and
dissatisfaction regarding how public education is delivered in Canada,
concerned taxpayers and parents believe the coalition will be the
beginning of much needed educational reform.
Their newest campaign What About Me represents public education as seen
through the eyes of a child left behind, lost at school, discriminated
against by inaction by the provincial governments and the actions by the
school boards and trustees. The children shown in the campaign represent
the hundreds if not thousands of Canadian children who do not receive
accessible and fair education in this country.
The Coalition and its supporters believe their goal is to not only
expose abuses, shine a light on irregularities and focus their attention
on boards that violate the rights of the many for the select few but
rather to offer a voice to the many left behind in today’s public
education system.
For far too long, the public has felt that the provincial governments
and the Ministry of Education within each province often turn their
backs on ensuring accessible and fair public education is delivered to
all children.
As such, community members across Canada wanting equitable public
education for all decided to join forces and demand change. Their
membership and support has grown from a grass roots organization into a
cohesive organization with a common message. Membership and support
comes from professionals and residents from a variety of backgrounds
including consultants, writers, lawyers, teachers, technology
specialists, doctors, business leaders, senior citizens, and more.
Their goal is one of unity, equality, fairness, accountability and the
rights afforded by the Canadian tax system that is supposed to provide
just public education for all. Canadian public education is now based on
want not need often at the cost of the most vulnerable.
Too often, school boards and elected trustees highjack process, push
programming, take over schools and buy votes. One only needs to look no
further than the newspaper columns about our communities across Ontario,
treatment of native children, inconsistent and unfair delivery of French
education and the inept responses from our school boards and politicians
when complaints are raised to know serious political change is needed.”
http://ccfqe.com/
Their first campaign is called What About Me Campaign?
Just one small part: “Why are my learning issues not important? How can you fund some of us and not all? Does the Charter of Human Rights not protect all of us equally? When you promote or vote for services, pilots and programs only for some you leave the rest of us to fall behind. You violate our rights!’
Is not every exceptionality under the Special Education Act supposed to be provided for equally?
So why do school boards and trustees vote to service only some of us and why does our government allow it?
Discrimination, segregation and closing of self contained classes for those of us who need and want them is wrong and immoral?
Just because you have the power to do it, doesn’t mean you should!
http://whataboutme.ccfqe.com/
Andrew, you should like the direction. The main problem is the politics, where us citizens are dancing to the politics of the education system and its powerful arms. Leaving in its wake, the have and have-nots – our kids.
As for you Doug, listen up – take note, Here and everywhere across Canada people are not happy with the education system. And finally Doug, it is coming to the surface in an area of Ontario, a stronghold that the education system cannot easily dismissed, or show them the education system back of their hand, with open contempt. What the education system stands for, is inequality. Time to put the power back into the hands of the parents and taxpayers, and not in the few hands of the educrats who only serve themselves.
Here is a humorous take on trustees – sometimes all too true.
“In my younger years as a consultant I had my first encounter with a school trustee. To say I knew nothing about school politics or what a trustee was is laughable now. Consulting for a major computer corporation (for obvious reasons I will ensure the company name remains hidden), I worked alongside this fellow who boasted about the importance of his side job.
Now not knowing anything about the salary or role that went along with such a heft position (he led me to believe the hefty part), I questioned in my mind why this guy would bother with his ‘day job’. Clearly he was disinterested, seriously disliked, incompetent…..need I go on the picture must be evident by now….the guy did not fit in. In fact, he had absolutely no interest in his day job as he spent countless hours on the phone conducting the real important stuff – that of his heft decision making and/or manipulation as trustee.”
http://www.oakvillechitchat.com/head-space-of-a-ego-maniac-politician/#more-3379
Or would you like to collect the news stories or blogs across Canada, Doug – showing the discontent of parents toward the public education system? No problem these days, Doug?
You might want to interchange the terms “consultant” with “trustee”.
Your bit applies to both, Nancy.
Atlantic Canada has always had lower education data. They drop out much earlier. Nothing new. This is typical of primary commodity production economies. The adult literacy industry has an interest in high numbers otherwise nobody will give them grant money.
They also do not mean that people “cannot read” it simply means people have difficulty with insurance forms, income tax, complicated safety instructions. (Who doesn’t).
The real data is the OECD which says, although not perfect, Canada is better than every other country in 15 year olds reading.
you don`t mind if I laugh out loud do you?
your ignorance is showing
Mirror, mirror on the wall…
Mr.Gilmour,no matter what sector of education you are from,your banter contributes zero to the cause of Literacy-
Your glib responses put you in the same boat as Doug because you offer NOTHING to the problem of Literacy in Nova Scotia.Your province has such serious issues,there are so many things that could be done to stop the insanity of teaching children in “authentic text”.This promary instructional strategy leads to your problems with your 15 year olds.
If kids don`t learn to read by Grade 3,they have a 75% chance of never learning.World wide accepted research.It isn`t a poverty issue,it`s instructional and I beg your forgiveness for needing to repeat it.
Jo Anne,
I was the chair of the Adult Literacy committee of the toronto board. My Masters work was in adult education and adult literacy. I wrote a major paper for the board on adult literacy in Toronto, I chaired a Task Force on Adult Literacy and I have made media presentations on the topic, many such as TVO and the National Council on Welfare.
I know exactly what adult literacy in Canada is and IS NOT.
I do believe, MS Gross that you may have literacy issues yourself inasmuch as I have NEVER blamed poverty as a major contributor to illiteracy. I am convinced that the reverse is true, that illiteracy is one of the major causes of poverty. I have also clearly stated the phonics instruction IS NEEDED but that it is NOT a stand-alone component and is merely one of many components.
I have also clearly stated that most successful teachers know how to teach phonics and don’t need your or anybody else’s “system-in-a-box” that costs millions to taxpayers – millions that, incidently, could be used to help those students who really are struggling.
You and your ilk appear to have the pecular habit of reading words that aren’t there while ignoring the words that are.
Any questions?
What I know,I could never share with you,all the kids and families I have met.myself being one of them and all the teachers I have trained who share their stories during the dinner after the training”why didn`t we learn this at University?”
What I know,I could never share with you,…..
Of course not- it’s a state secret…
… or it’s simply more unsupported “he said, she said” and bogus research.
Ontario is worse off for low literacy rates Doug.
“Finally, the Ontario Literacy Coalition said literary rates in Ontario and Canada are “worrisome.” Saying literacy has impacts on economic prosperity, civic participation, children’s education, poverty, crime rates and health, the group noted more than 65 per cent of the province’s citizens with low literacy are of prime working age (between 26 and 55 years old).
One-third of the population has less than a high school education. “Without the basic literacy and numeracy skills necessary, workers will struggle to meet the increasing expectations of complex workplaces and Ontario’s changing economy,” it stated.
Meanwhile, in Canada, almost half of all adults have low literacy skills. Yet the estimate it that a one-per-cent increase in the literacy rate would generate $18 billion in economic growth every year.
While numbers are often meaningless without context, we don’t need to run through the long lists of statistics to make one point clear: despite our relative wealth and development, Canada still has a long way to go with adult literacy.
Investments are needed. Your local library is a good place to start. Please don’t take it for granted. – J.B.”
http://thereview.ca/story/heavy-price-pay-knowledge-and-culture
While we are at it Doug, you are the one so worry about poverty and funding for it inside the education system, there is another fire that is well lit – the closures, and lack of funding for libraries, the lack of internet infrastructure in the smaller cities and towns, as well as the costs to buy reading material. When was the last time Doug, did you check the price of a soft-cover book? Or the price of a newspaper, and the price of a magazine? Check out National Geographic prices – or any other related magazines a student might be interested in. Or how about comic books, not the kind of thing that is available to everyone because of the price. It is why I have to wonder where the priorities are with any government, that is willing to fund projects, without the foundation blocks or a very shaky foundation, that could not support a new projects. The ELP program is one, where it was put in place on topped of a very shaky foundation – a patchwork quilt of daycares and pre-schooling. You know the haves and have-nots story.
Well to call the adult literacy an industry, takes some gall. Since across Canada, it depends on a small army of volunteers to bring adults to just a reading stage, and for the most part, bringing up very low literacy skills to a point, that they can function in today’s world, and go to adult school and be able to participate in learning. Your know the one that is always be pushed by our schools, life time learning. The grants are small, compared to the real funding at the college level. Where people actually pay their own money to addressed their reading and numeracy skills, and for most of them they have graduated from high school. And than we have retraining on both levels of the governments, and probably the total for Canada, is in the 1 billion mark. Within the retraining, there is also courses for reading, writing and numeracy upgrading. Here too, one will hear the teachers reciting the multiplication tables, as from time to time at the university level. There is enough complaints and stories from math professors addressing fundamental arithmetic in their classes.
Too bad, the literacy agencies who depends on volunteers could have a bit more money from our governments, compared to the bloated education system that has paid staff to come up with excuses and huge lobbying units to get more funding to produced more students with low literacy skills. And Doug, even the OECD has pointed out Ontario has a serious problem with low literacy. You really should read all the many reports of the OECD and not just the myopic reports that confirms your viewpoints. As you should read the many reports in the MOE on how Ontario is not addressing the needs. Or for that matter, go to the other departments in Ontario, outside of education.
And economically speaking, isn’t Ontario paying an economic price as well? Atlantic provinces only know too well being the poor cousins of this Confederation, and than having it being rubbed in our faces by Central Canada. Isn’t Ontario the new boy getting equalization payments from the feds?
And Doug that bit about you and your contributions to literacy – not a thing on the web, except your blog. Not one article in the newspaper, except for your run-ins with Premier Harris. Your name is no where on the literacy agencies across the country. Nor are you to be seen in the fundraising activities or even on the blogs in the literacy circles. But where do we find your name, on other education blogs telling people that they don;t know what they are talking about, and that is one of your mild comments. I am afraid they are building up Doug, and it is a good thing that you are no longer employed at a job, where the boss might take unkindly to your remarks on others, especially literacy agencies in a patched-work quilt across Canada, held together by a small army of volunteers, on a shoe-laced budget. I guess you must have been paid eh Doug? I see those days are coming to an end in Toronto, where the gravy train has been stopped for meals, luxury hotel rooms, and other expenses that is eating away the foundation of the city. You know, the swimming pools, libraries, community centres, the stuff that actually makes a city, and where volunteers who may be experts do not have their hand out to be duly paid for their time, because of who they are.
As my link states, A heavy price to pay for knowledge and culture
Culture is expensive, but ignorance is more expensive. Now Doug check out the economic pages, lots there on the literacy and education problems. You might want to check your attitude against those who are the have-nots.
Here is a short video called Animal School. I and my youngest could not decide if she was the duck as I suggested, or her version, a cross between a duck, a squirrel and a honey bee.
All will be apparent after the video, but it is why children need alternatives, choices besides the one-sized-fits-all.
Nothing wrong with PUBLIC alternatives so long as they are not based on religion, gender, race, ethnicity.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/8107/public-education-ratings-us-britain-canada.aspx
2003 Gallop poll – of a 1000 calls in Canada – 100 phone calls per province
And your evidence that people are unhappy?……… Crickets chirping.
I swear your logic works like this Nancy.
1) I was unhappy with the system
2) I talk only to people in the reform groups who are unhappy with the system
Therefore:
3) Most people are unhappy with the system
It is that jump from 2-3 that makes me laugh.
Not one nation on this entire Earth graduates more people from post-secondary education than Canada.
What post-secondary is that Doug?
I think OECD reported 26 % a have university degrees, which is the norm for other countries as well. If you throw in college, not all 2 or 3 year courses are equal so they have to be separated. And than there is the trades.
Don’t know the stats, since it is not track as well as the university stats, but there is a large percentage that have some post-secondary. Whether they finished post-secondary is the 64 dollar question. I would not be surprise in total reaching 75 % or higher, but than again there is many routes entering college at different levels. And besides that, the better paying jobs, even for a pay roll clerk requires a college certificate.
Or take a look at the trades – this fellow phones up the talk show, telling the host he moved back to NL, from Alberta because Vale is hiring in NL. Except Vale is hiring inside Alberta, to bring back to NL. Lots of electricians in NL, and so he thinking of going back to Alberta , get hired by Vale. It is crazy, meanwhile Alberta comes to the east coast because they can’t find anyone in Alberta.
If that is how school boards do policies, heaven help us all
But it sure sounds like one board in Ontario, more interested in other things, beside raising achievement. The surveys don’t mean anything, unless one is marketing a product. But even than, it is closer to 5000 than a 1000 callers across Canada. Really, that might be good in NL, a 1000 poll.
And no one knows where, what regions, was in just the cities, which is often the case. And today, telephone polls are tough, who picks up the phone anymore
Lastly did they talk to anyone, or did they want parents only?
Doug, you have to take a look at the original poll, and since it is 2003, a lot of water has gone pass – 8 years later – whoever thought that Canada Post would lock out the postal workers, and soon to have their marching orders to returned back to work. And they even did that to a private company called Air Canada. I wonder what will happen in October, with all that angst in Ontario – not at all happy campers paying out excess taxes
Not everyone is lucky enough to work in the public sector, but than perhaps they may be put in the same position as the rest of the citizens very soon. Imagine a mailman making $26.00 a hour, with all the benefits and pension. A mailman was on one of the talk shows today, defending his position by stating those people who are complaining only have minimum wage jobs, not the rest who have good jobs. He was so shocked that the government of Canada did this to him, locked him out, and all he wanted to do was delivered the mail. They are worse than the garbage guys, and what they will do or not do in a day’s work. A bit of ice on the steps, no way they are going to delivered the mail at this door.
Just count yourself lucky Doug, you are out of it and have your backside protected. The gravy train is stopping………………
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/04/the_disquieting_side_effect_of.html
>
Here is the study I referred to.
The kids who cannot read by the end of grade 3 ae overwhelmingly poor.
Doug incorrect. The parents that have the means, will get the help for their kids as soon as there is trouble, by going to private tutors, and services. There the same ones that will pay for an assessment, without batting an eye. One of the reasons why schools with higher incomes do less assessments, because the parents are going the private route.
Been around enough parents, to note this with my oldest, who hung out with friends that got sent to the tutors. And this was back in the 70s and 80s. There is just as many in the higher income schools, but the children are receiving intervention by the parents, rather than the public education system that give out excuses, rather than early intervention.
I even knew parents that sent their kids to tutors for handwriting lessons.
I had no idea lefties were so disparaging to the poor.Shameful.
Also,the statement is not correct.
It has nothing to do with “disparaging” of the poor. Oppression takes a toll on the poor. The statement IS correct BTW.
You ct like I am making this up. Poverty as a cause of lack of education success is the DOMINANT critique in education supported by the vast majority of academics and researchers in the field. Get with it. You have to be pretty thick not to acknowledge that education problems are heavily skewed towards the poor.
http://www.boldapproach.org
Even the American “Reform Movement” acknowledges that poverty is overwhelming. The entire NCLB effort was about closing the gap for God’s sake.
http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2007/standardsbasedreformandthepovertygap.aspx
Another gem of wisdom by Doug!
It seems he now chooses to blame the poor!
If you cannot get it through your head Steven that education problems are overwhelmingly to be found amongst the poor then you just have no clue about education demographics.
The case is closed. Read something Steven before you make a fool of yourself.
Click to access foc272e.pdf
Stop the blame game and readers will take you more seriously.
Yes it appears that way, but there will be more coming from him.
I just wish he looks at the original data when the poverty theory emerge from the educrats. All data came from third world countries, and the interpretations came from the upper middle class professionals, making assumptions that being low income has the same experiences as in another country.And so all low-income people experience the same things, no matter what part of the world.
He should go to China, and talk to the poor farmer who has cancer because of the pollution of the plastic factory next door, and made worse when the local Chinese government level, took away some of the farm land, and give it to the plastic factory.
He should be just thankful he lives in Canada, and not in another part of the world. Doug should come up with ideas that would be helpful within the school environment. Like improving the school libraries, the computer lab, or even the addition of educational software. How about fixing the inequities in resources Doug? Now that really bugs me, and it seems to be the same across Canada. School boards operating using the same accounting techniques? Well you are at it, make sure there is art supplies including paint a scarce resource in schools these days. One would think school boards could buy, using the economies of scale. Deep discounts when buying in bulk. Or how about three ring binder paper, and other school supplies, that can be sold under non- profit? Why not a kiosk, run by the students, next door to the canteen/cafeteria? Do you not realized how much school supplies cost? The only time there is deep discounts, is a couple weeks before school starts. Other wise a package of three-ring paper is anywhere between $1.98 to a high of $3.50. Two years ago, I brought paper at 49 cents and last year the cheapest I seen was at 69 cents. Of course I brought enough to last the year and than some, but not everyone can do it.
There is all kinds of things that the boards can do for all the students, rather than the school boards making profit or doing a favour for a supplier. For that matter the teachers, so they won’t have to go and buy their own supplies.
Origins of the achievement gap in early childhoodResearch shows that the achievement gap, which often first manifests itself through standardized tests in elementary school, actually begins well before students reach kindergarten as a “school readiness” gap.[9] One study claims that about half the test score gap between black and white high school students is already evident when children start school.[10] A variety of different tests at kindergarten entry have provided evidence of such a gap, including the U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey of Kindergarten children (ECLS-K). While results differ depending on the instrument, estimates of the black-white gap range from slightly less than half a standard deviation to slightly more than 1 standard deviation.[11] This early disparity in performance is critical, as research shows that once students are behind, they do not catch up. Children who score poorly on tests of cognitive skills before starting kindergarten are highly likely to be low performers throughout their school careers.[12] The evidence of the early appearance of the gap has led to efforts focused on early childhood interventions (see “Narrowing the achievement gap” below).
Nancy the “Iron Law of Poverty” in education is always evident in every nation on Earth, every city, every school board, every state, every grade level, in the world. You are just in so much denial about this it is pathetic. Jo Anne is just as bad. The achievement gap is very wide on the very first day of school. None of that is due to the teachers, the educrats, the boards, the principals, or the caretaker. Is is due to POVERTY. Do some research. No subject is so well documented.
The fat lady has sung, the jury is back, POVERTY is the primary cause of the education gap.
http://publiceducationdefender.blogspot.com/2006/07/coleman-report-race-social-class-and.html
Game, set match.
“The gaps are found among these groups regardless of socioeconomic level.
• At second and third grade, African American, Latino, and Native American
youngsters are scoring much lower than their white and Asian counterparts are.
• African American, Latino, and Native American 12th graders made up only
about in 1 in 10 of those students scoring at the Proficient level on the 1996
NAEP math and science tests, although they represented about one third of
the population who took the test. They did somewhat better in the 1998 reading
tests, but their scores were not comparable to those of their white and
Asian counterparts.
• There are gaps in other measures of achievement, such as grades and class rank.
• Achievement gaps are evident in the Advanced Placement and SAT exams.
• Although college-going rates are increasing for all groups, African American,
Latino, and Native American students earn much lower grades than do
white and Asian students with similar admission test scores. Data for 1995
show that they represented only 13% of the bachelor’s degrees, 11% of the
professional degrees, and 6% of the doctoral degrees earned, although they
make up 30% of the under-18 population”
Doug, note the words in the beginning – regardless of socioeconomic levels. The same gap can be found in a high income school, a middle-income school as well as a low-income school. So if it is not income, why could it be but the instruction and curriculum.
“Explanations of why the gaps exist are often one-dimensional and offer
insufficient, or at worst inappropriate, evidence as to how to address the gap problem.
The explanations most frequently cited point to the inadequacies in the child’s
culture and community and the socioeconomic levels of the family. The assumption
about the correlation between low income and low achievement is reinforced by a
steady stream of data…………………….Explanations must be more complex than simple. Responding to the notion that the reason for under achievement rests solely on the backs of the students and their families, Singham (1998) concluded, “An alternative explanation is that the primary problem lies not in the way black children view education but in the way we teach all children, black, whites, or other” (p. 12).”
Click to access 6598_johnson_ch_1.pdf
Add the cognitive science knowledge, another think that is lacking in the public education system, and of course the streams of data from achievement tests will keep reinforcing the SEC factors because the public education system methods of providing education for all children. To blame it on just SEC factors is foolish, because then NL and other smaller provinces would have much lower achievement , and it is really just a few points below Ontario.
Or yes, the other problem of inequities of resources, supplies and the other good stuff of a well-equipped school.
I worry about your reading ability Nancy, of course those gaps exist at all class levels but nothing like the SES gaps.
I know it is hard for you to admit that SES overwhelmes every other educational argument becuse to admit it undermies your entire argument about blaming “educrats” teachers, and everybody you can find except those responsible for inequality in our society.
Sadly, you have no argument, the research is overwhelming and definitive.
Doug,
it is obvious you are looking foolish. This is a forum to talk about alternative programs , not a forum to solve global poverty. Find another chanel.
Here are the real world experts.Professional Development with all the great minds of Reading Research.
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/
Lack of phonemic awareness,a brain process,easily curable through Direct Instruction in the early years,is the consequence of poverty,LD,Dyslexia,improper instruction.
It is very different than phonics-it involves teaching children speech sounds rather than phonics which is step two in instruction,when we bring the eye to the page.
Phonemic Awareness focuses on articulation and the ear,a precursor to phonics.
Nations like Cuba and Europe have certainly never gone down the whole language,”Balanced Literacy” road.
It always astounds me that these people who diminish the instructional cause so vehemently always think instructional people ignore vocabulary and comprehension.
It isn`t either or-it`s a series of steps that lead to reading and spelling success.
Phonemic Awareness-Phonics-Fluency(this is the brain process)now we go to the right side of the brain because child can read and spell the word and we put the words in context and discuss meaning.
The disparagement of instruction always states-what about comprehension-the big excuse.
Steve is right,this is not about alternative programs in N.S. and saving them or saving N.S. schools.
Parent involvement and organization and getting fair representation on school board boards rather than trustees who play puppy will make a difference.I have seen parents do incredible things.
The most astounding being the Afrocentric mothers in Toronto-they simply took the attitude they weren`t going to fail and got media and Fraser Institute involved.
That meant the top brass of the TDSB had to take them seriously.
I don`t mean that I agree with that kind of segregation,they felt they had no choice.The system was failing them and not accountable.
Change=not putting up with the status quo.
Tell Nancy who thinks is about her family or Joanne who can stop bad weather with phonics.
School boards represent taxpayers and citizens not parents by themselves.
Why does the reform movement assume Parents support their POV? They don’t. People for Education had 100X the support or reform groups. They want more money, and less testing,
And 90% of the money will go to salaries instead of improvement-they want to get rid of EQAO do they-sure,walk in the dark-much better.
People for Education are union shills who get government money and whose agenda mirrors that of the teacher unions – NOT anywhere close to be a representative parent organization. They are not elected and are very well paid for their advocacy.
People for Education is another organization loaded with individuals like Doug who publicly tout “public education” for everyone else but who privately contradict themselves by their own choices.
People for Education is not a Students First Movement.
It`s funding comes from the MOE-They are basically a PR group for the status quo.
Ever hear Annie Kidder on a talk show-real depth.
This has nothing to do with Nova Scotia.
It keeps repeating Doug, because of the instruction and curriculum.
More so, than any other SEC factors. The problem in Canada, there has been little research, because instruction and curriculum are more or less the same across Canada.
But there is differences in provinces concerning teacher training, degrees, school models, organization, and so forth, that are important.. In my last post there is more links like the one above, that points to the school structure and model of schooling as aggravating the SEC factors.
It amazes me Doug, how you insist all failures rests on the person, and SEC factors, and no factors that lie within the education model, training and organizational features can be blame. In your way of thinking, the failure would be consistent across Canada regarding income. no matter the location, the culture, the values, the economic systems. So in effect, according to you, the public education system and the people who work within it, are ineffective when it comes to achievement of low-income students, SE children and any other children that cannot adapt to the current system.
Taking my case, the reason why my child did not received testing until much later on, was because decisions are being made on SEC factors, since this is the only factors that impact achievement. Therefore the only thing that the public education can do, since training, pedagogy nor the organization is not at fault, is to introduced measures that will lessened the SEC factors impacting negatively on achievement. Measures that will keep true to the pedagogy and practices or without dramatically changing practices of the public education system.
Thus following this line of reason, the decision by the school to put my child in the SE math class for two years, maintaining on average a 97 % average doing the work of two grade levels below was based on to lessened the SEC factors only. And not on what is the best interests of my child, since the best course of action would have dramatically altered the practices of the school and board, regarding LD children. The best course of action would be one to one, following along the regular grade 4 math curriculum using direct explicit instruction, and lots of practice. It is what I was requesting, but reasons were given based on building confidence, lessened the math anxiety, and allow her to have more successful outcomes. My reasons were rejected, because it would dramatically altered the practices and pedagogy regarding LD students. Is that the reason why Doug, I was cautioned over the two years not to provide any help at home, including software, drill sheets and go beyond what was being done in the SE class, since it would altered and change the dynamics of my child’s cognitive weaknesses in numeracy. The same cognitive weaknesses that are of biological reasons, and are not considered part of the SEC factors.
Doug, according to you the SEC factors are of the utmost importance, and where the biological and cognitive factors plays a much lesser role of the second fiddle in the current public education system and practices within it. If the prior statement is true, explain why my LD child has become a high achiever even though the SEC factors have not change, nor the practices of the school, and the only change has been major improvements in her cognitive weaknesses, based on the hard work done at home. Take note Doug, during this process, the educrats stated numerous times the work and re-teaching at home, would do little for her self-esteem, making her a dependent learner rather than a independent learner, and causing her more stress and anxiety using practices such as direct explicit teaching.
The key Doug, is the strengthened the cognitive weaknesses of all children, without impacting the cognitive strengths in a negative way. Inappropriate accommodations, dumbing down the work, lowering the outcomes will only ensure to keep cognitive weaknesses weak, and weakened the cognitive strengths. Instruction and the design of curriculum is of the utmost importance, because it is the key to strengthened cognitive pathways of children. The key to reach the full potential despite the SEC factors.
Salary IS improvement. We need to start paying teachers much better to attract only the best.
I am not a member of P4E and I only attend the odd conference in a journalistic capacity.
They don’t support “the government” they support progressive policies. They think McGuinty is moving too slow on progressive policies. If you think they support “the government” wait until Hudak gets a turn.
You tell them they are not a students first movement and then duck.
Schools can and do make a difference Nancy but 80% (Coleman) is set by the student’s environment (family situation and social class) the part that IS influenced by school has nothing to do with teaching methods but by class size and teacher training.
Nobody works on anecdotal factors in education research Nancy. Your daughter probably succeeded due to YOUR efforts but most parents do not have the time and energy. The expectations of the system are simply too great if you expect that of all LD kids they would need a ratio of 1:1 not 8:1.
You extrapolate far too much based on your personal situation. Any researcher would tell you your rather interesting personal story counts for nothing in the bigger picture.
You cannot see the forest for the tree.
“Any researcher would tell you your rather personal story counts for nothing in the bigger picture”.
————————————————————————————————————————-
More Marxian drek from Doug.
Alternative schools have a role. Real change comes from class size.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/class-size/7-class-size-myths—-and-the.html
Steven, ask a serious researcher about anecdotal stories.
the mass centralization of education, especially in NS has contributed to larger classes. This is why alternative programs can and should provide the option of smaller classes.
Doug, no serious researcher would care to blame the students,parents, the poor etc, on the current woes of the public system, and then recommend higher salaries.
The Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education has concluded that class size reduction is one of only four, evidence-based reforms that have been proven to increase student achievement through rigorous, randomized experiments — the “gold standard” of research. (The other three reforms are one-on-one tutoring by qualified tutors for at-risk readers in grades 1-3; life-skills training for junior high students, and instruction for early readers in phonics – and not one of the policies that the corporate reformers are pushing.
As I said, class size reduction is a significant way to improve results.
Steven,
Students arrive on the first day of kindergarten with huge gaps in learning between rich and poor. What part of the school system is responsible for that?
On Doug’s comments:
1. “They don’t support “the government” they support progressive policies. They think McGuinty is moving too slow on progressive policies”
P4E supports the current practices and the current delivery model of the public education system. where the education system is the best means and are trusted based on that government and the structure of the public education has the best interests of all students. P4E exists only, to keep some socialites busy in Toronto, pointing the snags and bumps on government and school board policies that are preventing the smooth implementation of policy. One just has to go on the site, and the advice given to parents who have children that are struggling in school. How the advice, always ends up becoming the fault of SEC factors, and never the instructional and curriculum practices.
What P4E stands for, is to maintain and work only on the SEC factors and that are in agreement with the public education practices. Hence fundraising issues, class sizes, poverty strategies, any other SEC factors that support the goals of the public education system.
In the 2010 report, the goals that P4E are supporting accountability but with the disclaimer of, ” In a knowledge economy, many argue that social intelligence skills, creativity and capacity for innovation are paramount.15 Will focusing on the top 10% of level 2 students really get us what we need? Is that really the extent of our goal for our education system?.”
Supporting test scores, with the addition of , ” recognizing and include in their
overall goals, things like strengthening family and community connections, access to health and service supports, and seamless learning and care while children are young. Among other things, they measure students’ access to arts and sports, hands-on learning including new information and communications technologies, and their sense of safety.”
http://www.peopleforeducation.com/research-info
And the third is to support the three targeted goals of the education system. And than comes the SEC factors that can be manipulated to support the threes goals above, and P4E overall goal of, “Strong schools linked to strong communities have the
potential to be centres of change, innovation and equity.”
All within keeping of the union goals, the school board goals without changing the status-quo of the structure, the training, the pedagogy, and more importantly the belief that it is the SEC factors are the main reason for failure in society.
2. “Schools can and do make a difference Nancy but 80% (Coleman) is set by the student’s environment (family situation and social class) the part that IS influenced by school has nothing to do with teaching methods but by class size and teacher training. ”
OK Doug, let us talk about Coleman.
“The Report was commonly misinterpreted as evidence, or an argument, that schools have little effect on student achievement. A better reading of the Coleman Report is that relative to student background and socioeconomic status, measured differences in school resources (per student spending) matter little in determining educational outcomes (Hanushek, 1998).
Another controversial finding of the Coleman Report was that, on average, black schools were funded on a nearly equal basis by the 1960s. This was probably due to the fact that many Southern states greatly raised their spending on black schools in the 1950s, in the hope of avoiding compliance with the Brown v. Board of Education decision.”
“This research also suggested that socially disadvantaged black students profited from schooling in racially-mixed classrooms. This was the catalyst for the implementation of the desegregation busing systems, ferrying black students to integrated schools. Following up on this, in 1975, Coleman published the results of further research; this time into the effects of school busing systems intended to bring lower-class black students into higher-class mixed race schools. His conclusion was that white parents moved their children out of such schools in large numbers; a phenomenon that came to be known as “white flight.” His 1966 article had explained that black students would only benefit from integrated schooling if there was a majority of white students in the classroom; the mass busing system had failed.”
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/James_S._Coleman
And of late, states and school board districts are moving away or dropping policies of the Coleman report, because they do not work. Moving towards teaching training, curriculum, instruction, resources, that will impact achievement rates, by meeting cognitive needs of the individual students, as well as the other needs that are being influenced by the SEC factors.A charter school is an example, as well as an alternative school for at-risked students, as well as Bridgeway Academy in Nova Scotia.
No I do not extrapolate far too much based on my personal situation. My situation is a typical example of the failure of the system and practices to reach full potential of children. And I have to chuckle that I cannot apparently see the forest, because of a single tree. If I did that Doug, I would have failed my child as much as the school system have failed children using one-sized-fits-all approaches. I have fully experience the life of a LD student, and to discount the experiences of a parent, as being mere tales possibly bordering on the fringes of lies is to effectively tell the parent that it is all their fault regardless of what the school or the school does not need. But a scientist would never dismissed any anecdotal experiences, especially if it was a common experience by many, and there the greatest discoveries and research has started out observing the anecdotal evidence, and asking questions. Also, the chats that I have had with professors who were kind enough to take the time to speak with me, also stated the same thing, along with excellent advice how to help my child, despite the LD and the school’s methods and practices. The key was instruction methods and curriculum for higher achievement despite the LD difficulties. And here too, the professors warn me to the reactions of the school and board, based on anecdotal evidence by other parents who came before me, that went the route that I did – re-teaching, direct explicit instruction and to focus on the foundations.
And further, I have had the benefit of speaking to two Canadian researchers as well, who have stated, and confirmed what Joanne is stating, what I have read by the top researchers in the world, and it keeps being reconfirmed in the anecdotal stories of parents who either re-teach at home, send their kids to tutors, go to a non-public school, switch to a better public schools, and in the many different ways that a parent seeks the best possible outcomes for their children, in life as well as in receiving an education.. And yet parents if they took it into their mind to contact a top researcher in any aspect of the learning, cognitive, or reading research, they are not too shy to speak openly about their work, seeking understanding and increasing knowledge. Compared to the top level educrats who work within the public education system, making their claims, but refuses to speak to the lone parent who took the trouble to get his contact numbers and addresses. I guess they are far too busy making profits on their books, consultations with the ministries of education, to speak to the lone parent on questions of their research work, to increase understanding and knowledge.
In the public education system, that is left for the low boys of the totem pole to implement policy and theories of the top level educrats. They just create, without the worry about the outcomes. Everything is about the process, and forcing people to adapt to the new decrees. Much like Steven has stated, more Marxian drek to be spread among the students, the parents and the communities.
excellent post-I still feel bad we aren`t talking about alternative schools and how to save them but maybe it`s more about every child succeeding..
My son went to a school in Grade 7 in the U.S.-It was extremely sad-it was and has been a life saver-5 grade improvements in one year.It was there that I asked the question,with 3 private assessments and all kinds of teachers working with him,”what did you do that made the discernible difference.”
I can assure you it`s the difference between light and darkness,between success and failure,between employment and unemployment.
Shameful-my friend Dr.Linda Seigel recently tried to influence the BC GOV on their early learning instruction-the reading war is so real,I can`t tell you.
We weren’t born yesterday Doug. When groups get money from the government there’s always backback for the government (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
Personally,I will save my compassion for the parents and their children and then the province that has a 50% illiteracy problem.
Educrats need to deliver results rather than pontificate and eat money.
LET ME SEE?
#1 IN THE WORLD IN READING BY 15 YEAR OLDS (OECD PISA)
HIGHEST RATE OF POSTSECONDARY GRADUATION ON EARTH (STATSCAN)
INTRODUCING ALL DAY JK-SK THE MOST IMPORTANT ROI INVESTMENT POSSIBLE
NOT BAD
IT IS HARD TO BE BETTER THAN #1 BUT WE SHOULD KEEP TRYING
WE NEED FURTHER CUTS TO CLASS SIZE, RAPID GROWTH OF ELP, FINLAND STYLE TEACHER TRAINING AND WE WILL LEAVE ALL OTHERS IN THE DUST.
NOBODY CARES ABOUT ANECDOTAL STORIES. THEY PROVE NOTHING.
IN THE WORLD’S BEST HOSPITALS PEOPLE DIE
THE WORLD’S BEST LAW FIRMS LOSE CASES
NOBODY HAS OR WILL EVER HAVE, AN EDUCATION SYSTEM THAT PLEASES EVERYBODY. BEING THE BEST IS ALL WE CAN ACHIEVE.
Further to my last post – an article in the Flypaper, called The Seuss Bigotry of Low Expectations?
http://www.educationgadfly.net/flypaper/2011/06/the-seuss-bigotry-of-low-expectations/
Most troubling to me, teaching practices like the one describe in the article, will not close the learning gaps, nor will this type of practice be able to reach the full potential of each student. Unless it is the perfect student of the progressive movement that matches the dogma and ideology. of Dewey-speak.
“Students that deserve to stretch to their fullest potential, no matter the cards dealt with at birth. Nor can we pretend that the Sams of the world can magically access these complicated texts.”
But Doug does believe in magic, because he thinks other professions like health and law operate in the very same way as the public education system. Sure glad they do not, and is based on the best practices model. Now why isn’t the school model based on the best practices model? Keep in mind, that the Dougs of the world are quite willing to ignore outcomes. and blame the individual. So not like the health and law sectors, where outcomes are just as important, if not more as the the methods used for the best possible outcomes, for patients and clients.
Let me see my last post was 100% about the world’s best outcomes that are found in, wait for it, Canada.
Poor students arrive at the first day of kindergarten miles behind middle class kids and never really catch up. There are many things we can do to close the gap but rule #1 of the reform movement, since it is conservative is that you cannot spend money.
The Nova Scotia (BIg -c ) conservatives have spent pots of money on public education and monster school projects and renovations to existing schools. It has been the NDP who stepped up to the plate and realized the need for cuts and caution.
To put it bluntly Doug, poverty – however it is defined has a presence in all of society and is never black and white. I have seen amazing things happen in a small rural community school for those so called “poor kids” who you say never really catch up. I have seen a principal work miracles with students while so called multi-tasking in a facility considered antiquated and out of touch with progressivism.
I have seen them use phonics, leave the manuals on the shelf and work around the endless surveys heaped upon them from the school boards, and utilize the NS university system for special arts related projects which only enrichen the experiences of all students rich and poor.
However, where I live those days are coming to an end. So be it, the mountain is much to big for small communities at this point in time. In my estimation public education is on the verge of a serious crisis in NS and is in need of a structural change to meet the future; before the future meets public education head on. The Levin report did address many of the components in need of repair and in some cases the need for cuts.
Personally, (I realize that term infuriates you) education seems to me not just a passage in a young persons life but a unique experience connecting students, parents, teachers, community, and yes I will admit it, even in some way educrats ( by that I mean the system). There are victories and unfortunatly sad and tragic losses. The issue of bullying will haunt us continually unless we change. This forum has provided insight into the range of evidence and reason necessary to comprehend those issues and perhaps even in a small way foster change for the better – for the field of public education and especially for children.
Do we need alternatives? Absolutely. UNESCO is doing its part to create awareness and provide those alternatives as we speak. I am not alone in being emphatic – Rule #1 of the reform movement is not about money it is about putting “students first”.
Well said Steven, and the bigger provinces should duly note the crisis in their own backyard concerning the structure of the public education system.
Well written, Steven
“In my estimation public education is on the verge of a serious crisis in NS…..”
You’re not alone by any stretch. Public education is unsustainable the way it is.
“I have seen them use phonics, leave the manuals on the shelf and work around the endless surveys heaped upon them from the school boards, ” – We’ve had that experience with terrific teachers also.
The denial that poverty is the overwhelming factor in education success has a Flat Earth Society ring to it. The shapest minds in the reform movement don’t attempt to deny it, they just say their prescriptions can close the gap faster. They are wrong.
Class size reductions, ELP, Finland style teacher prep, respect for teachers, within schools and poverty reduction strategies outside of schools are the way forward.
More confirmation, the stronger a state’s teachers’ union the better the student’s results. The weaker a state’s teacher’s union, the weaker the student’s results.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-teachers-20110615,0,7804604.story
Time to give teachers’ unions more power to fix education.
Boy does Canada ever look good on these charts. I am so proud of Canada as a world leader in education.
http://mat.usc.edu/u-s-education-versus-the-world-infographic/
The literacy rate of Canada, being almost 99% in 2003, has declined, and will be under world’s average literacy rates for adults in the next two decades, depending on the rate of declining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy