The Students First movement has now spread to Canada and taken on a decidedly different form. On March 28, 2011, concerned parents and citizens from across Nova Scotia gathered at a Public Forum in Halifax and released a bold declaration of principles, entitled “Students First Nova Scotia.” Drafted by a group of 16 Nova Scotians, the Declaration proclaims that “students should come first” in education, not “adults in the system.” It calls upon concerned citizens to rally behind a reform agenda exhorting education authorities to “elevate teaching, empower parents, raise standards, and spend wisely.”
Few of the Nova Scotia movement’s founders are motivated by Michelle Rhee’s American crusade. It has arisen out of a different set of conditions and owes more to the Edmonton model of “school-based management” and the Alberta model of “school choice” within public education than to the wild and wacky world of American education reform. With other OECD nations looking to Alberta for their reform ideas, the Nova Scotians are simply following suit.
The Declaration was introduced by four public school parents, Steven Rhude of Lunenburg, Catherine Levy of Choice Words Group, HRM, Peggy Chisholm of Fall River, and Rhonda Brown of Hammonds Plains. “It’s about time we put students first, and that’s why I am stepping forward,” says Chisholm of Fall River, one of the founding group members. “We need a system that is more flexible and adaptive to the needs of every student,” declared Levy. “Putting students first,” Rhude stated, ” means preserving community schools, like ours, the historic Lunenburg Academy.”
The Public Forum on “Putting Students First in Education,” sponsored by the Schoolhouse Institute and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studues (AIMS), attracted concerned parents and educators from across Nova Scotia. Michael Zwaagstra, author of What’s Wrong with our Schools.. And How can we Fix Them? was the featured speaker and he shared the platform with a reaction panel of prominent citizens and parent activists, including Doretta Wilson (Society for Quality Education, Toronto), Charles Cirtwill (President of AIMS), and Denise Delorey (Save Community Schools, Antigonish)
The Public Forum is now online and can be viewed at: http://live.haligonia.ca/halifax-ns/community/19384-putting-students-first-in-education.html
The emerging Nova Scotia school reform movement reminds me so much of the excitement generated in the early 1990s in Ontario by an earlier generation of determined reformers. Toronto Globe and Mail education columnist, Andrew Nikiforuk and his widely-read “Fifth Column” was a major catalyst. The founder of OQE/SQE, Malkin Dare, was there from the beginning, raising alarm bells about Whole Language and putting “quality education” on the public agenda. Those were heady times when the Coalition for Education Reform could fill Toronto’s Metro Hall and turn out booklets that called the entire Ontario system to account. That led to Dr. Joe Freedman’s national campaign for the restoration of standardized testing and the introduvction of Charter Schools in Alberta.
School reform in Canada seems to go in cycles and it is not really connected with such movements elsewhere. The “old progressives” continue to promote student-centred education, safely ensconced in provincial ministries, school boards, faculties of education, and teacher unions. When new accounability reforms are introduced, they can be quite effective in appropriating them and turning them to different purposes. “Lower the hurdles” provincial testing, “guaranteed pass” policies, and system-wide student reports are prime examples of ther remarkable capacity to “dumb-down” the whole system. Raising standards and promoting parent engagement, it seems, is never a cause that goes away.
The Students First movement is merely the latest example of school reform activism. Students First Nova Scotia plans to begin the process of formally establishing itself as an independent voice in Nova Scotia public education. Parents and citizens across the province will be invited to sign the declaration and join the fledgling movement for school reform. http://www.aims.ca/site/media/aims/StudentsFirstNS%20principles.doc
The rise of Students First Nova Scotia raises a few critical questions: : What causes school reform movements to arise in Canada’s provinces? How important is leadership, an entrenched, ossified school system, grassroots support, and a coherent set of reform ideas? Why do some reform groups like Society for Quality Education and People for Education survive, while others fall by the wayside? What lessons can be learned that might ensure the success of today’s reform initiatives?
The “Students First” Movement: Why is the NS Initiative Gaining Momentum?
______________________________________________
Science.
Wherever there’s a vacuum something is gonna fill it. 😉
Or economics – the Law of Supply and Demand
Movements like this grow simply because there is indeed concern by parents, educators and taxpayers that education has become an out of control monster which has no accountability to the taxpayers. The funding increases in education while enrollment is going in the opposite direction.
It was certainly telling that five educrats from the department of education showed up to observe. The president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union showed up, advocating everything is fine as expected . The “feel good” spin commercials the NSTU puts on TV and the website for schools that allows nothing but praise shows that there are people living in a fantasy in the province.
The choice I see expressed by young people, especially in rural Nova Scotia, for careers post graduation are two things . Go to university and or leave the province. The combination of increasing taxes and little to look forward to for economic opportunities creates this mind set. Until school boards , government departments and other big spenders (using mostly borrowed money or equalization transfers) wake up and stop wasting our money, we are surely damned to a fall of an economic cliff.
The president of the NSTU stated that education is only 9 percent of the provincial budget, yet you do not see the department of finance, energy or others start PR campaign to fight sound financial cuts !!!! What the educrats have to start doing is listen to the population and business people who know how to make a profit or save dollars. We have to start exercising restaint and buying propaganda ads for the NSTU while they seek another billion dollar pension bailout is not living within our means
What causes school reform movements to arise in Canada’s provinces?
1. Dissatisfaction
2. Not meeting the learning needs of parents’ children
3. Curriculum and ideology present in the public education system
4. Not providing the skills and abilities for students, that are essential to navigate work and life in adulthood.
There is more than the general four that I put down, but the term school reform has been more or less co-opted by the educrats, as I have discovered putting the same words in the search engine. In one paper called, The Origins of Educational Reform, it is based on: “The term ‘reform’ can be used in a variety of ways. 5 For purposes of this paper we use it to mean programs of educational change that are government-directed and initiated based on an overtly political analysis (that is, one driven by the political apparatus of government rather than by educators or bureaucrats), and justified on the basis of the need for a very substantial break from current practice. ”
http://umanitoba.ca/publications/cjeap/articles/younglevin.html
The above links shows clearly how ideology influences school reform movements, especially in the types of school reforms inside the public education system. Another paper written by an educrat, with Fullan, the king of the educrats is feature on school reform, is another type praising the direction of reform in the typical dogma of romantic progressivism. How I wished this was the case, teachers getting together to talk about students individual’s learning needs based on common sense and the science, rather than what is presently being done, using progressive teaching methods that makes many students masters of non-knowledge.
Click to access 069-085.pdf
Not all school reform papers are made of the two links above, but offers a rarity among the educrats’ papers on school reform. This one is called, ‘Beyond School Reform’, by the Canadian Prinicpals Association. “Why have many of these lengthy and expensive reform initiatives generally failed? There are many answers to this question. Sometimes the failure has been a result of overly ambitious expectations about what can be changed and the time required to bring about change. Sometimes the failure has been attributed to the confused and complex strategies reformers have used to change schools. Sometimes, the failure has been one of implementation and the political negotiations that reduce the impact of particular reforms.”
Click to access Vol11-1-Flemingarticle.pdf
I had no idea, some prinicpals are thinking along this line, judging from my own observations and experiences, prinicipals were for the most part defending current approaches, to denied my child of reading and writing services that are not based on progressive methods. But it is good to read school reform on the other side, if for the only thing to confirmed why parents are dissatisified with public education.
As I was saying, it is important to know all sides of education, and in particular where the public education educrats are standing. I often say one just has to take a look at SE education, and how the basic reading, writing and numeracy services are handled. These students are denied the correct help based on the science, and even if they did get the correct help, the service is pulled as soon as there is improvement, and any gains that have been made are lost. Common sense? No. Mishandling of resources and funds? Yes, but even here the educrats uses the mishandling of resources and funds in SE for purposes of ideology and inserting progressive methods of their own, rather than methods based on the research and science. As a parent, and a great many other parents who succeeded to get the correct help for their children, only to have it pulled after 10 hours of instruction based on subjective observations of the school staff, rather than testing the targeted weaknesses of the students, to confirm if a child should continue with the help or have the program pulled. Meanwhile, how many SE children stayed in programs that is of a progressive nature, for many years? One doesn’t know in Canada, because the educrats are hiding their own stats from the public, because it would show how SE funding is used to keep most SE children from reaching their potential.
From the LD Experience blog, a Canadian one, a parent who started the blog speaks about LD and for the most part she mad as hell and is not going to take it anymore. Her next 10 points are below and is her feelings as a parent. As you are reading her 10 points, keep in mind that this could applied to any parent, and not just the LD parents. It is important for Student’s First in Nova Scotia, to ensure a long lasting life, to keep their focus on parents and children, and not through the eyes of the heavily censored public education system. The 10 points below are often mocked by the educrats, because they certainly showed the disrespect for the science of learning.
“I must confess that I feel the same way about how little everyone knows about learning disabilities. I’m mad as hell. Why am I mad? What are some of my feelings?
1. I feel for and empathize with the many parents who lay awake at night and panic that their child, who is struggling with reading and writing, will be unemployable as an adult.
2. I feel for the parents who worry that their child is becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol as they self medicate to dull the pain of being “failures.”
3. I am concerned about the children who are drinking or doing drugs as they self medicate their unrecognized and undiagnosed ADHD.
4. I am perplexed about how, in this information age, with so much knowledge at our disposal that our new teachers emerge from pre-service training with little to no practical instruction on how to identify and program for students with learning disabilities.
5. I am incredulous that so few of our medical professionals are truly knowledgeable about the early warning signs of learning disabilities, and therefore miss amazing opportunities to provide support at the earliest possible stage.
6. I worry about the 8 year old child, and 9 year old, and 10 year old and so on who are now actively thinking that suicide is a viable option because they are “stupid.” They are not stupid and suicide should never be an option.
7. I am intolerant of the “wait to fail” mentality that assaults the self esteem of many of our children with learning disabilities before the system rallies to provide them with support – if in fact that system ever provides the necessary support.
8. I maintain some level of anger that my son may have been helped far earlier than he was, if we AND THE SYSTEM had identified his learning disabilities earlier. I wish we had the same level of awareness then as we do now. I am sad for the misery our son endured as he struggled knowing that he was different.
9. I have empathy for the daily struggles that children and adults face who live with learning disabilities.
10. I am frustrated because there is so much that we can do to intervene and support people with learning disabilities to maximize their human potential and that the lack of awareness means that people who need help are not getting help. ”
http://www.ldexperience.ca/archives/400
It’s a matter of trust and eventually lack of it that leads to discontentment. Students, parents, communities, post-secondaries, employers, teachers can all look back and identify issues where a trust was broken by one of the links of the public education chain.
The system continues to claim it can educate all students, yet by those who slip through the cracks or who the system labels and identifies as being unable to learn see a broken trust.
When trustees spend more time rubber-stamping MOE and board admin. directives and the education community sees that often enough, trust is lost because trustees can no longer guarantee local interest or that decisions be reflective of their localities.
When the system says that students learn in a safe environment and a child dies at the hands of bullies or gunfire, trust is lost in the system.
When Sunshine lists showing that a glut of those employed within the system (Ontario) are earning over $100K a year to teach, and manage fewer and fewer students…..trust is lost because it just doesn’t add up.
When teacher unions claim to be in it for the students and then hold those same students hostage through strikes and job actions…trust is lost.
When the role of parents to assert themselves as partners in the public education system is thwarted by territorial administrations who keep parents fundraising instead of doing what the legislation for School Councils says…trust is lost.
It’s happened over time, with different provinces going through it differently but the reasons are pretty much the same.
The blob has to be challenged in a two-pronged approach. One from the bottom-up and the other from the top-down.
Both need to happen to have lasting impact and to regain that trust that’s been lost.
Romantic progressivism is still alive and kicking — at The Toronto Star. Over the past week, Rick Salutin has produced a major series of features in defence of public education. It will be music to the ears of Dr. Ben Levin and those who have earned an international reputation praising the Ontario system.
Salutin’s “April Fool’s Day” article is sure to stir the juices:
http://www.thestar.com/printarticle/967443
Provincial testing is here to stay, but you would never know it reading Salutin’s latest offering. As a former Torontonian, I can assure you that Rick hasn’t advanced in his thinking in years. He’s opposed standardized testing since the 1970s, when the entire system was still recovering from that destructive Hall-Dennis experiment.
Never underestimate those “old progressives.” They can still comandeer column inches in Canada’s largest circulation newspaper.
Yes, even revising history a tad bit, to suit his purposes in the defense of progressivism.
“Those who were caught in Upper Canada following the 1837 revolts were put on trial, with most being found guilty of insurrection against the Crown. However, these persons were not so convicted because their views aligned with the liberalism of the United States, and thus caused some kind of offence to the Tory values of the Canadian colonies. Rather, as revealed in the ruling of Chief Justice Sir John Robinson, a Lockean justification was given for the prisoners’ condemnation, and not a Burkean one: the Crown, as protector of the lives, liberty, and prosperity of its subjects could “legitimately demand allegiance to its authority.” Robinson went on to say that those who preferred republicanism over monarchism were free to emigrate, and thus the participants in the uprisings were guilty of treason.[1]
After the rebellions died down, more moderate reformers, such as the political partners Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, gained credibility as an alternative voice to the radicals. They proved to be influential when the British government sent Lord Durham, a prominent British reformer, to investigate the cause of the troubles. Among the recommendations in his report was the establishment of responsible government for the colonies, one of the rebels’ original demands. Durham also recommended the merging of Upper and Lower Canada into a single political unit, which became the nucleus for modern-day Canada. More controversially, he recommended the government-sponsored assimilation of French Canadians to the English language and culture.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellions_of_1837
It was a bit more complicated, since the English crown at the time so dear loved to keep citizens in their colonies underneath their thumb screws.
As Salutin puts it, “In the U.S., Founding Fathers like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson also supported public education for moral and civic ends, not just or even mainly for academic skills. In 1830 a Pennsylvania committee warned that poor and working children should get more than “a simple acquaintance with words and ciphers;” they should also acquire “a just disposition, virtuous habits and a rational, self-governing character” — what we now think of as character education or a citizenship agenda. As late as the 1930s, philosopher John Dewey said it was important not just to know how to read, but how to distinguish between the “demagogue and the statesman.”
In fact, in the old days, there was probably less emphasis on the basics than there is now. Put another way, the basics didn’t used to be so basic.”
Salutin really should be put in a room with parents who have been put through the winger by the public education system, and the same parents who took measures in their own hands to ensure that their children had a firm foundation with the essential skills and abilities to navigate in adulthood. Plus he should read history, and in particular history of education, and the textbooks. There is no such thing as character education in our schools, because any bad behaviour is met with understanding and empathy, but there is no consequences for the bad behaviour. At least in the old days, bad behaviour had consequences. According to my late father, it build character.
His kind of testing, “. An Australian evaluation asked kids: Are there political causes worth fighting for? What a great question to judge whether a school successfully “taught” a sense of civic responsibility. In fact, the current fixation on “measurables” to the exclusion of everything else starts to look like an aberration from the long-term trend.”
Another opinion question, that progressive educators love to asked, but it still does not tell if a student has the knowledge needed to make an opinion. Hence, if one student wrote about saving the seals, and how citizens can get involve, and another student wrote about the lost and erosion of freedoms and rights – it is not hard to figure it out that the latter would get a lower grade, than the one that wrote about saving the seals.
There are times I feel that NS still acts like a colony.
Congratulations on a successful kick off. Good luck dealing with the power structure.
The kick off was great! Feeling today as if we have a long way to go. Headlines here are bullying deaths, wrestling at the movies making fun of the mentally I’ll and some kind of homemade bombs in our communities I don’t know if there’s something in the water, or what is going on.
The bar needs to raised in all areas.
Students First Nova Scotia is quickly defining itself as a relevent and emerging organization, addressing the serious need for reform in NS public schools.
This is a time when public education will have no alternative but to engage students, parents, and community beyond the mentality of “just fundraise folks, and leave the rest to us”, because the collapse of centralization is apparent all over the province.
The big box well is dry and alternatives need to be explored not only in curiculum, social promotion, literacy, etc., but in the way we establish our standards – not just “attainment of those standards”.
What better time than now to engage the community when NS has reached a point of decision.
Interesting panel discussion on education – Information Morning.
You will find you eventually have to get very specific on policy. Then the fun starts.
Generalizations are the easy part. Check out the “national standards” debate in the USA where national standards traditionalists fight states rights traditionalists.
Do you support the public education system or vouchers? Vouchers are usually very unpopular as are ta cuts for private schools.
Do you support teachers right to collective bargaining or not? They will want to know.
Do you support the democratic rights of school boards and the legislature to make education policy?
Do you support failing students in grade 3 and retaining them?
How much funding is enough for special ed?
What kind of teacher evaluation do you support?
Strange list for parents, Doug, that follows in the same format as in the MOEs or the union. I would suspect a group would have a list that is missing in today’s public education system.
Accountability would be the big one. I never saw sense in wasting resources and money, only for the parent to be paying for private tutor services. It have never made sense to me, pulling children off specialized remediation, with assessing using some type of standard testing, if improvement has been made in the target areas. It never made sense, for school boards or MOEs not to provide a comprehensive list of services and programs that are provided for the SE population.
Curriculum is another big issue, that accounts in part for the many students who are struggling, when higher knowledge is presented first, before the basic knowledge. As I had discovered in rewriting my child’s notes in the early days, one has to be an excellent reader, to sort out the lower knowledge needed to understand the higher level of knowledge. Instruction methods, is another issue, tied in with curriculum which are both tied in with teacher training. Bring in the science, with a touch of common sense, and dump the progressive idea of child-center policies, allowing the child to dictate his own potential. I heard it far too many times with my youngest, who had the negative track reinforce daily, that she was not school smart, and that is putting it nicely.
Transparency is another big one, that needs to be addressed at all levels of the public education system. I remember watching the forum video, where Michael Zwaagstra, spoke of the three binders in behind the principal’s desk. The go-to-books for all principals to solve their management problems at the school level, and still be in the good books with the board. Also comes in handy, for problem parents who are a bit more savvy in the legal and rights contexts, advocating for their child. I have had the 3 binders thrown at me from time to time, and the most memorable occasion, was when I requested to look at my child’s school file. As the principal stated, I could only look at one paper at a time, to be handed back to the principal, and only papers that the principal selected, according to regulations and rules. Transparent? No, but than when there is no transparency in the first place, that claims to be operating in an democratic fashion, I wonder why the principal and the board, got so upset with me, because I told the top level of the MOE, what was occurring. And even here, the MOE could only chew them out for not following the spirit of the MOE, because boards can make up their own rules.
Democratic, not in my eyes, nor in my child’s eyes, when I sat down with her and taught her the different types of governments, and how they are governed, since there is little in the curriculum on this topic. After about a week or so, she concluded on her own that democracy principles are sadly lacking from her school, and the board, based on her new found knowledge and her experiences. If the adults within the public education, spend their energies addressing the learning needs of children, and the individual’s learning needs, and not using all their energies to find ways to denied services, and create excuses, the public education system would be a place where democratic principles are transparent to all, including the children.
With all of our faults, it is amazing that we still rank #2 or 3 in the entire world on PISA. The only contries that do better are Finland with a child poverty rate of 4% and Korea, educationally obsessed with long hours and tutorial centres after that.
Lets adapt a lot of reforms like charters, vouchers, merit pay, union bashing, testing mania, and so on from the USA, they must be doing very well.
Oooops they are #19. I guess we have nothing to learn from them after all.
Which “version” of PISA scores would that be?
The same one as the president of the NSTU?
The school boards fail spectacularly in the early grades;after that,the fact that 40-50 percent of students never got the foundation causes undue harm in the years to come and the pain and stress on students and parents is incalculable,let alone the stress on the school board itself to keep pushing these kids ahead.Then,society at large gets it with a 42 % adult illiteracy rate in Canada and remedial classrooms at University to help the students do work-they were never taught how unless they had a paid tutor or teacher parent like Nancy.
My list is as follows:
Teach the children to read,spell and write according to the empirical research-do not let the FOE set the tone,the MOE has to demand a change away from whole language and Balanced Literacy,same thing as whole language cloaked in new words.
Teach the children basic arithmetic so they can do well in mathematics later on-dump fuzzy math for explicit systematic instruction in basic functions.
Train teachers differently-train them in pedagogy not just in behaviour management and increase their practicums in the classrooms-like nurses are trained.Two year course at least.
Let teachers do Direct Instruction-teach them how to prepare content lessons in subject matter so students learn and give students small tests every 2-4 weeks based on the teacher`s curriculum to review their knowledge.
To what most teachers see in the classroom,nothing succeeds like success,misbehaviour is greatly reduced when success is happening.
Continue the provincial testing and keep the pressure on school boards and teachers.
Every child who is struggling should be in after school reading intervention classes 2 days a week from K-grade 3.
If the Union won`t allow it,the school has to hire and pay other tutors-this is their job,or give parents vouchers so they can access reading and writing intervention through reading specialists trained in Orton Gillingham,anything else may miss the mark but this will help ALL the strugglers,no matter the variance of the reading and spelling struggle..
There are lots of stories in NS lately in reaction to the recent teen suicides that were reported to be the result of bullying ,both on lone and in school. Today’s Chronicle herald has an article that starts out like this,
Canaries singing bravely in a coal mine — that’s how one teacher sees bullied kids.
“They’re reaching out for help,” said the veteran teacher during a recent telephone interview from his home in the Halifax area. After more than 30 years of teaching at junior high schools in Nova Scotia, he didn’t want to be identified.
After 30 years of teaching, this teacher is willing to call the paper to give some insight on the bullyin subject, but is not willing to give their name. 30 years of seeing all kinds of things, I’m sure and just now willing to speak without identifying themselves. I am hoping more and more teachers will begin to speak up and join the Students First movement. I hope they will be willing to put their signature on the dotted line to say “Enough is Enough! Let us teach, let us be excellant, let us volunteer if we want and be acknowleged for it, let us hold students accountable for their actions when we need to, Let us do out job!”
How many deaths of students would it take to actually give the teachers the courage to stand up and speak? Goes to show you how reluctant they are right now. This has to change.
The school boards will find a way to get rid of any teacher who speaks out and the NSTU will stand on the sidelines and watch it happen.
In reference to Doug’s comments: “With all of our faults, it is amazing that we still rank #2 or 3 in the entire world on PISA. The only countries that do better are Finland with a child poverty rate of 4% and Korea, educationally obsessed with long hours and tutorial centres after that. ”
The educrat in Doug, and like other educrats trots out the PISA rankings to be used as proof positive that there is no need for serious changes in the public education system. The educrats also used the PISA rankings, as the base to asked for more money, to be poured into the dark holes of the education system, to firmly entrenched and widen the fault lines of the public education system.
No one should be impress with PISA, since their are testing the knowledge of 15 year old students, based up to grade 8 knowledge on the participating countries. The same participating countries, having different governance structure, different education systems, different cultures, and differing goals, to arrived at a test designed to test the common curriculum outcomes of the participating countries.
Below is a quote cited by PISA:
“Although specific knowledge acquisition is important in school learning, the application of that knowledge
in adult life depends crucially on the acquisition of broader concepts and skills. In reading, the capacity to
develop interpretations of written material and to reflect on the content and qualities of text are central skills.
In mathematics, being able to reason quantitatively and to represent relationships or dependencies is more
relevant than the ability to answer familiar textbook questions when it comes to deploying mathematical
skills in everyday life. In science, having specific knowledge, such as the names of plants and animals, is of
less value than understanding broad topics such as energy consumption, biodiversity and human health in
thinking about the issues under debate in the adult community.”
Click to access 44455820.pdf
Everyone should be questioning PISA, especially when PISA is designed on the skills that are needed for young adulthood, and yet our educrats would lead parents to believed that PISA is the hallmark of well-educated students. “Emphasis is on the mastery of processes, the understanding of concepts and the ability to
function in various situations within each domain.”
Translation, the correct answers are not important, but rather the content of the answers. No one has to wonder why there is a growth industry in remedial reading, writing and numeracy after grade 12 graduation. The real world, depends on correct answers, and do not much care about the process to arrive at the answer. But in the public education systems of Canada, the processes are more important than the ability of students to become accomplished in reading, writing and numeracy. In turned, the cycle of low literacy skills, is repeated year after year, to keep the current levels of literacy in this country. Also cited by StatsCanada for the 2009 PISA results.
“The 2009 PISA results revealed that Canadian 15-year olds have relatively strong sets of skills in reading, mathematics and sciences. That Canada’s youth is equipped with a high skill level is an encouraging sign for the country’s future economic prosperity. However, although Canadian results remained statistically similar between 2000 and 2009, its relative ranking declined in all domains. This decline is attributable to improvements in other countries’ performance and the introduction of new countries to PISA 2009 that had high performance. In reading, the major domain of PISA 2009, Canadian results also indicate a decrease in the proportion of high achievers between 2000 and 2009. In a global economy, this decrease may be one indication of potential loss of future competitiveness.
Although Canada’s performance over time was not significantly different, several provinces experienced significant declines in their 15-year olds’ skill levels, mostly in reading and in mathematics. In addition, over the same time period, there was not a significant increase in performance in the three domains in any province. The results also identified gender differences in performance as well as specific groups of 15-year olds who had significantly lower skill levels. Females continued to outperform males in reading, and males outperform females in mathematics and science although the gender gap is less pronounced in these two domains. Additionally, 15-year olds attending minority-language school systems tended to perform lower than those attending majority-language school systems in all three domains.”
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-590-x/2010001/conclusion-eng.htm
Doug and the rest of educrats, would have parents to believe otherwise, that everything is good with the education of our youth. Significant declines in reading and math for some provinces, and where there has been NO significant increase in standings since the year 2000, for all of Canada. The PISA standings for Canada has not change since the year 2000, and one would have to question all the money being targeted at literacy and numeracy in our public education systems, that is based mostly on progressive methods, that is repeating the gaps between rural/urban students, genders, social-economic status, minority students, SE students, and the other inequities within the Canadian public education system.
“Canaries singing bravely in a coal mine ” , I too found the article typical of teachers immerse in progressivism. Empathy the new buzz word. “The teacher said that in his experience, most bullies come from a home where they’ve never been taught about empathy.
“They really don’t comprehend the effect they’re having, but sometimes they do and they just don’t care.”
Teachers are hamstrung by regulations governing what they can do in response to bullying in school and by parents who either defend their children’s actions or don’t recognize the actions constitute bullying.
“I can’t speak for all schools, but I can say that I have never seen a school that did not take the problem of bullying seriously,” he said”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1236912.html
Typical, because it lays blame on the outer society, and repeats the myth of school taking bullying seriously. If they did, the suicide rate of the youth would actually be decreasing, somewhat. What stops a teacher from calling out bad behaviour no matter who is the student? As one can see, the educrats have their excuses, that excuses bad behaviour using bully policies that reinforces and repeats the cycle of bullies and victims. There is no heavy consequences for bad behaviour, and students learned this in the primary grades, when the only requirement is to say an insincere apology at the end of the day. As Peggy has stated, ” I hope they will be willing to put their signature on the dotted line to say “Enough is Enough! Let us teach, let us be excellent, let us volunteer if we want and be acknowledged for it, let us hold students accountable for their actions when we need to, Let us do out job!”
How many deaths of students would it take to actually give the teachers the courage to stand up and speak? Goes to show you how reluctant they are right now. This has to change.”
Why this teacher chose to remain nameless, in an article that does not run counter to anything on school sites, department of education and school board sites, is a mystery only to the teacher. But I am sure, the teacher preferred to remain nameless, because he or she did not want to hear from the parents of children who are the victims of bullying. The cry from this set of parents, is loud and clear, but goes unheard within the education system. The parents would have told the teacher, there is no immediate consequences for children and bad behaviour.
Teachers will not join the movement if it becomes a teacher bashing movement. You cannot have it both ways. Teachers consider “increased accountability” “attempts to weed out bad teachers” “teacher testing” etc to all be motivated by the same “we do not trust the teachers” mentality.
If you project that mentality, you will only have cranky parents and right wing activists as a base. Not enough.
Doug, part of the problem and it is a big problem is the educrats who take it upon themselves to considered criticism of any part of the education system, teacher bashing. Educrats scream out teacher bashing, as a ploy to avoid accountability for the education of these children. In your eyes, Doug and in a great many eyes of educrats, excuses are made, blaming it on a host of outside variables that the school has no control of in the first place, but no place is blamed on the curriculum, the progressivism philosophy, the social engineering that is interwoven in the curriculum, that speaks more of utopia, than anything based on reality, and the current attitude that only educators know what is best for children and their education.
Time is changing Doug, and for the rest of the educrats. Sooner, rather than later, the educrats are going to be held accountable when the stats are turned against the educrats. The final outcomes that are never followed within the public education system, but society pays for it dearly.
Below is one such example of a final outcome, relating to math in American colleges. From the SQE post:
“Here’s a most-telling quote from the article: “I polled members of an electronic mailing list I belong to, asking them whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: ‘To succeed at freshman mathematics at my college/university, it is important to have knowledge of and facility with basic arithmetic algorithms – for example, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and algebra (without having to rely on a calculator)’. I got 93 responses (we’re a small community), and they all agreed with the statement. One ex-dean wrote: ‘That it is even slightly in doubt is strong evidence of very distorted curriculum decisions’. A professor at the National University of Singapore wrote: ‘Without such a facility, no one gets to enter the university’…. From Germany, ‘What a question! The answer is, of course, yes!’ From Japan, ‘I thought it was a joke for you to have asked our opinion about such a self-evident truth.'”
Click to access ramblepublished.pdf
Canada has the same picture in math, as its American counterparts.
But while international tests say that our kids and our high schools are tops, there’s compelling evidence from universities and colleges that paints a very different picture. “[High-school] students have done math programs that are supposed to have prepared them for post-secondary,” says Memorial University mathematics and statistics professor Sherry Mantyka, “and they’re desperately not prepared.” Before students at Memorial can take a math credit course, they must take a math placement test; each year, 25 per cent to 50 per cent score at a Grade 6 level or lower. A study of more than 10,000 students who entered college in 2006 in the Toronto area showed that 35 per cent earned a D or an F in first-term college math.
And it’s not just math: at the University of Ottawa, to catch the large number of students falling behind and falling through the cracks, the administration in the last few years has felt it necessary to expand its student help centres and hire hundreds of student tutors. The University of Waterloo has first-year students write a five-paragraph essay, which is graded on grammar, punctuation and structure. Each year, roughly one-quarter fail. Waterloo is a university where admission is highly competitive, and generally awarded to only well-above-average high-school grads.
What’s going on? Are Canadian high-school students among the best prepared on earth—or are many shockingly unprepared for higher education? The answer is yes. And yes.”
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/11/17/ready-or-not/
Under the same link, “Other universities are similarly working to find their weak students and help them—and not just in math. The University of Ottawa has hired statisticians to track first-year-student test scores, early in the first term. If a student is deemed at risk, a faculty adviser calls and encourages them to take advantage of tutoring services offered at several sites around campus.
Others have responded differently. As of September, students can gain admittance to Alberta’s faculty of arts with either a Grade 12 math or science—they are no longer required to have both. Meanwhile, in British Columbia, the province still requires high-school students to write an English Grade 12 exit exam, but exams in other subjects are now optional.
So where does this leave Canada’s vaunted international performance? Why the apparent discrepancy between high-school and university performance?
For starters, a closer look at PISA shows that while Canada’s test results put its 15-year-olds among the world’s best, the Canadian lead over the rest of the world is in some cases not large. For example, in mathematics, Canadian students ranked seventh overall on the PISA, yet the distance between Canada and the next seven countries is so small that the difference may not be statistically significant. Canada’s seventh place may not be any better than Belgium’s 12th-place finish; still not bad but somewhat less impressive.”
Not only in math, as well in other foundational skills in reading and writing.
It is what Doug and the rest of the educrats considered teaching bashing, when parents and others focus on the outcomes and fault lines of the public education system. Probably number one reason, why teachers are banned from openly criticizing education policies, much like the health professionals are in criticizing health policies. Oops another student fall through the cracks of the public education system, but as an educrat would state, the public education system is blameless. Much like the over-priced CEOs of health systems, who are always quick to blame, rather than focusing their energies to correct the fault lines of a health system.
“
As you are reading the next link, keep in mind what happens to parents who are protesting, at the board level, or even at the school level.
“Grade 7 and 8 students at a west-end alternative school took an unusual field trip last week: They headed downtown to a protest hosted by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a notoriously confrontational activist group.
But to Demitra Zervas, principal of City View Alternative Senior School, there was nothing extraordinary about the outing; in fact, students at her school have been repeatedly exposed to OCAP’s ideology, even participating in volunteer placements with the militant anti-poverty organization.
Friday’s trip gave the school’s approximately five dozen elementary-age students -most of whom attended, but only with parental consent, Ms. Zervas said -a chance to observe first-hand OCAP’s “March on the McGuinty Government.” The protest, which began at Nathan Phillips Square, called upon the province to raise welfare and disability rates.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/graders+OCAP+field+trip/4565592/story.html
I really wonder what the priorities are of a public education system, who cannot tolerate criticism of education policies, and yet is a main contributing factor in not providing a firm education foundation, and helps to keep people trapped in the welfare system, by giving them lower levels of reading, writing, and numeracy compared to their counterparts. Even the PISA report, points this out, showing the relationship between SEC factors and literacy/numeracy skills. Demanding more money is not the answer, just like demanding raises to income support programs. when the policies are the problem, that must be corrected first, before determining amount of money. Or in the case of education, and the education arms, criticism is not tolerated from parents unless they are demanding more money and are parroting the same ideology as the education arms are.
Seems the students all had parents consent. The reform movement seems to want “alternatives” but only the alternatives of which they approve. Alternative education is a two edged sword.
For every traditional school that could emerge from “alternatives” there will be 50 “green, Deweyist, child-centred, crunchy granola” schools where people learn to ‘fight the man.’ Oh well.
Doug, missing my point again. The education system is often the ones peddling the questionable policies, to promote the the ‘ 50 “green, Deweyist, child-centred, crunchy granola” schools where people learn to ‘fight the man.’
And it is not a coincidence that a school board’s approval often rests on alternative schools that do not work actively and out in the open, criticizing the practices of the public education system. OCAP fits in nicely under the current practices of the education system, where the education system enjoys esteem favours with the OCAP group. Not hard to determined, when the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) provides a forum on the taxpayer’s dime. Too bad the OISE could not provide the same amount of energies addressing the role of public education it has played to reproduced the same patterns over and over again, in literacy and numeracy and how it influences the poverty and political cycles.
P-L-E-A-S-E, Nancy its strains credulity to say the school system sanctions OCAP.
What else can be said about OISE funded by education tax dollars, and in the end the taxpayer, for offering their facilities for meetings. Would OISE be that gracious in offering their facilities to a group that is openly hostile to the public education system? NOT!
http://update.ocap.ca/node/901
Going into the world of the OISE, leave common sense behind, where explicit instruction is actively discourage, and in its place, the Sociocultural Theory and Pedagogical Imperative actively promoted by an American educrat. The newest education babble hailing from the educrat researchers. Explicit instruction is not needed, when the learner should be constructing their own knowledge, by fine tuning their knowledge base, by talking and sharing with others using the base of their culture and values. And the educrats wonder why, some groups of children are at high risk for reading failure, and low achievement? Meanwhile, the successful and profitable tutor centres are about explicit instruction to obtain a firm foundation in reading, writing, and numeracy, and there is no fancy talk about sociocultural theory or any other edubabble that is part of the public education system. Real pity, a taxpayer would be hard press to find useful information that would help their child to succeed, and that is if the research is actually in the public realm, which often is not the case.
Michael Zwaagstra’s public talk and opinion colum is provioking quite a reaction. ONe of the most nonsensical comes from a Richard S. Mackinnion, Halifax resident schooled in the impenetrable language of “edubabble.”
The Edu-babbler strikes back at Zwaagstra in today’s Halifax Chronicle Herald (April 7, 2011) “Zwaagstra wrong about classrooms”
Mackinnon offers up this confused pile of mumbo-jumbo:
“His (Michael Zwaagstra’s) description of student-centred learning flies in the face of outcomes-based education, which everyone knows is the approach used across Canada. His description makes it seem as if students are allowed to make the decisions about what to learn and how to learn it, and that school boards promote this philosophy.
In fact, we all know that teachers are expected to make important decisions constantly about directing student learning toward the achievement of provincially-conceived learning outcomes.
Yes, those who can use “specialized education, skills, and understanding they have of their students,” and of the outcomes they want their students to achieve, do make important decisions about selecting appropriate learning activities for their students.
They prepare questions to redirect student thought when it seems to go in the wrong direction. They listen carefully and manage small and large group discussions to help students share ideas with each other, to argue and reason, and otherwise make sense of what knowledge they have constructed.
They help students to connect newly-constructed ideas to previous experiences, to refine and create better understandings. They help students to enunciate and apply strategies that will help when solving real problems.
They promote critical and reflective thinking and writing activities so that students can review their work on a constant basis, make connections, and express their understandings and misunderstandings of the concepts being explored.
Unlike Mr. Zwaagstra, some people call this student-centred learning because it puts the students’ needs at the centre of decisions the teachers need to make, so that students will have the best chance to achieve the prescribed learning outcomes.”
Comment:
Edu-babblers talk in circles and seem impervious to common sense. It sounds good, but what does it really mean? Thankfully, Educhatter is a veteran “edu-babble code breaker” able to penetrate the edu poppycock:
Authorized Translation:
Education has achieved the impossible. “Student-centred learning” has fused with “OBE/ Outcomes-Based Education” and now students are “empowered” in classrooms to aspire quite naturally with “teacher-faciliators” to achieve highly desirable “learning outcomes.”
Summation:
In short, Zwaagstra must be wrong because he expects students to actually know something worth knowing in the end. His message makes common sense, so– by definition– it is “wrong.”
Yes, and Dr. William Spady (Remember him?) haunts us still!
I am glad I was not the only one that found Mr. Mackinnon’s letter to the paper confusing. I read it twice and still wasn’t sure what his point was other than he disagreed with Mr. Zwaagstra. He did nothing in my opinion to refute any of what Mr Zwaagstra was saying, only went on about what he felt was happening (or should be).
Paul, I knew the writer meant well, but I went cross-eyed reading it. really shows you what our students are putting up with. We all just want some common sense these days.Is it really too much to ask? At least we have our Education Minister speaking clearly on the bullying issue here in NS. The adults have got to put the brakes on that one and I’m seeing it happen. Finally….finally.
So Nancy, you are wiser and know more about education than the accumulated wisdom at OISE? Interesting! I can’t understand why you are not on tour and charging higher speaking fees than Michael Fullan.
Students need to be taught, not prescribed to.
Dear Doug,Cognitive Psychology division at OISE believes children should be taught to read and spell using explicit systematic synthetic phonics.
I will not name anyone in this anecdote-I was there 2 summers ago to discuss the state of teacher training,the famous B.ED.at OISE-their research has shown what the NICHD research study and Rose Report and National Reading Panel have concluded.Actually,under Keith Stanovich,they were one of the NICHD sites.
I said,rush and tell the teacher preparation division at the University-they said”we did,they won`t listen”.I said then how about pressuring them to do it by telling the Ministry of Ed. about your findings.They said”that is just politics” and it will not be effective.
One can see that the Education departments prefer to eschew their opinions than honour research.The research must be gold standard,longitudinal and have a control group-what I mean by gold standard.It cannot honour every thesis,that`s not research.
Students First movements are direly needed.It`s ego first in the field of Education and hence the edubabble,you have the genesis of a very important movement,we`re all watching!
I spent the best part of my life in front of classrooms at all levels of education. Every good teacher knows that many methods have much to recommend them and constitute the yin and yang of good teaching.
As a history teacher, I found myself using direct instruction of all new concepts, new units, new ideas. This would be followed by Socratic discussion followed by homework reinforcement, followed by rediscussion of homwwork. At that point, something a bit more interactive would be introduced to solidify concepts. It might be seminars, panels, guests, films, fieldtrips, document work and so on. Students also needed to demonstrate what they knew with essays, call them ISU, culminating activities, essay+seminar defence, whatever.
To pull part of this out and say this only will never wash with teachers who consider it to be “extremist”.
90% of teachers teach in a similar balanced style.
Doug, one should question the edubabble especially the progressive theories that come down the hill from the educrats sitting in their ivory towers. It is the same edubabble that is doing great harm to children, especially the SE children. As Paul has pointed out in his last post, two other progressive policies, that are firmly entrenched in the public education system, that is filled with the edubabble of educrats. Outcome based education and student centered learning are two such beasts, that has created a profitable industry for the educrats, especially for the educrats at OISE.
“Student-centred learning, that is, putting students first, is in contrast to teacher-centred learning. Student-centred learning is focused on the student’s needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles with the teacher as a facilitator of learning. This classroom teaching method acknowledges student voice as central to the learning experience for every learner. Teacher-centred learning has the teacher at its centre in an active role and students in a passive, receptive role. Student-centred learning requires students to be active, responsible participants in their own learning.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student-centred_learning
“Outcome-based education is a model of education that rejects the traditional focus on what the school provides to students, in favor of making students demonstrate that they “know and are able to do” whatever the required outcomes are.
OBE reforms emphasize setting clear standards for observable, measurable outcomes. Nothing about OBE demands the adoption of any specific outcome. For example, many countries write their OBE standards so that they focus strictly on mathematics, language, science, and history, without ever referring to attitudes, social skills, or moral values.
The key features which may be used to judge if a system has implemented an outcomes-based education systems are:
Creation of a curriculum framework that outlines specific, measurable outcomes. The standards included in the frameworks are usually chosen through the area’s normal political process.
A commitment not only to provide an opportunity of education, but to require learning outcomes for advancement. Promotion to the next grade, a diploma, or other reward is granted upon achievement of the standards, while extra classes, repeating the year, or other consequences entail upon those who do not meet the standards.
Standards-based assessments that determines whether students have achieved the stated standard. Assessments may take any form, so long as the assessments actually measure whether the student knows the required information or can perform the required task.
A commitment that all students of all groups will ultimately reach the same minimum standards. Schools may not “give up” on unsuccessful students. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education
As a parent, with a LD child student-centered education has made her life difficult in the elementary grades. Since student-centred learning is focused on the student’s needs, abilities, interests, learning styles with the teacher as a facilitator of learning and the requirement of students being active responsible learners, does cause a whole host of problems for students who have weaker skills in reading, writing and numeracy. Who are active learners? The students who are strong in reading, writing, and numeracy. For my child, she was not focus enough, not paying attention, not participating, and a host of other reasons being generated by the teachers, because student-centered education, is centered around the idea that a student directs his own learning, based on their prior knowledge. At the end of Richard MacKinnon’s article he states, “Unlike Mr. Zwaagstra, some people call this student-centred learning because it puts the students’ needs at the centre of decisions the teachers need to make, so that students will have the best chance to achieve the prescribed learning outcomes.”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Letters/1237073.html
Translation for prescribed learning outcomes from a veteran parent’s experience. The goal of child-centered and outcome-based education, in the current education system, is to have students reached the minimum standards, and not the higher standards of reaching the full potential of each student. Drawing from my experience throughout the years, the present child-centered and outcome-based education, became a thorn in my side in reaching my goals as a parent, to have my child reach her potential despite her learning difficulties. It became a thorn, because child-centered education is only concern with the minimum levels in basic reading, writing, and numeracy that are needed to allow the child to construct their own knowledge base under the guidance of the teacher. In the case of my child, it was not knowledge that was her problem, but her weaker reading, writing and numeracy problems, that prevented her from taking an active role in her learning in the classroom setting.
” To implement a student-centred learning environment, attention must be given to the following aspects of learning:
What the child is curious about learning
Teaching strategies to accommodate individual needs: intellectual,emotional
Student’s social needs: collaboration, communication, peer approval
Because the focus is on individual students rather than whole class structures, teachers often offer choices and adaptations within lessons. This is a role teachers must be comfortable with if they are to implement a student-centred learning environment. To be considered a student-centred learning environment it will be open, dynamic, trusting, respectful, and promote children’s subjective as well as objective learning styles. Students may collaborate in hands-on problems and draw their own conclusions. This experiential learning involves the whole child — their emotions, thoughts, social skills, and intuition. The result is a person who is self confident and a critical thinker.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student-centred_learning
My major criticism of child-centered education, no concern with the quality and substance of knowledge at the end of the day. But as Doug, would have us believe everything is working just fine, with the leadership of such educrats in the OISE. Fullan, should be in a roomful of veteran parents to defend his theories of learning, against the veteran parents own common sense approaches on learning, education and other related cognitive learning. The smooth Fullan, with his fancy edubabble would have a hard time responding to the parents, citing the negative impacts of his fancy theories, without resorting to a favourite tactic used by the lower educrats, using edubabble to dismiss parents and common sense, as being too naive to understand his theories.
Since Doug, brought up Fullan. Here is a report on a school board, using Fullan’s theories and management model in action. Called, Case Study Report Keewatin-Patricia District School Board
Fullan was one of the co-editors of the report.
Click to access CaseStudyKeewatin.pdf
About half way through the report, after wading through the edubabble, the achievement results for years 2003 to 2005. Starting off as low as the students were in 2003, any type of targeted instruction, increased resources would have produce positive upward trends of achievement. Going on the EQAO site, for more up to date data, things have not change much since 2005, where one sees the typical 60-40 split in literacy and numeracy and is under the guidance of the new policies and theories being put by Fullan and the rest of the educrats.
https://eqaoweb.eqao.com/pbs/Listing.aspx
Why increase the amount of resources and funding, to reproduced the same achievement data year after year, since 2005. Because under Fullan, it generates more money, resources and staff that is needed to just to keep the 60-40 split. Not at all about what is best for each child, but it sure does keep the elite educrats rolling in the dough. What about the Board that was being study in the report? It appears they are doing their part following the elite educrats and their theories, and whatever offerings of the MEO. Take for example the on-lined math help, approved by the minister of education. From what I had viewed on fractions, apparently approved for the grade 7 to grade 12 crowd, one does not wonder why students in high school are doing so poorly in math. I have to admit, it is one of the worse on-lined help for math that I have come across in a long time. But one can see for themselves. http://www.oame.on.ca/CLIPS/
If the link does not work, go to this link, http://www.kpdsb.on.ca/numeracy/clips.html
The school board site, showing the typical educrats statements such as, “As we work in a time of rapid change from within a dramatically new information landscape, the best description of the 21st century teacher is Master Learner. ” Another edubabble term to sort out – Master Learner. http://www.kpdsb.on.ca/index.asp
As Steven, has stated: “Students need to be taught, not prescribed to.” But than again, common sense is not a strong point for the public education systems, if one is judging on the Math Clips, provided by the Ontario Ministry of Education. I judge this expenditure of money as wasteful, and a total waste of time for students who are struggling in math. The Kahn Academy, would be my pick – but alas it is not the kind of site that would be approved by a board, or a ministry of education, since it is free, and the developer makes math easy to understand, using time honour traditional approaches, in modern day lingo of students.
“A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We’re a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.
All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge. ”
http://www.khanacademy.org/about
Nancy,this is a board I have tried to convince to get and use the R+ explicit systematic synthetic phonics.
They use RR fanatically-and their scores are appalling.
When you question them on this they blame their poor results not on their instruction,RR failing to help the kids but on their population of a high number of First Nations children.
I know Fullan`s gang has been in there for many years.
Here is where I truly blame the government,no board should get away with these results year after year.
A similar board population and results in Alberta caused the Minister of Ed to fire all the administrative staff and trustees.
A fitting response to continuous failure and poor graduation results,if you can`t do it right,let`s see who can.
If the new NS group needs some policy advice, here are some very well worked out education reform proposals by experts in the field from every possible perspective, academics, teacher, admin, parents, etc.
http://www.boldapproach.org/
Bold Approach – another creation of educrats based on progressivism and the use of the forever changing whole language approach. Window dressing, for this bunch of educrats to obtain a portion of the billions of federal dollars that are up for grabs. Note Doug, no activity since 2009, but than again it is about smaller classes, health care, and the other SEC factors to have targeted money being spent only on low-income. Right up your alley, Doug, a dream come true and well suited for for your idealogical tastes where it is never the pedagogy, or the training of the educators, but always the SEC factors. Common sense would tell you, SEC factors plays a role, but what is never tested the pedagogical methods that are used in the classrooms. Whole language is one such approach, that should died a quick painful death, but the educrats need this approach because it widens the achievement gaps in the predictable split along SEC factors, to generate the reasons why there should be increases in funding and staff, despite the decreasing enrollment of students. Bold Approach is just another example of a long list that is created to divert funds from students to other educrats who are only interested to served their best interests, and not the students.
You can hold pedagogy or curriculum constant and everybody gets an education except the poor under ANY system.
KIPP just kicks out all the ones that need extra time or misbehave.
Take the most successful school in any province and the most unsuccessful school. Now switch the entire staff, teachers, TAs, caretakers, secretaries, principal and VP. Next year the very same school will come last again.
The problem is inside of the children and their environment, not inside the teachers, the pedagogy the curriculum, the admin or anyone else.
Not true-but keep providing excuses.
I’m not sure about that. In one particular school in one province in this great country of ours, my child was considered bad and in a different school in a different province, he was considered gifted. He was the same kid in both places. he achieved slightly better in the one where they saw him in a positive light, but the best thing that happened was that he started to believe in himself, which has manifested itself in him studying hard, not missing class because he wants to try for exemptions, hanging out with others kids also wanting the same type of things. It’s pretty huge. A certain amount of it lies within the student, but beating it out of them early on is such a sad thing.
And my lucky number is 747 which must mean something……check the time I posted this.
The problem is inside of the children and their enviornment, not inside the teachers…
————————————————————————
wow!
The people at http://www.boldapproach.org/ say that I am right. Have you seen the list?
I take my lessons from Dr.Reid Lyon,Linnea Ehri and Jo Torgesen-I could care less about bold approaches-
I also disagree with Ben Levin on how children learn to read.
The research is conclusive and exciting for children,why do you need to be right.
All people have to do is try it-and compare the results over a few years,they are indisputable and educators who care have no problem trying to do better-there is a difference-some just want to be right.
I decided to take a peek who is behind Teaching-Learning Critical Pathways and the Clips videos for enhance learning online, or can be downloaded unto CDs. Of course it comes to no great surprise that Fullan and the gang at the the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat.
Click to access teaching_learning.pdf
No doubt a profitable venture for Fullan charging boards for materials that are based on highly questionable science, but than the real goal is not higher achievement for students. If anything can confirm it is the current research being done by the educrats who hail from the teachers’ faculties, in the areas of math. My mouth of tea when flying out of my mouth when I read this, “Research Tells Us
• Most (but not all) children will, with
extensive practice, eventually learn to
use traditional algorithms with some
competence. This skill often comes at
too great a price: students learn to
ignore their own reasoning in favour
of following rules.
• Students who are encouraged to
experiment with their own solutions
to mathematics problems develop a
significantly deeper understanding of
mathematics.
• These students are also less prone
to make errors than are their
counterparts in traditional
mathematics classrooms.
• Such methods are helpful for all
students – including those struggling
with their mathematics
It is the very above approaches that has caused the low achievement in math throughout the K to 12, and a sizable majority of students at the post-secondary level taking remedial math, learning the laws, the algorithms that is so sadly lacking in today’s approach in mathematics. This particular educrat, hailing from Lakehead University, should be banished from publishing math research, but in this case she belongs to the gang at the OISE.
Shameful, on another web page, she writes, “Using this data, Lawson has been able to support several hypotheses regarding children�s early understanding of math. Most significant is the detrimental effect of rigid algorithms. Clip after clip of Lawson�s shows children as young as Kindergarten/Grade 1 being able to solve basic division problems. And yet we know that upon reaching the older grades where the �standard� division algorithm is taught, many students struggle to solve problems that are slightly larger, but fundamentally the same. With the simpler problem, the children are being asked to rely on their own, intrinsic, understanding of numbers. With the larger problem, they are expected to plug numbers into a formula. In other words, says Lawson, children are being taught not to think. She anticipates that students in the research project will not have the same difficulties, but instead, will continue to develop a stronger than normal mathematical capacity. ”
http://agora.lakeheadu.ca/agora.php?st=120
Oh yeah? I have proof sitting at home who have been taught using the more traditional methods, and all other methods that the OISE gang, have declared detrimental to achievement in math. Apparently my child is the most advance student in math in comparison to her peers, and the only difference between her classmates and herself, she has a rock solid foundation on the basics of arithmetic and basic advance math concepts, whereas the other students in her class, do not share the same characteristic. A solid foundation with lots and lots of practice. Not bad for a student who was the lowest achiever in math at the end of grade 3, being two grade levels behind. I am coming after them, because the educrats of teaching faculties are destroying the potential of children, the moment they stepped in kindergarten.
Our education facilities are being used as human testing ground, experimenting on our children without regard to the welfare of the children and their minds. Inventive math, just like inventive spelling, leads to lower achievement for all. No one reaches their full potential, but it sure does create profit generated revenues for the educrats at the highest levels, peddling crap that repeats the cycles of low achievement throughout the K to 12 education system.
Does anyone here speak English?
Criticising edubabble with more edubabble?
Gimme a break.
To Steven,
Yes, all of the evidence says in the vast majority of cases of students failing to thrive in schools either;
1) They come from a poor background with many many negative influences in their environment.
or
2) In a much smaller number of cases their are special education problems that make education difficult.
Sometimes both.
Blaming the school, the teachers, the pedagogy, the curriculum, the admin, the government makes some people feel much better but they need to look much closer to home.
Does that mean nothing can be done? Of course not but the solution to mitigate the problems are smaller classes, ELP, more teacher training, etc.
absolute drek.
Riding both sides of the fence won’t do it Doug.
Mitigating the problems- as in smaller classes – is antithetical to increased administrations and provincial budget increases, which is what you posit. That approach is changing because the well is dry.
When I here a NS union and teachers speak out against a school closure, or support a community being threatened by a centralist school board’s punitive strategy for abstract capital projects, which only mushroom our educational debt and deindividualize the student — then I will believe smaller class sizes are truely an objective.
Untill then, all the evidence is you refer to is suspect.
Doug, again but par for the course, to discount all things related to public schools and the education system, and that the education system is not the problem, except to expand the system using more staff, smaller classes, and more teaching training…………….
The solutions you have suggested, are the same solutions that can be found in any teachers’ union organization, at the board level and the ministry’s level, leaving the structural model, the governance and the organizational aspects of the education system untouched, As well as the religion-like philosophy of progressivism that forms the basis to guide education policy, teaching methods, and curriculum, is left untouched.
Smaller classes, ELP or the other things that you have suggested, are quick fixes to maintain the status-quo of the structure, the power and the influence of the public education system. How does it improve the lives of students, when it is the structure of the public education system, that hinders achievement, and gives the ability of the public education system, a way out, by blaming low achievement on external variables that the public education system has limited control or no influence.
Steven, it is the people who DON”T believe in small classes that want to close the schools. The smaller the classes, the more schools that will stay open.
The ONLY way for teachers to fight school closings is to fight for smaller classes.
The reason some schools are closing is BECAUSE some people feel the well is dry.
Keeping schools open or closing them is a MANAGEMENT right. It is not negotiated with the union.
I don’t know about NSTU but most teachers unions across Canada have been fighting school closings as best they can.
Management right.
———————————————————————-
Never said it was negotiated with the union.
Recent SSRSB school review: Management right? – vote 2
People – vote 10
Results: all 12 schools were removed from review and future closure.
Union response before vote: all quiet on the eastern front.
Union response after vote: teachers will leave province.
It’s the people who DON’T believe in small classes that want to close the schools.
——————————————————————–
Who are these people?
Educrats?
School Boards?
Adminisration?
Superintendents?
Teachers?
Union Reps?
You can say it as often as you want Nancy. You are left to explain how with the SAME pedagogy and the SAME curriculum and the SAME teacher training the rich and the middle class do very well and the poor do very badly.
All other factors have been held constant.
you are putting words in her mouth.
For 5 decades we have been centralising education, increasing the bureaucracies, decreasing class sizes, increasing budgets, building bigger, fancier schools, hiring more and more consultants, and ad nauseum. For a brief period results did improve until a plateau was encountered. Then, as education became ever more bureaucratised, we began to decline. The answer was even more bureaucrats, a lowering of standards and buying into a “system” or “systems” of inferior quality most often marketed by for profit entities.
Apparently, more of the same is supposed to make things better.
What a succinct summary of the overall trends, Andrew. It’s very close to my own assessment of the rise of the bureaucratic education state and its current crisis of paralysis.
After spending two years studying Maritime education from 1850 to 2010, I reached similar conclusions to yours. My only quibble might be with the way you describe our current crisis. I tend to see it more as a case of “doing the same thing over and over again — and expecting different results.” I’m also amazed at the navel-gazing and tendency to limit participation to the usual suspects ( the blob of “system partners”)
Having said that, the “crisis of public confidence” will not be overcome with “systems-analysis.” and “pre-packaged” programs imported from somewhere else.
This is how school boards typically act: http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=96
Try “less of the same” and see where you get.
Grade 12 students who can count and spell.
And maybe even some teachers, former teachers, bureaucrats and school trustees who know the difference between “there”, “their”, and “they’re”.
Although the Chicago article is quite old now, it comes from the idiot mentality that “closing failing schools” was any solution. Of course they found that it was no solution because “the problem was in the children and their environment” and therefore:
1) There was no successful school close by to send them to and 2) When the students were re-located to another local school, IT became a failing school, thus proving my point that you can change all of the teachers, admin, pedagogy and curriculum but very poor children have such enormous baggage with them that Hurculean efforts need to be involved in turning the situation around.
Most jurisdictions are simply NOT willing to pay for that.
Easy to say but hard to do.
Not one of you could do it on your own given the same students and conditions.
Of course it is easy to have grade students who can read and spell by kicking the ones who can’t read and spell out after grade 10 as many nations do.
Get this straight. Only 2 nations on Earth do better than Canada, Finland, student poverty rate 4% and Korea, long hours plus tons of etra tuition.
Canada is doing as well as is humanly possible under the present funding and social/economic poverty situation.
Why is the Maritimes always near the bottom of Canadian education? Because it is poorer, no other reason.
A falsehood is still a falsehood, no matter how many times it is repeated.
Notwithstanding the fact that I believe KIPP is also a total con job, the following article DOES point out the need to consider poverty by REFORMERS as well as anbody else, and he is one of the reformers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/04/07/2011-04-07_cathie_black_debacle_just_the_latest_in_a_long_line_of_miscues_by_education_refo.html
So the falsehood would be what?
That was pointed out some time ago but you chose to ignore it.
Yes Doug, let’s talk about the middle income to higher income schools. What happens to students who encounter learning difficulties in school? You know the reading problems, or perhaps a numeracy problem, or a problem with so-so grades? Well the students are sent by their parents on their own dime, for tutoring services. The more urbanized regions are, the greater the number of student going to private tutors. In rural areas, the problem is access to a limited amount of tutors and travel distance, but the rural tutoring business are fully booked as well. The tutoring industry, is well over a billion dollar industry here in Canada, and has expanded by 60 % in the last 10 years.
Parents who have money, don’t wait for the schools to do something, nor do the same parents informed the school that their children are availing of tutoring services for various reasons. Home schooling is on the increase as well as student enrollment in private independent schools, and here there is also a variety of reasons, but can be more or less put under label, dissatisfaction of the public education system.
It is not the low-income family, keeping the growing billion dollar tutoring industry a float. The growth of private tutoring can be contributing to the teaching training, and the curriculum that you so highly praise, and use in your analogy, of “SAME pedagogy and the SAME curriculum and the SAME teacher training the rich and the middle class do very well and the poor do very badly.” Educators who work in middle-income or higher schools, are less likely to encounter students with learning difficulties that are of the normal garden-variety reading, writing or numeracy problems, because the students are receiving help privately at home or availing of tutoring services. The same educators would be lost at a low-income school, discovering what has been taught to them at teachers’ colleges are not effective practices for reading, writing and numeracy.
Another industry that is growing leaps and bounds, is the educational software purchased by families for home use. Software where much of it is not on the approved list in the MOEs and boards. It is probably a billion dollar industry here in Canada, but I could not find the stats at the moment.
What you seem to forget Doug, the subgroup of students found across the social-economic classes, where the public education system has failed to addressed their educational needs in reading, writing, and numeracy. The public education system, does a remarkable job, in keeping this set of students as low achievers, no matter the income level of the school. The high-income parent has the same problems as the middle-income parents as the low-income parents have, remediating their children’s learning weaknesses by the schools. This set of students, have been reported to be anywhere between 7 percent to a high of 20 percent of any school population. The progressive methods and the curriculum, that is currently entrenched in the public education system, are the very same methods that keeps this set of students as low achievers, and prevents methods such as the Orton methods to address their learning difficulties. As I had discovered, the greatest negative impact that affected my child’s learning, is the progressive teaching methods and the curriculum.
My conclusion from Nancy’s post? The public school system needs to spend much more money on special education and on smaller classes so that integrated kids get more direct attention.
Nancy, notwithstanding your situation, the vast majority of students ARE NOT special ed.
Doug is getting too much air time.Your movement will do tremendous good if you can manage to strike the fear of God in the bureaucracies and make them accountable as well as greatly reduce the number of administrators so there`s more money for the classroom students.
Also,and I am aware this is overwhelming but in the early grades,return to basics and direct instruction.
Ignore all of Doug`s fear mongering,it will help a lot.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=1c947d23-47c1-4d9e-ab8a-066912787998
It`s called getting away with…..
Anecdotes and personal interpretation supercede research.Nobody has their feet to the fire,probably because federally there is no watchdog.
Education is a provincial jurisdiction.
Some would say otherwise, that the federal government has been and always will be involved in public education.
“Canadian governments have recognized the importance of literacy in a variety of ways. While Canada’s Constitution (specifically, Section 93 of the British North America Act, now known as the Constitution Act, 1867) assigns the power to make “Laws in relation to Education” to the
provincial legislatures “exclusively”, there is a wide-spread acknowledgement of a national interest in the provision of educational opportunities, and that the national government has a role to play in creating these opportunities. The Constitution is evolutionary, and there is an ever-stronger consensus that the Parliament and Government of Canada should, and must, help to make
education – in the broadest sense – available to every citizen, no matter where he or she lives. Thus, a proper respect for Section 93 does not preclude a federal presence in educational matters.
This presence is expressed in two distinct but complementary ways. The most obvious, the oldest, and perhaps the best-known, are the programs that finance research. Through three national granting councils, the federal government has for many years provided peer-validated support to universities for scholars in the social sciences, science and engineering, and medicine. These
programs have been broadened in recent years – significantly and importantly – to include grants for buildings and equipment, and for maintenance and operations. Student aid programs are another example of a legitimate, accepted, and even welcomed, federal presence in educational matters. They, too, have been expanded in recent years. The national government has also come to play an ever-important role in ensuring that Canadian workers have the skills and the experience they need to function in a modern economy. There are
myriad examples of training programs of one nature or another that have been or are being funded by the Government of Canada, either through the Employment Insurance Plan or through other federal programs. In addition, a sizeable educational component is included in the financial resources that the federal government transfers to the provinces. These grants are unconditional, although the individual provinces must spend them within the broad areas specified by Parliament, which are: support for ………………………………………..In short, there is ample precedent for the use of federal money to obtain specific objectives, notwithstanding that those objectives may fall within the rubric of “education”.
Click to access finalReport.pdf
Andrew, there is numerous reports that the federal government can if they desire to intercede in provincial public education systems to address literacy, numeracy and other education issues that impacts the lives of Canadians. The Canadian Language and Literacy Research made its case, as have other national organizations and federal agencies have made their case.
That said, having the federal government stepping in literacy, numeracy, or other education matters is not out of step for a federal government. Many different children’s organizations such as the autism or LD groups, are calling for such actions, to have standards imposed on the provinces.
Read the report.
If you aim at the wrong target you are sure to waste the next 20 years on the wrong reforms.
http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/edu_assoc_articles/153528.html
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/04/the_disquieting_side_effect_of.html
I really believe people don`t realize how badly Reading is taught and how terribly teachers are “not trained”.
We know that avoiding the pitfalls with proper instruction will lead to far improved success.The question really is-can we fight the Reading War and win.
I had a chat with a world famous researcher on the weekend who shared her frustration on seeing an article published from OISE by Jim Cummins on how poor children need not be taught with explicit systematic synthetic phonics honouring the 5 prongs of research based instruction-A-why did Sage publish it-was it pure science and gold standard?No.
Also-what are they afraid of-we have 85% failure in First Nations schools and population-in communities like this,why would you do more of the same?
The failure rate on reserves is the culmination of racism, classism, neglect and deliberate destruction of a culture and way of life.
Have you seen the schools? Many are condemned by mold.
Yes,I have been in many as I work with them.Sadly,you know everything,one cannot penetrate.
Also,many are getting beautiful new schools to educate their children.Slowly,they are getting more help.
However,many school boards hold their children hostage and blame poor reading results on their population-people like you and several others,you`re in good company.
It’s always somwebody else’s fault.
OK Doug, first quote from article:
“At best, student achievement is a mixed bag. It involves both home and school factors. Three variables: socioeconomic status, time spent on homework, and level of parental involvement deal with home variables and are essential variables in student achievement. An Educational Testing Service report stated that the home environment is as important in influencing what goes on in school as in-school factors. A study by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company found that 97% of students who earned mostly A’s and B’s on their report cards reported that their parents encouraged them to do well in school. Forty-nine percent of students earning “C’s” received little encouragement.”
http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/edu_assoc_articles/153528.html
SES, time spent on homework, and level of parental involvement all plays in student achievement but the underlying factor and the most important is the reading ability of students. As Joanne has pointed out in her link, “”Third grade is a kind of pivot point,” said Donald J. Hernandez, the study’s author and a sociology professor at Hunter College, at the City University of New York. “We teach reading for the first three grades and then after that children are not so much learning to read but using their reading skills to learn other topics. In that sense if you haven’t succeeded by 3rd grade it’s more difficult to [remediate] than it would have been if you started before then.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/04/the_disquieting_side_effect_of.html
Joanne, cited Jim Cummins, another educrat who talks from both sides of his mouth, and considered to be one of the high priests of keeping the government monies rolling in. Back in 2007, he spoke at an American conference .
“In a simultaneously scathing and humorous talk, “I’m not just a coloring person,” Cummins laid out a case that what is happening now in the schools is not science but ideology, with federal and state policies imposing a
pedagogical divide in which “poor kids get behaviorism and rich kids get social constructionism.” In practice, that
means skills for the poor and knowledge for the rich. This ideologically based approach ignores and rejects research
into the way students learn, particularly how they learn language and how they learn to read, he said.”
It only get worse –
“Cummins challenged educational practices resulting from federal No Child Left Behind legislation, with its emphasis on standardized tests and consequent teaching “to the tests,” saying instructional approaches now being imposed are something that most in the audience wouldn’t want their own children to suffer. These approaches have, he said, more to do with teaching rats than humans. He urged his audience to reclaim good instruction with attention to the lessons of social constructionism instead of treating
students with a behaviorist approach in which, as B.F. Skinner proved, even pigeons can be taught to play pingpong.
“We have choices,” Cummins asserted. “A lot of folks at higher levels in the hierarchy don’t want you to know that you have choices because the dominant model of school improvement that is being inflicted in many states as part of the No Child Left Behind reading-first approach is to
impose what is viewed as a scientifically supported approach to instruction and to wipe out teacher choice, to make it as teacher-proof as possible.”
Comparing the research into instructional methods that work with what actually happens today in the schools, particularly in inner cities, it is “very clear,” Cummins said, that the current approach in too many
U.S. schools is “90% ideology and 10% science.” Research is ignored, misunderstood, misinterpreted and
distorted to favor that ideology.
Sprinkling the findings of researchers throughout his speech, Cummins repeatedly pointed out that
when students’ identities are affirmed in the classroom, they feel comfortable investing their identities into literacy
activities and practices, and they learn more. When they are encouraged to share unique personal experiences,
when use of their first language is not discouraged, when “decoding” techniques are not the end-all and be all
of instruction, when students feel they have a voice in the classroom and that people want to hear what they have
to say, when “shared inquiry,” “critical literacy,” “grand conversations” and “social justice” are accepted parts of the teaching process, students learn better and become engaged with their own education. “I haven’t been able to find those terms in No Child Left Behind,”
he said.”
Click to access catnews0607.pdf
There has been hints in Cummins research here and there over the years, on his dislike for explicit systematic synthetic phonics. But it has been mainly confined to english language learners, up until now. As Joanne has reported, he is coming clean, in Canada as well.
In 2007, a study:Abstract
In this article, the author argues that there is minimal scientific support for the pedagogical approaches promoted for low-income students in the federal Reading First initiative. In combination with high-stakes testing, the interpretation of the construct systematic phonics instruction in Reading First has resulted in highly teacher-centered and inflexible classroom environments. By privileging these approaches, Reading First ignored the National Reading Panel’s finding that systematic phonics instruction was unrelated to reading comprehension for low-achieving and normally achieving students beyond Grade I. Also ignored was the significant body of research suggesting that reading engagement is an important predictor of achievement. Alternative evidence-based directions for rebalancing reading instruction for low-income students are suggested in the context of the impending reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind legislation. JSTOR Home
http://www.jstor.org/pss/30137942
Doug do you not see how the educrat researchers are making far more work in the lower levels of the public education system to ensure low levels of reading, writing and numeracy proficiencies?
The next link is a novel take and the article is called, “Teacher Unions Killed, Now Teamsters Union Slaughtered”
“About three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects. In the past five years, a subset of students deemed “triple low remedial” — with the most severe deficits in all three subjects — has doubled, to 1,000.
The reasons are familiar but were reinforced last month by startling new statistics from state education officials: fewer than half of all New York State students who graduated from high school in 2009 were prepared for college or careers, as measured by state Regents tests in English and math. In New York City, that number was 23 percent.…To bring thousands of students up to speed, those colleges spent about $33 million last year on remediation — twice as much as they did 10 years ago….Nationwide, as at CUNY, fewer than half of students directed to take one or more remedial classes — “developmental education” is the term administrators prefer — complete them.
Why so many doing so badly? All sorts of ideas are floated but the salient ones not mentioned are the lack of a real future for non-intellectual children. Job opportunities close down while the desire to learn shuts down, too. Young people leave high school and either they are realistic candidates for college or they…become criminals.”
The blog author, worries about job losses, and in a way Doug, what is happening in the public education system, allowing the elite educrats that are serving their own best interests, with the handy help from unions, school boards to pump in more money on programs that does nothing to addressed the real problem – the quality of education, and the poor state of students’ reading, writing and numeracy. Insanity at its best, and in the end, it may very well be what will kill the unions in the end.
Students are being held hostage in today’s schools to conform and adapt to whatever new thing is on the go for educrats, with no regard to the quality and proficiencies in core language and numeracy. Some of the outcomes of today’s education policy is designed with the purpose of promoting racism, classism, neglect , deliberate destruction of the intellect and shame practices for the mind. I said designed, because the educrats will have already flesh out the reasons if someone voices criticism for a particular practice. On the Children of the Code, main page: “Most children who struggle with reading experience the struggle as a reflection of something wrong with themselves – something to be ashamed of. Unintentionally but pervasively, parents, schools, and society as a whole contribute to perpetuating this insidious myth. Children don’t think that their reading troubles might be due to a normal difference in their genes and brains analogous to being tall or short – they don’t think that maybe their parents, siblings, and other care-givers didn’t engage them in enough conversation before they started school – they don’t think that perhaps their teachers didn’t teach them correctly – they don’t think the confusion they experience is a consequence of an archaic and artificially complex ‘code’ that presents a completely unnatural processing challenge to their brains… no, they blame themselves – they feel ashamed of themselves – ashamed of their minds. Statements like: “I’m dumb”, “I’m stupid”, “I’m not smart”, “I’m not good in school” are all strategies to protect themselves from the shame they feel.”
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/
Andrew Gilmour
It’s always somwebody else’s fault.
Facts are facts.
Tell us, who IS to blame? It is hardly me saying this. The VAST majority of education experts say exactly the same thing including the honest members of the reform movement.
only half the reading experts are saying this-the other half are on
http://www.childrenofthecode.org
You are very offensive,you do not care to try to help those that need the most help.I can`t bear your insistence.
Studentsfirst Nova Scotia will bring the students who struggle some real help and lessen your constant rationalization for failure!
Why,because it will push accountability on a system that has none.
I have spent my entire life fighting for the educational advantages that the poor need, smaller classes, more support, ELP, and outside supports.
These would and have actually made a difference. We re 3rd in the world primarily due to interventions that I support and have supported in the past.
Our gap between rich and poor is one of the world’s smallest due to interventions in the past and present.
My arguments are in fvour of what actually works to mitigate diffenences. Not those things like testing, “accountability” teacher bashing, union bashing, merit pay, charter schools, vouchers and all the rest of the failed and discredited reforms that people continue to insist that we try again. There is no progress in these reforms and many reformers are beginning to realize that.
The only “bashing” I’ve noticed is directed at the damn educrats.
Feeling a bit victimized, are you?
Doug, the things that you mentioned will not help the foundational skills in reading, writing, and numeracy. Nor at the end will help to decrease the low literacy rate, of adulthood. Nor will it help the the schools to identified children with weak language skills, especially those who have little awareness of phonemic skills. Whole language, balanced-literacy and the newest version that OISE is selling, called multi-literacies, only helps to keep low literacy rates at the current 42 % rate in Canada, steady. Do you not understand, it is the public education system, that is producing enough students each year to keep the low literacy rate steadily and slowly on an upward trend.
Do you not understand, the 60 per cent of the people who have low-literacy skills, are the middle-class to the affluent. It means that the public education system produces more low-literacy people in the middle to affluent income group, than in the low-income group. And its only at the 40 % mark for low-income people. Obviously, and if you cannot see it, the public education system and its educrats have engineered their policies, to produce the low-literacy rates.
Another point on the 42 % low-literacy rate in Canada, the majority are Canadians, whose first language is English.
And yet you want more more to address the low-income students, targeted SEC factors, that will do nothing for their language and numeracy skills, and all based on whole language and pseudo-theories of the educrats? All you will accomplished, is to drive the low-literacy rate of low-income students from 40 % to the 60 %. Even here the educrats must want matching percentages, for low to middle to the affluent, so in the future they can make demands for more money for future remediation in literacy and numeracy.
An article in the LA Weekly around the year 2000 or so, is a typical example of how whole language educrats, work the system, and they don’t care about the end results of low-literacy.
Click to access BlackboardBungle_CaliKids.pdf
Back to Canada, Doug – Read the 2009 OECD report, with the PISA results. OECD has been reporting since their inception, that Canada along with United States, have a big problem with low-literacy skills. Both countries are not alone, and it includes the english-speaking countries such as New Zealand, Australia, and England. What do they have in common, whole language approaches. If the public education ministries in Canada were honest, and open up their own stats regarding the testing of students, low-literacy and numeracy skills would become a big issue to solve. Instead, the low-literacy skills are buried by the educrats, and in its place is the spin and more of the same costing taxpayers more and more money, just like in California.
Andrew Gilmour
The only “bashing” I’ve noticed is directed at the damn educrats.
Feeling a bit victimized, are you?
In this thread perhaps although i see bashing of NSTU. Check previous threads.
The NSTU deserves bashing. Ask NS teachers privately and what you will hear is totally different to that which they say publicly.
They are ordered by both the NSTU and the boards to NOT speak out. Ever see a teacher get lynched by a school board?
Nancy we just totally disagree not only on the nature of the problem but on the solution.
Name the countries that are doing a better job than Canada at traching 15 year olds to read?
Hmmmmm.
If we are so good-why does the Conference Board of Canada and Statscan quote a 42% adult literacy problem?
Phone Frank McKenna,he`ll give you an earful.
Testing 23,000 15 year olds does not tell the story.
Society for Quality Education just blogged on how many kids actually drop out of University,they go in but they don`t finish.
Many are completely unprepared.
There’s the problem.
By age 15 they are already should know how to read. Heck, they should be reading competently by Grade 3.
To ignore the low literacy skills of close to half of the population in Canada, is akin for a health professional to ignore the cancerous stomach tumor, and treat the patient for a stomach ache.
Teaching reading and reading to learn that starts in grade 4 are two very different process. The trouble in Canada and the other english-speaking countries have is because of the prevalent use of whole language, the english-speaking countries produces readers who are not proficient in reading, who than are not proficient in their writing, and at the end lowers achievement.
“Ninety-five percent of the kids hitting the wall in learning to read are what we call NBT: Never Been Taught. They’ve probably been with teachers where the heart was in the right place, they’ve been with teachers who wanted the best for the kids, but they have been with teachers who cannot answer the questions: 1) What goes into reading, what does it take? 2) Why do some kids have difficulty? 3) How can we identify kids early and prevent it? 4) How can we remediate it?”
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/library/refs/instructionalconfusion.htm
Doug, read the Children of the Code. What happens to the children that have NBT in reading – they become achievement causalities at the high school level. Sure the large majority of high school seniors can read, but only a minority of high school students have proficiency in reading.
You might want to add that those teachers who DO know how to teach reading successfully are prevented from doing so by the educrats.
I agree with you;they don`t ask the teachers if the programs used now work.I also agree with you that those that know how, I have spoken to many who ,if they are a particular age,have gone from 85-90% success in the classroom in Grade 1 to 50%.They need to stay quiet to keep their jobs.
I guess the Unions and board administrators together handcuff teachers,they must be miserable.Yes,they get a pension but look what they give up.
The question remains which country does better? Basically nobody does better. Andrew, the OECD reading results test only 15 year olds. Canadian 15 year olds are among the planets very best readers.
The dropout rate from universities has been very high for many many years,Canada believes in giving kids a chance.
It is widely acknowledged that Canada has both one of the world’s best education systems and the world’s fairest.
Once again, which country does better?
Crikets churping.
Andrew Gilmour
The NSTU deserves bashing. Ask NS teachers privately and what you will hear is totally different to that which they say publicly.
They are ordered by both the NSTU and the boards to NOT speak out. Ever see a teacher get lynched by a school board?
The union never tells people to be quiet. It is just that only the union has a mandate to speak for the collective.
Nonsense. We’ve got copies of emails and memos on file to that effect.
Repeating a falsehood ad nauseum doesn’t make that falsehood into a truth.
thanks Doug!
DM
We have one of the best education systems …. maybe, but those inside the system BITE, and fail terribly at their job of actually teaching. Our daughter just graduated this summer. Spelling is autrocious, grammer is something you would expect from a foreign non-english speaking immigrant (no offence to them), thought process is next to zero, and nothing is done unless it uses a bloody computer. They can’t read, can’t use a dictionary, can’t do simple math, can’t spell, speak, ….. it’s uterly dispicable. But hey – at least we have a good system …. sure, a system for pushing kids through. On a farm it would be called an extactor system.
iris.shestowsky@muhc.mcgill.ca
Hello,I tend to agree if the reading skills in Canada are second best in the world, why am I then appalled at the quality of grammar and spelling. Those who read well, usually have a commanding knowledge of spelling, grammar and vocabularly, something I find sorrowfully lacking in our country.
I want to thank Educahatter for the opportunity-as with other blogs Doug defends the status quo and gives us the view that is not from the consumer`s perspective..,the ones receiving this “best in the world” education.
Let`s see where the next 5 years takes us.
Sincerely grateful.
Here’s an example of one way boards and teachers’ unions silence the teachers.
TEACHERS SILENCED
With the onslaught of complaints showing no signs of abating – by fall, 2007, Ministry of Labour inspectors had made more than 30 visits to district schools and issued stop work orders for 16 rooms – the school board agreed to start cleaning up the problems in elementary buildings. Their pledge, which will cost about $1 million a year, was a welcome surprise for teachers. But it came with a condition: The plan would go forward only if the outspoken teachers responsible for drawing attention to mould problems agreed to silence their complaints. Grudgingly, the teachers, via their union, agreed to the deal.
http://www.casle.ca/ArticleDetail/tabid/77/smid/429/ArticleID/28/reftab/78/t/Sick-School-Syndrome-in-Ontario/Default.aspx
Once again, which country has a better system?
I still have not heard one.
I’m still waiting for your link that proves your assertions.
BTW, you stated that Finland had a better system.
I couldn`t resist adding one more-
Dear Dr. Rose:
I was pleased to see your revelation of the fact that most young children in the U.S. are denied an effective manner in which to develop their reading abilities. This practice is so notorious that I call it a form of academic child abuse.
Your comments also lead me to the conclusion that the public needs to be informed that professors of reading education are the major cause of the failure of American children to read competently. I hope in the future that you will add that truism to your other pertinent remarks.
Patrick Groff
Professor at University of San Diego -Wrote 325 books-
Doug, you are just trying to turned the picture off the worrisome data being generated on PISA and other forms of achievement testing.
What countries produced the greatest number of low-literacy people?
What countries produced the greatest number of children with reading disorders?
What countries produced the greatest number of poor math proficiency?
What countries produced the greatest number of people, with poor writing skills?
What countries have the greatest and ready supply for remedial courses for adults in reading, writing and numeracy?
What countries share the whole language approach, that other countries do not?
The english-speaking countries Doug. The english-speaking countries have the great distinction, and wears the crown for producing the greatest number of people who are poor readers, writers, and just not good in basic numeracy.
So what do children who are struggling in reading, writing or numeracy get from the public education system? Not the things that they need, because the educrats saw the future in remedial and the tutoring industry and knew it would become a billion dollar industry. Nice profits being generated by the educrats for more of the same, to keep low-literacy and numeracy levels to half of the student population , in the english-speaking countries. Doug and the rest of the educrats are all about keeping the current levels of literacy and numeracy, and not at all about improving literacy and numeracy. Doug, I suggest you start with the OECD stats, moving onto the literacy sites and than hit the LD files for the icing for reading, writing, and numeracy stats cited there. Than hit the public education stats, to discovered that there is key stats missing from their files, and where is the data? Buried deep by the educrats, so their gravy train of taxpayers monies can continue conning the public in achievement levels and proficiency levels of literacy and numeracy.
It is your turn to look Doug, since it is obvious that you have not read any of the links provided that shows the real state of education in our english-speaking countries. As a parent, it certainly confirms my experiences and observations at the lowest levels of the public education system, and the reasons why I had so much difficulty in addressing the reading and writing issues of my youngest child.
Very interesting series of videos on reading from TVO. There are 4 vids. Here’s the first. The others are there as well.
http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?videoid?52455652001
Finland does have very slightly better results than we do but that is because Finland follows all of the reforms that I recommend from having a 4% child poverty rate to requiring 2 masters degrees from most teachers.
Canada has among the lowest number of poor readers at 15 years of age in the world. Your entire problem is convincing Canadians that they have a bad education system when the OECD results and the satisfaction surveys say it is one of a tiny group of the world’s best systems and Canadians love it, want to protect and enhance it with programs like the ELP and higher rates of funding.
Andrew Gilmour
I’m still waiting for your link that proves your assertions.
Andrew everyone acknowledges that Canada is #3 in overall OECD results and has among the world’s best readers according to the PISA results.
Click to access 46619703.pdf
1) Finland world’s best 4% poverty rate
2) Korea slashed class sizes, long hours
3) Shanghai China far above Chinese national average
4) Singapore fine not a real country
5) Canada #3 among real countries behind Finland and Korea.
Thank you.
You asked who was better than Canada and answered it yourself.
Ah, now I see how you do it. Are you in the NSTU?
They’re pretty good at stasticical manipulations as well.
So, which version of the PISA scores are you using?
So, the TRUTH is that Canada ranks 5th or 6 th.
Now, since the main topic and purpose of this entire blog is Nova Scotia, where would you say we (“we” as in Nova Scotia – gotta keep you on topic here) rank?
To add, on the last page of the OECD shows the state of reading performance, and it is not a pretty picture. It indicates a downward trend for the future, and shows no improvement in reading performance since the PISA testing began.
The purpose of the blog is Canada not NS. The purpose of this thread is NS but the problems are general in nature when you have a speaker from Manitoba address problems across Canada and a panel that is mainly out of province.
Canada is 3rd of eal nations. Shanghai places 80% of its HS grads in uiversity whereas China places only 20%. Singapore is not a real country, It is a city state. Korea and Finland are real countries.
Canada has a worldwide reputation for its outstanding education system.
Some students do not do well in school. This will always be the case. We can all work on getting that number down but the main causes are poverty, family or individual issues.
Say Doug, where would you rank Nova Scotia’s education system among jurisdictions with the highest tides in the world?
Or how about among jurisdictions with the highest production of McIntosh apples per capita?
Doug,
there is no poverty in NS.
Only poverty of accountability.
http://www.paulhillsdon.com/2011/01/09/canada-stagnating-in-international-rankings/
Andrew, your answer can be found here.
I think we’re done, Doug.
One tires of nonsense.
Seems that NS has an ecellent education system slightly ahead of Japan and ahead of almost all nations of the OECD.
Schools are Vanishing, and Communities are Threatened in Nova Scotia and the Maritimes.
The Book is out! It arrived on my doorstep earlier today. Should be in stores sometime next week.
Here’s the link:
http://www.fernwoodpublishing.ca/Vanishing-Schools-Threatened-Communities/
Starting with the Official Launch, May 4 in Halifax, I will be on a book talk and signing tour culminating in Fredericton with a panel, book talk and signing during the Canadian Historical Association’s Annual Conference.
The fact that schools are vanishing is neither a conservative, liberal, socialist, bureaucratic, union, teacher, parent or student problem and schools will vanish in rural Canada and even in urban Canada over the next few years under any regime unless:
1) we seriously up our immigration rate
or
2) we all get very busy making babies
or
3) we adopt a “community schools” approach stuffing our schools with child care, adult education, community use, medical clinics, social services offices, libraries and other socially useful purposes.
There is basically nothing else that can be done. the idea of virtual school will not be a real alternative for many years except as a small suppliment to the system.
Schools are closing due to declining enrolement. This is compounded in rural areas by urbanization.
Wrong!
Centralization.
Nonsense.
It is a capital project kind of world Doug. All yours – big box. However, in your world the budget id maxed out!
Parents did not create it; so stop blaming the consumer. That is why more and more public schools in NS are bleeding students to the private system.
Interesting how unions do not moan that teachers will leave until a school or two are saved from closure. Yes, sure… for while.
Click to access Did%20you%20know%20(revised)%20(2).pdf
Thanks, Doug, for uncovering Alexis Allen’s NSTU “Talking Points.” They sound mighty familiar to me, since she tried to read them into the record at the Public Forum on March 28, 2011.
She was directly challenged, for once, about her tiresome recitation of the “facts.”
On CBC’s Mainstreet and Maritime Noon, I’ve tangled with her over the “talking points”
I would offer these corrections:
A case can be made that Nova Scotia public education is underfunded, particularly in the areas of special education and alternative support services. However, the stark facts are:
Nova Sccotia now enrols 127,000 students and is losing 3,000 students a year, while expenditures are climbing, especially for administration services. ( NS Education)
Some 9% of the provincial budget is $1 billion and debt servicing is third in spending, creeping up on that figure;
Teacher salaries come first in priorities: Nova Scotia is hemmoraging students and not shedding teachers at the same rate. Student numbers decline, but NS is lowering the STR at the same time. The STR is now 13.4 and dropping annually ( DOE Statistics);
Nova Scotia is doing much better on PISA in literacy, less so in Science in Mathematics ( but far below Alberta, Quebec, and BC)
Student attainment levels have risen ( 83 % graduate) but provincial Math results are poor and alarming.
Mark inflation is rampant : the gap between exam marks and school-marks is widening, calling into question the legitimacy of the system. ( AIMS)
Student absenteeism is rife in secondary schools.
( Howard Windsor Report, 2009) Graduation rates are increasing, but so is student absenteeism. “Social promotion” now extends to the granting of high school diplomas.
We can go back to the little red schoolhouse and we can all live in a vine covered cottage with a white picket fence and go to work at the mill around the corner.
Either that or we can wise up and realize that we are urbanizing at a rapid rate while overall enrolement falls so tiny rural schools are just not functional. It is 2011, anybody notice?
Doug, the last link provided does not provide the whole story, but rather it presents the slanted story to pushed for more money being pumped into the education system, on the backs of rural schools.
“Currently, the province funds boards $150,000 annually for every small school they keep open, but the Education minister declined to directly answer whether her government has had discussions about eliminating that funding beyond the 2011-12 budget year.
“We have had many discussions, but that’s definitely not part of this budget.”
One thing she would acknowledge that is on the table is the complicated formula that funds boards based largely on student enrollment.
“The Hogg formula has been used for a long time and things have changed.”
How that formula may be altered in the future is uncertain though.
“[But] there will be some changes.”
http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2011/031511/news/index036.php
The Hogg formula is based on student enrollment, and is much like other provincial education formulas.
Closing down small rural schools, and sending students to another school over distances of 15 km or more, is really about moving education dollars from one school to another school down the road. Overall it does not increase the quality of education that a rural student receives because there is increases in costs related to transportation and other school administration costs that erodes the school’s ability to produced quality programs.
“Lastly, I am still concerned about the graph that the government uses as a tool to show dollars versus the enrollment. As all people in the education department know we have added more programs. These have been outlined numerous times and add significant costs to our budget: mentors, reading recovery, increased special needs students, increased money for mentors and coaches, more IT demands, programs for Aboriginal and African Nova Scotians to name a few. Please consider these and other programs when you see the graph.”
http://www.davidfinlayson.ca/8.html
It is how and what methods used to spend education dollars, and not the dollar amount that matters.
Paul, you say teachers are not falling at the same rate as students and the STR is improving as if that were a bad thing? We were both trustees in the GTA.
In my day (1980-1985) teachers were 75% of the budget, support staff another 10% so 85% of the budget is committed to salary, benefits and pension obligations from the get go. Add another 10% because we do need physical plant, repair and maintenance, administration, paper, heat, light, books and chalk let alone the new demands for higher tech and we are left with a local 5% budget for the trustees to play with.
The success of BC and Alberta is largely driven by who lives there not by anything in particular that the school system is doing. Their is a tendency across Canada that the richer a province is, the better it will do basically it has fewer poor kids as a % of the student population.
Quebec is an exception but ever since the Quiet Revolution, they have put a heavy emphasis on education after they wrestled it from a very reactionary church. Their child care plan and their excellent CEJEPS system does help.
Doug, as a parent and actual experience trying to get simple services such as reading and writing remediation, it is within the administration setup and design that drives the variables that Paul has cited. Variables, such as underfunding of special education, administration costs, increases in staff despite falling enrollment, graduation rates, grade inflation, student absenteeism and lower achievement.
Alberta is the exception, because there is more autonomy at the school level, than the other provinces. It is the increasing centralization, orders from the top and the administration rules that prevents and hinder local schools to addressed the educational needs of their students, and their unique needs. Every school has a different combination of variables, where the one-sized-fits-all policies from the top limits education services, the type of education services, and who is allow to participate. The policies are designed to force every student into the regular classroom, and any needs beyond the regular classroom are control through the use of administration rules and regulations. It is within the rules/regulations of the system, that is increasing the expenditures in salaries, administration staff increases at the board level, that is eroding and eating into direct educational services for students. Furthermore, the administration rules/regulations prevents timely changes and fixes to curriculum, instruction methods, either at the classroom or the individual student level. It prevents timely changes and fixes, by inserting narrowed criteria what a school or an individual teacher can do or cannot do, and the only options left is to dumb down the education outcomes for students.
It would not matter what province , my youngest went to school, the rules and regulations of each province would still have prevented my child from being identified until after grade 3 or perhaps never, and prevents effective remediation in the foundations in reading, writing and numeracy. Or take the example of rules that assigned an age as a criteria, which is often done for autism children and other children with disorders. It prevents therapy and effective help for these children, and drives the education portion costs up, in later years. It also prevents children from reaching their full potential in education levels and aggravates conditions/disorders making it more difficult for teachers to remediate the education portion.
Having increase staff, small class sizes, early childhood learning, are things that can help a school to achieve more for their students. However, any benefits derive from such variables are impacted from the administration rules/regulations that are employed. Often is the case, the rules/regulations that are used, impact other variables in a negative fashion. It drives up costs, and prevents all children from reaching their full potential. Quebec is an example that is mentioned by Doug, but he neglects to mentioned the high dropped-out numbers the province is dealing with. 55 % of the population have low literacy skills in either language, and numeracy achievement is just as pathetic as in other provinces. Having a provincial day care plan, and increased early learning programs does not necessarily increase achievement, when the gains made in early childhood are lost as soon as the student steps into grade 1, because the administration rules/regulations are designed to prevent average to high literacy and numeracy levels in the first place.
Doug, just asked any parent who has a child with reading, writing and numeracy issues. The first thing that is thrown at us, are the rules and regulations, and than comes the variables that schools have no control over. These are the variables used by the educrats to assign blame but not at all for addressing the educational concerns of the students. and provide the reasons why there should be increase funding in staff and to the programs.
You say having smaller classes and ELP plans are good but, in fact, most of your allies campaign AGAINST more money for education which is where smaller classes come from as if the STAR Research from Tennessee and a great deal more was not well known in education circles.
Small classes becomes the solution to address the problems of various achievement levels of students, cause by instruction, curriculum and outcomes mandated by the MOEs. Whatever gains have been made by students, are at risk of being lost, because the basic foundation in language and numeracy has been weakened by the curriculum, outcomes, and instruction methods. As the education system stands today, small classes improve teachers’ work, but it does not improve the students’ achievement. One study after another, long after the Perry study has shown that small class sizes and early learning does not benefit the student after grade 3. But it certainly improves staff ratios after grade 3, to address the students education outcomes, and the many add-on programs that still does nothing for the essential foundation skills in reading, writing and numeracy.
For example, back when my child was in grades 6 and 7, the concept of square roots was gloss over and done in the typical fashion of bits and pieces. A small bit of the concept each year, does make a student’s life difficult in a grade 10 math class, and as well as increase tutoring classes for the schools to handled. I taught my child the whole concept of square roots at home, and not just the bits and pieces that were part of the outcomes. Mastering square roots, along with fractions sure came in handy for my child, a firm foundation in arithmetic and pre-algebra made her grade 10 math class a breeze, and one less student to worry about in the packed tutor classes. Any child can do well in math, providing the students received a firm foundation to mastery of arithmetic and pre-algebra concepts. Small classes made no difference, because the math curriculum and instruction is at fault and not the number of students in a class.
If anything, the curriculum and instruction is guarantee to generate increase staff numbers and program funding to address the many education weaknesses of students well into the future, and beyond high school.
Only teachers understand curriculum and pedagogy. Parents need to butt out of these professional issues. This is for experts.
Parents have no specific training and this is no place for autodidactics.
Doug’s theory of infallability – speaking ex educational cathedra!
Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,.
My stomach hurts.
Yes,an 8 month superficial course on how to decorate the class and pay union dues does it.
Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha.
“Only teachers understand curriculum and pedagogy. Parents need to butt out of these professional issues. This is for experts. ”
A typical educrat’s response. Too bad it is not true in the legal sense. A good many civil law suits by parents could be settle early on the basis of malpractice.
‘Your child is developmentally slow’
“Your child is slow’
‘Your child at her best, will always be a C student’
‘Your child will always be poor in math’
The above statements are responses from local educrats at the board level, to my request of wanting a psycho-educational assessment done, to check for learning disabilities. However, according to the educrats’ professional standing, certification, and understanding of children’s learning, my child did not have any learning disabilities. Therefore there will be no testing for this child. My child was tested by the end of grade three, and a diagnoses of learning disability was confirmed by another kind of educrat, who must also follow the standards of the psychology board, as well as the standards at the school board and ministry of education.
If teachers truly understand curriculum and pedagogy, why allow the upper level educrats to dictate policy, curriculum outcomes, and pedagogy? The rules/regulations are at play here, where educators are force to abide by the dictates of the board, ministry and union brass first, and the student becomes secondary to the needs of meeting the rules/regulations of the education system. Legally speaking, if Doug’s statement was true, educrats would not be making statements like developmentally slow, without confirmation by objective and independent testing.
The rules/regulations are designed to limit accountability within the education system, and to transfer accountability to the students, parents and external social variables that are beyond the public education system’s control. One important mechanism to protect educators from civil law suits, and to avoid accountability to the public, are the rules/regulations. If teachers truly had control over curriculum and pedagogy, my child’s teachers would have had testing done in grade 1, to confirm her reading and writing problems, but the rules and regulations got in the way. My child did not meet the one criteria, she was not failing according to the educrats’ professionalism and expertise.
But the clock is ticking Doug, legally speaking in Canada. Just a matter of time, where accountability standards will be the new norm. And a new respect for parents knowledge and abilities concerning their children.
Autodidactics? It is the first time that I have seen this word being used to describe parents. Is it an insult or respect?
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is “learning on your own” or “by yourself”, and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The word “Autodidacticism” finds its origin in “Didacticism”, an artistic philosophy of education
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism
“
Sure and a lot of people do their own dental work and transplant kidneys as well.
you are hysterical
Further to the comments of Doug, I read an interesting article in the New York Times, about a Canadian that educrats like Doug do not like. Very much in the same line, as parents learning on their own how to help their children or another family member. Now, not too many Canadians reach the New York Times especially in education but he is a special guy with a mission to change the math curriculum and instruction, to eliminate the bell curve in a math class.
““Almost every kid — and I mean virtually every kid — can learn math at a very high level, to the point where they could do university level math courses,” explains John Mighton, the founder of Jump Math, a nonprofit organization whose curriculum is in use in classrooms serving 65,000 children from grades one through eight, and by 20,000 children at home. “If you ask why that’s not happening, it’s because very early in school many kids get the idea that they’re not in the smart group, especially in math. We kind of force a choice on them: to decide that either they’re dumb or math is dumb.”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/a-better-way-to-teach-math/
Educrats would probably do everything in their power, to prevent Jump Math from entering the classrooms. Except the new study that will be published soon, will take the educrats scrambling for reasons why the status-quo be maintain in math, keeping math achievement at low levels.
“In rural Ontario, Jump was recently evaluated in a randomized controlled study involving 29 teachers and about 300 fifth-grade students (controlled studies of math programs are rare). Researchers from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education arranged for a control group of teachers to use their district’s standard curriculum while another group used Jump. Each set of teachers was given two days of training relevant to the materials they would be using.
In five months, researchers found substantial differences in learning. The Jump group achieved more than double the academic growth in core mathematical competencies evaluated using a well known set of standardized tests. (The study has not yet been published.) “Kids have to make pretty substantial gains in order to see this kind of difference,” explained Tracy Solomon, a developmental psychologist in the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children who is the study’s lead author. “It’s impressive over a five-month period.”
Solomon believes that the key to Jump’s effectiveness is the way it “breaks math down to its component parts and builds it back up.” And she notes that this “flies in the face of the way math is typically taught.”
Well over 500 comments, praising Jump Math and criticism of the current math curriculum and instruction. I used the same techniques at home with my child, and the educrats were saying to me, it is a waste of time, being the main one. Educrats do not like Jump Math because it cannot be fitted in with their crazy Dewey-speak philosophy and has lots of practice, practice and practice. I believe that all children can do math well, but the Dewey advocates think otherwise. It is the math curriculum and instruction that is at fault and the reason why there is low levels of achievement in math, and increase math remediation courses at the post-secondary level and in adult school.
It would seem that http://www.savegrade2.com, that glorious NS educational propaganda flop, has been disappeared.
Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,.
My stomach hurts.
Yes,an 8 month superficial course on how to decorate the class and pay union dues does it.
Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha.
Pretty much every teacher I know would call those remarks insulting and an extreme case of teacher bashing.
http://bctf.ca/
I wonder if you noticed the BC Supremes decision that the government CANNOT limit the scope of bargaining.
Long uphill battle Doug, and not quite the way that you have presented in the BC Supreme Court ruling.
‘According to the teachers’ union: “There is no doubt that this ruling restores our right to full free collective bargaining. Teachers now expect the restoration of collective agreement language regarding class size and composition. The court has told government to rectify the situation and we expect government to do so, promptly.”
http://bctf.ca/
According the the Public School Employers Association, “Why did the court suspend the declaration of invalidity for 12 months?
The decision that certain provisions were unconstitutional is largely based on the court’s finding that the BCTF was not consulted properly prior to the legislation being enacted. The 12 month time period gives the government time to decide its policy moving forward, and then time to implement that policy by either engaging the BCTF in the appropriate consultation process or, if it chooses, allowing the pre-2002 collective agreement provisions to be added back into the collective agreements.
4. Does this mean that the class size provisions of the School Act are no longer applicable?
No. The class size and composition provisions of the School Act, introduced by Bill 33, the Education (Learning Enhancement) Statutes Amendment Act in 2006, were not challenged by the BCTF and remain intact.”
Click to access 00-HJF-Q_A-BCSC-Decision-Bills-27-and-28-April-2.pdf
Summary info on the decision: “First, the Court found that the legislation interfered with collective bargaining and that the interference was substantial. With respect to the working conditions provisions, the Court found
that the process used by government negated any process for voluntary good faith bargaining and consultation. On the other hand, the process used in relation to the merger amendment did leave open a process for future good faith negotiation.
As a result, only the working conditions provisions were found to have breached the Charter guarantee of Freedom of Association. The Court found that the government could have found a less intrusive way of meeting its policy objectives of giving school boards more flexibility in
relation to class size, composition, staffing and instructional hours while giving all stakeholders a
voice in the decision making process.
In the end, the Court found that the working conditions provisions were unconstitutional and invalid, although the declaration of invalidity has been suspended for a year to allow the government time to address the repercussions of the decision, including determining whether to revert to the pre-2002 legislative provisions or to enact new legislation to address the deficiencies which were the basis of the Court’s finding of unconstitutionality.
The merger amendment was upheld and is not changed. The BCTF reserved the right to argue that any additional remedies are warranted in the circumstances.”
Click to access 00-HJF-BCSC%20Issues%20Decision%20in%20Bills%2027%20and%2028%20April%202011.pdf
Not quite the black and white picture, Doug portrays. But Doug, you did solve a mystery in my own province, where the teachers’ union made a public statement on the provincial budget. As I was listening, it was the same old, same old until the end. At the end they mentioned SE students in the inclusive classroom and the lack of resources. I was perplexed, since the union brass are not known to talk about SE children, unless it is contract time. Mystery solve, the BC ruling came before the provincial budget, much like the strategic maneuvering of the BC teachers’ union, using children to serve their own interests, regarding the court ruling.
If teachers’ unions actually serve the interests of children, especially SE children, by addressing the educational components in reading, writing and numeracy, appropriate interventions based on the science, and solve learning problems efficiently, rather than using the model wait until they are failing, school boards could afford to pay the teachers, small classes, and supply the needed resources for all schools. But as you have pointed out teachers’ unions do not do this, and it is not their job. The union’s job is to increase their membership by adding staff, and to protect the teachers’ working conditions. As a result, unions are not in favour of ensuring that all students reach their potential, become good in reading, writing and numeracy, because unions would have little to negotiate on the backs of children.
When was the last time, a teacher union rep complain about SE classes, where 80 % of the SE children are not receiving the proper interventions to address their reading, writing and numeracy problems. Instead the cry is more resources, more staff, more consultants, and the number of prep hours needed, under the current curriculum, instruction methods and teacher training model? Not going to happen under a union, and as you have posted from time to time, SE children are too hard to teach. A myth that unions like to spread, to become the truth. Yes SE children are hard to teach, especially when teachers are not provided the correct training in the first place and given the correct knowledge in the first place.
Just asked any parent who has the typical dyslexia child, with the garden variety reading and writing disorder. How hard is it to have reading and writing problems corrected in a public education system? Extremely hard, and made worse because unions have politicized the learning problems of these children, and to create the image that SE children are not as capable academically as other children are.
Dr. Lyon on a paper, presented in 2001 – “As we follow thousands of children with reading difficulties throughout their school careers and into young adulthood, these young people tell us how embarrassing and devastating it was to read with difficulty in front of peers and teachers, and to demonstrate this weakness on a daily basis. It is clear from our NICHD research that this type of failure affects children negatively earlier than we thought. By the end of first grade, children having difficulty learning to read
begin to feel less positive about themselves than when they started school. As we follow children through elementary and middle school years, self-esteem and
the motivation to learn to read decline even further. In the majority of cases, the students are deprived of the ability to learn about literature, science, mathematics, history, and social studies because they cannot read grade-level
textbooks. Consider that by middle school, children who read well read at least 10,000,000 words during the school year. On the other hand, children with reading difficulties read less than 100,000 words during the same period.
Poor readers lag far behind in vocabulary development and in the acquisition of strategies for understanding what they read, and they frequently avoid reading and other assignments that require reading. By high school, the potential of these students to enter college has decreased substantially. Students who have stayed
in school long enough to reach high school tell us they hate to read because it is so difficult and it makes them feel “dumb.” As a high school junior in one of our
studies remarked, “I would rather have a root canal than read.”
Click to access 9-THE-EDUCATIONAL-EMOTIONAL-AND-SOCIAL-EFFECTS-OF-READING-PROBLEMS.pdf
Smaller class sizes, more staff, more resources will not resolved the problems of the majority of SE children who have the reading and writing problems, when unions strive to ensure that even this student population group, will never receive the correct remediation in their reading, writing and numeracy. because it is not in the union’s best interest to do so.
“According to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools, with each of those two countries spending more than $11,000 (in U.S. currency). However, the United States is ranked 37th in the world in education spending as a percentage of gross domestic product. All but seven of the leading countries are in the third world; ranked high because of a low GDP. U.S. public schools lag behind the schools of other developed countries in the areas of reading, math, and science.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States
So much for the myth being perperuated by the sticky-fingered educrats that more money means better results.
The USA does not have an overall spending problem, it has what Jonthan Kozal calls “Savage Inequalities” due to its heavy use of property tax to fund education. Schools in the burbs often have 10X the funding of inner city, rural poor or other poor areas.
The burbs have “the theatre room, the dance studio, the state of the art labs but more important the experienced highly qualified teachers.
The inner city has the condemned buildings, the ghetto approach, the metal detectors, but most importantly, the newest, least qualified and often unqualified teachers.
No they don’t have a total spending problem but they have a massive unfairness, reallocation problem.
Andrew, since money cannot buy good education, I have always proposed that we have a referrendum on spending with our provincial elections.
The ridings that vote “our schools need more money” would get 10% more and the ridings that vote “our schools don’t need more money” would get 10% less.
It would be self financing, democratic, and fair. What do you say?
Oh- you think nobody would vote for #2. What does that tell you? Hmmmmm
Actually Doug, apparently Nova Scotians are too complacent regarding the new cuts to teacher positions and less funding over all to education.
According to Vic Flurey.
Maybe NS is on to the problems and are turning away from the source of them – inflated educrats.
Andrew,
Readers know I am very familiar with polling results, especially education polling results. I supervised OSSTFs polling company and worked for Vector Polling after retirement.
More spending on education is the #2 spending priority of Canadians coast to coast after spending on health.
Approx. 80% want to spend more on educcation. About 10% clearly want to spend less. Good luck with that.
Totally irrelevent, as usual… and more bragging, as usual.
Just thought to pipe in, that Vector Polling is mainly used by the unions across Canada, especially the public sector unions. Not exactly unbiased data being received but Vector has manage to find a niche making money off the public sector unions. It allows educrats to spread falsehoods among the public, even though I have never heard a parent voiced to me in the last 35 years, the general statement of more funding for public education. What I have heard, is the funds to provide the local school, with library books, art supplies, music instruments, toilet paper, or repair the window.
The trouble is Doug, any increases go to the small army of educrats, peddling their brand of poison that does nothing for the quality of education being received. Based on my own experience, if I had accepted the brand of poison being peddled for my child, she would not be a honour student today, with fair writing skills, and reading skills. The educrats written her off back in grade one, as not being academic material. Developmentally slow, is still ringing in my ears today, and all done by dismissing the documentation of the health professionals, that stated that she was a bright intelligent girl, with a delay in speech. Apparently health professionals, including the medical specialists did not have the certification or knowledge of forming the education needs of my child or for that matter other children, but the educrats can form plans without even bothering to run tests/assessments to label children. The first label was developmentally slow, but the educrats insisted that she did not have any learning disabilities, and all done without any independent testing to confirmed the label of developmentally slow. Even here the educrats like to practice medicine without having a license to do so. When I decided to talk to the family doctor, he reacted in the very same way as I did. I do so enjoy the memory of my doctor phoning the educrat telling him off in a very civilized manner, and help to facilitate in obtaining a psycho-educational assessment for my child. Educrats, do not need anymore money to spread more poison and stamping children with labels of non-academic and academic.
Doug, it is a false argument that you present, in order to counter Andrew’s valid points on the OECD reports, and spending per student.
Using the property tax angle, is running around the issue how education tax dollars are spent, and where the tax dollars go to. It is the real issue, if property taxes should be the route to finance the operations of the schools, since higher real estate values pay more property tax, than the lower priced real estate. Another issue is where the monies go to and how the money is spent. A pressing issue, when one school needs new windows, and another needs a new roof, but the pot of money is getting smaller, because of the demands of salaries, the benefits and pensions. In Canada, it is rising to the 85 % mark, leaving only 15 % of the average $10,000 per student for the other operations and student education concerns.
And you are wrong about people wanting more money being spent in the public education system, if it means the extra fees parents pay out every year such as transportation fees, school fees, or paying lunch supervisor fees remains as a fixed cost for parents to pick up, while the extra increases go to pay for the salaries, pensions, and benefits. Since the economic crisis, education has become the low boy on the totem pole and certainly has shown itself to be even a lower priority for 2011 for many people, in the polls. People are waking up that throwing more money into public education, does not mean that their local school will get the much needed computers, or the roof repaired, unless the educrats grant their blessings to proceed. Worse still, the growing staff numbers at the board level, without the public being able to identified the staff members on the web sites, except for departments. A new method being employed by a number of school boards, to keep the public in the dark, and parents at bay.
Education is no longer a priority, and is last in the priorities of Canadians. Last figures are 6 % for education, and the first concern is jobs, and the second is health. Your idea of democracy like other educrats, is to keep the public in the dark, and to prevent all other reforms that would actually reduce the expenditures at the upper levels of the public education system, and direct the monies to the local schools, the only level that can effectively educate children to their learning needs and the communities. An educrat only serves their own best interests, and has no concern for the education quality that children are receiving.
Nancy, Polling firms right left and centre do not tailor their results to fit what the client wants. Their credibility goes out the window. Do you think the Liberal pollster right now is telling them “don’t worry you are ahead”.
Polling that people DO want more spent on education is confirmed by all other polling that says the same thing no matter what the company is.
There is a big problem with many partisans or people with strongly held beliefs that they insist that their views are majority views when all evidence tells us that they are not.
Most people travel in circles with like minded people who confirm their opinions. I remember being at an epensive golf course (I usually play cheap ones) and in the clubhouse these few chaps kept on saying “everybody wants tax cuts” ” everybody wants to slash welfare” “everybody wants to privatize health care”. When I pointed out that if this were true we would get it and in fact, tax cuts are a very low priority, few want to slash welfare and even fewer want to privatize health, they looked shocked. Usually that crowd does not recognize that they, in fact are in a small minority.
Every bit of polling I have seen from many many reputible polling firms, not just one, says people want FAR MORE spent on education as their #2 priority right behind health.
I say, after the net election, we slash education spending in ridings that vote Tory because that seems to be what they want and increase it somewhat in Liberal ridings and increase it a lot in NDP ridings because that is what they want – after all, it is all about choice and giving people what they want.
Oddly enough, the NDP in Nova Scotia just cut public school funding.
Score another non-point for the Dougster.
I agree with Nancy wholeheartedly!The money goes to more salaries and pensions,not to student materials and classrooms so the quality of their education improves.
Here is polling in NJ the state of Gov Christie (R) and public education basher. People want more not less education money.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/most_nj_residents_want_to_spen.html
Do some research, you will find it is the same EVERYWHERE even in very conservative jurisdictions.
We aren’t in NJ.
How about Bulgaria!
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=10591
Irrelevent.
Go ahead, cut ed spending in NS, everybody else is spending more and will be increasing it. It is the SINGLE only way to compete in the future and those that advocate eduction spending restrictions are slashing their own throat.
http://halifaxpolitics.ca/2011/02/03/facts-and-clarity-hard-to-find-in-education-discussion/
Excuse me while I choke!!!
You made me laugh out loud, and in fact I am still chuckling. Maybe you should move to Bulgaria, since their polls reflect your thinking, and the numbers are almost a match that you often cite. Remember these polls are opinion polls, and nothing else. Sure everybody wants an increase in funding, even the the defense department if they were polled for F-35s. Nice to have, but it could be that a country could only afford the economy model of a jet fighter, since it’s not at all efficient for search and rescue, and pick-up of soldiers.
Now what provinces are spending more on education? It is a riddle Doug, Increase to education funding, always means cuts to education services on the backs of the children and parents. Been too long sending off kids to school, not to see this pattern that is predictable, and educrats like it this way so they create more poison in the not-so-near future of the children. Someone has to pay for the salaries of the high-priced educrats, since accountability for achievement is not on the tables anywhere in the boards. Or otherwise, one would see a wholesale dumping of balance-literacy and put in new curriculum and programs that have the science and research behind it. Throw in good old fashion spelling, grammar and writing mechanics, achievement would rise in all groups of students and at the same time, the top-level educrats would start to loose their jobs, because precious few would be in need of remediation. But that is, if the teachers were trained properly at the teachers’ colleges on the science of learning, and not the natural learning pedagogy that does little to help students who are struggling.
As for your last link, another educrat piping the same line: “So, I guess you can cut education if all you are worried about is the numbers. And maybe the Province is so broke all we can do is worry about the numbers.
The short term goal of balancing the budget is laudable, but not if we have to cut P-12 funding. If we do this by the numbers we are killing the goose that lays the gold(ish) eggs.”
It is not cutting funding that people are worried about, it is how and what the funding is spent on. This is totally worrisome, especially when a public education system has the children for 12 years of their lives, and about one third are walking out with low literacy and numeracy skills. Another 1/3 is at high risk in taking remedial math and english courses at the post-secondary levels. I am sure parents are quite happy to be paying for tuition on remedial courses, that should have been taught years ago, especially in remedial English. If fact, no they are not happy campers especially the ones that have approach me. Moving on to the LD students, a group that has not been treated very well by the educrats, by refusing to bring in the effective reading, writing and numeracy programs based on the science and research. Canada can stand proud, in the last 20 years the dismal record of 4 % of the LD students make it to a post-secondary university or college. The definition for LD, is a student who has average to above average intelligent, and yet a public education system cannot or will not address their learning weaknesses in reading, writing and numeracy, for these students.
Below is a link of a Ontario LD high school student, who is realizing his dream to become a mechanical engineering. No thanks to the public education system, and all the credit to the parents abilities, skills and having the means to go outside the public education system.
http://www.guelphmercury.com/news/article/522016–dyslexia-won-t-keep-budding-engineerout-of-university
““So he is not standing out as the only kid in class who can’t read that paragraph and then recite what he read,” Rogers said. “He has been given very specific academic skills for college preparation. We’ve taught him the whole person development of self-organization, self-discipline, how to self advocate — all the things that his parents have had to do for a lot of years, he now can do for himself.’
Remember the words Doug, all the things that his parents have had to do for a lot of years. Ditto for me, and I only know the feeling too well of seeing increases in SE funding, only to see the public education system cut back on the educational services for SE students. The very things that are cut, are the very things that are most needed for the SE students. Especially for students such as my child, who are left floundering in the regular classroom, dealing with ineffective curriculum, and teaching methods. The public education system does a very good job, in ensuring that most LD students will never received the education services that they need to address their reading, writing and numeracy weaknesses. Thanks largely to the educrats who work hard to keep the myth of the non-academic label on all LD students. I have not met a educrat yet, from the school board level, that does not have their head filled with misconceptions of LD, by other educrats at the higher levels. In their minds the LD students are not worth the time and effort to addressed their learning weaknesses, but the extra funding over and above for the students’ LD status sure comes in handy for educrats, to spend it elsewhere.
You say the money goes to salaries and pensions as if that is wasted money. The more you pay teachers, the better teachers you get which is something Wisconsin is about to find out.
I thought all you right wingers believed that if you pay CEOs more you get the best CEO. If you pay hockey players more, you get the best hockey players and if you pay doctors more, you get better doctors.
The same thing applies to education, the more you pay teachers the better the education system is since the system attracts better candidates.
Almost every labour intensive business is 70% salary. Somehow U of T thinks, if we pay profs more than all the other universities, we will have the best profs and therefore we will be known as the best universities.
American teacher salaries are terrible and their system is terrible. Notice the connection? Americans have no respect for teachers and as a result, their system keeps going down. In fact, the non-union states that have the worst salaries are almost 100% CONGRUENT WITH THE STATES WITH THE WORST EDUCATION RESULTS.
You folks just don’t get it. High teacher salaries = high education results. Duh.
BS Doug, and another false argument. It does not matter what the pay scale is for teachers, the same dismal outcomes would be produced especially in low literacy rates, because of the use of progressive methods, whole language, discovery methods, poor curriculum, and so many other methods that are not based on the science or reliable research. Teachers could walk into a school today with salaries over $100,000 and missed 40 % of the students who have reading and writing problems. The methods used today, that are mandated by the educrats and the special educrats of the teachers’ colleges are designed to do just that, delay and avoid the correct remediation, since it is not approved by the educrats. The back-up excuse to be used, if one should question it, too costly or no money.
Teacher salaries and pensions does not help students and their education. It does not help students like my child, that needed systematic explicit phonics reading instruction. It does not help the child who need explicit direct instruction in numeracy, and not the fuzzy crazy approach taken in math at the current time. Nor can teachers or educrats be compared to CEOs, accountants or other professionals who get paid well, but are held accountable for results and mistakes made on the job. Even the waitress is held accountable at a higher level than a teacher, if ignoring the needs of the patrons of the restaurant. A teacher, nor the educrats are ever held accountable for the poor outcomes of students. What about the outcomes for LD students, where only 4 % of LD students attend post-secondary? It is only in the public education system, where the 4 arms of the system work in conjunction to be accountable to each other, and not accountable to the taxpayers and the children. Remember Doug, it was an educrat making well over $100,000 telling me with his fancy degree in administration, in a haughty voice only teachers can determined the education needs of students, and in the case of my child, she is developmentally slow. To this day, he avoids me because he was so wrong about my child, and one day when my child is safely out of the public education system, I will be holding him accountable for his words he spoke for so many years carelessly and with intent to deny education services for my child, because he thought my child was not worth the time, effort and money to find out why she was struggling in reading, writing and numeracy.
The minds of educrats only serve their own best interests and not the best interests of children. It does not matter what the pay scale is, it still would not change the mind of the educrat who spoke the words of developmentally slow, condemning her for the next three years of school, without receiving the educational services she needed to reach her potential.
Funny, the data says otherwise. Canada has one of the world’s outstanding education systems. If it did not work out that well for your child Nancy, well, no system is perfect, not Finland, not charters, not private schools, not Korea.
In the world’s best hospitals with the world’s best doctors, some patients die. In the world’s fairest courts with the world’s best judges and lawyers, some people are wrongly convicted.
That is just the way it is. Rest assured, only Finland and Korea have very slightly better systems. Finland child poverty = 4% Korea very long hours and world’s best paid teachers as % of GDP. We CAN pay more train higher do longer hours and eliminate poverty but it costs money and takes political will.
The Nova Scotia people are at least lucky they have an NDP government or the cuts would be faster and deeper. Looks like Jack will win a few more seats there this time.
BTW, Canada’s highest paid teachers? Alberta. Best results, Alberta. The defence rests.
Same all over the world. USA states with high pay = states above OECD avg. States with low pay = states way below OECD avg. Go figure.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet agree. USA pays teachers far to little.
ooops TOO little.
Yes data and the manipulation of data done daily by the public education system, in order to cover up the data that shows where the system is badly failing students, the public and society. Educrats citing the 10 % low-literacy skills, while all other professional groups are citing the 42 % of Canadians with low literacy skills. The failure to address the reading, writing and numeracy needs of the LD group is another set of data carefully manipulated by the educrats, to imply to the public that LD students are hard to educate in some form or variation. Implying that LD students are not academic material, and the proof is in the numerous articles, research of the educrats. The papers of the educrats, imply much the same as you have in your last post, that no system is prefect. But what is omitted is that health and justice systems have checks and balances, and for that matter a government that is operating under democratic principles. The modern day public education system does not operate under a system of checks and balances, that balances the needs of the students and to ensure that no part of the education system becomes too powerful to dictate the mandates and policies of education. In this topsy-turvy education system, the parents and children are the ones devoid of power, rights, and are only entitled to what the educrats would like to grant to us. What a doctor never does, is to treat the pimple on the face, completely ignoring the cut finger profusely bleeding, that is in need of a few stitches. But the public education system and its educrats does it everyday, ignores the bleeding finger and treats the pimple on the face.
On teachers’ salaries, I came across this blog, titled Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada. Numerous comments covering all aspects. As I was reading the comments, a little common sense injected, but the poor poster was jumped on by the very posters who are teachers.
“My wife is a former chairperson of a big urban board in Ontario plus she was a teacher/principal/director in Quebec plus my brother was a teacher who moved from Quebec to Ontario & my daughter teaches in Ontario so I am quite knowledgeable about the differences. The real difference in Salaries between the two provinces is in the $10,000 to $15,000 per year range. Double or triple differences are just not true. The originator of this blog claims a salary of $46,000 in Quebec which implies minimal teaching experience or not much educational experience. Quebec has a grid system much like Ontario except the max is after 15 years & its max education category very closely approximates Ontario’s A4. This person must have had under 10 years experience or was a Quebec A2 equivalent. Alberta salaries lie between Quebec & Ontario & currently not that close to Ontario. You know that Ontario teachers are possibly the best paid teachers in North America.
Couple of other points.
My brother had a BSc, MBA & teaching diploma, all from McGill & 5 years teaching experience when he went to Ontario & he was forced to take an extra year of schooling in order to be qualified to be hired & most of his experience was not recognized. Normally, if you graduated in Ontario with that much education you would make be classified as A4 but he had to do another year of schooling to achieve A4. The Ontario College of Teachers puts significant roadblocks in the way of non-Ontario teachers.
Non salary cost are much more significant than one might imagine. When my wife was chair of the Ottawa board 1/5 of teacher costs were in benefits. Teachers tend to only see salary but class size in particular is a tremendously expensive item. Quebec has the smallest class sizes in Canada. I believe in per-pupil costs Quebec looks a lot better in comparison with Ontario. Notice that none of the “Quebec teachers” raised this point. Teachers everywhere cry out constantly for smaller class sizes yet they personally give no monetary value to this incredibly expensive benefit. Also, most published studies show no correlation between student performance and class size.
Quebec is very people orientated versus other provinces. Quebec likes to invest in people & as many as possible & investing in things (like buildings computers, etc) have a low priority. Thus Quebec would rather spend a million on hiring 20 people whereas Ontario would hire 12 people & buy 20 computers. Priorities are very different in the two cultures.”
http://www.nucleuslearning.com/content/teacher-pay-scale-across-canada?page=1
A little common sense, that the differences between salaries of teachers in the various provinces, is the structure of the salary grids, and what data table one is looking at. Doug states that Alberta is first, yet in other tables Alberta falls below Ontario. But the call for some educrats like Doug, is to raise teacher salaries to raise achievement rates. What Doug omits that the OECD, nor any other education organization have confirmed through the use of data/stats that high salaries equals a higher quality of education. In the last report of OECD, buried deep in their report, that there is no relationship between teachers’ salaries and student achievement and/or education quality. The three factors of teachers that plays the pivoted role in student achievement/education are teacher training, autonomy, and resources. Salaries only play the role of acting as the incentive and motivation to perform the job duties and execute the mandates of the upper levels of the public education system.
One can pay a teacher a $100,000 salary but it will not change the outcomes of low achievement under the current structure of the public education system, until teaching training is in align with the cognitive and learning science research, autonomy for teachers and to lift the ban on what resources can be used by teachers. As outlined by the poster, in the above link that the priorities are quite different between provinces, between school boards, teachers’ unions, teachers’ colleges, and other completing education interests, that the results of completing agendas, leaves very little room left to address the individual’s students’ education needs and the local communities. Thus driving down the achievement rates and limits the students in obtaining a quality education.
Korea #1 in the world. Highest salaries in the world as % of GDP which is the important factor.
Not relevant.
Click to access 1840245.pdf
Doug, the Wikipedia link on GDP. Tells you everything needed to know about GDP, including the limitations of GDP.
The more important limitations: “1. Sustainability of growth–GDP is not a tool of economic projections, which would make it subjective, it is just a measurement of economic activity. That is why it does not measure what is considered the sustainability of growth. A country may achieve a temporarily high GDP by over-exploiting natural resources or by misallocating investment. For example, the large deposits of phosphates gave the people of Nauru one of the highest per capita incomes on earth, but since 1989 their standard of living has declined sharply as the supply has run out. Oil-rich states can sustain high GDPs without industrializing, but this high level would no longer be sustainable if the oil runs out. Economies experiencing an economic bubble, such as a housing bubble or stock bubble, or a low private-saving rate tend to appear to grow faster owing to higher consumption, mortgaging their futures for present growth. Economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation can end up costing dearly to clean up. A government can inflate GDP by repeatedly increasing public debt and heavy monetization. This can ultimately end in collapse of that country’s currency.
2. One main problem in estimating GDP growth over time is that the purchasing power of money varies in different proportion for different goods, so when the GDP figure is deflated over time, GDP growth can vary greatly depending on the basket of goods used and the relative proportions used to deflate the GDP figure. For example, in the past 80 years the GDP per capita of the United States if measured by purchasing power of potatoes, did not grow significantly. But if it is measured by the purchasing power of eggs, it grew several times. For this reason, economists comparing multiple countries usually use a varied basket of goods.
3. Cross-border comparisons of GDP can be inaccurate as they do not take into account local differences in the quality of goods, even when adjusted for purchasing power parity. This type of adjustment to an exchange rate is controversial because of the difficulties of finding comparable baskets of goods to compare purchasing power across countries. For instance, people in country A may consume the same number of locally produced apples as in country B, but apples in country A are of a more tasty variety. This difference in material well being will not show up in GDP statistics. This is especially true for goods that are not traded globally, such as housing.
4. Transfer pricing on cross-border trades between associated companies may distort import and export measures[citation needed].
As a measure of actual sale prices, GDP does not capture the economic surplus between the price paid and subjective value received, and can therefore underestimate aggregate utility. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
If you can’t see the trouble with using GDP for comparisons to teachers’ salaries……………………….sort like comparing a rock to an orange. GDP is complicated, and why it is left to the economists, and the politicians to score their brownie points.
Doug did you read the entire OECD link that you provided. Even they know the limitations of GDP, but it does provide valid points why teachers salaries vary among the countries. Poorer countries there is higher salaries but classroom sizes are large.
Only real measure we have. OECD pretty clear, better salaries attract beter candidates to teaching.
College of Teachers asked males why they refuse to teach in elementary schools. Basic answer, very low status can only be offset by much higher wages.
http://futurejournalismproject.org/post/4779818218/teachers-worth
http://futurejournalismproject.org/post/4779818218/teachers-worth
Where do you read in the OECD, better salaries, attract better candidates? What I have read, increase in salaries, causes an over supply of teachers. Lots of teachers walking around looking for a full time position, especially in Ontario. And that depends on the benefits, pensions and other variables but the salaries reported in the OECD report, does not include the benefits/pensions. That is why the 60 % figure reported in the OECD report, is low for the share of salaries in education costs, and for most countries the actual figure is 75 % to 85 % once benefits/pensions are included.
Read it again Nancy, better salaries draw better candidates into teching.
Look at American salaries in terms of % of GDP. No wonder they are #19 in the world. Charters and vouchers can’t turn that around. Child poverty rate of 20% is a disgrace in a wealthy country.
Apples and oranges.
Go back to the last link you have provided. I seen it right away, the person who did the graphs was fitting the data, to make his point. It is really about understanding GDP, and it is really not as simple as the media and politicians portray it.
The next link, Conference Board of Canada, on the page of GDP growth.
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/Economy/gdp-growth.aspx
There is other important links on the left side of the page.
Any country with lower GDP, lower income per capita, would find it hard to provide the services. It depends on the priorities of the country, their economic policies, but what has been shown there is a direct link between high GDP and standard of living.
“Income per capita, or gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, is the most frequently used statistic for comparing economic well-being across countries. Income per capita measures the value of things exchanged in the marketplace. While high performance in this category does not guarantee a high quality of life, a country that is not generating enough income is hampered in what it can do on the environmental and social fronts.
The indicator is a per capita measure, because a country’s total income may rise as its population increases, even though there may have been no improvement in the income level of the average citizen. To compare per capita income, the indicator is also adjusted to remove the effects of price changes. ”
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/Economy/income-per-capita.aspx
Even though South Korea has a high GDP, the average income is about $30,000. Plus Korea has cheap labour, while paying out high salaries for the university educated such as teachers. There is other variables that are much different from countries such as Australia, Canada, or United States. One of them that stands out is land mass, and economic policies differ vastly because of the different priorities and goals of countries.
By the way, I asked you what page did you read it. So page number please. Singling out one set of salaries in one field, does not mean one can infer high wages lead to higher quality workers. What can be infer, that high wages leads to more people willing to work in the field, providing they meet the qualifications. Another thing to consider, is the GDP of each province, and the regions within the province. Even though NL has a high GDP, is does not mean prosperity for the average resident. Look at GDP from a micro perspective, rather than a macro perspective, especially dealing with the differences in public education in each province.
Andrew Gilmour
Apples and oranges.
Nonsense. I am well aware that some people do not WANT teacher salaries to be linked to higher academic achievement but the fact is that they are.
The Americans are almost a perfect lab of this due to 50 different pay scales and academic outcomes.
Look closely. Across that country, the more you pay the better the results the less you pay the lower the results. One can even make the case that voting Democrat in your state leads to much higher results but voting Republican leads to much lower results. Democratic states with strong unions seriously outperform Republican states with weak unions.
Hey, facts are facts.
I’m still waiting for some “facts” and not more of your constant statistical cherry picking.
Dear Paul,Students First is about helping children,should a Union representative be blogging here,it is truly taxing.He keeps shoving his views.
Doug,new movie out called the Cartel-watch it-you`ll see a district with highest paid teachers and lowest achieving students.You guys have it all wrong-
There is no studies attesting to high teacher salaries to high achievement. In numerous studies it states the evidence is thin, and may be impossible to determined it.
On the The Future of Children site, is a collaboration of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. It states: “The absence of a simple link between teacher salaries (relative to GDP per capita) and student achievement should come as no surprise given the many differences among these countries, including culture, the education level of the adult population, the quality of the teacher training programs, and the presence or absence of national standards. Even if a relationship had emerged from the data, the complexity of the interrelationships between all these variables would make it difficult, if not impossible, to tease out causal linkages between teacher salaries and student achievement.39”
http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=34&articleid=82§ionid=489
Parents should be made aware that teachers’ unions are always pushing for higher salaries, claiming it increases achievement. One of the angles being pushed nearing contract time, among other items making our children’s education achievement an item to be traded off in a highly politicized environment and completing agendas.
Cartel and Waiting for Superman films propoganda that Joseph Goebbles would be pleased to call his own. I can give you the links that totally discredit both films.
The question is this? Is this a forum for the exchange of views or a single ideology place where no other POV are welcome?
Does Jo Anne “shove her views” or only people who disagree with her?
BTW I am not a union rep, I am a former union rep. I come to you as a private school owner. I thought you loved that. We just placed 100% of our graduating class in good universities.
Really?
So, if our public schools are so outstanding here in Canada why do you allegedly own a private xchool and why is it even needed?
There are some very wealthy Chinese out there who don’t mind paying us $28000 per year to have their son-daughter is a class of only 12 students, with certified teachers and a guarantee of entry to the Canadian university of their choice or their money back.
The public schools will not give them a guarantee.
There’s a pattern here.
From allegedly being a classroom teacher, Doug leaves the classroom to become a union muck-a-muck – for money – then runs for the school board – more money – and now allegedly owns a private school – again, more money – and then claims to have an overriding interest in public education.
And let’s not forget the statistical cherry picking.
Doug certainly sounds more like a triple-dipping politician than someone dedicated to improving public education.
One wonders why he’s even on this blog.
Doug,you are a hypocrite extraordinaire-shall we also say you are conflicted.Much more than the bloggers here,invested frustratingly in the improvement of public education and the pressure of shool vouchers/and or school choice if accountability and service do not improve.
Guaranteeing University placement,smells like corruption,no one should be able to guarantee that,not even Upper Canada College,and they don`t.
That is rich – “The public schools will not give them a guarantee.” Public schools cannot guarantee anything, including a foundation of the 3 Rs, when the schools are burdened to meet the provincial mandates, the constraints imposed by the rules/regulations, and the powerful teachers’ unions imposing their contract demands. All to keep the public education system operating at a dysfunction level, to prevent schools from using the available resources in the most effective and efficient deployment and methods.
As for Doug’s private school, his guarantee is based on entry of a university, and is easily met since his students are considered international students. International students are very attractive to universities, because it means double or triple the revenue, as opposed to Canadian students. It is why the universities have a fair number of recruitment staff and programs to attract international students, who for the most part did not meet the high standards for entry into the universities of their home countries. The entry part of Doug’s guarantee is easily met, and it is unlikely under any circumstances that he will ever have to refund monies for failure to gain admittance to a post-secondary institution.
Jo Anne it is guarantee or money back. If speedy guarantees your muffler and your muffler breaks down, you get a new free one. Nothing corrupt about it.
Andrew, everybody works for money. Nothing wrong with that.
Many of our students passed the Gow Cow, the university entrance exam in China. Their parents want a western U expeience for reasons of cache, English and immigration.
Perhaps so Doug, but what Chinese universities do not do well is the arts and humanity. Not highly value as the maths and sciences in their country. Furthermore Doug, you are dealing with high school Chinese students, who are faced with access problems to senior high school after junior high school. One of the major problems cited by Chinese officials as well as other experts in other countries is the denial of entry is the failure of Chinese students because their grades are not high enough.
“First, there is a barrier erected by the examination system. For students in China to be promoted from junior high school to high school, they need to take an entrance exam (which is called the zhongkao). The zhongkao is a competitive, standardized, prefecture-/city-wide
exam that is given in the spring of the final year of junior high school. If students from rural China do not score high enough on the zhongkao, they are not allowed to enroll in academic high schools.”
Click to access Liu_et_al_July31_APJE_MS09-054_MS_Development_challenge_high_school_educatrion.pdf
In a Chinese article, titled More students choose to study aboard,
“So, what is behind the lowering age of overseas Chinese students? First, going abroad is an alternative to the national college entrance exam, which has long been described as a stampede of “thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of horses across a single log bridge”.
“I decided to send my 14-year-old son to Australia for his high school education this autumn because there is too much pressure on him to prepare for the college entrance exam,” said Zhang Ran, a manager of a pharmaceutical company in Beijing.
“The enormous pressure will definitely harm a child’s physical and mental health, and I don’t think it’s worthwhile that all the hard work goes into a one-time exam,” he added. ”
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-04/25/content_12383944.htm
The Chinese parents are even opting to send their children to other countries at a much earlier age, to avoid having their children taking the entrance exams that are require at each level of high school.
As to your statement, of your students taking the Gow Cow, the university entrance exams, than their would be no need for your Chinese students to avail of your private high school, since their already are qualified to be admitted to universities. So which is it Doug, students that attend your schools, are Chinese students who failed the Gow Cow exam, or students whose parents have opted to sent their children to your school, to avoid the Gow Cow exam?
As I pointed out Nancy, half our kids passed the national exam, the rest were too young. They are very sharp kids, just need a little more English and some Canadian history lit, etc.
We make sure they get in. Every one gets tons of individual attention which is what you can do with classes of 12. Now if we could just have public school sizes like that.
then stop centralizing.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/118820339.html
I guess vouchers are not the answer, Milwaukee program a failure, Howard Fuller turns against vouchers.
Doug, do you not expect us to read the above link. The scores are based on the new test. One may expect problems for schools to adjust to the new test.
“Mike Ford, spokesman for School Choice Wisconsin, an organization that supports the voucher program, said that the latest test scores are a snapshot that confirms what everyone already knows: Choice school students enter these voucher schools below grade level.
Ford argues that the test scores, however low they may look for many voucher schools, do not show student achievement over time and should not be used to draw conclusions between schools.”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/118820339.html
But still, the Chinese students passing grade for the national exam was not high enough, for admittance to a Chinese university.
“Every year, China has a national exam that high school students must take. This exam is what they spend their entire high school careers to prepare. They memorize facts and terms for 3 years just to pass this extremely important exam. This exam decides their future, literally. If they do well on the exam they can attend a very prestigious school and have a degree that is valued and be respected in China. However, if they do not do so well.. they will go to a lower school or technical school… or worse case, if they fail they may not be able to attend university at all.”
“Part of the reason why Zhao and so many of his peers want to study abroad is a straightforward matter of supply and demand. The aren’t enough university places in China to meet demand, says Shaun McElroy, a high school counselor at Shanghai American School and vice president of the non-profit trade body Overseas Association for College Admission Counseling. Last year, nearly 10 million high school students took the Gao Kao, in the hope of getting one of 6.2 million university places available at China’s 792 universities. (There are also 1,239 junior colleges and 316 independent academies that are monitored by local governments or institutions rather than the Ministry of Education.) In the U.S., by contrast, with more than 3,500 accredited colleges and universities, there is “excess capacity,” says McElroy.”
http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&Articleid=2318&languageid=1
“Recently, China’s growing middle class has revolutionized the country’s private educational system. Beyond Shunyi villas and Humvees, China’s nouveau riche regard Western education for their “little emperors” as the latest status symbol.
A new crop of Chinese private high schools is reconceiving the “passport” school as the “checkbook” school, opening Western-style education to those who can pay. ”
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/metro/2010-06/21/content_9995366.htm
Not so much the class sizes Doug, but from what I have read, Chinese students need lots of attention, because they lack maturity.
“In an attempt to get past some of the difficulties Chinese parents have tried to send their children earlier. If they send them to a private high school in the states first it is easier to get them into a University in the states. Which actually makes perfect sense. Thus, begins the preparation for the younger students to go abroad.
The downside to this I feel is the maturity level of the students. In China, the parents take care of everything for their child. From cooking, cleaning, to shopping for their clothes even after the child is university age. The child does not experience anything besides studying, therefore, to send them abroad with such little experience and maturity is not the best idea. The children become homesick and have major culture shock.”
Reported in many studies that the Chinese students only experience in life is studying, and lack the social and practical skills such as time management skills. As a result, Chinese students studying at private or public high schools in Canada or other English countries, there is lots of individual attention to address the lack of these skills, along with careful planning of their time when they are not taking classes.
I also noted that in Canada it is 4 billion dollar business taking care of international students. And you pretend that you are not in it for the money.
Click to access cac40.pdf
Excuses, excuses excuses, over and over, choice programs fail to live up to the hype when actually put into practice. Same with Stanford Study, when they REALLY have to take all of the kids, they cannot do better than public schools and usually do worse.
Our poor American friends see determined to go up the road of vouchers, charters, testing, merit pay, union busting, teacher bashing, anti-democratic Mayor’s control, etc etc.
They will find that this road is a road to failure.None of the successful nations are on this road but don’t let actual evidence from around the world get in the way of a totally ideological argument.
Too bad for the kids after ten wasted years.
But, but, but the Americans spend a ton on oublic education and. according to you, money is the solution… more cherry picking, Doug?
Excuses are what the educrats offer to their students when they fail to address the education needs of their students. Vouchers, choice are some of the solutions that are offer to respond to the education needs that the public education will not or won’t do to address the education needs of the students.
Even in Canada, some school districts are responding by offering alternatives besides the standard education model. Others are offering choice by granting students the right to attend any public school within their district. Many other nations have responded as well, offering choice especially in the European countries. Even Sweden has a form of a charter school model, that England is copying as well.
Excuses are offered by the educrats to students who are struggling in the foundation of reading, writing, and numeracy, and they rarely received the correct help in remediation of their learning weaknesses, based on the science and research. In special education, excuses is the norm, rather than seeking solutions to addressed their learning weaknesses. A real pity, if choice was ever offered to this group of parents, it would be a stampede to the school that was offering reading, writing and numeracy based on the science research that has been proven to be far more effective than the solutions offered by the public education system.
Anyway, it’s been fun – to some extent – but I’m quickly losing interest here. We’re going around in circles.
Caio.
Andrew Gilmour
But, but, but the Americans spend a ton on oublic education and. according to you, money is the solution… more cherry picking, Doug?
Actually I have said many times that the problem in the USA is far more a maldistribution of funding than concerns about the total. The USA has a serious problem because their poor, often black and hispanic underclass has terrible results that drag down the entire national average. 80% of Americans do as well as world leading Finland, Korea and Canada.
The Americans rely very hevily on property tax for education and therefore wealthy suburbs have often up to 10X the money of poor innercity districts who do badly.
There is a money problem but not a spending problem. Our friends to the south need to move money around.
Than Doug, I suggest that the U.S. does not copy Canada’s way of doing things. Spreading it evenly based on student numbers, creates many of the inequity problems that exist today in the provincial education systems. Canada’s way is to hide the inequities, so everyone can pretend that students are equal no matter the location. The problem as I see it, is that in both countries is that most of the funding is going to salaries and to pay for the heavy administration costs, where resources become the sacred cow for many to fight over at the local school level.
Most of the money goes to salaries in all education systems. It is a labour-intensive industry, always has been always will be under every political stripe everywhere.
The USA probably spends enough but often spends $15000 per wealthy kid and $5000 per poor kid. The poor kids are the only ones doing badly, Duh.
Canada does a much better job with its poor as OECD points out. So do others. We could do better. We need to focus EVEN MORE on poor kids and schools in poor neighbourhoods if we want to do better.
I was labour, those admin were management but we still need people to manage the system.
Sure it is intensive, but that is what a top-down structure looks like, to support the needs of those who work within the education system, regardless if the system can support pupil-teacher ratios, and the available resources. It is the student resources and supports that are the first to be cut, in order to pay for the salaries, that control the student resources and supports. Doug keeps mentioning poor schools, but I would rather state low-income schools, and my point is that in low-income schools are always resource poor and supports are far less than in the higher-income schools. Yet Doug, would like to add more staff……
Staff is the critical element. It is like saying you are running the Toronto Maple Leafs but we are spending too much on player salaries.
Boards have been spending roughly 70% on teachers, 10% on support staff, 10% on basic infrastructure (maintenance, heat, light, bussing, chalk, computers…) for many many decades. This usually leave far less than 10% for local priorities.
Twas ever thus.
Hey Doug,
cap the educrats!
Looks like controls on social promotion have also now failed.
Click to access catspring2011.pdf
Vouchers, charters, merit pay, ending social promotion, teacher bashing all of these ideas are not just wrong “in theory” they have already failed where they have been tried.
This direction just does not work. Time to get on with curriculum reform, teacher training, class size reductions, ECE/ELP programs, honouring teachers and things that actually work. Otherwise we will spend another 10 years going up a dead end road. The smart folks in the reform movement, the Checker Finn and Rick Hess types are actually beginning to notice how often reform sacred cows are just road kill one by one.
Doug, do you read any of your own links?
“The story of a 6th-grader from Black Magnet
Elementary, illustrates how the policy can
be easily misused. The boy was sent to summer
school because of low test scores in math. Over
the summer, he did well and passed math. But
he failed reading—a subject in which he had
previously earned good test scores and grades—
because he got several zeros on class tests. Why?
For talking. Now he’s repeating 6th grade.”
Sounds to me, that the teachers’ union is in behind this one, urging teachers to sabotage policies, that unions do not like. Easily done, if the policy was developed poorly in the first place. As for vouchers, charters, merit pay, are other things that unions do not like. Your forgot a few more, such things as Direct Instruction, systematic explicit phonics, standard testing, that unions work actively behind the scenes using their political influence and connections to limit their impact or prevent them from becoming a reality. Unions rather cheer Reading Recovery and badly conceived math curriculum that only a educrat without a math degree can developed. I shook my head this morning checking out the so-call qualifications of the educrats in charge of numeracy. It is getting really scary and I am glad that my child is nearing the end of her public school days.
What is this bit about honouring teachers? A wee bit upset Doug, that the Toronto police received a 11 % raise, which brings the pay to $92,000 dollars, for a first constable salary. Or is your idea about honouring teachers is much like the respect that teachers have in other countries such as China, that is deep rooted in their culture. I respect teachers, but not the educrats and unionists that are selling the teachers the lemons. Too many teachers have no choice but to make lemonade, and hope the enforcers (the educrats and unionists) are not looking their way.
Why Doug do you mentioned ELP and small class sizes? In Ontario it has arrived, but due to the teachers’ union and their demands, ELP is a much smaller funded program, because school boards cannot afford it. Small class sizes up to the end of the primary grades, and yet the achievement scores move in a snail-paced growth upward. Thanks to the unions pushing out the PE, arts, music to the outer edges of programming, one would think the achievement in literacy and numeracy would be better, especially in smaller classes. How about looking at the reading, writing and numeracy instruction Doug, instead of unions, school boards and ministries always cutting education services to the children.
Going back to the funding of public education, I read some pretty crazy stuff from the educrats and some parents. One educrat suggested to fund education, by receiving 100 % of the inheritance taxes. The parent suggested that everyone pay a percentage on income, with the wealthier people paying a larger percentage than their counterparts. Believe it or not, even though the examples are American, both agree that property tax is not the way to go. I did find an interesting paper that is Canadian, and finally some common sense. Note the paper is about the Manitoba system, but I am sure glad I am not living in that province.
Click to access frontier2.pdf
By the way social promotion does not work either, especially when the students that are being socially promoted are not receiving the remediation and effective targeted help to addressed their learning weaknesses. If it was happening Doug, my child would have received her help way back in grade one, and not the nightmare that she and I had to endure to get the help. But than again Doug, the educrats have their excuses when it comes to LD students, they are too hard to teach.
Sadly,this has become a vessel for Doug to air his views time and time again.
Nancy,please do not give Doug these opportunities.Also,if you read the heading of this post,the discussion is no longer relevant.
Nova Scotia,Mr.Bennett and other people of relevance involved in “Students First” do not care to hear what Doug,a former Union Rep and private school owner from Ontario thinks.
We care what Nancy thinks,you need to have your own non profit and or blog/newsletter,the depth of your understanding of this “broken system”would be so valuable.
OK, here’s some Ontario stats for Nova Scotians.
In Ontario, education spending went from $15 billion in 02/03 to a projected $22.7 billion for next school year–an approximate 46.5% increase. Student enrollment decreased from 1,999,575 down to a projected 1,877,888 over the same period. (From Ont. Min. of Ed.) Over the same period, teacher union contracts got increases of 25%, [12.5% from 2004-08 + another 12.5% (2008-12) due to expire Aug. 31/12] not to mention the accompanying pension and benefit costs associated with those increases. Student achievement essentially flat-lined over the same period. High school graduation rates (allegedly) increased, but nobody ever fails so they are meaningless. Colleges and universities have to provide more and more remedial courses for freshman-year students.
Value for money? Children First? You decide.
For specific details see http://www.sunshineonschools.ca
Well Doug I hardly mind your presence here with the background as a union rep in your past simply as you ventured into the progressives boogie man being Capitalism. Your venture speaks to the failures of public education in Nova Scotia and your experience is not a unique one.
The Unions and other vested interests cloud the issue that threatens this province the most. A debt that is second to none in all the Americas on an per capita basis.
Until we have persons in control of all publically funded agencies in this province who look to every possible cost saving we will continue to kick the can down the road.
Special education and teachers assistants are threatened by the fact that the possible cost savings in other areas of education are ignored and children are again used a Human Shields to maintain a failed status quo.