School Choice and Equity was recently recognized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a critical public policy issue throughout the educational world. An OECD study with that title published by Pauline Musset on 24 January 2012 surveyed and assessed the range and variety of school choice in 34 different countries. While Canada was among the countries included, much of the Canadian data was incomplete, rendering any definitive evaluation of where we stand virtually impossible. Not only that, but the detailed bibliography contained no academic research whatsoever emanating from Canada. http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=EDU/WKP%282012%293&docLanguage=En
The Toronto Globe and Mail’s Erin Anderssen followed up on February 17, 2012 with a feature story, “Inequitable Schooling,” purporting to be responding to the OECD study, School Choice and Equity. Departing from Musset’s OECD paper, Anderssen focused almost entirely on one particular aspect — the potential impact of parental choice on “equality” within the educational system. http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/education/school/why-inequality-is-growing-in-public-schools/article2341085/?service=mobile
Faced with incomplete data, the Globe writer, left to her own devices, cobbled together interviews from educators, parents and education school professors. In many ways, the piece missed the entire point of the OECD study and simply reinforced conventional educational thinking here in Canada. In what amounted to a Freudian slip, the OECD study was even misidentified as a report on “School Choice and Equality.”
Why take issue with The Globe and Mail ‘s Family and Relationships section story? For one simple reason: It completely ignores the OECD study’s most significant findings and the compelling case it presents for extending school choice to improve both student performance and social equity. Nor does the piece ask the most fundamental question of all – why Canada stands out as one of the few countries not actively introducing school choice within the publicly-funded system.
The facts presented in the OECD report would be startling to most Canadians with children in the school system. Over the past 25 years, over two-thirds of the OECD countries have increased “school choice opportunities for parents.” Choice programs, Musset notes, “can be perceived as leading to a general improvement in the quality of education, and fostering efficiency and innovation.” She also recognizes that school choice can “exacerbate inequities” if it is not introduced in a careful fashion seeking to balance “parental right to choose with the social imperative of equity.”
The OECD report, unlike Anderssen’s article, reaffirms the right and desire of most parents to choose a school. It assesses the availablity of choice across the range of OECD countries, albeit with fragmentary evidence from Canada. Countries offering the greatest school choice, according an OECD principals survey, are Australia, Japan, the Slovak Republic, and Belgium, and not the United States.
On average across OECD countries, 85% of students are enrolled in public education. Sixteen of the 33 countries (48.5%) have 10% or more of their students enrolled in either government-dependent or government-independent private schools. Five countries have adopted fee zones for attendance, eliminating districting by school planners: The Netherlands, New Zealand, Chile, Italy, and Belgium. Most significantly, the OECD reports that private schools clearly outperform public schools in only three countries: Slovenia, Canada, and Ireland.
School choice, according to the report, “has become prevalent across OECD countries, and is increasing.” While United States school choice policy initiatives garner much public debate, the OECD study highlights different models, most notably Sweden’s voucher system. Since 1992, Sweden — unlike Finland — has had a universal voucher system where grants follow the child and a voucher can be used to pay tuition in a private, independent, non-denominational school. In this social democracy, all places are open to sudents on a “first come, first served” basis and private schools cannot charge more than the per pupil grant for tuition. Both The Netherlands and Chile also have universal progressive voucher systems.
Targeted school choice programs are more common in the United States. In states like Wisconsin and Ohio, school choice initiatives were tailored specifically for students from disadvantaged families. The initial Milwaukee voucher program, started in 1990, was strictly limited to serving lower income families, whereas Ohio’s state-wide educational choice scholarship program, introduced in 2006 and limited to students in “failing schools” , expanded to serve 34 school districts and 213 schools by 2008. Outside of Alberta, few Canadian school boards, except for Ontario’s largest, the Toronto District School Board and one or two others, have dared to hint at moving in this direction.
The OECD study did not, as The Globe story implies, obsess over the potential inequalities resulting from giving parents freedom of choice in education. It was identified as a possible consequence, but the report also recognized the “imperfections” associated with “a single provider system.” The OECD actually reached the opposite conclusion. “A careful design of school choice schemes,” Musset asserted, “can allow (education authorities/ districts) to combine parental freedom, enhanced opportunities for disadvantaged children and equity.”(p. 43)
Public discussion of school choice in Canada remains at a very primitive level. Since the mid-1990s, the Society for Quality Education has performed yeoman service championing the caise of parental choice in the face of a rather intransigent public education system. A recent move by the York Region District School Board to eliminate the Arts@Baythorn program has backfired badly on defenders of the one-size-fits-all public education system. It has succeeded in arousing parents seeking arts enrichment English programs in an otherwise “choice-less” school district. http://www.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/pdfs/a/agenda/ms/sc120124/yrdsb-sc120124-p1-20.pdf
Defenders of the single provider education system are marshalling their forces with the support of the usual band of OISE education professors. A recent TVO program The Agenda, hosted by Steve Paikin, gave Annie Kidder of People for Education so much airtime that everyone was left confused about the real issues at stake. Her posts on P4E’s Blog reveal a particular fondness for social solidarity based upon a vague notion of “common school” experience. http://schools-at-the-centre.ning.com/forum/topics/choice-specialty-schools-and
All is not lost. Most encouraging has been the rise of a School Choice movement centred in York Region, north of Toronto. http://yorkregionwantschoice.org/ ” School doesn’t have to be boring,” York Region advocates say. ” If it’s the right school for the right kid, it can be a wonderful, stimulating experience. Many kids can find this social and educational success at their home school. But not all…. If you feel that the children, the rate-payers, and the communities of York Region are no less deserving of educational choice and opportunity than people in the Catholic board, the Toronto board, the Peel board, or the many others, it’s time to raise your voice. Because after April 4, these opportunities for our children could be lost forever.”
School choice is on the horizon and Canadian educational authorities, except possibly for those in Alberta and Metropolitan Toronto, are still in denial. Why is Canada now an outlier among the leading OECD countries? Why is school choice essentially absent from the research agenda at OISE and other faculties of education? What is standing in the way of a wide-open public debate over the current “single provider” system and the policy option of allowing parents the freedom to choose their children’s schools?
Voucher systems were highlighted in one of Jon Stossel’s programs on Fox TV News. Stossel went to Holland. Teachers in Holland reported that if the school does not perform well then they feel the financial heat from parents voting with their tax dollars.
With the doubling of private school enrollment in Nova Scotia, it may well be time to start a voucher system here. Why should anyone have to pay twice for education– first with tax dollars and a second time to get a quality education for one’s child? It is good enough for socialist Europe and America, so it should be what happens in Atlantic Canada. The monopoly of education handled by the public sector has only built a system that is inefficient and poor in results.
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Nobody is “forced” to pay twice for education. You are forced to pay once. The second time is an option.
There is very little support for the concept and “hard times” makes it worse since the public perception is that you are stealing money properly intended for public schools and diverting it to private schools.
The public view is that there are two motivations behind those who want public money for private education. The first is religious and there is almost zero support for this because it is seen as a private matter. Besides the public deplores the concept of Muslims going to school with only Muslims, jews with Jews, Christians with Christians. The public feels this form of ‘sepratism’ is an insult to the general public “we don’t want to be with you, you are not good enough” It provokes the “Who the hell do you think you are, reflex” The public also sees it as too much indoctrination and unhealthy for those kids, They look at private religious schools like the SDA schools in Bountiful BC. There is a Children’s Aid POV that the parents may not be acting in the best interests of their children by giving them religious indoctrination.
The second reason for choosing private education (in the mind of the general public) is to give your child an advantage. This provokes the elitist response “Oh we, the unwashed are not good enough for you eh. Fine go but please do not ask for public money for your private elitist decisions.”
If you think I am making this up, believe me OSSTF has polled on it extensively not just on the surface but the underlying motivations. I dare say we knew more about the movement than it knew about itself.
I have repeated the Ontario polling we did over and over. exactly 15% of the Ontario public supports giving public money to private schools. If a referendum were held on the catholic system 70% would oppose it.
Choosing your own school is not a natural right in Canada. If it was parents would only need to go to the Supremes and the issue would be over. It is therefore a political right to be granted or taken away by the legislatures.
Polling in BC indicates the public would abolish the half support granted to private education in a NY minute. I can’t for the life of me figure out why the BCNDP does not campaign to abolish it.
I see “choice” within the PS system as a totally different kettle of fish. One of the prime motivations for PS choice is to PREVENT private school choice. I can’t understand why the private choice movement does not see every PS choice school as another nail in the coffin of private choice. That is certainly the way Chris Spence sees it.
I believe every PS choice project needs to be judged by the criteria of “does this project enhance equity or detract from it.” If it detracts it ought not go ahead. Some move one way (luring street kids back to school) and some choices (French Immersion, Gifted SE, IB, and some alternatives) are profoundly elitist and very hard to justify.
I like Mr. Taylor’s comment about performance and how parents vote with their feet. It should be done more frequently.
But then, “You are forced to pay once.” says Doug
Well, I don’t like the idea that education is something to be forced or prescribed by an army of educrats unable to produce sensible objectives for todays conditions. And I’ve seen the poor results here in NS while skilled and talented people in the field of public education are marginalized because they have rational answers to obvious deficiencies that could create improvement – albeit at the expense of the high priests of centralized program delivery.
“…there has been a shift in social attitudes towards parents’ rights to be involved in their childrens education.”
Click to access Decentralization_of_ed_teacher_management_EN98.pdf
And there should be.
Education isn’t something to be forced. It is a service we should all be proud to play a role in no matter how small or large or influential one may be. The days of “single provider” public education are becoming most suspicious to the average parent. Crumbling school boards, policy equivocation, school closures, budget reductions, dubious best practices,… and above all “equity elitism”, are all causing more questions from parents than the system can or may like to contend with.
Anybody can have any “opinions” they want and many do but education policy is set by majorities with the welfare of the majority at heart. You cannot drop out and ask for your money back any more than you can;
refuse to pay for the police and buy your own security
Refuse to pay for the libraries because you buy your books
refuse to pay for garbage collection
refuse to pay for the fire dept and take your chances.
Where do people get this idea that you can opt out of public education and get your money back?
When you pay taxes, you are not paying for “your kid(s)”. You are paying for ALL kids, that is why we make childless couples and people whose kids are all grown up to pay taxes.
You can opt out, go for it. Just don’t ask for your money back. It is not your money. It is your contribution to the education of all children.
I’m not asking for my contribution back – just as the system should not ask me for more contributions without some choice on my part.
The serious hardliners in the choice movement want privatization through extreme right wing ideas like vouchers.
You have no “right” to choice other than what the PS system decides to provide.
Some large boards like TDSB can offer some choice but in small areas where there is a school you have difficult demographics to provide choice.
“What is standing in the way of a wide-open public debate over the current “single provider” system and the policy option of allowing parents the freedom to choose their children’s schools?”
6:57pm, 10:16pm & 11:21pm
plus the spin of those within the blob who are most threatened by the empowerment of parents.
Count me as lining up on the side of the Pauls, and Steven because even parents see choice as moving forward. It’s happening and it’s going to happen as the blob continues to spin madly. It’s not going to work this time.
The OECD report School Choice and Equity provides a very handy summary of the research on school choice, conducted virtually everywhere but here in Canada.
What does the research say? It’s all over the map, but I did spot a few fascinating findings:
1) The “competition effect” of school choice initiatives can have a beneficial effect, especially in public schools with previously below average achievement levels. “School choice is a tide that lifts all boats.” (Hoxby, C., The Economics of School Choice, 2003)
2) The Milwaukee Voucher system produced much “higher levels of parent satisfaction” even though the impact on achievement was minimal. (Witte, J., “Who Benefits from the Milwaukee Choice Program?” 1996 and 2011)
3) Parents choose charter schools for three main reasons: teacher quality, quality of the academic programs, and approaches to discipline. (OECD, 2006)
You will be amazed to see how much academic research has been conducted elsewhere by credible research institutes.
http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=EDU/WKP%282012%293&docLanguage=En
Why did I centre out my alma mater, OISE? Simply because it is a further illustration of what drives its larger research agenda — support for the “single provider” education system.
Yes,and they are very close to the MOE,Ontario,the corporations,and the Unions.
A closed shop that holds much too much power and isn`t interested in achievement,accountability or school choice.
About 150 years ago much of the industrializing world decided for a variety of reasons to design “public” education systems. Many of the reasons for this connected to the need for “social cohesion” and the need to include all classes and newly arriving immigrant groups (in North America) into an expanding democratic system.
So education was regarded as a public good over which society, represented by various forms of democratic governance, had some rights to shape and I guess control.
School choice is as varied as the societies that created public education in the first place. Sweden is VERY different than the US and both have significant differences with Canada.
It is hardly efficient or practical to do in large rural sections of the country.
It is hardly fair for immigrants or poor who lack understanding of how to make the systems work best for them.
It is hardly nation or community building when faith issues come into play. Where can we teach children about the need to work with those who are not like us but in schools?
In urban districts, such as Toronto and Edmonton, we do have a tradition of “alternative” schools which fulfill many of the criteria for choice.
I can’t speak for others at OISE but I interpret the historical evidence through
travel and studying education and through my own background (working poor, visually impaired, and immigrant). In the world I grew up in, I had no choice but to go to the local school.
Thus my interpretation is that school choice can be too easily used to self segregate, to divide communities (see Ulster in the last century), and rather than raise all boats through the tide of competition promote the “Matthew effect” in which
“them that got gets more and the weak ones fade”.
“It is hardly efficient or practical to do in large rural sections of the country.
It is hardly fair for immigrants or poor who lack understanding of how to make the systems work best for them.”
It’s a myth to suggest that neither rural, immigrants or the poor can’t access choice or that it’s impractical. Not any more. For any of those classes of folks you label choice is very much on their radar now thanks to E-learning and the cropping up of alternative schools cropping up out of necessity because the public school boards closed the public schools.
Your perspective, as Paul has hinted may hold sway with the OISE public-education self-preservation gang but it’s not the future of education. As usual Ontario is late to the school choice party but it will eventually attend, when the folks at OISE figure out a way to make themselves and the gov’t of the day look like they thought of it all by themselves.
stereotyping those of us who work at OISE is both
– irrelevant to the argument
and
– disrespectful
as for the argument side
– the Toronto board has had alternative schools for decades and meet choice criteria as noted in my post
– the idea that E-learning is a total substitute is not yet supported by evidence though it may have some role to fill; for example, while work in math by the Khan Academic in California holds promise, their history lessons are essentially exercises in Trivial Pursuits and do not get the nature of the thinking in the discipline
as far the future
– it ain’t what it used to be
but then again
it never was
I can also add that our uncertain economic times if anything make school choice outside of public education even more problematic. Hard to send kids to expensive private schools, even with public money, if you are struggling on one or more (my parents usually held 2) jobs)
“stereotyping those of us who work at OISE is both
– irrelevant to the argument
and
– disrespectful”
John, you did just that in your first post. Not only stereotyping parents, but as well as the misconception and repeating the myth of choice has always been in the education system. More importantly reinforcing the other myth, that parents don’t have the abilities and know-how to access choice. What often stops parents is the restrictions and conditions imposed by the public education system, to limit their ability to choice.
But to call Catherine’s post, stereotyping the OISE gang, is absurd and rather humorous, and typical of the stakeholders within the education system who is always calling for the status-quo as the solution to preserve their legal and moral authority in all things education.
How fair is it, that LD students are on the track of low-achievers for the next 12 years of schooling? How fair is it, that the stakeholders within the education system puts the LD students on the track of low-achievers based on their own expertise, that there is not much one can do with reading disabilities? A big myth that is repeated by the stakeholders within, to prevent and discourage parents from taking action on their part.
How fair is it, that a grade 12 math has 7 teachers, and the stakeholders shrugged their shoulders, and blame the parents and other SEC factors? How fair is it that parents have to pay for tutoring lessons on the basics in the 3 Rs, that are no longer taught at school?
How fair is it, that a low-income parents, is stopped from sending their child to the school across town, because it is the high-income school, on the pretext of not living within the school zone? How fair is it, restricting students to the low achieving schools, under threat of fines and jail?
How fair is it, when accountability measures are used by the stakeholders within to redirect education funds away from the students education and their learning needs, to the self-serving interests and agendas held by the stakeholders?
There has never been choice in the public education, except for the choice of the self-serving interests and agendas of the stakeholders within. OISE and the other education faculties, have a great deal to explain why they are determine to preserve the status-quo at the expense of the students they serve, as well as to the public who pay their salaries.
and as Paul has noted the results of school choice outside of the public system are “modest”.
Perhaps a clarification is in order, John. In referencing OISE, I meant no disrespect to you or those at OISE who have devoted their professional lives to modeling good teaching practice. It’s not a matter of pointing fingers at individuals, but rather a matter of assessing the priorities underlying the OISE research agenda.
My point is that OISE is Canada’s leading educational research institute, yet it has done little or nothing since the mid-1990s to advance research on school choice. Stephen B. Lawton and Mark Holmes were early pioneers, but today’s OISE research agenda is focused on social inequality, early learning, anti-racism, and gender relations. It’s very much an agenda shaped by Jane Gaskell, Charles Pascal, and Ben Levin.
Leading researchers at OISE are essentially cut from the same cloth and have been the drivers behind boosting funding to the “single provider” system. Even the Leading Education Research Institutes initiative, spearheaded by Levin, is top heavy with international institutes sharing that same orientation. The U.S, for example, is represented by the University of Wisconsin (Madison), rather than Harvard University or the Thomas Fordham Institute. In other words, the OISE research focus does not square with those in the OECD driving structural educational reform.
Do not disagree, Paul. You are always civil and my retort was not to your posts, either initial questions a]or subsequent comments..
Otherwise, my arguments stand, based on historical evidence.
As for stereotyping parents . . . being one myself, I do not see the evidence from Nancy’s post.
Furthermore, I note that you have recognized the elements of choice within the Toronto school system.
If I should dare to put this argument into perspective, basing one’s argument on the historical basis, as the reasons why the public education system should remain largely a single provider system, based on the historical industrialized model, is basing the parameters of discussion that equity and equality have not change since the 19th century. No advancements in learning, knowledge, technology have change the equity and equality equation since the 19th century.
To even infer that the advancements made in society throughout the years plays no role in providing education options and choice, and more importantly to increase social mobility and equity of the citizens, just as you did with e-learning by stating the historical evidence does not support the full use of e-learning. But what of the the opportunities of e-learning, that provides in increasing the personal equity, social mobility and knowledge access to learning, that some will say the public education so longer can provide without putting limits on the access doors? Or as Paul has stated on the agendas within, ” but today’s OISE research agenda is focused on social inequality, early learning, anti-racism, and gender relations. It’s very much an agenda shaped by Jane Gaskell, Charles Pascal, and Ben Levin. ” What limits are place on true equity and choice, by the inside agendas of the public education system and some will say limits that are designed to discriminate against the students and parents to dance to the tunes of the agendas?
Or the references made in the Drummond report on SE, and the need to have outside options to provide for the education needs of the SE students to increase the achievement outcomes of SE students. To which, the unions are dead set against, because they consider it privatization of public education services. Having choice alone in the SE portion, would go a long way to address the inequities of SE children, and the gatekeepers who control access to the doors of the SE services.
Now John, what is the defining definition of equity and choice in the public education system? So far all the papers and research I have read within the public education files, the definition is all over the map according to the agendas and interests of those within to maintain the single provider system.
Well competition always makes for better products. A massive near monopoly paid for by the taxpayer does not. Our public system currently allows complacency and the covering up of incompetency as it stands today .
Nova Scotians have been voting with their feet in regards to education for decades and in increasing numbers. In the HRM the growth of private academies has out stripped the declining enrollment in the public system.
The Indian Reserves now have their own schools and programs to grade 9 . Home schooling is growing. Private schools also exist and are growing outside the HRM. I personally sold a highly energy efficient computing system to a Christian Private School in Cape Breton.
I have no children but still pay taxes to have the department of education/school boards produce illiterate candidates for businesses in this province. Businesses struggle with a huge problem in Nova Scotia.It is not only Provincial Taxes that go to public education by also your municipal taxes as well. The HRM budgets over 90 million dollars for public education .
I would like to be able to check a box saying my choice of where my tax dollars should go in regards to schools. My check mark certainly not be to the public system which is more then liberally funded. There is way too many PR people ,Consultants and executive assistants for these school boards.
The Alberta system seems to be the highest scoring in Canada and it is a voucher type system. Allow the taxpayers to make the choice and you would have plenty of charter schools in this province because the anger has long been out there in the broad population.
The status quo in Nova Scotia is we pay for a Cadillac and yet the end product many times is a Lada.
The Public System would have to improve or die. That has happened in Holland of all places. The cries of ‘oh the poor could not afford this’ . The public system, in some cases, is hosting classes on music recording with expensive computers and software. What place does the school boards have training students to encourage them to become Whitney Houston’s of the world? We need productive citizens who can calculate simple percentages for HST at an Acadian lines buses counter without the aid of a calculator.
nicely said paul and better yet that its’ a perspective outside of Ontario that’s seeing effective choice implemented.
As soon as you see that “competition always works monopoly does not” stuff you realize you are dealing with American far right Friedmanite Hayak thinking. First Canada has a totally different history. To survive and grow we granted momopolies both public and private from HBC to CPR to Hydro to Air Canada and all of the crown corporations in our history, wheat boards etc.
We are totally in love with our medicare system and the right also calls it a monopoly. Canadians have no anti-monopoly instinct button like Americans.
Show Canadians a monoploly and they say “so what.. does it work”
The school choice privatization world exists in an echo chamber where it assumes that it is much larger than it is, assumes there is massive disatisfaction with public schools, assumes there is a vast conspiracy but when we look at polls and elections we see that none of this is true, the whole idea is just very unpopular.
Paul got me looking at the OECD study and there is every bit as much ammunition for the anti-case as the pro case in fact they actually say there is almost no academic improvement even with the most extreme voucher Milwaukee situation. The reason their is “parent satisfaction” without academic improvement in voucher cases is because religion is involved.
Ontarians for sure oppose public support for religious education notwithstanding the “imposed” historical mistake of RC education. As we tested anti-religious feeling as a barometer of people opposed to the John Tory policy which I remind you got slaughtered, it was in my opinion both reactionary and progressive.
Many many rural Ontarians reacted with “if you think they are getting MY tax money to educate Muslims they can forget it.” In the cities the reactions was “Our public schools are already seriously underfunded and you want to give our money to someone else…”
Americans are also FAR more open to choice because they seriously have allowed parts of their public system to become a basket case but the main reason is the peculiar type of American poverty.
It is now harder to escape poverty in the USA than almost any other democracy. With a very high average standard of living, their bottom 20% lives far below many other nations. Their schools reflect that.
In America the poorer your community the less money for schools, therefore their suburban middle class schools are great and would be at the top of PISA. They have this underclass, some of it rural and southern that drags down the whole country.
This situation just does not exist in the same order od magnitude in Canada due to our generous social programs.
The same OECD report Paul, clearly points out for Nancy and Jo Anne and Doretta and the deniers that poverty is the overwhelming driver of lack of school success.
Conclusion:
Private school choice is very weak in Canada because Canadians see no need for it.
Did you see Mr.Taylor speak of the consequences on business for your low literacy,low numeracy,overpaid and pensioned monopoly?
You`d be so much better admitting the flaws,saying we have to work on them,than the stance you ALL take for the status quo.
School choice and vouchers would be great,if only.
Equity and Choice – two words that are two peas in a pod. Can’t have equity without having choice. Can’t have choice without having equity.
In the modern education system in Canada – equity and choice
It does not exist, except to apply the minimum legal parameters required under the law, the right to a basic education. No more or no less, Equity of outcomes in the minds of the OISE and other education faculties? Not even on the agendas and the self-servings interests of the stakeholders within the public education system.
John’s posts is typical example and the many different versions, of ignoring the outcomes of students, the obvious disdain of parents working for the best interests of their children, and to reinforce to the public, that choice and equity should never be in the hands of the parents and the students.
Try as I might, could not find a common definition within the public education files. All over the place, and the closest I came is this bit, ” Equity is a Commitment of the Public System
This enquiry is about equity in public education. Our public K-S4 education system has both a moral and legal obligation to educate all children equitably. If inequities arise, the public system offers avenues for redress. Equity is a primary commitment of the public system.”
Click to access EquityinPublic_Educ.pdf
Choice is indeed mention, but is used in the same context as John and Doug with the same disdain and identical arguments.
Choice is never defined separately, but is always connected that choice causes the inequities of the education system.,and as well as impinging the moral and legal authority of the public education system. Than the Dougs and Johns of the public education system, walks into the Hall of Excuses and next door to the Hall of Equity, to hand out the denials, the approvals, and the terms of conditions to access education opportunities, content taught, moral content, and most of all, to protect the moral and legal authority of the public education system. To be the top dog, barking orders at the students, parents and taxpayers, to pontificate and manipulate that choice options should never be in the hands of the users, who don’t have the moral and legal authority to educate their children, let alone the ability to choose the education paths of their children.
” What do we mean by equity? If our concern for equity arises from our sense of fair play and compassion, a definition is still required. Webster’s “freedom from bias or favouritism” works well enough, but current notions of equity are much more complex. One way of defining equity is to identify the inequities we hope to eradicate. Two sources of inequity are evident: those arising from the education system’s structure and practices, and those arising from the student’s ethno-cultural and socioeconomic context. Another way of defining equity is to consider the broad sequential elements comprising education – a common trilogy emerges:
1.Equity of resources (supports, finances, taxes);
2.Equity in process (the school experience, program, content, access)
3.Equity of outcomes (learning achieved, impacts on later life).”
And the above is the ongoing definition within the halls of the public education system for equity, based on the minimum legal requirements of a basic education. A desk, a set of books and the right to access education opportunities, where the public education system maintains the legal right and authority of determining the basic education, the choices based on equity.
Apparently for my youngest child, she deserve the third tier level of education, the ability to choose between the dumbing down by two grades or the kind without remediation, in the inclusive classroom. Not much of a choice, especially the kind of equity policies being employed by the public education system,that rest their laurels on the barest legal minimum requirements on a basic education, that does not include or state anywhere in the school acts, good reading, writing and numeracy skills. Even choice within the public education, does not exist. and not the kind of pseudo-choice that was given my child.
A Tale of Two Education Systems, offers choice as a way and a solution to equalized opportunities for families across the income levels, to choose their own schools.
Click to access raham.pdf
A 2004 OECD reports, concludes – “Increasing local autonomy and allow greater diversity is another key policy. By allowing greater diversity in the solutions and working methods chosen, the methods can be adapted and customised to the situation of each individual pupil, teacher and school. While the objectives and the framework conditions will be defined by the national authorities, the wish is to mobilise to greater creativity and
commitment in the schools’ by allowing greater freedom to accept responsibility (UFD, 2004). Thus, in many ways the new policy represents a shift away from the policy of a comprehensive unified schooling (see chapter 1), and towards a school where more local variations are allowed. From a 73 policy focusing on equity through standardization and uniformity the shift is towards a new policy where equity is attained through diversity.
The question now is to what extent the increasing local autonomy will have the desired effects. Will the policy changes improve quality and equity in the school system or will it increase the differences between the schools? Studying the impact of these recent policy changes and reforms will be essential topics for future research. ”
Click to access 38692818.pdf
In 2004, and already calling for a shift away from the monopoly called a public education system. As the years have rolled by, the evidence is mounting that the present day model of the public education system, true choice and equity, and not the kind that is being practice within the halls of the public education system, that serves only the best interests of those who work within the education system.
Equity in the 2004 OECD report is described, ” “Educational equity
refers to an educational and learning environment in which individuals can consider options and make choices throughout their lives based on their abilities and talents, not on the basis of stereotypes, biased expectations or discrimination. The achievement of educational equity enables females and males of all races and ethnic backgrounds to develop skills needed to be productive, empowered citizens. It opens economic and social opportunities regardless of gender, ethnicity, race or social
status.”
Equity and choice are indeed two peas in a pod. One cannot have choice, without having equity, and one cannot have equity without having choice.
I
Did Sysco work ? Did Devco work ? Is Nova Scotia Power working for you ? Watch the Jon Stossel’s stupid in America videos and you will see it is not only America that agrees with voucher systems . Socialist democratic Holland is into it too among many of the Western European nations.
The guardians of socialism have one agenda and that is enriching themselves with entitlements not earned at the expense of the rest of population. Canadians seeing no need for private schools is counter to what is going on in the HRM and the Province. There are about 9500 students in private schools in the province and that continues to grow. The 9500 student enrollment has grown from practically nothing in the 1990’s . Think about this we are in the highest taxed province practically but the families of 9500 students are choosing to pay many times out of their pockets while they are taxed for education they are not using. What does that say about the state of the public education system. The Families of 9500 private school students were not surprised by the Could it possibly be that the enrollment declines in Nova Scotia are in part due to the increase in enrollment in private schools ? Absolutely . You have Catholic school boards in many provinces which really are private schools of sorts.
Take a look at the OECD study Paul is discusing. On the planet Earth only Korea and Finland have higher literacy. The executive summary has a beautiful bar chart showing how fantastic the literacy is of 15 year old Canadians.
Korea is ahead of us due to a massive after school tutorial programs not higher quality public schools.
Finland is slightly higher. Their schools are very good but the almost total lack of poverty is the reason. Not only are only 4% of Finnish kids poor but these poor kids to do not concentrate anywhere.
This I would say leaves Canada with the best public schools on the planet Earth. The experts know this. It is just too bad some Canadians do not appreciate it.
If we follow Don Drummond however, we will start to fall very rapidly on the PISA list.
Jo-Anne Gross the product does not matter in Doug’s world. The product matters however in the rest of the world that we have to do business with and a IMP. DSME Trenton and even the Irving Shipyard has to import foreign workers because we don’t have literate people coming out of public schools in the numbers needed to fill demand.
The quality of worker in Nova Scotia matters hugely for our future economic prosperity. Increasing we are headed towards being Greece, the Irish Republic , Portugal , Spain and Italy with a public sector being paid multiples over of Annual Per Capita GDP. How many vocations are there in the private world that you make twice the GDP per capita while putting out a product that does not meet minimum standards ? There are none or private companies go bankrupt very fast producing JUNK. Industries having to import skilled and educated people despite 1.1 billion dollars going into public education annually in this province is a symptom of a Cancer we have been living with for a while . Then there is the over supply of University and Community College options that we devote huge financial resources to.Privatize it all and let the best survive. In the end you get the best and most productive citizens .
How educational equity + choice + education quality + accountability = the education outcomes of students.
Paul you take it from the business perspective and I will take it from a math equation perspective. Under the current model of the education system,, using the above equations, the more negative outcomes such as low literacy and numeracy. The Dougs of the world only used the global stats, and sometimes the national stats, but not often to support their position on having no choice in the education system. They don’t dare to use the local stats, that presents a picture of mediocrity of low standards and self-serving interests of the stakeholders within the public education system.
The Canadian education systems are fast becoming outliers when it comes to choice and innovation, because the stakeholders are determined to keep operating with the values of the 19th century education model that holds the public education system as the moral and legal authority on all things education. In my equation, very few education systems in Canada, would have positive numbers in the education outcomes of students, because equity, choice, quality and accountability are not compared to the outcomes of students. .
A fractured Finnish Fairy Tale
http://www.marinij.com/ci_19990696 via SQE
After reading that Finnish Fairy Tale I wish to thank all of those here and at other education forums who, for so long have been cautioning the usual suspect that comparing Finland to Canada is like comparing apples to oranges. The Finnish tale above makes that so clear that it moots that argument rather nicely. I bet my bottom dollar that those usual suspects could NEVER survive on the money spent on Finnish education. No way, no how.
Like I said. Moot argument.
I think much of the problem for education in North America is due to accountability by all including parents. The education bureaucracy in the United States is often referred to as “the Blob”. Many of these European Nations have it that Teachers have to meet bench marks of performance.
Here we don’t dare think that grade of 20 something for math in Shelburne would reflect on the persons teaching. What is apparent is that we need total accountability and hence a separation between the business operations of schools and the academic activities. Too much control is in the hands of civil servants and our elected school board members are lead by the nose in the hope that they will ride out career politician positions. There should indeed be term limitations. Catherine the usual suspects surviving on Finnish Salaries for teachers would only mean larger asks for Teacher Union pension fund bail outs. If you can do math on your pension fund then how do you indeed teach math to students ?
Yeah Catherine a great Finnish Fairy Tale,indeed. How does one from Finland explain to American Educators that no testing of teaching results has any checks an balances ? Hey just trust us the state is right . The professor from Finland gets his back up about people questioning that he is in a socialist society saying how Finland is a competitive capitalist society. Gee Stora Enso owned the Port Hawkesbury Paper Mill and they wanted the Nova Scotia Taxpayer so fund lower electricity rates for that operation. Stora Enso is a partially state owned company of the Finnish Government and yet they had to abandon operations in North America. Finland does not even approach the economic size of Canada or most of the industrialized world. Perhaps a bit too much smart phone app development that created “angry birds” ?
Finland is a social democracy.
Spin it all you want, it doesn’t change.
Of course Finland is a social-democracy as we should be if we want to progress.
Paul. Name the countries with higher literacy than Canada. Correct Korea and Finland. I enjoyed Catherine’s fairy tail, it is where the world is headed.
Reform in the USA is a total failure as even American reformers are beginning to understand. The problem is they just keep moving the yard sticks.
NCLB test and punish system (oops failed, becomes standing joke) vouchers (nobody wants and no academic improvement) ok charters (same result, most score below their neighbourhood school) OK then merit pay (Vanderbilt study nothing to it) OK union bashing (except the stronger the union the better the testing results) close failing schools (only to find the parents don’t want them closed) OK Race to the Top or Race to the Trough. (failed again)
And on and on it goes, each reform crashes and burns so we just move on in the wacky world of right wing reform.
Paul, Finland’s size has nothing to do with it. Finland is the size of most states and provinces in Canada and the USA where the education power resides.
The government of Finland is conservative but they will not touch a thing in the successful Finland model. Since they have a mainly PR system, no party including the social democrats ever gets a clear majority.
It is complex for us but simple for them. They have a certain number of regional ridings each of which elects multiple members by proportion. Actually an excellent system.
Well Finland is Finland. 7 or 8 places behind in economic output then Canada per Capita. Not even approaching the G20 .
I don’t think to many countries outside of Europe are willing to connect to run-away economic train of the Common European Market, nor are eager to follow the social reforms that took place after WWII, the build-up of the public sector as their means for economic development and the massive regulation regime controlling the masses. Being fine for parking on your front yard? I don’t think so, but common place in the European states, and where choice of education is becoming the norm, and in place like Finland, choice will be coming down the pipeline, when their population is no longer homogeneous. In the urban areas of Finland, 60 percent of students are immigrants. It is already started, and just a matter of time to open the doors for choice and a full slate of choice.
Well Finland is Finland. 7 or 8 places behind in economic output then Canada per Capita. Not even approaching the G20 .
__________________________________________________
Irrelevant.
But attempting to portray Finland as something it isn’t merely undermines your credibility.
Now, let’s address the capitalistic altar at which you seem to worship.
How is it that the laissez-faire capitalist USian economy needed taxpayers (socialism, anyone?) to keep it going as did Canada’s economy, but to far lesser degree due to government regulations?
I know this link is off-topic. It’s from Nova Scotia, and I agree that the same problem exists in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/63013-retired-teachers-ns-students-should-do-math
terrific article Elise. Teachers like you and like those in the article seem to have had enough and need to be supported in do so.
Add some choice to the mix and you’d have the vast majority of parents looking to moving away from constructivist math and teachers who understand that.
I am curious about this
60% of students are immigrants in the urban areas of Finland.
where does this percentage come from?
I have visited Finland recently and out of a population of about 600,000 in Helsinki the largest city
some 45,000 are are foreign born
that’s about 7%
so unless the native Finns produce NO children
and I have seen lots of Finnish kids there
. . . ?
” Finland is struggling to cope with a recent wave of immigration; about 60 percent of pupils in some urban schools are immigrants, Sahlberg said. And as in many American schools, girls tend to outperform boys in Finnish high schools, leaving Finnish educators to search for ways to keep boys from dropping out of the system.”
http://www.marinij.com/ci_19990696
I have seen it in other articles, papers, from the Finland web sites but this is the first time I have read 60 percent. Lots of spin going on in Finland, and struggles to maintain the current model versus the costs versus the outcomes of students. The numbers that I have seen is around 40 percent, and articles dated well before the economic crisis of the world.
I forgot to note that Turku, the old capital
and second largest city at nearly 200,000
of whom more that 6,000 are foreign born
Once again, how does one get the 60% student figure?
Quite simply, “some” schools doesn’t mean “all” schools.
Exactly John, There are 2 language minorities of any significance, Swedes and Sami who have both been in Finland for hundreds of years. There is a tiny immigrant community but the usual knock on Finland is that 3/4 of the school is blonde and blue eyed.
The Finland detractors will throw anything at the wall to see what sticks small, unilingual, socialist, Deweyist, whatever but the plain fact of the matter is that the world’s experts have taken all of these arguments into consideration and still declared Finland to be the world’s best model to emulate and explore due to the fact that it seems to have achieved its excellence as a biproduct of its push for equity, that in fact equity leads to excellence not the other way around.
If anyone says “you cannot just pick up a school system in one country with hundreds of years of history and culture behind it and drop it in another country and expect it to work” I would be the first to agree.
There are also causation issues with Finland.
Is it the lack of poverty and therefore the schools are surfing on the top of an easy system because the social system did the heavy lifting?
What role does radical decentralization and school based autonomy play?
What is the positive/negative effects of no testing until matric?
Does their serious delay of any streaming until grade 10 play a major role?
Is their SE handled better than others?
Is their demand for 1-2 MAs a serious factor?
Yes Finland is the world’s leader but for which of the above (or other) reasons?
Some serriously believe that Finns have to read so many sub-titles to enjoy western TV and movies that it plays a role.
Some site 18th century Christian priorities to read the Bible for creating a literacy priority.
Some say the delay of serious reading until age 7 gives all kids a real chance to mature and be ready in a Piaget sense?
Personally I suspect a combination of many but not all of the above.
Education is too complex to be easily understood, or analyzed, or (sadly) easily and quickly fixed when needed, especially with single direction solutions.
Like Doug I see it multifaceted. For example, I am impressed with the public value placed on reading as well as the small gap between the richest and poorest, especially when compared to the US.
Speaking of which I have just returned from a national conference in Baltimore with state bigwigs, Arnie Duncan, the works.
In both Canada and the US schooling is not a national government job- at least in our respective constitutions, but boy are they centralized!
No time here to explain the historic reasons why, except that integration and class/poverty issues going back half a century are part of it.
So
when some of us complain about “centralization” in Canada, we might offer thanks that we do not live south of the 49th.
And, there are indeed a few highly concentrated immigration reception areas in Helsinki and Turku- a few.
We have in urban areas in Canada, immigration reception areas and have had them for a couple of centuries.
Corktown and Cabbagetown in Toronto since the 1830s
Parkdale since the 1940s- I was one of them.
We need to be really careful about
– generalizing from small results
– cherry-picking data to meet our arguments
– committing the “genetic fallacy”- accepting or rejecting an argument based on its source.
I can’t see what exactly is so complex about education . You either equip the students with the abilities for life long learning or you fail to do so. Very simple business objective . If you can’t realize those baseline requirements then you are failing. In business if you are failing one year you don’t continue to be Pavlov’s dog.
Generalizations of course are dangerous but here is what I understand . Far too much money is being wasted in the Nova Scotia system on administration and that is generally at the expense of the students. Nothing complex about a truthful statement .
Marching with one’s tax dollars to me would smarten up the public education system as opposed to hiding behind layers of bureaucrats and executive assistants. Private enterprise always the most efficient ways to produce quality products. Education is no different except if you are protecting a scared cow that Unions seem to cling to. What we have is way too much free wheeling by public education into area’s that don’t make a lick of difference to creating educated productive citizens of our students. Why on earth is there even one class ,paid for by the taxpayers, of digital recording in this province of Nova Scotia ? Yet we have the test scores in Shelburne. How does one justify encouragement for kids to go into the recording industry when it is nothing but a lottery as a vocation. Next we would have courses in buying lottery tickets. I see many school systems public and private that succeed both in educational terms and financial terms with innovation. What boards here seem to be into is a denial that we have declining enrollment and it is not due entirely to birth rate declines. It is people making the choice not to embrace the public system in a growing number cases. Vouchers and Choice I think would shock the province and would have better education across the board.
Going down from the weight of the public service…
http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/64641-shipbuilding-won-t-save-ns-sick-economy
We need to be careful about:
-Equivocating about the complexity of education while we need to meet base line objectives.
– a top heavy administration that is part of the problem, not the solution.
I have to think it’s time for some choice not more rhetoric.
Public education isn’t a business any more than government is a business.
Run a government like a business and it will fail in the same way a business run like a government will fail.
Their reasons to exist and objectives are too dissimilar.
And neither should business have to generally look elsewhere for skilled labour because public education pursues a reason to exist without accountability or choice.
so in others words Andrew we should continue along the path to Students not able to be productive workers in our society because indeed the Government is not fiscally prudent . Remind you of any countries that bid and staged an international sports event like the Commonwealth Games ? Does GREECE ring a bell.
Public education isn’t a business any more than government is a business.
Run a government like a business and it will fail in the same way a business run like a government will fail.
Their reasons to exist and objectives are too dissimilar.
I agree with that 100%.
In almost every education circle when someone starts “If the education system was a business….” eyes begin to role. Education is not a business and cannot be run on business principles.
True in one sense, the objectives are different than a business entity, but the delivery of education, like the delivery of private goods and services are exactly the same.
Move on over, if the public education system cannot see fit to provide educations services of the remediation kind, having the same quality and results found in the private sector, and deliver the education within a short time frame, and not the delays of 2 to 3 years delivering a watered down version, allow the students and the parents to select an outside provider non-profit or profit to remediate the difficulties in the 3 Rs. For that matter, ditto for all the education services where the outcomes of students, makes it very difficult to continue in their learning and work places, without the proper skills sets in place.
If the public education school that my youngest was in, was a private school, it would have gone out of business a long time ago for poor results. Just remember Doug and Andrew, legally the public education system only legal duty is to provide a basic education, that consists of a desk, a set of books, and the right to access educational opportunities. By the law, they are not held accountable for the outcomes of students, unlike the private sector that is held accountable for poor quality and outcomes in goods and services.
Furthermore, Doug and Andrew the administrative and governance is based on the business corporate model, except in areas of accountability. At the moment the public education system legally cannot be held accountability for the outcomes of students, unlike the business corporate model where accountability is interwoven between administration and governance. The accountability to their clients is missing in the monopoly called a public education system, but until the legislators in our institutions addresses what constitutes a basic education, there will be no accountability to the public and the final outcomes of students.
totally right Nancy these public employees believe they actually create wealth in the province and should be compensated in 6 figure salaries without having to answer to Shareholders.
The view has been that way for a long time and hence our debt per capita position that tops all territories in the America’s.
When you finish not educating students in this province what indeed do they look forward to ? Being saddled with a huge debt that their grand children will be paying or move out of Nova Scotia to places that don’t have that doom ahead of them ?
Vouchers and Choice I think would shock the province and would have better education across the board.
I suggest that you have a referendum on it in NS. You will see right quick how unpopular it is.
There is a lot of “big talk” about vouchers and charters but basically very few people support it.
This whole thread is about why Canadians don’t support the concept.
Notwithstanding the “big talk” assumption by Doug, it would be a benificial debate for Nova Scotians, if only to see the opportunities change could pose. For example what about looking at the elimination of boundaries?
http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2011/070511/news/index017.html
This could create opportunities depending on how it was implimented.
If education werte so easy, none of us anywhere would have much to complain about
here, the US, Finland, Korea- yes they complain about their systems too.
Think about it. Medicine is complex enough and the body is so much more clearly revealing than the mind
Perhaps we do not try hard enough to better get into the minds of learners (see engagement and assessment threads)
In almost every education circle when someone starts “If the education system was a business….” eyes begin to role. Education is not a business and cannot be run on business principles.
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Correct, but that’s no excuse for the p*ss-poor management/administration we have in NS.
IMO, one of the problems is that folks like Paul Bennett are ignored. Oh, they aren’t ignored because they are right or wrong. They are largely ignored because they are reasonable. The protagonists/antagonists in this and other debates of this type have one thing in common – it’s their way or no way.
We have ample evidence of that right here.
I’m not advocating perpetual compromise and watered-down solutions.
There is ample research in what works and what doesn’t. We have experienced people in the field – mostly classroom teachers- who concur in what works.
So why is there such a huge problem?
Andrew, simply because classroom teachers are not given the autonomy and the power to effect change for their students in their classroom. I don’t think for a moment, or a second, if the local teachers had a choice of curriculum, in a New York second, all the curriculum would be dump, if they had autonomy and the power to do so.
So the schools, the teachers, students and parents get the watered-down solutions, that leaves most of us parents at the bottom desiring choice and the ability to have the final say in our children’s education in an era of scarce resources. Toss in the lousy administration and governance models, that only tend to the agendas and best interests of the stakeholders within, is it any wonder why the stakeholders defend the system, who thinks it is okay for 7 teachers to teach a grade 12 math course, and have the gall to chastise the public for objecting to their stances.
yes-my feelings exactly,what is the problem?
Is that the prelude to the next set of arguments based on the efforts of large-scale operations by those within the education system versus the outside forces demanding decentralization to allow true equity and choice to advance the progress and achievement of all students?
Where cherry picking becomes the inclusive property of those who opposed the actions and behaviours of those within the education system, who insist to remain the gatekeepers in accessing education opportunities?
Where conferences, with names like, Shaping the Future: How Good Education Systems Can Become Great in the Decade Ahead.
Click to access Education_Roundtable.pdf
A centralized education operation built-up over the years, to remove all education choice from the hands of the local communities, to the hands of the professionals – a working model in real time to reinforce the class structures. Social mobility and equity of students is manipulated to reinforce the class structure of the old.
Lots of talk, chatter, papers, essays in England and other European countries who are fed up with the centralization models in education, that prevents the social mobility of students and recreates the inequities of the old 19th century model.
Time for action, and not more national and international conferences sipping wine and cheese, to other like-minded individuals who still think they live in a world where the peasantry should pay the price and the dear costs of not having the right to opt out of a public education system, that is not educating all children to the same high standards and expectations that prepares them to enter the real world with the skills and abilities needed in the 21st century.
Or is the peasantry of the 21st century expect to accept their education fate, without recourse, like the 19th century students expected to. Good thing Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Graham Bell, and a few other top 19th and 20th century natural and physics scientists refuse to accept their fate in the education realm, or the world would have had to wait longer for the inventions, new knowledge and new ways of thinking about the world. After all, all of the above-mentioned were dismissed by the education systems of the day, of not amounting to much in the academic worlds, nor in their school work.
Time for choice and equity.
Not that complicated, Nancy.
The bigger the monster, the more difficult it is to manage.
The poor principals/administrators are the ones who get promoted to board offices. That baffles me… or are they the ones who hate teaching and are in a hurry to get out of the classroom?
Returning to your original questions Paul, you make a pointed observation. More and more of the Canadian research on educational choice is being carried on outside of regular education faculties or organizations like the CEA. This field of study is done by sociologists and economists like Scott Davies and Janice Aurini at McMaster; David Johnson at Waterloo; Neil Guppy at UBC, to name a few. In Alberta there is some good research on choice by Ball & Lund, or Lynn Bosetti all at U. of Calgary education departments. In Ontario, by Derek and Patricia Allison (UWO) and D. VanPelt (Redeemer).
What this tells us is that OISE is not the only research game in town by any stretch of the imagination, and those looking for other more forward-thinking research can now go elsewhere.
Maybe OISE needs to get with the choice program or be left out?
Baffles me as well, since each and every one associated with my child’s file that denied and blocked all options concerning remediation services concerning the 3 Rs, have all climbed the education ladder, to two that even reach the top level in the education ministry. I swear to this day, they all hated children and parents who have the nerve to think that they know best what are the education needs of their children. All I did over the years, is the building up of a slam dunk education suit, but without the money to take the court route. I did told them at all at some point over the years, they better hope I never win the lottery……
I could have used choice as the means to provide more professional help, than my own amateur attempts and well as the enormous amount of invested time in learning all about how to help my child, plus the education system plus curriculum + instruction practices and all the rest of an education system to do battle with a system, that don’t seem to care if children can read and write well.
But I am not the only one, and there is far better people, more education, richer calling for choice and equity. Unfortantely, our business leaders, political leaders are staying quiet, and unlike their American counterparts.
“That was the view of Ursula Burns, chairman and chief executive of Xerox. She also cited clouds on the short- and long-term business horizon in a talk at the Churchill Club here.
The K-12 system in the U.S. is “absolutely broken [and] woefully inadequate,” said Burns, named in November 2009 by President Obama to head a White House program on science, technology engineering and math education.
“It’s not the schools, the teachers or the books, it’s the system,” said Burns. “It’s the level of entitlement, the fact we have a system that has this belief that everyone independent of performance should feel good about something–we can’t have a system where people can’t fail,” she said.”
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4217392/Xerox-CEO-K12-education-system-broken-
“What do you think the problem is in America’s public schools? How can we keep up with other countries? What would you change first? Your thoughts will be included along with those of America’s wealthiest as part of a section to be published in the annual Forbes 400 issue coming out in just a few weeks.
In the meantime, read on about what a few Forbes 400 members are already doing.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/08/29/whats-your-single-best-idea-for-reforming-k-12-education/
From the education researchers – no big mystery and yet the education policy wonks refuses to follow the research.
“Kellogg’s Speirn expressed frustration at the lack of progress from policy makers. Here’s another “brilliant study by an academic,” said Speirn, but “it doesn’t seem to lead to changes.”
http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/04/12/poverty-poor-reading-dropout/
And from a Canadian think tank, on the need for vouchers, for freedom and non-discrimination.
“In sum, the voucher system would replace discrimination—whether in the form of favouring one belief system over another or of selectively funding certain schools—with parental choice. Surely this is an exchange worth pursuing.”
Click to access a-voucher-based-education-system_csr-winter-2012.pdf
It absolutely baffles me, why the public education system does not want choice and equity in an education system that is filled with inequities imposed on students, the keeps pumping out negative outcomes in education, for the wider society to pick up the costs. I even ran across several recent articles dating in 2011 to the present, under the education philosophers of high rank, who are even puzzled why their counterparts refuses to go by the research, rather than guiding education policies by education philosophies that promotes and repeats the cycles of negative outcomes for students. As some education philosophers have state, the job is rather simple, why make it complicated by using ideology and dogma to prevent choice and equity?
As for Canada, I do think Doug is dead wrong about Canadians not wanting choice in the education systems. Parents, employers, the students, the front line teachers, and the wider society are all dealing with the fall out of negative outcomes, and the wide gaps of skills sets in our grade 12 graduates. If the public education system does not want to do it right the first time around, because most students only get one chance to do a grade level, and the attitude it is no big deal if the students don’t have the sub-skills in the next level – bring in choice to even the odds for the students, the teachers and the parents, giving them the ability to change the futures for the students. If left in the hands of the current public education system, it becomes a crap shoot and a lottery of second chances in equity.
This is for you Elise-
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/barry-garelick-math-education-being-outwitted-by-stupidity/
In my work,Reading instruction,they try to tell me I`m crazy as well.
I sure wish I had the article in the nightmare years, instead of what I cobbled together, and the educationists dismissed the research as if they were swatting a fly. It also confirms what I have suspected in the last few years, that the public education systems in NA, are moving to expand the norm to include the students with the mild to moderate reading and math disorders, but more importantly, children like my dyslexic child that falls between the mild to moderate, who have specific deficits in working memory and fact retrieval will no longer be considered of needing education services beyond the classroom. All the labels, but are considered part of the norm. And the public education Hall of Excuses will reigned supreme to defend the current math curriculum and instruction, to conned parents into accepting that playing with cut out fraction strips, counting on your fingers in grade 10, and learning math by dance steps is an effective way of learning math in grade 10.
So much for equity in curriculum and instruction, but it sure does put choice on the minds of parents, when they grow weary of the excuses and the blame that is dumped on parents.
“The de-emphasis on mastery of basic facts, skills and procedures has met with growing opposition, not only from parents but also from university mathematicians. At a recent conference on math education held in Winnipeg, math professor Stephen Wilson from Johns Hopkins University said, much to the consternation of the educationists on the panel, that “the way mathematicians learn is to learn how to do it first and then figure out how it works later.” This sentiment was also echoed in an article written by Keith Devlin (2006). Such opposition has had limited success, however, in turning the tide away from reform approaches.”
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/barry-garelick-math-education-being-outwitted-by-stupidity/
As Stephen Wilson stated, mastery of basic facts, skills and procedures, it sure work wonderfully well for my child, who was at a grade 1 level at the start of grade 4. She is now in the top 20 percent of her class, and she still learns how to do it first, and than figure out how it works later. Deep understanding is always the result, provided that she puts in the practice.
” Parents and professionals who benefitted from traditional teaching techniques and environments will remain on the outside — and the public will continue to be outwitted by stupidity.”
Choice to provide equity against the curriculum and instruction practices that eschews mastery and practice.
Indeed, Nancy, and I have yet to see an olympic sprinter who did not learn how to walk first.
Once again that vast conspiracy to keep everybody stupid.
Are you aware how that looks?
Hey Doug, just came off a site called the OpenLibrary.org
Not only did I learn that back in 1870, the outback territory called BC back then, some citizens were determined to annexed to the United States of America. Rather an interesting read, considering the school history books does described its citizens with unflattering terms, compared to the so-called elite of Ontario.
I decided to surf for books under education. From 1500 and up, and it would take me at least a year to read all of them. What I was interested in, was choice, equity discussed back than. What was the attitudes of the authors who wrote the education books. Just trying to get a feel about what led to the current education model, and why the stakeholders eschews choice?
From my short time, scanning from the year 1500 and up to the 1920s, I can divide it into two time periods, the first one from 1500 to in and around 1850, and second time period from 1860 to 1920. From 1500 to 1850, to educate children was to teach them the skills, the abilities, and the knowledge to become productive citizens of their time. More concerns about the type of knowledge, what to include and what not to include. From what I can gather, educating students was a worthwhile activity when at the end it produced productive citizens. And there was much talk about educating the children of the labourers and ordinary working class, so they to would become productive citizens.
Now the next time period of 1860 to 1920 gets really interesting, where we see the hints and the beginnings of child-center theories, and a whole host of progressive education theories. What is really interesting, is the shift of how the educational elites saw the families and students. Even back than, using different words, families and students needed to be control, and must accept all education policies and edicts of the education system as the truth. The struggle and the friction that exists today between parents, students and the education system today, began in the early days of the formation of the education industrialized model based on the all important ramblings of the education elite and their biases and contempt that held towards the lower classes. But they also had contempt for parents and their children in their own class ranking, to which there is much discussion about the education systems holding all control of education of children, to control parents who thought they knew better.
If I studied the books further, no doubt I will find the stories of parents in 1912, complaining to the education authorities of the rot being taught in the local schools. Even back then, parents were thought of not knowing what to look for in education for their children, and must be guided by the education elite, and why I had to laugh at your remark, “vast conspiracy to keep everybody stupid.”
Apparently the authors between the second time era, did think that it was right and just to prevent knowledge transfer higher than their station, and to be told only the facts that the students need to be a productive citizen in their station of life. The outrage, the families and the general public was not listening to the educational elite, and were content to decide matters on the education needs of their children, and if they needed an education. Parents were a curse back then, and it was obvious to the education elite of the era, that parents needed to be sold on the idea.
Doug, the biases and beliefs of the past, are still very much part of the attitudes, beliefs and biases of the current education system, and many within the current education system, still view parents and their children with a suspect eye, as well as they do not have the smarts to know what is good for the education needs of their children.
Apparently since the 1860s, parents are still shocking the sensibilities of the education elite, when we strive to work for the best interests of our children’s education. No wonder choice and its various forms are sneered at by the stakeholders within the beginning of the 21st century. They can’t abide parents who are not listening to every word and edict of the aristocratic educationists.
And since the 1860s, the education systems have been struggling with equity, the moment the education elites decided all education matters rests only in the hands of the educators.
Eyes rolling
Doug:
Once again that vast conspiracy to keep everybody stupid.
Are you aware how that looks?
___________________________________________________
Not a conspiracy. Those are your words and, once again, you are attempting to put them into someone else’s mouth.
That habit of yours certainly nakes my eyes roll.
However, methinks it is simply a matter of each interest group protecting its own self interest against the other groups with the students/parents/taxpayers being left out of the game.
You are SOOOO right Andrew!
Good one Andrew-
Here is another great tidbit that parents see constantly-and teachers are taught-pure Deweyism -taken from Math Wise website.
“The notion that practice of basic skills interferes with understanding of math concepts is illogical and misguided and denigrating terms like “drill and kill” do not serve students or teachers well. Indeed, understanding and practice of basic skills go hand-in-hand.”
Lets explore the thoughts and the arguments of the stakeholders and individuals who oppose school choice of any kind in the public education system, or are incline to oppose school choice.
“. This critical policy study provides an understanding of the different actors—individuals, interest groups, and other organizations—involved in influencing and defining, through their narratives what public education in BC ought to be, thus capturing the core intellectual dispositions that informed and determined the kind of policy problems that were posed, the kinds of explanations
that were offered, and the kinds of policy options suggested as solutions in the restructuring of public education in BC. The study provides an account of the manner in which policy problems were posed, of the explanations constructed, of the policy directions formulated, and of the policy issues to which policy makers ultimately paid attention with enactment of Bill 34. ”
Click to access fallonpaquette.pdf
“Better Schools for BC: A Plan for Quality Public Education
A strong public education system that provides equal opportunities for all is
fundamental to democracy.”
Click to access BetterSchoolsForBC.pdf
Community organizations that more or less oppose choice., and are usually fronted by the teachers’ union or a combination of school trustees and the union
http://unitedforpubliceducation.org/campaigns/
“The Victoria Public Education Coalition (VPEC) is a community advocacy group that stands up and speaks up for:
Fully-funded, quality, public education that provides resources adequate for student learning needs.
Public education as a public asset, protected from privatization.
Democratic accountability, open governance, and inclusion in school district decision making.”
http://www.vpec.org/p/about.html
A thesis – “EDUCATIONAL VALUE IS NOT PRIVATE! DEFENDING THE CONCEPT OF
PUBLIC EDUCATION
by
STEPHANIE ALEXIS BONIC”
https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/1111/ubc_2008_fall_bonic_stephanie.pdf?sequence=1
The last link is quite good to see the strong viewpoints and attitudes, of those who are against choice in any form, and sometimes I think that they are against any choice within the public education system.
Here is the newest post from WISE – a parent frustrated and begging for options to save her son’s future.
“Despite two tutors, one in school as a Peer tutor and one at home and working six nights a week on math, our son cannot seem to succeed. We knew something had to be done within one month of school starting but could not move our son as there was not room in other classes plus we were told that the whole Grade 9 math was in crisis. Every class had poor results.”
http://wisemath.org/join/
Options within, no way under the current equity policies of the schools. If all are failing, than everything is equal.
Over on the SQE site, a debate between parents and educators on why e-learning, another option is no good for the students. On top of blaming the students and parents for any failures.
Has anyone thought of the reason for the great many struggles that high school students have in the core subjects, is because they all have weak foundations in the 3 Rs, that makes it that much more difficult to learn advance knowledge, no matter the learning environment – the classroom or e-learning.
And yet the education powers to be will debate choice and equity on the political lines, but will not debate it on the curriculum, instruction practices and teacher training. Having choice, would immediately improve all three, or watch the students walk out of the one school door, to another school door.
Over at Kitchen Table Math – a post on achievement
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2012/02/achievement-gap-how-our-schools-are.html
Now the next question posed in the post – “But then the next question becomes how to eliminate the growing achievement gap between U.S. students and those from other developed countries.”
Bonus question: How to eliminate choice and equity that kind that parents want.
Check out the comments – Priceless.
Dump the educators and get the teachers back.
Then let them loose on the kiddies.
They’ll do a bang-up job of it, IMO.
School choice is gaining support around the world, but Finland continues to be an outlier,much like most of the Canadian provinces. Since a Wall Street Journal article in February 2008, the Finnish fetish has swept the American educational establishment. Supporters of the status quo see, in Finland, a way of restoring funding and staving-off testing and accountability.
Promoters of the Finnish model tend to champion that system’s “culture of trust” rather than two other aspects of the system: tracking of students after Grade 9 into academic and vocational streams and the rigorous standards of Finland’s teacher education and evaluation systems.
One of the first to question the Finnish fixation was Daniela Fairchild (The Education Gadfly, Volume 11, Number 15. April 21, 2011):
“Since the 2000 PISA and TIMSS test results catapulted Finland’s education system to international acclaim, scholars around the globe have been debating the sources of that success. This film, produced by Robert Compton (of Two Million Minutes fame) and starring Tony Wagner (author of The Global Achievement Gap), weighs in on this saturated debate. Through classroom visits, interviews with students and teachers, and statistics that roll across the screen, it showcases Finland’s myriad educational idiosyncrasies. It explains that the country has no high-stakes testing (save at the end of secondary school) or teacher-evaluation system, and students do little homework. This system creates a “culture of trust,” which Wagner heralds as the magic bean of Finland’s success.
What is most interesting about the film, though, is its depiction of Finland’s rigorous, intense, and competitive teacher-training programs—a more probable explanation for the nation’s academic strength. These programs accept a mere 10 percent of applicants (akin to Ivy League acceptance rates in the U.S.)—and kick out teacher trainees who aren’t up to snuff. Candidates observe veteran teachers, co-design and execute lesson plans, and receive feedback from peers, mentors, and even students. The film provides a first-hand view of Finland’s classrooms, and is worth viewing in that regard. Pay particular attention to the segments on teacher training, and please don’t be hypnotized by Wagner’s fluffy thoughts on the “culture of trust.” (Daniela Fairchild)
Comment:
Fluffy aspects of the “Trust Us” Finnish system tend to appeal to North American “progressives” seeking to turn back the clock. The purported panacea is not without its warts: It’s a “one provider system” with little or no choice for parents. Students in Finland are streamed at the end of Grade 9 into two tracks, academic and vocational, based upon average-mark cut-offs and teachers are weeded-out in education schools and early assessments. These aspects of the “Finnish Phenomenon” deserve much closer scrutiny.
This may be of interest.
Click to access OPEKOULUTUSENG.PDF
The York Region School Choice movement is full of life and imagination! Today’s YouTube video is priceless and scores a direct hit:
I’m still laughing and convinced that it will have a major impact.
Well building children like Ikea furniture was the line I loved.
I liked the crack at Finland…;-))
Funny how conveniently the other policies outside and inside the education ministry of Finland are left untouched, while pushing for copies of the Finland’s education reforms.
How the advocates of Finland, are quick to praise only using the PISA as their supporting evidence in numbers. Stats that can be easily had in other countries, such as the literacy levels of the 8 to 18 year old grouping, to the adult literacy levels cannot be found in Finland at the national level.
I had no idea until today, that between Holland, Sweden and Finland, Finland has the highest rate of murders per 100,000 (population). But I did know that Finland, has the highest youth suicides in Europe, among other sobering stats.
I also found out, how the global education concerns, determines 100 percent literacy in the industrialized countries. No wonder, nobody within the public education systems of the industrialised countries worries about the climbing rates in low literacy among adults, and includes Finland.
There is a lot of assumptions being made, without having the numbers to support the assumptions. A lot of missing stats and stats not being track. LIke the number of parents in Finland, who fudges the address, to have their children to go across town to a school of their choice.
Below is an article of an American son, describing the efforts of his mother and how she used choice. “My mother ignored the ideology on either side and instead bulldozed her own more level playing field within the public school system. I am sure there are many more parents like her out there right now, paving their own unorthodox way forward, politics be damned.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/how-my-mother-beat-the-public-school-system/252055/
It happens in Finland, because at the end of the day quality of education matter especially when the time comes to sort out the chaff from the wheat at the high school level. As in the above link, the son states, “I write this so many years later because right now, the school choice debate is leaving out people like my mother: parents who embrace choice because they believe they have no other choice. It is a conversation that happens largely among highly educated people in fancy conference rooms and on lofty campaign platforms, in highbrow publications and among rarefied circles. (I once interviewed with a hedge fund that had candidates debate school choice as part of the application process.) It happens over the heads of poor parents, as if they are too simple to have an opinion on the dilemma they themselves are living. ”
As it is in Finland and other countries where highly educated people, along with the wealth attached, make assumptions based on preconceived equity of their own making. Finland does a much better job on providing equality in education, but conveniently ignores the negative outcomes such as youth suicides, youth unemployment, and if indeed after post-secondary, are the young adults working in the field that they have studied.
Many more questions, and puzzles why some European papers, states Canada has imposed high standards in teaching training, where only 10 percent of the applicants are admitted to the humble halls of the teachers’ faculties. I thought, more like 10 percent of newly minted teachers will land a full-time teaching position, but what to do I know. The highly educated people never do think a person much below them, will ever read their words, much like they think parents of lower stations in life looking for better education quality for their children.
The closest to stats, considering there is a language barrier but even with the handy translator, I could not find the stats of the individual countries, and if I did find them, tracking literacy and numeracy levels of students was not on the agendas. And sometimes, very confusing due to the wide variations of education definitions and terms, but I did find it interesting in the SE stats, that what is being track are the students with the severe label attached, just like in other parts of the world. How convenient, not to tracked the children who have been identified as having mild to moderate education deficits, sitting in the inclusive classroom. My rabbit antennas go up and down, that they are hiding the numbers, plus a lot of other numbers dealing with the levels of children in the 3 Rs, as well as the knowledge gap of students in the regular class.
Wikipedia – background knowledge of Finland’s education system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland
Education stats and other stats from the European. Commission
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Education_statistics_at_regional_level#Publications
The EU Youth Report
Click to access youth_report_final.pdf
“IMPROVING EQUITY IN EDUCATION AND TRAINING”
Click to access equity_en.pdf
To return to the first link, and the mother who paved her own path of choice for her son, the son writes, “I write this so many years later because right now, the school choice debate is leaving out people like my mother: parents who embrace choice because they believe they have no other choice. It is a conversation that happens largely among highly educated people in fancy conference rooms and on lofty campaign platforms, in highbrow publications and among rarefied circles. (I once interviewed with a hedge fund that had candidates debate school choice as part of the application process.) It happens over the heads of poor parents, as if they are too simple to have an opinion on the dilemma they themselves are living. ”
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/how-my-mother-beat-the-public-school-system/252055/
I found this to be true in Europe as well, as if parents are far too simple to have an opinion, much less would know what education quality is, or even the heady stratosphere of equity that crosses at the intersection of equality.
Allow us to keep our elitist elementary program because we don’t like to rub shoulders with the riff raff.
That what it sound’s like to most people.
No. That’s what is spun by you Doug.
The problem for the York district video is Ikea furniture is a Swedish enterprise not Finnish . Now they could have used Nokia or Ericson Phones which were both Swedish and then bought by Finnish interests. I frankly don’t understand the love affair with societies that suppress free will and private wealth creation.
The trouble is that Doug, and a great many with the education system, do not believe that parents and their children should have any say about education, They idea of equality and equity, is to provide education services by either providing along the lines of if everyone receives it, it meets the equity threshold. If no one receives the education service, it meet the equity threshold. If a few are receiving an education service, than it is elitist, unfair advantage and whatever the excuses that are taken from the Hall of Excuses attached to the Hall of Equality and Equity.
Choice does not meet the equity threshold of the stakeholders within the public education system. To my surprise and delight, parents have been active on You Tube, inserting their voices, demanding choice. So many, so very creative, and Canadian parents should follow suit, stepping out telling the aristocratic educationalists their stories and why choice must be on the menu.
The first video, is one that touches me in a very personal way, and how the forces within the public education system, prevents a solid education for children with special needs, or even the garden variety types of reading disorders.
“Why is school choice important? Let school choice mom and IJ client Andrea Weck tell you in her own words.”
“No single, one-size fits-few school can meet this range of parent preference. Forcing all families into a one-size, fits-few arrangement will cause unnecessary political battles as each type of parent lobbies for their preferred relationship with the school. The school will not be able to focus their resources to satisfy well one target customer, but instead will dissatisfy almost everyone.
Only different schools — often utilizing quite different techniques, types of teachers, and curricula to coherently satisfy a particular need — could provide the different relationships desired by different families. ”
“School choice is a good thing find out why by watching this movie”
“This is a video we made to promote school choice. We are home schooled and learn much more effectively since our curriculum is custom designed for our individual strengths and weaknesses, instead of a class of students.”
“School Choice Coffee Analogy”
As for the other side, the ones against choice – parent bashing, questioning their parent abilities, and name calling. There is priceless ones made by parents, showing the attitudes of the public education system and the stakeholders within.
Heartbreaking the teachers union challenging a program for school choice in Arizona. The coffee video spells it out clearly. No you have no options for choice and you must pay for that if you want to go private. Wonder if there are any stats on how children in Private for profit schools do in test scores?
We had Finland here for no accountability . Thank god we at least have testing now. having dollars march out the door would correct an annual waste of 1.1 billion dollars in Nova Scotia.
I frankly don’t understand the love affair with societies that suppress free will and private wealth creation.
_______________________________________________
Neither do I.
Another thing I don’t understand are the misleading statements being posted here.
What is misleading about that statement in regards to Finland? What is free will and private wealth creation there . The creation of Angry Birds ?
That the top 20% control 35% of the wealth in Finland gives the lie to your claim.
Look it up for yourself.
The Government is a huge share holder in Stora Enso. Stora Enso that wanted the people of Nova Scotia to subsidize their operations in Port Hawkesbury with special power rates. Yeah Finland an economy we should target to be like considering they are about 12 economies back of the Canadian economy. Just say you would like to continue to rack up debt with a public education system that is putting out students that can’t do math without a calculator Andrew. You have to be a public servant making twice as much at the per capita GDP of Nova Scotia which is why we are about 13 billion in the hole and growing.
Something like 315,000 private businesses in Finland.
Not bad for a population smaller than Ontario’s.
You’re entitled to your opinion but not your facts.
Finland is economically on par with the other countries such as Germany, France and the UK.
Irrelevant statements hardly support your opinion.
National GDP by itself is totally meaningless when assessing the standard of living of a nation.
I do agree, but GDP is used as one of the indicators to measure standard of living in a country.
The premise is, the more wealth – the higher the standard of living
Background information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
That said, what is being heavily discussed at the top global concerns is the effectiveness and efficiencies of the public sector.
Actually, both Andrew and Paul is right, but differs on how to solve it.
“THE EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC SPENDING”
Click to access publication11902_en.pdf
The Ontario Drummond report is a current example in Canada.
Choice in public education of the industrialized countries is being used as a solution to provide more efficient delivery of education services, as well as increasing overall achievement of students. More importantly, more value per dollar spent on public funding in the deliver of education.
However, many agendas and stakeholders within the education system are against choice because it does not favour their best interests, nor as they argue that it is fair and equitable.
A 2004 article – “Fracturing the public education system in the name of “choice” helps to undermine the totality and, thereby, makes it more vulnerable. Choice, after all, is a questionable concept. As Roy Hattersley suggests, “when some families choose, the rest accept what is left”
http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/ATA%20Magazine/Volume%2085/Number%201/Articles/Pages/Public%20Education%20as%20the%20Trojan%20Horse%20The%20Alberta%20Case.aspx
The above link, not one mentioned of the role of the unions, and what part they play in undermining their own version of equity and social justice, and that doesn’t even cover the role of salaries, benefits and pensions, to which plays the starring role in ensuring all education resources remain scarce resources, right down to the roll of toilet paper.
The Government is a huge share holder in Stora Enso. Stora Enso that wanted the people of Nova Scotia to subsidize their operations in Port Hawkesbury with special power rates.
____________________________________________________
You mean like Bowater and all the other privately owned corporate welfare bums?
Wonder if there are any stats on how children in Private for profit schools do in test scores?
Yes there is data on that Paul, the voucher students in Milwaukee do no better than regular PS students. The parents are REALLY after religion.
that’s got nothing to do with Paul’s topic of discussion. Let’s get back to the topic at hand which is the move forward to school choice that’s taking shape right across this country for those who choose to see it.
Heartbreaking the teachers union challenging a program for school choice in Arizona.
Of course they do because choice is a stupid waste of money. Many states have voted directly on voucher choice programs and it always loses very badly in these votes. All people who don’t expect to use the voucher school themselves personally vote against it.
Doug, so you are for all special needs children to sit and waste inside a public education system, progressing using snail indicators, and to provide watered down programs within and outside of the inclusive classroom?
Shame on you. Doug, But vouchers are quite popular for the parents, but not the public teachers’ unions who view vouchers in the same way as you do, and other nations’ teachers’ unions. Unions always advocating for the one-sized-fits-all schools, and the students who do not fit the norm, are the ones that are given the desk, a set of books, and the access to education opportunities without the skills and tools to access the books, much less participate in the school culture.
If vouchers was a reality, the exodus of the students who do not fit the norm in the one-sized-fits-all school would begin, emptying the classroom of students who are used by the stakeholders as their favourite whipping boy and/or to justified the stances of the stakeholders within the education system.
The short video entitled, School Choice: Coffee Analogy is apt for parents and their children, when they do not fit the one-sized-fits-all school models.
And is typical for parents and their experiences when they seek out different approaches in education for their children.
School Vouchers
Equality and Liberty
National GDP by itself is totally meaningless when assessing the standard of living of a nation.
GDP per capital is not a bad indicator but the Human Index from UN is better. Looks at longevity, poverty, wealth distribution, birth survival etc
USA looks bad in these charts.
Just say you would like to continue to rack up debt with a public education system that is putting out students that can’t do math without a calculator Andrew.
Canada is one of the most successful nations in PISA including math and science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling#Test_results
Paul there are many arguments remaining in education but you need to start from the point that Canada is a world leader.
Click to access 46643496.pdf
IF so Doug, than Canada and the education system, must open all stats, knowledge, the good and the bad to confirmed if indeed if the education system is the best.
I have a funny feeling, the balance sheet of negative outcomes of students is what the public education monopoly don’t care about, and the stakeholders within the education system, would fight tooth and nail from releasing the figures.
Click to access Fraser_Institute_Report_Card_on_Ontario%E2%80%99s_Elementary_Schools_2011.pdf
What about it Andrew? There is no country with better results except Korea and Finland and the FI makes my case year in and year out, the poor kids need more support inside and outside of school to do better.
The purpose of public education is accessibility to all citizens. Privatizing education would be a great disservice to Canada and, IMO, this “choice” movement will do far more harm than good in the long run.
There is no doubt that public education needs to be improved, especially in the Maritimes but restricting acessibilty is most definitely NOT the way to go.
We already have the choice of sending our children to private school or we can even homeschool so I don’t see the point of this “choice” movement other than one of wanting to privatize public funds.
Read my lips, Doug.
Manipulating numbers is nothing but manipulating numbers.
Give it up.
All Citizens Accept the most important ones . The parents paying the bills or the future generations that will pay for the Bail outs of Teacher Unions Pension funds. In Nova Scotia we have twice paid a billion dollars for teachers who can’t apparently teach math or handle their pension finances . Going to a Finnish System would only make Education officials not accountable once again. The choice is pretty clear an average grade of 27 for math for a High school in Shelburne or worst not even being privy to that information. National GDP figures and growth of the economy are what counts. OF course hey lefties don’t like being accountable in any way shape or form. GDP from the real economy pays for civil servants.
More red herrings?
Who said we should go to the Finnish system? We aren’t Finns.
As to our economy it seems we aren’t doing all that well under the “righties”. “Leftie” Paul Martin got us out of the previous “rightie” economic debacle. Remember Mulroney?
And who was it that privatized NSP and gave Nova Scotians the highest power rates around?
and who says you don’t have an intransigent monopoly that is not even accountable to the Government ? What we are as citizens are tax slaves made to pay for an education monopoly whether we like it or not.
Why would you not wish to have the taxpayer with a choice ? Afraid you might be without a job because you work for an inefficient and wasteful government department? Nova Scotia Power does not have a taxpayer funded monopoly . You want to be the shareholder NSP you indeed have a choice to do so with a public stock on the TSE. Install a wind turbine or solar panels going off grid if you object to NSP you are free to do that. The new Antigonish Library is off grid practically and they have a computer labs worth of devices. Do you possibly think a private system that was funded by the wishes of the taxpayer would not be successful? Well it is reality and it is called Alberta with the Highest test scores in the Nation.
So you support a private monopoly (NSP) on the one hand and slam a public monopoly (it isn’t since you have the choice of private school or home schooling) on the other.
Give your head a shake, Mr. Taylor. It makes no sense.
That both the private sector and the public sector in Nova Scotia are by and large failing one might wonder if we aren’t looking in the right places for the reasons of those failures, global economy nothwithstanding.
By the way, Mr. Taylor, I have never been a government employee, have never been a union member and was self-employed for most of my life.
Well it is reality and it is called Alberta with the Highest test scores in the Nation.
Alberta had far better results long before choice and the gap has not increased. Choice in Alberta has zero to do with results.
Get it through your head when people have a vote on choice they vote NO.
“Alberta had far better results long before choice and the gap has not increased. Choice in Alberta has zero to do with results.”
____________________________________________________
Was about to post something similar.
Click to access 2011provmultiyear.pdf
Doug, Andrew since when? Choice, the opening of charter schools and other modes of delivery of education was to not only increase overall achievement but to allow parents greater say in choosing their children’s education.
Last night, I watch a news item from Edmonton news – parents are quite happy with the new hybrid public education system, that allows choice. Compare to the days before the hybrid education model existed.
“A new Frontier Centre paper – School Choice: A Policy Whose Time Has Come – explores the opening of the school market in Alberta and British Columbia, and what preliminary test results are saying about its effects. It describes how and by what means a few individual schools have succeeded in breaking out of the “one size fits all” model. Charter schools, funded publicly but autonomous of school boards, have been particularly successful.
These snapshots provide striking evidence that increased diversity in public school formats – and expanded parental choice in deciding what model and curriculum best suits each child – deliver immediate increases in student achievement. Here are a few of the details, as measured by Alberta’s rigorous program of standardized tests:”
http://mobi.fcpp.org/publication.php/805
That was in 2004, now in 2012, due to the healthy competition, plenty of choice in and out of the schools, and where public schools and the stakeholders had no choice but to improve their education services to retained students. The biggest bonus is that children who do not fit the norm, are much better served than in other provinces. Or put it this way, a child like my child, would received timely services, compared to the 2 to 3 year wait, in other provinces. And they do wonders for the special needs children, especially the autism children.
Choice in Alberta brought more engagement and transparency to the public education system, than the education monopolies in other provinces, that strive to control choice of students within defined parameter sets.in the inclusive classroom.
” What the Fraser Institute won’t tell parents about school rankings: Lessons Learned from School Choice Featured”
http://directions-eprg.ca/blog-layout/item/51-what-the-fraser-institute-won%E2%80%99t-tell-parents-about-school-rankings-lessons-learned-from-school-choice
Look at the numbers without the spin.
Here it is graphically from Alberta Departmant of Education.
Click to access 2011%20achbycourse_graphs.pdf
Alberta test results are basically unchanged over the last 5 years yet there is more choice.
All that would say is that IF there is some kind of causal relationship it is of nil effect.
When charter schools were introduced, along with the changes that made it into a hybrid education system model, within a few short years, the public schools improved by completing, using their much improved programs and policies.
Start from the beginning, than one will see the relationship between choice and achievement 10 years down the road. The public schools improve, and choice is ever so popular with the parents. The parents would never want to go back to the original system, where choice is dictated by the BLOB.
“Blended Programs
Parents may teach their children for part of their education program and have a school teach them for the rest of their instruction. With blended programs, parents may decide to teach the subjects they feel most capable of handling while school teaches the rest. The school must teach the student at least 50% of the blended program in grades 1 to 9.”
http://education.alberta.ca/parents/educationsys/ourstudents/iv.aspx
Is school choice a fad, or is it the evolution of applying the legal rights and freedoms under the constitution, and human rights? I don’t see it as a fad, since being denied education services for my child by the public education authorities amounts to legal discrimination, and my child receiving a third rate education because I could not enact my rights, and go elsewhere without incurring heavy expenses of moving.
If anything in Alberta, discussion of rights of parents and quality of education are out in the open, and parents as a group, acting as individuals are much more willing to speak up in public, without fearing the long authoritativeness of the public school board and the ministry.
Hard to, when the spin is already built in, and even harder when data is missing, for the reader to arrived at some conclusions, minus the spin.
“Recently, the Alberta Human Rights commission refused to consider a complaint brought by some parents in Morvinville, Alberta, regarding the complete lack of secular educational options for their children. The town’s only schools are Catholic and incorporate a heavy dose of religion into each school day. That must feel like a slap in the face to parents living in a province that provides heavy public support to private faith schools. It’s also rather ironic that some Albertan students are unable to access secular public education while next door Saskatchewan is moving to fund faith-based schools and Ontario ensures every Catholic in its province can access publicly supported religious education. .”
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/02/15/justin-trottier-alberta-parents-given-no-freedom-from-religion-in-schools/
“The Edmonton public and Catholic boards will look at sharing school space after public trustees decided this week it might help schools in mature neighbourhoods stay open.
However, there will be limits on the kinds of space Catholic students can share, Catholic school board chair Debbie Engel said Wednesday.
Catholic and public school students would not be able to share educational space such as classrooms, where the Catholic faith must permeate the area, Engel said.”
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Public+Catholic+boards+will+consider+sharing+common+school+space/6159154/story.html
“Indeed, specialized programs have become increasingly prevalent across Canada as more and more schools look to engage the broad spectrum of students’ capacities and passions, and to compete with private institutions, noted Annie Kidder, executive director of the parent-led organization People for Education. But she acknowledged the risk of “social polarization,” with students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tending to gravitate toward these speciality schools.
“Choice is open to those with the capacity to choose,” Ms. Kidder noted.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/09/school-board-may-axe-specialized-arts-sports-options-in-favour-of-inclusive-programs/
“Saskatchewan is extending public education funding to independent schools, including private, religious-based schools, highlighting divergence in what “public education” means across Canada.
The move puts it alongside British Columbia and Alberta, but far from Atlantic Canada and Ontario, where the idea sank the electoral prospects of the Tory party in 2007.”
http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/12/22/regina-adds-funding-for-religious-schools/
“On Monday night at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute in Toronto, a few dozen interested parties attended a discussion on religious accommodation within the Toronto District School Board.
This may have the perverse effect of reigniting a debate that had died down since the summer, when a tiny group of angry Hindus objected to Muslim prayer services being conducted on Friday afternoons in the cafeteria at Valley Park Middle School, just across the street from Garneau C.I.
Later, however, is definitely better than never.
A lot of very reasonable people, not just militant secularists and feminists, were profoundly unsettled by the idea of congregational prayer being held during class time in a public school, and by the gender segregation that this entails. The most interesting revelation at this event was how easily the school came to the decision to bring Friday prayers in-house, and how easily this could have been avoided if anyone in charge shared these concerns.”
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/11/23/chris-selley-religious-instruction-is-a-family-matter/
The last six months, just a few samples of choice being aired in the public. All about choice, and parents having the right to used their rights to guide their children’s education. Should the public education system, have the right to control choice, making demands unto choices that amounts to brick walls to overcome, and/or obstacles? Or should the public education system, release the locks, and have choice within and outside of the public education system?
Just because something is a fad doesn’t mean it works.
Just because something is a fad doesn’t mean it works.
We’ve seen this jumping on the bandwagon stuff repeatedly in education and look at where we are.
ok Andrew,I agree with you to a point,the thing that works is breaking up the monopoly,it`s about getting schools engaged in doing better.Without school choice,nobody gives a $%*^@-they call all the low scores SES problems rather than poor instruction.The blame game needs to stop and school choice is a means to an end.
Ah, now we’re making some headway.
SES is a factor but, IMO, the lack of an adequate education is a major cause of poverty and not the other way around.
As an example, Nova Scotia (along with NB) has the lowest average wage in Canada and we have one of the worst public education systems.
So which came first? The low incomes or the poor education? I’d opt for the latter since our spending on education is right up there with the rest.
Sure one can see it that way, without the stats and numbers on the public expenditures in education, the policies, the tax system, the subsidies, the federal policies, and other factors that influences and restricts salaries/wages and education outcomes.
But should you not be discussing the steroid growth of the public sector versus the growth of the private sector? From what I read, lots of chatter in Ontario on the topic, since the published Drummond report.
Choice in education, would actually relieved some of the pressures of delivering education to their citizens. And some would say, make public education more efficient in delivering education.
Quality of education or the lack of quality drives choice. Or really one of the drivers of the major drivers of choice. Far too many years, education failure is blames on the SEC factors, rather than the school factors of the three big ones, curriculum, instruction and teacher quality. It is why it is perfectly okay by the educationists to have 7 teachers instruct in the course of the year, for grade 12 math. And than shrugged it off, by placing the blame onto the SEC factors, rather than then on the 3 big ones, plus questionable administration and management decisions.
If choice was present in the Nova Scotia system, a lot of parents would seriously consider moving to the school across town, where achievement in grade 12 math is a lot higher.
As Joanne has stated, without choice noboby gives a damn within the monopoly called public education.
Here is explicit information on what can be done-there is such a disconnect between policy and research-if the politicians really cared,this explicit stuff would be policy,instead they sit at a table and create their own.
Click to access Readingand%20Early%20Literacy0601.pdf
There is now Wise Math for Math instruction.
That`s why School Choice is the only way,you have to blow up the empire.They will ALWAYS find a way to NOT do it.
Then the problem is within the so-called monopoly (it isn’t a monopoly, but I digress).
Even if you do have a “choice” some schools will be good, others will be lousy and most will be rather average, be they private, public, charter or whatever.
So that leaves us with the issue of quality of education and how to get that quality.
We might want to start with higher standards rather than dumbing down the curriculum. All that does is result in poor teachers and even worse administrators since it’s the easy way out.
Andrew,in 100 years,if you don`t offer school choice,you will NEVER get to quality.
That`s how it starts,parents choosing where to send their kids in the public system because testing shows certain schools are better than others.
Fire the school superintendants in the underperforming boards and watch what happens.
That`s how it starts,parents choosing where to send their kids in the public system because testing shows certain schools are better than others.
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Within the public system, though.
You might notice that some schools are better funded than others within the same board.
Want to bet that those are the schools where trustees’ and administrators’ children/families are being educated?
If you can get that to happen…all of us in the know watch and we say,yup,nothing will “move the glacier”.
We`ve all been at it for years.
It`s politics.
The day the Drummond Report came out in Ontario re money saving recommendations,the show that is well respected,The Agenda,got a panel together with Drummond,representing all the government factions.
Everyone of them said the recommendations wouldn`t be acted upon,why? They`d lose votes.
The same theories exist here,don`t try to apply logic.
Easiest way to save money is to stop wasting it.
Another example.
Anti-bullying effort at one of our schools was to give the students free pink t-shirts. They get to wear them every so often.
That’s it.
Small wonder the bullying continues but it is very visual for the TV cameras.
Until such time as parent/taxpayer apathy is overcome not much will change.
What was the voter turnout last election?
How many parents are actually involved in the childrens’ schooling?
Last year a school board in BC was broke,student materials and staff had to be cut,the administrators had a meeting at Chateau Whistler for 3 days to discuss it.
Want to change this..go try:(
Sorry Andrew,you just don`t “get it”.
We`re powerless,it`s a dictatorship system.
I agree Andrew, parents and the average citizens are powerless.
Andrew, what do you call parents being involved in the children’s schooling?
All the public education system wants, is ‘yes’ parents, Involved parents, not on their menu.
I prefer to think, there is a few kicking around the best move is to move beyond politics, and self-serving interests, and enact the Drummond recommendations.
Instead of waiting for a miracle in the economy that is unlikely to happen.
From what I’ve read, all that seems to happen with “choice” is that the good schools don’t get any better but the bad ones get worse.
Turn a school into a ghost town.
Collective actions speak louder than anything to politicians and bureaucrats on the public dole.
Next school year target the biggest school in the board and don’t send any students there – none.
If they won’t let you register them at other schools keep them at home.
After a couple of weeks – at most, I’d say – something will hit the fan.
But the hitch is the apathy. It’s our own fault, not somebody else’s.
That is if parents were a unified group, but they are not. Don’t send any students to school, seems to only work with the individual parents, and lawyers standing on stand-by, when parents withdraw their children over disputes at the school or school boards. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work. Apathy swings both way, and not necessarily a parent trait.
As for school choice, look at Alberta,
As for school choice, look at Alberta,
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I did.
Hence my comments.
Choice doesn’t seem to have much effect one way or the other, except in placating parents.
If being patronized is your idea of improving public education, that’s fine by me.
How wrong you are – it empowers parents, just like it empowers consumers when there is a variety of choice in grocery stores to choose from. Or when there is a wide selection and variety at the local library.
Choice does that. Empowers, and not patronizing the parents. It is also a form of accountability that is sorely lacking within the public education system.
What you are suggesting, is choice by the State. Pick between two colours, but no other colours because it is not in the best interests of the State, for the average citizen to be wearing yellow and other loud colours. In the same way, that the public education has the final say in all things education, and the two choices that LD children have. The choice of the SE class or the choice of the inclusive classroom. Neither options has remediation of the corrective kind, just the dumb-down kind.
And you’re content with cosmetics.
I’ll not waste my efforts on appearances of improvement.
From what I’ve read, all that seems to happen with “choice” is that the good schools don’t get any better but the bad ones get worse.
I guess we`re off to Chateau Whistler to discuss low achievement then-tax payers foot the bill for that too.
I can tell you`ve had your own business Andrew,you actually think you`re in charge.Bureaucracies make no sense…as we know.
In the movie The Cartel,low achievement was always followed by expensive dinners and meetings.
Still doesn’t change much.
Again, parents/taxpayers need to get active and on the same page.
If there’s no concerted effort, nothing changes.
With you the BLOB wins.
There is no “choice quality” relationship as proven my Milwaukee. Alberta results predate the tiny bit of choice there by a long shot. There is far less adult illiteracy in Alberta did they have choice. Higer SES always gives better results and the Alberta booming economy helps. There is a better result always from migrants, “they have get up and go.”
There are many reasons for Alberta results. Choice is just not one of them.
With you the BLOB wins.
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Really?
What changes have you caused?
I just came back from parent-teacher interviews. Spoke to the principal on two topics, teenagers like structure, and lots of it and good quality textbooks, so parents and their teenagers can make good use of the textbooks at home, without having the need to have a bunch of letters behind one’s name.
Surprise, one gets teenagers engaged in their learning, wanting to learn, and effort is made.
Now Andrew, would you like to take my place tomorrow, blasting the school board for not supplying math textbooks, nor the supplementary material for grade 11 and 12, because the grades behind them are on new math curriculum and the old curriculum will be no more, in the year 2013, when my child graduates. I might add, the new curriculum does not help the students who are using the old curriculum, which one of them is the calculus course.
If it was not for the excellent teachers with deep knowledge of mathematics, the grade 11 and 12 students, and their knowledge of providing lots of practice sheets, the students will be up the creek without a paddle. Welcome to the world of no choice, and when the school board staff connives to cut costs on the backs of students, and than to rub salt into the wound, take away the former textbooks to be destroy.
Would you like to take my place, Andrew? Just wondering, because no doubt I will have to insert the legal rights of my child, just to get their attention, in order to tell them off in a civil way, and at the same obtain the needed material for the remainder of this year and next year for my child.
I have choices too Andrew. But for me to enact my choices, I have to confront the board,educrats who do not think pass their nose when it comes to the best interests of the students, and at the same time obtain the needed math books for my 16 year old. And just maybe, because I made the phone call, the board staff might reconsidered their decision, and supply the math books for all the students, so they too, can have supplementary practice at home.
And by the way, in my neck of the woods, parents are highly engaged not in volunteering and baking cookies, but ensuring that their children have the skills needed for post-secondary work, and as I found out tonight, a lot of parents are concerned about the curriculum and instruction. And they love all the structure and high expectations inside the high school, plus the remediation in any deficits in the 3 Rs. No wonder the local high school is in the top 25 high schools in the AIMS ranking. And to my surprise, other high school administrations in other regions, objects to what the local school does.
And believe me, the local high school is not a high SES, and is part of the outliers that are doing better than what they should be.
By the way Doug, illiteracy has dropped in Alberta because of the policies and programs to addressed them, Just like they have done wonderful work in affordable housing. Surface stats and streams of data is fine for limited generalizations, and not the sweeping generalizations being made.
If parents had choice, I would never have to make a phone call to the school board. But I do, and the reality is that parents are powerless due to the agendas and self-serving interests of the stakeholders. Best interests for students – at the bottom of the list, along with the parents.
Crux of the Matter, writes – “As MacDonald writes about her own high school experience:”‘Boutique school’ wasn’t yet in vogue when I attended an alternative high school in Scarborough. Instead, we got slammed as ‘elitist.’ Here’s how elitist we were: We were black, brown, white, Chinese, gay, poor, middle-class, drop-out risks, kids from single-parent homes and kids from two-parent homes.’”
So, what is really going on when opponents of choice put down the very idea of parent choice within a publicly funded education system? In my opinion, it is related to what I was writing about yesterday, the problem with today’s progressives. They are more conservative than Conservatives: rigid, intolerant of differences and change of any kind, as well as requiring complete uniformity of experience and outcome.
Interesting, I came across an article today in Macleans that confirms the role reversal between progressives and liberals and conservatives. It was titled: “Which political party is really rigid and inflexible?” While it wasn’t about school choice, it did show why it is likely that the Ontario Liberal government, the Ontario teachers’ unions and trustees for York Region, are suffering from the same kind of fear of change and differences.
Anyway, the crux of the matter is that I am 100% with the York Region parents on this one. It is not elitist to give children and youth a choice of what school they want to attend.”
http://crux-of-the-matter.com/2012/02/08/school-choice-not-elitist-as-some-politicians-in-york-region-contend/
Now Andrew, would you like to take my place tomorrow, blasting the school board for not supplying math textbooks, nor the supplementary material for grade 11 and 12, because the grades behind them are on new math curriculum and the old curriculum will be no more, in the year 2013, when my child graduates. I might add, the new curriculum does not help the students who are using the old curriculum, which one of them is the calculus course.
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Sure.
You paying the air fare and accommodations?
If parents had choice, I would never have to make a phone call to the school board.
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Oh, so how would you communicate your choice? Smoke signals?
So your tiny voucher school will have consultants caretakers, secretaries, PD, payroll, etc etc. School boards exist and “Little red Schoolhouses” are gone because there is efficiency and economies of scale in school boards.
Maybe we can return to the Little red Schoolhouse” live in a vine covered cottage with a picket fence and walk to work at the mill around the corner.
School boards exist and “Little red Schoolhouses” are gone because there is efficiency and economies of scale in school boards.
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I’ve not found any evidence of this but have found evidence that small schools aren’t necessarily more costly than big box schools.
If choice was present, the policy makers and decision makers, would actually plan their decisions and policies around the best interest of students first, and only students, their clients. Nor would they have collected the old curriculum text books, and tossed them in the fire, until all the students had finished the courses using the old curriculum.
And more importantly, the old elitist attitude that reigns supreme in a monopoly, that is called the public education system would disappeared and given a memorial service praising it for the job well done, serving the agendas and interests of the stakeholders, as well as serving to bolster the image, that parents must be guided, because they do not know any better, especially in education matters.
Elitism paternalism. is what it is called, and a few other words where elitism is an apt description of the current public education system, and those that strives to keep choice out of the hands of the parents.
Wonderful words I heard tonight at the local high school, where parents are seen as knowledgeable with their own set of skills and abilities, and respected.
Too bad, it does not extend into the school board, but than again the elitist attitude prevails, where choice is handed out in one hand, and in the other hand choice has conditions plus costs, and always at the expense of the students.
An assumption at best.
Things will change when there’s sufficient anger and desperation among voters/taxpayers. That’s the way it has always been.
Until then, deal with as best you can.
Parents need to be educated on choice, and how choice matters in education. Along with choice, to know the legal rights of parents. Parents don’t have to give information, beyond the standard birth age, health insurance number, and write in none of your business (NYB), for income and type of work. With that type of information, children are already being divided up and labelled under SEC factors, before they even step into the door of the schools. Nor do they have to signed the cute contracts, labelled parent contracts, with a series of thou shall rules.
It is passing the word along, and I do it every chance and opportunity when I am out and about. What I have learned, passed it along. Parents need to start talking among each other, without fearing the BLOB. I sure could have use some wisdom from parents that came before me, way back in 2001, but everyone seem to be frightened rabbits looking for the nearest hole to hide, while I duke it out with the powers to be on the lousy math curriculum. The new parent on the block, and I never felt so lonely as I did that day. The other day, a parent still remembers the day, and regrets never approaching me, but I did set an example for the parents that day, as she told me.
The lousy math curriculum is still there in 2012, but the parents of 2012 are not the same as they were in 2001. More apt to speak their mind, and less likely to remain passive and accept the words and edicts of the educationalists that they have only the best interests of their children.
Parents need to be educated on choice, and how choice matters in education. Along with choice, to know the legal rights of parents. Parents don’t have to give information, beyond the standard birth age, health insurance number, and write in none of your business (NYB), for income and type of work. With that type of information, children are already being divided up and labelled under SEC factors, before they even step into the door of the schools. Nor do they have to signed the cute contracts, labelled parent contracts, with a series of thou shall rules.
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Irrelevant.
As long as there isn’t sufficient motivation and numbers, forget it.
Get organized and apply the pressure. To do that you have to overcome the apathy.
Parents need to be educated on choice, and how choice matters in education. Along with choice, to know the legal rights of parents. Parents don’t have to give information,
Sounds rather paternalistic regarding parents. I assume parents know what is going on. They just could not care less for choice and reform.
You need to understand that local public schools are very popular and choice is unpopular. It is very well understood and rejected.
Pauls entire question is “why is choice going nowhere in Canada?” An equally interesting question is why do some Americans like choice although it can never win a vote anywhere. It is because Americans allow too much poverty and underfund their poor schools. That is the only reason other than some still feel they should get funding for religion because religion is dying.
“Parents need to be educated on choice,”
What does that mean?
“and how choice matters in education.”
How does it matter?
“Along with choice, to know the legal rights of parents.”
What legal rights are you referring to?
Which legal rights are being denied to parents?
“Parents don’t have to give information,”
If that is the case, then don’t.
So where’s the problem?
Under the human rights legislation, parents have the legal right to choose their children’s education and pathway.
““Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)”
Despite the date of 1948, not much have change,
“REMEMBER: It has always been, except in totalitarian states, the duty of parents to educate their children.
England: It shall be the duty of the parent of every child of compulsory school age to cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability, and aptitude, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. (Education Act, 1944)
United States: The first School Laws in America (1642) underlie the system to this day: “Universal education of youth is essential to the well-being of the State. The obligation to furnish this education rests primarily upon the parents.”
Canada: “The responsibility is placed by law upon the parents or guardian to educate their children.” (You and the Law, 1973)
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) supports this parental duty.”
http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/2010/04/06/parent-rights-and-their-childrens-education/
“The public schools do have a statutory duty to provide a free education to all students whose parents choose to register them. However, it is made clear in all school law that parents are to be kept informed of the progress of the child. This information must be accurate and understandable to the parents so that they in turn can exercise their duty by supporting, augmenting, intervening or withdrawing from that school.
Public schools serve a two-fold purpose: to assist parents in meeting their parental obligation in the education of their children and to serve the broader public interest in seeing that citizens are educated to a certain standard.”
I chose the above link, because of its simplicity and it is Canadian, but under the legal files, civil rights files there is rich information on the rights of parents as well as their responsibilities.
Is it fair to block a parent who lives in one school zone, to register her child in another school zone? Is it fair and equitable, to prevent parents from accessing non-public education services to provide educations services that the education system does not provide?
Can go on with many questions like the above, but it gets really interesting if one looks at the actions of the public education system, their equity policies and attitudes describing parents in not so flattering terms. Parents don’t care. is one that is heard to justified the actions of the policies of the schools and the school boards. Or the other common one, ‘ You, are the only parent complaining about it.’, which is an isolation tactic and used often when parents are requesting education services beyond the inclusive classroom.
What is not found within the typical Canadian provincial education systems, the knowledge and information that a parent must have, to make informed education decisions for their children. And in doing so, parents cannot effectively insert their parental rights to educate their children to make informed decisions for their children, and more importantly, the rules, regulations and the provincial education school acts and other such legislation, that hinders the ability for parents to insert their rights, and act for the best interests of their children.
“Over the last half century parents have been programmed to “leave it to the experts”. At the same time, however, School Acts across the Western World declare that — ultimately — parents are the prime educators and responsible for their children’s education.
Nevertheless, rarely are parents instrumental in the decisions made on behalf of their children. More commonly, parents are used as fund-raisers and cheerleaders of public schools.
Occasionally, parents are seen as “the enemy” of the public school system. Especially when they want choices.”
http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/category/blog/
Now on the flip side of the coin, is inner workings of a school board in Ontario, dealing with equity issues. “PUBLIC SYSTEM, PRIVATE MONEY:
FEES, FUNDRAISING AND EQUITY IN THE
TORONTO DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD”
Click to access Public-System-Private-Money-Final-Full-Report.pdf
Typical, and all so prevalent in the public education system. Parents are the problem in their eyes, It is a good thing, that some parents in Toronto are waking up, and are inserting their rights, because the equity policies of the public education system, are running roughshod over parents legal rights and are in direction violation and spirit of the human rights code.
One small example – “The push to eradicate parental rights is so aggressive, and the tipping point is so dire, that we believe seeking remedy from elected officials, while important, will not succeed by itself as a strategy. The only viable way to pull Canada back from this tipping point is for parents and other stakeholders to fight back in the courts. That means lawsuits.”
http://www.defendingparents.com/
And the major example, is now sitting in the Supreme Court of Canada, to where the heavy weights in the public education system, are without a doubt in my mind, are not on the side of the students who need remediation in the 3 Rs beyond the classroom.
Now Doug and Andrew – what is the legal definition of a basic education within the pubic education systems anywhere in Canada? Good luck in finding it, But next time, an education official mentions it, especially when they are convincing parents on their new improved equity policies, I do hope you and other parents asked the magic question. Define the legal definition of a basic education.
Beyond the desk, a set of books and education opportunties, whatever is provided is the bell and whistles. And that includes learning how to read, write and do numeracy well, that are part of the bells and whistles.
Choice crosses the intersection of legal rights and equity. Without choice, there is no equity, and more importantly, without choice, the legal rights of individuals are rendered moot.
If “local public schools are very popular and choice is unpopular” there’s no danger of mass movement away from the status quo so it follows there’s no need for the overblown angst at the option of school choice. One either respects the ability of parents to make appropriate choices or one doesn’t; not giving them options is a mark of disrespect.
Bingo! The truth hurts doesn’t it?
Oddly enough, we often hear Doug tout about how much he values People for Education parents, yet, isn’t it passing strange that if that group is truly working for the good of parents that we’ve never heard Annie Kidder advocate choice for parents….unless it’s for her own kids that is?
It’s disrespectful and it’s also relying on the spinning of those old myths that have been debunked long ago.
Ok, so let’s assume one can go to any school one chooses.
Obviously, parents will choose the best school over the others.
So now that everybody wants to go to that “best” school, assuming it has the room, the other school populations are depleted.
Those schools then have to close.
You’ve just given the BLOB exactly what they want – the big box schools where everybody is a number and now, there isn’t any choice whatsoever.
Not necessarily Andrew. Often the school of choice is the one present in their own community. It depends what a community school has or wants to offer the students. Also, how it can be improved. Also, community engagement. It also depends on what value a community puts on the school in question and what the parents and citizens do to contribute to the vitality of their school and its sustainability.
Currently the Blob wants to centralise and remove that value in question. Removing boundaries would go a long way to opening up the school choice issue within the ancient centralist mandate, and put the shared resposibility back in the purview of the community.
Bring the programs to the kids. Why in 2012 do we have to export our kids to the programs?
“Obviously, parents will choose the best school over the others.”
Not so obviously and in my experience parents choose the school that they feel is best for their child.
“So now that everybody wants to go to that “best” school, assuming it has the room, the other school populations are depleted.”
If the same “best” school is the one chose to meet the needs of children, while depleting another school(s) in within the same board, where are those school blog experts, who you’d think would start to investigate just what that “best” school is doing to make it the choice of parents for their children?
“Those schools then have to close.”
No Andrew, the don’t. Those schools COULD improve. The BLOB has a choice.
“You’ve just given the BLOB exactly what they want – the big box schools where everybody is a number and now, there isn’t any choice whatsoever.”
There is no indication in your post that the “best” school is a big box school. The BLOB may close the school but they have a choice not to.
That there is no choice is based historically on how the BLOB takes the easy way out.
I have NEVER yet seen a school be closed because it’s not popular with parents. If you know of such a case it needs to be on the front page because that’s a community with Parent Power.
But seriously, the BLOB has to keep up the facade that every one of their schools is a “good” school.
Once a school has lost its population it’s too late to improve. That’s exactly what the big box school advocates are doing. They underfund the schools they want closed and transfer those funds to their “chosen” schools.
It’s happening right here in our school board.
Below is an analysis of choice, looking through the legal lens, using feminist legal theory.
Private Choices, Public Consequences: Public
Education Reform and Feminist Legal Theory
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=how%20choice%20crosses%20the%20intersection%20or%20legal%20rights%20and%20equity%20in%20public%20education%20k%20to%2012%20systems%3F&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CFcQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.wm.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1096%26context%3Dwmjowl&ei=D9BHT4PNJ4vUiAKGw4XbDQ&usg=AFQjCNG1Ysz3o8P3gKe6MAeVsPkxBt6xMA&sig2=cWBn-EXcgtz5fMK97E90QA
Speaks directly to Catherine and John L. posts, as well as my posts.
And addresses most of the arguments being used to opposed choice, and dismisses them. Many other papers like this, dealing with American education civil suits, and as such, is just a very small sample to show that the public education system as it is today, is not holding up to the promises of a quality education for all, and are violating the legal and human rights of parents and children in preventing choice options. More importantly the spirit of the laws and the rights.
Several questions remain unanswered.
Why is that?
My last post should answer them Andrew. Happy reading, and there is more where that one comes from, to supplement and further explore why the public education systems continues to violates and the spirit of the human rights code concerning the education of the students. And more so, when choice is prevented.
Again, what rights are being violated?
None are, and that’s why it’s never gone to court.
Gimme a break.
US Constitutional law and the SCOTUS have absolutely no jurisdiction in Canada.
None. Zippo. Nada.
Again, completely irrelevant.
If “local public schools are very popular and choice is unpopular” there’s no danger of mass movement away from the status quo so it follows there’s no need for the overblown angst at the option of school choice. One either respects the ability of parents to make appropriate choices or one doesn’t; not giving them options is a mark of disrespect.
There are very large corporations that would like to move in on public education and privatize it. That is why the public school advocates have learned historically the position must be “not one inch, not one CM not one mm.” Personally I would make sure that existing private schools for upper income citizens become very heavily taxed.
You are correct about one thing John, I have no respect for the privatizers or parents who seek public support for private educational choices. None. Disrespectful? You bet.
The Ontario public has spoken for all time. No political party will touch public support for private education. It is political suicide. I hope the Tories adopt the John Tory policy again or similar. It instantly means they cannot win the next election.
“Personally I would make sure that existing private schools for upper income citizens become heavily taxed.”
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Let’s here you say that to your clients Doug.
Hmmm…
There are also very big and well-financed teacher unions fighting to protect their turf. We must always be leery of entities, corporate or other, which wrap up narrow self-interest as evidence of concern for society.
No doubt most parents are as perfectly capable of determining the motives of private-sector business as the “public school advocates”, heck some parents actually work in the corporate world. Let’s not assume only those on the public dime have ethics.
Taxing private schools catering to the wealthy elites has all sorts of interesting implications for some contributors 😉
Well written.
Taxing for-profit private schools in any manner other than as business entities and/or at a different rate is discriminatory and, therefore, illegal.
“Parents and guardians should receive from society the necessary aid and assistance to perform their educational role properly. They may delegate some of their educational responsibility to trusted persons and institutions, including schools operated by communities, non-governmental or religious organizations or the state.
5. Parental primacy in the education of their own children is not only primacy in order of time and importance, but also in order of authority, regardless of religious affiliation. Parents and guardians retain this authority even when they delegate some of their responsibility to others who assist them.
6. All other participants in the process of education carry out their responsibilities in the name of the parents and guardians and subject to their continuing informed consent. This may be presumed when parents or guardians voluntarily entrust their children to a teacher or school. This relationship is reflected in the traditional statement that teachers act in loco parentis.
7. Parents and guardians have a serious duty to commit themselves to a cordial and active relationship with teachers and school authorities, recognizing that teachers and school authorities must appropriately balance their responsibility and accountability to parents and guardians and to others. Teachers and school authorities, on the other hand, must uphold the primacy of parental authority in the education of their own children in all forms of collaboration with parents and guardians, and particularly in forms of participation designed to give citizens a voice in the functioning of schools and in the formulation and implementation of educational policies.
Approaches to education
8. To ensure that their children receive the best education, parents and guardians may employ different methods. For example, they may educate their children at home, employ a tutor or teacher, or associate with other parents and guardians in a cooperative educational scheme.
9. Parents and guardians may also establish or support schools that educate their children in a manner that is consistent with their educational goals and moral or religious convictions. They have the right to maintain the integrity of these schools in the face of demands that would subvert the purpose for their existence. It is in the interests of society and the state and consistent with authentic pluralism to assist and support parents and guardians who take such an interest in the education of their children.
State schools
10. State schools exist to assist parents and guardians in the education of their children. Parents and guardians cannot be forced to surrender their authority, nor their freedom of conscience and religion, as a condition of enrolling their children in state schools.
11. A state school system must not become an instrument of compulsory cultural, ideological or religious assimilation on the grounds that the state or educational authorities know better than parents and guardians what is in the best interest of their children.
12. A state school or educational system must consult with parents and guardians in developing broadly acceptable curriculum standards. If, despite appropriate consultation, the standards are unacceptable to some parents and guardians, they must be accommodated by acknowledging their authority to have their children refuse to participate in activities or assignments and to withdraw their children from objectionable classes. Neither the children nor other members of their family may be penalized or discriminated against for this decision.”
“Vancouver, February 23, 2012) – BC parents will deliver over 1100 signatures in support of the Declaration on the Authority of Parents and Guardians in the Education of their Children to Premier Clark on February 23. The Declaration is based on agreements that Canada has signed including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It calls on governments to respect the primacy of parental authority with regard to the education of their own children.”
http://theparentsvoice.org/
Note the date – Note the contents and information on the legal rights of parents.
And Andrew writes, “Again, what rights are being violated?
None are, and that’s why it’s never gone to court.”
Not only violated each and every day across Canada, but parental rights are also being eroded as well.
Students with learning disabilities, as well as the other invisible disabilities that impacts their learning without providing the correct remediation.
The Aboriginals, the First Nations
And now the parents who want to claim back their right to have the final say and moral authority over what their children learns.
Just a small percentage, but are carrying the weight and the burden in seeking court redress. Bullying cases are now in the small claims court, and no doubt in the future, provincial governments will be facing a stew pot of different education issues based on quality of education being received tied in with violating the rights of parents, choice options, and equity. No one hears the battles being rage on the school front, because of the lack of transparency of the public education system, and their persistence in maintaining the image that every student receives a quality education no matter where the students live. The education system is designed to limit and remove parental rights, and replace it with the State’s legal authority and moral authority.
But Andrew, there is a new group that will be lifting the weight with some help from a few adults, and that is the rights of children, and a right to a quality education, including a basic education, the right to read and write well, and other essentials that are necessary and vital to learn advance knowledge.
The BLOB would love to eliminate every single human rights and children’s rights concerning the education of children. As it stands now, the BLOB has done an excellent job in eroding the rights of parents and their children, by statues, laws, regulations and by limiting options of choice that is provided by the public education system. As for parents inserting their rights, the parents are greeted with the heavy arm and often dictatorial public education system, for the parent to submit to the authority of the public education system. Hard to fight, when parents do not have the knowledge and information to fight back, when it is no where to be found within the public education system. Parents have to look outside of the public education system for the information and knowledge in order to insert their rights that remains the top dog, over the legal authority of the public education system.
When the education system does not provide education choices that are respectful of parents and their children’s legal rights, and in keeping of obtaining an education that reaches their full potential, the education system has abdicated from their legal responsibilities of delivering a quality education of the highest standards. and opted to deliver an education using only their legal authority, as a weapon to to avoid the legal responsibilities that the public education system has been charge with, through the legislative school acts and other related laws.
.
Sorry, but all you have done is demonstrate that no rights have been violated.
If rights, the key word is RIGHTS in the legal sense, then the Supreme Court of Canada would already have been asked to rule on the alleged violation of those rights.
Simply tossing around the word “rights” in an emotional appeal to displeased parents doesn’t change a thing.
So again, which rights have been violated?
Declaring that something is a RIGHT doesn’t make it so.
Sorry for the multiple posts, but I’m posting my thoughts as they occur.
IMO, in order to prove that rights had been infringed one would have to prove that provincial education laws were in violation ot the our constitution. Any such constitutional violations would already be in court.
That school boards are doing a lousy job of it has nothing to do with your rights being denied. You have the power of the vote in school board elections. You can run for the school board and, if enough of you get elected, you have the power to effect change.
First Andrew, one can use the argument, no court cases – therefore no rights have been violated. It is used often, to opposed, countered and reinforced the legal authority of the public education system.
“Hands Up!: Identifying Parents’ Rights in the
Education System
A Discussion Paper on Understanding the Rights and Responsibilities of Parents,
Children, Education Institutions and Government”
Click to access HandsUpIdentifyingParentsRights2010.pdf
But it does not change the fact, that rights of parents and children are being violated every day across Canada, and there is very little recourse for parents or the students to insert their rights, including taking legal action.
Below, a present example in New Brunswick, and it clearly shows public education authority versus parents rights versus the right for children to attend school in safe schools, without fear.
“A Fredericton teen was bullied so badly at school that her mother hired a bodyguard to protect her……………………….Things reached a breaking point when the daughter called her mother from the school. The girl had been attacked, partially stripped and left terrified………..On another occasion, the small girl was padlocked into a locker at the school for three hours………….Her mother hired a bouncer from a local bar to escort her daughter at the school, but the school said it was not allowed. “The school was livid. The principal went out of her way to meet with me because she was fit to be tied,” she said. The woman who was then principal said non-school people were not allowed on the property as they posed a risk to the students. The then-principal said the school could keep students safe, the mother reported. The mother started accompanying her daughter to school herself.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2012/02/15/nb-bully-bodyguard.html
“A group of students at a Fredericton High School staged a protest Friday over what they call a lack of action by school administrators to stop bullying. A teenager was removed last month from Leo Hayes High School by his parents because he was a targeted and harassed by an ex-girlfriend. At noon, about a dozen of his fellow students protested on a street just off school property.
“Administration could have stuck up for him and they could have told him that everything’s going to be OK, they would have dealt with it,” said the teen’s friend Sean Hutton. “But no, they decided to just leave it alone and look, he’s out of the province.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2012/02/24/nb-high-school-bully-protest.html
So, whose human rights were being suppressed, to insert the legal authority of the public education system? As well as, a clear display of the public education model, not ensuring there is equity and rights balance between the legal moral and authoritative laws that the public education has been charge with.
Is it fair for a school to suppressed the rights of victims of bullying, to where a parent hires a bodyguard, because the school never puts a stop to the bullying? Is it fair when the school never puts a stops to the bullying, or using ineffective measures, where parents takes the actions in moving out of the province at their expense, to end the bullying?
Is it fair to asked any parent where their legal and human rights are being violated, to asked them to wait and in some cases many years for a resolution at the school level, that is satisfactory and equitable for all parties. Children don’t have time on their hands, like adults inside the education system. Nor do parents have the luxury of time on their side, in raising their children, and ensuring that their children are receiving a quality education.
Neither did the Moore father have time to wait it out for the education board to get their act together, because his son needed remediation yesterday. Was it fair, for the father to be put in the position of either taking the desk, a set of books without the means for his son to access the books, and the other option, sending his son to a private LD school, at his own expense. it is why the Moore case is being heard at the Supreme Court of Canada, even though the son is now an adult. And the father did take the private school route, because the first priority was to his son, and ensuring that his son would learn to read and write.
What are the responsibilities and duties of a public education system towards their clients, the students, parents and the taxpayers who fund the public education system? Why is it, the public education system are more apt to used their authoritative power, over the legal and human rights of students and parents? Why is it, when parents insert their rights to guide their children’s education, they are met with the full force of the authoritative legal power of the public education system?
Choice is the solution, and always has been, to counteract and balance the legal rights and human rights of parents and students, and the legal authoritative power of the public education system.
To follow up on Andrew, some things to think about and ask “do these apply elsewhere”?
In Ontario
– a small minority vote for school board trustees (25% or so)
– they get little coverage in the media
– this extends to regular council elections even though local politics affect us directly the most (also least covered in provincial curricula)
One conclusion is that
we get the government we deserve.
So,
our most basic right is the vote and the price of democracy is constant vigilance.
Back to Paul’s question, why is the privatization movement to weak in Canada?
It is weak because not very many people want it and most people are happy enough with a world leading system. People reject paying for religion which is the spine of privatization.
“Back to Paul’s question, why is the privatization movement to weak in Canada?”
Sorry Doug, but Paul NEVER asked that question.
The diversion though might more of an answer to Paul’s actual questions though.
Andrew’s chasing a dead horse as well. How about speaking to John’s points here, “No doubt most parents are as perfectly capable of determining the motives of private-sector business as the “public school advocates,heck some parents actually work in the corporate world. Let’s not assume only those on the public dime have ethics.”
The real truth as to what’s holding up choice is that the Blob doesn’t want parents to be empowered (as to the choices available to them), or educated to the tricks the vested interests (the Blob) has in keeping parents whipped.
No one has yet provided any EVIDENCE that their RIGHTS have been infringed upon.
You DO have choices.
You DO have the RIGHT to homeschool.
You DO have the RIGHT to private schooling.
You DO have the RIGHT to vote.
You DO have the RIGHT to run for office.
You DO have the RIGHT to protest and seek redress.
So again, which RIGHTS have been denied?
Choices where the State have the veto power to limit the rights, as well as the natural limits place on the parents in knowledge, resources and the income to avail of their rights to guide their children’s education.
Andrew, how many children with obvious reading disabilities have been denied reading remediation services that actually corrects the reading deficits, when parents have requested specific reading services?
How many parents have had their requests denied for remediation of the 3 Rs at the school level, simply because their children did not meet the criteria for services beyond the inclusive classroom?
What are the choices for the parents above, when the system and its structure is not designed for children who require remediation in the education component.
Sure we all have rights, but when the State imposes limits and conditions when people insert their rights, it prevents people from using their rights.
Front page news of yesterday and no doubt into the next week, of people being tricked and resulted in people not voting in the last federal election.
You don’t get it, people must have the reasonable ability to insert their rights, first, before they can take advantage of their rights. There must be a balance between the legal authoritative powers of the state versus the legal rights and freedoms of their citizens. The State’s vested powers has a responsibility in seeking out a balance that is fair and equitable. More importantly, the State has the dual responsibility of providing services that meets the threshold of the legal rights and freedoms of their citizens, and meeting them within the diversity of its citizens. In the current public education system model, one-sized-fits-all in the inclusive classroom, that delivers education by restricting education services and places limits on parental and children legal and human rights.
What is left, for the parents and their children, are their own personal resources at hand, their income, abilities, skills and know-how to work around a system that uses their authoritative powers to deliver education services.
In a way Andrew, you are advocating and giving the right to the public education system, to have the final say in all things in education. What recourse does a parent have when the only option is the low-achieving neighbourhood school, when the school board and for that matter the other stakeholders imposes limits and conditions to prevent parents and their children to insert their rights, and use choice effectively for their children’s education. And to add, the further erosion of parent rights bit by bit, when the stakeholders within, always state that all schools are equal in quality and resources. The biggest lie of all the lies, that is told to parents on a daily basis.
The public education system was wrong about my child’s education needs, and are wrong about a lot of things when it comes to the education needs of children. But the education system can readily ignore the education rights of children and parents, because the public education system is based on the minimum legal requirement of a basic education, that does not include quality of education, but the delivery of the education services.
The tricks of the vested interests (the BLOB) and the authoritative power of education and other government agencies versus the rights of a parent and the protection of children.
“Neaveh, a student at Forest Hills public school in Kitchener, Ont., drew a picture of her Daddy in class this week. Daddy was holding a gun. Upon seeing it, the teacher began asking questions, triggering an avalanche of unfortunate events that saw a triumph of procedure over common sense and an innocent man arrested at his daughter’s school and later strip-searched at the police station.
“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Mr. Sansone told The Record, the local newspaper in Kitchener-Waterloo. “I was in shock. This is completely insane.”
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/24/joe-oconnor-arrest-over-daughters-gun-sketch-a-case-of-vigilance-and-too-much-zeal/
I bet this parent is weighing his options on choice, and discovering the limited options that he is face with. Does he have legal recourse? It depends if the parent have the excess income to use the option.
Note in the story, how the public education system uses both their authoritative power and the children protection laws, to defend their actions why the school did not contract the parents first. Used often, and more so when their children makes innocent remarks such as, “My mommy always sleeps in” or ” I always make my own breakfast, because mommy is not there.”
Parents actions and behaviour are looked upon and seen as neglect of their children, and parents are guilty until they can prove they are innocent. Sleeping in is a crime, as it is taking a shower, while the child is eating breakfast, and the innocent drawings of children, that does not depict the happy pictures of sunshine and family is obviously a sign that the State must used their heavy hammer, and their authoritative power to make an example of a parent, and show parents of the school who is boss in their own homes. Too bad it does not applied to the bad actions and behaviour of teachers who are parents, who get paid leave, and a union to legally defend and protect their rights as parents without being arrested and they always will be informed first, by simply having a conversation. Unlike the above father, ” But the problem is vigilance, peppered with some zeal, and a four-year-old’s accounting of events, and a system where nobody bothers to pick up the phone and call the father, or the mother, to have a conversation, can quickly turn into an innocent man getting groped by officers and given a blanket and told to settle in for the night.”
Some have more rights than others, and in the public education system, balancing the rights with common sense, is not a high priority. Never has been.
Keeping parents whipped. So true Catherine.
Had they failed to do anything and had there been a gun incident involving children you’d be here screaming about the failure of the teacher to report the incident.
This might enlighten you a bit.
Click to access ChildAbuse.pdf
One reason choice is failing in e learning can be seen in the case of PAcyber. The kids just do not do as well as the kids that go to regular schools.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june12/cyberschools_02-23.html
More:
Click to access CJE19-1-03Beck.pdf
The parents who favour privatization believe somehow that it is a “natural right” that they get their tax money back to spend whereever they like in education.
They are angry when they find out the majority in a democracy tells them “there is no such right.”
is this your feeling about the parents who choose the VIP Academy? Fair question to see how equally you view the parents who choose that elite private school.
And more:
http://www.legal-info-legale.nb.ca/en/child_abuse_recognize_report_prevent
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/childrensaid/reportingabuse/abuseandneglect/abuseandneglect.aspx
In many instances in this forum, that which is being claimed as a RIGHT is, in fact, a claim for a privilege.
A privilege eh? So a parent who is force to homeschool, because the school refuses to provide the necessary education services , that parent is somehow executing a privilege,?
I suppose if the Supreme Court ruling in the Moore case, favours the Moores, I shall assume that the parents, including myself that are lining up for their 7 pieces of silver being compensated for their time and effort on the behalf of their children, on their education, will be seen as the privileged folks, who dare to question the third rate education services being delivered to the children who have identified learning deficits that hinder the access to education opportunities.
The fine art of discrimination and the many hidden faces of discrimination, within the public education system, and to which rights and freedoms, human rights are seen as privilege, rather than rights under the legal framework.
It is a good thing, that the Courts of the land, take the legal rights, freedoms and human rights in the legal context, and are never seen as privileges. Or otherwise, our government institutions would be running amok telling us citizens when to go to the washroom, what colour of clothing to wear, what food to buy, and many of us would be sitting in jail, for breaking the bureaucratic rules and regulations of petty bureaucratic fiefdom.
Elitist and snobbery all rolled into one.
They are angry when they find out the majority in a democracy tells them “there is no such right.”
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It isn’t a question of a majority. Our rights are enshrined in our constitution regardless of the majority. We can thank the Trudeau government for that one.
Nancy, you need to learn what a RIGHT is before spouting off about it.
Orwell would recognize the dystopia of American charter schools. Their expulsion rates are staggering.
http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/notebook/2012/02/13/19847/charter-discipline-policy-under-fire?page=1
Barking up the wrong tree again, Nancy.
Notice who it is that is being sued. They aren’t alleging a denial of their RIGHTS but that the school board basically failed to deliver the service it was obliged to deliver.
No, the question is not that they failed to deliver a service, but is the service an essential part of a basic education. At the moment, in Canada a basic education is a desk, a set of books and access to educational opportunities.
The legal rights of the child and if the child has the right to received education services that would correct the reading deficits to the point that the child can now access the education opportunities and the reading deficits are no longer interfering in the learning of new knowledge, and achievement.
Does children have a right to a quality education, and if they do in what ways.
Can a public education school board, denied the right of receiving remediation services beyond the classroom, based on the fact, that no other child within the sub-group are receiving a specialized education service.
Just some of the questions, where delivery of education services confronts the rights of children to access educational services, inside and beyond the classroom.
” The Supreme Court of Canada announced this morning that it has granted leave to appeal the decision of the BC Court of Appeal in the case of Jeffrey Moore, which involved the claim that North Vancouver School District 44 had discriminated against him by failing to provide certain services aimed at special needs children. The Court of Appeal decision was a landmark in the legal treatment of students with special needs in relation to the nature of accommodations a school district and ministry of education are required to provide.
Given the important social issues connected to this case, it is unsurprising that the highest court in the land has agreed to hear it, and many educators and parents are looking forward to how it will be resolved.”
http://educationlawblog.ca/tag/jeffrey-moore/
The Supreme Court docket is of interest and the players lining up to take sides on the rights of the SE children and their education versus the legal authority of the public education system.
http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/case-dossier/cms-sgd/dock-regi-eng.aspx?cas=34041
“Explaining Education Law
Education Law refers to the rules and principles that govern the interaction of individuals, institutions and organizations associated with the education process. These rules and principles are derived primarily from the Canadian constitution, federal and provincial statutes, regulatory codes of conduct, and contracts between parties to the education process.”
http://educationlawblog.ca/what-is-education-law/
The last link, has many different links concerning court rulings and discussions on the impact of the rulings on education systems, and the changes that they may have to make to abide by them. and to respect the rights of students, parents and other individuals within the education system, as well as the users of the education systems.
The charter industry is the USA is being run by crooks, scam artists, fly-by-night operaters, rapatious business gougers and generally shady characters. Do we want that here?
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/10/are_charters_the_silver_bullet.html
We already have it here. The scare tactics don’t work any more because they’ve been proven false. Ask any province that has the guts to trust parents to make choices for themselves.
And some charter schools are working out just fine, thank you.
That doesn’t meant that all or most are doing well any more than the failures mean that all or most are doing poorly.
It simply means that some schools are better than others… just like public schools.
I do know , but until one walks in the shoes of parents obtaining education services beyond the inclusive classroom,the legal rights of parents/children and the so-called authoritative power and the claim to being the experts on all things in education is a confrontational process, that extracts winners and losers at the expense of the child’s education and their full potential.
DItto for other areas in education, where the legal rights of parents and children are not respected nor is policy framed around context of respecting and valuing the rights of parents and children. What is framed concerning the legal rights as well as the human rights, is always in the context of protecting the public education system and its stakeholders from civil suits and to protect their legal authority over the delivery of education services.
I am surprise, that one that is so quick to bring up the waste of public dollars, the rising tab in education funding versus falling enrolment, does not see the confrontational relationship between the legal rights of parents and children, and the legal authoritativeness of the public education system, that gives rise to the wasteful expenditures of tax dollars, time and effort to correct the many inequities of the students, to protect the public education and its legal. authority.
I wonder how much it cost the school board to avoid timely remediation of my child’s problems in the primary grades, compared to the avenue of correcting the reading deficits in the primary grades? Or the amount of money being spent to control the processes of school closures , by way of controlling parents and its community from fully participating in the decision process, by dictating the terms and conditions as to how the parents can participate, and in what ways.
“Hundreds of people packed into a school gymnasium in the Spryfield-area of Halifax Thursday night, concerned they might be losing the school.
The Halifax Regional School Board has identified Central Spryfield Elementary as one of the schools on its list for possible closure.
Officials are thinking about consolidating Central Spryfield with Elizabeth Sutherland because of declining enrollment in both.
People in the area say the idea is a non-starter, and they made that clear to board officials who hosted the public meeting.
“It was very emotional hearing the stories of the hardship and how it will affect members of this community if this school closes,” area resident Joanne Feniyanos told CTV News.”
http://atlantic.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120223/spryfield_school120223/20120224/?hub=AtlanticHome
I do know , but until one walks in the shoes of parents obtaining education services beyond the inclusive classroom,the legal rights of parents/children and the so-called authoritative power and the claim to being the experts on all things in education is a confrontational process, that extracts winners and losers at the expense of the child’s education and their full potential
______________________________________________________
I’m trying to be very patient here but it’s becoming very difficult.
The Moores were not denied choice and were not denied their RIGHT to choose. THEY CHOSE an alternate school. Now it boils down to who pays for it.
If they win, then so be it but expect your taxes to go up significantly in order to fund the $100,000. students. I have no objections at all.
Are you prepared to pay that tax increase once your children are no longer in school?
In the first place, it is not about the money, but about the discrimination.
A paper written within the legal lens, and the difficulties that are opposed when human rights meets discrimination. On the last few pages, the Moore Case, discussed in 2010, and well before the Supreme Court of Canada agreeing to hear the Moore Case.
How to Compare Apples with Oranges in the
Discrimination Analysis
The author of the paper, is also representing the BC Ministry of Education in the Supreme Court of Canada,. in the Moore case.
“These materials were prepared by Leah Greathead of the Ministry of Attorney General, Victoria, BC, for the
Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, November 2009. ”
Click to access 310_2_1.pdf
If only if it was that simple, a money problem. But it isn’t, money will never resolve the education quality of what students received, when systemic institutionalized discrimination is at play, as well as the practices and policies that are at play, to discourage quality in curriculum and and good instruction methods. I agree with Doug, a pox to an education system that prevents the necessary and crucial resources and programs to tend to the learning needs of a low-income students but where I disagree with him, the answer is not to throw more money, raise the taxes, but to end the discriminatory practices and policies of the public education board that prevents the resources, quality education programs and effective instruction for students of low income.
The Moore case is about all the students with disabilities and their various labels imposed by the public education system, and the discrimination practices that prevents the remediation of deficits that hinders and imposes conditions to access the education opportunities, including reasonable access to participate and achieve in learning, and in reaching their full academic achievement.
If the Supreme Court rules in favour of the Moores, parents with identified children with disabilities, have the power to insert their parent rights, including court avenues. But more importantly, the public education system will no longer have the right to denied education services to correct learning deficits, nor deliver education options of poorer quality and the dumb-down kind. to students with disabilities.
I am afraid the taxpayers are already paying dearly for not preventing early reading, writing and numeracy failure. The large majority of early failure to achieve in the basics of the 3 Rs, is the reason why SE funding has increase tenfold, as well as the other increases in highly paid support staff at the board level, in consultants, and other experts, and as well as the other programs to increase equity in students sub-groups.
What is the public good here?
Public education came about to better integrate ALL into an increasingly complex and democratic society in the mid 1800s.
In the early 21st century we have more democracy and more complexity.
I have seen no evidence that the need for public ed is less. We might even need more. The Toronto and Edmonton experiences do offer choice with a publicly funded system.
Of course, this does involve some trade offs from funding private schools.
We want better. Perfection is impossible.
If the choice is 2012 or 1812 for education, my choice is clear.
If the choice is 2012 or 1812 for education, my choice is clear.
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For sure.
In the first place, it is not about the money, but about the discrimination.
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What discrimination?
The BC Supreme Court ruled against the Moores and the Human Rights Board in BC. They are appealing that and, IMO, have a very slim chance of success.
The rest of your post is irrelevant.
Would you like to put a price tag on the public tax dollars being used in BC and in Ontario for the legal fees to defend the policies of dumb-down education for all students who have been identified with a learning disability, from the first human rights hearing right to the costs of the Supreme Court hearings. No doubt, $500,000 of legal fees for the government side, compared to the shoe-laced budget of the players for the Moores.
Now that the big heavy education players have stuck their nose in, the Ontario heavy weights, why is there so much concern Andrew, if the Moores do not have a chance to win. Why would the heavy weights bother , using their muscle and power and 10 feet of lawyers knee deep to ensure that dumb-down policies for students with disabilities will be the order of the day.
Andrew, how to do you explain the little education human rights case that never lost steam,despite the win and the losses, manage to have steam to be granted a hearing, in the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada granted to hear it, for good reason.
” The country’s highest court has agreed to hear a human rights case challenging the way B.C. public schools treat special-needs students.
The case was launched more than a dozen years ago by Rick Moore, who alleged that the North Vancouver school district discriminated against his dyslexic son when it failed to teach him to read. Jeff was eight years old, in Grade 3 and struggling to learn…………………………The court’s decision Thursday to hear the case put Moore over the moon. “It’s fantastic,” he said in an interview. “It’s such a big deal to me that we are going to finally settle this once and for all.”
Moore said his concern was never just about his son because Jeff got the help he needed. “He was one of the lucky ones,” he said. “Jeff understands that his ability to succeed is because he got to the right school.”
Moore said he was driven to take the case as far as he could because he couldn’t accept that the educational services provided to his son should be judged according to what is offered to other learning-disabled students, insisting that public schools should be expected to help all children succeed. Learning-disabled children have IQs similar to typical students.
That view was backed by Justice Rowles, who wrote in her dissenting opinion: “Reading is part of the core curriculum and is essential to learning. The accommodation sought by Jeffrey and other SLD (severely learning disabled) students is not an extra, ancillary service; instead it is the way by which meaningful access to the service can be achieved.”
http://www.ldac-acta.ca/en/about-ldac/who-we-are/85.html
Yes it is all about discrimination and quality of education.
And if you like, one can donate to a good clause, the Moore education cause.
Perhaps reading and writing will truly become a part of a basic education, legally. And choice will help paved the way to better quality schools for one and all, public schools and not so public schools.
Andrew, if the Moores do not have a chance to win.
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Did I say that?
Why, no. I didn’t.
Any more made up blarney?
“They are appealing that and, IMO, have a very slim chance of success.
The rest of your post is irrelevant..” As written in your second last post.
I took it as the Moores have a very slim chance of success. I wrote, “Now that the big heavy education players have stuck their nose in, the Ontario heavy weights, why is there so much concern Andrew, if the Moores do not have a chance to win. ”
I will make the correction, if the Moores have a slim chance to win. But otherwise the paragraph stands as written. Why would the Ontario education heavy weights weigh in on spending public monies on the little education human rights case from BC? I am sure Ontario taxpayers would like to have an account of the monies being spent on a BC human rights case, especially in times of deficits and hard economic times.
Yes it is all about discrimination and quality of education.
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Are they in front of the Supreme Court with a case of discrimination?
Why, no. They aren’t.
It’s a case of HUMAN RIGHTS as defined by the UN, not discrimination, not LEGAL RIGHTS as defined by our constitution.
There cannot be any discrimination since they were offered the same products/services as other students.
The question is to what extent is public education obliged to provide for special needs students.
If the Moores win there’s no end to the lawsuits the public education system will be facing and believe me, if you think it costs a lot now you ain’t seen nuttin yet.
Even the over-achievers will be able to sue because they weren’t challenged by public education.
Be very careful what you wish for.
Yes, it is in the highest court of land, the Supreme Court of Canada that is challenging the public education system based on the constitutional rights of people with disabilities, the legal school acts, and other related provincial laws regarding education, as well as the human rights legislative laws enacted at the provincial and federal levels, to protect the individual citizens of Canada, from being discriminated. And the Moore case is challenging the discrimination practices of the school board, dealing with LD students, and the services that were being provided. The Supreme Court has not rule as yet, but should be ruling sometime in April.
Below is the court docket, to which I provided earlier in the first post.
http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/case-dossier/cms-sgd/dock-regi-eng.aspx?cas=34041
Canada is also a signature to the UN human rights, but the Constitution of Canada, and other related laws pertaining to human rights formed and enacted by our political legislatives federal and provincially will be the framework, and not the UN human rights.
And as for an avalanche of court suits, this is what they said back in 1982 and the Canadian Constitution, dealing with criminal law challenges. And again dealing with women and gays. It never happen, but the rulings resulted in a better society where there is less discrimination and more respect of the individual rights of citizens.
And the average Canadian, most of them cannot afford the legal route, but more importantly the Moore case represents the one case, that can shake the foundations of the public education system to its core, to transform itself into providing quality education for all of the students. Or otherwise face law suits from the parents who have the means, and there is always the threat of class-action suits. True choice comes into play, especially when the public education system cannot provide the education services, to access the education opportunities.
Anyway, I’m done here.
I’m finding it pointless to discuss anything with someone who jumps around like a flea on a dog.
“I am sure Ontario taxpayers would like to have an account of the monies being spent on a BC human rights case, especially in times of deficits and hard economic times.”
Good grief.
It’s no longer a “BC human rights case”.
It is a national Supreme Court case that could effect every single school board in the country and that could increase the cost of public education beyond your wildest dreams, “especially in times of deficits and hard economic times”.
Parents need a good service they can rely on-
This seems like a great idea-maybe better than school choice-I always worried about it but saw no choice-the empire feels no obligation and somehow,accountability has to become a primary objective.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/city_parents_say_finally_deLlEy7PGmJNIJyCjaoabM
I know of a teacher in Ontario whose class of 24 Grade 1 students included 15 learning disabled kids… 15, it isn’t a typo.
How would she rank in the scheme of things with such low results?
by the way,you can`t have 15 LD kids in grade 1-you can`t test and label them till grade 3.
Rather odd Andrew under the current structure of the typical education system. Having 15 students access, evaluated and identified as having learning disabilities is a small miracle indeed. However, identification and diagnoses of LD, do not take place until well after grade 3, but the labels certainly do, without the bother of evaluation.
In other words, the 15 grade 1 LD labelled students who have not been identified formally, , have reading difficulties, and along with reading difficulties, comes writing problems. Solution: Dump the whole language approaches, that is curse for many of a student and their achievement.
Another excuse being used to block teacher evaluation data, to which the data can be used to kick start improve teacher practices, as well as ensuring all students reach a standard that prepares them for the rigours of the next grade, and their academic futures in the advance grades, where learning to read changes to reading to learn.
Just listening to the first 10 minutes of the SQE Sunday Movie,, a charter school must be on the right track for having a 7000 waiting list, to get into a school that concentrates on reading, writing and computing.
Choice must come into the public education system, because the stakeholders within the education system, will never let go of the excuses, to protect their best interests and agendas at the expense of the students.
The SQE Sunday movie is of interest to all, and ties in with choice.
http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/
The host, Andrew Nikiforuk is well-known journalist, and “Prior to his writing career, Andrew taught at the Manitoba Association for Children with Learning Disabilities and says that “there are no children who can’t learn to read — only those who haven’t been taught”. Mr. Nikiforuk was interviewed after he delivered the 2003 Education Frontiers lecture at St. John’s College, University of Manitoba on October 15th, 2003.”
An interview, and the reasons why choice must enter the public education system, and everything else in between why a centralized single provider education system should be no more. It is bad for the education of our students.
, http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/657
Foothill Academy,also in Alberta,a charter school gets 1400-2000 applicants annually for 10-14 new spots.
Foothill specializes in LD kids,I have gone to see it,Gordon Bullivant,a passionate educator was the Exective Director.
They did all the right things for the kids.
I read and heard parents singing the praises of the Foothill Academy. And I have read and heard, of parents packing and moving to Alberta, to increase their chances of their child getting into the Foothills..
http://www.foothillsacademy.org/tuition.html
Wonderful thing about choice, it allows choices that are for the best interests of children, and parents options that otherwise would not be there for their children, nor can the school board of the public kind even come close to replicating them.
By the way Andrew,Nancy is dead right-15 LD kids need phonemic awareness training and Orton Gillingham methodology-not the doomsday diagnosis that excuses intervention-because it`s the kid`s fault.
Yup,blame the victim.
It costs a typical school to assessed LD formally, at around the $2000 to $2500, using qualified educational psychologists and now guidance counsellors if they have a psychology degree, with the certificate for being a qualified examiner on the tests.
In the typical classroom, out of 25 students, one to two students may indeed have learning disabilities, in the core phonological deficits, and the major one being low phonemic awareness, but also in the typical classroom. approximately 2/3, or 16 grade one students will also have phonological deficits that will impact the acquirement of learning to read, and reading to learn. Out of the 16 grade one students,, the lowest phonemic scores usually indicates learning disabilities, but it cannot be determined until it is formally assessed.
All a grade one teacher has done, simply labelled all the 14 students as having learning disabilities, without ever bothering to find out what are the reading deficits are, and continued on using teaching practices that more often than not will not only keep the students low achieving, but will become the future poor readers at the high school level. There is approximately 20 of sitting in my child’s senior high school class, and the majority sitting in academic. Only one has LD, and all 20 are getting by a good fit of strategies and strengths that works around the reading problems. Currently, my child is being assessed, and the figure of 20 is the figure put out by them, where the plan is to correct the low phonemic awareness, decoding and fluency. Starting from scratch, and all of it could have been prevented if reading was taught correctly in the first place, as well as for the other 19 non-LD students who could also used the same intensive targeted remediation, but they don’t qualified.
Labelling students first as LD, does not help, Nor does it help any of the students experiencing reading struggles in grade one. But I guess it one of the unwritten rules, use the label, but never state, that 14 students in her class are experiencing reading problems, and are not progressing in reading.
In the upscale neighbourhoods, parents with cash to spare, send their kids to reading tutors,and if need be, a private psychologist for LD testing. Parents don’t put up with the excuses, and like other parents in lower incomes, know that kids cannot wait a couple of years for the adults within the education system to get their act together. Unfortunately, the low income groups are stuck with the public education, along with the waiting times and the excuses.
If teachers were actually rank, all the many versions of whole language would be dropped like a hot potato, in favour of one systematic phonics, and other like reading programs, that teaches children how to sound out words, and not guess at them. Becoming better readers, students will achieve, and get better grades. Just like my 16 year old, who could have received a 80 something on a test last week, if she was a better reader. What happen? She did not used her strategies, and missed a long answer question. A typical dyslexic, but all her core deficits in reading, just like the other non-LD students who do not have very good reading skills, can all be corrected, to the point that it is no longer interfering in learning.
It is not the teachers fault, but I certainly heap scorn unto the teachers’ faculties and school boards who thinks it is okay, for two thirds of the student population never being proficient in reading, writing and numeracy. The three crucial elements that all students need to progress with some ease to do advance work.
Choice, would change that. And if the Calgary charter school, Foundations is any of an indicator, a 7000 waiting list of parents clamouring to get their children in a school that stresses reading, writing and computing. And they have the data streams to show the numbers of reading well above grade reading level at the end of grade 3.
It is not the teachers fault, but I certainly heap scorn unto the teachers’ faculties and school boards who thinks it is okay, for two thirds of the student population never being proficient in reading, writing and numeracy. The three crucial elements that all students need to progress with some ease to do advance work.
It is this boiler plate rhetoric that makes you lose cred in one of the world’s finest systems. No English speaking country does better, 1st in the world at post secondary grads #3 in reading.
However does one explain the high school teachers teaching the basic grammar, spelling, and even how to construct a sentence and basic arithmetic in an academic class. All stuff that should have been taught at the grade school level, but was never taught.
It is reality and profit being made from the grade 12 graduates, in the weak foundation of the basic 3 Rs.
Let alone the stories at the university level, teaching the multiplication tables.
Stopped with the PISA, most of the poor readers can passed the PISA, and is in and around the grade 7 level. What is never accessed, is the reading proficiency of any of the students after grade 4, and certainly none at the high school level. How many students at the grade 9 level, are reading 500 words per minute? Sure students can read, the majority are not proficient readers, and therefore become slower readers, and as a result it takes longer to completer tests, and homework. The most troubling aspect of it all, is the number of students reading like dyslexics, when they are not dyslexics.
Nancy, It is quite possible the leading nations are close to optimumization or “this is close to as good as it gets.”
I always challenge you to point to a nation that is doing better. You NEVER have an answer and SQE points to some new “one off” charter somewhere.
Nobody seriously considerers “Miracle schools”. They rely on charismatic personalities or outside funding or revolutionary drive or fudgeing the data, or cherry picking the data or cannot be brought to scale or all of the above.
Complain, complaiin complain. Where on this entire planet is YOUR model state province, country or even school board?
Breakthrough for U.S. Special Ed vouchers.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/29/22vouchers_ep.h31.html?tkn=XVXF9%2FBQCbLsizcDRMQpAwZJ6TBC2TiK%2BxtB&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
Never thought to look at it from optimization.
In the Business dictionary: Finding an alternative with the most cost effective or highest achievable performance under the given constraints, by maximizing desired factors and minimizing undesired ones. In comparison, maximization means trying to attain the highest or maximum result or outcome without regard to cost or expense. Practice of optimization is restricted by the lack of full information, and the lack of time to evaluate what information is available (see bounded reality for details). In computer simulation (modeling) of business problems, optimization is achieved usually by using linear programming techniques of operations research. See also satisficing.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/optimization.html#ixzz1nbJvOH1q
However Doug, along with optimization, one must look at the inefficiencies.
As the Drummond report is all about the inefficiencies which at the end either produced negative outcomes for students, or the expenditures are increasing at the other end, or both.
What are the costs and inefficiencies of not remediating reading struggles to the point the students are reading to learn by grade 4? As opposed to the costs of putting the students struggling in reading, writing, and numeracy on different track where the students are receiving the correct instruction, and reduced the number of outcomes in subjects other than math and language arts. Would not the latter option, be more inefficient, as well as reducing the amount of SE services in the future, and higher achieving students.
More importantly, the current public education system is optimized for the adults within, and everyone including the students, must adapt and conform to the system, and the needs of those within the system. In turn, this causes stress, the fault lines developed, and students start falling through the cracks, starting in the primary grades.
The above definition of optimization, can be use where the highest achievable performance under the given constraints, is the students. Why such low expectations for students, where 50 percent average or above is considered acceptable. Kids learn fast, and really fast to live up to the expectations of the adults. and if the expectations are low, students won’t work any harder than the expectations of the adults within the school.
Choice and having alternatives in schooling, becomes the solution when the students education needs are not being met. The students needs are not met, because the system is gear to optimized for the needs of the adults within the education system.
I tried this before..
Breakthrough for U.S. special ed vouchers-that would be a great start for Canada-
Those parents have nowhere to go in the system,other than getting the label.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/29/22vouchers_ep.h31.html?tkn=XVXF9%2FBQCbLsizcDRMQpAwZJ6TBC2TiK%2BxtB&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
The ironic thing, vouchers for SE children, were meant as a way to provide the services that the public school, could no longer provide, and now the vouchers is the means to get the opposing sides into court, to challenge on a constitutional basis. Some state teachers; unions even oppose the dyslexics getting a voucher for the Orton-Gillingham methods and to which the students attend after attending the public school. Parents who obtain a voucher, either the school requests the voucher, or the parents are force to seek a due-process hearing, and the school board often loses, and ends up spending more for the court-order voucher, than if the board granted the request from the school.
I also noted in the story, the due-process hearings is used as another argument, that parents has this avenue, and vouchers are not necessary. Due-process hearings, requires lawyers for parents, unless the parents are willing to face the school board’s lawyers alone. The hearings are no costs for parents, except for lawyer fees, but I would not doubt it, if lawyers fees on both sides of the choice question, is well over 500 million dollars a year. And so far choice is winning the war in courts, and in the due process hearings, the parents are winning the war for their SE children.
In the civil rights literature, choice in education is desired. The decent thing to do.Why the civil rights organization often are seen on the side of choice, waging battles inside the courts of American.
What was not talk about in the article, and is typical, why parents are seeking vouchers and other options for their SE children. Either the school services are not there, and if the services are there, its a pale version of what the students really need, and for some even though they have formally identified, the students do not meet the criteria for services beyond the classroom.
Another favourite tactic, is the cost of SE vouchers.
” Debunking a Special Education MythDon’t blame private options for rising costs”
http://educationnext.org/debunking-a-special-education-myth/
A gentle reminder: We seem to be getting off-track at times and I’ve had to delete a few posts that might cause offense to others.
Let’s try to stick to the topic – School Choice and Equity. Thanks.
Annie Kidder made the point on TVO and other studies have confirmed the same, See choice and equity as 2 kids on a see-saw or as some call it a teeter totter. As one goes up the other goes down.
As choice increases equity is reduced, as choice decreases, equity (SES) results improve.
This is the way most of the equity community sees it. This is why NAACP opposes charters, better for a tiny group worse for the majority.
Ms. Kidder also made a point on that same TVO show that her kids were lucky because they lived in a family that were privileged enough to be able to CHOOSE they attended.
Choice for Kidder, lack of equality for some other parent’s children.
Educational hypocrite!
Using the old teeter totter analogy? Bad one, since the upside always comes down and downside always goes up. A teeter totter analogy, actually represents a balance with choice on one side and equity on the another side.
Funny, how SES is used in the public education policies, and especially the equity policies. But when it comes to the education component of an education, than SES is no longer represented, and it is replaced according to the scarce resources and restrictions to access the educational resource.
If no one receives the educational service, than nobody will received the service. If every one receives the education services, than everybody will received the education service. It is the extra educational services beyond the classroom that have students being kicked off the old teeter totter, altogether because in the crazy illogical world of the public education system, providing something a little different in the educational component than what is not normally being provided for the whole student population, classroom, and ect.is not meeting the equity equation.
The students sit on the sidelines watching the teeter totter going up and down, wanting in, but have to wait for the adults of the school system to get their act together, on how to meet the equity equation, without creating a lopped-sided teeter totter.
The Ann Kidders of the world, are the great ones for inserting their social-economic status to ensure that their kids get first dibs on public education services, and restrict others to do the same thing. And of course, keep quiet on the payment of private tutoring and programs for their children, and tell other parents that they have to make do with public education resources.
On People for Education site, quite the conversation going on in choice and equity. Just reading the posts, it does seem to appear that a lot of parents are seeing choice differently, rather than opposing choice.
On one post, I lifted a comment, ” The Brookings Institute, Brown Center for Policy Report: Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education explains the nature of these inequities and offers solutions to rectify them.
The following paragraphs from the Report’s Executive Summary effectively articulate that the issue is one of community demographics and not school choice.
“The corresponding reality of public schooling is that the quality of schools is substantially correlated with geography and parental income and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. While there have been improvements in performance in some large urban school districts and prospects for more, not even the strongest advocate of traditional public schools can maintain that we are close to a point at which a parent living in a low-income area can consign her child to the closest neighborhood school with confidence that the school will be as good, on average, as any other school within a reasonable geographic radius of her home, much less good enough.
These realities offer opportunities for common ground between advocates for choice and advocates for public schools. The goals these communities can share are providing more educational opportunity for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and reducing the number of low performing schools. The mechanisms they can share are: a) a system that affords parents as much choice as possible within the universe of taxpayer supported students and schools, b) portals by which parents can readily access rich information on the performance of schools that is framed to be useful in exercising choice, and c) a funding system that supports the growth of parentally preferred schools and school systems.”
http://schools-at-the-centre.ning.com/forum/topics/choice-specialty-schools-and?id=2468495%3ATopic%3A4509&page=2#comments
American examples don’t really apply here. We do have some similar problems but not to the same degree or the same order of magnitude. The Americans allow a great deal more poverty than any other developed nation and as a result, the schools in their poor areas are very bad but thanks for confirming the power of SES.
Their poverty is the sole reason for their terrible PISA results.
Note geography and income Doug. And yes it is a good bet, income for outside activities for the average family, will be much different than in the upscale neighbourhood. Tossed in the services being provided in the community, hours of operation, and a host of other factors,
A comparison of the U.S. and Canada’s economies.
“The United States measures poverty, while Canada does not have an official measure (see Poverty in Canada#Measures of poverty in Canada), although Statistics Canada measures something called the Low-Income Cutoffs, the statistical agency repeatedly states that this is not a poverty measure (it is an income dispersion measure like the Gini coefficient). In the United States the poverty line is set at triple the “minimum adequate food budget.” When a common measure is used, such as that of the Luxembourg Income Study, the United States has higher rates. The LIS reports that Canada has a poverty rate of 15.4% and the United States 18.7%. [5] In both countries lower incomes are found in those most affected by poverty include single-parent families and single elderly people. In addition, because of social policies such as universal healthcare, the poverty stricken in Canada maintain a higher quality of life.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Canadian_and_American_economies
Canada is not much behind when it comes to poverty Doug, but one should remember, that there is no standard definition to measure poverty in any of the industrialized countries I abhor the use of stats, to championed a cause, especially income, where all other variables of ignore.
As in Canada, geography and parental income is important to the context of the local economies and services of the community, provincial and nationally. In NL, many low income families own their own homes, and I suspect few low income people in Ontario do not own their own home. Probably a plus for a school, when most students are not renting, because I suspects it represents stability in the home environment.
“These realities offer opportunities for common ground between advocates for choice and advocates for public schools. The goals these communities can share are providing more educational opportunity for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and reducing the number of low performing schools. The mechanisms they can share are: a) a system that affords parents as much choice as possible within the universe of taxpayer supported students and schools, b) portals by which parents can readily access rich information on the performance of schools that is framed to be useful in exercising choice, and c) a funding system that supports the growth of parentally preferred schools and school systems.”
Wanted to repeat it, because schools cannot be all things to all of the students, and when they try to be, quality of education is affected negatively due to the water-down versions because of scarce resources, and where choice, the active partnerships of private and public resources can be alleviated by offering a wider amount of choice for students and parents, and the efficiencies within the public education system will become more efficient. A great bang for every dollar spent in education.
A bonus, for schools located in communities that have fewer resources to offer, the excess education dollars can be redirected for the schools to provide the services such as after school tutors, free lunches, and whatever are the needs of the community school.
As for SES, once gender, race comes into the picture, it will distort the numbers, because people hold biases and beliefs more so than income, and the geography of the community, provincial and national basis. After all, all of us are human beings, red blood pumping in our veins, and none of us come from Mars or Venus. Income is more neutral, but going beyond income ,it now becomes an exercise in seeking out the differences that makes each human being different and unique. The scarce resources of the public education system becomes the prize, and the losers are usually the students. How about remaining neutral, and see choice as a way to alleviate the inequities of a public education system that cannot be all things to everyone?
Correction: ” In NL, many low income families own their own homes, and I suspect few low income people in Ontario do not own their own home.”
It should read, In NL, many low income families own their own homes, and I suspect few low income people own their own homes..
So what their homes are worth peanuts.
Poverty is earning less than 50% of the national average income.
You can deny deny deny till the cows come home Nancy but poverty (and concentrations of poverty) are the critical element in school success. It is quite possible to bury you in studies but you have drunk the reform kool-aid that these are ‘excuses’ .
Interestingly charter do no better with the poor unless they expell all the miscrients and keep the SE and ELL kids out as most do.
Vouchers in Milwaukee after decades showed no academic achievement differences.
If as you say Doug, American examples don’t apply – then you should stop using them (Milwaukee).
Choice is about parents and the best interests for their children; not pontificating for the establishment of one size fits all.
There is no equity in centralization, there is no equity in the ideology of the teeter totter. To put it bluntly, there is no equity in the public system. That’s a patronizing pipe dream purveyed by educrats that parents learn early on.
Yes, there is rhetoric and insularity. There is protectionism and a tower of educratic Babel. There is the silencing of teachers, a deconstruction of rural Canada via the big box, and there is suppression of beneficial change that comes with technology, and there is teacher union propaganda rivaling that of the most banal political agendas history has had to offer Canadians.
The very fact that Nova Scotia’s NDP government is cutting education reflects the need to stabilize in an attempt to prevent more parents from entertaining the private option. The problem is the cuts keep showing up in the classroom instead of the boardroom so choice will also continue to expand. Declining enrollment is one thing, but losing students to private alternatives really hurts a public system funded on a student basis.
Better to create choice and retain a public system into the 21st century.
“Choice is about parents and the best interests for their children; not pontificating for the establishment of one size fits all.”
Nicely put Steven. Choice is on the move in Canada. Nova Scotia being the latest to clue-in to what parents want and what good classroom teachers want too.
Ontario’s turn at cuts to education is coming, because it’s not sustainable as it is.
I beg your pardon Doug, but the homes are not worth peanuts, and ownership brings stability, not only to the schools but the communities as well. If anything can be said about NL, homes and their communities are neat and tidy, A dollar goes a longer way in NL than it does in the inner city of Toronto. As well as few well-designed government policies for low-income people.
One needs to look at the whole picture, and not just a tree in the forest, as the many other economic variables, location, community services, rental versus home ownership, and how the schools can adapt to the communities.
As Steven has stated about centralization, centralization does not allow the school to adapt to the community, but the school forces the community to adapt to its needs. And if no one likes it, the educrats gives the finger to the individual or the community. Such as kicking out the local service and community groups out of the schools, unless they start paying the jack-up rental fees demanded by the board.
Furthermore the studies that you have threatened to bury me with, do not discuss the forests, including all of the individual trees and how it impacts schools, achievement of students, and final outcomes of students, and if policies are meeting their goals. One thing about centralization education models, the goals are always shifting and changing by the educrats and bean counters at central headquarters, trying to control every aspect and micro-managing schools right down to the number of rolls of toilet paper. What never changes are parents seeking out the best educational interests of their children, and students, no matter the income, which is the opposite goals of the centralized education system, demanding parents and students to work for their goals and agendas. Parents only care about their children, and not the whole school, let alone the board’s goals. They only care about the goals, when the goals impact their children’s achievement and behaviour either positively or in negative ways. Telling parents to wait for the adults within the education system to get their act together, is not at all comforting to parents, when their children don’t have the time like the adults within the system. And when the education system does get its act together, it is never for their children, but someone else’s children. that came after their children.
Centralization is a great way to disengage parents and students, and more so when the schools are undergoing lock-downs at all education access points and keeping the teachers caged, in fear of skewing data streams, and the newly hatched plans of the educrats and bean counters.
Choice is coming and it is in many places, and all parents across the income groups are looking at it favourable. And I bet, Kidder must be totally blown away on the number of parents who would like to see more choice within the education system. Choice will benefit the students, the communities and in the long run strengthened the public education system. But that will not happen until the education system, start to work for students first and their education, and not what is in the best interests for those within the system.
The terrible Canadian education system revealed.
% of people with post secondary education OECD members.
1 Canada 50%
2 Isreal 45%
3 Japan 44$
4 USA 41%
5 New Zealand 40%
6 S. Korea 39%
7 Norway 37%
8 UK 37%
9 Australia 37%
10 Finland 37%
7-10 a virtual tie. Notice the largest gap is Canada-Isreal.
No wonder there is no groundswell of support for reform or choice.
No groundswell? At this rate Doug, reform will succeed by default – through declining enrollment in the public system, exacerbated by unsustainable budgets and an intractable educratocracy; and eventual choice across the board.
Choice couldn’t come soon enough – note the colour of the bag of goodies in this single provider school.
http://southshorenow.ca/newsnowclips/play.php?vid=1676
Yes Steven I choose the public education system where the governing political party can introduce young minds to the party’s ID colors. I think that also happened with the Nationalist Socialist party of 1930s Germany.
what’s clear to me from watching this clip too is that the system is asking parents to become “co-educators” in their child’s learning. School and teacher provide the “goodies” and send it home so that when parents get home from work or after supper they “co-educate” their children.
1) Enrolement is projected to begin climbing again next year.
2) “Unsustainable budgets” is a political not an economic statement. Some people don’t want to pay taxes.
3) Intractable edutocracy, those would be the experts required to run a complex institution.
The high tide of choice in Ontario was 2007 before it was crushed in the 2007 election. Now no party will touch it with a barge pole.
Canada has what could be argued is the best education system on Earth. It depends which figures are important to you.
Unsustainable budgets in Nova Scotia are an economic reality that even the socialist leaning NDP sees as a problem. Over a billion in debt servicing and economic growth rate of the Nova Scotia is dead last for all provinces. Some people don’t want to pay taxes ? Gosh Doug we pay the highest taxes in the country while we have transfer payments from the Federal government. The pension bombs of public service unions will bring this province to a place looking like Greece if it continues.
1) Wrong – School review stats around NS do not project an increase in enrollment, they will continue to decline; hence school closures.
2) Wrong – Unsustainable budgets are the focus and forthcoming cuts to education budgets are economic priorities in NS.
3) Too many intractable experts then, coming at the expense of the children and the classroom.
Using the classroom as a propaganda platform for a political party only encourages the need for more school choice.
Choice will come eventually Doug – your approach to education was fine about 50 years ago, times have changed.
“1) Enrolement is projected to begin climbing again next year.”
Nope. Schools continue to close due to low enrollment is most parts of Ontario.
“2) “Unsustainable budgets” is a political not an economic statement. Some people don’t want to pay taxes.”
Nope. “Unsustainable budgets” is the excuse….ooops reason the blob give out this way for closing schools. Y
“3) Intractable edutocracy, those would be the experts required to run a complex institution.”
Nope. That would be “the BLOB”
“The high tide of choice in Ontario was 2007 before it was crushed in the 2007 election. Now no party will touch it with a barge pole.”
Nope. The tide of choice hasn’t even begun to crest in Ontario, but it is headed there in a big way. McGuinty has already allowed choice based on culture and religion. That’s going to expand not disappear.
Unsustainable budgets-actually it`s an economical statement,the response to it by the Unions is the political angle.
I was thinking today,how do we make teaching and education more like medicine-the patient is certainly number one on everyone`s agenda.Doctors,Nurses-all staff-even administrators constantly think,how can we best serve the patient and work within our budgets.
To me,the most painful part of this journey is the abandonment of the child and his parents for empty rhetoric and retaining the status quo.
Since teachers have gotten it so cushy and are no longer supervising lunch,playground,coming in early,staying late…it`s not the wages,it`s all that stuff,as well as centralization-if they buy “Math Makes Sense ” and 100 teachers scream,it doesn`t work,they get muffled and told “administration”knows best.
Teachers have been required to sell their souls to the Union.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/11/06/unions-good-bad-teachers-bad-kids
Enrolement is headed up in Ontario, Maritimes have had outmigration for many years, nothing new there.
If the cuts affect teachers you will have few teachers. There is a world market for teachers.
An orange bag is propoganda, LOL, be serious.
Teachers know the wages, benefits and pensions come from the union and management fight it at every turn. Who’s side do you expect then to take.
Unions fight reform in the USA because they believe reform is wrong headed. Much of reform is an attack on teachers and you expect them to take it? Good luck with that.
New Zealand launched an all out attack on teachers a few years back and within one year had ads around the world begging for teachers. Teachers have a world wide network that very quickly puts out the message “don’t work in NZ” and can cause a shortage almost overnight.
Growth has moved west Doug as the latest census proved. But you are free to generalize and be positive about enrollment if you feel better doing it. And yes orange crush bags being distributed to students by the local MLA is blatant propaganda.
It just reinforces the need for school choice.
In a Sun’s article, titled Fiscal Concerns For Education
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/17/fiscal-concerns-for-education
The comment section is of interest, and always is, when more and more of the posters are calling for more choice. The first comment calling for , “The premier must exchange the current union controlled educational system with a student-and-parent focused competitive model”
One part of the comment caught my eye, “. 10. Discard the progressive concept of the “classroom community” which preaches equality of capability, rather than the equality of opportunity, and disallow revisionism in liberal prejudiced textbooks; ”
Number 9, ties in with Steven’s link, and as well as in my concern today. What caught my attention are the words equality of capability and equality of opportunity. What is being practice in the public education system, equality of opportunity or equality of capability?
Diving deep, to understand the terms, it became apparent it is the kind of stuff being discussed in heady ivory towers of the education system. I barely understood the wider implications, but essentially, the public education practices equality of capability, rather than equality of opportunity.
Equality of opportunity – “Equal opportunity is a stipulation that all people should be treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers or prejudices or preferences, except when particular “distinctions can be explicitly justified.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity
Equality of Capability:
“. The core focus of the capability approach is on what individuals are able to do (i.e., capable of). Initially Sen argued for five components in assessing capability:
The importance of real freedoms in the assessment of a person’s advantage
Individual differences in the ability to transform resources into valuable activities
The multi-variate nature of activities giving rise to happiness
A balance of materialistic and nonmaterialistic factors in evaluating human welfare
Concern for the distribution of opportunities within society”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach
There is no precise definitions, but it is obvious Equality of Capability approaches is being used in the current model of the public education system, while giving lip service to equality of opportunities.
To which can explain the York Region School Board and its stance, ” To the board, fairness means if not all students can access Baythorn’s program, none should.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/14/all-for-none-none-for-all
As well as the public education stance and aversion of parents selecting schools for their children. ” According to these folks, “choosing” is just a step away from “shopping,” which is poison to those who think the only people who should be able to make choices about which schools kids attend, are the six-figure-salary education bureaucrats who run them.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/07/choice-is-not-elitist
What is being practice in the centralized public education model, is the equality of capabilities, to where choice is based on the capabilities of the individuals, Where access to educational opportunities, the assumption is that all students have the capabilities of accessing the educational opportunities that are offered, and if not differentiated instruction will be used to access the educational opportunities, “Trustees want to focus on creating solid, uniform programs at every local school and believe that “differentiated instruction,” should take care of individual learning differences.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/14/all-for-none-none-for-all
But more importantly in a centralized model, choice is not left in the hands of the individuals,but rather choice is provided by offering options, based on the capabilities of the individual students, rather than providing the necessary skills and abilities needed to access the educational opportunities. Differentiated instructional approaches becomes the options, rather than the choices that raises the capabilities and the skills needed to access the educational opportunities. And who decides for the students, parents? The centralized public education system decides for the students and parents by using their legal authority, and are the final arbitrators to all things in education.
” Does the government control of school systems facilitate equality in school
quality? There is a trade-off. On the one hand, government direct control of schools, typically through a large scale hierarchical organization, could produce equalization across schools, providing for uniformity in inputs, standards, teacher qualifications that localized, individually managed, schools could not achieve. But there is a tendency for large scale formal bureaucracies to “see” less and less of localized reality and hence to
manage on the basis of a few simple, objective, and easily administratively verified, characteristics (e.g. resources per student, teacher formal qualifications).. ”
Click to access illusion.pdf
The study concludes in part, “This goal however is not furthered by rhetoric that only serves to sustain illusions about the ability of “bureaucratic high modern” schooling systems to deliver on this promise in weak implementation environments. We are not claiming that more localized systems that allow for much greater autonomy at the school level to break organizational monopolies on the utilization of public funds and in the space for innovation are a 50 panacea. But we are claiming that merely assuming that centralized systems deliver on the promise of equality merely because they exercise hierarchical control over the few items they “make EMIS legible” suffers all the defects of driving while blind. A state which is blinded to the complex social realities of the learning process, of day to day
interactions of teachers with students, in favor of managing tenuously related inputs, particularly when the state is weak, is the real risk to children, not the “risk” of creating space for real innovation.”
There is quite a few studies exploring equality and equity of the modern public education system, and most if not all of them, are calling for decentralizaton and more choice. Some go further, but the main theme is that a centralized public education system presents the promise of equity and equality, but never delivers it. Pseudo-equality/equity is what is received,for our students, where quality of education being received depends on the SEC factors, and where the SEC factors are used to determined the future and present capabilities of students.
Having choice, more autonomy at the local levels, would allow true equality/equity to emerge, But than again, the centralized model and its stakeholders will fight to retain the fake equality/equity illusion, because it serves their best interests. Students have differentiated instruction to serve their differences, but not the luxury of chasing their dreams and interests, or even the right to be taught where all students are more or less equal in the 3 Rs, to access the educational opportunities.
“Teachers know the wages, benefits and pensions come from the union and management fight it at every turn. Who’s side do you expect then to take.”
Do you happen to be a teacher Doug ? A public servant perhaps? The statement I quoted above goes to show how uneducated and ignorant Teachers would be if they actually believed what you are saying here. I cannot capitalize TAXPAYERS any larger to emphasize .
WAGES AND BENEFITS ARE AFFORDED TO THE TEACHER DIRECTLY VIA THE TAXPAYERS
. In the case of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union there have been two bail outs of one Billion dollars each time in my 50 years of living. The NSTU is angling for a third bailout of a billion dollars. This is precisely why I state how can one teach math when you can’t even handle your pension fund despite earning typically twice the per capita GDP of the Province of Nova Scotia as a STARTING salary ? Increases in pay are due whether you perform or not or if the end product is illiterate because there are utter failures for teachers in the system that the Union shelters.
The Teachers Union since the 1960’s have had an effort to elect political positions for every part of government in an effort to shape spending to suit no one but their own nests. Rodney MacDonald was a gym teacher and the last premier of the province. A teacher that allowed 3.5 million dollars of the TAXPAYERS money to finance a Paul McCartney concert in Halifax that barely broke even.
At this point in Nova Scotia’s history It is not only the TAXPAYERS that are paying for TEACHERS lifestyles and Retired Teachers that earn more then the per capita GDP of the province. It is future generations who will decide if they want to be further burdened with the incompetence of all that let this happen on some many morally bankrupt levels. Any Teacher that actually believed that a Union provided their wage should have the fate of the Air Traffic Controllers in the US in the 1980s. Out on their asses unemployed. 9500 students and growing do well enough making a choice. I think allowing vouchers would clear the deadwood out of the public system.
If these teachers had consequences linked to job performance like the rest of the Real World then you would have a better education system and a prosperous economy in Nova Scotia. Considering about 20 percent of our incredible provincial debt can be linked to payments of NSTU pension bailouts I think it is time that teachers had a harsh reality check . One of the two opposition leaders is a person who has opted his kids out of the public system. When the NDP is no longer government things are going to get a great deal harsher for public servants.
1) Teachers are worth more than others because they are more educated.
2) The “bailouts” are required due to the arrangements entered into. You make a deal you keep it.
3) Everybody is allowed to participate in elections. We call it democracy.
4) The teachers rightly believe, no union = no raises, no benefits, no pensions.
5) Merit pay has been tried and failed many X. It is an old failed idea.
6) When things are harsh for the public sector, the good people all leave. You will first lose all your physics chemistry and math teachers, others will follow. Try to get these people even to N. Ontario. They don’t want to go so you need to pay even more.
7) Vouchers have been in Milwaukee for 20 years. No academic improvement over public system
1) no citing of “others” – weak statement.
2) see 4)
3) Public Education is a service paid for by taxpayers, – it is not democratic.
4) Beliefs such as these simply foster school choice when 2) “bailouts are required”.
5) Try until you succeed.
6) Leaving Ontario is becoming more common these days.
7) American examples don’t apply here. (smile)
Growth has moved west for sure but the Ontario school population starts to grow well starting next year. The kids have already been born.
Wait until you must provide all day JK with wrap around child care. Get ready.
There is no good reason for a prosperous economy in Nova Scotia. The fish are gone, the steel is too far from markets, the oil cannot sustain everybody and so forth. The best policy is to move out but the Maritimes has this nostalgic attatchment to the past they can’t shake.
Fort McMoney is the solution.
Exploring the issue consistently and publicly of school choice would go a long way to making Ontario a “Have” province again Doug. Social solidarity and one size fits all will only continue to exacerbate the costs and quality of program delivery, and adding undue stress to the teachers.
Ontario has rejected school choice rather firmly. They don’t want it as John Tory can explain to you.
3 parties in Ontario all firmly reject choice outside PS system.
I recall similar statements like: Our education budget increases were a guaranteed right also , and any opinion otherwise was always firmly rejected by the public.
Like I said Doug times have changed.
Conventional delivery of public education is weakening by the year and funding will continue to be problematic for Ontario under the present system.
Choice is inevitable.
You’re right Steven. The future of education in Canada lies with choice.
Ontario residents are moving out West as well, so don’t count on the birth rate nor the ELP program to come to the rescue any time soon or the far off future. This is on top of the latest chatter and newspaper articles, parents are finding out what is being offering is to expensive for their pocketbooks, nor are the services being provided a good fit for the needs of their children.
By providing choice within the Ontario public education system, will go a long way in helping out the economic woes of Ontario, the have-not province. But than again, the public education system is against choice, because it would not serve the over-grown bureaucracy best interests and agendas.
An AIMS report, A Provincial Lifeline
Expanding the Nova Scotia Tuition Support Program by Paul Bennett
Click to access A%20Provincial%20Lifeline.pdf
” Good public policy originates, as it should, when serious private matters are raised to the level of public concerns. Education policy reform is no different. Personal family stories lie at the very heart of the movement to address and meet the needs of children facing severe learning challenges in the school
system. Since the advent of Learning Disabilities education services in the early 1960s, reforms have been driven by concerned and often desperate parents seeking to rescue their own children and a small band of
professionals determined to ensure that every child was given access to educational opportunities enabling them to live up to their true potential in life (Price and Cole, 2009). One such personal story is that of David Sampson of Halifax, the current president of the Equal Education Association of Nova
Scotia (EEANS). ”
It is the personal stories of parents and students, that will be the undoing of the public education system, that pretends to support the best interests of students, and their families – and more so when it comes to the educational needs of children with learning disabilities and other disabilities.
“The supports that Timothy received were not very successful, and not very inclusive. He was spending more than half his school day outside the classroom and was seen as different or “special” by his peers. He once told me between tears, “ Dad, I don’t want to be special, I just want to be the same as everyone else.” At the end of grade 7 he was still only reading and writing at an early grade 1 level, fully 7 years behind. The school having exhausted its resources, pulled SLD support. He was to go into grade 8 with only limited resource support.”
http://bridgewayschools.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-bridgeway-matters-tims-story.html?spref=fb
One of the thousands of stories taking place daily, across Canada, of the public education ignoring the cries of students, who want to be like everyone else, their follow classmates and the parents turn to the private sector, seeking educational remediation to secure the futures of their children, so they too can reach their full potential and to become contributing members of society. The public education system does not do remediation, but the current public education system does a wonderful job in slamming the future doors of all students, by not providing choice inside and outside of the public education system, to advance the public education self-serving interests.
” Teachers are worth more than others because they are more educated.”
Statements like the above is simply intellectual elitism at work within the education system, and all the other forms of elitism that is prevalent within the education system. The types of elitism at work within the education system, prevents active partnerships between the private and the public education systems. Too bad, I am predicting an avalanche of personal stories of parents, by the end of 2012 exposing the dirty laundry of the public education system, in the media in Canada. And the siren call of choice being demanded by the parents, for the sake of their children’s education.
1) Teachers are worth more than others because they are more educated.
Wow so a political scientist what indeed is the worth of that degree on the open market Doug ? Gee I wished I could sell a Lada for the price of an Mercedes but sadly thou I think I am entitled people see through my sense of entitlement to dube people of a huge amount of money for a crap product.
So exactly how educated must one be to teacher of Math ? Apparently Shelburne County needs some Math Teachers that are only performing a 27 out of 100 for Math. Anyone fired for such a poor score ? Private sector if you didn’t pass or put out a product you would be fired.
A teacher gets twice the GDP per capita to work about 200 days a year and then have the perk of retiring with full pay by stacking all your sick days through your career into your last year.
Again teachers are entitled somehow ? Yet the majority of Nova Scotian people opinions would be entirely negative to public schools
2) The “bailouts” are required due to the arrangements entered into. You make a deal you keep it.
Gee you would think the teachers being more educated then the rest of us bums would know how to fund their pension funds? How exactly did us simple uneducated working people dube the teachers out of underfunding their own pensions if indeed we are so dumb and uneducated compared to teachers? There are many TAXPAYERS in this province without even high school educations that managed their wages to become Millionaires on retirement. How come Teachers need a bail out three times a billion dollars it seems while having TAXPAYER funded PENSIONS and indeed make one million dollars in the space of the academic life of a student being 13 years? I knew a man indeed smarter then all teachers combined who willed 1.7 million dollars to the local hospital having worked at the Trenton railcar plant a a simple laborer for much less then a teacher!!!! He gathered this fortune via smart investment in Maritime Tel shocks and he had a mere grade 7 education. What excuse do these so called better educated people have to have their pension funds not perform as well as a simple laborer in Northern Nova Scotia ? The Ontario Teachers fund certainly is a shining example of wise financial handling that in many cases has people on their board that are not educators. A higher education does not always make one smarter but rather only shows you can pass a set of tests.
3) Everybody is allowed to participate in elections. We call it democracy.
I don’t know what to make of this statement except if the choice is an Idiot dressed in an orange suit that can’t handle his pension fund vs an idiot dressed in a red suite who doesn’t want his buddies to be accountable vs an idiot in a blue suit that feels Investing in a Paul McCartney concert with Taxpayers funds is a great idea then we have terrible choices. The choice will come when we indeed are having to Beg the IMF, World Bank or outside creditors for money funding to support some people’s expensive hobbies like teaching school. Public servants should indeed be banded from holding public office as Judges are. Absolute power only corrupts Absolutely
4) The teachers rightly believe, no union = no raises, no benefits, no pensions.
How about the province collapses completely bailing the Teachers union a Third Fourth or Fifth time or to the end of time. At some point reality is if you eat candy 24-7 365 days a year for decades your teeth go rotten . What we have in Nova Scotia is a rotting decaying place due to self inflicted wounds of spoiling juvenile public sector unions living on entitlement that we cannot afford any longer. How many productive private sector people have to work 300 plus days a year to support a teacher ? I would think with a 15 percent HST it could possibly be 20 to 1 .
5) Merit pay has been tried and failed many X. It is an old failed idea.
Merit pay is what Finland has for teachers Doug and now you contradict your own Socialist Paradise of Education that you have espoused above . Problem for the people of Finland is they are basically TAXATION slaves.
6) When things are harsh for the public sector, the good people all leave.
You will first lose all your physics chemistry and math teachers, others will follow. Try to get these people even to N. Ontario. They don’t want to go so you need to pay even more.
Please leave bye bye don’t let the door hit you on the way out. A public servant is a Taxpayer funded pension liability. The largest company in this province Sobeys had a pension that rivaled Canadian military pensions until Frank Sobey died about 20 years ago. Now no one get anything close to a pension working for Sobeys even in the HQ. Much of the Real World is the same because pensions in many cases are unsustainable without growth in employee contributions. Enrollment is going down , teachers are being laid off not hard to figure. the growth of private education and home schooling is contributing. This is a corporation with a gross income that is 33 percent of the province of Nova Scotia.
My physics teacher back in the 1970’s was a new East Indian Immigrant and he was a much better teacher with a heavy accent then a few of the native born teachers who had a false sense of entitlement or high importance. There are plenty of teachers across the globe from poor countries that would jump at the chance to take a Nova Scotian Teachers job. There are probably such persons driving taxicabs in Halifax right now existing and working their tails off that would be grateful to teach in their adopted country. The growing Private education sector of the province does not seem to have problems attracting quality teachers despite the MYTH an old teacher told me that they indeed get paid less then NSTU teachers. Today what we have in public education is an avoidance mode to teach Math and Sciences in some cases opting by some to teach their hobbies like digital recording arts with programs like Protools. At what point did high school get to start becoming a liberal arts school ? Again choice would help parents raise productive adults into our society not the next JD Fortune of INXS coming out of Pictou County that had a supreme court judgement against him for 70000 dollars running up a credit card from the Royal Bank of Canada.
7) Vouchers have been in Milwaukee for 20 years. No academic improvement over public system
Yes and we should throw out the concept that the TAXPAYERS should control the education of our children based on a city that represents the 26th largest urban population in America . Gee I guess the the experiment failed there and hence they are abandoning it LOL. The Milwaukee experience is why vouchers overwhelmingly have been rejected in places like Alberta ,Holland and a growing number of other places with much higher test scores then Nova Scotia.
Again Doug we must maintain total control of the education system to prevent anyone standing in the way of producing the next JD Fortune of the world.
Below is a local article, done with humour by a parent, on what is needed for children to prepare themselves for the rigours of kindergarten.
Entitled, “. Who knew your tiny child needed so many skills before heading to school?” It should have been, Who knew your tiny child was so lacking in the skills…….
“She explained how staff tries to balance classes with respect to gender and special needs. They don’t have their staff allocation until May so this won’t be done for a while yet. She also warned how school stories can sometimes be embellished by the time they make it to the dinner table at home.
“We’ll believe half of what they say (about home), if you believe half of what they say about school,” she said.
One final point she stressed was personal hygiene. Kindergartners should be able to get dressed them selves, go to the bathroom by themselves and wipe their own bum. Uh oh, I’ve got work to do. No more zipping zippers and buttoning buttons. I’ve got my work cut out for me. Between visits to a pediatric nutritionist, lessons in scissor, glue and SMART board skills, buttoning, zipping and bum-wiping, my calendar is full until September.”
http://www.thetelegram.com/Arts—Life/2012-02-28/article-2909963/Fit-to-learn/1?newsletterid=191&date=2012-02-28-13
I somehow don’t think that a private school would be weighing in students, much less calling them obese when the said child has a fat body index of 17.57. I wonder what they would described my child, taller than the average 4 year old, with a body weight of 38 pounds or so. Anorexic? I suppose it too would warranted a trip to the paediatric nutritionist, telling me the evils of poor diet and lack of nutrition knowledge. Somehow it is hard to stomach, at my age after raising two children into adulthood, to be treated as if I did not gain any knowledge over the years to raise my youngest.
Funny thing, back in 1998, I too worried about the same things, except there was no weigh-in or smartboard technology, but as it is today, as it was back in 1998, no one in the public education system, is asking parents what their children can do that is directly related to learning in a school. Nor did the school wanted to see her first two report cards of the nursery school kind. My child could print her name neatly, do simple addition and subtraction, and very adept at jigsaw puzzles and feats of engineering in blocks and sand. By grade 1, she could no longer add or subtract simple numbers, nor print her name neatly and I figure that these days, all the learning being taught in the homes and private nursery schools, is being undone by the instructional practices that does not look at the strengths of the child, but the deficits of a child. Parents go home, worrying about the things that need to be done, but those things don’t mean beans, when the cognitive strengths of the child are ignored.
Nor does the feats of engineering in blocks and sand, or to complete jigsaw puzzles of 200 pieces or more, all by themselves.
“When the government’s treasury enters the capital market it bids money and economic energy away from all other players, driving up interest rates and reducing credit availability for everyone else in the market. The projects that get built by government, when it is in command all this borrowed and taxed-away money, are constructed, at least in part, with political goals in mind: to buy votes, to please constituents, to enrich supporters, to pay off ideological debts. In order to avoid the tax burden resulting from the big government’s agenda, the citizenry employs lawyers and accountants to discover loopholes and financial tricks, while other clever rascals learn about back alley dealings and corrupt practice.
Because so much of the national dividend is absorbed by government, there is not much profit left in the marketplace. And so entrepreneurs with new products, engineers with imaginative solutions, investors willing to take dramatic risks all become endangered species. The after-tax, after government “take-home pay” for these most productive citizens is reduced so that they partly withdraw from the economic playing field, impoverishing us all.”
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/02/27/escape-the-nursery/
“Big expensive government is dangerous for reasons more profound. It weakens us. It transforms makers into takers. The power of the modern state is deep, subtle and dangerous: If uncontrolled, in the words of Tocqueville, “Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
If we are to escape the nursery, government’s role in our lives must be redefined. The Drummond report attempts to rein in the government Leviathan with weak, constrained and non-credible weaponry and therefore can be expected to generate very little real change, unfortunately. Political wisdom in the matter of energetic government requires us to go beyond a spreadsheet.”
Choice in the public education, would untied the bounds of the BLOB, that seeks to limit potential of the citizens, rather than unleashing the potential of all their citizens.
Paul
1) I don’t argue with market extremists it is pointless, they actually believe that Friedman/Hayak nonsense and every time we privatize, deregulate etc the economy ends up in the ditch (1929, 2007)
2) OTPP rated one of the best managed plans around. Gov’t agreed to match it, they must match it.
3) Teachers play by all of the electoral rules. Courts have found over and over you cannot ban unions contributions without banning corporate donations at the same time. Go for it.
4) Get tough with teachers, go for it. Pull a New Zealand see what happens. You will have egg all over your face.
5) No more merit pay in Finland than canada or USA read the Vanderbilt study it doesn’t work.
7) Vouchers get very badly defeated every time they are put to a direct vote in state referendums or become election issue like Ontario. They are just a REALLY UNPOPULAR CONCEPT.
Doug you continue to insulate yourself from critical public policy throughout the rest of the civilized educational world. Your choice but a bit antiquated. There is nothing unpopular about school choice. Critical public policy is not a popularity contest. It is discussion, research based, progressive, and an open concept for cosideration as education evolves into the twenty first century. Generally parents are open to discussing sensible ideas such as school choice. It seems the OECD is also.
individual teachers are also just as open to looking at choice….given a choice that is. Trouble is, as we’ve heard here from teachers who if they had a choice would take an option other than that shoved down their throats – i.e. constructivist math, or having their union dues NOT go to fight the flavour-of-the-day political battles.
We can’t leave teachers out of the choice equation.
I agree wholeheartedly Catherine.
Nancy, if you actually believe that nonsense go for it. Right wingers always believe that stuff. Funny how it always ends in a big recession or depression.
Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan economics. It takes a ling time to recover from governments like that who have no idea what they are doing.
The Financial Post article makes sense, when thinking about Greece.
Choice would indeed allow innovation from the bottom up, and improve public education to be working to the best interests of the students.
Over at WISE, a physics professor writes about teacher training, and the quality factor.
http://wisemath.org/topics-for-further-discussion/
The BLOB works against the best interests of students and actively suppresses choice within and outside of the public eduction system, at the expense of student’s achievement and reaching all of the students’ potential.
But more importantly, the BLOB reduces quality of education, by not allowing alternatives in teaching practices to flourish in the public education system.
Doug,I`d like to hear one child centric comment from you.
In California,a group of teachers are banding together to increase teacher professionalism in order to assuage public controversy and elevate the profession.
They are asking the Union to increase working hours from 180 to 250 weekly and increase PD;in return,they are asking for increases in pay.
Focus on the kids and effectiveness,we`ll all like you better.
Where is the language for the client in Union public education contracts?
Speaking of California Joanne, I recall hearing a few years back about a new policy that forced teachers who taught in California’s public schools enroll their kids in public schools.
The biggest opposition to that were the teachers themselves. (OQE had that story at the time).
What does that tell you. When teachers have choices, even as parents, they take them.
With the advent of choice in the United States public education systems, I believe it has brought a huge increase in knowledge transfer between the public education sector and the public. A willingness of all to share, discuss, and implement new reforms based on the research in education and learning.
In Canada, the education systems, the research facilities and the private and non-private concerns dealing with children, still operate as closed shops that hinders the open transfer of knowledge, as well as preventing new knowledge and advances in learning that runs counters to the interests and agendas of the Canadian public education systems.
More importantly, it prevents the transfer of knowledge in education and learning to reach the parents, as well as hindering parents to obtain the necessary knowledge to advance their children’s education and their need.
In Canada, the public education systems are clones of each other having more or less the identical information and knowledge of learning/education, and the exception is Alberta. The knowledge is directed at the educators, and the other stakeholders within the education system, The knowledge that is transferred to the public is filtered, removing knowledge and/or revise the knowledge, to suit the agendas and best interests of the stakeholders within the education system..
When choice came to Alberta, and in BC as well, education and learning knowledge outside and inside the public education system, there is a willingness to exchange education knowledge, without the filters or the revision of the knowledge, and led to new and old organizations to inform and educate parents on all aspects of education that was kept in the closed shops under lock and key by the public education systems. Choice, encourages the free-flow exchange of education knowledge, and in Alberta and BC, the number of private organizations and the public education systems willing to form partnerships with outside organizations are building.
For example, if a parent was searching for specific knowledge in LD and ADHD issues, , Alberta and BC is the place to go, compared to the other provinces. But even with the little bit of choice, the private LD and ADHD organizations are careful not to hurt the sensibilities of the touchy public education systems. and their right to hold the keys to the knowledge of LD and ADHD. As a result, the information and knowledge of the LD and ADHD sites does inform parents, , brings new knowledge that the public education systems does not have but it still leaves parents with gaps of crucial knowledge to navigate the public education system and its consistent record of not providing for the learning needs of the LD and ADHD students and the dismal final outcomes of low achievement.
Unlike the United States, and where ever there is choice – the private and non-private organizations for LD and ADHD have grown and multiply over the last 10 years. In my e-mail box, Smart Kids – a fairly recent addition in the United States.
“Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities® is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the parents of children with learning disabilities (LD) and attention-deficit disorder (ADHD).
Our mission is to educate, guide and inspire families of children with learning disabilities or ADHD—and to change the perception of learning disabilities as a stigmatizing condition.
In striving to achieve our goal we aim to provide useful, authoritative information from experts, practical advice and support from parents, and inspiration from successful adults living with LD and ADHD. We also affirm and celebrate the talents and achievements of young people with learning differences through the annual Smart Kids Youth Achievement Awards.”
http://www.smartkidswithld.org/about
It makes me want to cry, especially when the Canadian Learning Disabilities Association has cancelled their scholarship program for 2012. Within the public education systems, scholarships for the LD and ADHD crowd, few and in small dollar amounts. In Canada, the public education system still perceives LD and ADHD as a stigmatizing condition, and not good academic material.
“I was put into what the other kids called ‘the dummy class.’ I was in fifth grade, had been held back twice and still didn’t know how to read, write or do multiplication.”
http://www.smartkidswithld.org/success-stories/profiles/philip-schultz-from-dyslexia-to-the-pulitzer-prize
The above person won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
The public education systems of Canada without choice, are still doing it to the LD and ADHD students, except instead of failing, they are socially promoted. What has not change, there is no remediation of the learning deficits, and their strengths are never allowed to emerged to reach their full potential.
Nancy,
As much as I am continuously astounded at your knowledge base,come on..
This is an emotional plea,not the correct angle-you become their victim.
Keep focused on the politics.
In Ontario,a wonderful psychologist has created an advocacy course for parents and the International Dyslexia Association of Ontario is facilitating the course through their organization.
This empowers parents,the legislation is there for intervention,politics and lawyers involved there becomes a legal obligation.
I don`t like these emotional brawls,come on.
How would you like to be a First Nations kid going to school in mould infected shacks?
Injustice is everywhere every day.
Good information Jo-Anne!
Nancy, you need to stop taking Doug’s bait. He’s not influencing the future of education anywhere, any time soon. That influence lies more with you, other parents and teachers who will eventually find that the choice options are very much worth it, within or outside the public system.
Education privatization: causes, consequences and planning implications
Published by the UNESCO in 2002
Click to access session5EduPrivatizationBelfieldand%20Levin.pdf
“,The characteristics of the educational productivity decline challenged widely accepted educational theories of school performance. Theorists accustomed to blaming increased poverty, family instability, large class size, and insufficient spending for poor school performance could not explain why the scores of more able students declined at least as much as those of less able ones, or why measures of inferential ability and problem solving declined more than those of simpler tasks such as arithmetic computation.”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Education.html
And they still cannot explain it why the most able students and achievement are declining in Canada.
Yes Nancy,
Malkin Dare discovered this years ago-as did I prior to meeting her when my reading clinic in Toronto was supposed to be for Dyslexic students.
We saw more children of all ages that had never been taught than students who had a real condition.
This has been Malkin`s plea for years.
They won`t do it,they won`t listen and as Malkin Dare said,school choice is the ONLY thing that will move the glacier.
Speaking of California Joanne, I recall hearing a few years back about a new policy that forced teachers who taught in California’s public schools enroll their kids in public schools.
The biggest opposition to that were the teachers themselves. (OQE had that story at the time).
What does that tell you. When teachers have choices, even as parents, they take them.
Of course because after California slashed property taxes the schools fell apart.
When Canada has the world’s best education better than anywhere on this Earth, still the complainers. Do you realize that you are a VERY small group. That as paul asked above is the reason for your frustrations.
Nobody agrees with you.
Why U.S. Reform hasn`t worked-the devil is in the details and the details are missing.
http://www.thenewnationbd.com/newsdetails.aspx?newsid=23407
Not sure what I had said, to implied choice was not the way to go. I was suggesting that knowledge transfer and the free-flow of the information comes with choice.
The International Dyslexia Association,is world wide, and to which there is only one branch in Canada, and it is located in Ontario.
“The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, scientific, and educational organization dedicated to the study and treatment of the learning disability, dyslexia as well as related language-based learning differences.
We are the oldest such organization in the U.S. serving individuals with dyslexia, their families, and professionals in the field. We have approximately 8,500 members – 60% in the field of education and 30% are individuals with dyslexia or parents of children who are dyslexic.
We operate 44 Branches throughout the U.S. and Canada, and have 21 Global Partners in 18 countries.”
The focus is on the professionals within the education field, and the private professionals forging partnerships and exchange of information. The focus on parents is outreach programs. and for Ontario, the only chapter in Canada within the last 3 years. Is it a coincidence as alternative schools spread across Toronto and the GT area, the International Dyslexia Association forms a chapter in Toronto to forge the partnerships needed between the public education sector and the private professionals and researchers. As well as providing outreach for parents, especially the kinds of information that is useful to parents to advocate and help their children.I don’t think it is a coincidence, and the professionals in Ontario, decided to form a chapter, of an organization that is well respected for their scientific and research in language-based disabilities.
http://idaontario.com/About-Us.html
In the last newsletter, Right to Read
On page 12, “Dr. Forman strongly believes that the best way to combat these forces is for parents of dyslexic children to form a network in their school and to advocate as a group, as this will give them more power and influence when dealing with a huge bureaucracy.”
On page 17″ The panel and audience concluded by pointing out the importance of raising awareness and support of the provincial governments for funding private remedial services, and the school boards and teachers colleges for integrating specialized training into the curriculum. After all, 10% of children with dyslexia in every school is a significant number and cannot be ignored. These bright minds need to be supported, not oppressed. ”
Click to access ONBIDAnwsltrWinter2011.pdf
On page 18, Every Child Has the Right to Learn To Read petition.
Only way for parents to signed the petition,, is to e-mail the organization. Not exactly an open process, but there is a little gem at the bottom for all Canadian parents to know, and not just the LD parents.
“School boards are legally required to meet the needs of all their exceptional students. Regulation 181/98 of the Education Act states when a need has been identified the board MUST meet that need unless to do so would create undue hardship to the Board.”
Undue hardship is being used often not to fund education programs and invest education dollars in new reforms across the span of public education.
Glad to see it, and more importantly, the advocacy of funding private remedial services by the public education system. In a way, the ONBIDA is pushing for choice by opening the doors inviting the educators of the public education system, engaging and forging partnerships. At the same providing parents the information needed to advocate and help their LD children.
A very slow process, when the stakeholders within the public education system are opposed to choice and its many different forms. And more so when information and knowledge is withheld by the public education systems to prevent parents to make informed decisions about their children’s education.
It doesn’t help when an education official states, ” “We do work hand-in-hand with these families because we co-parent.” — Waterloo Regional School District Superintendent Gregg Bereznick”
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/28/teachers-should-leave-parenting-to-the-parents?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=recommend-button&utm_campaign=Teachers+should+leave+parenting+to+the+parents
Or this deliberate statement of not publishing all the education stats.
“”If we made the data public, one would realize that many institutions have a 100% dropout rate,” Beauchamp told QMI Agency.
“It would have a significant impact on the students’ self-esteem and staff morale.”
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2012/02/20/pf-19402596.html
Between teachers being called co-parents and information not being published, and opened to the public, one would think that the teachers would be clamouring for choice, that provide alternatives for their students, rather than having to deal with the fallout with students, parents and be pushing for their union representatives to put choice on the table as one of the reforms. If the educators did that, watch the free exchange of information, as well as the hard questions being directed to the BLOB to account for themselves.
Total nonsense. What is the difference between the USA and the successful nations? The answer is that almost all developed nations have a lower overall standard of living but the poor people are given a much bigger share of the national resources.
The American middle class would all be in the top 3-4 nations of PISA but when the poor ae added in they drop like a stone. That middle class had the same pedagogy so that factor has been controlled.
OECD says the USA failes because of too much poverty + concentrations of poverty. In other nations the fewer poor kids are also spread out far more.
It has nothing to do with pedagogy but the rich do not want to admit it is anything else because they want a free solution not one where they need to pay more or even share suburban money with inner cities.
All of the reforms in the USA, NCLB, RTTT, vouchers, charters, merit pay, Mayoral control, firing teachers, are all failing and will fail in the future and will always fail because all other nations make at least an attempt to mitigate the effects of poverty but the USA maintiains this idiotic view that if you are poor it is your own fault. Nobody believes it but them.
Well Doug considering in another socialist paradise, you would love , France I literally tripped over poor people camped out in the downtown core of Marselles. Marselles is a Riveria mecca. I am not making a judgement on case and effect. The Toxic democratic twins of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd helped in part to create the housing crisis and deep recession with very noble Ideals of home ownership for everyone in America. The pressing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created toxic loans to persons who could not afford homes and didn’t have the mental capacity to refuse. The US is the richest nation in the world and will continue to be for a while. All the economic growth of China in the last couple of decades, which is historic, would take as long to surpass the US economy. What socialists fail to see is true value in the real world . Margaret Thatcher once said ” the only problem with socialism is you run out of other people’s money to borrow”
IF one is so confident in the public education system then why would one defend it against taxpayers have choice of where their dollars go. I would opt for my dollars going to the private sector because the public system is failing in many regards.
Those of us who know,know.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/20/the-myth-of-the-quot-powerful-quot-teachers-union/
I will let Harper and Bob Rae and Nicole Turmel argue the economic system in your juvenile political economy class Paul. Margret Thatcher was tossed out by her own party because they eventually figured out she was toxic.
Blame Barney frank for housing melt down not greedy unregulated bankers?
Please I have work to do I can’t spend the whole day laughing.
If you were successful you would not need money from the PS system, nobody is stopping you from using the private system. Public money was raised to support public schools. Ontario voters flatly rejected public money for private schools as happens everywhere there is an actual vote.
Well Growth of the NS Private system especially says it indeed does not need 1.1 billion annually to produce results . The public system does not produce the results with 1.1 billion. My belief is all citizens should have the choice to place their tax dollars in the best investments possible. Your belief apparently that we reward failures and make school teachers rich and unaccountable for the product they produce. That lacks any morality what so ever.
Making the people of Nova Scotia Tax slaves to then waste their dollars in failures on many levels is why we are in the state we are in . The most in debt per capita territory in the America’s . Doug if you love Finland so much why don’t you live there ? Seems to me you would be very at home with 65 percent tax rates.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308936,00.html
Follow the actual votes. Every time vouchers are on an actual ballot they get thrashed.
Utah is a VERY conservative state.
Those of us who know,know.
The problem is that you can have a meeting in a phone booth.
The meeting in the phone booth –
There is a big difference between integrity and school board and Union cover ups.
I guess if your industry,other than teachers if they were able to speak,is heavily populated by the charlatans.Give me money no matter how bad the job.
I don`t exclude teacher training from this egocentric industry either.
Go test a class of children at the end of grade 2-you will be astounded what you find.
Results?Cover,cover….
Conservative politicians in Ontario are well aware that opposition to funding private education is not something restricted to Liberal and NDP ridings. Opposition to support for private schools is also majority thinking in ridings that support Conservatives. Grey-Bruce-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch at the 2007 election paniced and came out against the John Tory proposal after he realized that his riding, one of the most conservative in Ontario, was totally opposed to the J Tory proposal.
Same everywhere.
http://www.nea.org/home/17956.htm
I wish the Ontario Tories would support vouchers. We could then beat them into oblivion on the proposal. They are not that stupid.
You live to much in the past Doug. The OECD report is for today’s, parents teachers, and educators. School choice is on the agenda.
I guess if your industry,other than teachers if they were able to speak,is heavily populated by the charlatans.Give me money no matter how bad the job.
Same old teacher bashing. It could not matter less how someone reads after grade 2. The Finns don’t even start to teach them to read until 7 because they consider teaching below 7 to be age innappropriate.
What matters is how well do 15 year olds read. Finland #1 Canada #3.
My belief is all citizens should have the choice to place their tax dollars in the best investments possible
I have no trouble believing that is your belief. Your problem is that most people do not agree with you. Your arguments have been around for 50 years. Nobody is buyin’.
Agreement is not an issue pertaining to school choice, which is the bane of your dilemma Doug. Research and application are more your purview at this point in the game. Better use it while you can.
As each precious student dollar defects to the “dark” side of private education, and the cost of capital centralization mushrooms to meet the buffet of program delivery, the stress on government to increase the per student dollar formula faces the reality of declining enrollment and acrimonious justification with taxpayers.
There are even one person appointed school boards in NS. (smile) advocating “mid life refurbishments” to the tune of 11 million dollars for schools crumbling eighty years after the Lunenburg Academy was built (and still going strong).
Not a good time to fall asleep at the one size fits all wheel.
Steven Doug is going to argue that 3p built schools are a mistake because the Lunenburg Academy was not built under that program . Union types hate the light of day that competition would bring and Doug is uttering selective tidbits that people don’t want this for his own agenda of continuing the pavlov’ s dog of Canadian public education. My thought is competition makes things better and cheaper. The principle works as people generally defer to cost. I cannot understand the CUPE opposition to bottled water. Bottled water is more expensive then gasoline yet Unions would have a theory of to their jobs via choice endangers their jobs. No what is threatened is a monopoly to hold a society hostage to a union. Extortion soon follows. The CUPW people complained incredibly when Canada post employed a practice that has been in the US postal service for decades. Two mail drop off boxes . one of local mail and one of out of town. CUPW’s theory was jobs would be lost . Gosh by the theory that nothing should progress via efficiencies found the buggy whip makers would be employed in the thousands according to Doug’s mindset. I saw gross inefficiency in the provincial signs shop in Truro. Four Employees manually doing things when two with computers and sign making equipment could do the same workload in Half the time. Doug is about screwing the canine like most union supporters. Again Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Steven
You live to much in the past Doug. The OECD report is for today’s, parents teachers, and educators. School choice is on the agenda
Wake me up when you make some progress, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Interesting mindset.
There is lots of sensible evidence (OECD) out there to wake anyone up.
Jo-anne Doug is afraid his relative who is probably a school teacher might have to actually be accountable at some point. Three draining factors in enrollment in Nova Scotia. Outward migration. Rise of the private option which has grown from practically nil to about half the enrollment of the HRM board in a mere ten years. Ask Charles Cirtwell detailed the rise of private enrollement last year . Decline of the Birthrate is also a factor of course. People in one case are marching with their feet and should not be penalized for making a wise choice. Gosh I have known actual NSTU members who sent their kids to private schools which shows they don’t even believe Doug’s mindset in some cases.
IF the unions and management were separated completely with best business practice employed I would have no problem with the public system as long as good results on all levels are produced. Otherwise we are just allowing wholesale failure bordering on criminal behavior. Embezzlement comes to mind when I think of Union pension fund bailouts. Sadly it is future generations that will pay and we are paying now.
Absolutely Paul,the Union and management need to be separated.
Accountability needs to be measured as well and getting children to read,spell and be proficient in arithmetic basics by the end of Grade 3 are imperative.
The emperor has no clothes.
well exactly Jo-anne. Teachers complain about the lack of respect by some students in the case and yet they seem to have utter contempt for the taxpayers money and the parents themselves. It gets as bad as personal development sessions in Florida in mid winter by teachers here. The New Brunswick System had the minister of education band all travel outside the province.
Corporations the world over are restricting travel for their employees unless then are closing huge financially enriching deals. I don’t get 6 figure salaries for school administrators. So important to earn an executive wage but untouchable for accountability to the stakeholders. Maybe that is the other reason we have witnessed the growth in private education in Nova Scotia.
Doug spins all the usual union talking points Paul, but don’t let the public facade fool you.For the sake of disclosure Doug was(or still is) the Dean of an elite private school in Toronto called VIP Academy.
Well I wonder how he explains the I am against choice when he is indeed facilitating choice? Could it be a longing to be in the public sector which is a much easier position to be in if you are chosen ? I know many teachers in the public system and really there are a many viewpoints and those who don’t tote the Union or Nothing line. Many people on the inside see the short comings.
Where the &$#%^%* are the Canadian experts-
Click to access Special%20Report%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
oh yes,all working for the school boards bankrupt of integrity.
It`s pathetic that ALL the research is completely and blatantly ignored.
Yesterday Global News Toronto ran a TV News story focusing on the School Choice movement to save York Region’s only Arts-Focused Elementary School It’s becoming clear that attempting to axe Arts@Bathorn is acting as a catalyst:
http://www.globaltoronto.com/parents+and+students+fight+to+keep+arts+school+in+york+region+open/6442591473/story.html
Here’s the Global TV News story backgrounder:
“TORONTO – Parents and students who are part of the arts program at Baythorn Public School in York Region are fighting back – with a music video – against a proposal by school board officials to shutter the school’s beloved arts program.
Baythorn Elementary School, the only school in York Region to offer an arts program, is on the verge of having the program cut, because as some critics charge, the program is elitist.
The program, which accepts new students by audition, focuses on the fine arts and teaches other material, such as math and science, using the fine arts.
The supporters of the arts program at Baythorn Elementary have also created a music video, “You can’t take the music outta [sic] me,” to help swell support for the school.
Sung by puppets, it’s not clear whether the song was written by students of the school, but the song covers the history of the school from its inception to a trustee’s idea to close it.
Read it on Global News: Global Toronto | Parents and students fight to keep arts school in York region open
he students and parents who support the program though are doing their best to keep it open. They’ve planned a flash mob for an upcoming town council meeting and have created a petition online to garner support.
“If you feel that the children, the rate-payers, and the communities of York Region are no less deserving of educational choice and opportunity than people in the Catholic board, the Toronto board, the Peel board, or the many others, it’s time to raise your voice,” the petition says.”
Comments:
Those puppets are getting the message across!
Absolutely Paul,the Union and management need to be separated
Harris separated union and management in 1995 in Ontario. It makes no difference.
Big study in USA, reason few are fired is that pay is so low and job so difficult, the principal does not believe they will get a better one if they fire somebody.
Publishing teacher scores in NYC has shown that good and not as good teachers are evenly distributed across the city so the argument that schools with weak scores have weak teachers just disappeared.
Study the distribution spread models Doug. I highly doubt it teachers as a whole are evenly distributive among the schools. Where is the link Doug?
Don’t bother, numbers can be played with, to ensure whatever the author want to conclude in advance.
Listen to Joanne, she is speaking of the realities, the same realities, as variables were removed from the US study for teachers.
On the front page in Ontario, the teachers’ unions are up in arms. What I find interesting is the comments, especially the ones from teachers. Union brass should be listening to their own members, and not spout rhetoric on the pretence it is all for the students and the schools.
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/1138862–teachers-unions-decry-ontario-s-opening-offer-no-raises-no-retirement-payouts
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-set-to-get-tough-with-teachers/article2354828/
In one of the GM comments, it was mentioned a school in Ontario, where the teachers refuse to work in unsafe conditions. It should be front page news, but I did find one local news article.
http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3480834
The article was vague as to the teachers refusing to teach, claiming unsafe conditions. The article also left the impression that the parents of the school was on the side of the teachers. I highly doubt it, after reading the comments being posted. If it is bullying of children, teachers should not be blaming the principal and the school board, because last time I check they are adults, who also plays a role in the school environment, But to call it unsafe working conditions, is ludicrous because they are getting paid not only to teach, but to manage the classroom environment, as well as the school’s environment.
Don’t know what to think about it, but the union contracts do get in the way and causes great inequities when it comes to the students’ education. And now the unions are saying, ” “unacceptable” and “an unprecedented attack on members’ rights”. Rather eerie, when a band of teachers in one school, claiming unsafe working conditions, will the future negotiations also include a brand new set of clauses in the contracts, to where the union will be dictating safe working conditions, over and above the provincial and federal standards and regulations of safe working conditions. Just like the unions did with supervisory duties, and as a result, an increase in bullying in the schools.
Hi Doug,my recent posts brought attention to instruction-a Doctor without training in oncology cannot treat Cancer patients.
A teacher trained as a generalist by Universities who blatantly ignore research cannot teach children to read ,spell and do math.
Sure,in Lawrence Park in Toronto,60 percent will learn any old way,but the other 40 will not.
The devil is in the details and your organization does not run Education like a hospital,the intricate delivery of education based on reading research and a creation of an organization in Canada we can trust,one that is not corrupted by the Corporations serving education,would go a long way in averting systemic damage to a country that buys into a math program that doesn`t work.
That entity would need gold standard studies before any program that is pedagogical in nature be accepted and the studies should be transparent so no funny stuff happens..Not the Trillium List in Ontario where a cheque accredits you.
You are in no position to dictate anything. The people in charge of the system know a great deal more about education than you or Malkin or Nancy.
You are way over your head but don’t seem to recognize that. The reform people are a tiny minority with very little influence primarily because Canada has the world’s best education system overall. There is hardly any discontent for you to exploit.
A school is not a hospital and there is no point of comparison.
Paul B.
I expect the pampered population of the arts school to lose. There is little support for their precious “our kids are special – yours are not” attitude.
People ought not attempt to carve out a private education in the public system. Save the specialization until at least secondary where far more people agree differentiation is now age appropriate.
Wrong again Doug. All children are precious, Hence choice.
“The people in charge of the system”
Who would that be Doug? Just wondering, since the public education system is undergoing many different reforms and readjustments coming soon, and much of it coming from union headquarters, the board staff, and the education ministries. Rather hard to trained the outsiders, parents, students and the taxpayers to become trained seals to dance to the tunes of agendas and interests of the public education sector. There is a price to be paid, when the public education sector seeks out lower productivity and reducing innovation to satisfied the demands and whims of those within the education system.
The Baythorn Arts school, will stay, if the education authorities know what is good for them, and stopped pandering to the interests and agendas within the education system. The best interests lies with the students, and they are not trained seals, nor can they be transformed into trained seals.
You and the gang in Ontario are about to face some adversity on your precious meritocracy.
Not me I’m retired with gratuity and very nice pension linked to CPI. but McGuinty is asking for a war now and he is about to get it. All teacher support will shift to the NDP, there will be work-to-rule an end to EC activities, etc… yes brace yourself for the school wars.
Release the hounds.
successive governments of all stripes can’t be wrong Doug. They ALL got to this point.
THIS TIME the Conservatives and Liberals are on the same page.
School war threats will not work this time. The taxpaying public has no appetite for that kind of greed when most all others have had to make sacrifices. Listening to the union workers from Caterpillar calling in to a London Ontario radio talkshow this morning, and even THEY think that the teacher union contracts are over the top. Hey, they should know – those folks are out of work now.
A threat of working to rule, going on strike is going to be much different. The public will not be climbing on board taking the side of the unions. The public is too busy chasing the wolf away from the door,to give the teachers’ unions the time of day. Working to rule, two can play that game as well as others. In the long run, working to rule is not an effective tactic.
BC teachers’ unions will now have a contract imposed on them, with a wage freeze attached to it. The same thing will happen in Ontario, if the union brass continues to opposed government and their deficit reduction measures.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/with-deficit-to-fix-bc-readies-bill-to-freeze-teachers-pay/article2350574/?service=mobile
The BC government will lose the election which is coming soon because the NDP will get massive support from the public sector.
Teachers will not just take it. Bans on EC activities will happen and there is little the gov’t can do about it.
They need to classify you an essential service,no way should you hold us hostage!
Who knows Doug, the public may just like the way the Liberal government is handling themselves, and reining in the public sector, they get voted back in. One never knows, and as for bans on EC activities, are they not voluntary in the first place. Only the most rabid fans of unions, would do so, and not the majority of teachers.
A major pressure where choice is the answer, are parents who form groups pointing out the inadequacies and the lack of in a public education system. One such group below, composed of parents:
” Princeton group says it’s hard to get children’s Dyslexia treated or even recognized”
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/02/princeton_group_says_its_hard.html
The Baythorn parent group has capture the attention of one and all across Canada. WISE is getting a fair bit of attention, It seems to me that the public is no longer has the appetite to allow the public education system to continue with the status-quo. Choice is on their minds.
The social equity policies, and what are the costs for what should be common sense, and quality customer service. Although it refers to the TTC, how can anyone see the world through gender and racialized groups and called it inclusive?.
“By advocating the principles of social inclusion in mass transit planning, I am merely a proponent of greater customer service and an improved business model. Standing on any crowded TTC bus or packed subway platform, one can easily take note that the majority of transit dependents are women and residents from racialized groups.
If a service provider — and in this case, the TTC — does not properly assess its customers’ needs, then how can they adequately match service enhancements to identified ridership requirements? The costs to redesign the infrastructure after it has been built and installed will be substantially higher than during the planning stage. Equity makes for a solid business case.
Mainstreaming gender and racial equity into our transit strategy is neither misplaced nor misguided. Belittling efforts to ensure social inclusion and rider equity could derail not just the dreams for a Sheppard transit plan, but also an inclusive 21st century modern Toronto.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/01/kristyn-wong-tam-transit-equity-is-about-customer-service/
Back to the public education system, the social equity policies are so busy to include, they have no time to be worried about the final outcomes of students, and how many future doors are being slammed for the students. The current equity policies makes a solid business case for poorer outcomes, and where choice becomes the only answer for students who are not the favour of the month.
They need to classify you an essential service,no way should you hold us hostage!
An essential service means life and limb is at stake. BTW EC activities are totally voluntary as the courts have repeatedly said. How do you force a voluntary activity? When we get angry we don’t do it.
http://www.thestar.com/news/education/article/1138912–want-to-buy-into-a-top-school-real-estate-company-ranks-areas-by-test-scores
As you can see, the Real Estate agents have concluded that high income = good schools low income = bad schools.
It has nothing to do with the methods or the teachers.
Nancy, the teachers do what the union asks them to do. Period.
Which is why choice is important to teachers and parents. Dictatorships don’t work Doug – never will.
Wrong! It was individual teachers NOT doing what their union asked of them that got Mike Harris his two majorities in Ontario.
Unlike our friends in Nova Scotia, we were there.
No mentioned of low-income schools Doug,. Just 3 million dollars plus in real estate neighbourhoods. and I bet the kids have the tutors, and the extra activities plus quite a few going to private schools. The schools and the school board can sit back and watch the parents fund raise the dollars for all the extras. Plus, can’t have the schools waiting for repairs, and replacement of equipment, and so they are never kept waiting, like the other schools.
The public education system is still the 19th century design model, keeping the class structure in place. And the delivery of education goes accordingly.
Schools closing in urban areas, most of them are low to middle income schools. Not one in the high rent district, and if it did come close to closing, ship in other students from neighbouring school zones.
Real estate agents check out schools and other services as selling features to sell homes. Even the crime stats and other such stats.
But at least it tells everyone, any schools outside of the high rent district, the odds do not look good for the students, their achievement and all of the many future doors being slammed well in advance, due to the teaching methods and curriculum.
In BC a three day strike, and after that, one day strike per week. But the BC union will be shut down when the government imposes the contract, and no they won’t be allow to strike according to the newspaper reports. Legislating them back to work, as well as not being allow to strike in the future.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/seven-misconceptions-about-how-students-learn/2012/02/13/gIQAenfFCR_blog.html
7 Myths
They are EQAO scores for public schools. Paul greyson at York proved that when you control for SES public schools do better than private schools, In other words, rich public schools do better than rich private schools.
I’m not sure you understood the link. You better read it again.
no they won’t be allow to strike according to the newspaper reports.
They can’t strike “during the cooling off period” BTW the BC election is coming soon and the Liberals are way behind. This could kill them.
Gotta catch up on the news Doug.
“Earlier this week, the Labour Relations Board ruled the teachers can stage a three-day strike once, and then strike one day a week after that. But hours after that ruling was issued, the province introduced legislation that would make any strike illegal until Aug. 31.
That means teachers will only be in a legal strike position until the legislation is passed.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03/01/bc-teachers-strike-bctf.html
Wrong! It was individual teachers NOT doing what their union asked of them that got Mike Harris his two majorities in Ontario.
Unlike our friends in Nova Scotia, we were there.
You don’t need teacher votes to win, I doubt if many teachers voted for Harris, eventually teachers did in Ernie Evea. remember “Not this time Ernie?..” paid for by teachers.
Can you red Nancy, NO STRIKE UNTIL AUGUST. Not no strike ever.
“…the teachers do what the union asks them to do. Period.”
Doug
——————————————————————————————–
Sounds like a union rule by decree to me.
So,
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/68341-money-won-t-solve-education-woes-without-will-change
Here is another parent Doug, who sees the union needs come before the students and that has to change.
It didn’t happen Steven. Many teachers voted for Mike Harris. No union head is actually IN the voting booth. I believe teachers when they tell me the truth.
Funny thing Doug, CTV this morning called it a 3 day strike.
Maybe you should call the news media, and asked them to correct it.
Steven – should be seeing more parents writing in. Wonderful letter, speaking to parents concerns that often go unheard versus the BLOB and its needs.
And more money won’t solve it. Last part of the letter, “The collective failing outcome of the provincial math exam is, for all purposes, the canary. The public school system is the coalmine. Our children and their futures are the casualties if we don’t find and act decisively on the will to make long overdue, necessary, practical changes to the system.”
Nancy exactly why I state all taxpayers regardless if they have children in school or not should have the choice of where their tax dollars go in regards to schooling. As a business man if I don’t support huge waste boarding on moral and possible criminal behavior then I should have the right to say no.
This crap that Doug would say about a greater public good is only good for trade unions executive. Contributing to the illiteracy that comes out of the Public schools to me is a crime. Teachers starting at twice the per capita gdp of nova scotia without job performance evaluations and consequences for poor performance is without morality. The case of an Ontario Parent having child protective services sicked on him because his child drew a gun on a piece of paper in a elementary school shows Teachers in this country are ducking and diverting attention from their performance in incredible new ways.
PISA math results
Click to access 46643496.pdf
Canada what # 5 in all of OECD. Asian countries many many more hours of math, math specialist since grade 1, Finland 4% child poverty rate.
There is no math problem in Canada, NONE, ZERO, NADA.
Under our circumstances we do better than anyone in the world. If you would like the kids to come to school at 8 leave at 5 for supper and come back until 9PM I’m sure we can pass those Asian nations.
They cannot write an essay to save their lives. It all has to be taught once they are here.
You can keep trying to “manufacture” problems where there are none but you will notice nobody is buying.
“There is no math problem in Canada,…”
Doug
———————————————————————————————
Another manufactured problem Doug?
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/62481-shelburne-students-blame-substitutes-math-disasters
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Take a calculator away from a graduate of High School and many will have problems calculating HST percentage on 20 dollars. Qualified persons in the workplace should be able to do that simple math task with a pen and paper or even better in their head. Doug you don’t happen to be a WW2 denier ? I suppose you believe the earth is flat as well.
Good one Paul Taylor! Well done.
Steven, the letter is very confused and seems to come from a very uninformed parent. Take a look at the scores re SES in what is still a below average income province.
Solve your poverty problem and your education problem will follow.
Solve the poverty problem ? Doug we spent 1.1 billion provincial dollars annually on what looks to be an utter failure in public education for about 100,000 plus students . Municipalities in Nova Scotia then also spend huge portions of the ratepayers money on schools. Halifax as a municipality alone spends over 90 million dollars annually on the HRM school board. I guess we solve the poverty problem by enriching the teacher union with two one billion dollar bailouts boarding on a third in Nova Scotia. What should have happened on the second bail out was an outright refusal . If the Teachers Union then striked FIRE THEM all like towns in Rhode Island did.
I know of one town in Nova Scotia that installed an energy efficient ice making plant for the local arena that is located beside the largest high school in rural Nova Scotia. It was proposed by town council that the project engineers could route huge amounts of excess heat into the high school making for a huge cost savings for the school board. The School Board REFUSED. This is the failure we deal with in control of our school system . Failures at business and failures at their assigned task of making productive educated citizen over 12 years of having our kids.
Your thought would be we continue to borrow to solve the poverty problem. That indeed is how Greece. Italy and many countries have gone in the ruts they are in.
Education solves poverty problems not the opposite of poverty creating an education problem. The left leaning United Nations knows that education is the root to solving poverty. For reference Doug Shelburne has some fairly decent industries making some good dollars. THe Irvings have a ship repair and fab shop there. Certainly a place that one has to be able to do math. Potential employees of that plant not being able to do math jeopardizes the business. This Irving yard is going to be part of a 25 billion dollar department of national defense contract that will happen over the next 25 years.
Hate to inform you Doug the assumption that the province of Nova Scotia is poor flies in the face of a Sobeys HQed in Nova Scotia among many other businesses that are national and even international.
It figures Doug, it is obvious that what the parent wrote – the tone was frustration. Confused, no. Far from it,
Doug doesn’t like parents who are connecting the dots, showing the forces within the public education system are not good for the students and their futures.
Education minister Jennex is attempting to do just that – hence the cuts to the education budget. She knows choice is on the way and private ed is growing.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/61466-most-ns-school-boards-face-cuts
Doug, PISA and passing the math portion is arithmetic with a tiny bit of algebra.
“Canada has seen a 10-point decline in reading scores over the last decade, a five-point drop in math scores since 2003 and a five-point decline in science scores since 2006, though Hugonnier points out the latter two changes are too small to be considered statistically significant. (The report provides different time frames for comparison because the three subject assessments were introduced at different times.)”
“The proportion of Canadian students with inadequate reading skills “to participate actively and productively in life” now sits at 10.3 per cent, up from 9.6 per cent a decade ago, while the proportion of “top performers” has fallen from 16.8 to 12.8 per cent over the same period.
“You have more students with major difficulties; you have less students performing very well,” Hugonnier says.”
http://www.mathmagic.ca/2011/02/canadian-students-slip-in-global-ranking-of-math-science-reading-skills/
PISA does not and never will indicate if the students are proficient in mathematics, and will be well prepared in advance math at the senior secondary and post-secondary.
Even OECD has noted the same percentages where 50 percent of students are low achievers in math, and it matches the Canadian stat of approximately 52 percent of the adult population have low levels of numeracy.
Why don’t you go on WISE and debate the issue with the math professors. Or better yet, phone them and discussed it with them. Well you are at it, contact the private tutors in the Toronto area, and asked them if math is a concern. Than go check out the colleges and universities, and the many remediation courses available in writing and math, to which their is a cost, that is paid by the students.
Finally, go asked the parents who are the professional engineers, the scientists, the accountants, managers, and the store owners, if there is not a math problem. Than asked the individual teachers ,
In Steven’s link, ” What is the impact of a poor final math mark on a student’s life choices? Hundreds of great career opportunities require functionality in regular and advanced math. Thanks to what is not working in our system, hundreds of Nova Scotia kids can cross those careers off their lists.”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/68341-money-won-t-solve-education-woes-without-will-change
Not only Nova Scotia kids, but thousands and thousands of kids across the country are crossing off careers because they have weak foundations in math.
Paul Taylor said:
“Education solves poverty problems not the opposite of poverty creating an education problem. The left leaning United Nations knows that education is the root to solving poverty. ”
It`s amazing that this fact has been lost on the Unions and school boards they use it instead to hijack accountability.
They`re poor so they can`t learn is their mantra,give us more money and we`ll fix it.
We actually need a fund and a site,God knows they`ll have one,a social media innovation where concerned citizens all contribute money to equalize the agendas of the Union.When I tell people this is their mantra,they can`t believe it.
How low can you stoop-all pretending you are more compassionate as NDP/Liberals than Conservatives who want accountability.
In Ontario,the press is illuminating the populace on the greed of the Teacher`s Unions.
Shows the utter contempt that education deniers like Doug have for the population outside their inner sanctums. You poor people we will pick your pockets every year and we will have you pay for 70 percent of an income twice the GDP per capita from the time we retire until we die. We can be hired after retirement as sub teachers and consultants.
You have absolutely no say how we rip you off and by the way we are holding your kids hostage.
Sums up the situation really
Jo-anne these unions don’t care for anyone but those in the own empires.
A rational person would get that if a Union can’t fund their pension plan with proper investments then they should not handle anything having to do with financial choices of the Department of Education or the School Boards.
It amounts to massive embezzlement of future generations. Not a lesson we should be teaching. Oh you fail as a group of people here’s a billion dollars. Preserving those entitlements that is what it is all about even if it includes heavy debt positions. A schools run as businesses would respond both to the stakeholders and possible shareholders. Encouraging capitalism and efficiency would be the key lesson I would wish to see in any schools .
Oh Jo Anne until recently IF I was a member of the Ontario Teachers Union I could say . ‘Jo Anne have a couple of pass for a Box at the Air Canada Centre want to go see the raptors of the leaf’s we own a good part of those teams . Yeah the monopoly of education worked like a charm for Ontario Teachers minus the Leafs not winning the cup since the 1960s
This crap that Doug would say about a greater public good is only good for trade unions executive. Contributing to the illiteracy that comes out of the Public schools to me is a crime
There is no illiteracy problem.
Poverty causes illiteracy, illiteracy does not cause poverty.
“No Illiteracy problem” huh how come Doug in practically all provinces there are Adult literacy programs in this 21st century despite a public system that anyone who wishes can attend for 12 years? What is that Doug just another make work project in Canada that benefits the teachers union?. Your grasp of macro-economics Doug is unparalleled and takes my breathe away. I am glad I have a computer keyboard to communicate with because now I am speechless. I suppose Adult Literacy labs exists and are well attended in every public library in Nova Scotia because the parents are interfering too much in Public education system which are no cost to learn at? Doug is the problem we didn’t pay teachers 5 times the Per capita GDP as opposed to twice the per capita amount for a teacher starting a career ? I guess we just could not make out those billion dollar bale-out cheques fast enough for teachers to perform the job since the early 70s in order for them to prevent need for Adult Literacy classes in 2012 across Canada.
Poverty causes Illiteracy, I guess, if we are being bleed the population dry via taxes that go to rewarding failure of the public education system then we will become very poor. We have to truly be illiterate if we don’t see wholesale theft and failure. How stupid of me Doug I get it now Adult literacy programs is another socialist work scheme so teachers unions can then have pension money to buy the Toronto Maple Leafs in some cases.
Illiteracy causes poverty unless of course you are a Canadian Union of Postal Workers member who only has to know the alphabet and numbers to perform the job. With modern sorting machines you don’t even have to know who to read. Of course hey illiteracy in that Union environment creates wealth totally undeserved for a cliche of few.
You realize this is a ludicrous statement,teach them properly and see what happens.
Your stance is called an excuse.
Oh Jo Anne until recently IF I was a member of the Ontario Teachers Union I could say . ‘Jo Anne have a couple of pass for a Box at the Air Canada Centre want to go see the raptors of the leaf’s we own a good part of those teams . Yeah the monopoly of education worked like a charm for Ontario Teachers minus the Leafs not winning the cup since the 1960s
You really have no clue what you are talking about. That was the Ontario Teachers’ pension Plan not the union. 2 totally differnt things.
we will have you pay for 70 percent of an income twice the GDP per capita from the time we retire until we die. We can be hired after retirement as sub teachers and consult
Boo hoo, you should have become a teacher.
Go ahead kick the teachers in the backside, you will have no teachers and will be begging them to come back soon.
Harris created a teacher shortage in Ontario as everybody who could retire under his regime did so, same in New Zealand.
Ontario taxpayers have normally matched teacher pension contributions, right? No doubt the gov would happily be willing to match teacher contributions at a lower level.
As to teachers retiring in response to Harris several family members would be surprised to hear that. The good news is that we have scads of teacher wannbes willing, and qualified, to replace the ones who leave.
But now we have thousands of teachers unemployed,we graduate them and years later-still no job.
Here is a link to poverty and Literacy-the big excuse for school board failure.
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/edu/hedcew5-53.000/hedcew5-53.htm
Incredible dumb statement of Doug, and in behind it is the motive of greed of the stakeholders at the expense of the students’ education.
Low levels of achievement in math, and in particular the foundation math costs individual students lost job opportunities, as well as government at the federal and provincial levels in providing math upgrading skills at a greater expense than if the math skills were taught well in the elementary and secondary.
Teachers’ unions practice the worst form of elitism and classism that excludes and prevents students from reaching their full potential to realized their dreams.
Below is a 3 part series by the National Post, showing the elitism and classism at work.. But the school board and everyone within call it equity and is a fair policy. It sure appears the second largest school board in Ontario, the parents are jumping on the band wagon of choice, much to the dismay of the school board, the union and everyone inside it.
Part 1 – .http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Part+Crossing+boundaries+Public+board+policy+families+move+literally/6200394/story.html
Part 2 – http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Part+Crossing+boundaries+public+board+transfer+policy+true+equalizer/6206804/story.html
Part 3 –
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Part+Bigger+always+better/6210664/story.html
Here is a link to poverty and Literacy-the big excuse for school board failure.
Of course this is what right wingers think because they want the answer to be “free” no additional cost just change teaching style.
It doesn’t work and has been rejected time after time.
“No Illiteracy problem” huh how come Doug in practically all provinces there are Adult literacy programs in this 21st century despite a public system that anyone who wishes can attend for 12 years?
Those adult literacy courses (I was chair of Adult Education at Toronto board) are full of immigrants not educated here, hinterland resource extraction people, early drop-outs and people with significant learning problems. Very few are products of our school system in recent decades.
People see doctors and still die, lawyers lose man cases, … there is no guarantee that people who have been taught have actually learned. I have interviewed dozens of adult illiterates for masters work. “I seldom went to school and skipped off as much as I could because I had trouble learning” this is the most common response.
Nobody said the Canadian system is PERFECT, It is just superior to every other system on the planet.
Wonder Doug what percentage of those Adult Illiterates are products of private schools ? Survey says ZERO
People see doctors and still die, lawyers lose man cases, … there is no guarantee that people who have been taught have actually learned. I have interviewed dozens of adult illiterates for masters work. “I seldom went to school and skipped off as much as I could because I had trouble learning” this is the most common response
No nothing is certain but one thing is a couple of groups of public servants in Nova Scotia will be fishing for more billion dollar bailouts .
there is no guarantee that people who have been taught have actually learned
Correct my friend that is why you A. Test despite the loud protests of the Union to cover up Teachers that cannot teach. B. hold yearly job performance reviews of all teachers . C. dismiss the ones who don’t cut the muster D. allow the taxpayers the choice of funding which system they desire Public or Private. Competition always produces better results . If you suck at what you do you don’t survive. ON option B. I think a three strikes and your out would apply nicely and fairly . These bad teachers could be reassigned to become guidance councilors or other staff.
Of course what we have in a totally incestuous relationship among the TAXPAYERS employees
You realize this is a ludicrous statement,teach them properly and see what happens.
Your stance is called an excuse.
Read the Harold Alden Thesis, the best work on the causes of adult illiteracy in Canada.
The vast majority of adult illiterates are poor ipso facto, poverty causes illiteracy not the other way around.
The American education reform movement is moving past the “excuses” stage because they realize the overwhelming research shown that poverty is the primary cause of education problems and the denial of it simply makes them look ignorant, backward and out of date.
They are adapting. It is time some Canadians caught up.
So lets think of this Jo Anne this is the same blame the victim thinking that would say you are wearing a skirt so you were asking to be sexually assaulted ? Hey the real victim is the Teacher Jo Anne how dare we question Doug’s theory . Gosh I am poor and I apparently don’t have a Brain or learning potential either so there is no teacher will every keep me from being illiterate forever. Gosh teacher here is your 70 k cheque for Iding another group of poor people nice job you did this year. Too bad we have to throw up our hands and blame the victim
OH I forgot , We teachers are the victims and thus we are compensated nicely
Try reading my links,you might learn something-we`re different,I defer to research-you know everything already-tragic attitude.
http://www.thenewnationbd.com/newsdetails.aspx?newsid=23407
http://dailycensored.com/2011/12/22/poverty-matters-a-christmas-miracle-pt-1/
Go ahead kick the teachers in the backside, you will have no teachers and will be begging them to come back soon.
Harris created a teacher shortage in Ontario as everybody who could retire under his regime did so, same in New Zealand.
OH the poor souls that teach our children Jo-anne . We indeed run torture camps that we enslave the poor little darlings for 40 years and that is why they leave us in droves. They “work” for 6 hours a day 5 days a week have a couple of weeks off for Christmas, a week off in March , two months off in the Summer, Total teaching year 190 days a year . Start at a pay twice the GDP per capita in many places . Can then go to summer university courses at the taxpayers expense and automatically get raises in pay regardless if they can teach or not. Can bundle sick days through out their careers to then take full pay for their last year of service without stepping foot in the class that last year. Get a pension that is indexed with inflation. Get a pension at 70 percent of their wage . Get rewarded in the case of Nova Scotia for the failure of their investment choices of their pension funds not once but twice at one billion dollars. Very often they double dip as consultants or sub teachers. Are only fired if they commit a capital crime and not for non-performance unlike the rest of the working public that works practical every day of the year. Put out a product that is sub-standard according to many businesses I know of in Canada.
OH suffer the little teachers. I don’t know how you possible survive with all those hardships that are akin to Moses leading the poor Israelite out of accident Egypt.
Yeah my heart bleeds for the ever suffering teacher as they fly off to Florida for professional development classes at the taxpayers expense much like the walk across the parted Red Sea. Teachers could never survive in the real world Poor souls after all they are so mistreated in their bunkers and barely cling to life in mental isolation. Why don’t I take up teaching ? Well lets say some people actually have a moral compass or what is right and wrong today. Not my cup of tea to preach politics before a captive audience which happens on a constant basis in Public Schools. That indeed should be automatic grounds for dismissal and scraping of the system. I would never want to be subject to a Union or education system that said “Paul you have to read “Norwegian Wood” to the grade 5 students or else” . The orgy message is probably something “good parents” would wish we teach of 8 year olds.
Wow we will have No Teachers if we kick them in the backside Doug. What says we have teachers now considering the amount of Adult Literacy classes we need in this country ? Oh of course I forgot Doug lives in the imaginary land of OZ and he is yelling “never mind that man behind the curtain” as Toto reveals the truth . My point about the Ontario Teachers Fund is they indeed become way to enriched via the TAXPAYERS and then make stupid investment in losing teams like the LEAFs.
That post is so full of misinformation from a very uninformed poster. I won’t even bother.
The OTPP is one of the largest pools of capital in Canada due to good investment decisions.
Promise?
Glad the Taxpayers got ripped for decades hey congrats on that Doug
I can agree with that Catherine, especially after the recent topic about muffled voices and teachers starting to speak out. The one thing the unions can’t control is who teachers really vote for in the polling both.
The focus has to remain on the effect a top heavy educratocracy has on teachers, the students and their classroom – not the teacher unions efforts to keep the debate centered on a critical and poor level of education funding which has in reality been historically poorly managed.
I saw a televised CBC news report on the BC. situation today and it was all but sponsored by the teachers union. Never was the hierarchy mentioned as having a role to play in the decline. Students with placards and teachers bemoaning the lack of money and resources – but no one looking up at Mount Olympus.
The work of Paul Greyson at York shows that when you control for SES public school students outperform private school students.
Big student strike in support of teachers today in BC.
Bob Rae hammered Ontario teachers with social contract gone next election
Harris-Eves hammered education with cutbacks gone took 2 elections
Dalton McGuinty will hammer teachers in this term, gone next election, entire public service will suport NDP Liberals will come 3rd. 107 seats unless additions in time
I predict, PC 50, NDP 35 Lib 22
Libs will have to choose, support PCs or NDP.
Big difference between illiterates and low reading skills Doug. Less than 1 percent for illiterates in the industrialized countries including Canada. As for adults with low reading skills, climbing yearly and some have said by 2030 will reached the 50 percent mark, and low numeracy skills will reached the 60 percent mark by 2030.
Students who have low reading skills, struggled in learning at school. Ditto for students with low numeracy skills. It translate into young adults struggling in being blocked from coming contributing productive members of society, as well as navigating in today’s complex society. Rather sad, since the public education of the K to 12 variety, could not so much more to ensure that all students have a solid foundation in the 3 Rs. which is the key to raising achievement for all students and more importantly reaching their full potential.
My youngest brought to my attention, 17 NL schools will take part in the Brain Storm Competition. Trying to convince my youngest to participate, because she might have a slim chance based on her science knowledge versus reading foundation skills. The highest score will received $125 and move up to the next level, and than the international level.
” Welcome
We are academic revolutionaries, organizing programs and competitions for the youth. Building up young talents and harnesing brains, for the mental development of our future generation.
Brain Storm Competition is an annual program specially organised by group of educational ethusiast for young minds and aspiring future leaders. Our goal is to assist our young teens acheive success in their academic pursuit.”
http://brainstormcompetition.com/index.php
“2012 BRAIN STORM COMPETITION
The Brain Storm competition for NL high schools will be held Saturday, April 14th 2012 at Memorial University, Health Sciences Centre.
We will be contacting high schools throughout the province as of January 23, 2012. Information packages will be sent out beginning January 30, 2012. The results of in school competitions should be submitted by March 16th 2012. ”
http://www.med.mun.ca/BioMed/ProgramsOfStudy/Neuroscience/Brain-Storm.aspx
“The Brain Storm competition is structured like a spelling bee, except instead of studying a dictionary, students study the newly published booklet Brain Facts: A primer on the brain and nervous system, produced by the Society for Neuroscience. Students study the booklet and then participate in a live question-and-answer competition to test their knowledge of the brain and nervous system. For example, the students are quizzed about how the brain relates to intelligence, memory, emotions, sensations, movement, stress, aging, sleep and brain disorders.”
http://www.med.mun.ca/munmed/182/pg14-182.htm
Opportunities abound for students who have good foundation skills. However, there is far fewer students having solid foundation skills, being produced in the public education system.
As for Doug’s retort, “Read the Harold Alden Thesis, the best work on the causes of adult illiteracy in Canada.”
http://www.nald.ca/library/research/chap/index.htm
I only read bits and pieces, because it is all about making up the excuses, to fit the poverty theories, and redirect all eyes away from the public education system, that is producing anywhere between 30 to 60 percent of grade 12 graduates with low literacy and numeracy skills. As for the percentages,thankfully it is the literacy organizations that are increasing their focus on the K to 12 education systems.
Which brings to the National Post series, that I posted earlier in my second last post. Parents want choice beyond the local school, especially when the achievement scores are low, and more so in numeracy. Why should students be stuck in a low-achieving school, and worse yet when students are stuck in a local school, that does not provide for their learning needs that best suits their interests and reaching a student’s full potential?
Thing is Nancy in Newfoundland they actually allow something that makes perfect sense in education by necessity. Upper grade students helping lower grade students and those Upper Grade students gaining funds for attending Memorial University. The teachers unions in the rest of Canada , especially Nova Scotia would never allow that. This unique Newfoundland experience happens in remote out port schools that all grades are under one roof.
This happened in my father’s school days in the late 40’s and 50’s the Teacher Union started to invade every political seat in the province and put an end to a very successful thing. Doug talks of class size and how Unions limited those . Sadly the results got worse in the mix. My parents were in classes of 40. Today in Nova Scotia you would be pressed to get to the maximum the Union bargained for . There is just not the children due to birthrates. home schooling and an exploding use of private schools. The Teachers Union here has no danger of ever seeing huge class sizes but hey Doug would think one student was too much for these pour teachers to deal with. After all teachers are special
I assume you are talking about the tutoring for tuition dollars. And the K to 12 schools. There is 262 K to 12 schools in NL, and 25 percent of the schools are the all in one K to 12 schools. The reason why class size is the lowest in Canada, I believe (I just going by memory) is 60 percent of the schools are in rural NL, reducing the overall provincial class size stat. Last time I check, it is at 14.
The teachers union in NL are more amendable to reforms, especially if the reforms can make their job easier, and benefits the students. One thing that is never heard from the NL teachers’ union is the outrageous statements made by the mainland unions. Nor is there much political action on their part, compared to the Ontario teachers’ unions. I just wish that the teachers’ union pressed for reforms in instruction and curriculum, or get the high school teachers to tell the stories of remediating the 3 Rs and stuff that should have been learned in grade school.
My local high school, is determined to have each and every grade 12 graduate walk into post-secondary without every needing remediation and upgrading in the 3 Rs. And it really shows in the high school students, their achievement and behaviour. How many teens are eager to go to school? This bunch is in my corner of the world are eager, , because they see themselves progressing which motivates them to learn more. From what I was told by the teachers, the school is too far away for the school board to interfered in how and what is being taught. Besides that, the school board staff always calls in advance, to alert the school days and weeks in advance.
My beef is not with the individual teachers, but the unions and the other stakeholders with the hidden interests and agendas.
By the way the local teachers tell the kids, don’t become teachers, the pay is lousy compared to other fields, especially the trades. And that is if one can find a full time position. Meanwhile, at the career fairs at high schools, Memorial and North Atlantic College, are always pushing at the trades, the sciences, medical field, and other fields that requires a full slate of high school math and science courses. The other day, the principal suggested to my youngest, should could become a geophysicist, instead of the forensics field. Now she is going back and forth in her mind of questioning her only choice since grade 4, the forensics field, and entertaining the possibility of other fields. Not bad for a kid who was labelled by one of the educrats at the school board, as being developmentally slow. It was used as the excuse for low achievement in reading and primary math, and the reason why my request was turned down to assessed my child for learning disabilities.
The union leadership have no control over how their members vote so the idea that the membership will move, en masse, to the NDP is wishful thinking. Heck, I suspect there’d be a windfall for the other parties if the feds came out in support of the Dippers. They’re the epitome of big labour putting their own interests ahead of society; a hard sell nowadays.
The writer is quite juvenile to postulate that a reformer believes a student’s home life is irrelevant. On the contrary, home life is why education funding is scrutinized and program delivery is analysed. It is often where a student finds the most support for the chaotic mess many public schools are in today.
Inner city public schools? I could say, like Doug – move to Fort McMoney.
But parents don’t contend with that kind of shallow logic. They contend with community and depth of experience. Something as simple as the experience of kids walking to school, or a reasonable bus ride – not a pilgrimage. Or a school with teachers who have some elbow room to teach without being manipulated by unions or intimidation.
http://www.examiner.com/k-12-in-topeka/pisa-poverty-and-profits
Poverty causes low results.
The important thing John is the money. The teachers together give the Libs and the NDP over $400 000 each per year every year and more in an election year. They also freeup hundreds of union staff to work full time in seats that could go either way.
In future all of this will go to the NDP none to the Liberals. Teachers about 120 000 are only about 1200 per riding, are the smallest part of the effort but can swing some marginal seats. Teacher know by now not to vote PC, they will now add Liberal to the list.
In a nut shell it matters very little how teachers vote. What matters is where their money and professional workers go.
In Ontario teachers also contribute heavily to the Working Families Coalition. There will be a new coalition that attacks Tories and Liberals.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/schools-we-can-envy/?pagination=false
Without unions the kids would still be in the mines and mills, you would all be working 60 hours a week including Saturday for half the money. there would be no pensions, medicare, public libraries, whatever.
Without teachers’ unions classes would be twice the size, resources would be very thin, board staff would be hiring relatives, etc.
If so Doug, than teachers unions should also be held accountable for every adult with low levels of literacy and numeracy. The 40 percent or so of grade 3 students with low literacy and numeracy levels, as well as the grade 6 students. The teachers unions should also be held accountable and pay for every student that leaves grade with low literacy and numeracy skills, the remediation needed so they can advance in their learning if they wish to.
This line of reasoning, the unions can also be credited for starting the wars, famine, and the dropped of the private unions in Canada to a new low of 17 %, compared to the public sector of 75 % of union concentration. The latter reason public sector unions killed the private unions bit by bit, over the years through their negotiation tactics of holding the public hostage and the sitting government. All done by reducing the quality of services being received, in order to create the conditions to demand more government funding to finance the public services.
My father was a union man in the private sector, in the bad old days where there was unsafe conditions, and he was a trades person. The first set of certification came with him at his grade 12 graduation sometime in the mid 1930s, in a technical school. Of course technical schools have been thrown out, along with the baby – unions only promote one-sized-fits-all and no guarantee of being able to read well. If my was alive he would laugh so hard, what the unions get on with, complaining about their working conditions as if it was a hardship and doing harm to their body and life. His worst would be the public sector unions, and in particular schools. In his day, he actually expected schools to educate his children to become well-rounded students and when report card time came, it would be his proof. Much like the supervisor of his work place would have his proof by judging the quality of workmanship my father produced.
Go talk to the old-timers Doug, the union guys of the private sector, a lot of them are tutoring their own grandchildren on the foundations in math and reading and writing. None are too please on the quality of education being received, but are flabbergasted at what goes on in the public sector unions, especially the teachers’ union. Claiming the credit from everything to health to education to children’s welfare and yet will not allow anyone to hold any of the public sector unions to account for the negative outcomes of the public that results in poorer services, quality, just to pay for the bloated salaries and staff of the public sector unions because there is little left to serve the public and its services.
My father if he was alive, he would have been financing the education for my youngest, after he had determined for himself, the current public education model is incapable of looking after the simple garden variety of reading disorders because all of the stakeholders are too busy looking after their own self-serving best interests.
Teachers’ unions and other public sector unions are in for a rough ride, because over the years they have killed the support of the public. Using excuses to defend one’s actions instead of accounting for one’s action, will always kill the support of those who are nearby. My father could not abide excuses, but he was always willing to listen if one of the kids could account for themselves and their actions.
Choice is riding the wave, and soon it will be surfing time for the public . The public sector unions and other stakeholders of the government is pushing it along by the swallow logic of unions.
Steven’s words should be repeated – “But parents don’t contend with that kind of shallow logic. They contend with community and depth of experience. Something as simple as the experience of kids walking to school, or a reasonable bus ride – not a pilgrimage. Or a school with teachers who have some elbow room to teach without being manipulated by unions or intimidation.”
mines and mills ? gosh Doug you are so 19th century we send down the Pit ponies for the mines those jobs. Children are meant to club seals in the spring and pick potatoes in the fall .
“With teachers unions classes would be twice the size” . OMG it is because Teacher Unions have alienated themselves from a vast part of the population who don’t reside in a fantasy cloud with liberal dozes of arrogance that you don’t have the student numbers that would approach anything close to 30 students in many rural schools. People have options these days and they exercise them. Having fewer kids, sending those kids to private schools, keeping them at home and home schooling. It is pretty clear. Teachers in Nova Scotia used to take turns supervising lunch rooms. Not any more despite many schools in danger of closure because of declining enrollment in public schools. No Declining enrollment in the private sector however.
No doubt all sorts of non-union workers would ba shocked to find out what a miserable and meaningless life they’re forced to lead. Keep in mind that far more workers aren’t in a union than are.
John I have been around Unions in different professions and it is pretty clear they are glorified canine abusers, Slow down you will work us out of a job LOL.
What unions do it milk that crap out of things. Today Unions have outlived their usefulness and are much of our debt ills.
Nancy seems like a good system that is born out of certain realities of distance and population density in Newfoundland. Good practices in other places should be applied . I have stated to Denise Delorey that this is a great example that keeps small communities alive in Newfoundland. Antigonish and that part of Nova Scotia has those challenges that Denise fights with the support of parents all the time.
The entire bigger is better thing really does not work. Busing for extended time periods is not good as well. In parts of Newfoundland it is one community and then 150 miles of road to the next place practically. I actually admire the sense of community that is needed over there but is sadly being taken apart by certain school boards in Nova Scotia. Again in part the education system and the Unions are not intelligent enough to save money and schools. One of the most unique schools in Canada in my opinion is at Mud Lake Labrador. One Room , apartment for the teacher upstairs 20 some students.
Paul T., Mud Lake school is down to two students. A 2011 CBC radio interview on Mud Lake School.
http://www.cbc.ca/labradormorning/episodes/2011/09/14/two-student-school-in-mud-lake/
Closing down of rural schools was a way at one time in NL, but has not been the practice for the last 10 years or so.
Repairing the schools, and building a few new ones are now the practice. But I had to laugh, two years ago, they came to repair the local high school roof, at a price tag of $325,000. Approximately 3 million dollars later, and six months later the students walk into a brand new retro-fitted school, with the latest gadgets and technology. The only thing that was not change was the lockers. Parents walk into the school, and were impressed. After all the parents agree to have the students parked themselves over at the town hall and community centre which was once an elementary school, that was quickly transformed into a school, and wired for the technology and laptops. The town benefited because the community centre part was done over, and the former tenants returned to newly renovated facilities and wired. After all the town was not charging the school board rent, and it helps to have the mayor a teacher.
A simple roof repair, went to plumbing problems, to asbestos problems, to mould problems, to electrical problems plus two electrical fires and the roof needed a complete overhaul. The high school is now a top-notch school facility with the latest technology gear and a top-notch security system, inside and outside. Funny thing, after all the money spent at the high school, they could not find the money for a can of paint to paint the front office and the teachers’ staff room. It look so funny in a room with the latest computers, furniture, desks and latest technology, and most parents commented what happen they ran out of money. The teachers in the summer got together and painted the office and staff room. Now it is really impressive, when strangers come into town from other school districts, are impress and more so for the out of province people that show up from time to time.
By the way, the only solution was to repair the school, because transporting the students 52 kms away, using 4 buses would a been lot more expensive than the repair job. So the kids live in a sardine can, but it was worth the wait when the high school was reopen. All I ever heard when I picked up my youngest, was the sardine can line, and being stuck in one class room more or less, and where the teachers came to the classroom. Gym was cancelled and the full use of technology devices were allowed that the students had, and encourage by the staff.
Yeah I could imagine it going that low for enrollment. I ways much better to have the children near their parents in the community then shipping them off. I think we will see online education taking learning right in homes. Of course hey Doug will deny anyone wants that
School Choice continues to flourish in Canada’s leading education province. On Thursday March 1, Alberta Education Minister announced that the province will be giving the 13 charter schools a new license to grow:
This Metro News report carried the story:
“Enrolment caps for Alberta charter schools will be relaxed, but finding room to cram in more students will likely pose a challenge….
Thomas Lukaszuk said his government will fully support applications by charter schools to boost their allotted enrolment and is also extending the terms of agreement with such institutions to 15 years, up from the current five-year term.
“Charter schools have a proven track record in Alberta … we will continue dialoging with all stakeholders in Alberta education and see whether there’s room to grow and desire to do that,” he said.
But overall growth within current charter schools will be “nominal,” Lukaszuk said, likely less than 2,000 additional spaces province-wide.
Parents with children already enrolled said Thursday they know of wait-lists more than double the size of the school’s actual capacity.
“I know my kids are lucky,” said Shelley Schroh, a Calgary mother with four children enrolled in two charter programs” (Metro News)
For the link: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/1113580–charter-schools-get-licence-to-grow
Comment:
Charter school advocates have been recommending these changes since 1994 when Alberta first introduced charters. Charter pioneer Dr. Joe Freedman always felt that the restrictive legislation was intended to curb their growth and to appease defenders of the “single provider” system. It’s about time that the charters were given the green light, allowing them to expand!
my question on this is with many people from Nova Scotia working and living out in Alberta will we eventually see the Charter school concept come back to Nova Scotia.
I bumped into little gem quite by accident, and the author of the first link, is also the former minister of education for PEI.and now back into health portfolio.
http://www.dougcurrie.ca/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,print,0&cntnt01articleid=107&cntnt01showtemplate=false&cntnt01returnid=57
http://www.dougcurrie.ca/about-doug/
Quite the union man, conservative hater, and blame everything on the SEC factors. One would think after reading the first link, somehow the Doug, we all know and love, has been clone eagerly closing down small schools, big boxed schools of the one-sized-fits-all kind, and waiting for the go ahead by the union brass. Now it is health union brass….
Nancy all the Media is right wing according to trade unionists because the private sector takes true stock unvarnished views of situations. The incredible quote I will pick out of that is ” if the city with the overwhelming number of immigrant and ESL students compounded by some of the deepest poverty in the province ought to somehow be leading.”
Again blaming the victims for the teachers lack of performing the task at hand. I wonder if I could have pulled that one at a Microsoft support centre considering 33 percent of the staff were Sri Lankan? OH our teacher for Microsoft did not do well because there were too many Sri Lankans in the class. Yeah that would be accepted considering these were the most attentive students that excelled as support techs beyond white middle class people like me.
Again this author is in the same blame shifting mindset that would say a what a woman wears sets her up for sexual assault and that the real victim is the sexual assaulter who didn’t have a good childhood because his parents were on welfare. Society this sexual assault happened because you didn’t provide a jacuzzi for every welfare family which a Union member would come clean on Tuesdays. The gardener will come cut the lawn on Thursdays.
When the light is shined on performance the Unions claim and attack from the right and classically try to deflect the real cause which stares them in the mirror every morning. No it is a true picture of the failure of a group of people that are also enriching themselves way beyond the rest of their pier group counterparts in the private sector. Enrichment with no accountability and not taking responsibility for one’s performance is embezzlement.
If a good portion of the “right wing” media did not deliver a message that the population agreed with then they indeed would be out of business. That should be disconcerting to Union types but hey again these people travel through life with little morality.
The Writer of this report seems to ignore that the private media is supported by ad sales and circulation while the voice of the left depends totally on picking the taxpayers pockets to the tune of one billion dollars mainly the CBC. The CBC has been on a left wing bent for over 5 decades. Guys like David Suzuki have made seven figure a year careers out of smearing the very country that provides their salaries. Suzuki actually advocates that Canada should be like Germany for Electricity generation. The fact is 80 percent of all electricity produced in Canada comes from non polluting Nuclear and falling water . 65 percent of German Electrical generation comes from OIL, Natural Gas and Coal. Yeah lets earn about one million a year telling a fable that smears Canada.
Interesting that “student choice” in all of this debate is completely ignored. It’s all about “parent choice” as though parents were the ones gaining an education. Being a parent hardly qualifies anyone to assess an education system. Indeed there are many flaws, but the Charter system in Alberta is not something I would want to see us waste our money on. Essentially it’s a regressive teacher-centred popularity contest that has parents chasing around like a herd of sheep to sign up at what gossip tells them is the best school. Not the basis for making anything approaching a sound decision.
If you want to know what goes on in your child’s school, go in and volunteer. Sit on the parent council and make change happen if that is what you want. There is no substitute for putting in the time, getting to know the professionals and working together. Re-tooling the system in the belief that the past was a better time, hiring new, inexperienced teachers who will jump when you tell them to and spending too many meetings on mission statements instead of actual education is a fools journey. So is putting your belief in the outcome of public testing. All it informs us of is which schools waste the majority of their time preparing for tests that are designed to make adults feel better – and the price is all paid by our children.