“Taking back the schools” is a growing battle cry in America and it has now attracted the attention of Hollywood. In late September 2012, the feature film Won’t Back Down will hit North American movie theatres and stir further school reform activity. The much anticipated movie, featuring frustrated parents seeking to transform a “failing school” in Pittsburgh, PA, is a Norma Rae for the 21st century. Produced by Walden Media, as a powerful sequel to Waiting for Superman (2010), the new drama film stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as a concerned parent and Academy Award nominee Viola Davis as a teacher working together to marshall community support for a petition to restructure and turn around a low performing school.
The film is already attracting widespread public attention and considerable critical fire from inside the school system. A Hollywood epic issuing a call to “Stand Up. Speak Out. Fight for Something Better” is sure to spark more “take back the schools” eruptions and might even fire-up parent activists with the film’s promotional cry of “Let’s Make our Schools Better!” That’s heady stuff for passionate American school reformers, but will it resonate with Canadian parents harbouring similar concerns about their own local schools and wondering who actually drives and controls the publicly-funded school system?
Educational happiness is difficult to gauge and rarely measured in an objective fashion. Annual parent satisfaction surveys conducted by Dr. David Livingston at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education have become something of a joke inside and outside the Ontario public education world. That is why the recent Ipsos Reid poll, released September 6, 2012, was so stunning for parents and educators. An overwhelming majority of Canadians (86%) now express concern about public elementary school children’s performance in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Furthermore, three-quarters of those surveyed (75%) agree that “standardized testing” is “a good way” to measure and compare students’ performance against other provinces and countries.
Public concern about the state of K-12 public education, judging from the Epsos Reid survey, have rarely been higher. Since the mid-1990s, provincial testing and accountability programs have dampened down parental concerns and sent out signals that Education Ministries and school boards were capable of listening and appropriating the language of “improving student learning.” In major school boards like the Halifax Regional School Board, the public mantra has been “Every Child can Learn and Every School Can Improve.” It has, however, mostly been top-down, system-wide accountability meant to raise “the water levels” for all schools within a provincial or regional system.
School choice and charter schools are demonstrating to American parents and families that schooling can be better and far more responsive to the needs of students and the real concerns of today’s parents. While the American education system is in an absolute mess, public charters and independent “start-ups” are meeting a growing demand for quality education, particularly in poorer communities. Over the past few years, parent trigger laws have popped-up in states and school districts and opened the door to some radical strategies for fixing struggling schools. Parent-trigger laws—now in California and three other states—are even getting their “red carpet moment” at recent film showings of Won’t Back Down at both the Republican and Democratic conventions.
The CEO of Anschutz Film Group, David Weil, finds the irrational responses of Randi Weingarten to be completely over-the-top. He told Education Week that the film story is not tied to “any one law or event,” and that the film depicts a number of parents and teacherscollaborating in making changes to a school, not doing battle. Several key characters, he said, “are teachers and are central heroes to the story.”
“We believe that teachers are the unsung heroes of our society and they represent our hope for the future as a nation,” Weil said. “When audiences screen the film in its entirety, they’ll find that the film tells the story of a school where the majority of the teachers are engaged and working to find solutions to the challenges they face in the system.” Weil cautioned against judging “Won’t Back Down” by its trailer. “Would you judge a book by its cover?” he said. While the preview “depicts some of the storylines and issues that are featured in the film,” he said, it is not meant to “summarize the plot.”
How happy are Canadian parents with their provincial school systems and local public schools? Was the recent Ipsos Reid poll an accurate reflection of deep concerns over the teaching of Reading, Writing, and Math in public elementary schools? Will the American film Won’t Back Down get a fair hearing in Canada or be dismissed in a fashion similar to that of the powerful documentary film Waiting for Superman?
Spent some time searching for education polls. The difference between the in-house polls sponsored by the teacher unions, school boards and other stakeholders within the education system and the independent survey polls sponsor by private concerns outside of the education system, are very different. Polar opposites. In-house, parents are very satisfied and the out-of-house polls, public is not at all impressed.
According to a 1996 poll, “Public isn’t impressed: opinion is turning against a school system once admired.”
“Sixty years ago, according to Ontario private school headmaster Harry Giles, Grade 1 students in his province were expected to have mastered a spoken vocabulary of 850 words. By the 1960s, the goal for first graders was 675 words. Today, students entering the first grade are expected to know just 300. Thus Mr. Giles, who two weekends ago penned a scathing critique of the public education system for the Globe and Mail, finds it no surprise that the Angus Reid Group released a poll the same weekend showing almost half of Canadians dissatisfied with the public system.
The Reid poll found that 43% of Canadians were either partially or totally dissatisfied with the public education system, while 53% expressed some degree of satisfaction. Canadians over 55, who grew up with a school system that had rigorous standards and student discipline, were more likely to be unhappy, while those under 35 were the ones who …”
http://business.highbeam.com/5587/article-1G1-30038859/public-isnt-impressed-opinion-turning-against-school
Sixteen years later, the Global New has a series of six parts under Grading Our Schools that shows how much the dissatisfaction that parents have towards the public education system.
The latest poll by Ipsos with a headline – ” Seven in Ten (72%) Canadians are Concerned About Access to Special Needs Education
Half (47%) Believe Special-Needs Students Are Not Being Well-Served by the Public-Education System
Friday, September 07, 2012
Toronto, ON – There appears to be a significant concern in Canada about the education and care given to elementary students in the public system with special needs, according to a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted exclusively for Global Television, the fifth instalment of a six-part series on education. Seven in ten (72%) are…” http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5756
“Canadian public schools aren’t making the grade, say Canadians in a new poll.”
http://www.globalnews.ca/Pages/Story.aspx?id=6442707514
“An Ipsos Reid poll conducted for Global News indicates that eight in 10 Canadians support arts or vocational schools, where students might focus on a particular fine-arts field or train in a skilled trade in addition to regular curriculum requirements.”
http://www.globalnews.ca/Pages/Story.aspx?id=6442707957
“Canadians worried about kids’ grasp of math, literacy: poll”
http://www.globalnews.ca/pages/story.aspx?id=6442709620
“A staggering 88 per cent of Canadians say they’re worried about youth bullying, according to results of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for Global News.”
http://www.globalnews.ca/pages/story.aspx?id=6442708851
The Latest In-house poll
Public Attitudes Toward
Education in Ontario 2012
Some of the highlights – “Most Ontarians continue to hold a generally positive view of schools. General perceptions of Ontario schools have changed little since 2009.
> Fifty-four percent award Ontario schools an A or B grade. In the case of local community schools, almost 60% of the public and 66% of parents award an A or B grade; 81% of parents give an A or B grade to the school their eldest child attends.
> Satisfaction with schools continues at record levels; 65% are somewhat or very satisfied with the school system in general. Satisfaction with the job teachers are doing is slightly higher
.
> Confidence ratings of public schools remain comparatively low. Less than half report having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence.
Click to access OISE%20SURVEY%2018.pdf
In-house education polls always follow the same agenda, small class sizes, more teachers, and most if not all, asked questions about SES status and its impact. Reports are positively rosy, and downplays the negative numbers, such as low confidence ratings of school.
Whereas, the out-of-the-house sponsored by the private concerns, dives into education, on the very things parents have concerns. Does the public education system, have concerns that 88 % of Canadians are worried about bullying? Or are they concerned about 72 % are concerned about access to special education? Or the bigger one, where 86 % expressed concerns of performance in reading, writing or math?
Not in my eyes, or tried being a parent getting access and help for your child in the public education system, concerning the 3 Rs. Everybody meets the brick wall of excuses, blame, and no money. It does not help either when the public education systems views children through the SES lens, and their myopic focus on equity based on religion, race, gender and income. Equity policies and its accommodations, in the public education system, are not focused on providing accommodations for the kids who need education services beyond the inclusive classroom. Need a wheel-chair ramp? No problem. Need a prayer room? No problem? But just asked for education services concerning the 3 Rs, and one will be met with the intractable education system, that refuses to provide the bread and butter of an education system. So the movie Won’t Back Down, is just that the experiences of parents and teachers – ” Two determined mothers, one a teacher, look to transform their children’s failing inner city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy, they risk everything to make a difference in the education and future of their children..”
Did anyone catch the mother, saying how tired she is about reports on poverty and income. where she says being poor sucks, and my kid can’t read. I bet a lot of parents can relate to that one, especially the parents who have spent their own money taking their kids to the private tutors to upgrade their skills in the 3 Rs.
The American teachers’ unions, have come out swinging are against the film. “In one tweet she expressed her wish that it “didn’t vilify teachers as so uncaring.” In another she noted that the main financing for the movie came from a school-privatization advocate who is no fan of teachers’ unions.”
The comment section is a mix bag, mostly blaming everything outside of the education system, but never do have a honest debate why kids can’t read, write or do math. “Amazing how even so many readers of the NYT chant the teacher-union mantra that “poverty,” “parents,” and “standardized tests” are to blame for teacher failure in the classroom. Do doctors lawyers or engineers blame “poverty” when they fail in their professions? And don’t doctors, engineers an lawyers also have to take standardized test to prove their worthiness?
What a stunning propaganda machine the teachers employ!”
The Ipsos Reid poll is an accurate reflection of deep concerns over the teaching of Reading, Writing, and Math in public elementary schools. And more so for 2012,in the Canadian education system. But those who dwell within the ivory towers of the education system, are not listening, nor their global counterparts. I learned this pass week, there is 3 billion people who either can’t read or have low reading ability. The news for literacy rates on the Canadian national scene are not pretty either,where adults with low literacy skills have now reached 48 percent. In some quarters, it is expected to rise.
Here is a good example of how a public education system provides education opportunities for their students. ” After cutting a staff of reading specialists from the budget, the schools are starting a new approach for children who need extra help in literacy.
All four elementary schools will dedicate one period a day to specialized literacy instruction, based on students’ needs. That replaces a practice of pulling particular children out of classes for reading assistance.
“It’s pretty creative,” said Carlos Sanchez, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the district. Those with the greatest needs will be grouped accordingly, and those performing above grade level will take part in enrichment programs.
“In a pullout program, kids miss something to get something,” Sanchez said.
“In this type of set-up, everybody gets what they need. Nobody’s falling behind because they miss a half-hour of curriculum,” Sanchez said.”
http://www.lohud.com/article/20120906/NEWS02/309060051/Port-Chester-gets-creative-literacy-schools-set-aside-time-reading-work?nclick_check=1
A good example of not providing for the needs of their students. Lets dumped the literacy specialists and hope for the best. Will the school district ever look at the reading instruction as being the cause? Or other education practices and policies that impacts the 3 Rs?
Or this one, which is almost as bad as the no-zero policies, and a wager most parents would be against. But the education gurus and administrators are not listening. ” That’s why Lewandowski is less than thrilled with the changes that are coming to Neenah High School this year.
The school is moving toward new, more consistent grading practices that assess students based on their demonstrated knowledge of skills and objectives, not on their effort or behavior.
That means, among other things, that srtudents won’t be rewarded for doing extra credit and won’t be penalized for handing in homework assignments late.
Principal Colleen Doyle said that in the past, teachers have inflated grades by accepting extra credit. She said they have deflated grades by rejecting or downgrading late homework assignments. That leads to situations where bright but lazy students might get C’s and D’s on their report card yet score in the advanced level on standardized tests and college entrance exams.
Conversely, hardworking students with less aptitude might get A’s and B’s on their report card but score in the basic level on standardized tests. Doyle wants to close those gaps so colleges and employers know a student’s true competency.
“Whatever our students’ knowledge is should be what they’re producing on standardized tests,” Doyle said. “That’s not the case because we as a school are inflating and deflating grades.”
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120808/APC01/308080029/Schools-take-new-look-homework?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CAPC-News&nclick_check=1
An American parent said it best, but seems to be one of the typical responses in the pro-camp regarding the movie, Won’t Back Down: “Too much is at stake to sit back quietly and accept the status quo, especially when it’s not working for our children.”
http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/parent-empowerment-can-take-many-forms-heres-my-story
I believe that the film won’t get a fair review in Canada, since the status-quo crowd within the education system will used their political and social capital that they will be the louder voice. Putting out the usual talking points to defend the status-quo, even when the data streams of outcomes are nothing to rave about.
Very, very well written
Inside the school system there simply is no debate, poverty causes low results. it is hardly just teachers’ unions but principals, SOs and up plus most education professors. No, nobody is saying poor kids are stupid any more than anyone is saying there more criminlally minded but educational weakness and crime both come from poor neighbourhoods in wildly disproportionate numbers. if you actually care WHY poor kids do badly in school, the work of David Berliner is probably the best.
Americans have an income polarization that makes Canada look like Sweden.
They tolerate levels of poverty amongst plenty that nobody else tolerates but this maybe bringing on the clss warfare politics we see there.
The movie notwithstanding godwin’s Law is a work worthy of Goebbles. It is a total propoganda piece that most actors should be ashamed to be associated with. It is riddled top to bottom with factual errors.
The population of the world is now quite aware through PISA that Ontario is the highest ranked English speaking jurisdiction in the world. Do you expect a revolution to break out in the highest achievement areas? I don’t.
Interest what will come out soon. The polling done by Forum on the Kitchener Waterloo by election shows that parents backed the teachers ah
gainst McGuinty’s attack. People with kids in school overwhelmingly switched from Liberal to NDP. They have signalled that they don’t was a “cutbacks” party they want a “spending” party.
I asked an American pal very familiar with Canda why the American culture is so right wing. Here sis his analogy.
OK Doug. Our California, Oregon and Washington is your BC right. Our Montana, Dakota Idaho is your prairies. Our industrial heartland (Michigan Ohio, Pennsylvania, NY) is your Ontario and Quebec right. Our New England is your Atlantic Canada right? I said OK but where is your deep south through to Texas replicted in Canada. He said “now you get it. There is no place in Canda like our most conservative 1/4 of the country. Canada is like USA with the “Old South cut off” so it just does not have the constituency for a major far right politics.
Therefore Canadian politics can never be as far right as American politics.
Here is one you will just love. It is reported by JP Greene and by Education Week. Charter schools are only having a very slight enrolement effect on the public education system but they are rapidly destroying the American private education system. LOL. It turns out it is privatization in reverse. The irony is just too cruel.
Who sponsored the Forum Research poll. Did parents actually say they wanted “a spending party”?
As we all know polls can be crafted so as to lead to any conclusion sought.
Polls have their uses but it always helps to know who is paying the freight.
Thanks for stirring the pot, Doug.
You are obviously delighted by J.P. Greene’s revelations. I am a little surprised that you assume charter schools are only designed to undermine public education. They are actually more about introducing choice and competition as a way of better serving students in struggling school communities. Most of us hold no brief for private, independent schools in that changed environment. Charter schools will likely test weaker private schools and so be it. Surely it should be about providing students with the best possible education, whatever the model, public, private, or public charter.
After years and years of analysis and wondering why,we can put 100 percent of the blame of the deterioration on the bizarre University preparation professors and the strange way research is funded and compensated.
This tsunami affects every trained teacher,the problems are so imbedded ,how could we ever stop it?
Getting published is everything for these professors and just about any study cuts it to get published in a journal.
The narcissism and lack of altruism is epidemic-children and outcomes are of no concern.Edubabble is rampant,they can find a way to spin everything on their terms and national educational weakness is the outcome.
Every 60 year old employer scratches their head and wonders what is going on with the education sector.The young people they employ struggle with spelling and they can`t parse a sentence or a paragraph.
Anyway,I don`t know where Nancy still gets the energy for her constant excellent advocacy,personally I am extremely discouraged.Anything goes.
Paul choice and competition are bad things. That is why they are an attempt to undermine public education. The ethos of quality education is uniformity and cooperation. the opposite of choice and competition.
Jo Anne here is your challenge. Name an English speaking educational jurisdiction with better educational results than Canada.
You are throwing out red herrings, Doug. Let’s hope no one takes your latest bait…
Where is the evidence that Canadian parents are satisfied with the current state of affairs, particularly when it comes to the teaching of elementary Reading, Writing and Math? Doesn’t this distress you when we have spent much of the past decade investing in a variety of curriculum and testing initiatives aimed at turning it around.
Bait it certainly is Paul. What nonsense. I suspect that Doug has no clue about what parents want or understanding that parents see through the bait too.
Or we could determine how much of the “better educational results” are entirely due to our schools. Canada is a wealthy society, parents are, generally, very committed to their kids, adults are usually well-eductated, we have all sorts of learning supports/opportunities in society, and so on
There are all sorts of things contributing to how kids develop, in addition to how well schools do.
Maybe the raw material going into JK is preprogrammed to do well.
Yes John but it is very difficult for parents to “see” flawed curriculum that is being taught K-3-
Learning to read,spell and write and learning math fundamentals are essential to Grade 4 and up success.
After all the materials are published by huge Canadian publishers and blessed by the curriculum people at the MOE-Who would think to question it?
Smoke and mirrors-tell everyone you know to handle these things from home and ignore their pleadings that whole word learning and guessing at pictures is the method that works and that learning multiplication tables is passe-sound crazy?
It is!
Doug, you know very well by challenging the other person to named a better education jurisdiction than Canada, is a red herring, and designed to distract from what is being discussed – namely if parents are satisfied with the public education system. The intractable brick wall called a public education system in Canada, is not at all friendly to the outsiders, the students, the parents, the communities and the researchers the lie outside the public education realm.
Livingstone, was mentioned in Paul’s blog – ” Educational happiness is difficult to gauge and rarely measured in an objective fashion. Annual parent satisfaction surveys conducted by Dr. David Livingston at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education have become something of a joke inside and outside the Ontario public education world. ” Curious, I look him up, and to no surprise to myself, he exemplifies what is wrong with the education ivory towers of today. My suspicions always tweaks my antennas when research or even the abstracts are not to be seen on the web in either subscription or the free format.
On the OISE web site – ” Research Overview
Teaching interests include political economy and education; class analysis; education and work; ideologies and consciousness, alternative futures.”
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/hsssje/Faculty_Staff/Faculty_Profiles/1621/David_Livingstone.html
His web page is dead, But he certainly likes to hang out with the union crowd, “His current research interests include completion of a long-term ethnographic study of working class learning practices and the related development of an activity theory of adult learning, as well as several other in-depth studies of adults’ informal learning practices, and ongoing analyses of underemployment and political consciousness.”
http://www.learningwork.ca/people/david-w-livingstone/
“. Annual parent satisfaction surveys conducted by Dr. David Livingston at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education have become something of a joke inside and outside the Ontario public education world. ” An understatement, considering the subjective and often questionable research taking place in the OISE, on such things on learning. I would love to asked Livingstone how his theories are working out, in comparison to the year 2012, and the education headlines. Headlines such as – “Marni Soupcoff: Why school is supposed to suck” http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/04/marni-soupcoff-why-school-is-supposed-to-suck/
To sum it up, “As far as I can tell, the entire point behind these measures seems to be to make school as pleasant and inoffensive as possible, even when doing so negates teachers’ abilities to actually impart students with meaningful lessons or a genuine sense of their own competence. Where is the pride going to come from when today’s generation of students graduate from schools that have applauded them indiscriminately and unwaveringly — as much for work done well as for work not done at all?
The reason a diploma used to mean something is it represented years of effort and slogging and playing by the rules. It was proof of hard and not always fun work. It was a badge of honour earned by showing up and trying, over and over again, even when — nay, especially when — school just really sucked.”
The above caught my eye this morning, as I was listening to my 17 year old, telling me all the news of the local high school. Raised my eyebrows, and asked her to repeat and explained further.
1. A teacher had written in black and white, why she did not like a student. Her parents objected to the characterization of their child, and could not understand why since the child completed her homework and assignments on time. This ties in with a new format of report cards, and each teacher will write a paragraph on the students. My 17 year old said, “I bet Mom, you be one of the parents reaming them out.” I dare say, I would.
2. It led to the next topic, on the new teachers that have arrived at the scene, plus the one that has returned to make my child’s life even more difficult for her final senior year. Difficult, in the sense that she does not believe my child has any reading problems even though both the psycho-educational assessment (all 3) and the more recent Woodcock reading assessment stated below average reading ability, due to poor word decoding. Ergo, does not qualify for alternative setting for exams, nor other accommodations unless given to all students. In June, I had already said the word discrimination, and the principal got all huffy and puffy how I dare make a statement singling out a teacher, who only has the best interests for my child and she is duly qualified for assessments for LD students. Would not mind it so much, but from grade 1, the public education system have denied the education services in the 3 Rs. The same education services, that if she received it in timely intervention and remediation in the primary grades, I would not be planning to take the school and school board to task in the coming week. Why I feel like the fictional mother in Won’t Back Down, at the end of the trailer, “Ever heard of mothers lifting one ton trucks off their babies? They’re nothing compared to me.”, as she smile.The school thinks I crawled underneath my rock for good, but in another movie line, “They’re back”, the school and the school board, will be whispering, “She’s back” and they won’t be smiling.
3. The third item of news, is the number of students taking basic science and math classes from grade 10 and up. According to my child, at least 30 in the basic grade 11 science class, and the majority do not belong there. But as I added, the majority of students are there due to low literacy and numeracy skills. I went on to say, they have not been taught. My child responded, “The reason I keep an eye on the basic classes, because I could have been one of those students.” And yeah, my child could have been one of those students, if I had not undertook the home tutoring and re-teaching at the home front. My youngest is proud of removing the dumb label off her forehead, and to her the biggest sign was when the high achievers think of her as being smart as they are. What her classmates don’t know, is her reading ability is at the same level as the students sitting in the basic science classes.
The majority sitting in the basic classes do not have learning disabilities, but are students that have never been taught. Add the label LD to the mix, students and parents are faced with two stark choices in the public education system., either accept the education quality and education given in today’s public education system, or go outside of the education system, and even if that means do it yourself.
Last week, making the rounds up and down and throughout the American education system, ” Our ignorance of learning disabilities” survey report.Not a pretty picture on the misconceptions and biases being held within and outside of the public education system. Jay Mathews writes, “Insensitivity and ignorance about disabilities in schools is evident. The survey found that 34 percent of Americans believe that students with learning disabilities interfere with the ability of other children in class to learn. Forty-five percent of parents of children with disabilities said their children have been bullied in the past year.
In my experience, parents of children with disabilities read everything they can find that might help improve their kids’ educations. Every time I write about special education I get unusual numbers of e-mails from them, sharing their own experiences and research. Sixty-four percent of parents in general said in the survey that their child’s school doesn’t provide information on learning disabilities.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/our-ignorance-of-learning-disabilities/2012/09/02/6bd7f064-f534-11e1-86a5-1f5431d87dfd_blog.html
In Canada, no doubt the numbers will be similar to the American picture. Probably worst in some aspects, since schools rarely have literature and information for parents on hand to inform parents. As a parent what I experienced in 2001, when my child was in grade 1, is repeated over and over again, and results in reinforcing the ignorance and lack of knowledge on learning disabilities and for that matter all disabilities that impacts learning inside and outside of the classroom.
It is why the Ipsos education polls will go unheard within the public education system in Canada. “There appears to be a significant concern in Canada about the education and care given to elementary students in the public system with special needs, according to a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted exclusively for Global Television, the fifth instalment of a six-part series on education. Seven in ten (72%) are ‘concerned’ (28% very/44% somewhat) about ‘access to special needs education’, while three in ten (28%) are ‘not concerned’ (6% strongly/23% somewhat) about this aspect of elementary public-school education.
Quebecers (81%) are most concerned about access to special needs education, while fewer in British Columbia (74%), Ontario (70%), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (65%), Atlantic Canada (64%), and Alberta (63%) are concerned about access to special needs education. Conversely, two in five residents of Alberta (37%), Atlantic Canada (36%), and Saskatchewan and Manitoba (35%) are not concerned about this type of education access, higher than Ontarians (30%), British Columbians (26%), and Quebecers (19%) who are similarly not concerned.”
http://www.northumberlandview.ca/index.php?module=news&type=user&func=display&sid=17092
4. The final item of news are the number of students who failed grade 11. Among them a student, that has been with my child since grade 1. Back in 2001, I did observed, that this child (who will be known as DD), had the similar and almost identical problems in writing, as my child did. I asked a question comparing my child to DD, and the response was priceless. “It is none of my business and I have no right to compared other students to my child.” The writing difficulties of a dyslexic are not hard to determined, but asked any educators either at the school or at the board, or for that matter in the ministries of education straight to the education ivory towers, few if any would be able to tell a parent. What I did not know at the time in 2001, was that both DD and my child’s writing, was a prefect example of primary writing of students who have unidentified learning disabilities. DD, still remains unidentified to the best of my knowledge, whereas my child has been identified since the end of grade 3. Although, not a lot of good since access to education services outside of the inclusive classroom, is as illusive as it was in 2001.
Joanne writes, ” The narcissism and lack of altruism is epidemic-children and outcomes are of no concern.Edubabble is rampant,they can find a way to spin everything on their terms and national educational weakness is the outcome.” I can’t wait when I put on my battle armament, (it really does feel like I am going to wage war), wearing all my hats, legal, psychology, mother, educator, researcher, mathematician, cognitive science, and the other hats that I have required in the pass 11 years to ward off the edubabble that will come my way. I am sure the first meeting will end in acrimonious terms, since I will be drawing the line in the sand. where the spin will meet my sturdy brick wall, and be reflected back unto them, to reveal how silly and illogical their stances truly are.
Anti-education policies, How to turn off kids in learning, and keep them in school policies at all costs. Outcomes? Not on the menus of any public education system in Canada, that I know of. At least in the United States, a parent has the option of due-process hearings. I would have won hands down in a U.S. court, and the public education district would have been force to pay for a private LD school of my choice. But not here in Canada, unless the parent is willing to retain the lawyer and the education consultants early on to do battle with the non-independent appeal panels, fully stacked to ensure that all outcomes will favour the school district as well as the ministry and its policies. Below an example, in the province Ontario and what greets parents with LD children dealing will the appeal process over accommodations.
http://www.oset-tedo.ca/eng/decisions.html
Pick any case, it is always about a parent objecting to the decisions of the school board and school staff on placement, accommodations and access to special education services. It is always about the school board defending their stances and their authority on having the final say. The special education appeal board in Ontario, is one of the better ones in Canada, but it still requires a parent to retained the lawyer and the private education consultants, if they want a favorable outcome and ruling. What is even more alarming, in both Canada and United States, the education system no longer needs to consult and obtained signatures from parents. If parents don’t agree, too bad, the school and the school board have the final legal authority. It is up to parents to do something about it. Few do, because few have the knowledge and the means to do battle with the school decisions. In the later part of the spring of 2012, a mother was banned from the school property. over the constant bullying of her child. Her sin? She retained a lawyer to write a letter, and that letter got her banned from the school.
What can parents do, when dealing with an education system that is not accountable to the public, the students’ outcomes, and nor does any public education system provide choice that is in tune with the best interests of the individual students. Paul writes, ” They are actually more about introducing choice and competition as a way of better serving students in struggling school communities.” And yet within the echo chamber of the public education system, Doug writes, “The ethos of quality education is uniformity and cooperation. the opposite of choice and competition..”
Uniformity and cooperation is the spin that is used, to provide and delivered the one-sized-fits all education. Quality don’t matter, just the numbers and labels. Throw in a few awards, lots of carrots for compliance, and a complete regulatory regime to control the actions and behaviours of the students, parents and the communities. The Ipsos education polls, shows the dissatisfaction of parents, students and the communities, and more importantly they are also very much aware of what schools no longer provide – an education for their children that provides the necessary tools, abilities and skills to navigate after 12 years of schooling.
Last week, NL made the national news, speaking out on the questionable math curriculum. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/09/06/nl-sherry-mantyka-math-questions-906.html
By the way, in NL, private tutors are making out like bandits in basic math tutoring, and as well in high school algebra, trig and calculus. Meanwhile, parents are being told not to teach their children math, in the way that they have been taught. The old fashioned way…………….In no time soon, at any post secondary institute, all students will be required to take upgrading courses on what amounts to basic and advanced arithmetic, before they are allowed to take any post-secondary mathematics courses.. What was once taught, is no longer taught in the K to 8 education system. In the Globe and Mail on September 07, 2012 – “The sad fact is that almost one in two Canadian adults falls short of the desired proficiency level in English or French, while close to three in five lack the desired level of numeracy skills.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/dont-take-literacy-for-granted/article4524704/
Really? Canada does not have the best education in the world, and nor should anyone within the public education be alluring that it is one of the best, when the data streams say one in two have low proficiency in literacy and in numeracy kills, three in five do not meet the required proficiency in numeracy.
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Well I do think the Mowat Block pin heads don’t know very much about what they are doing but as Coleman pointed out many years ago in Chicago maybe 10 many 20% of the problem is in the seriously underfuned school system.
Putting the pressure on “methods and teaching practice and firing teachers and teacher testing is a deliberate right wing tactic to take the heat off poverty reduction the way the magician uses distraction on purpose.
I agree with Coleman that maybe 80% of the problem is in the community as a complex system of unmet needs forms a critical mass at a certain point and derails the kid. There are just too many barriers.
Republicans and conservative have fits over redistribution of wealth but America will go down the drain if they don’t do it. Very little needs to be cash.
Free medical clinics that were proactive free dental care and eye glasses for the poor, better nutrition, elimination of low birth weight babies, more household stability, housing, ECE, all of this stuff in not just in the interest of the poor, it is in the long term interest of America. Our problems here are a pale shadow of theirs but mimic them in moderate ways.
This is where the problem is actually SOLVED not just managed. The rest of the issues are window dressing IMHO.
I’m afraid that Nancy provides a most convincing argument. One steeped in something closer to what the topic is I believe.
Click to access Berliner_NonSchool.pdf
Conclusions – are the ready made excuses for the public education system not to provide a quality education. The typical reasons are based on funding considerations, and if it merits funding. Providing snacks – no problem. Providing a quality reading instruction program to prevent reading problems down the road, a big problem.
In Doug’s link – “Reduce the rate of low birth weight children among African Americans,
Reduce drug and alcohol abuse,
Reduce pollutants in our cites and move people away from toxic sites,
Provide universal and free medical care for all citizens,
Insure that no one suffers from food insecurity,
Reduce the rates of family violence in low-income households,
Improve mental health services among the poor,
More equitably distribute low-income housing throughout communities,
Reduce both the mobility and absenteeism rates of children,
Provide high-quality preschools for all children, and
Provide summer programs for the poor to reduce summer losses in their
academic achievement. ”
Last time I check drug and alcohol abuse is a problem of the middle class. This morning, reading the political news, read a study one has to have money to purchase drugs and alcohol.
Pollution – good luck on that one. Glad I don’t live in the cities.
Providing universal health care – doable in the U.S. but that is if they reduce spending on the war toys and military adventures.
Food security – good luck on that one. Between costs and supply
Family violence – doable
Low income housing – good luck on that one. Not on the menus of both countries in NA.
Reduce the mobility – does that mean force the kids to attend the nearest school?
High quality pre-schools for all children? Only public eh? Standardized them, just like the schools, so everyone get exactly the same, just like any public school. The administrators often use this one to denied education services for kids, even when they do meet the criteria.
As for mental health, letting the public education get their hands on it, as in Canada, the new excuses for not providing reading remediation, and accommodations for reading problems will be – “The kid does not have a reading problem. The kid has a self-esteem problem. On going problems for the LD kids at the high school level. In turn, the school denies alternative setting for taking tests/exams. Parents dealing with bullying issues, are faced with the same mentality – there is something wrong with their kids. A self-esteem problem? Single mother? And the list goes on, but never implicating the school and the bully policies.
“James Samuel Coleman (May 12, 1926 – March 25, 1995) was a renowned American sociologist, theorist and empirical researcher. He was elected president of the American Sociological Association. Coleman studied the sociology of education, public policy, and was one of the earliest users of the term “social capital”. His Foundations of Social Theory influenced sociological theory. His The Adolescent Society (1961) and “Coleman Report” (Equality of Educational Opportunity, 1966) were two of the most heavily cited books in educational sociology.[1] The landmark Coleman Report helped transform educational theory, reshape national education policies, and influenced public and scholarly opinion regarding the role of schooling in determining equality and productivity in the United States.[2]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Samuel_Coleman
I bet if he was alive today, Coleman would be reconsidering his conclusions and methodology.
“Private schools, Catholic and nonsectarian, come out over public schools throughout this expanded version of the controversial 1981 draft report by sociologist Coleman and his colleagues-”
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-s-thomas-hoffer-sally-kilgore-coleman/high-school-achievement-public-catholic-and-pri/#review
“Coleman traced both approaches to the “egalitarian” impulse of achieving racial integration in schools, although he favored measures that expand rather than diminish parental options.”
Read more: James S. Coleman (1926–1995) – Career, Contributions and Controversies, Redefining American Education, Contribution to Education – School, Schools, Public, and Students – StateUniversity.com http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1841/Coleman-James-S-1926-1995.html#ixzz260oUiXLC
“James Coleman’s visionary conception of an output-driven school stands in stark contrast to the reality of the schools we have. Public schools in general, and especially urban schools because of their greater propensity to be highly bureaucratized, are input-driven and inclined toward dysfunctional incentive systems. With a near monopoly relationship with their clients, and with few rewards (or penalties) linked to the achievement gains of their students, public schools too often lack any meaningful accountability for their performance (Boyd & Hartman, 1988). As a result, the burden of success (or failure) falls mainly on the shoulders of the poor children and families the schools serve. Although learning clearly is co-produced, requiring a vital contribution of effort on the part of students (and families) as well as teachers, the incentive structure of schools needs to be modified to provide more rewards and accountability for educators to engage in the hard work of improving their effectiveness. As explained in this chapter, that will involve transforming their schools and pedagogical approaches in accord with the promising findings we have discussed concerning the power of academic press combined with caring and “professional” community.”
http://www.ed.psu.edu/edadm/Shouse/pandpurb.html
If Coleman was alive, he too would be advocating for more choice for schools.
Parents of low-income want results for their kids, that represents opening future doors. that increases opportunities for their kids to get out of the neighbourhood. Just like the movie, Won’t Back Down, the two mothers knows very well what it means – a solid education with a firm foundation in the 3 Rs. Pity, the high bureaucratized, input driven, dysfunctional , emphasis on rules/regulations and highly politicized public education system , does not see fit that children should have a solid education with a firm foundation in the 3 Rs.
If Jesus were alive today he would be an advocate of public schools only. He favoured the poor you know. Try again Nancy. It is a propaganda film of pathetic obviousness. Did Leni Riefenstahl have a hand in making it? Oh no, she is dead. (Edited Comment)
Your last post smacked of Daily Censored spin, Doug.
Danny Weil’s recent Film Review must have motivated your latest salvo:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11225-film-wont-back-down-models-hollywood-propaganda-in-age-of-school-reform
The American and Canadian educational establishment succeeded in smacking down Waiting for Superman. That may explain the current attempts to discredit Don’t Back Down before it even hits North American movie screens.
There is a fallacy to Doug’s argument and in particular galling in the year 2012.
“Education is simply not an EXPENSE it is an INVESTMENT. It always amazes me that people understand education is a critical investment in THEIR OWN children but some kind of luxury in OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. They are ALL the responsibility of ALL of us……………..Do you see our competition cutting back? China spends the highest % of GDP/capita in the world on education.
We are already doing better than the Americans due to medicare and other high quality social programs that they stupidly don’t seem to believe in. They have this idiotic notion that it is better to keep a higher proportion of your pay check and spend it yourself.
We can do far more on low birthweight babies, total bans on the production and distribution of junk food, fitness, nutrition, housing, transportation etc.”
An investment? An investment in what? Higher teacher salaries? Lower class sizes? The funding of education has always been geared to the inputs, to deliver an education. Quality don’t matter, nor the outcomes of students. China, with close to 2 billion people, only 40 percent of the student population obtains a high school diploma or higher. The other 60 percent of the student population in China are classified as the laborers, and don’t need to be educated beyond a grade 8 or grade 9. China’s economic system, is dependent on a large worker force of low skills.
The historical aspects of the public education system, was and as today, is still tied in with the economic systems of countries, provinces and states. The education systems are driven by the inputs, resulting in inequities and imbalances of the inputs and outputs of the education systems. The development of the public education system was designed to solved the labour work force, as the 19th century Industrialization Era emerged, completely transforming society from an Agrarian economic system to an industrialized society in all aspects of government, its organization and operations of government. The public education system became the key to sort and identified the future work force, Funding investments are made via through the inputs, without much emphasis on the outputs, and more importantly without undue attention to the final outcomes of students, and the wider society.
Low birth-weight infants, bans on production and distribution of junk food, and other external variables of society, are part of the inputs that the education system model has no control, in the business of delivering education to youth. More importantly, there is no prefect method of predicting the needs of a school and its school district, based on variables and SEC factors that may or may not affect the education of youth, even in the year of 2012 with its technology and the internet. Doug’s argument and like others like him, is based on the ideal society of the political, ideological and dogma spectrum. The delivering of education is geared to producing students, after 12 years of schooling to a close replica of the political, ideological and dogma of the sitting governments that closely matches the needs of the operating economic systems of countries.
And here is the BUT, where Doug and others like him will argue against all choice in the 21st century education system, because it reveals and exposes the power structures and more importantly the dynamics of an education system, that has only been legally charge to deliver an education where quality does not matter. Danny Weil is one such beast, advocating for the status-quo of a public education system: “This is why the new Gilded Aged billionaires are investing their capital into powerful Hollywood films and videos that contain images intended to demonize and decimate public education and teachers. Like their robber baron predecessors, these well-heeled social engineers know the art of skilled manipulation works on an uncritical public with the right hypodermic needle – intended to chloroform rather than inform. Hollywood and the new world of entertainment is now perched on the precipice of huge profits if they can privatize and financialize education. The social and financial stakes are enormous.”
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11225-film-wont-back-down-models-hollywood-propaganda-in-age-of-school-reform
Weil, should be more concern with the commoditization of public education, and how the public education system designed in the 19th century has played a fundamental role and in fact a starring role in assigning an economic value on the students and their education. In Wikipedia, “In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consumers. It is the movement of a market from differentiated to undifferentiated price competition and from monopolistic to perfect competition. This is not to be confused with commodification, which is a Marxist term for things being assigned economic value which they (according to Marxist theory) did not previously possess, by their being produced and presented sale, as opposed to personal use.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commoditization
The stakeholders within the public education system, has played the starring role in assigning students with an economic value. Education is delivered with no more or no less than the economic value assigned according the SEC variables and the legal legislation that the common school must accept all students plus making school compulsory for all youth between the ages of 6 to 16 and now 18 in some regions. Since the advent of the 21st century, and the wide spread of computerized technology and its devices, for the first time in mankind’s history, knowledge and information is now at the grasp of everyone’s finger tips. People are becoming informed without heavy reliance on government to provide the information and services as it was once was. The 21st century technology has opened up the knowledge gates, the individual’s networks are now global that seeks out like-minded individuals, to debate, to socialized, to organized for a common cause and other activities, that were once reserved for the political/economic brokers and people who are highly skilled and educated to guide society, and its governments and economic systems.
The small elite, became the knowledge brokers, and the stakeholders within the public education system governed themselves and acted as knowledge brokers; to which ultimately the public education system acted as the only monopoly that will best addressed the education needs of the youth, and to addressed the future work force based on the economic needs of a country. Weil is laughable, railing against Won’t Back Down, that supposedly demonized public education, and goes on to state on , “ well-heeled social engineers know the art of skilled manipulation works on an uncritical public with the right hypodermic needle – intended to chloroform rather than inform.” The reality is, the public education system and its stakeholders are the social engineers, skilled in the arts of manipulation and propaganda to masked and keep the public sleepy and unaware that the public education model is there to serve the economic function of governments no matter the political stripe producing a labour force based on the predictive analysis of the data streams. Coleman and others like him change the dynamics in education theories. “ Coleman was a pioneer in the construction of mathematical models in sociology with his book, Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (1964). His later treatise, Foundations of Social Theory (1990), made major contributions toward a more rigorous form of theorizing in sociology based on rational choice.[citation needed]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Samuel_Coleman
I wonder what Coleman would say, in 2012 and if rational choice theories is working in the 21st century education system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory
It’s a great try by Nancy. She’s won the debate and you just don’t see it.
Both films are just such pathetic one dimensional unsophsticated propoganda that nobody in their right mind can do anything but laugh at them.
You can take poor kids and put them in a public school, a charter school or a private school and it won’t make whit of difference if you don’t address their poverty.
The charters do no better overall notwithstanding study after study showing they are doing their best to exclude SE kids and ELL kids and ‘alienated’ kids.
Everybody knows the game. The trick is to try to have the ‘good’ poor kids go to the charter, the ‘bad’ poor kids go to the PS and then say “wow look at this we did better”.
The joke is the charters are killing the private schools and STILL not doing any better.
You cannot address the problem within schools because the learning gap is overwhelmingly constructed from outide the school forces.
You’ve put the cart before the horse. Isn’t that what a good education is supposed to do, address poverty? Quality education was and still is the key to getting OUT of poverty. Ask Dr. Fuller: http://activistcash.com/biography.cfm/b/3736-howard-fuller
better yet ask a mom who knows:
And Yet…
Some here insist the top priority is to dump massive more money into schools already, so we’re told, among the best in the world.
Surely if the top determinants of success in school are mostly found outside school thats’s where the money should go, right?
No John you just don’t get it. If Usain Bolt is way ahead in the 100 meter race does he slow down to let the others catch up? Even though Canada is number one in the world in many catagories. (Most post sesondary ed grads/capita is a good one) we should never slow down. We should be trying as hard as we can to put as much distance between ourselves and #2 as we possibly can.
Your mentality is spend inside OR spend outside. My mentality is spend more BOTH inside AND outside. Even Coleman said 20% is determined by in school factors. American teacher training is way behind Canada as one example. I would require MAs from all prospective teachers like Finland.
Your mentality says “we just don’t have the money for all that spending without raising taxes”. My mentality says since the ROI of investment both for the individual and society is a minimum of 4:1 then the more we spend the richer our society becomes. Education is simply not an EXPENSE it is an INVESTMENT. It always amazes me that people understand education is a critical investment in THEIR OWN children but some kind of luxury in OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. They are ALL the responsibility of ALL of us.
Do you see our competition cutting back? China spends the highest % of GDP/capita in the world on education.
We are already doing better than the Americans due to medicare and other high quality social programs that they stupidly don’t seem to believe in. They have this idiotic notion that it is better to keep a higher proportion of your pay check and spend it yourself.
We can do far more on low birthweight babies, total bans on the production and distribution of junk food, fitness, nutrition, housing, transportation etc.
One of my first acts as premier would be to make year one of college or university tuition free and as we can afford it, keep moving up until all post secondary is free. We need to extend child care down to 2 years old and make is as cheap as possible and eventually free.
When we accomplish all of this we can truly say Canada is the best country in the world for sure.
” If Usain Bolt is way ahead in the 100 meter race does he slow down to let the others catch up?”
Yes he does. What’s more is that because Bolt knows he’s better than the others and how MUCH better he slows down each and every race I watched him run.
When the standards are set high and students are able to reach them, they become confident too.
Interesting that you chose Bolt. A fellow from a dirt poor family, but it sure didn’t stop him did it. No excuses by his school and teachers…..not now at least when he’s become famous and faster than any man.
Couple of Points:
You’re not teaching teenyboppers anymore so simplistic assertions on complex issues don’t fly.
There’s nothing compelling about simply being in favour of spending more on everything. It reflects intellectual sloppiness.
You’re not the premier so there’s no need to wonder if your ideas will pass the smell test or stand critical evaluation by folks who know the issue.
Writing in capitals is considered the equivalent of yelling; might work in your last job but it doesn’t impress us here.
I’d say I simply don’t “get” what you’re trying to peddle!
Move on.
I guess the people who advocate this simple minded sloppiness are now the official opposition in Ottawa just won the bi election in KW and are the second place in the polls Ontario. Not bad. Writing in capitals is yelling. I hope so I was yelling. I am one of the education advisors of the NDP education critic so my ideas do get in there JL.
Of course you don’t get it. All you see is costs, taxes, oh the humanity. I see investment growth, human happiness, progress, uplift.
Your old fashioned provincial ideas are being eclipsed by modern thinking.The nations that spend the most on education and the elimination of poverty will have the highest standard of living. Duh.
The NDP? The same party that supported the PQ? Shame.
Doug is advocating for some idealist, pie-in-the-sky, based on a version of a happiness scale steeped in rational choice theory and all wrapped in a bow and ribbon on the collective whole. Individual outcomes don’t matter in Doug’s version. Nor costs. What Doug is advocating for is to have individuals to become content and happy with their lot in life – the Marxist version of a public education system where the stakeholders within the public education system controls what will be an education for the youth. How is that working Doug, considering 2012 the education outcomes in the data streams are certainly displaying only 40 percent of the student population, after 12 years of schooling have reached their full academic potential. The other 60 percent, get to look forward to more upgrading on skills and abilities that should have been taught back in grade school, and at our own expense. And that is, if the students remain in the public education for the duration of 12 years. Doug, called the file Won’t Back Down, “ are just such pathetic one dimensional unsophsticated propoganda that nobody in their right mind can do anything but laugh at them.”
Not a laughing matter Doug, when children can’t read. Not a laughing matter Doug, when children come out of 12 years of schooling with low literacy and numeracy skills. Not a laughing matter, when parents are treated with contempt and derision for asking questions on instruction practices and curriculum, that keeps their children as low achievers. Not a laughing matter, when the world’s reading researchers are sneered and mocked at by those within the public education system. The Children of the Code, and their developing theory of shame – “Most children who struggle with reading experience the struggle as a reflection of something wrong with themselves – something to be ashamed of. Unintentionally but pervasively, parents, schools, and society as a whole contribute to perpetuating this insidious myth. Children don’t think that their reading troubles might be the result of normal differences in theirgenes and brains analogous to being tall or short – they don’t think that maybe their parents, siblings, and other care-givers didn’t engage them in enough conversation before they started school – they don’t think that their teachers didn’t teach them correctly – they don’t think the confusion they experience is a consequence of an archaic and artificially complex ‘code’ that presents a completely unnatural processing challenge to their brains… no, they blame themselves – they feel ashamed of themselves – ashamed of their minds. Statements like: “I’m dumb”, “I’m stupid”, “I’m not smart”, “I’m not good in school” are all strategies to protect themselves from the shame they feel.” is mocked at by the public education gurus.”
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/
Not a laughing matter, when the progressive reformers of keeping the status-qho of the public education system, makes fun and mockery of the needs of the 21st century students by advocating for more of the same, to retain the current configuration of the power relationships and networks within the public education system.
Weil writes in another article on double-speak, “In education managerial double speak like ‘best practices’ are really ‘practices to enhance student and teacher servitude’; the ‘achievement gap’ is nothing more than ‘poverty and inequality’ in opportunity and ‘teaching’ itself is little more than ‘forced obedience training’. This use of language is all very helpful to those who are in power and wish to stay there. For as Francis Bacon the great philosopher and scientist noted and as the Sophists of Greece had established back in 750 B.C.E.: “Men think they control language when in fact language controls them”.
http://www.dailycensored.com/2011/07/20/teacher-inactivist-man-vs-achievement-gap-woman-double-speak-as-idiot-wind/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Dailycensored+%28Daily+Censored%29
Weil, like Doug are advocating for the status-quo reforms that maintains the power structures and relationships of the stakeholders having the full authority in all things education, and where the public becomes the servants to the education policies and ideological stances of the stakeholders within.
Won’t Back Down, shows the education policies and ideological stances that has given way for parents to demand choice, the parent trigger laws and other alternative education models where the public are no longer the servants to the public education stakeholders and their agendas and interests of the status-quo.
On the Friends of SQE facebook page, How to spot a real educator reformer – http://www.edreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CER_EdReformer_Field-Guide_FINAL_9.5.12.pdf
No Doug, it is not at all funny or amusing for the stakeholders of a public education system, to advocate and negotiate on who will and who will not received an education that reaches the full academic potential of students, based on the achievement values of primary students, without full corrective and prevention measures in place, to ensure all primary students will be on the same even playground of the 3 Rs. My kid was written off by the end of grade 1, as with most kids who struggle early in the 3 Rs. The movie, Won’t Back Down is just that an indictment of a public education system that begins to write off students as soon as they enter the public education system, and after 12 years of schooling, the percentages rises to 60 percent of the student population. No, it is not a laughing matter the rising percentage of students graduating with a certificate instead of a diploma. No, it is not a laughing matter the rising percentage of students graduating with diplomas of 50 to 59 grade averages with their heads full of dreams and aspirations that are quickly dashed when they discovered they do not have the skills and abilities to continue with their post-secondary education, and discovered that they are part of the education causalities of a public education system, that has never been about educating students to their full academic potential.
Doug, continue to laughed at movies such as Won’t Back Down. Mocked them at your peril, as the same educationalists mocked me when I was asking for an assessment for learning disabilites. The dangers of education monopolies that relied heavily on choice theories and other education theories that predicts future behaviours, actions and outcomes of students on the collective whole based on SES variables, will be the undoing of a public education system that remains ideologically speaking, mired in the past of ancient class structures and civil societies seeking a pseudo-vision of Utopian societies, and the education of its youth. Mired in the past, of their own choosing to advance the agendas and interests of the public education stakeholders to maintain the current configuration of the power, authority and relationships of the networks of the public education system models, at the expense of the students, the parents, the communities and ultimately society.
I think most people of the slightest sophistication roll on the floor and laugh at moveies like this because they are pathetic propoganda.
I love how the reform movement label people who don’t support “their” reforms as “status quo”. You only make yourselves look very foolish with canned rhetoric from south of the border. Those who advocte spending billions more making university free and child care free are “status quo” One might laugh if it were not pathetic.
There is nothing, I repeat nothing coming from the reform movement that shows the slightest promise for improvement.
Vouchers? rejected nobody wants them. Charters? no improvement but they are destroying very long term private education.
Jo Anne did not take the challenge Nancy, perhaps you will. Can you point to and English speaking jurisdiction on Earth with better results than Canada?
Can you? I didn’t think so. It is rhetoric to say “teach every child to read?” Nobody does that better than Canada except Finland and even there, they do not have the post secondary results that we do. The reform arguments are nothing but warmed over boiler plate rhetoric from the 1950s.
You should show them on a black and white TV.
Not about to jumped into red herrings, where Canada is doing no better than other English jurisdictions when the education system models, and its governance are all geared to uniformity, conformity and maintaining the status-quo of where the public education rules the roost. The final outcomes in the data streams are a wonder to behold, where the adults with low literacy and numeracy have consistently show anywhere between 40 to 60 percent of adults with low low literacy and numeracy skills. Instead of decreasing the pace, the pace has increased to an all time high. In Canada, to further seal the doors of students who struggled in the learning of the basics in the 3 Rs, the public education system denies the very accommodations, the devices, and corrective remediation that would rendered their low literacy and numeracy skills moot.
Just like another movie about education, called Dangerous Minds. There is 8 parts, and please watch what happens to a teacher who actively works on the behalf of their students. Teachers that do, get eaten by their own kind and tossed out for disobeying the directives, or they leave on their accord, like this teacher attempts to do, but the students becomes the cavalry and saves the day.
Followed the series by – Uploaded by rubeitahaifaa on Jan 18, 2011
wolves lair presents
More rhetoric – “Chicago Strike “Tip of Iceberg” in School “Reform’s” “Disastrous Consequences””
“In contrast to the spin by ‘reformers’ that teachers are striking because they are greedy, the reality is that the school district and the union actually came close to agreement on salary talks. So let’s be clear: the teachers are not striking primarily for more money — they are striking to change the ‘reforms’ that have made their jobs nearly impossible. Leaders from both political parties who are scapegoating the teachers should be ashamed of themselves for not doing their own homework. Leaders who have been quick to blame and distance themselves from teachers for shutting down schools and supposedly hurting Chicago’s children just to make a few more bucks are ignoring the reality that, if the teachers did not stand their ground, if they did not strike, they would be allowing harmful ‘reforms’ to continue unabated.”
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/09/10-3
Where was the teachers’ unions during the ongoing reading wars – In the front and behind the scenes to ensure that no student will ever received the corrective remediation in reading and numeracy problems, that actually fixes the problems. Instead they dance and beat their war drums on the infamous SES variables, and using them as their handy excuses and blame why the public education system can never succeed to reasonably educate all students to their full academic potential. So much easier to write them off, as in the movie Dangerous Minds. And if a teacher dares not to write them off, the teacher is written off, and serves as an example to other teachers.
What really caught my eye in the piece of the Chicago Strike – is the last paragraph – ““Strikes seem to be less common these days in America, but a quick glance around the world shows that teachers are pushing back against ‘reforms’ that are driven more by profit than by research and the welfare of children: examples include in Australia, Canada, Columbia, India, Kenya, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, to name just a few. With the CTU strike — the first in a quarter century to rattle the third largest school district in the nation — teachers are leading the way in demanding that reforms be based in research, that reforms address what is really happening in our city’s schools, and that reforms reflect the highest ideals of our democracy.”
Swaziland? How desperate are the status-quo reformers? Sri Lanka? Kenya? Columbia? India? Really, to compare the United States and tossed in Canada plus Australia to the teachers that pushing back in countries like Swaziland? Crazy and irrational to say the least.
In Wikipedia – on Swaziland – “Education in Swaziland is now free at primary level mainly 1st and 2nd grades and also free for orphaned and vulnerable children but not compulsory.[20] In 1996, the net primary school enrollment rate was 90.8%, with gender parity at the primary level.[20] In 1998, 80.5% of children reached grade five.[20] The University of Swaziland provides higher education. The Swaziland National Library Service operates public community libraries throughout Swaziland and establishes school libraries in partnership with Fundza, a non-governmental organization and the African Library Project.[21]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaziland
In a separate link on education – “Education in Swaziland is neither free nor compulsory.[1] The Ministry of Education pays teacher salaries, while student fees and money raised from the community pay for costs such as building upkeep and teacher housing.[1] In 1996, the net primary school enrollment rate was 90.8 percent, with gender parity at the primary level.[1] In 1998, 80.5 percent of children reached grade 5.[1] Primary school attendance rates were unavailable for Swaziland as of 2001.[1] In 1996, 91.3 percent of the teachers were certified to teach according to national standards, and the pupil to teacher ratio was 33:9.[1] In 1963 Waterford school was founded as southern Africa’s first multiracial school. In 1981 Waterford Kamhlaba joined the UWC movement as the first and only United World College in Africa.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Swaziland
So, the question goes begging and unanswered by the status-quo reformers, why certification of teachers are far more important than attending to the learning needs of students. Certification of teachers will not guarantee student achievement, and like the movie Dangerous Minds, teacher certification was not a condition to acquire a teacher position for the students who were bused into the suburb school of manicure lawns and the absence of graffiti. Placed in a section of the school, where young impressionable minds are groomed to expect to aspire to the low expectations of adults with the education degrees.
What is laughable and indeed ironic why Swaziland is included, is the premier high school of Waterford Kamhlaba. Admirable goals, set and designed for the ones who can afford the tuition. But reading the education headlines of newspapers across the world,the status-quo reformers are determined to provide an education for the truly deserved students that meets the criteria of the status-quo reformers. No students need applied that do not meet the criteria set by the status-quo reformers that dwell within the public education , that are openly defiant and critical of their education experience.
Doug states, ” It is rhetoric to say “teach every child to read?” but what he is attempting to say without looking like a person from the dark ages, that the public education system can only educate a percentage of the student population to its fullest potential. The others are not worth the merit, the effort or the time and the expense of a public education system. They are offered the minimum legal requirements of providing a desk, a set of books but don’t bother to demand the tools, the skills and the abilities to access the set of books and its knowledge.
Parents hear it every single day, throughout the messages of the public education system and its stakeholders. Parent trigger laws, charter schools, vouchers and other alternative education options will only become stronger . The movies of Won’t Back Down and Dangerous Minds resonates with the public, because it reflects the experiences of the viewers. More so with the viewers who have been openly stymied by an education system that no longer even bother to rise above the rhetoric and get down to the hard work of educating students no matter what the obstacles are. Instead, the former educators and other like-minded status-quo reformers, are on the thin edge of a sword, of defending the practices and policies of the public education that openly promotes discrimination based on ability, race, gender. sexual orientation, and religious lines. There has been a few court cases in the education files, and the public education systems are still licking their wounds. The latest one in Canada, and where the Supreme Court of Canada has not released a ruling.
A good public education system, would have done something beyond the minimum legal parameters defined in the law, by providing the corrective remediation for a dyslexic child who could not read. Instead the young boy was offered a desk and a set of books, but not the means to access the books. By telling the father to go down to the private school, the BC education district effectively told the father if you don’t like it, leave the public education system. We don’t need to instruct your son on reading, nor do we need to instruct the boy, using methods that are developed by the researchers outside of the public education field. The ironic thing about it, if the father was a well-heeled, well-educated persons with a large income, the father’s son would have received immediate attention and remediation on his reading difficulties. The Moore case, is just one more example of where the parents with lower social-status get the shaft from a public education system. It was a plumber that took the BC education system to task and brought it to the Supreme Court of Canada. No easy feat, while paying for the tuition of the private LD school, and seeing his son become successful as he enters his adulthood. The same boy, that the public education system had written off, as unteachable.
And like the movie, Won’t Back Down, it is a bartender who is taking the public education system to task. , In real life, it is a host of different shades, sizes and shapes taking the public education to task. The latest being a group of parents in Ontario, taking the Ontario education system to task, on their practices of discriminating on the faith and culture values of the individual parents. and their children. “A number of conservative Christian and Muslim parents — unusual political allies — suddenly are asking schools across the GTA to notify them when their child’s class will discuss topics ranging from homosexuality and birth control to wizardry, evolution and “environmental worship,” so they can withhold their child from classes that contradict their religious beliefs.
They are giving schools the same five-page “Traditional Values Letter” used by a Greek Orthodox father who has sued the Hamilton school board for refusing to warn him when his children’s teachers plan to talk about family, marriage or human sexuality. Hamilton dentist Dr. Steve Tourloukis said Monday he only wants those issues taught to his Grade 1 daughter and Grade 4 son “from a Christian perspective.”
“I’m not an extremist, but I must ensure that my children abstain from certain activities that may include lessons which promote views contrary to our faith,” said Tourloukis, who is supported by a group called the Parental Rights in Education Defense Fund. “We know other denominations like Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims are excused for certain activities. Does our being Christian disqualify us from equitable treatment?”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/education/article/1254611–stock-letter-asks-school-to-warn-when-sensitive-subjects-arise
“The letter was penned by PEACE (Public Education Advocates for Christian Equity) Hamilton, a Christian parent group led by Phil Lees, also head of Ontario’s Family Coalition Party. PEACE Hamilton is helping to raise an estimated $65,000 for Tourloukis’ lawsuit, said Lees, and has posted a blank copy of the Traditional Values Letter for parents to download from its website. Parents simply insert the name of their faith, into the same letter.”
Another law suit, where the public education system will defend their stances based on the discriminatory practices rooted in the 19th century education system. The right to discriminate against individuals or groups of people, as they customarily done since the formation of the public education system. In my case, to discriminate by not providing the corrective reading remediation in a timely fashion and to prevent further learning loss. The inclusive classroom becomes the replacement, and social justice and inequities are measured out according to the values and culture of the ones in charge of the public education system. A follow up editorial of the Toronto Star, spouting the same defense to practice for the big day in court. “Their demands are impractical, indeed unacceptable in a public school system. Everyone from the education minister down to individual principals must push back against this pernicious trend.” Or further down, ” The generally ask that schools notify them before teachers deal with certain subjects, including evolution, the environment, wizardry or any discussion that portrays gay relationships as “natural, healthy or acceptable.” This demand for prior notice is unreasonable. The schools need to be able to deal with these matters as they come up.” Or further down, “Moreover tolerance and respecting differences is not something kids learn at 2 p.m. on Tuesday and then move on. It is imbedded, quite rightly, into the curriculum. No teacher should have to cover up a family drawing by a young girl with two moms, so as not to offend other students. How would the young girl feel to be told that some of her peers aren’t allowed to see her family portrait?”
But the last sentence is priceless, ” But the public school system teaches science and literature and tolerance, and it must remain free to do so.”
Priceless,and in my eyes a public education system who have remain as intolerant to the learning and educational needs of students who struggle in learning. Instead they received the dumb down versions of schooling, sentencing the students to 12 years of schooling where their learned to feel shameful of their abilities and that there is something wrong with themselves.
However, the law suit is just another indication of how far the education system has strayed from the original mandate of a public education – the education of youth. Rather amusing to hear Harry Potter, when the public education system has actively removed every piece of literature, the classics , and to be returned only if it can be sanitized and cleanse of its politically incorrect language. Where the LD child or the autism child always has happy endings, if they accept their lot in life. Stories that my 17 year old would call stupid stories that has no basis on the realities of children with disabilities and the ongoing biases and misconceptions that the majority of society holds on the academic ability of these children. Rather amusing, when social studies or history becomes a series of snapshots in time, without the background information to understand the context of the snapshots. To my surprise, I was not the lone person asking the google search engine, a short summary of the Communist Soviet Union – the old USSR. How does any high school teacher, go through the novel, The Animal Farm without mentioning once the governing system of the old USSR to which the novel was based on. To my consternation, as well as a great many other parents the information from the web sites connected to the public education system, if anything provides a glowing account of the governance system of the USSR. Glowing is an understatement, hearing the rhetoric of a governance system that systematically undermined the individual rights and freedoms at every turn. I eventually cobbled a summary of the old USSR system, and taught my then 16 year old, the background information necessary to passed the novel unit with a good grade. Once It was taught, my child’s response was priceless. Just as bad as Nazi Germany, determined to have the freedoms and rights of individual remove, and in its replacement the freedoms and rights of the government authorities. Why didn’t the people just killed the leader?
The 21st century public education system is very much like the governance system of the old USSR. It is about time the average individual parents and students are taking the government schools to task, that opening promotes discriminatory practices based on the undermining of the rights and freedoms of individuals, and granting rights and freedoms to other disadvantage groups by granting them first claim to insert their rights over the lesser disadvantage students, perceived and dictated by the education officials. If one of the perceived lesser disadvantage individuals and/or groups, insert their rights, they are told to wait at the back of the line. or worse are ordered to accept the values and culture of a school, without criticism, or else. Another parent in Ontario, is suing a school board, for the unlawful arrest over the drawing of his child, and a picture of a gun in the drawing. Another parent in Ontario, is contemplating suing the school board for banning the parent who was objecting to the bullying policies that allows her child to be bullied and harassed under the care of the school.
The list of law suits against the public education system, are increasing but one will never know the true extent of the law suits that the public education system of any district is facing, because they hide behind the skirts of the legal system, rather than informing the public and the costs to the taxpayers purse defending the policies of the public education system. What did it cost the Ontario taxpayers, for the Ontario education heavy weights to have standing on the Moore case at the Supreme Court of Canada? At least $60,000 to defend the right and ability of a public education system, to only provide education services only when all other dyslexic students are receiving the identical education service and/or accommodations. Ergo, the Moore boy was not discriminated since no other LD student was receiving corrective reading remediation. No one has to wonder why, LD students are at the bottom of not only having the lowest abilities in reading,writing, and numeracy but are as well the lowest achievers in the rankings. But it is rather ludicrous, grown men and women defending the lack of corrective remediation and instruction methods , based that it would cost too much and therefore condemning the collective group of LD students to a life sentence of low literacy, writing and numeracy skills.
As one parent has said today in another education forum, if so, the public education system should be giving out vouchers to parents and their children where it becomes an undue financial hardship as the public education claims in denying education services for children. $10,000 would go a long way for a determined parent to provide the necessary tools and start-up costs of providing the corrective reading, writing and numeracy remediation for students with LD. in the home environment. So they too can enjoy learning new knowledge and progress in their learning, but the public education is bound and determined to provide education services according to the shifting values of the stakeholders within the system. Constantly shifting and conditions on the self-serving agendas and interests of the stakeholders within. Another common scenario being played in Ontario, and the victims are the students, and their education. ” Ontario teachers are vowing to withdraw voluntary services, casting some uncertainty over the school year ahead.
Union leaders have directed their members to cut back on leading clubs and coaching sports teams on their own time in protest against legislation passed Tuesday at Queen’s Park. The new bill enforces a two-year wage freeze, cuts sick days in half and blocks teachers from going on strike.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/ontario-teachers-pledge-its-not-business-as-usual-on-extracurriculars/article4537777/
I rest my case, if anyone cares to read the comments on the last link as for the reasons. If it was not for the individual teachers who supported the active role that I played in the home front, in tutoring and re-teaching the lessons of the classroom fashioned and in tuned with my child’s learning abilities, my child would not be where she is today, looking forward to post-secondary in her future. However, teachers who follow the union directives , will have a difficult time explaining to the individual parents why they are working against the best interests of their students. The teachers who do not follow the directives of the union brass, will become the new darlings for parents. and students alike.
You have completely lost me, because I thought we were debating the merits of Don’t Back Down and its potential for sparking serious debate in Canada.
Over at VoicEd.ca, the online discussion has stayed more on track. Stephen Hurley has his hands full with Tobey Steeves, so there have been a few fireworks.
What follows is an attempt to steer you back onto the topic:
Feature films like Won’t Back Down seek to spark a reaction,any reaction, in viewers. Two weeks from its release, this Walden Media flick seems to be doing just that among educators and policy wonks. Some, I gather, see it as dangerous, subversive and blasphemous.
We Canadians are known for our civility, so this blog conversation may be an aberration. When Canadian educators disagree, they usually switch channels and talk to their own camp followers. That has to stop if we are to accomplish anything.
The normal response to pointed and informed educational critiques: Listen, switch channels, and politely ignore. With the star power of the actors in Won’t Back Down, it will attract Hollywood buzz. It’s possible that everyone will be talking about the film EXCEPT the educators it was designed to influence.
General assumption the parents of PEACE are religious extremists and ought to be ignored.
Neither Nancy nor Jo Anne can find a school system with a better record than Canada or they would have told us by now.
The insiders knowledge is that parents in Kitchener Waterloo shifted strongly from the Liberals and conservatives to the NDP because they just don’t want a school system where “people are upset.”
McGuinty is in for the fight of his life as the teacher plan to unload multimillion dollar budgets to make sure he is defeated.
Yes and the Unions shouldn`t be bullying the parents and children;their tactics lack ethics and integrity.
Also,parents NEED to push back,they fund the %^&*# thing and the MOE must advocate for the primary client,not votes!
The buck has to stop here,it seems like a perfect climate for parents to put the Unions in their place.Their ads trying to dupe us they are all about the kids are nauseating and duplicitous!
So tell me how the union bullys the parents and the students. Explain please.
The teachers extra curricular work is 100% voluntary. They can remove it without discipline or law because they are not paid 5 cents for it.
The parents ARE siding with the teachers over this serious miscalculation by McGuinty.
To John: check out the Simpson piece in the Globe.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canadas-made-a-choice-health-not-education/article4537496/
Doug,more money for education is fine but not for the teacher,for the student.
Right now I am told 89% of the budget goes to teacher salary-
They have to control it so they can invest better infrastructures and programming for kids and stop every penny going to salaries that are constantly getting bigger because of Unions.
You would be wrong, 89% goes to all salaries, teacher and support staff and admin.Tthis has been the same for 40 years.
Nancy I think you are under the illusion that the person with the longest post wins. Nobody else thinks this is true. You need to learn to get to your point.
All you need to know about KitWat and the power struggle with McGuinty vs the teachers.
http://www.thelittleeducationreport.com/index.html
To JoAnne: latest figures show TDSB 85 % = salaries of all employees + all untility bills.
Education is a labout intensive business. If you add all day JK and smaller class sizes the % spent on wages goes up. People seem fine with that. The amount spent on teachers is not all teachers wages and benefits. A big piece of it is “more teachers” and support staff.This is what parents demand is more staff not more chalk.
Sticking to Paul’s questions:
“How happy are Canadian parents with their provincial school systems and local public schools? ”
In provinces that respect and have school choice very happy. In those which do not, unhappy.
“Was the recent Ipsos Reid poll an accurate reflection of deep concerns over the teaching of Reading, Writing, and Math in public elementary schools?”
Yes.
“Will the American film Won’t Back Down get a fair hearing in Canada or be dismissed in a fashion similar to that of the powerful documentary film Waiting for Superman?”
Doug’s responses should answer that question Paul.
As to why parents shrug off school concerns, where to start.
Parents give up because the system knows how to ignore them, trivialize them, stall them, intimidate them, bash them, divide and conquer them, reminds them about how big and rich it is, waits them out, provides stupid answers to good questions, become threatened when parents show they’re smarter than some within the system.
Parents also give up because they have no alternatives available to them.
Teachers can be very much in this same boat when they do not agree with their union….which is more than the union spinner like to admit.
Our old friend, Tobey Steeves, is posting incendiary comments over at VoicEd.ca in direct response to this commentary.
Here is his latest:
“A wide body of literature suggests that parents’ notions of what happens in classrooms are generally guided by romantic nostalgia. Few parents have much interest in staying abreast in the latest developments in pedagogical research, or epistemology, or accountability studies, etc. As a result, they generally experience classrooms from a vested yet mythologized vantage, and this creates great difficulties in communication.
This is, in a meaningful sense, encapsulated in the claim that “parents are looking for results”. Many parents, for instance, are confused into thinking that “results” = “high test scores”. These are not results that matter but results that mystify and confuse folks into thinking a map = territory, or menu = meal. What might be more meaningful, I might suggest, are results of /significance/ – e.g., compassion, critical citizenship practices, democratic deliberation, etc. There are – as of this moment – no tests for these results. Maybe Einstein was right when he said “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”
The question of ‘how parents get Right’ – which seems particularly apt in a thread where parents are coming to the defense of a neo-con agenda – is a topic of interest for the education scholar Michael Apple. He has looked at the lack of trust and fear that drives parents’ approach to education and curricular policy – and this is particularly pronounced in the case of ‘middle class’ parents. Indeed, there’s a whole body of research that looks at how parents are being driven into an individualized ‘education as act of consumption’ context that is disconnected from the larger collective values of public education.
The point here is that parents are being manipulated through fear and coercion. They have meaningful views to share, but we shouldn’t mistake opinion for analysis – which is not the same as critique.
It is opinion to say that blue shoes are the best.
It is analysis to say that drinking petroleum products can /lead/ to vomiting, coma – and death.
It is critique to say that a hamburger tastes bad because the bread is /soggy/, the meat is /under-cooked/, and the tomatoes aren’t /ripe/.
It is opinion to say that charters serve kids.
It is analysis to say that charters /aggravate/ standing inequalities and /reify/ gentrification as ‘common sense’.
It is critique to say that charters are /ineffective in serving poor communities/, /de-professionalize teachers/, and /commodify students’ work/.
Parents, to be sure, have analyses and critiques too. And they need to be included in the discussion. Similarly, taxi drivers have analyses – and they can be quite passionately driven to reform public education. But does that mean we should look to taxi drivers to help guide ed policy?
Maybe, in the end, public ed systems would actually be a bit better if policy makers listened to taxi drivers – not billionaire homophobes who have a tyrannical urge to subvert democracy?” (Reprinted from VoicEd.ca)
Comment:
Educators have a tendency to be condescending when it comes to their attitudes toward parents advocating for their children. This post simply takes the cake! It speaks volumes about the hidden motives of the most rabid school reform deniers.
Tobey seems to be waxing nostalgic himself.
What of the lofty dream world of educators who dream lovingly of evenings by the fire grading papers, or a world where respect is unearned and learning happens by osmosis?
This is a particularly inaccurate comment in Tobey’s dream sequence “Few parents have much interest in staying abreast in the latest developments in pedagogical research, or epistemology, or accountability studies, etc. ” He’s clearly remembering days of old when parents accepted the word of educators as fact without doing their own homework. If Tobey’s response is to THIS forum, he’s really in la-la land because parents here show with regularity that they’re leaders in education in their own rights. Time to wake Tobey from his dream world.
On second thought, let’s let Tobey snooze through the rest of the decade….like too many more that want to teach parents a lesson.
Yes,and if it smells like a rotten egg it`s a rotten egg.
Clues help
Students that can`t spell or write and students who can`t add,subtract,divide or multiply.
Students who don`t understand sentence structure and can`t write a paragraph.
Don`t buy into any other explanation on this,it`s called dysteachia !
A clear indication to me that Doug is losing the moral high ground with his union mantra talking points is when the usually pro-union Toronto Star turns a corner and starts seeing reality. Journalist Cohn and the Sun’s Moira MacDonald and Christina Blizzard earlier this week came out with similar comment. They are all correct.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1255834–cohn-the-moral-high-ground-that-ontario-teachers-unions-claim-to-occupy-is-slipping-away
The easiest cheapest and stupidest slogans in education are “don’t bring the kids into this” This is like saying in a car factory, sure have your strike but please don’t slow down or halt auto production. Teachers have a long acknowledged “right to strike” Dalton McGuinty closed off every avenue of legal strike. Strikes are not always “on the bricks” in education. They can be refusal to cover for absent teachers, refusal to attend meetings, refusal to submit reports they can take many forms. McGuinty closed all of these but to date he cannot legislate voluntary work. He left the teachers no option save 3, the legal option, the political option and the extra curricular option. If the teachers were out on the bricks there would be no EC activities either but the strike would be short, sharp and probably end in arbitration. Because arbitration would give a small raise and never end sick days mcGuinty feels he cannot go this route. Since the KW election insiders know the Liberals are rethinking their strategy. Kathleen Wynne, Jim Bradley, Kim Craitor and many supporters have been telling them this strategy leads to political disaster. It will be KW in every Liberal seat unless we see a U-Turn.
100% of the blame will fall on him if the teachers decide to withdraw from extra curricular activities.
I am well aware that the opinions of some here is “when he whacks you you must just take it and not fight back” this is so painfully naive that it hurts.
The tactic that eventually worked with Harris is – create such chaos in the school system that parents conclude – the system is in chaos, we don’t get to vote for the teacher leaders but we do get to vote for the government so I guess we better change governments in order to end the chaos. We had a nice little education system going here until McGuinty decided to ruin it.
Personally I advocate a political response. The federations have multi million dollar bank accounts. Last figure I heard for OSSTF was $75 million. ETFO is twice the size and there is OECTA and AEFO CUPE as well. Take a look at the ETFO ad on their home page. I advocate a multi million dollar media/political campaign directed at degrading the Liberal Party until the are ground into the dust. KW is just a “shot across the bow” compared to what is coming.
BTW I agree with everything Tobey says on steroids.
“100% of the blame will fall on him if the teachers decide to withdraw from extra curricular activities.”
not this time Doug. Sorry. What we’ll be witness to is the worst PR experiment in Ontario education history by the unions.
When the usually union supporting media is slapping you upside the head that’s usually a sign that someone’s in a total disconnect with public sentiment….my bet’s on the teacher unions who have done their fare share in this province to add to the despair and helplessness GOOD teachers feel, and the sure do feel it.
The usual weeping Wendy’s are using the same create a crisis mantra they used with Rae, Harris and now McGuinty. It’s getting old, stale and is fooling no one.
Paul – you asked why parents shrug off concerns? Pompous responses like this once were a clue “The federations have multi million dollar bank accounts. Last figure I heard for OSSTF was $75 million. ETFO is twice the
size and there is OECTA and AEFO CUPE as well. Take a look at the ETFO ad on their home page. I advocate a multi million dollar media/political campaign directed at degrading the Liberal Party until the are ground into the dust. KW is just a “shot across the bow” compared to what is coming.”
Look at us, big, bad, rich union thugs. Ontarians just aren’t buying it…McGuinty knows it.
The big bad, rich union thugs that need to stand on the shoulders of the students, without realizing that the foundation (students) are sinking, leaving the rich union thugs mired in a mess of their own making.
Take a look at one missive from the ETFO back in August – Unwarranted Legislation, Disrespect Driving Teachers Away from Profession
They should be looking in the mirror. Disrespecting is the ETFO’s cup of tea, and always at the expense of the students, and the public.
http://www.etfo.ca/MediaRoom/MediaReleases/Pages/Unwarranted%20Legislation,%20Disrespect%20Driving%20Teachers%20Away%20From%20Profession.aspx
Was that the ETFO “willing to take a wage freeze” line? I note they’re not willing to take a freeze on total compensation. No grid freezes and paid sick day freezes. Even with their “wage freeze” spending on teacher pay would still keep climbing. Hard to get the other 1 million public servants on board for a real freeze if you’d roll over on that.
I’d argue the “easiest, cheapest and stupidest slogan” is “we’re doing it for kids/putting kids first” sort. As a general rule it is the fallback position for adults who can’t make a good case for their own positions.
Generally the welfare of kids is low on the list when adults bicker.
By the way Doug – Here is one that you would agree with as you are in full agreement with Tobey’s dream vision of mythical disasters.
“President George W. Bush famously talked of “the soft bigotry of low expectations” in education, meaning the subtle ways educators and policymakers shortchange some students by expecting less of them. Virginia’s new policy is anything but subtle. For example, under the new rules, schools are expected to have 78 percent of white students and 89 percent of Asian students passing Virginia’s Standards of Learning math tests but just 57 percent of black students, 65 percent of Hispanic students and 59 percent of low-income students. The goals for special-education students are even lower, at 49 percent. Worse, those targets are for 2017. The intermediate targets are even less ambitious — 36 percent for special-education students this year, for instance. Goals for reading will be set later.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginias-together-and-unequal-school-standards/2012/08/24/ad0d3e06-ed4e-11e1-b09d-07d971dee30a_story.html
The teachers’ union is in full agreement. Vested interest, eh Doug? It makes the movie, Won’t Back Down, even more relevant, when the school sees fit to throw the dyslexic kid into the SPED class, without support. A common occurrence for dyslexics whether in a unionized or non-unionized school. For teachers’ unions its in their best interests and their pocketbooks to control all and every aspect of schooling, during the given operating hours of a school.
If it does goes through, unions will now be negotiating on the percentages, working only to the percentages. Visions of teachers and principals holding lotteries before school starts, to sort out classes based on the percentages.
Ultimately Doug, it leads to teachers’ unions actively working against all instruction and pedagogy based on the science research that increases the achievement levels in reading and math, based on social-economic status indicators. It is the vested interests of the teachers’ union, because teachers will be compensated for rising above the percentages. And will not be penalized if the teachers fail to meet the percentages. Why? Students will simply be moved to other categories, on paper to meet the criteria that is tied to the funding.
Or as J.T.C.’s link has stated – “Instead, the unions are exploiting ordinary Ontarians for their own pecuniary purposes.
How can teachers explain to students and parents that they will now be used as pawns in a pointless struggle that is mostly about union leaders saving face and venting anger?”
, http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1255834–cohn-the-moral-high-ground-that-ontario-teachers-unions-claim-to-occupy-is-slipping-away
Or the sleeper making its way through the House of Commons – “A Conservative MP’s private members’ bill, currently before Parliament, has ushered in a new age of anxiety for Canada’s labour movement……..The Tories argue that the bill would merely bring Canada into line with Australia, France, Germany, the U.S. and U.K. Moreover, they feel many rank and file workers sympathize with their attempts to force union disclosure, backing the NDP into a position where they have to defend the union bosses. With its very existence at stake, it’s no surprise the labour aristocracy is being forced to coerce its own members with 50-buck fines to make sure they show up and rally against the Hiebert bill.”
.http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/11/john-ivison-union-threatens-members-with-fines-as-labour-movement-scrambles-to-find-a-way-to-sink-tory-transparency-bill/
Keep on going, the labour aristocracy will be ruing the day, forcing their members to attend a meeting, and if not will be fined. No better than the meter maid, who waits patiently for the meter counts to zero, and than slaps the ticket on the windshield, as the driver is putting his dollar in the parking meter.
” I advocate a multi million dollar media/political campaign directed at degrading the Liberal Party until the are ground into the dust. KW is just a “shot across the bow” compared to what is coming.”
The next bill will be restricting the percentage of political campaigning, like it has been down with the charities? Is that what you are pushing Doug? Be careful, it may just happen especially when members are coerce with $50 dollar fines.
McGuinty is actually scared stiff because he knows very well that the public opinion that supports his moves are Tories.
Let me explain. Pollsters often ask a huge group of people say 2000, choose option A or option B.
a) Government action usually makes things worse
or
b) Government is usually a force for good in our society.
Generally speaking 40% choose option A and 60% choose option B.
If you drill down a little deeper a little deeper later in the poll and ask “Which political party do you usually support you find that of the 40% option A folks, 35/40% are Tories. With the 60% that are option B (Government is good) people, 30% are Liberals, 25% are NDP and 5% are Green (except Quebec).
What this means is that Mike Harris (or Tim Hudak) can successfully attack the public sector and win 2-3 terms of government until the option B people consolodate on one champion.
However, if a Dalton McGuinty (or a Bob Rae) tries to tackle the public sector, He is really trying to move into option A territory but it is already fully occupied by conservatives. He also exposes his option B flank to the NDP (or in Rae’s case the Liberals) so in fact either a Liberal government or an NDP government that attacks the public sector will not see an increase in the polls, (the Liberals are 3rd in Ontario now) they will lose some critical by elections and they will lose the next general election expected in the spring.
The public sector vote is 20% of the total vote and if it is attacked by Liberals or the NDP it will move en mass to the other party. This is exactly what happened in KW.
Almost all of those “cheering for McGuinty” will walk straight out and vote PC next spring. Slowly this is dawning on McGuinty.
Dunno
Pretty hard to make sweeping generalizations about a group comprising 20 % of the vote. There are all sorts of folks in the public sector who don’t march in lockstep on the issues. Consider “Rae Days” ; some public servants are still bouncing off the walls in outrage while others have moved on years ago.
Indeed there’s a wide variety of political opinion/leanings inside individual unions; let’s not generalize.
As to what is “dawning on McGuinty” is that based on insider knowledge or the wishful thinking on the part of the writer?
Nope, the Forum polls showed not only a huge shift of public workers to the NDP but the parents as well shifted Liberal to NDP. This came up at cabinet meetings and yes you do have sources.
With the average of all polls every month since March, the Liberals are stuck in third place behind the NDP. Since November PC are +2% NDP +7% and Liberals -9%. No matter how hard McGuinty hits the public sector, he is stuck in third place. Hmmm.
What is it with you Ontarians? There’s life outside of Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario. Indeed, the rest of North American education is talking about “Won’t Back Down” and its impending release.
So, back to the topic:
One of most astute commentaries on Won’t Back Down was that of Frank Bruni in his “Teachers on the Defensive” in The New York Times (August 28, 2012):
“Our very best teachers ought to be treated much, much better than they are today,” said Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. “But in order to get there, we need to be able to say out loud that some teachers are better than others.”
That’s precisely what “Won’t Back Down” says. Although the movie is bound, in this politically charged climate, to be analyzed solely in terms of the position it seems to take on parent trigger or its qualms with union behavior, it’s ultimately about the impact of superior teaching, the need to foster more of it and the importance of school accountability. Who could quibble with any of that?”
Comment:
Our friend Tobey Steeves ignored that critical question and proceeded to cite Larry Ferlazzo’s Blog Post critical of Frank Bruni’s commentary. Therein lies the problem — lowering the level of public discourse.
Yes, that’s what happens when parents know that some teachers are better than others…..a retreat by the usual suspects to divert our attention. Something like Doug’s doing below, but we’re not buying that either.
The problem for reformers is that they look for allies within teaching ranks to support the good teacher bad teacher issue but teachers’s culture is the opposite. Teachers believe the GT/BT issue is a distraction and a red herring in the quality debate. They universally reject this as a serious issue and do not want serious pay differentials or witch hunts to be the issue.
They will show incredible unity as they are in Chicago where public opinion strongly supports their strike 47-37%.
The issue is poverty. There simply are no other issues of any significance.
Reformers and conservatives will DO ANYTHING to distract from this obvious issue because the followup will be tax the 1% to pay for the education of the 99%.
You cannot divide teachers on the issue. There is absolutely zero support for merit pay even amongst the very best teachers. The tried and true reward is promotions to Dept head, principal etc not related to seniority.
And the stakeholders within the public education system do not look for allies?
The education stakeholders are as clean and pure as new snow falling from the skies?
Doug, what the stakeholders within the public education system have done, and are united on that front, is to shift the arguments and debate to outside factors. How many trillions of dollars are socked away in the off-shore banks and tax havens? Actually, it is irrelevant, as the arguments you are posing.
Paul, is correct when he states – ” it’s ultimately about the impact of superior teaching, the need to foster more of it and the importance of school accountability. Who could quibble with any of that?”
The stakeholders within the public education system are the ones fighting tooth and nail (that is the union heads and heads of the other stakeholders), to blame all the problems on outside variables.and factors to move away from the biggest elephant in the room – the structure and governance of the public education system. How absurd, somewhere in Canada, a parent requests a change in pick-up location of the local school bus, and 12 months later the issue is still not settle. It took me six weeks, and than I tracked down the big honcho who is truly in charge of bus transportation and that took some time to do with a series of phone calls. Once contact was made, within 10 minutes I received another phone call, “Mrs. ________, you did not need to go to all the trouble, when we were moving forward with your request……” Suffice, to say, what I wanted to say, I did not because I am a polite person when dealing with the public education bureaucracy. I also know if a parent becomes nasty and rude, the odds are the education bureaucracy will slammed the parent with a sledge hammer using all their authority power over the parent.
The movie, Won’t Back Down shows the side in all its glory, how very inefficient school operations are, including the other parts of the public education system.. As the head honcho for bus transportation, when he heard my simple story, he exploded. And he ranted on for about a minute, what is wrong with these guys. Than he said, expect a phone call in another ten minutes or so, and we parted. My point is, that the stakeholders of the education system are no longer following their own rules within, creating a series of non-enforcement across the span of the operations of an education system, and which in turn causes the build-up of friction, creating the catalysis – the conditions where the public education system and its stakeholders can now peddle to their hearts content that it is poverty, it is parents, it is the cost of living, and moving far into the political / economic spheres to extract reasons that have little to do with the education of the youth. Moving forward, is a favourite phrase of governments and its agencies, but it used for the expressed purpose regarding the public education system, as a way to maintain the status-quo and ensure compliance of the students, parents – the users of the school.
Doug, does not like to discussed the structure of the public education system, because the stakeholders within the education system will have to become accountable on their actions and behaviours that ultimately affects outcomes of students. In a way, the public education system are in the mess because they are no longing doing its job as outlined in the legislative,acts charging them with the authority to delivered an education to the students.
In the USA Today, “Set in a gritty Pittsburgh neighborhood, the upcoming Maggie Gyllenhaal/Viola Davis film tells the story of two parents, one of them a teacher, who use a little-known state law to take over their kids’ struggling public school. Turns out that such laws actually exist in four states — California, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana — with lawmakers in about a dozen more, including Pennsylvania, expected to consider them over the next year.
First dreamed up by Democratic activist and former Clinton White House staffer Ben Austin, so-called parent trigger laws allow dissatisfied parents to demand changes at their kids’ schools — including a total takeover — if a majority sign on..”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-08-04/schools-parent-takeover/56762688/1
Further down the page, ” “At the end of the day, parents are waking up to the fact that, in a fundamental way, many of our schools are failing because they’re not designed to succeed,” Austin said. “They’re not serving the interests of children because they’re not designed to — they’re designed to serve the interests of adults.”
The public education stakeholders and their reactions to the film, rings hallow, when they do not acknowledge and respect the experiences of parents within a system, that does not enforced the rules/regulations that governed the education structure, to facilitate the delivery of education.
On Professional Educators site – the one lone comment from another teacher – ” You’re kidding, right? NEA, enough with the propaganda. No one but your most die-hard members actually believes that the transparent “initiatives” you’ve “enacted” are anything but attempts to deflect the blame that is being appropriately directed at you. I love my colleagues–I think they deserve to be treated well and have their voices heard–but I recognize how much this union has done to turn our profession into a laughingstock. Lead some REAL change…for our kids AND our teachers.”
http://neapriorityschools.org/professional-educators/educators-arent-just-welcoming-change-theyre-leading-it
Another puff piece, without the details what they are doing works. The reader has to do all the work, to confirmed what they are stating,is factual. Have no idea, because I am always disappointed when it comes to the data streams.
Other articles, giving the thumbs down, teachers are responding like the teacher above. The parents, have powerful messages of the entrenched bureaucracy, while those who work within the system stand silently watching the chaos, the tears, and the frustration of parents.
“, Fast forward to the present. My family is still economically challenged. Public school is our only option. At the moment I am overwhelmed at the bureaucracy involved in trying to get my four-year-old daughter into a public preschool in San Francisco. I don’t get it and I feel like I’m in a Kafka novel and getting nowhere fast. We’re on a list with the other economically challenged families, but we don’t know where we are on that list (apparently that’s a secret), we don’t know anything other than we are told to wait until we hear of an opening. We’ve turned down a few possibilities because they just felt WRONG, but I guess economically challenged people are not supposed to get as many choices or we’re just supposed to be happy with the choices given. So for the moment I teach her at home, take her to library story time, and sign her up for classes through parks and rec, but every night I pray (in my own non-denominational way) for an opening at a great school because I know the power of a good education.”
http://www.unknownmami.com/2012/09/i-am-afraid-but-i-wont-back-down-inspired-by-the-movie-wontbackdown.html
A newspaper article – “The education establishment is in such a panic about the world passing it by that it’s attacking fictional movies highlighting parental involvement. Hey, isn’t that what the unions say is lacking? Shouldn’t we celebrate parental involvement? I suppose not when it means the unions and “experts” lose power.
Unions and their apologists will continue to deploy such tactics because they work. The question is, will these actors and musicians cave in to the pressure, or do what they think is right?”
http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleolson/2012/08/29/pantswetting_union_apologists_try_to_bully_actors_over_fictional_movie/page/full/
In another newspaper article entitled – ‘Won’t Back Down’, should be every parent’s motto when it comes to education.
“So now we have Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a spitting contest in which Ms. Lewis has called a “bully” and a “liar,” pushing the Chicago teacher contract talks to the point of a crisis.
This is what is happening in our nation’s third largest school system.
With America falling far short of the rest of the world in Science, Math, and even the most basic of skills, reading and writing, parents and educators need to regroup and lead a charge against these big bureaucratic machines…government AND unions… or else, we all stand to lose as a nation!
In the midst of the Chicago teachers’ strike one has to ask… with 23 million Americans unemployed and many underemployed, and we have Chicago teachers demanding more money, what lesson are we teaching out kids?
Certainly not math or science!
http://www.examiner.com/article/won-t-back-down-should-be-every-parent-s-motto-when-it-comes-to-education
In Canada, stories abound about parents dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy that refuses to do what is right. Here is a story about a school board, disrespecting as well as not informing of groups renting school facilities. The target – religion organizations of the Christian faith.
“The increases are effective Sept. 1. What’s riling the churches isn’t just that they weren’t notified until the end of August, even though the decision was made by the board last February. (Other community groups, like soccer clubs, also face hefty fee increases.)
It’s the fact that the board has decided that faith-based groups will no longer qualify for subsidies provided by the Ministry of Education Community Use of Schools program, designed to make rental space more affordable for non-profit groups.
Being removed from the non-profit category has hugely boosted fees paid by churches as of Sept. 1 — and that’s in addition to a fee increase of 43.7 per cent for all permits that takes effect Jan. 1, 2013.
For Pastor Larry Junio, whose 60-member Jesus Reigns Ministries congregation rents space in an Etobicoke school for Saturday and Sunday services, that means annual rent rose from $5,673 to a jaw-dropping $44,695. He learned of the change at the end of August, days before it took effect.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1255339–school-rental-hike-wallops-small-faith-groups
It is why the statements of the stakeholders within the public education system – rings hallow. Especially when the messages from within, are telling parents and other community members – “We call you, but otherwise don’t bother us. We are far too busy, attacking the dark forces of privatization, choice, and others who are threatening the status-quo of the public education systems.
If the issue was poverty, the public education system sure has a funny way of driving one and all away from their messages, and in the process insults all of the people who are experiencing and living with low-income or below.
The cities WITH the unions do better than the cities WITHOUT the unions. It is nothing but old warmed over union bashing paid for by corporations. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/weingarten-wont-back-down-union-stereotypes-worse-than-waiting-for-superman/2012/08/28/c88857f2-f0c2-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_blog.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/08/1129236/-Crew-Member-of-Won-t-Back-Down-speaks-of-regret-disagreement-with-theme
As explained the parent Trigger Law is not pushed by a grassroots movement. It is astroturf. The major charter school corporations are pushing the law because they alredy have taken the “low hanging fruit” and from now on their growth will slow especially since they have little to show for it.
Even with KIPP, with the kids they finally do get into university only 21% graduate.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/parentsandthepublic/2012/08/when_mama_aint_happy_screening_wont_back_down.html
Once again, underneath everything – poverty.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/would-firing-more-teachers-improve-school-performance
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/8449
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2012/09/wbd.html#more
Uhhh…
Any chance of just telling us the gist of what the articles say rather than bombing us with links? That’d not be considered appropriate when done by a high school student, right?
Add up my column inches and compare to Nancy. The links basically say I am right about everything. Read them at your leasure.
leisure * Every single one is about the movie under discussion. It is not stream of consciousness that others produce.
Uh…
The problem is that sending us to links confirming “I am right about everything” isn’t necessarily indicative of value.
The trouble is, the stakeholders within the education system, will not look inward, but instead will cast blame, including blaming the man on the moon.
But there is serious concerns of the systemic kind plaguing the public education system. The same systemic problems on displayed in the the movie Won’t Back Down. The kind that are never in the best interests of students education.
On that note, I leave you with the latest chapter on the physics teachers and his suspension. It is a sad indictment on a public education system, where no-zero policies of a dubious nature, are not supported by the majority of the public, and parents.
By Monday, it will be across the National media, and the so-called experts of the public education, will eat one of their own, just to reinforce the message that no one threatens their lawful authority, including teachers. This is what is wrong and from where I am standing, that is it the reason, why, my child never received the help that she should have received, because the teachers were under orders by the principal not to help my child? I often wonder about it, because the teachers did but cautioned me to keep it on the PQ, because they would get into trouble. When I asked why, apparently there was budget constraints on paper. Made sense to me at the time, plus I knew the principal was not on my side. It is really all about the lawful authority and the public education stakeholders. and how they are threatened by anyone or anything that runs counters to the messages of the public education stakeholders.
” Dorval found out Friday afternoon that he’s been fired.
“I’m not bitter, a little bit angry,” he said. “I was particularly upset with the language in the termination letter.”
In the letter, superintendent Edgar Schmidt described Dorval’s behaviour leading up to his suspension as “repeatedly insubordinate, unprofessional, and in disregard of lawful orders made by the principal.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/09/14/edmonton-dorval-zero-fired.html
The letter has been published by CBC, and is at the bottom of the article. Nothing better to get the public education stakeholders into a lather,when their confidential letters are publicly on displayed. What a letter it is, and all preapproved and edited by the lawyers. The fur be flying soon, and this time the public education system will be hanging their heads in shame, once the public across Canada is finished with them.
Nancy the theme here is a movie. You need to direct yourself to the movie, To answer you there is very little wrong with the Canadian education system. It is the very best English speaking system in the world. It is increasingly underfunded which eventually will undermine our competitive economic position because we are beginning to fall compared to the % of GDP spent on education by other nations.
The movie is a work of total fiction and propoganda paid for by billionaires who want to cash in on the privatization of public education. It is as simple as that. They care about nothing but their bottom line,
I don’t know how many times it needs to be repeated but the unions SUPPORT the physics teacher. OSSTF in Ontario supports using 0 grades, and also opposes “drive by credits for credit recovery”.
It is very difficult to defend the physics teacher due to insubordination. The board’s case is “we are the boss, there is nothing wrong with the teacher advocating 0 grades however when we order him to comply with board policy and he refuses the issue is not 0 grades any longer it is insubordination.”
On this issue Nancy, do you support INSUBORDINATION by teachers? Should they do whatever they want like say oh I don’t know… remove EC activities when they feel angry?
They are, in some cases, so that’d be “insubordination”…? This is kinda cool!
Insubordination? Certainly do, when teachers are acting for the best interests of their students. Sure like to see more insubordination, on teachers speaking out on a whole host of issues within schools, such as lousy math curriculum. Instead, they fear losing their jobs. In Canada, that is more of a reality, based on the very structural designed of an authoritative top-down designed – do as you told or faced the consequences. Teachers – the individual teachers – will start to speak out, disobey directives that in their judgement is not in the best interests of students.
In SQE, yesterday’s blog written by a retired teacher – “One of my greatest regrets in teaching senior level chemistry was that most of the unsuccessful students failed not because of their lack of scientific knowledge but from their inability to do the applied mathematical problems! Sadly, I see little hope for change because all those now employed in education are products of this disfunctional system. A little harsh, but that is the way I see it.
I have moved away from educational conflicts and am enjoying more rewarding persuits. I have totally lost faith in public education.”
1. The public education system is dysfunctional.
2. High school students do not have the proper set of math skills – the mathematical foundation skills to execute a set of applied mathematical problems.
Both statements are true. Both statements can be confirmed through the data streams. Or asked any high school science teacher for confirmation. The public education system described by the retired teacher, including the fictional one being portrayed in the movie, Won’t Back Down, reflects and mirrors the dysfunction within the public education system, and where the education stakeholders strives to counters and masked the dysfunction of the education system, by exerting their legal authority and employing spin on the outcomes of students.
” “Institutions become dysfunctional when they do not accomplish the
purposes for which they were created. Schools were created to be places of true learning, places where the true natures of children would be allowed to grow and flourish. By this definition, there are too many students for whom school is not ‘working.’”
,http://www.michaelreist.ca/books/the-dysfunctional-school/
Just heard a quote on CTV news – the same phrase being used by most of the TV media – “Teachers to speak out, without fear of losing their jobs.” Doug, the issue is a public education system that restricts the expression of teachers, their work and ultimately the students and their education. Funny thing though, teachers are free to talk about small classes, low-income issues, parents, and etc. but are not free to speak about a education system, that does not allow all children to reach their full academic potential, and the underlying reasons.
We support the teacher but they will be fired and they cannot be successfully supported by the union if they are insubordinate. The issue is not “speaking out” the issue is insubordination (actually giving the 0 grade when told not to). No employer anywhere will stand for that and the state-courts will back them up.
The challenge once again to you and Jo Anne. Point to a more educationally successful English speaking country than Canada. You cannot because there is not one available.
Paul wonders why there is no “Parent trigger” movies or serious right wing education movement in Canada. Revolutions don’t usually break out in the richest countries and educational revolutions do not usually break out in the very best system on the planet.
I can’t imagine there is a very serious education revolution going on in Finland either but the USA is #17 in the world primarily due to its 20% child poverty rate. They cannot/will not recognize the real reasons for their situation so they attempt in a pathetic fashion, to blame the teachers, the unions, the curriculum, the pedagogy, the boards the admin, the state national governments anybody except the poverty right under their noses.
The American suburbs are equal to canada, Finland, Japan anywhere. It is their rotten inner cities and deep south that drag them down. Giving them “choice” will not make a dime’s worth of difference. It is like saying “would you like to live in this ghetto or the ghetto a few blocks away.That is your choice. More charters do worse than the PS close by. KIPP kids cannot graduate from university. Smell the coffee.
Look at any map of educational achievement in the USA. The states without strong unions are the very worst.
Doug’s post displays the typical attitudes of the public education system. Doug screams out insubordination, as if the public education model and its authority is based on the armed forces model of discipline and authoritative structure.
No wonder the unions are so upset over Won’t Come Back – it reveals the systemic fault lines, designed specially for the adults of the stakeholders who do not want to held accountable for final outcomes of students. They shrugged their shoulders, of adults with 50 percent having low literacy and numeracy skills. They shrugged their shoulders at the growing percentages of first year students in a post-secondary institute. paying on their own dime, the upgrading courses for writing and numeracy fundamentals. They shrugged their shoulders of failing 96 percent of students with reading, writing and numeracy problems, but the private tutors and their success rate in correcting learning problems on average 100 hours for reading issues. would make the collective heads of the adults within the education system, hang their heads in shame.
Using the numbers, and twisting them to seek advantage, while screaming out the educators should not be held accountable for the final outcomes of students.
Meanwhile, parents are footing the bill, the time and the effort on their part, to repaired the deficiencies lacking in their children’s education to their best ability. in a dysfunctional public system that refuses to look inward on their actions, practices and behaviours that keeps the status-quo of mediocrity and the soft bigotry of low expectations.
An education system model, that sacrifices students’ futures, for the sake of maintaining ‘victim’ status, on the altar of the SES rankings. Why? Its not in the best interests of those who work in the public education system. Instead, low reading ability of a high school student, becomes an issue of low self-esteem because there is no reading problem. Just a self-esteem problem……..
Leave off, with this item, that drives parents around the bend
Drives them around the bend, On Global – http://www.globaltoronto.com/new+language+guidelines+issued+to+durham+teachers/6442713491/story.html
No one has to wonder, what are on the minds of the school board district staff. It is certainly not on the education of children. I bet parents will have lots of fun with the educators who insist to follow ‘inclusive language’. More so with the board staff, who fire teachers for disobeying their directives, and call reading difficulties – reading differences – that is transformed into a mental health challenge at the high school level.
In the Sun – ” Just the title and the group of people who came up with this manifesto of BS tell you everything you need to know about the initiative. The guidelines include a cultural proficiency continuum, with a spiral-like graphic indicating the stages of your tolerance.
If you’re a level one, then you are culturally destructive and likely among the most vile individuals roaming the Earth. You’re probably searching for the nearest cultural minority in order to belittle him or her by calling them a “Muslim” or “janitor” or “wife.”
Yes, all three of those words are considered inappropriate by the Durham District School Board.
On the other hand, if you’re a level six on the cultural proficiency continuum, you’re an angel in the eyes of clueless bureaucrats.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/13/no-tolerance-for-language-police
The majority of parents and students will be scoring a 1. Another destructive policy that destroys cultures and community, just like the no-zero policies. Both breeds intolerance, rather than tolerance.
You have to love this one.
Doug, public schools don’t do it?
Gotta keep out the riff-raff eh Doug? Perhaps before casting aversions, the public education system should clean up their own act.
The Canadian public education systems, has its own set of bureaucratic rules, and conditions that parents must meet. to qualified for admittance. Especially in school districts that restricts students to school zones..
Everyone agrees to boundaries in the PS system Nancy. Try going without them.
Some quick notes regarding this topic and the way it has been worked over in the thread
– it is easy to cherry pick any system with anecdotal evidence to prove your point, especially with US data which may or may not fit
– Finland is NOT the answer for everything
– school ARE in toto better than they were but the”progress” is uneven and
– the standard of society has risen faster than the school system’s ability to keep up
– many parents know more so they demand higher quality
– many parents still lack knowledge of the gaps
– school need to do a better job of communicating and working with parents, especially since +ve parental involvement is connected with higher achievement
– poverty should not be used as an excuse for poor achievement since some schools, including mine, can break the pattern (I grew up poor as did many of my immigrant pals)
– home schooling or other forms of private schooling are also not the answer; public education is here to stay for the sake of our democratic pluralistic society
– public education needs to get better, from policy-makers,to teacher development, to schools, to classrooms
I await (in vain?) for a blog discussion in which someone actually listens to and recognizes some small point made by someone else and changes, however slightly, his or her mind about an issue.
Together we might actually make an impact.
Divided with false dichotomies we spit into the wind.
Doug is all about false dichotomies. He’s got nothing else. Not really. Seems that the unions and their leadership (which isn’t Doug) are the only ones not seeing what everyone else is…..they’ve lost this war before it’s gotten off the ground.
“- many parents know more so they demand higher quality
– many parents still lack knowledge of the gaps
– school need to do a better job of communicating and working with parents, especially since +ve parental involvement is connected with higher achievement
– poverty should not be used as an excuse for poor achievement since some schools, including mine, can break the pattern (I grew up poor as did many of my immigrant pals)
– home schooling or other forms of private schooling are also not the answer; public education is here to stay for the sake of our democratic pluralistic society
– public education needs to get better, from policy-makers,to teacher development, to schools, to classrooms’
I too await in vain, for the day when voices of educators are not drown out by the big, brassy voices of others within the public education screaming out poverty, bad parents, and being accuse of acting on the behalf of right-wing agenda. All I ever wanted, was my youngest child to learn to read, write and do numeracy well. The latter two, the credit goes to myself, and to a high school English teacher, who I left the writing improvement in her hands. One hundred improvement, while I work at home regarding the mechanics of writing. Where is the teacher today? Transferred, as a lot of schools do, when teachers moved away from the script, and focused on the elementary and essential skills of language, and how to expressed oneself on paper. Who is the teacher that replaces the former English teacher? A relatively young one, who is only interested in covering the material, and definitely not the improvement of students’ writing expression. My 17 year old, said to me a week ago, it sure looks likely, that you be going to war again. And I responded, but this time it will be different, I will have the backing of parents. Support that I never had in large amounts, until they realized how bad the curriculum, what is taught, and a host of other factors waking up parents, they are worried about their children’s futures. There is excellent teachers in our small rural community, but the forces within the public education system won’t let them teach outside the script. Which always gives me pause, wondering who is the next teacher to be transferred or going into force retirement.
There is a rot within the public education system, that comes in the form of reasons based on ideologies that has thoroughly politicized the public education system.
“Together we might actually make an impact.
Divided with false dichotomies we spit into the wind.”
It is what they fear, when people gather together. The history files shows that in all its glory. Time to change the dynamics at play…………..
.
Why do parents shrug off concerns?
Doug’s answered that question. However, where once parents skulked away, they are now standing up to the bullies within the system which has forever dismissed and trivialized their concerns.
Parents are wise and savvy leaders in their educational communities.
In Ontario unfortunately the school choice organizations are missing a prime opportunity right now to pull out all the stops and tell parents right up front that they would NOT have to put up with the constant threat of unions and uncertainty for their children if they just got out of the system. This needs to be promoted clearly and in very real terms. Parents right now are very empty vessels when it comes to knowing what choices they have available to them.
There’s a window of opportunity for groups like SQE to deliver a strong choice message. That window will last until McGuinty leaves….which should be before Christmas. Lead with choice and start pointing to Canadian choice success stories.
To John: The evidence that poverty and poverty almost alone causes low results is staggering. The schools with weak results are almost universally poor and zero affluent schools have weak results. The study of outliers proves nothing. The axiom “the exceptions prove the rule” could not be truer in any case. To date Chinese people are shorter than westerners, (historic nutrition mainly) Yao Ming is much taller than me and that changes nothing.
Can the poverty=results issue be mitigated? The TDSB (former TBE) had rolled that stone a long way up the hill before Mike Harris kicked it back to the bottom. I does take a massive effort. The work of David Berliner shows WHY poor kids are behind and thus, how this can be improved.
There is simply no electoral bases for voucher style choice in Ontario. No political party will touch it because of John Tory’s experience. When polled, 15% agreed with John Tory, this was less than half of the PCs and 1% of Liberals, less than 1% of NDP. It is simply not going to happen.
Finland is not everything in education. They have the world’s best 15 year old readers without any standardized testing. Canada has the world’s best education system judged by the criteria of % of society with post secondary education. It is the only nation on Earth over 50% (hence no parent revolution).
The objective of the unions is NOT to win a public relations campaign although the students are demonstratic for their teachers not against them. The objective is to degrade the Liberals until they change direction. The teachers do not run in the election except amongst their own members who overwhelmingly approve of their direction. I expect that EC activities will slowly collapse. Some will never come back. This is 100% McGuinty’s fault. he will wear it. The Liberal cabinet and caucus are seriously split on the issue especially after KW.
Projecting present polls to seats we get 44 PC, 30 Liberal 30 NDP 3 too close to call.
McGuinty is in a very weaked position. He is running third in the polls, the people cheering for him are overwhelmingly Tories that will still vote PC next spring. He is, however losing all of his public sector and progressive votes to the NDP. The KW election showed what happens to Liberals who attack the public sector.
I am always amused at the conflating of ‘parents’ or even ‘active parents’ with supporters of a right wing reform agenda. People for Education are 100X larger than the Society for Quality Education just as an example. The overwhelming majority of parents do not support vouchers, charters, teacher bashing, union bashing, and all of the other nonsense. Talk about false dicotomies parents vs teacher unions is just not there.
People for education doesn’t speak for parents. Kidder has said so herself. They play the same illusion numbers game that you do Doug. P4E has no clout without their union puppetmasters. Nice try though.
Poverty is NOT destiny.
See effective schools research in US and UK
and compare EQAO scores with school SES. The correlation is not 100%
Doe poverty affect achievement adversely? Yes, a lot> But there are outliers. We need to identify the outliers and replicate.
One outlier is quality teaching. Too often “poor” schools are a dumping ground for poor teachers or rookies who need experience.
Yao Ming is genetic. KLearning is not.
Should we be working harder to eliminate poverty? Yes, a lot harder.
But my job is to teach. THAT quality i can control.
Poverty is pretty close to destiny. Outliers prove zip. Finland’s education system is a small piece of the solution. The big piece is a 5% child poverty rate (Canada 15% USA 20%). The fact that EQAO tracks so closely to SES proves my side of the argument not yours John.
Outliers cannot be replicated. They involve special people at special points in time and unique circumstances. Some of the same successful ouliers do not last. KIPP thought they found the secret formula. Their kids all flounder in university, only 21% get a BA.
Larry Cuban: “It is very difficult for the schools to make children equal within a society that is otherwise dedicated fulltime to making them unequal.”
Thank You for your post Professor Myers!
“Poverty is NOT destiny.”
Now we`re getting somewhere.
I think it would help if somewhere we could find one journalist to take it on-they are either on the side of the Union or the side of the teachers;the voice of parents is not even considered.
Click to access Berliner_NonSchool.pdf
It is no secret what causes poor children to do badly. Berliner outlines the worst of them but they also compound each other like compound interest until poor children are demotivated and disillusioned enough to give up. The fact that medicare helps a great deal in Canada is one of the reasons we are a top nation and the USA flounders. You cannot make a serious dent in that with “quality teaching.”
When I was on the TBE one imbecilic conservative trustee said that John Ross Robertson (the wealthiest) school was #1 and Park Public School (the poorest) was last because the teachers at JRR worked harder. I said “no problem, lets switch the entire staff next year and according to you we can expect Park will be #1 and JRR will be last next year. Everybody laughed because they knew it was nonsense. In fact, in my opinion, the Park teachers were better and it is a slander on them to say otherwise.
Fraser Intitute took one look at the scores of BCs tests and decared a certain school “the worst school in BC”. CBC sent Mark Kelly to investigate. It was a First Nations reserve where many kids suffered poverty FAS, and other compounding problems. He also found the best teacher he had ever seen.
I expect that if you look very closely at the schools in Canada you will find many of our best teachers in the poorest achievement schools. You have to be outstanding to survive. Believe me I have taught in the Canadian ones and toured many of the American schools. The poor schools have metal detectors and X Ray screening machines run by Wachenhut Security at all of the doors. What does that teach you.
The “quality teaching” argument is bogus.
The “quality teaching” argument is bogus.
This statement is just not true. cf Zig Englermann, John Hattie, Ron Edmonds, even James Coleman who amended his 1988 study.
Schools and teachers count.
It would be nice if they counted more, but they count.
There is evidence if one wishes to look.
Does great teaching make up the entire difference? Likely not, but it is something we can control.
And it is better than poor or mediocre teaching.
Coleman 1966 study
Parents do not have a different view than teachers Jo Anne, just a tiny group of conservative parents have a different view. Do not confuse your views with “parents views”.
.
Click to access Willingham.pdf
One of Malkins favourite thinkers.
Doug makes a good point.
We must always be very careful to not claim to represent, or claim to know, the views of others, particularly very large groups such as parents.
I simply said they had no voice.
I know.
I was just pointing out that certain folks 😉 are inclined to announce what very large groups of people “think”. Invariably what he says and what they “think” are one and the same.
No doubt there’d be a wide diversity of views on education, philosophy, religion and so on in any large group so making blanket assertions is invalid; heck I know of a couple of teachers who vote Conservative/
For some groups 😉 they have official democratic proceedings leading to a leadership that makes decisions. There is always a spectrum of opinion within all large groups but take the PC party as an example. Mr Hudak speaks for that party until further notice. It is the same with teachers, they have democratic elections and choose leaders. Parents, not so much. Who speaks for parents? Nobody really.
There are 2,000,000 kids in Ontario schools and about 8 million registered voters. Assuming each child has 2 parents and 1.5 kids per household maybe very rougly one in 4 household have children in school and they vote. The power of parents is everpresent in politician’s mind.
don’t kid yourself. This time the worst PR job in history isn’t going the union’s way. Not by a long shot.
I’m not sure how John L met both teachers that vote conservative. 😉 They must be private school teachers. LOL.
OSSTF actually surveys the members. One poll showed about 40% each for Libs and NDP with about 10% each for Greens and PCs. Still that is 6000 PC teachers running loose out there. We always say they are like the chickens that vote for Col. Saunders.
There you go again….putting words in John’s mouth and giving us yet again a perfect example of what he’s talking about.
John I know the teachers at many of Toronto’s poorest schools and they are amongst the best teachers we have. It is a slander on them for you to say otherwise. Still their is a massive achievement gap. All you can say is “how bad would it be if they weren’t great teachers.”
I have visited many of the worst schools in NYC and Boston where metal detectors are needed and armed guards wear open holstered pistols. Each teacher has a personal alarm on their body to push a button if they are in serious physical trouble.
The people who believe “great teachers” will turn this around are just painfully naive. Great teachers? 20% of the solution. I would actually use merit pay for this (you heard it merit pay). Teachers would need 5 years of outstanding results and demostrated empathy for poor kids. A separate inverview process would weed them out and they would be on permanent probation. If they didn’t work out they would return to other schools. These teachers in poor schools would teach classes never greater than 15 students and be paid a $20 000 after tax bonus. Same for the admin.
When I used the phrase “too often” in an earlier post, one is too often.
No slander in my assertion, just a question, Doug
“How do you know what you know?”
Let us not get into a p-ss–g contest. It is beneath all concerned and solves nothing.
And 20% of the solution is better than 0%
And yes Ontario and Canadian schools, except in many aboriginal communities, are better than US schools in general. And yes, I have taught in the US not just visit. I also work with teacher there.
There are empirical studies of the value and i noted some references in a previous post.
BTW
Your merit pay idea has merit.
Long range, criteria that are less arbitrary than other criteria.
Some recognition of the complexities by all bloggers on all blogs is sadly in order.
I challenge all to find merit in the arguments of those with which they usually disagree. Teachers and parent communication would be a goal to strive for in this area, given the thread. That is all i ask.
Is it too much?
If so, we are all doomed since all we have left is brute persuasion.
Brute persion consists of making the same point, only louder, without acknowledgement of any merits of different opinions.
If all we get is
same old same old
from all bloggers, we have achieved nothing.
Gotta go prep for class now.
Brilliant post John Myers.
There are reasons for sharp differences John. The ultimate goal of reformers is the total privatization of public education and the end of unions.
The goal of progressives like me is to put an end to private schools, religious schools and other reactionary forms of education.
Underneath subtle distictions is the everpresent existential question.
Exhibit “D” – speaking as if he’s speaking for everyone else. This is why parents need choice and more of it.
Doug’s” The ultimate goal of reformers is the total privatization of public education and the end of unions.”
and J T C’s “parents need choice and more of it.”
to both I again ask
How do we know what we know?
You might ask me how I know about the value of quality teaching, even if it were a mere 20%?
Here are four sources- three are easily checked and the fourth can be through Q and A
1. The Radwansky report from the mid 1980s noted how the failure rates in general and basic classes were high, regardless of SES
2. Alan King’s The Numbers Game examining 2 years of marks in advanced and general level classes seeing that kids in general level classes where the curriculum was purportedly designed to match their needs, failed to do so, even within the same school in the same community area.
3. Current data on gr 9 math from EQAO kids in applied classes like math less. It is unreasonable to conclude that poor kids like math less because they are poor. Growing up poor I and my pals were very aware of the importance of math ($).
4. High failure rates in gr 10 Civics, a core subject seem to be highly connected to teachers unqualified to teach it. Again, this is not connected to postal code
This seems to be a pattern whenever teachers teach “out of subject”.
There are many more sources for my claim and that of many researchers that quality teaching counts.
Of course, to the true believer no evidence is needed for any claim
and
for the skeptic no evidence is ever enough.
That is why blogs need to measure up to a reasonable standard of informed civil debate.
I await that day.
I agree John.
I have another observation, although I have read the stat from time to time, it has never been extensively studied.
In applied and basic class – percentage of students receiving 85 or higher. This also can be applied for SE math and LA classes.
Over the years, parents have a real beef with administration, getting their kids into academic classes or back unto the mainstream curriculum. Are the schools keeping the high achieving students in basic and applied courses, to plump up the numbers? It sure looks like it, from a parent’s perspective,
I also find this interesting – “Alan King’s The Numbers Game examining 2 years of marks in advanced and general level classes seeing that kids in general level classes where the curriculum was purportedly designed to match their needs, failed to do so, even within the same school in the same community area.”
The evidence from parent forums – curriculum another big issue. It is where alternative curriculum, becomes one-sized-fits-all at the lowest denominator. So much for differentiation instruction?
There has not been extensive studies done on quality teaching, and connecting to the administration rules and practices of a school and its school district.
Its in the LD files, where parents gets confirmation on the many studies, concluding its no easy process to get your kid out of basic or applied courses, when they are high-performing.
A Canadian paper on turning around Under-performing school district.
“. Curriculum: students in underperforming schools and districts may experience a curriculum…
• that has a relatively low level of cognitive demand
• places excessive focus on lower-level skills
• not aligned with instruction and assessment
• not well integrated and sequential across the grades
5. Instruction: students in underperforming schools and districts may be exposed to…
• forms of instruction that are relatively less interactive, less task oriented, less
academically oriented and cover less content because the pace of instruction is slower,
• poorly designed lessons, lost instructional time, poor homework assignments etc
• a less caring environment and lower quality of relationship with teachers
• advice inappropriately directing them into courses with less academic content
• inadequate instructional material in their classrooms
• instruction uninformed by good data about its contribution to student learning
Quality of instruction matters, because it is also affected by other school factors such as school culture, administration, ect. Even in the best of schools operating efficiently,poor curriculum and the reasons described above, are present – low performance will be the outcome.
My 17 year old is currently undergoing, as well as her classmates, who have serious concerns of not passing the English public exam. Flunk the exam, no diploma. Dealing with a new teacher, who has never taught grade 12 English, fairly young, and according to my child, as well as her other classmates – ‘nice person – lousy English teacher.Harsh words, and this morning the students were having arguments on what tone is and how it is using the formal academic language. All of them long for their previous English teacher, who brought up every student’s writing, to a much higher standard. As the students seen incremental improvements in their writing, the students worked that much harder learning new ways to expressed themselves in formal academic language. All I know, there will be long line-ups at the new English teacher’s door, when parent-teacher interviews come around. The English class that my 17 year old is in are, students are slated to attend university.
I can’t figure it out, why the school has changed focus, but the culture of the school is not a very pleasant place anymore, for students or parents. Whatever it is , the school is not communicating to the parents in a timely fashion, and for that matter the students. My 17 year old, it feels like we are back in grade 4, and not sitting in a grade 12 graduating class. Plowing through material, without the resources on hand. Apparently, the how-to tips in online short videos provided by the education ministry. I just hope my child, her massive improvement in writing, thanks largely to the previous grade 11 English teacher, is a permanent gain for her. I would hate to see her regress over the senior year, since the previous English teacher, intuitively knew where my child’s problems in writing laid. And knew what to do about them, and I have my doubts the current English teacher would have the knowledge set, to increase improvement in her writing.
No one knows why the former English teacher was transferred, and no one at the school is talking. Parents saw the former English teacher as a very good teacher, and as for the students, they attended class because they were learning. In my opinion, the school got rid of her, because she was not following the script.
#1 Many of these are incorrect John. There is no “regardless of SES” to the Radwanski Report. The overwhelming # of kids in general and basic were poor and working class. Streaming creates greater failures than non streaming. Jeanie Oakes, John Goodlad. High failure rates in low stream classes simply demonstrate that streaming as an organizational feature of education is an epic fail.
#3 they are a primarily poor kids in applied and a tiny group of middle class kids with math shorcomings. All of the problems of poverty are reflected.
#4 The high failure rate of grade 10 civics is due the the fact that it is an “open” class so its failure rate is closer to the applied rate.
I would say so far every one of your examples proves my point.
Does quality teaching count? Yes. Does in count much? No. Can it seriously counteract the problems of poverty? Not even close. The evidence that poverty is THE MAIN and overwhelming factor in achievement is staggering. However is you believe in “teacher quality” no evidence of the effects of poverty will ever be enough. Denial is a powerful weapon.
If you are a carpenter everything looks like a nail. If you are an ed prof everything looks like teacher quality will help. I guess you have to believe in what you are doing.
Dear sir,as a reading expert-sir is Doug by the way,I have organized reading instruction for many poor students on reserve for example by training their teachers; the students learned to read and spell with explicit instruction based on what the research tells us we should be doing.
Your claims are bogus.Yes,if I have strep throat and I never receive antibiotics I die.Death came from neglect,same for illiteracy and poverty,the marriage only exists because no one listens to what can be done-therein lies the chasm between politics and real work-those who are poor lie in that gap.
John Myers has repeatedly mentioned that your claims are ridiculous(in so many words)but if we won that debate what would happen to your politics?You certainly don`t care about assisting lifting up the poor.Being right is far too important to you.
Your claim that those of us who chant for reform are privatizers is ridiculous-most of us are frustrated that there is no pressure on the P.S. system to improve performance in their students.They get away with poor outcomes.
Poor outcomes can create a life of low income and weak work opportunities.We need to do much much better!
No one who gets paid the kind of salaries they do and receive the benefits they do should get away with poor performance outcomes on the job.Unions just want more money,outcomes don`t come into play.
There is simply massive evidence to support my claims. Read Daniel Willingham above. anecdotal evidence is of very little value. The idea that “good teaching” can offset the barriers of poverty is preposterous.
The idea that schools with weak results are the result of bad teaching is also a joke. Switch the teacher with the teacher getting fabulous results elsewhere and you will find out very quickly.
Why should I read him when I read the team of consolidated views from the NICHD RESEARCH STUDIES-We both know that one person may have a skewed view where a consolidation of research is far more valuable-as is the synthesis of views from so many universities in the U.S.that worked on that half a billion dollar grant.
I believe preventing reading failure is incredibly important to getting better results and I and many others here believe that instruction and success are directly linked.How we teach matters!I also believe that today`s math instruction is abominable.
The nations getting the very best results in the world do not have any serious competition to their public school systems. Competition is simply not required and their is no evidence for it. We call the devotees of this persuasion “free market fundamentalists”. They believe in competition at all times in all places.
They even want market competition for our health care system.
A number of Americans believe in competition. Usually they have self serving interests for it.
a) They are trying to get money for religious schools through the back door.
b) They want to profit in some way personally.
The amont of evidence that shows the relationship between education and poverty dwarfs all other evidence.
Discussing educational “outliers” as proving anything is like saying, smoking is obviously not hazerdous to your health because we found a 90 year old person who smoked all their life. This fellow “proves” smoking is fine.
On the movie under discussion:
Arthur Goldstein •September 16, 2012, 10:03 PM
I’m more than a little flabbergasted anyone would go to a Gates-funded Astroturf group event of any sort and report on it as though it remotely reflected what mainstream teachers think. If teachers are sensitive about the movie, perhaps it’s a sign that the film, according to PAA is “produced by Walden Media, owned by conservative mogul Philip Anschutz, a major donor to anti-gay, creationist and other right-wing causes. Walden Media was the co-producer of the 2010 anti-public-education pseudo-documentary “Waiting for Superman.”
Perhaps those at the event attribute that to coincidence. Perhaps they’re unaware that whatever this is based on, it’s not a true story. It’s tough to say. But I know do who cares about the kids. It’s not billionaire right-wing movie producers, but, along with their parents, those of us who go in and work with them every day of our lives.
Than don’t go. Being heavily advertised on TV tonight. I love the line – “And my kid can’t read”. A lot of parents can relate to reading difficulties, and a lot of other parents who pay for tutors.
Inferring that people can’t tell the difference between a true story and a story based on real events, really is galling. Shall people not read books, because the author is part of the union brass, and the publisher is part of the billionaire’s club?
On a couple of blog sites, it must be parent bashing today, by teachers. They really are taking a bit too far, claiming the only meal a kid gets is the school meal. If so, why isn’t the parent arrested for neglect, and/or have child protection services take care of it?
See the movie Doug, and see the other side where parents stand. Than you might just understand, why parents do what they do, within their knowledge sets and experiences and what they want in an education for their children.. Dropped the biases, just like I have to listening to politicians who I think are a bunch of liars. Don;t even know why we have them in society……but I willing to listen and give them another try, since they were elected.
JTC
How is that PR job working for McGuinty vs the teachers? The Liberals are down to 22% the NDP is in first place at 36% for supporting the teachers, Hudak got zero benefit from the Liberal collapse because he supported 115 , McGuinty will soon be forced out of office due to his bone-headed move to take on the teachers and the teachers are collecing pay checks up to $96 000 per year while cutting back on ECs.
The students are all waving signs sayind “down with Bill 115” and the parents are shifting their votes from Liberal to NDP.
Ya those dumb teachers don’t know what they are doing.
How about you tell the folks here the whole story of this poll Doug, not just the parts you’d like to cherry pick. Note particularly how the seat count would shake out. Surprised that you would support the findings of a conservative pollster, but there’s a first time for everything, http://broadviewstrategygroup.com/blog/insights/ontariovotingintentions/
The students I saw on Global were protesting the withdrawl of activities. Activities are still taking place in many schools across the province.
You’re still losing the PR wars on this.
How about the OSSTF tell students the truth that there’s nothing they can do to change this now. It’s law, and unless an NDP gov’t is elected nothing will change.
And, coming back to that poll, the PCs would win gov’t if a election held today.
http://broadviewstrategygroup.com/blog/insights/ontariovotingintentions/
Students at my school were afraid that if they didn’t walk out of class that they’d be in trouble. In trouble from who Doug? The teachers egging them on? The messages from the students was mixed from the clips I saw on TV last night. They’re being used by the system just like parents and good teachers have been used for too long.
It is not even a movie “based on real events”. It is total fiction. Nothing close to this ever happened with parent trigger laws. Nancy, don’t confuse yourself with “parents”. The vast number of parents are highly supportive of the public education system and very grateful for the service they receive therein.
The ‘cranks’ of the reform movement are few and far between.
So, American parents represent all other parents. It is about the parent trigger laws. My my, what a reaction to my simple little post of the plot of the movie. a few observations of my own on parent bashing, and a simple request of dropping biases. Perhaps when we do, we get talking about the real stuff that matters – the public education system. To do that, our preconceived notions must look beyond…..
About parents shrugging off-
I constantly wonder why the EQAO results in Ontario are not met with more reaction.If the school your son attends is in the bottom 30 percent ,why is the government in conjunction with the parents not wanting answers and why aren`t they put on a list of schools where change and improvement are mandated?
Parents shrugged it off for good reason – Parents are told not to worried about the individual results of their children. Others, might request the hard copy of their child’s EQAO, to affirmed or adjust their reasons why they child scored as he or she did. Denial of seeing the hard copy is usually the rule, and parents, like schools are dealing with numbers. How many can actually read the numbers in mathematical language, and than transposed the numbers into interpreting the data to effective improvements. Hard to do, without the hard copies of the tests.
Figures have been cited from 25 % to 30 % scoring at 1 and 2. The solutions are at the best one-sized-fits-all, where 1 and 2 are simply seen as not meeting the average standard. Nobody at the school level or the school board knows the underlying reasons why child A scores a 2 and another child scores a 1 in reading, 2 in writing and a 3 in math. Another child, that scores a 1, 2 and a 5 in math, in reading a score of 4, and in writing, a score of 1.
Get my point? In math – my child had fours in a couple of categories, the odd 5, and lots of ones and twos. In writing all ones and twos. And in reading, she made the standard. I always wanted the hard copies, and more so as evidence her main problem is in reading, that impacts writing and math. Of course, I was turned down, and the usual response from administration are the grades on the report cards. Since my child was passing, there is no concerns, and my concerns are written off, and her psycho-educational assessments are ignored, including the recommendations – intensive instruction in the mechanics of writing.
The 25 to 30 % quote, is probably a much higher percentage especially when it comes to writing and numeracy. I suspect the number is actually from 40 % to a high of 60 % of students struggling in the basics and foundation skills in the 3 Rs, and not the knowledge that the child has. What is really scary, and sad, parents who are dealing with the fallout when their children are in high school. Children who have been receiving scores of 3, but are struggling in writing an essay, failing in algebra, or even looking at their child failing a grade, or watching their children dropped down to applied or basic courses. The students dreams and aspirations disappearing and parents feeling a host of emotions and regrets.
It starts with informing parents with the correct information and knowledge. It does not help, when parents are given incorrect information by the school officials, often at the expense of their children’s futures.
The public education establishment is railing in the U.S., because the parents are demanding answers, that no one in the public education system want to answer, or give the parents’ questions the time and effort needed for honest, open and transparent debate. A piece of good news in the States, that the justice system is listening to the parents and students, and they are going to war, to do battle with a problem concerning students needing accommodations in exams. It may be at the post-secondary level, but it will certainly impact the public K to 12 system.
“Justice Department Seeks to Intervene in Lawsuit Against Law School Admission Council to Protect Rights of Individuals with Disabilities”
“One of the victims identified in the complaint, for example, has severe visual impairments and previously received special education services at a school for people who are blind. Even though she provided LSAC with extensive medical documentation of her conditions, as well as proof that she had received testing accommodations since kindergarten, LSAC denied nearly all her requested accommodations, and even refused to provide her a large print test book. When she tried to appeal the denial, LSAC informed her that she had missed the deadline for reconsideration. She then reapplied two more times for testing accommodations, resubmitting all the information previously provided to LSAC, as well as additional medical documentation. Despite her extensive history of receiving the very same testing accommodations throughout her educational career and on standardized tests, and in disregard of the recommendations of a qualified professional, LSAC refused her requested testing accommodations on three separate occasions.”
http://dyslexia.yale.edu/POL_DOJPressRelease092012.html
According to Doug, the parents and their children with disabilities are cranks. and now the U.S. Justice Department will be labeled with cranks by the stakeholders within the public education system. Won’t Back Down, is a reflection of the inner rot that lies within the public education system, and its agencies.
Because Jo Anne people understand that there is only so much that can be done given the funding of the schools and the level of poverty in the community. They also recognize that as the world’s best English language (except Quebec) school system, that nobody has answers since nobody is doing better than we are.
We have nothing to learn from the USA, #17 in the world. Nothing nada, zip.
I challenge you once again. I someone is doing better that Canada lets hear who they are.
A very powerful case can be made that Canada has overall a better system than even Finland and Korea.
The easiest thing in the world to be is a critic.
Do I believe results can be even better? Of course I do. More ECE with wrap around child care, smaller classes, more PD, MA’s req’d for teachers, better pre-natal interventions for the poor, better delivery of free optical and dental care for the poor, and so on.
Costs money? So what, it saves far more than it costs in the long run.
I know but why doesn`t the MOE,supposed to be representing parents, not put pressure on those underperforming schools to do better-why say you are poor so you naturally will fail or in some cases it`s not a poor demographic-what then?
Come on-what`s the point if all they do is count the sheep.
Counting sheep, Over on the CEA page on all places, and to my surprise talking about a subject that is rarely discussed.
“In the recent CEA/CTF report Teaching the Way We Aspire to Teach, access to research was reported to be the least important factor that teachers said would enable them to better teach in the way they aspired. Why did they put so little stock in research? In an era of increasingly complex classrooms and escalating expectations for inclusive practices with high rates of achievement, are teachers not clamouring for insights into how best to broaden the ways in which students can engage in and demonstrate their learning, how to ensure that they can all read well, how to structure an authentic inquiry, how to use technology to personalize learning, how to teach critical thinking, how to develop self-regulation and so on?”
http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/bruce-beairsto/2012/09/6/does-plc-need-research
Part of the reason in counting sheep – research is not important.
On another area of concern, an NP article where the education system stand silent on education materials, and than ignores the research that would be best suited to make best use of the education materials.
Oh always at making a profit, at the expense of the students.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/18/180-art-history-text-that-contains-no-art-sparks-petition-on-toronto-campus/
The public education system rather give out excuses…….and counting sheep.
Jo Anne, I was on TVO the first year the EQAO came into being. I was debating Mark Holmes and Joan Green. I said then, people will be shocked for 2-3 years. They will then notice that the results are overwhelming determined by SES, the middle class will relax because “my school is fine”, some real estate prices will be adjusted and soon it will be business as usual as results just become part of the background noise. The results actually help the left and the teachers make their case for increased funding, smaller classes, ECE, and so on.
In the UK they call they the “League Tables” since they look exactly like the football league standings. The Premier League is wealthy private schools, Division 1 are public schools in wealthy neighbourhoods, Division 2 middle clss schools, Division 3 working class schools and Division 4 poor schools. Nobody gives them the slightest notice because they never change.
After a few years they are just a big ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ to most people.
Give yourself a break Doug, and look at what is behind and the forces. One of the forces are unions, and I bet by next week – they will have manage to put everyone against them. And by the Spring, if it continues – the kids especially the high school kids giving teachers lip and sass. “No, I am not doing it. I decided it is not part of my student duties ”
First article – in the Rabble, and unions got trouble when they are reprinting an article. Just a matter of time, when the left leaning blogs and columnists will tell the teachers to give it up.
“This may be understandable, but I’m afraid it won’t work. I have little doubt it will simply amp up anti-teacher feelings to new levels, and this time it won’t be irrational. Parents are bound to wonder why their kids are paying for the Ontario government’s bully-boy tactics. How can public support be garnered by inconveniencing, not to say infuriating, their students and their students’ parents?
Frankly, I simply don’t grasp this strategy. I just don’t see how anyone can possibly think that punishing students to get back at the government can bring teachers anything but discredit. Both strategically and ethically I think this approach is a big mistake, and I’m pretty sure that most everyone but teachers will think so too.”
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/gerry-caplan/2012/09/plea-ontario-teachers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20rabble-news%20(rabble.ca%20-%20News%20for%20the%20rest%20of%20us)#.UFi8cLJDWSo
“The first impact of teacher protests of anti-strike legislation in Ontario may be felt on the field, as 10 Ottawa public high schools did not sign up any sports teams in time for the fall schedule deadline.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/09/17/ottawa-sports-teams-high-school-deadline.html
Keep up with the comments, and the Rabble article will come true – full blown anti-teacher feelings.
“.The Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations is advising parents to distance themselves from the ongoing dispute between the province and Ontario’s public school teachers.”
Further down the article – “Some parents, however, are less forgiving of the escalating protests.
“I find it unconscionable,” said Highview parent and school council chair Mark Harrington. “It’s a direct attack on no one but the children.”……….It surprises me that they wouldn’t take a more focused, adult approach to this, because, clearly, only the children are going to suffer from this maneuver,” said Harrington.”
http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/801271–cuts-begin-to-hamilton-extracurricular-activities?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
““I mean, the government is kind of screwing them around. But maybe the teachers could have done something about this earlier instead of when we’re back at school.”
http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2012/09/12/discord-over-bill-115-already-being-felt-in-schools
At the same time – the EQAO results – here is one from London. “A majority of Grade 9 applied math students at the two London-area school boards are failing and have been for at least five years, Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) says.
Students at both boards mirror the provincial applied math average in which marks have nudged up slowly in recent years, but still fall well below a pass, reported the EQAO, the agency charged with testing student achievement.”
What is the school officials solution? “We will focus on our numeracy strategy,” she said. “Grade 9 applied math is a struggle across the province and we’re looking seriously now at the curriculum, determining what the best strategies are.”
Number strategies? Like this one = instead of automatic recall of multiplication facts – it be 8 + 8 + 8 = 24 (8 X 3)
London region has a high concentration of math clubs and private tutors, all doing the same thing, a solid foundation of the arithmetic concepts. Students doing well in math, are students who are going to math clubs run by engineers and other people with high math skills, the tutors or parents at home teaching them. What is interesting a comment made by a parent, “I remember a parent/teacher interview about my kid sister being in grade 7 and not knowing her multiplication table. When asked about it, the teacher responded “well, she just isn’t good at math’, to which my father responds “you are the math teacher. it is your job to make sure she becomes good at math.” What does the teacher say to this? “It’s fine for her to not be good at math; we could always use more trades people.”
I’m honestly surprised my father’s head didn’t just explode right then and there.”
http://www.lfpress.com/2012/09/13/london-math-students-failing
That is a regular excuse – enter the trades, one does not need math.
They actually need trig and a bit of calculus, Back to the Rabble article, “Parents are bound to wonder why their kids are paying for the Ontario government’s bully-boy tactics. How can public support be garnered by inconveniencing, not to say infuriating, their students and their students’ parents?”
When parents start to wonder, their minds will also wonder about other things, and they won’t be happy campers accepting excuses for their children failing in foundation math concepts, such as the multiplication tables, or in long division that is no longer taught, but very much needed when it is time to understand basic algebra. Fractions for algebra, trig and calculus.
SES – bull – but continue on with your little theory which no doubt has been worked in the latest taking a pause. As Gerry Caplan has stated, “Both strategically and ethically I think this approach is a big mistake, and I’m pretty sure that most everyone but teachers will think so too.”
.
too bad guys like you are the advisors!
Advisor to whom? I give educational advice as a political consultant to whoever needs it. I advise the NDP but the committee is 30 people. I have advised the Liberals in the past when they asked for it. I also advise some outside groups such as unions.
I asked Steve Paikin why he gets me so much. The answer – you are good TV.
Nobody pays any attention to EQAO any more. Only policy wonks. They exert no pressure whatsoever on the system except some principal still panic an
bout them. Teachers see administration of the test as a free period to get some marking done.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Coretta Scott King, as quoted in the Chicago Defender (1 April 1998), also in a tribute page at Wesleyan University
Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less–-the soft bigotry of low expectations.
With 25-40 percent of children getting 1 and 2 on their EQAO levels depending on the school board I would say this quote holds true.I believe they should expect those schools to do better not allow them to do the same every year without consequence.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Good one Joanne. What is behind the soft bigotry of low expectations within the public education system? The biases, misconceptions and belief systems that people have working within the public education system. I remember a parent on the LD chat forum, expressing total frustration of a system that refused to remediate and correct her son’s reading difficulties.
The son was of a mixed white-black race. The school accommodated for.
The son had a medical condition, that may impacted learning if he did not take his medication. The school accommodated for.
The son wore glasses. The school accommodated for.
What was the one accommodation that was always denied? The reading service, to correct her son’s reading issues. The mother, went out and got the tutor lessons of Barton I believe, , and launched a due process hearing. The school district ended up paying for the tutor lessons.
American parent stories across the United States. But in Canada, the stories have been suppressed from entering the mainstream. Meanwhile the stakeholders are busy employing tactics and the so called spin, to reinforced the biases, misconceptions and belief systems that the public has, the employees of the public education system has, that when they do speak out, it just becomes another voice in the wind.
I remember one American parent, who was quite the activist – posed a question to me – What on Earth is wrong with the Canadian parents? Before I had a chance to respond, the American parents living in Canada jumped in, and about 20 or so covered most of the ground. I just added a short post, no IDEA laws, few options, and what options that Canadian parents, short of leaving the system, comes with repercussions from the school district and sometimes the ministry of education. . .
Nobody advocates holding poor kids to low standards. Don’t try to put words in my mouth or anyone else’s. I advocate the total abolition of high school streams retaining only the academic-university stream. My position is that those who want multi-level streams in high school are the people with low expectations.
The low level results in the schools have nothing whatsoever to do with the teachers, their methods, the admin or the caretaker. Move all of the teachers from the “high performing school” to the “low performing school” and the results will be exactly the same the next year if not lower and everybody understands that.
You cannot demand or command or order or fire or cajole or punish or bribe your way to better results. It simply does not work like that.
“The low level results in the schools have nothing whatsoever to do with the teachers, their methods, the admin or the caretaker” is not a true statement. Evidence abounds that teachers count, if you read it and even get underneath to look at what happens and compare results in thousands of studies around the world.
When you taught in schools in communities with low SES, are you saying you made no difference? You and I both know better.
You have contradicted your earlier claim that teachers account for 20% of the difference. Even if accepted and that claim I note is not referenced, it is 20% higher than 0.
The real slander would be if teachers made NO difference in school with students. Fortunately, many teachers do make a difference, in test score, in future schooling, and in life. So there is no slander, unless teachers truly made NO difference- a false claim with NO evidence to back it.
I am one of untold thousands of poor kids whose teachers shaped me for the better: not all of my teachers, but enough of them. There are many out there do have had similar experiences.
Do I wish more? yes.
But to say none, is false and gives the SQE folks needless ammunition, for if public ed makes no difference, and it was brought in for the poor, then why have it?
Do I think teachers can do it alone? No and no reputable teacher or researcher would claim otherwise.
But they matter. If they did not, then why are we paying them?
I teach. I help students and since I do what i do counts. In this case I will speak for thousands of colleagues.
The debate is now sterile and
barring specific evidence that teachers make no difference.
is concluded.
Nancy, 99% of the parents are very content with the world’s best system. Oh- you don’t think it is? NAME A BETTER ONE.
i thought so. Crickets chirping.
BS Doug, and you know it. Just turned the station, after listening to another political pundit, repeating and reinforcing another infamous misconception. Fifty percent of the people are living on the dole, and off the other 50 percent of people. Divisive and discriminatory. Earlier, on the same political pundit reinforcing another common belief, only the common people are capable of being racist, and holding bigotry beliefs.
The public education system does it every day, by dumbing down the curriculum, because they can’t be bother to correct the reading problems. Or because they is no room left for the everyday problems of the 3 Rs due to meeting the full demands of contract agreements, and the board demands that all outcomes must be taught. Reading issues? Too bad, it goes down to the bottom of the list, in the inclusive classroom. After all the teacher is far too busy meeting the curriculum outcomes, because one only has 5 hours of instruction and 200 days.
The low achievement across Canada has a lot to do with the instruction and curriculum. But more importantly, it has a lot to do with the agendas and the self-serving interests of unions, school boards, ministries of education and faculties of education. Governance and operations matter, in a system that is prone to socially promote, don’t look at the research, and not being held accountable. Today, my 17 year old, whose boyfriend is taking his first year in a trade, related the stories. of first year college. Only three passed the math entrance exam, including my child’s boyfriend all of them 80 and above. The rest have to spend a year in the upgrading course. And that is being repeated in each and every college with trades across the country. By the time students reach high school, there is little the high school teachers can do, without dumbing down the curriculum. and providing strategies. Strategies, a curse from the so-called consultants at the board level. Automatic recall of facts is forbidden because it harms the students. Rather pathetic.
Moving unto another stat that I read, the top 25 jobs with good pay and its not teaching, are jobs with math skills. Nurses need math skills, like the computer lab technician to the pipe fitter to the second officer navigating the ship. Without them, all of them will be fired when they screw up, and it doesn’t take long for that to happen in the real world.
Streaming will happened regardless, because students obviously will have different abilities and skills, but more importantly interests. What about the kid who is quite happy with the sciences and maths plus one English course. Or the kid that is quite happy with the course of the trades, wood shop and other courses that matches his interests. Its bad enough, high school is filled with the required courses of no importance, but everyone has to take them.
Lastly, teachers matter a great deal, in my eyes. My grade one teacher taught me my sounds, plus speech therapy, in a class room filled with immigrants. I was her first student, and she went on well in her eighties teaching the young girls and boys who had reading, writing and numeracy difficulties. Who was her first student? It was me, and you bet she was involved as I went from one grade to the next, until I finished grade 8. Good teachers matter to me concerning my children, and more so with my youngest one. Due to the politicization of the education system, the teachers have to tread carefully in fear of losing their job or being transferred for not following the script. The primary teachers knew it my child had a reading problem, that needed to be corrected, and the answer was not throwing her into the SE math class, getting a 97 average without ever studying for the next two years. I had to fight a system, re-teach and tutoring at home, and the teachers overlooked everything I did at home. They saw progress and achievement at school. Meanwhile, the teachers help at another level, either improving or maintaining and reinforcing what was being taught. Co-operation, can do wonders if parents and teachers get together. For a long well, I thought I was on my own, but as I have learned I wasn’t alone, One of the reasons why the absent days were piling up, I never received a phone call. You see Doug, the absent days solved two problems. Release the stress of my child, and catch up the homework and assignments that were piling up. My child was always a bright kid, with a reading problem. All I ever asked the school is to correct it, because they are two qualified teachers equipped with the Orton-Gillingham method. School board administration stopped most of it, along with two principals that have long move up the ladder. Lets hope that they don’t show up for the grade 12 graduation, because they be eating a lot of crow, and no one will stopped me. I do it in a civil manner, since I was brought up learning all my Ps and Qs, and I would not want to spoil my child’s day, since she did all the hard work. As I told her, many times I passed grade 4, and now its your turn, and you need help.
Public schooling will always be with us, but the actual organization, operations, governance and training of teachers will be turned upside down to root out the rot, and keep what is good and put in some new stuff that is in keeping with 21st century knowledge. If a teacher in 1960 taught me to read and started speaking in a year’s time, why can’t it be done in 2012? It can be and its too bad my grade one teacher is no longer alive. Her legacy lives on in the Ontario community I grew up in, but no one is listening from within the public education system. Too many children are not reaching their full academic potential.
We need to get our act together, despite the naysayers among us, to show the world and get back on top that United States and Canada are made of grand stuff, impossible to replicate, and put everyone back to work to their best potential. Then the real stuff can happen, the creativeness needed to lead the world. But first, the public education system needs fixing………. .
As I said before Nancy, longest post doesn’t win. You are all over the map.
BTW Canada is on top Nancy. USA not so much. #17
This is the core of the argument between “No Excuses” reformers and Social Context Reformers.
http://www.dailycensored.com/2011/12/22/poverty-matters-a-christmas-miracle-pt-1/
The reason “No excuses” reformers cannot admit that poverty is critical is olitical not educational. Since the vast majority are conservative, admitting that poverty is the problem means that poverty must be cured and this may involve taxation of the rich and redistribution. This is an anathema to conservatives so they prefer to nip this one in the bud and deny deny deny the poverty link.
“Poverty is not destiny” is the battle cry of the very far right wing people.
political* not educational
ludicrous
Paul Tough. “even the most ardent proponents of teacher quality acknowledge that teacher quality accounts for less than 10% of the outcome.”
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2012/09/thompson-paul-toughs-diagnosis-of-poverty-and-the-failure-of-school-reformd.html#more
Put it in the right context Doug – “Even the most intense advocates of teacher quality conclude that “variations in teacher quality account for less than 10% of the gap between high- and low-performing students.”
However it is left up to the reader classroom? School? Comparisons between schools? I suspect through, reading the previous paragraph, I suspect it is a classroom, comparing high to low achieving students. In my observations, the only difference between high and low achieving students are their reading and writing ability. But than you don’t want to talk about that little elephant in the room, and neither does anyone within the education system. It leads to instruction and curriculum practices that are employed. If teaching quality was at 10 percent, than why bother having teachers being trained, if any practices and instruction will do?
No I don’t believe Paul Tough means that. As somewhat of a “reformer” himself who praised Geoffrey Canada of HCZ, Tough makes the case that reformers are on the wrong track to pursue the “teacher quality” angle since OVERALL results in his opinion, based on the studies he has seen are accounted for only 10% by teacher quality.
Reformers wanted testing and Jo Anne goes on about (little difference) then vouchers (found out nobody supports them) then charters (they make no difference or as Paul Tough says “make things worse for the poor). then they wanted teacher quality (by which they really meant not more PD or MAs like Finland but they wanted to fire more people, scrap seniority etc) teachers naturally pushed back as they have in Chicago, then they wanted Mayoral control south of the boarder, this has only made Bloombers and Emmanuel very unpopular and got Fenty fired in DC.
Now they want trigger laws, another bone headed idea. Have you noticed the reform movement has a new cause every 2 years and they soon fall apart? That doesn’t phase them they will soon be onto another hobby horse.
Mitigate the effects of poverty, provide smaller classes for schools, ECE, etc.
The real solutions are on the left not on the right.
If you notice the one common element in proposals from right wing reformers – they are always very cheap. that is one reason that they fail. You can’t do education “on the cheap”.
Here’s how SES can be overcome by good teaching, high expectations, and a sense of vocation. Too bad her union will likely make her stop doing what she’s doing. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/education/article/1140769—weekend-warriors-battle-for-higher-eqao-test-scores Is an older article.
I can’t find the article online in today’s Star but teacher Darlene Jones has been named Toronto Star Teacher of the Year. The special section features her under the headline: Tough, But Full of Heart: “At Jane & Finch, expectations can be low because of challenges students face. That’s why students love this Grade 6 teacher who pushes them to reach thier potential.”
Ms. Jones and those like her deserve kudos!
The Right work free on the weekend. I can just see that catching on big time. (Edited)
Perhaps not the same article – but teachers like Darlene Jones, will become the new norm – A quality being demanded by parents…..
“For expecting the most from her students, which educators often call the secret to helping children overcome poverty and other demographic hurdles, Darlene Jones has won the Star’s fourth annual Teacher Award over some 250 other popular teachers from across the province, a record number of nominees.
But Jones’ nominating letters were different than the kind students typically send; these talked about more homework, not less. They said she’s tough, not easy. Fun, but firm and demanding.
“At first it was kind of rough; she was on my back to work hard and come for help after school,” recalled Marcus Byro, who was in Jones’ Grade 6 class last year. “But after I stopped coming to her (free) tutoring classes for a few weeks she came to my house to talk to my Mom — I freaked out when I saw her there,” he recalled with a grin.
“After she left, my Mom gave me a big lecture and made me go back to Ms Jones for tutoring — but it really paid off; I bumped my skills way up and now I’m reading at a higher level.”
For butting into his life, the 12-year-old now calls Jones “like a mom to me; I think I would have gotten into a lot of trouble if Ms Jones never straightened me up.”……………………………………….”Jones said her goal is to instill the self-confidence that can help children handle hard knocks.
“Yes, I push them — because I know they have potential. It drives me crazy when people say, ‘Oh, those poor kids (in Jane-Finch) — they’re not poor kids. They can be whatever they want.
“I see the kids who sit in front of me as kids who need encouragement and passion and love, whether they’re rich or poor. I tell them my goal is to get you to a higher level, to dig deeper, think more critically and bump up your grades.
“But you have to meet me half way.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1263111–toronto-star-teacher-award-goes-to-tough-teacher-who-piles-on-the-homework
Won’t Back Down is provoking quite a reaction — you either jump for joy or find it mighty irritating! That sounds a lot like the reaction to “Parent Power” eruptions in the school system.
Liam Lacey’s review in The Globe and Mail reflects well those contradictions. So do the competing headlines. In print, the headline reads : “A crude case for a good cause,” but online it is headed “A hokey blend of melodrama and political cartoon.” Which is it?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/film-reviews/wont-back-down-a-hokey-blend-of-melodrama-and-political-cartoon/article4572366/
Now showing at movies theatres near you across Canada and the United States.
One can tell from the trailers it is an eye roller. Americans deepest beliefs on the right are individalistic from Gary Cooper (High Noon) to Ayn Rand to Paul Ryan the Jamie Escalante myths. They totally lack a real understanding of ‘collectivism’ as the real strength in society.
This type of reform is called, in coaching – “watch Gretsky, now do that.”
You cannot build a quality system based on looking at individual problems and solutions. It is NOT what the successful nations are doing.
Reading this and your original blog posting Paul I am reminded of a statement from Peter Cowley at the Fraser Institute-this should get Doug going:)
“Where`s the Outrage?”
The truth is,our system is better than the U.S.`s,we are certainly not 17th in Literacy but if our population was the same size,wouldn`t we be?After all,we use the same Literacy methods as the U.K. and the U.S.
Certainly when Whole Language came to market as an untested wave,really this isn`t about phonics it`s more that the teachers were told not to teach but to let the students “pick up”literacy through literature exposure,a malaise came over the whole system after a few years that still perplexes the profs and employers-why can`t high school graduates write paragraphs,essays and read those darn word problems,why can`t they spell?
Canadians seem willing to let the administrators slough them off and tell them it`s the student`s fault,their fault,not the fault of the schools or instruction.We are an interesting culture that`s for sure.
http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=631
The reasons Canada has a superior education system, many say the world’s best are listed below.
1) Child poverty in Canada 15% USA 20% (Finland 5%)
2) State single payer medicare
3) More generous EI and welfare
4) graduated IC tax
5) funding for education at least equal and in many cases higher for poorer schools (compensatory education)
6) Strong teachers’ unions in all provinces, stongly associated with higher results.
7) Strong pressure that almost all teachers are certified
8) Fairly heavy regulation of private schools
9) A movement towards ECE in Quebec and Ontario (65% or canada) others soon to follow.
10) High pay benefits and pension to attract excellent teachers.
As a result, Canada has the world’s highest % of people with post secondary education – the only nation on Earth over 50%
Is it not as well, as the political ideologies within, the private agendas within and the power versus authority relationships among the stakeholders within? Rightfully we should be outrage, and yet we remain perplex and confounded on the some of the whacky things happenings in the K to 12 system.
I have a question on what is happening to grade 12 academic English? Should not the students be busy learning how to write formal academic essays, rather than stating what amounts to an opinion. Last week, thanking God, one more year of trying to understand why the public education system consistently undermines the long-term futures of students. Trying to understand, why the grade 12 English curriculum is obsessing over war, and war stories. In a public education system environment that deems history, geography and other background knowledge not necessary to understand the context of literature and its content. Trying to understand, why English has change into history class, and the focus on ideologies of forcing students to take sides – glorification of war or remaining a pacifist. The former two, still needs a wide breathe of background knowledge, to come to a reasonable, rational decision, and why I taught my 17 year old, an old trick when being asked for an opinion, that is masquerading as formal academic English instruction.
As I reviewed the English text, of short stories, divided into categories of war, abuse of women, and other such topic headings under social and human rights, reading a few stories designed to elicited emotional reaction, rather than reasonable rational thought, One can only react to the stories on the emotional level, since students no longer have the crucial background knowledge to understand what lies behind the emotions, and that is if the students are reacting to the stories. In this case, the students including my child, are having a reaction that certainly puzzles the teacher and the administration. Puzzling behaviour, and can’t understand why students won’t do the history research, nor answer the assigned homework questions, when the actual work is no longer being graded, nor handed in for the teacher to review, and give out helpful suggestions on improving the student’s writing. No, can’t have none of that, or the sass from the grade 12 students, saying Ms. ___________ , the former English teacher who never follow the script demanded by the school board staff, but actually taught them grammar, on occasion spelling rules, and sometimes read the students the riot act. The former teacher who was banished to an even more remote part of the province, for teaching off the script and committing the crime of giving the students the instruction needed and crucial to write the grade 12 public English exams, plus write decent prose at the post secondary level to get a decent B in writing academic formal writing of essays, papers and the like. The former English teacher is haunting the new English teacher, whose only experience has been in grade 8 and grade 9 English, in a junior high school. The grade 12 students, no longer write notes in grade 12 English class, but reviewed the high volume of notes taken in the grade 11 English class, long on the how-tos and deep understanding on English terms such as irony and types of irony. Participation, counts and where opinion reigns supreme, and the word seriously can now be used in the students’ writing. Seriously, plus many other words of the grade 6 level, were previously banned, can now be used.
None of it good for the future of the grade 12 students and the English public, nor good for their futures after grade 12 graduation, in their post secondary studies. But the public education system no longer educates, and there is no better place to have it confirmed, but in the comments by teachers being posted on the many and numerous media articles on education. The most recent one, a Sun article and a comment from a teacher. “This article points out very clearly why I am a retired teacher. I saw things going south after 30 years in the classroom and got out as soon as I could. Things changed a lot in 30 years and not always for the better. It was frustrating to see the quality of education deteriorate as the Ministry of Education brought in new curriculum and policies, many that had failed elsewhere, and imposed them on teachers and students. When I first started teaching in 1977 I taught grade 8. I taught many different grades over the years but when I retired in 2007 I was back teaching grade 8. My expectations for the students were the same but the quality of work and the effort put forth by the students was much better in 1977. Students in 1977 could spell, read, write and do mathematics at a higher level than I saw in 2007. The education system has lowered it’s expectations overall for students. Over the years the quality of education has eroded because the educrats ( I like this new word) are out of touch in their ivory towers at Queen’s Park. I agree with the article. It is time for parents to take back control and not hold the teachers and school boards wholly responsible but the people at the Ministry of Education who set curriculum and policy as well. It all starts at the top. That’s where the parents need to put pressure for change. Not at the local school level. Teachers, at least most, do what they are told. You want change and control, go to the top.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/27/take-back-classrooms-we-need-to-borrow-a-line-from-the-80s-and-just-say-no-to-educrats#.UGWS4DiJuhA.twitter
“How happy are Canadian parents with their provincial school systems and local public schools?” Not too happy, when the forces within the public education system, conspires to undermined the academic futures of students at every junction, and then have the gall to repeatedly say over and over again, Canada has a superior education system. And turn around and fire the teachers for not following the script of low expectations and low quality curriculum and instruction?
In many places that would be called “hijacking a thread” to talk about something other than the movie under discussion.
The TIME Magazine column by Andrew J. Rotherham offers a thoughtful analysis of Won’t Back Down amidst all the fury aroused by aggrieved teacher unionists and educrats. It’s entitled “Why this Education Movie Matters”:
My guess is this this review will not be in Tobey Steeves stream of tweets about that ‘horrible, diabolical Hollywood concoction.’
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute might be expected to be favourable to Won’t Back Down. That’s why I found Chester Finn’s review in The Education Gadfly to be a bit surprising:
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/2012/wont-back-down.html
For a Hollywood melodrama, it is attracting some serious commentary.
In the Time review – “Whether the film’s protesters know it or not, they are spectacular foils for Won’t Back Down. Between the teachers unions carping that the movie is unfair and activists claiming that giving parents more power is akin to privatization, the critics have succeeded in turning a forgettable education story into a national conversation piece. That’s for the good. Because whatever you think of the film or of the idea of parent triggers as public policy, the plight of families trapped year after year in unacceptable schools is far more gut-wrenching than anything Hollywood could cook up.”
Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/28/wont-back-down-the-education-movie-that-matters/#ixzz27qfEIl6M
In the Flypaper review – “Showcasing such issues in a general-distribution movie (coming tomorrow to a theater near you) is apt to widen the fan base for parent-trigger legislation and perhaps other needed reforms. That’s undeniably a good thing to do. The question then becomes: How do we keep fiction from permanently being truer than reality?”
Won’t Back Down, is the kind of movie that everyone can relate to, by connecting their experiences of the education system to the scenes of the movie. Like the scene, of Jamie’s daughter, her reading troubles, struggling alone in a classroom, filled with students, and the underlying emotions at play. Who cannot connect their pass experiences of schooling, to the scenes of Won’t Back Down? Everyone, can connect, and its the emotional connections of Won’t Back Down, that really scares the unionists, the activists against the movie, and others who are seeking the status-quo.
A review from Great Schools – “There is a moment early in Won’t Back Down, when Jamie, a poor single mother whose daughter is struggling to learn to read in a classroom with a lazy, cynical teacher, has gone to the school to complain.
She gets the ultimate brush off: some kids just won’t measure up, she’s told, and hers is one of them. “Everybody can’t rise to the top, I’m afraid,” quips the weary educator.
It is then that Jamie, in her skinny jeans and down-market eyeliner, utters a line so effective and so emotionally manipulative that I found myself weeping and cringing at the same time — and only a few minutes into the movie, dammit! – a line that could be the slogan for all parents engaged in the battle for their children’s education.
“You know those mothers who lift one-ton trucks off their babies? They’re nothing compared to me.”
http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/parental-power/7033-wont-back-down-movie-review-parent-trigger-law.gs
I dare say, many if not all watching the movie, can easily relate to the scene, bringing back memories of receiving the ultimate brush off from the educationalists. “She gets the ultimate brush off: some kids just won’t measure up, she’s told, and hers is one of them. “Everybody can’t rise to the top, I’m afraid,” quips the weary educator.” How many times in a day, across North America has this been played out in the public education system, in real time. I suspect daily, but more so, in the schools as one moves down the social-economic ladder. Further down in the review, ““It’s a unique situation because it’s a movie that parents can walk out of and immediately participate in,” explains Ben Austin, the architect of the parent trigger law that inspired the movie.” And that scares the heck out of the status-quo people, when people get together, relating their own experiences to the events in the movie. I can easily relate to the line, ““You know those mothers who lift one-ton trucks off their babies? They’re nothing compared to me.”, to my experiences of trying to get the corrective reading remediation for my child, in a system filled with people with B.EDs, who insisted my child did not have reading problems, service denied and always ending with the educationalist having the last word , with the many different versions of, “some kids just won’t measure up”. By 2004, my responses change to, ‘watch me’, and how I wished I came up with the line in the movie – ““You know those mothers who lift one-ton trucks off their babies? They’re nothing compared to me.”
At the end of the review – “Indeed, even one of the film’s most Hollywood rip-your-heart-out moments — when Jamie’s daughter experiences mistreatment from her teacher, presumably because of her mother’s activism — pales in comparison to Austin’s tales from the trenches. He claims that at one school children were denied access to the bathroom, so they’d wet their pants and then be sent to the nurse to wait for their parents to arrive with clean clothes. “The school nurse was in charge of the rescission campaign to get parents to remove their names from the parent trigger petitions, and would then pressure parents when they arrived with clothes for their child,” he claims.
Whatever your politics, if you are parent of a child in a public school, this is a movie worth watching. You may love or hate it — or some strange mixture of both depending on your politics and stomach for Hollywood gloss, but it’s nothing if not a good conversation starter about the battle taking place over the future of our public schools. It’s also history worth watching: this October 5, the parents at Desert Trails will be back in court asking the judge to enforce the order that’s already been issued. If that happens, it may become the first time in American history that parents have quite literally taken over their school.”
Yes indeed, the movie scenes pales to the realities being played out in the public education system. A sick, dysfunctional system that is always seeking the status-quo at the expense of the children, their education and any other person that is perceived as a threat to the status-quo. My youngest child, just another victim among many, who never reach their full academic potential cause by the actions and behaviours of the educationalists, and become the political fodder that the public education stakeholders dance on, to keep the status-quo.
Doug writes, (always seeking the status-quo) – “In many places that would be called “hijacking a thread” to talk about something other than the movie under discussion.” Ludicrious, because what I talked about in my last post, is exactly what is being played out in the scenes of Won’t Back Down. An education system, that is no longer working for the best interests of students and their futures.
Desert Trails – may indeed be the first to carry off a successful takeover of the schools. Time will tell, and October 05, is just around the corner. In Businessweek, “Twelve of the district’s 13 schools are failing, and Desert Trails Elementary, with around 650 students, is the worst. Last year, 68 percent of graduating sixth graders failed proficiency tests in math and English-language arts. That’s despite the school’s exclusive focus on those subjects in an effort to comply with No Child Left Behind, which mandates annual testing to assess students and teachers. Diaz worried constantly about her daughter, Vanessa. In third grade, the girl started crying daily before school. She’d been placed in an overcrowded special needs classroom with kids of all ages. Bullying went unchecked, Diaz says. By the fifth grade, Vanessa was still at a second grade reading level.
Diaz says that when she approached the school’s teachers, one told her, “We teach to the kids that get it, and too bad for the ones who don’t.” Another told her that Desert Trails students don’t learn because of the school’s “socioeconomic demographics.” When she complained to district administrators, she says she was told that if she didn’t like the school, she should find another. Desert Trails principal David Mobley says he’s unsure what the district told Diaz. District administrators didn’t make anyone available for comment.”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-13/in-california-public-school-parents-stage-a-coup#p1
Diaz, like the mother in Won’t Back Down, it all started with the excuses radiating from a sick, dysfunctional education system, that refuses to educate every child to their full academic potential. Nor is the public education system across North America, willing to reform themselves to work for the best interest of children, no matter who they are. No doubt, if I search for a time line on Desert Trails based on the news articles, it will play out like the movie scenes of Won’t Back Down, in blazing colours in real time.
At last, a thoughtful analysis of Won’t Back Down, albeit one with an odd and inflammatory header. It’s written by Dr. Robert Slavin and just appeared on the Education Week Blog. That title is misleading when one considers the actual substance of the opinion piece.
Dr. Slavin is, of course, one of the leading authorities on School Reform and Cooperative Learning, so his assessment carries considerable weight. Having said that, I still think he misreads the film’s more nuanced interpretation of the internal tensions within teacher unionism.
The film may be part melodrama, part cartoon, but it’s also a very entertaining movie. The System is the “fortress” and the union is only its support mechanism. The Principal represents the intransigent school administrator in its most grotesque form. Both the Teach for America teacher and the union representative (Holly Hunter) do evoke sympathy and convey the true spirit of teacher unionism and the loss of innocence.
What is it with you Americans? Parent-trigger laws have thrown far too many educators into a state of panic and this obscures your vision – asnd produces reflex reactions inhibiting rather than advancing the adult conversation about what’s best for kids in K-12 public education.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/sputnik/2012/10/wont_back_down_union-bashing_goes_hollywood.html?r=1666747523