High school graduation season has come and gone and it seems an opportune time to step back and try to assess the whole matter of rapidly rising graduation rates. Now that high school graduation rates have topped 80 % in most Canadian provinces and some American states, it seems reasonable to ask whether rising levels of student “attainment” are actually the best way of measuring actual “achievement” levels. American education commentator John Merrow of PBS News Hour raised the same issue in April 2013 by posing the question this way – “Can an increase in National High School Graduation rates be trusted?”
Education authorities in Canada and the United States have recently been crowing a great deal about rising high school graduation rates. On June 25, 2013, the Council of Ministers of Education in Canada (CMEC), chaired by Nova Scotia’s Ramona Jennex, claimed that the OECD report Education at a Glance 2013 showed that Canada was “one of the most well-educated countries in the world” on the basis of its high school and post-secondary education completion rates. A recent U.S. education report, “Building a Grad Nation,” released in February 2013, claimed that American graduation rates had risen to 80%, a gain of 6% since 2001, and were on target to reach 90% by 2020.
The 2013 OECD report delivered good news on “educational attainment” levels for many countries, including the United States. The Graduation Rates for upper secondary level (A 2.1) in 2011 among first time graduates were extraordinarily high, while the gender differences and ages at graduation varied considerably. Canada registered an 85% graduation rate ( 82% for Men, 88% for Women) and the average age at graduation was 19 years. For the United States, the national figures reported were 77% (74% for Men, 81% for Women), but the avg. age at graduation was only 17 years.
Rising graduation rates are being reported throughout the OECD countries. Japan and Finland led the pack of top nations tied with 96% graduation rates, but the avg Finn at graduation was 22 years of age. Canada’s rate of graduation, 84%, is just above the OECD average of 83% at 20 years of age. The United Kingdom and Australia, both with national student testing systems and so-called “league tables,” report graduation rates of 77% and 74% respectively. Young women are graduating at higher rates than men in virtually every country to the point where it is becoming a ‘sleeping’ public policy issue.
High school graduation rates are soaring and, in many countries, national dropout rates are declining. In Canada, the Canadian Council on Learning was one of the few agencies not simply content to report trends and inclined to look deeper. Back in December 2005, a CCL report on School Dropout Rates documented the dramatic decline of 7% in high school dropout rates from 1990-91 to 2oo4- 05, noting that Atlantic Canadian provinces like Nova Scotia led the way. The demands of the labour market for high school graduates was identified as the key factor, outweighing school retention initiatives.
Rising graduation rates and declining dropout rates are worth applauding, to a point. Over the 20 year period from 1990-91 to 2019-10, the number of Canadian young people ages 20 to 24 without a high school diploma dropped from 340,000 (16.6%) to 191,000 (8.5%), again most dramatically evident in Atlantic Canada. THat is a positive development because, as John Richards of the CD Howe Institute pointed out in January 2011, Canadians without a diploma have an average employment rate of under 40%, whereas graduates average about 25% higher. In short, dropping out of high school leads to a life marked by bouts of unemployment and, in many cases, by poverty.
Provincial student attainment levels, however, only tell part of the story. Canada’s top performing province on international tests, Alberta, has among the lowest graduation rates and surprisingly high dropout rates. Alberta’s Education Department has long contended that the low graduation rate can be explained by Alberta’s more carefully audited reporting system and the number of young Albertans moving in and out of the oil rich province over the course of a school year.
The Maritime provinces have extraordinarily high graduation rates and low dropout counts , but their students perform mediocre at best on PISA and other standardized student assessments. In the case of Quebec, the country’s top performing province in Mathematics, a more rigorous curriculum, provincial examinations, and the high rural francophone dropout rate are factors. Anglo-Quebeckers have much higher completion rates, but those who leave the province to complete high school or switch to private schools are also identified as “dropouts” from the state system. One of the country’s best resourced school systems, Ontario, lagged behind in graduation rates until the late 1990s when Premier Dalton McGuinty finally adopted his “everyone will graduate” policy.
Boring down into the reasons for the rising Canadian graduation rates will likely lead to more plausible explanations. When we do, it will likely start by examining the factors identified by John Merrow in his recent PBS investigative report. To probe into the numbers will likely lead us to seriously examine the impact of slackening academic standards and the proliferation of “no fail” assessment policies. High school credit recovery courses have grown enormously as a way of moving students along and helping them to secure diplomas, but the phenomenon has not really been studied in Canada or the United States.
A major factor in the United States has been the closure of so-called failing high schools, known as “dropout factories.” That is not a factor here in Canada, where faltering schools remain open and essentially resort to “social promotion” policies. In Canada, we also need to assess the numbers of students leaving in Grades 10 and 11 to enter alternative schools or to be home-schooled and whether they are counted the same way in each province. Some lighthouse small school programs to support Aboriginal students, like St. Joe’s in Edmonton, may yet yield more positive answers.
It’s time to probe into rising graduation levels and to see whether they reflect real improvements in student achievement. What have we gained — and lost – by adopting “everyone graduates” policies in our high schools? Given the lack of national graduation standards, can the reported provincial graduation rates be validated and trusted? What has been the impact of credit recovery courses in schools across Canada? Are rising graduation levels accurately reflecting improvements in student learning and achievement or is the public being sold another bill of goods?
Educhatter 
Until recently, as enrolment reached an all-time high, universities and colleges paid more attention to recruiting students than graduating them. Behind the impressive enrolment numbers, though, grim statistics are emerging that point to gaps in academic achievement, uneven quality among schools and poor graduation rates.
It’s easy to blame credit recovery and… the lowering of standards but the fact is, these kids also go on to graduate from post-secondary giving Canada the world’s highest post-secondary completion rate, the only nation over 50%. It would be then an easy target to blame post-secondary for slack standards…. but one must look at the incredible rise in female graduation/post secondary results for that. Men look like they are moving backwards when in fact they are only moving ahead slightly. Young women are shooting past them.
The standards cannot be that slack because Canadian universities keep moving UP the international rankings. We are now punching way above our weight class.
The rapid decline in manufacturing, the fishery, resourse extraction, farming… has convinced young people to stay in school. The blue collar well paid, strong back jobs are disappearing. Add a recession and no available jobs and they stay in school even more.
Immigrant Canadians often have very high expectations for their kids and they are delivering. When I went to York it was mainly Anglo-Jewish. When I went back there to teach I see it has as many colours as a box of Smarties.
Staying in school longer and longer just makes sense in so many ways.
You make a fair point. Raising graduation rates is clearly beneficial but I’m raising the question of whether we should be assessing how it is being achieved in Canadian schools.
Credit recovery courses are being introduced as a means to an end. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about whether they are valid substitutes for approved, validated regular curriculum courses? What’s the long-term impact of “no fail” policies in high schools? And how can Canadian achievement levels plateau while attainment levels continue to rise?
My central point is that CMEC is doing us a disservice by parroting provincial achievements and sweeping such questions under the carpet. With every Media Release, CMEC is proving Dr. Paul Cappon accurate in his overall assessment. WE are sadly lacking in a body with the courage and independence to ask the critical questions and give us answers on how Canadian students are actually performing.
Most of what comes out of CMEC is nothing but superficial political spinning and window dressing. My guess is that Cappon will be vindicated when an independent agency steps in and bores down into the province-by-province achievement levels. Provinces like PEI and Manitoba will be forced to confront a “crisis” and Nova Scotians will have their suspicions of mediocrity confirmed by that research.
Doug is mainly right on this.
While we should never rest on our laurels, remember
– education / schooling are much more complex than in the past
– demands are greater and standards for excellence are both higher and more diverse
– and blaming people for perceived or even real faults (as I have seen on other blogs) gets us no where and just ticks off those who might agree on some points.
It might be nice to have a “national standard” but highly unlikely so we have to rely on PISA, etc. for international data on us.
Of course, if the current federal government had not gutted the Canadian Council on Learning . . . .
For the record I DO have a problem with credit recovery as practised it IS perhaps too easy but getting kids over “the grade 10 hump” with a positiive attitude towards school and not giving up is not easy. With education as a provincial jurisdiction any national standards would need to be voluntary. Look at the mess of Common Curriculum south of 49. We need to think 3X before we go there.
My Grade 13 Calculus teacher reminded me in 1968 that he had studied the same Calculus he was teaching in 2nd year math specialist in university. The curriculum is actually harder now than in the past. Luckily the classes are smaller and the teachers are better trained.
Once again, gotta agree with Doug, based on the evidence I know. Mind you, with something like math and science, provincial standards can vary- as PISA shows.
As for Credit Recovery, it would be nice to know if the catch up lasts in subsequent grades. This would be a fair test of its effectiveness.
Former CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning, Dr. Paui Cappon, took a few minutes and reviewed this blog commentary. Here is his response:
“The issue is not whether years of education and educational attainment are beneficial – they clearly are. The issue is whether we will ever again have the capacity to examine dispassionately and objectively the national realities behind the apparent trend-lines.”
At the risk of sounding like a broken record,. I’ll simply say that without an independent, nationally-mandated education council of some kind, we will likely never get the kind of scrutiny we need to improve education outcomes.
If you are a carpenter everything looks like a nail. If you work for a national organization, you believe everything should be national.
He really believes outcomes cannot improve without a council as he describes it. I really doubt that. Outcomes are improving every day. I have come to believe that we now have the World’s best education system. Better than….wait for it….. FINLAND.
Our world’s best post secondary graduation rate, only nation over 50%, I believe is actually more important than their PISA 15 years old reading level, although naturally both are important.
I guess everything anybody needs to know about education can be found in Canada and Finland.
You are a very balanced fellow for a reformer Paul but sometimes when the reform movement “talks down” success, they make themselves look as if they are not in favor or do not believe there are any routes to success except the corporate reform model.
“We don’t want success unless it is reform success.”
As a parent, time to bring in reality, before everyone starts to award each other with the Order of Canada.
Taking the line of Doug’s – If you are a carpenter everything looks like a nail. If you are a teacher, everything looks like déformation professionnelle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9formation_professionnelle
Doug was asking for that one – “Déformation professionnelle is a French phrase, meaning a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one’s own profession rather than from a broader perspective. It is often translated as “professional deformation” or “job conditioning”. The implication is that professional training, and its related socialization, often result in a distortion of the way one views the world.[1]”
Is there anyone in the teachers’ profession capable of expanding their perspective from the narrowed perspective through the lens of their professional training, to a much boarder perspective that moves beyond the educator’s training.
No wondering why the schools are adopting “everyone graduates” policies, when the education stakeholders can and have been actively avoiding the outcomes of such policies that ends in some harsh realities for the students leaving the K to 12 system. As Lizzie has stated, “Behind the impressive enrolment numbers, though, grim statistics are emerging that point to gaps in academic achievement, uneven quality among schools and poor graduation rates.”
Being a parent, I am seeing and experiencing the grim realities that the 2013 grade 12 graduates are facing as they make their way into post-secondary. To put it bluntly, the number one problem are the serious knowledge gaps of the grade 12 graduating students. Most of them are in a rude awakening when they enter college and university, to discovered what the students needed to know in terms of knowledge, they were sorely lacking and very surprised that it was not taught in the 12 years of schooling. However, its a good thing the post secondary institutes anticipates the problem of knowledge gaps of Canada’s grade 12 graduates, and have implemented policies and practices to catch the students that allows them to close the knowledge gaps, before they entered their choice of studies. Unfortunately, it adds on the average another year of post-secondary and another year of student debt.
As a parent, I can assured you as I am experiencing it in real time, trying to guide my 18 year old, calming her fears as well as her anger because of her English grade, the university admissions staff has advised her to tagged another six months to her studies so her English skills can be upgraded, and as a result, her first year will be more or less taking grade 12 all over again. The bright spot about it, is that my daughter will be in very good company with all the A and B students and bonus, she will probably get to see other high achieving LD students in the same position as she is, and can swapped stories of how the public K to 12 system screwed them from the beginning. There is good news, that the students with identified disabilities, will actually received effective help and advice by the post-secondary institute, that many like my daughter will walked out of university with top-notched reading and writing skills. As a parent, I am relieved because my daughter’s first year will not be as stressful, and she will have time to adjust to university and the academic demands that will be imposed upon her.
If anything, what Paul states is a true statement – ” The issue is whether we will ever again have the capacity to examine dispassionately and objectively the national realities behind the apparent trend-lines.”
At the risk of sounding like a broken record,. I’ll simply say that without an independent, nationally-mandated education council of some kind, we will likely never get the kind of scrutiny we need to improve education outcomes.”
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, its time to seriously give weight to the outcomes of students at all levels, instead of the narrowed perspective of graduation levels, and self-congratulations among the déformation professionnelle…………..
Hmmmm rapidly escalating graduation rate mainly caused by girls seeking postsecondary education, same kids from “slacker” high schools also graduate from college and university hmmm, must be slacker universities but international ratings of our universities keeps going up not down.
Only country on Earth with over 50% post secondary education rate. What a bunch of slackers. Time somebody above did some more teacher bashing, you know, those slackers that made this happen. (eyes roll).
Keep talking Canada down. Doesn’t make a bit of difference. People are flocking here by the hundreds of thousands annually to take advantage of our ourstanding education system. Experts look to Finland, Singapore, Korea and Canada for inspirtion.
Singapore – city state of high achievers totally atypical of Asia. Hothouse
Korea – massive night school tutorial operation
Finland – free meals, 5% poverty, free post secondary, no private ed sector
Canada – none of the above but best overall results. Who made that happen?
PISA says we are a top nation. Somebody above says we are not. Personally, I’m going with PISA.
PISA is far from perfect, but it is by far the best we have.
As for high grads “hitting the wall” when they go into first year university, that is not new. It has always happened, at least since I graduated from high school in the mid 60s.
One approach that was done in Peel in the early 1990s and might be adapted elsewhere, was for senior students to write essays to be marked by university folks to (what passed for) first year standards. This useful but imperfect example was/is far too rare.
How often does K-12 curriculum get input from outside- employers, tradespeople, college and university folk?
In Ontario the provincial report card has a special section on “learning skills”. Currently they are undervalued by many teacher colleagues. They should not be.
There is a huge demand by the families of borderline students to be “given a chance” to go to university so big hearted Canadians give them a chance in 1st year. Most of them ‘cut themselves’ when they realize that they can’t/won’t work at the required level. That is why our college system is so vital, the perfect partner to the U system.
Moreover, there are useful and valuable and respectable careers to be gained through colleges.
John, was wondering about – “How often does K-12 curriculum get input from outside- employers, tradespeople, college and university folk?
In Ontario the provincial report card has a special section on “learning skills”. Currently they are undervalued by many teacher colleagues. They should not be.”
Once again, no point in discussing the above without having the outcomes of students as your guide. One will find the answer to John’s first question, the public education stakeholders don’t want or required the input from the outsiders As I found out in 2005, when inquiring about the poor math curriculum and independent confirmation the education publishers to boot; the education stakeholders involved in the development and content of curriculum, will only invite outsiders by invitation only, since outsiders do not hold the pedagogical qualifications to be involved with K to 12 curriculum. I contacted 4 universities across Canada, to speak to heads of the education faculties and the mathematics departments. The last telephone conversation, lasted closed to a hour, while we had a good chuckle on the ways of the K to 12 education system and then we discussed the differences between the 1960 to 1989 time era to the 1990 to 2005 time era. At some point starting in the 1980s, outsiders were non-gratis in the K to 12 public education system and in particular in the area of curriculum.
The disconnection between the K to 12 education system, the post-secondary system and the employers is evident in the outcome data streams of students and throughout society. Ergo, making it that much harder for economies to stay true to its path, and the evidence can be found on the front pages of the newspaper. So how do learning skills on the Ontario provincial report card connect to the education needs of the students, that helps them to be prepared and ready for entry into the real world? I bet some teachers are wondering about it too, as well as a lot of parents. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/forms/report/card/ElemReport_PublicGr7to8.pdf
As some employers have stated over and over again, they actually expect their workers to have the skills such as working independently and being on time. Why should it be left to the employers to do, just as it is left for the post-secondary institutes to remediate and upgrade the knowledge and skills the first year students lack, to be successful in their post-secondary studies? There is a huge disconnection between the K to 12 education system and all other outsiders, that in the end causes much of the inequities that students are experiencing. Here is one lifted from the headlines – Grade 7 students to qualify for water safety skills http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/06/24/grade_7_students_to_qualify_for_water_safety_skills.html
Is is worth the expense and time, to undertake with a private partner, for schools to provide for grade 3 and grade 7 students, when the realities in Canadian society, swimming lessons is an expensive undertaking for parents. Also I should add, what is taught in the Swim to Survived Plus program in three lessons, is all taught in the Red Cross swim course from level 1 to level 4. The question goes begging what are the outcomes of the Swim to Survived Plus program and is the school the best ones to undertake it? Shouldn’t the solution come from society to accomplished the goal of having all students being able to swim reaching level 6 of the Red Cross swim program? Instead of three short lessons of saving and survival in water, that will be long forgotten as they walk out of their last class in grade 12, why not another solution without the schools?
Another common practice in the K to 12 education system, is the practice of dumping old and outdated textbooks in the recycling bin, and one parent laments – ““They might have replaced the books, but is there not a better solution for this?” http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2013/07/04/dumpster_full_of_old_tdsb_textbooks_ignites_booklovers_complaint.html
And in this practice and many other practices of the K to 12 education system, the education stakeholders will defend their practices against the outsiders who are objecting to the waste, the expense and ultimately pointing out the outcomes of educating programming, as their supporting evidence – there has to be better solutions than what the K to 12 education system is delivering on education services and practices.
The disconnection between the K to 12 education system and outsiders, really shows how disconnected the K to 12 education stakeholders are to the education needs of students, their futures and their lack of preparation as they leave grade 12.
Ministry curriculum people have committees that give massive amounts of time to business labour parents environmentalists ….. guess who represents tradespeople? There is only one group… unions. There are no other “groups of tradespeople”.
There is actually push back from many saying business has far too much influence on curriculum. Business is interested in creating “oversupply” of many trades for example because oversupply drives wages down.
On most curriculum committees I have been on, business is at loggerheads with parents.
Biz “more math science tech teach from manuals…..”
Parents “no… more arts, literature, French, other languages…..”
Here is a system to avoid – exit exams. They contribute to the school to prison pipeline.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/07/exit_exams_boost_the_school_to.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
I have spent some time over the last couple of weeks collating items around our graduation rates in West Vancouver. Once again, it is a very impressive story to share. Our overall graduation rate continues to hover around 97-98%, with about 60% of our students graduating with Honours (B average or better). This high rate continues at a time when classrooms have become increasingly diverse, and with increases in our English Language Learner (ELL) numbers. If anything, the trend has been upward over the last several years, and is a tribute to our outstanding teachers who work with amazing students each day.
Bart – you ought to check the upgrading courses in English, Math, Physics in first year university and colleges across the country. It adds six months to a year at the post-secondary level. Then you should check out the grades of the grade 12 students to the type of course of whether its the regular course, the upgrading course or the remediation (its what the kids are calling it). Between the upgrading and remediation course for English and Math, its at the 60 % mark for first year university students. Don’t know about the college level, because both learning institutes don’t really published the numbers to the public.
Then zipped over to the data streams for private tutoring at the post-secondary. A good high school teacher could be rolling in the dough, and some are by upgrading their services by offering their services on the web at a discount rate. You see the upgrading courses is basically taking grade 12 over again and the remediation course is all the things that the public K to 12 never bother to teach the kids, and it was expected that the parents should be doing it. As a result, there is grade 12 graduates walking out of school, and somehow received a high B average in Math, but don’t have any mastery in multiplication or fractions.
All the K to 12 public education system has done, is passed the problem to the post-secondary level, while the educators collectively pat themselves on their backs, of a job well done.
Meanwhile, while you are doing it and admiring yourself in the mirror, take a look on the left side of your shoulder – another large group of students – wanting into post-secondary studies but can’t meet the criteria in subjects/grades. This set of students, the majority truly does take high school the second time around, to acquired the subjects they need, and a little upgrading. All because, someone at the high school level thought it was best to put a student in a basic math/science course back in grade 10 but forgot to informed the student, having any basic courses may hinder the student from entering post-secondary.
So yes, students are entering post-secondary, but a hefty majority have conditions imposed upon them, because the public K to 12 are no longer preparing the students in having the correct set of skills and abilities.
Then there is that pesky ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, that declared discrimination on the part of the North Vancouver Board. Soon, the class action suit will commence on the behalf of LD students………..would it not be a great conversation piece in the teachers’ staff rooms across the countries to talk about the consistent standards imposed by the Canadian school districts that denies effective remediation for reading, writing and numeracy problems?
My dyslexic child is entering university in the fall, and if it was left to any K to 12 school district across the country, she would not be entering university. Over 94 % of the LD students in the K to 12 public education system are at the bottom of the achievement chart in 2013.
Diversity in the classroom, does not mean to lower the standards.
That comment reflects Nancy’s primary motivation for reform: My kids struggled therefore all parents are miserable with struggling students.
She does not like good news stories about education.
On the contrary Doug, I was not miserable. I was an angry parent and quiet put out that the public education system that deemed my child as non-academic and to further rub salt in the stinging indictment, my child was not the time, money and effort on their part, to provide the education remediation services that would put my child onto the academic ladder. Best part, I had my fun doing circles around the education stakeholders and officials, pointing out not only their hypocrisy, but as well as the flaws in the education philosophies and pedagogy that leads to poor instruction methods and poorer outcomes for students.
In the public schools of today, despite the advances that have been made in the science and technology of learning, the public school still teaches to the best and brightest students, who have near perfect cognitive processes. Approximately 40 % of students entering the schools have near perfect cognitive processes where academic work poses no problems. The other 60 % of students are forced to adapt to the lessons, the instruction and curriculum that is designed for students with near perfect cognitive processes. The 21st century teacher, is now the guide without having the proper training to lift the 60 percent of students in a classroom, so they can progress and advanced in their academic studies and achievement. Its all done in the 21st century, within the 19th knowledge matrix, where intelligence was thought as being fixed, development of children was also thought as being fixed and where the 60 % of the children became the ‘hard to teach’ children.
My first two children, were part of the best and brightest with near perfect cognitive processes. In fact, my oldest should have skipped kindergarten and went right into grade 1 or perhaps grade 2, because she was that advanced in reading and writing. However, and its par for the course in the 21st century schools, but unlike the the 19th century schools, the brightest of students are to be held back academically for obvious reasons that is in the best interests of the educators and administrators. In my oldest child’s case, according to them, my child needs to help the other children out, like a good little team builder. I call it now the blind leading the blind, but being a fairly young mother in the late 1970s, I saw no sense in my child helping out other kindergarten children, when she herself did not have the skill sets and understanding to teach another child, when she herself had no idea why she had the skill set that made learning to easy for her.
In the last 37 years or so, my two children sailed through school, academically speaking but not my youngest child. My youngest child, was much different than the other two, and I came to believe she was the brightest of all my children, because she had different talents that my other children lacked, and would be well suited for the 21st century. What my youngest child had difficulties was in language, which was so unlike my other two children, who had excellent language processes that made K to 12 an effortless affair in academics. One of the necessary and crucial cognitive process, is the language cognitive processes for students to excel in school.
Since I had my children far apart, I had the advantage of observing the changes in curriculum and instruction methods since the late 1970s. Suffice to say, as the education practices and policies changed to reflect the newly discovered diversity in the student population by the education stakeholders, and to which the diversity has always been present in the classroom since the 19th century classroom, as the decades have unfolded to 2013, not much has change. The hard to teach children that composes 60 % of any classroom, might as well be sitting in a 19th century classroom, than the 21st century classroom. And all because of the attitudes and education philosophies rooted in the 19th century matrix, who declared that the brain and intelligence is fixed in human beings, and where in 2013 all learning processes is dependent upon the social-economic variables. The advances in the science of learning, are conveniently ignored, to teach to best and brightest with near perfect cognitive processes, as if the 21st century educators are 19th century educators.
Crazy, eh?
The increases in high school graduation rates has little to do with the educators and their training. It has more to do with lowering the standards of what constitutes the grades. What stood in my day as a F is now a D, a passing grade. To which a D in my day was a failing mark, which is now a C in 2013. What passes for an A in 2013, is considered outstanding but not in my eyes when I see a poorly constructed essay filled with spelling mistakes. No student is above any other student in the inclusive classroom in the K to 12 education system, until the day the students discovered at the post-secondary level, what they lacked in the academics becomes a costly affair for them and society ends up paying the price, for a public education system and its stakeholders who refuses to educate the children using the 21st century knowledge of learning that is in the best interest of children, their futures and in the end society. Instead children are being educated to the best interests of the education stakeholders , and their pocketbooks.
Too bad there isn’t any good news stories concerning the LD students. Hard to come by in 2013, because the few that are high achieving, the credit goes to the parents, the private tutoring services and the private LD schools. In Canada, the majority of school districts are loathe to published the stats on LD students, much less make public the outstanding achievement of the few LD students, in fear of a backlash from the parents and hard questions that would come their way. My dyslexic child served another purpose, the hard questions from other parents directed at the school officials and educators, why their children were having difficulties in learning, seeing that their children did not have LD. For an educator, its real difficult to tell parents that their high school children did not have parents that taught their children on everything, that the public education system no longer teaches, and/or no longer teaches to mastery.
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