Allana Loh’s neighbourhood cries out for radical change. Only one out of every two children attending her north-end Dartmouth elementary school currently graduates from high school. Three years ago, she and her friend Roseanna Cleveland raised money to finance a feasibility study aimed at securing a Dartmouth site sponsored by Pathways to Education. Now she is campaigning to bring a proven literacy program, SpellRead into her daughter’s school, Harbour View Elementary, to boost its alarmingly low literacy rates.
She and her group, the Take Action Society, experience, first hand, the debilitating effects of “unequal education.” Since 2010, they have been working to create positive change in a community that struggles with a high crime rate, drugs, poverty and lower levels of education. They have built a community garden, painted a large mural outside the school and organized community cleanups.
Now Loh is convinced that only a bold initiative can bring about the need radical change. “We would like to have Dartmouth North declared an education reconstruction zone.” Speaking out is rare, but Loh and the Take Action Society are far from alone in seeking bold and more comprehensive approaches to community-school regeneration.
A powerful new series of investigative news reports, produced by Teri Pecoskie at the Hamilton Spectator, and headlined “Unequal Education,” has ripped the lid of the problem of educational inequalities in urban school systems. “As school reformer Horace Mann famously put it, education is a great equalizer, ” she wrote. “It’s the balance wheel of the social machinery. Something that offers every child, regardless of personal circumstance, a fair shot at success. In Hamilton, though, there’s nothing equal about education. The fact is, where you are born, and to whom, can have a profound effect on your future.”
The Spectator analysis of six years of Ontario EQAO test results reveals huge gaps in academic achievement in Hamilton schools, despite significant investments aimed at levelling the playing field. When education is so important to the future of our kids and our city, why do such disparities continue to exist, and what can be done to fix them? Pecoskie spent months researching the issue and provides the answers in a special five-part series.
Through interactive graphics, The Spectator , compares, in graphic detail, student test scores with socio-economic factors in each school neighbourhood. Students at St. Patrick School in the poorer east end of downtown Hamilton, she found, are badly trailing in performance, compared to those at St. Thomas the Apostle in Waterdown, where only 15 per cent of the children come from low income households.
The stark revelations in Pecoskie’s series are not new, but they demonstrate conclusively that bold initiatives will be required to turn student performance around in these struggling school communities. Her findings also add weight and significance to the findings of researchers preparing feasibility studies foe Pathways to Education. Since its inception in 2001, Pathways has identified over 14 different neighbourhoods across Canada which qualify as high student dropout zones.
Struggling students in faltering schools cry out for more radical, innovative community-based solutions. Proven educational development programs like Pathways to Education in Halifax Spryfield , sponsored by Chebucto Community Connections, are demonstrating what a “wrap-around” child and youth support program can accomplish in a few short years. So has the pioneering community support stay-in-school venture known as the Epic Youth Peer Breakthrough Program in Sydney, Cape Breton.
School communities in crisis cannot afford to wait until they secure another Pathways to Education site, perhaps a decade from now. Armed with what we know know about struggling neighbourhoods, let’s start by identifying the potential “education reconstruction zones” and enlisting the support of a cross-section of public and private sector partners from Community Services to the United Way to the local chambers of commerce.
THe stark inequalities are clear and it’s time for action where it counts in the Premier’s Offices and our corporate board rooms. Since 2010, President Barack Obama and the U.S. Education Department have blazed the policy trail. Starting with 21 American communities and $10 million, the “Promise Neighbourhoods” initiative, inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone, has begun to transform poor urban and rural neighbourhoods with “cradle –to-career services.”
Allana Loh is giving voice to the voiceless, The Spectator has smashed the myth of equal opportunities, and Pathways to Education has charted the course. Struggling school communities are worthy candidates for domestic social and economic reconstruction projects. What we need is bold leadership committed to a more comprehensive, targeted “reconstruction zone” strategy expanding educational opportunities for all children.
Whatever happened to the vision of public education as “the great equalizer?” What can we learn from the findings of the Pathways to Education studies and the recent Spectator “Unequal Education” series? Will more of the same in the form of more funding for existing programs, student supports, and special education ever succeed in making a dent in the problem? Is it time to identify “education reconstruction zones” and to mobilize a wider range of resources targeted on struggling neighbourhhoods and aimed at significantly raising graduation rates?
David Berliner at Arizona State is the expert on both why SES is so powerful in school success and the best ways to mitigate the damage of poverty. We have known SES explained the overwhelming amount of success since Coleman.
It was recently said by English Education Secretary Michael Gove that ‘rich, thick kids’ do better than ‘poor, clever’ children even before they start school (terribly blunt language). Despite addressing the English school system, the same connection to low income areas and (under)achievement is clearly visible in Canadian school systems. Unfortunately social class still has a huge impact on life opportunities. I applaud Allana Loh and Take Action Society for being a voice for our vulnerable students.
Reverse our thinking. Take the education money and give it to the local social agencies and community activists, let them give it a try.
Educators are manifestly uninterested in addressing this problem, they don’t believe anything can be done. They don’t live in those neighbourhoods, and wouldn’t think of letting their own children attend those schools. Not their problem.
Tom,I don`t see it that way.
It`s a very tricky situation.Rather,if a school gets chronically poor scores and graduation rates,they should lose their funding and become a charter school.
Carolyn Acker had her troubles with the MOE when she founded Pathways to Education.She went the corporate donation way,Jump Math is doing the same thing.It`s not easy for anyone to help the students because of the bureaucracies but delivering an education to students is not something social workers or community activists would want on their plate I`m sure.
I still believe in accountability,I love the above idea but the strategic plan has to be right or it won`t make a bit of difference other than emotional support.(Which I am certainly not underestimating).Hope is powerful stuff.
Jo-Anne, I believe we are thinking on similar lines. I’m a huge fan of KIPP and Harlem Success Academies, the effect of putting a decent school into a poor neighbourhood is amazing. A few lucky kids win the lottery and get a chance that the rest of us take for granted.
But there are limits to what a school – any school – can do. Take a look instead at Harlem Children’s Zone http://www.hcz.org/ Yes, they also run schools.
Change has to start in the community. Give the education money to the local activists and volunteers, and get out of their way. Maybe they will decide to start a charter school, or maybe they will subcontract it out. But keep the educrats out of the picture.
Those charters are about cherry picking highly motivated poor kids and separating them from the other kids. Everybody knows the formula but it is a bad one. Only the serious mitigation or virtual elimination of poverty.
Finland 5% child poverty Canada 12% USA 20%
I think the issue of ‘unequal education’ needs to be looked at through a wider lense and in a larger context. For education reform to truly happen, I feel, there needs to be change in the very framework of society. We are living in what Bauman refers to as a ‘liquid modern era’- or fast times. Neoliberalism is controlling everything all the way down to our schools and the commodification of education and education programmes. We are looking for instant improvement in our schools, and if we do not see it we look to curriculum change. This parallels the economy, if a company does not see enough profit the product is changed. The problem is, schools should not be viewed through an economic lense. This creates an issue with equality in education because systems are being controlled by the more affluent members of society (economic interests tend to shape ideology and policy). As I am writing this Heath Hiscox is talking about the soaring costs of higher education in Canada. These costs can be prohibitive for the working and middle class members of society and again further inequality in education. To return to my point about education as a microcosm of society, for educational reform we have to look to the theoretical framework on which society is built on today.
This article shows only 1/3 of the kids in that school can read by grade 3(I read the interview on line) and you think the cure is to put them in a nicer home,give them better nutrition and poof,they will all learn to read.
I know for a fact it`s a methodology problem and a University teacher preparation problem.
The instruction is flawed day one.
The universities are failing their teachers by proselytizing that there is no one best way to teach kids to read and spell.
Now,they are going back to Reading Recovery and what method did they use when they took the hiatus,leveled literacy.
Not ONE shred of evidence that it works!
Why can`t research based instruction find it`s way through?Simply because the choosers drank the Kool Aid at their University preparation institutions.
Jo-Anne, I am not sure if you are referring to me in your last post. If you are, I do apologize that I did not get my point out clearly- I do not think ‘the cure is to put them in a nicer home,give them better nutirition and poof,they will all learn to read’ (sic), My point is that education is a reflection of society as a whole. Education reform (to become equal and just for all students) requires societal changes. Reading Recovery was taken away by the NDP and is being returned by the Liberal Party- these are financial and political moves. At the heart of the actions by both political parties is not the students’ interests, but rather their political agendas. I do not think education should be run this way. We live in a society where all major decisions are based around economics, free market, and neoliberalism. In my opinion this theoretical framework is fine for a business model, but is not fine for education systems. However, if the economy is the driving force behind our policies and our politics it is easy to see how the business model is taking over/has taken over our education system.
I do agree with you, Jo-Anne, our teacher training programmes are not adequate. Work has to be done to enhance our Bed and Med programmes, but is improving teacher training going to resolve the issue of social class and the associated challenges? According to OECD findings, our best teachers are in the best schools. I have two main responses to these findings: a) we need to get our ‘best’ teachers to transfer to more challenged schools, if they really are our ‘best’ teachers, or b) start to dig deeper into the division between affluent and less affluent areas and the effect these areas have on students’ abilities to perform academically. Education should be an equalizer for all students, but it is not. I work at an elementary school in a low socio-economic area in the HRM, my students have a lot more challanges to face than the students I worked with previously in a more affluent area.
Jo Anne you are entitled to your opinion however 50 years of social science research since Coleman will tell you
If you put them in that nicer home with lots of nutrition you have a very good chance that they WILL learn to read in the local school.
if you dont it is highly unlikely that they will learn yo read. It is just that simple.
I suggest that you all read David Berliner of Arizona State on this question.
The world wide evidence is simply overwhelming. We know it is not what many of you want to hear. It just happens to be the facts of the matter.
You are correct Heather. Anyone that thinks the correct pedagogy makes all the problems of SES magically disappear is dangerously naive.
Perhaps Dougie should read “Teacher Proof” (by Tom Bennett) on the validity of most social scientific research including the Faculties of Education. It might open his eyes to the inherent bias of most education research Bennett refers to it as ‘Cargo Cult’ science.Of course most research doesn’t always mean what it claims. His thesis lays waste to most of modern education research methods.(You can always borrow my copy if you want)
Paul talk to this fellow. Dougie disrespectful.
When someone ” lays waste to most social science research” you know the mentality you are dealing with. Eyes roll.
“In a provocative new book, The Manufactured Crisis, David Berliner and Bruce Biddle make four sweeping claims about U.S. achievement: there never was a test score decline, today’s students are “out-achieving their parents substantially” (p. 33), U.S. students “stack up very well” in international assessments (p. 63), and the general education crisis is a right-wing fabrication.
As a progressive, I’m sympathetic to their concerns, but as a scholar who specializes in this material, I find their analysis deeply flawed and misleading. They mischaracterize the test score decline data, mishandle the international findings, and fail to acknowledge students’ continuing low levels of academic achievement.”
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/624
Doug makes exactly the same happy unfounded claims about Canadian students.
Tom you are neither a progressive nor a scholar.
Doug: The quotes mean the text was ‘quoted’ from someone else, and the citation at the bottom points to where you can find the complete original. Next week I’ll explain the term “sycophant scholarship”.
Here is a great guide for educators.Steve says,no matter how hard a poor child`s world is,teaching him to read is the most important thing we can do for him.
Click to access SD_NAEP_final-sprd.pdf
I wonder if I may take a moment to comment on Doug.
I believe he has a right to his views,we all do.
However,Paul puts tremendous effort and thought into every blog he feels we should discuss to improve our education sector and there are numerous subjects that affect the well being of our children and our country.
I comment on some blogs,one where I have even had several discussions with Dr.Allington,the king of whole language and totally anti phonics.In each discussion,we disagree,but we do it respectfully.
This subject is of great importance.
The responses by Doug are quips and they belittle other bloggers.
An opinion on a subject should be supported with a document if it is pedagogical difference.
It should be delivered in a respectful manner even though it contradicts other bloggers.
I feel Doug is a political person and not an educator so I`ll leave it to Paul and others to see what he thinks.If he`s headed to an election,his quips are all the more demeaning.
I was shaking my head the other day when John who pretty well agrees with Doug`s every word felt hurt and moved on.
Well,the rest of us have feelings as well,even though we disagree with you.
In no other communication do I descend to these depths so I thought I`d mention it.
Jo anne
I was invited by York U to teach a course entitled “The Politics of Ontario Education 1945-2008” for 3 years. I gave it up when I went to work for OSSTF due to a ‘ no moonlighting’ clause.
The faculty had a difficult time explaining to education students why policy in education often seemed more political than educational. There are few areas of human endevour more subject to politics than education.
It is baked into the pie. Attempts to shake lose of it are futile. We elect trustees and MPPs because we want democratic (political) control of education. It is a fact of life.
Time to deal with reality.
Tom,
Berliner is 100% correct. There never was a test score decline. Students today are doing far better than their parents and grandparents. The crisis IS manufactured by right wing privatizers who consider public education, lije Obama care to be “socialist”. It is funded by billionaires using astro turf local groups.
Progress could be faster granted but the OECD is clear. Poverty compounded by concentrations of poverty is holding the USA back. Nothing else.
One of the best American books on why curriculum is all politics all the time was this one by Herb L
Kliebard. Here is a teaser. It is on most principals’ courses.
http://www.academia.edu/2911376/Herbert_Kliebard_The_Struggle_for_the_American_Curriculum_1893-1958
Ooops forgot link
From Day 4 of the Hamilton Spectator series, talking about academic optimism:
“Three things,” Malloy says. “High expectations, a real sense of [teacher] efficacy … and trust. And where those three qualities exist in schools — no matter what their cultural circumstances, no matter what their socioeconomic circumstances — the research would suggest that student learning improves.”
http://thespecgraphics-hamilton.com/eqaoLayout/day4.html
To Catherine’s point teachers and progressives would say of course and that is happening now. It is simply not nearly enough. COLEMAN said and every study since has supported, 80% of the factors involved in student success are OUTSIDE of the school. We can discuss inside factors all day but the elephant in the room is poverty. Good teaching is swell but:
If attendance is terrible as it is eith the poor they are not in the building to receive good teaching.
if they have dental or vision or nutrition problems they are not in a position to take advantage of good teaching.
if they were low birth weight or FAS or latch key they are not in position to take advantage of good teaching
if they are constantly moving their education is constantly disrupted and that good teaching is piece meal.
if they have stress from dangerous neighbourhoods food insecurity family problems they are not in a positiln to take advantage of good teaching.
if they have no role models no place to study no books in the home they are not in an environment conducive to study.
Good teaching including small classes ECE support staff is all great and necessary.. it is slso totally insufficient.
it is no where good enough to IMPROVE. These kids need middle class results and that only happens when poverty is lowered to 5%. It is not an impossible task. Poorer nations do it. It is a policy decision.
The Fraser Institute once listed a school as the worst school in BC due to test scores. One can assume that the school had really bad teachers. The CBC noticed that the school was on a Rez so they sent Mark Kelly and a film crew out to investigate. What they found was amazing teachers doing a super job with very poor students. FAS was probably the biggest problem but nutrition vision dental absenteeism and a host of similar problems were the real source of the learning problems.
Anyone who thinks that phonics or DI or other traditional approaches are the solution needs some real world experience. This is the least of their problems.
You can watch the segment that Doug cites here: http://vimeo.com/63063626
The video documents a painful week spent in a grade 5 class. Many of the kids can’t spell their own names, and several have learning disabilities. There is no magic wand that will cure this kind of problem – these kids have already had years of tough lives paired with shabby education, and they are far behind.
But it’s worth watching this video. This school isn’t even trying to help the students. It’s make-believe schooling, almost a cargo-cult version of a school.
There is no concession to educational orthodoxy, the students are grouped by age cohort rather than by ability. There is no possibility for more-advanced kids to stay at grade-level, and no extra time or attention to help the disabled ones catch up. All are running at the same painfully slow pace, all are failing together.
Educational policy allows no acknowledgment for the differences between rich kids in Kitsilano and poor kids on the reserve, so they are both following the constructivist curriculum – in this case spending a week building a mind-map instead of learning to read, write, and spell. Some of these kids would thrive with systematic phonics and math drills, but tough luck on them.
One of the kids was hungry, it was gripping TV but shoddy school facilities. For about $10/day, the school could cater a healthy breakfast, lunch, and supper for each kid. Quick math problem – if there are 181 school days… that’s a fraction of the amount BC is paying the school board for each student. I’m sure there is a policy somewhere in the MOE that forbids a special-case kitchen for kids in Prince Rupert if it isn’t done for Kitsilano.
The CBC reporter came into the school on Saturday morning – it was deserted. In Harlem, lucky students at KIPP or Harlem Success charter schools would be in school getting a few extra hours of school. The Kitsilano kids are off to Kumon. These kids are at home. Blecch.
I could keep going. I agree with the CBC, these teachers are skilled, dedicated and doing their best. I agree with the Fraser Institute, these kids have the misfortune to be in the worst school in BC.
The point Tom misses is that it is the poverty and its associated misfortunes that makes it the worst school. Not the teachers the curruculum or the pedagogy. This is the situation with all poor schools.
Not the school’s fault. Not the board’s fault. Nothing can be done. It’s the parents fault, the economy’s fault, society’s fault, history’s fault. It’s those 10-year-old kids’ fault. Not us, not us, not us….
And our worst schools are better than their worst schools. Nicer too. So we are the best.
Success Academies in a war-zone in Harlem is the TOP-SCORING public school in New York State. But they are a public charter school, that’s very bad for the kids. Terrible for the kids. We’re the best.
Instead of looking at what one-off charter schools ( there are many successful public schoold as well and overall they are better) CREDO. Why not look at what leading NATIONS do. Thry do not privatize and go the charter voucher route, that is fot sure.
Charter/voucher is a dead end.
Would it be so very awful to give kids in Prince Rupert an education? I know it’s a one-off.
Tom you need to start thinking in terms of boards provinces or nation states. Single schools and tiny systems are too easy to manipulate right at the front door.
http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/11/is-new-yorks-charter-school-era-waning.html
Try Eva’s formula in public schools. Ya right.
Ok. It’s nice of the kids in Prince Rupert to take a bullet for the public school team.
You have no answer for them Tom.
It’s obvious that Doug represents a sector of the human race that doesn’t give a ?!£¥
I suppose he represents the union establishment.
The teachers are very different,they care immensely but to go against the unions and take responsibility for shoddy performance is a hard pill to swallow so we stay in conflict and limbo versus progress and at least trying to improve.
A large part of the failure can be linked to university teacher preparation,a speech pathologist stated that teachers were never trained in any pedagogy which is why when they were given RR,they liked it so much.
It’s complex and tragic,many students and parents are suffering and frightened for their child’s future.
I have put a lifetime into caring about this particular issue Jo Anne. I find all of the positions of the so-called corporate reform movement to be
theoretical errors, practical failures and a social injustice.
Adding to the lack of direct instruction is the Discovery learning crowd which is fine I suppose if first you gave them a foundation.
And then,there are 2 publishers I despise as they spread their wares,they infect a nation.
Pedagogies must be field tested before being spread across a country.
When will this happen?
The country is run on opinion .
Corruption is an issue it seems,look what went on with math instruction,did the petitions help?
Will the Jump Math third party research study influence curriculum guides?
Should be interesting.
I hope it shows me that some integrity exists somewhere.
The world is starting to realize the direction has been wrong.
Chile the main Friedman experiment has just cancelled all government support for any form of private education. Viva Chile.
How to make things better? Ask Finland.
How to make things worse? Ask Sweden.
Actually,I have a school in the system that changed their instruction in grade 1 and after chronic under performance they went up 20 points in grade 3-just by doing that-in grade 1,cost for 20 children grade 1-$100.00 per child.
Instruction is extremely important.
The savings to our country to create literate citizens with such a small cost cannot be tabulated.
One more time-instruction matters.
Why would you ignore a half billion dollar 35 year longitudinal study?
EQAO, testing the class.
The endless refrain from the reformers is that you can get spetacular results for no new money. Show us the board the province the nation that is your model. This program that charters school does not vut it in yhe big world of education, in fact it provokes laughter.
World Bank for heavens sake just said much more needs yo be spent.
Cut*
World Bank Activity Might Help Our “Developed” Countries Too
Apparently The World Bank is spending money to bring more and better education to “developing” countries. I hope they are following the general approach outlined in their latest report — which aimed at providing greater accountability than hereto forth found in our “developed” countries.
In an earlier discussion on this blog (July 22, 2013) Paul wrote:
“Since 2003, The World Bank has been particularly active in supporting and funding SBM initiatives in countries like Kenya, Indonesia, Nepal, and Senegal. A recent international study, commissioned by the World Bank (2011), claimed that “education is too complex to be efficiently produced and distributed in a centralized fashion.” (p. 87). In spite of some successes, the study found “ambiguous results” in countries where “elite capture” was a problem and “teachers and unions” resisted ceding more control to “parents and community members.”
The SBM approach favored by WB refers to school-based management that universally teacher unions oppose. I find this such a paradox since left wing teacher unions, especially those leaning Marx-ward, work hard for worker control of the workplace.
The WB report — Making Schools Work – New Evidence on Accountability Reforms http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1298568319076/makingschoolswork.pdf
aims for three core strategies:
– Information for accountability made clear to all — schooling rights, responsibilities, inputs, outputs, and outcomes
– School-based management — decentralization of school-level decision making — autonomy — to school-level agents
– Teacher incentives — policies that link pay or tenure directly to performance
I like their Accountability Framework (p. 11). They would replace the long route of accountability (eliminate huge bureaucracies, etc.) with the short route and client power. A bigger bang for the buck.
As Paul mentions above, and in this 450 pg report, part of the problem of instituting effective projects comes from resistance and manipulation of the project design. “Elite Capture” can side-rail a well-designed project through controlling the narrative, steering in wrong directions, and dozens of other sabotaging ways to drive resources away from the intended aim and students.
Whatever the new funds WB is deploying for education hopefully are not sidelined by the usual culprits. Projects here in Canada aiming for greater responsiveness and greater service to needs would do well to examine the 3 core principles enunciated by The World Bank.
Bureaucracy is a necessary function of school systems and society at large.
Nothing that great about site based management.
The WB advocates spending more on education EVERYWHERE. That is always a good policy.
Once again the only response the education community can come up with is to throw money at a situation and avoid pinpointing the true cause of the problem. Children from more afflent households don’t do well becasue they are more affluent. They are do weel becaause their families participate in the societal norms that are best suited for child rearing and creating successful children: the parents have their high school education or beyond, they have stable and steady jobs and they had those things AND got married before they had babies and they’ve stayed married. Unfortunately until we start telling people what really makes successful students instead of acting like we can fix it with another billion here or another billion there, there won’t be change.
You srldom see more contempt for the poor. Read David Berliner. Absentees illness, vision, dental, nutrition role models dangerous neighbourhoods …. if you want to blame the poor fot being poor you can be judged by that. I blame the rich for the economic position of the poor aka greed.
You think education is cheap? Educatuon is very expensive. Ignorance is cheap.
Teachers in Alberta the highest paid in Canada. 80% of the cost of education is human capital. It does not come cheap.
Want cheap teachers? Try Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama… you get what you pay for.
Hi SBG,
The opportunity with publicly-funded charter schools is to RESET that behavior, to teach the missing success traits. They run longer days, they run in the summer, they teach on saturdays. They explicitly teach skills like sitting up in class and tracking the teacher with their eyes.
Public charter schools get the same per-student funding (and sometimes less), so the taxpayer isn’t out an extra penny.
Charter schools operate in the worst neighbourhoods, working with the hardest-to-reach populations. They succeed by innovating to addressing the specific needs of their population of students rather than some general guidelines that make sense for the majority.
You should check out KIPP and Harlem Success Academies. Their kids start with all the problems you describe, and yet these schools are the highest-achieving schools in the US.
It is manifestly clear that the cycle of poverty can be broken. But that’s not an objective of existing public schools – however unintentional they are part of the problem.
Chile abandons all support fot private education. Sweden follows your model. Keeps falling farther behind Finland who does not.
I absolutely agree that the cycle of poverty can be broken and that is my point. As you said, charter schools, voucher options, etc can help build the character not only via curriculum but by values-oriented life examples that will create that next generations success. Unfortunately in the Western world the public schools have lost that values orientation and are part of the cycle. That needs to change but homogenization of curriculum (ie Common Core) even more water down the chance that public schools can help. The are so entrenched, especially in the US via teacher’s unions, in the political correct “thoughtology” and in the political system that they are perpetuating the problem.
Despite all of that, and the chance for schools to help break the cycle, children don’t enter the school system until after the key determinants of socio-economic status are conferred on them. In addition to the schools being free to address and handle the issues of their specific community, the social mores that I mentioned originally need to be addressed. If we can prevent poverty, to a great extent, via the actions taken even before a child is born, the education system wouldn’t be burdened by it and could focus more broadly on education.
The way to end poverty is to redirect resources to the poor. Higher minimum wage, easier unionization, more stimulative economy, free tuition negative income tax.
All policy decisions. Poorer countries do it with no negative effects on their economy.
Over and above what Tom is suggesting is the need for exact,precise research based instruction for reading and spelling in K 1 and 2.
Shame on Universities for not training the teachers.
Once in grade 3 and beyond,the problems compound and they become ever so complex and costly.
This isn’t just an ‘education problem’. It’s a societal problem. And we will need to work together as a society to fix it. Blaming the problem on bad teachers or poor teaching methods is naive and won’t get us anywhere. I applaud the parents in this community for advocating for their children. Hopefully help will come from all sectors of society.
Exactly
SuburbanPrincess: What ‘help’ from all sectors are you imagining? What should parents advocate for? What should be changed? Can you be a bit more specific?
The evidence from jurisdictions with Charter Schools is that changing the teaching methods works really well. Maybe there are even better ways. What are you thinking?
The teaching methods we use to teach children how to read work for most of the children in most of our school. When those methods don’t work, we try other methods. I think teachers and other educators should always be exploring new and different ways to help children because every child is learns differently. But when we have a school or a district that performs substantially below the average, despite having significant support through the education system, then we need to look at other factors. Who else should help? How about the Dept. of Health? Let’s make sure all of the children are well-fed before and during school hours. How about Social Services? Let’s make sure children come to school having slept well in a place they feel safe. How about Immigration? Many children come to our schools from other countries. They need help in order to feel comfortable in our society. Churches, Boys and Girls Clubs, food banks, sports organizations. It takes a village to raise a child, as they say. The school is not the village. As a teacher, I can only work with the child in front of me for the time they are with me. If my teaching method isn’t working, I will do my darndest to find one that will but I can’t change what happens when that child leaves my classroom.