Guided parent engagement has become, like apple pie and motherhood, almost sacrosanct in publicly-funded education. School systems across North America now have an established apparatus to sanction ‘approved’ parent organizations and many employ senior staff to guide and mentor school-level parent advisory councils. Promoting “parent involvement” to overcome administrative roadblocks and systemic problems has become a business in and of itself, especially in more affluent provinces like Ontario and British Columbia.
Surveying Canadian provincial systems, you will discover that official parent organizations promoting increased “investment” in public education are themselves beneficiaries of provincial education funding. A few groups, like Ontario-based People for Education enjoy exalted status, called upon to provide “parent opinion” on every issue from student testing to child poverty and sex education to First Nations schooling. Groups seeking significant reform or challenging the status quo like the Society for Quality Education or WISE Math get nothing but crumbs as a reward for their independence. In public education, it’s all too often about rewarding the “friendlies” and marginalizing groups that are seeking deeper and more systemic changes.
Leading parent voices like Annie Kidder and a host of provincial Parent Teacher Federation presidents claim to have moved “Beyond the Bake Sale,” but their organizations spend most of their time lobbying for funding and promoting the latest provincial education panacea for what ails the system. In Ontario since 2006, the Ministry of Education has awarded more that $24 million to fund 15,000 Parents Reaching Out (PRO) grants to local school councils and 568 regional grants — all aimed at increasing “parent involvement” in schools. What’s been the impact? At the school level, the vast majority of parent councils still busy themselves raising money for class supplies, sponsoring multicultural festivals, and even running “cupcake” parties for the kids.
Ontario’s PRO grants were initially tied to the Dalton McGuinty Liberal Government’s “Poverty Reduction Initiative” and presented as a way of addressing social inequalities facing identified “priority” school neighbourhoods. By the Fall of 2014, the Ministry’s Ottawa Field Services Branch was putting a positive spin on the increased participation of school councils in socially-disadvantaged communities. Since 2006, after awarding thousands of grants across the province, the Ministry reported that applications from priority schools were up 300 % and approvals up 450%. That bears further investigation.
Poverty reduction has all but disappeared from the public announcements about PRO grants. In early March 2015, Education Minister Liz Sandals was singing a different tune: “When parents are active in their children’s education, student well-being and achievement are improved — especially in challenging areas like math. This helps students reach their full potential and better prepares them for a bright future.”
A Ministry media release (March 3, 2015), announcing the Parents Reaching Out grants for 2015-16 claimed that they were now designed to fund “a wide range of initiatives that help parents become more involved in their child’s education.” The posted “success stories” reported on grants to reduce language barriers, celebrate diversity, conduct parenting sessions, alert parents to cyberbullying, foster community connections, and assist parents with homework. None of the cited examples related directly to reducing educational inequalities or child and family poverty.
From its inception, the Ontario PRO grant program was also presented as a provincial initiative lauded in a 2010 McKinsey & Company report analyzing high achieving school systems around the world. The Ministry spin on that report is far more positive than the actual report. That global school system review, introduced, incidently, with a Forward by Ontario’s own Dr. Michael Fullan, makes only a fleeting reference (p. 101) to Ontario’s PRO-grant driven “parent involvement” program. The American Aspire charter school model earns far more praise.
The McKinsey global school system reports issued in 2007 and 2010 considered holy grail in Ontario are now mostly repudiated elsewhere. Most of that “independent report” anoints Ontario schools as “among the best in the world”and actually attributes it to the “tenure of strategic leaders,” specifically Fullan and his former OISE colleague Ben Levin as well as Premier McGuinty and then Education Minister Kathleen Wynne. Most of the authoritative critiques, summarized in January 2012 by University of London professor Frank Coffield, dispute such success claims based upon “implausible” declaratory statements with a “thin evidence base.”
Spending $24 million spread out over thousands of school councils is unlikely to make much of a difference in closing the social inequality gap between school communities. In a TV Ontario program, aired in September 22, 2014 and hosted by Steve Paikin of The Agenda, four leading Ontario anti-poverty activists reviewed the progress made in eradicating poverty since 2000. Coordinator of Freedom 90, Yvonne Kelly, showed her impatience with the “broad-based prevention framework” which “doesn’t help those already marginalized.” That’s a neat summary of what went wrong with the PRO grants as an “anti-poverty” initiative.
Promoting parent engagement, it turns out, is not really about addressing inequality in Ontario’s schools. The Toronto District School Board’s Learning Opportunities Index (LOI) for 2014 reveals that the “gap” is as wide as ever. Funding parent groups is simply not properly aligned with the overall strategy. Giving parent councils PRO grants to expand their diversity of membership and activities has clearly taken precedence over reducing educational inequality. Indeed, the one program that might have made a difference, the Learning Opportunities Grant (LOG) was substantially cut in 2006 when PRO grants were introduced by the McGuinty Government.
Who’s promoting Parent Engagement — and for what purpose? What does Ontario have to show for spending $24 million since 2006 on shoring-up friendly parent advisory councils? Whatever happened to that initial rationale for the PRO grants — closing the gap for schools in the 133 “priority neighbourhoods”?
Thanks for this commentary on parent engagement in public education. Readers should know that my organization, the Society for Quality Education (SQE), does not accept government funding, including Trillium Grants, as a matter of policy in order that no conflict of interest exists. Purely to prove the point made above, we applied for a Regional PRO grant when they were first announced knowing full well that we would be rejected (we wouldn’t have taken the money anyway)! I laughed out loud when the rejection letter came.
Yes, and a look at the People for Education financial statements only supports my contention that public funding goes to “friendlies” in the education sector.
With a little digging, the funding for People for Education can be identified. In the June 2013 P4E financial statement, we learn that P4E received $40,000 from the Ontario Ministry of Education, $24,000 from the Ontario Teachers Federation, and a whopping $70,000 from the Atkinson Foundation associated with The Toronto Star. That year grants totalled $172,083. The year 2012 was a big year for P4E when it secured $271,992 in grants, including $104,700 from the Trillium Foundation. Other major supporters were the Atkinson Foundation ($55,000) and the Ministry of Education ($31,021). The Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research, likely Ben Levin and OISE, provided $23,000 in grant support.
People for Education pays $17,010 per year to lease its office (until June 30,2017), and government grants more than cover it every year.
It’s tempting to ask: Does he who pays the piper call the tune? When was the last time you heard Annie Kidder and P4E rocking the boat or challenging the prevailing system winds?
This is a well written commentary, however I do have to say, that my connection with WISE Math, also corresponded nicely with my position on my school parent advisory council. Furthermore, my math initiative, which began with the full support of WISE Math and Dr. Paul Bennett here at Schoolhouse Consulting, was ONLY able to advance forward through the support of our school PAC, District PAC, and upwards to our provincial parent organization, the BCCPAC. Our approved math resolution is now being lobbied to all of our education partners by the BCCPAC, to have them adopt our resolution and make some much needed changes to our math curriculum.(see pg.25 of this document http://www.bccpac.bc.ca/sites/default/files/media/2014_statement_of_resolutions.pdf ) The ONLY organization which was willing to take on this initiative, and lobby for changes, were our PAC organizations. And yes, in BC, the BCCPAC does, in fact, have some clout, as it’s the only organization which sits on committees along with our other education partners, and is behind many legislative policies through our Ministry of Education.
Interestingly enough, this connection has now made it possible to start making more meaningful changes at our District level, as well as the provincial level. We now have a Standing Committee examining numeracy across the District, which parents, educators and District staff are reviewing to help our kids, and Dr. Craigen will be speaking at a District PAC sponsored Parent Education Night next week here in the Victoria area.
I wouldn’t outright dismiss parent groups here as being ineffective and costing gobs of taxpayer dollars. I just think the focus of their mandate needs to tweak a bit so they can really start to make some meaningful changes for better instruction in our schools. Neither SQE or WISE Math have EVER indicated money is required for effective instruction to occur. Perhaps these parent groups need to take a lesson from that and focus on their message they are giving to the general public.
[…] Surveying Canadian provincial systems, you will discover that official parent organizations promoting increased “investment” in public education are themselves beneficiaries of provincial education funding. A few groups, like Ontario-based People for Education enjoy exalted status, called upon to provide “parent opinion” on every issue from student testing to child poverty and sex education to First Nations schooling. Groups seeking significant reform or challenging the status quo like the Society for Quality Education or WISE Math get nothing but crumbs as a reward for their independence. In public education, it’s all too often about rewarding the “friendlies” and marginalizing groups that are seeking deeper and more systemic changes. (more…) […]
CRA website says that People for Education was registered in 2004.
After McGuinty was elected.
Perfect timing.
yes-they`re a P.R.firm for the staus quo.
Listening to both Annie Kidder and Kathleen Wynne is akin to watching people roll marbles in their mouths and restate the same nonsense in multiple ways.
And the next time the Tories win SQE will have an inside track like it does at the Sun and P4E will be back on the outside.
duh. Is somebody surprised?
Good education results do little to solve poverty since poverty has little to do with opportunity.
Solving education does not fix poverty
Solving poverty fixes education.
People have the relationship upside down.
To solve poverty:
High minimum wages
Far easier unionization
Far more generous transfer payments to the poor
Far better social programs ( pharmacare dentacare….)
Massive investments in infrastructure
All can be accomplished with the pocket change of the 1% ers.
When poverty is at Finland levels we will get better than Finland results.
Cure poverty 1st. Fix education soon after..
This TINY group of Catholic parents also gets PRO $$ etc.
look at their small number:
http://www.oapce.org/where-is-my-region/
They have no reps from Ottawa, London, Windsor, Waterloo, Barrie etc etc
Toronto’s national public education cheerleader organization, The Learning Partnership, will be honouring, guess who?, that “International Authority on Education Reform, ” Dr. Michael Fullan. The renowned “pedagodfather” will share the honour with former PM Paul Martin, to be recognized for his OISE-based Aboriginal Education Initiative. It all sounds connected, somehow.
http://www.thelearningpartnership.ca/toronto-tribute-dinner-save-the-date
The Leaning Partnership is also the corporate entry point into public education. They don’t like private except for their own kids. They want to retool public education in their own image.
Yes,they`re all in cahoots for maintaining mediocrity as well as a deterioration in public ed.There are a lot of egomaniacs and like in all Shakesperean dramas,they win.
Malkin Dare has provided a thoughtful response to your insightful blog entry. The Government is All For Parent Engagement – Provided it’s not meaningful that is http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/the-government-is-all-for-parent-engagement-provided-its-not-meaningful-tha
Also Paul, Iwould note that People for Ed’s AGM is always aided by TVOntario–the public television branch of the Ontario Min of Ed! That must cost a pretty penny too–just sayin’
I have my problems with P4E. Not progressive enough. Too close to corporations and Liberal government but more of their main people are NDP sympathizers and members who have policy objectives more than party objectives.
Glad to see they latest salvo against streaming but may simply mask cost cutting agenda (Applied costs more due to lower class caps).
I am waiting for them to catch the anti testing tsunami in the USA.
There is an incredible friendship network crossover of left – Liberals and soft – line Dippers in Toronto’s cool neighborhoods -Beaches, Danforth, High Park, Annex…
Witness the Dave Cooke appointment to EQAO.
http://www.thelittleeducationreport.ca
Many of the PRO regional grants (which can be up to $20,000, compared to the school council level grants of up to $1000) do not go to school councils/projects at the school level. I haven’t scanned those lists lately, but I recall a number of different organizations and school boards/districts and partners receiving those grants/funds in recent years.
It is difficult to compare and contrast provinces in regards to their “provincial” parent group(s), as well as the advocacy and leadership link they have to school level parent groups.
Some critical questions and examination of the Ontario grants are not a bad thing.
I wonder if we can minimize the ideological invective from “left”, “right”, “traditional;” “progressive” and other “labelled” individuals and groups.
We know that parental involvement promotes student achievement though no one has discovered any causal mechanism due to the challenge of isolating relevant variables.
This thread might be more useful to parent if we had some case studies of how parental group, formal or informal, make a difference.
We know that those from affluent neighbourhoods have more resources> How do these produce results? How do we know?
Are there cases in less affluent neighbourhoods or neighbourhoods with highly diverse populations either in Canada or elsewhere?
Can we learn from these examples and identify the “bright spots” that we can copy or adapt?
Otherwise, opining about P4E, SQE, and other groups and praising or damning based solely on perceived ideological differences is thoughtless and useless. What interests me are
RESULTS.
While we might like Finland, we are not Fin;and
And any model suggested from the US is highly suspect since however similar our countries are- my kids have dual citizenship for a reason- they are FAR from identical in history, culture, identity, or institutionally.
Such easy comparison use to bug Mar5k Homes from OISE and an early director of SQE.
Who funds what? Until they can demonstrate results we shall just waste more money, regardless of source.
USURPERS’ REMORSE
A very quick history of public education and exclusion of parents from school matters. William Cutler, in his book — Parents and Schools: The 150-year Struggle for Control in American Education — wrote that parents and schools get along well as long as it is on the terms of the system. Never the other way around.
The same indictment applies in Canada.
In 1980 Simon Fraser University in BC put on a conference — Family Choice, Schooling and the Public Interest. The brochure had this quote:
* “It is the business of education in our social democracy to eliminate the influence of parents on the life-chances of the young. “- Professor F. Musgrove, The Family, Education and Society, 1966.
Even as such conferences play at staging important topics, this one undoubtedly did more as a caution against growing parent assertiveness for choices than for any wide “public interest”. But, of course, as seen entirely from the eyes of the industry, the “public interest” can only happen if the industry is in control.
The question still remains — Is education a state responsibility or the duty of parents?
Of course parents, who have been usurped from their primary role in education, still do get lip service and tokenism. Or, the opportunity to fund-raise ! It’s all symbolic use of parents.
The literature is full of arguments why parents should be involved.. This is why the system continues its overtures and even jacked up efforts from involvement to participation to engagement.
What parents should really be striving for is more driving the system. The idea of Education Savings Accounts which is now a reality in a number of US states — going far beyond charter schools — is what parents should be promoting. This is where, for a lesser than total allocation per child, perhaps 90%, the parent can start an education account from which to draw for selected education offerings and services according to the best interests of the child.
It’s partly remorse from upstaging parents at every turn, and partly the public relations literature that is propelling more pretenses at welcoming parents. Equity and social justice are not being served by government schools finding busy-work for parents. Nor is the education mission more fulfilled from superficial parent involvement.
All of the world’s leading education systems are fully public or almost fully public systems.
Canada has more post secondary grads than any other nation BY FAR.
#2 ISRAEL #3 RUSSIA both far behind.
Best comment ever about Michael Fullan: https://poeticdevicesx.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/reality-recovery-o-what-a-wonderful-world/
I read the link you suggested and it matches for the most part my definition of ideological invective combined with “myopic nostalgia”.
Most of the linked piece just spews unsupported opinion based at best on anecdote.
Two aspects in the link are specific enough to address.
Credit recovery based on classes I have actually seen and discussions over a number of years with teachers involved does paint a very mixed picture. We could and must do a MUCH BETTER JOB at this. Such work would involve teachers, students and parents. Mind you, most sound work in schools involves all of these people in one way or another.
As for the value of second chances? Evidence shows their value. Here are some specific examples, in addition to lots of talk—some of it vague— about the “real world”.
– From the mid 1980s to mid 1990s Harvard University surveyed all its undergraduates to determine what they though made their university years successful. Submitting work and having a chance to revise it was one of two key elements of success.
– Tough quizzes that challenge students who then get a chance to retake it have been shown to produce better results.
– Practice and rehearsals in drama, music, and athletics show this over again through quality feedback—a key element of learning. We do not do enough practice or offer enough qualit6y feedback in the academic subjects.
– Work in the area of assessment looking at systems of “improvement scoring” in which students began with a base score of consistent performance they had demonstrated in earlier tests. If they got perfect scores or improved, they got bonus points. Evidence from inner city schools in the US (which I duplicated decades ago in a Toronto high school) showed that students who otherwise were prepared to give up, did not since they now had hope. Paul Tough’s book on the concept of ”grit” is just one source that we need to find ways to get students to be persistent and overcome challenges rather than just give up. Carol Dweck’s concept of a “growth mindset” is another evidence based idea with proven results.
The other specific in your link deals with flunking kids—aka grade retention. Here is where the myopic nostalgia comes in. In the “old days” when kids flunked there were lots of jobs for them. Many of these were hard working but good paying—in farming, mining, lumbering, construction, and manufacturing.
Those days are NEVER coming back.
As for the merits of flunking in schools— John Hattie’s work looking at thousands of studies, millions of students, over several decades called such a policy “educational malpractice”.
Why?
Because it does not work. Students, with very few exceptions, drop out and do not catch up with the extra year in grade. They do not get quality feedback or second chances.
The evidence is so conclusive that serious researchers no longer study it.
Grade retention appears to be the equivalent of belief in a flat earth. Our common senses tell us that these are real. Deeper work shows us they are not.
Too often the history of education is a history of untested assumptions or assumptions that we later find wanting. Flunking kids is one of them. “Discovery learning” in which student are not taught the required knowledge, skills, and habits of mind to engage in serious inquiry is another.
Schools DO need top do a better job as developments in society that outpaced what and to some extent how we teach. But returning to a past that never existed is not the answer. Throwing kids out on the street to fend for themselves may save us a few bucks now but will cost us dearly in the future.
John, my apologies for not answering this earlier. I don’t disagree with your analysis of the posted link, nor – and sorry if this seems improbable – with the link itself. The fact that both positions can be supported within certain contexts or for certain kids at certain times just shows how stupid the idea is that some wonk-made policy made (in BC) in Victoria for (in BC) 550,000 kids can be a valid way of raising children, or indeed can put a workable teaching challenge in front of teachers. Your point is well taken too that when we look back, we often see what we want to see and not key contextual issues.
Your response is informative on several points of context that I greatly appreciate – the relationship between the job market and the effects of retention policies is something I would not have recognized.
I really did post the link in this thread only for its reference to Michael Fullan. I don’t criticize individuals in education in detail because they are rarely any worse than the category to which they belong, but because Fullan has been so ubiquitous in education policy, he is something of an archetype and I enjoyed the comment for its efficacy on that level.
YES, Return To The Past
A “past” that existed when learning to read was the #1 priority for going to school.
Today, what is the score? One in four adults is functionally illiterate in Canada? Students accepted into college or university needing remedial English? What percentage?
Students in secondary school still guessing words according to the context, not able to decode words according to alphabetic rules?
Primary school students still guessing words from fancy pictures on the page?
When, oh when, will we get a COMMITMENT in Canada, from a province, a school or a teacher to ensure that learning to read proficiently is a #1 priority?
Canvas the parents. Ask what are THEIR priorities for their children in schools. That’s what parent involvement is mainly about. Schools being responsive to the wants, wishes and priorities of the consumer.
In the past- before public education- most adults in the west could not read or write.
How do we know?
Historic sales of books, newspapers etc.
Assertion and opinion do NOT equal evidence
Should reading be #1 priority?
Sure,
though modern demands want so much more
“functional literacy” is at a higher bar now than in 1915 or 1815 or 1715
+
we need numeracy
thinking to be creative, detect bias
recognition of the value of diversity
and the ability to work with others, even those you do not know.
For most of human history, reading was never a high priority except for clerks in government and the clergy.
Perhaps demanding parents is a sign that public education has improved since they know what to look for.
Tunya which nation is better than Canada?
We have highest % of post secondary grads which would seem like a main goal.
Parent-Driven Schools Should Be The Norm
It’s the fact that Alberta has many school choices for parents to choose from — including charter schools — that produces the highest scores for Alberta schools against the rest of Canada.
The Supreme Court victory for French schools in BC has huge implications for the rest of Canada. Not only does the case demonstrate that government schools under Canada’s charter must provide equivalent educational services, but that parental pent-up demand must be a signal demanding attention by authorities.
Should this court case forecast a favorable judgment in the next related legal challenge 21 new French schools will be required to meet the current waiting lists.
http://bcteacherinfo.blogspot.ca/2015/04/vancouver-sun-bc-parents-win-supreme.html
Parents should play a role in schools, but the issue is how do you find a way to provide parents with a voice when there are hundreds of parents involved in one school? Grants should be realigned to focus again on engaging and helping parents in priority areas where there is a need to close the gap.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Matt, you don’t and you can’t, which is why I hold the position is that collective parent decision-making is fundamentally illegal. I wrote this a number of years ago to that effect without knowing the legal framework:
http://edrogue.blogspot.ca/2014/09/parent-voice-in-public-education.html
The legal framework is, however, that every parent has a duty only to his or her own child and the rights necessary to carry out that duty, and that no parent can purport to speak on behalf of any other or make decisions that would affect someone else’s child. I hold the position that the school system can’t either, but that’s another topic.
Parents collectively should not play a role in schools at all. They should make decisions for their own child, period, full stop. The fact that they can’t – that various powerful multi-million dollar agencies hold them captive to decisions that favour corporate interests – is ripe for challenge in court. Governments will never change it of their own accord, and as shown by the positions taken by other agencies in Vergara in California and the court battles for Education Savings Accounts in Florida and Arizona, no other vested interest will either.
An interesting thing about the role of parents in schools is that the same issues exist whether we are dealing with public or private education. Private education may present more options for people of similar beliefs to educate their children, but there will come a point in these settings where differences of opinion will occur.
I’m thinking about charter or alternative schools right now where groups of parents have worked hard to establish these schools. What happens when other parents see the benefits of these schools and enroll their children in them? Do these new parents have to follow the founding principles of these schools or are they allowed to have their own voice in helping these schools to evolve?
Home schooling may be the only guaranteed way for parents to have a true voice in their child’s education.
You are bang on about the issue in independent schools, which are rarely truly private but board-run. There is a school in the Vancouver area that had a great service for kids labelled dyslexic but began attracting a variety of special needs; those parents took over the board and the service focus changed. That can be a good thing, but personally I think an entrepreneurial outfit where the owner (teacher/principal) sets the model is more reliable. I have yet to see a functional governing board in any setting so would hesitate to recommend it for schooling. Generally the evolution of an organization according to need is a good thing, but not when there is competition for the direction of evolution. That always yields to the most powerful competitor, as happens in the public system now.
That doesn’t leave homeschooling as the only option. With an ESA model, teachers too are freed of the system, as the ESA creates the opportunity for them to start their own schools catering to whatever group they want to teach. It thus permits specialization, and parents to make actual choices – not just to have a voice, but the capacity to act.
Parents driven schools don’t work.
This is a yin yang situation
Parents are basically interested in their own children not the collective.
If a policy makes education better for 100 children but not THEIR child they oppose it.
Parents are not professional educators.
Teachers today need 6 years university education. Many have 7-8.
Parents are required by law to be interested in their own children not the collective. Parents are not required to be professional educators, but can choose to hire professional educators. Sadly, there are no professional educators at present, only bureaucratic functionaries. Education Savings Accounts could change that.
You are wise, Karin, to be alert to the potential for parents acting as a “collective” with a myopic focus. I’ve seen plenty of that in both the GTA and Montreal. Having said that, helicopter parents are usually found where they are least needed in public education. Stepping back, I still feel that engaged parents can and do have a generally positive impact and we need more of them in those “priority” school neighbourhoods. It’s also harder to act like “bureaucratic functionaries” when informed parents are on the scene.
Helicopter parenting is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. Which came first, schooling elbowing parents out of their children’s lives, or parents aggressively elbowing their way back in? And certainly, when parents can only influence their child’s experience by influencing the school, you see them acting in unwelcome capacities. To me the answer to all those problems is to put parents back in the driver’s seat where they belong rather than trying to limit them to the role of pit crew.
The bureaucratic functionary thing is interesting. In public schooling, for the schooling to BE publicly-driven, i.e. a reflection of the public will, teachers have to simply carry out policy. Schooling is not a diagnosis-based service like health care; it’s universal and compulsory, so it’s policy-based. We could elect a party tomorrow that promises that schools will teach only the circus arts, and it would be teachers’ job to deliver. If teachers (individually or collectively) want to decide what to teach or how to teach it, that cannot happen while schooling is a public function; it has to be done entrepreneurially.
One has really only to ask, what is the difference between the role of teachers in government schools in North Korea vs. Canada. The answer is, none. The difference between the two countries is in how the decision is made who forms government, and thus who sets school policy.
I cannot resist responding to you, Doug Little, on the matter of the changing nature of teacher-parent relations. A year ago, my AIMS report, entitled “Maintaining Spotless Records,” co-authored with Karen Mitchell, took a close look at what might be termed the “status revolution” in teacher-parent relations. Your claims about teachers having an education advantage over parents is no longer the case, certainly in high achievement, upper-middle class, city or suburban schools. Today, one of the biggest stressors for regular classroom teachers, is the fact that the vast majority of parents are university-educated, often with professional degrees.
Here’s the link: http://www.aims.ca/site/media/aims/Bennett.Mitchell2014-Maintaining%20Spotless%20Records,%20Final.pdf
Years ago, Doug, teachers were normally the best educated members of most communities. Education research, including teacher union studies, point to the stress and pressure regular teachers in elementary classrooms feel when their knowledge, skills, and judgement are under constant scrutiny. The great irony is that parent surveillance is far more apparent than in-school professional assessment.
Paul,
When a teacher an engineer, a doctor a lawyer an architect and a pharmacist sit down to have a collective education discussion, there is one education expert in the room- not 6.
There is no comparing “expertise” when one person of the six carries no legal liability for whatever expertise they claim, while the others do.
For teachers, a big struggle is having to navigate themselves through the maze of university-educated parents who still find ways to contradict each other, despite the level of their education. Look at the issue of vaccinations and it is many of the well-educated parents who have taken strong stances supporting or opposing the use of vaccinations. I would also comment that Korea has many university educate parents, but they continue to value and respect their educators. Once again, it appears like we are applying American attitudes to our education system, despite Americans having an inferior system to us.
Grants for parent groups should be directed to priority neighbourhoods with a focus on helping parents even before their children begin school.
Noticed that the accounting firm for People for Education firm just happens to be owned by Kathleen Wynnes’ ex husband.
Click to access 2013-Financial-Statements.pdf
http://187gerrard.com/category/resources/childcare/
So how much funding provided by taxpayers to Kathleen Wynne / OLP friendly firms ends up as fees paid to this accounting firm?
And notice how the only thing required for the whole corrupt enterprise to collapse is for parents to remove their children. Such a simple solution, never undertaken in 100 years. It’s pretty good at what it does, isn’t it?
Great detective work!
No matter how well educated the parents are they are seeking advantages for their own children not advancement for all children..
People don’t want other people’s children catching up to their child.
Some Parents Are More Equal Than Others
One of the biggest reasons teachers and others in the system — be it administrators, trustees or parent leaders — do NOT want parents to know their rights or children’s rights is because as insiders, the system serves them very well. They are at the head of the line for rationed services and scarce resources and their own children are disproportionately the beneficiaries of taxpayer-funded schools. We recently read a story of a parent who became a teacher for the simple reason that she could then help her special needs child get appropriate services required. We know that some parent leaders get their kids into specialized programs with little trouble. These are just a few ways these insiders are privileged:
1 Insider/parents know the language, the words, the “insider talk” to use.
2 I/Ps know how to navigate the system: who to see, what to say, what to ask for — how to work the system.
3 I/Ps know how to interpret assessments, scores and evaluations and know where their child really stands in grade level and expectations.
4 If the student is behind in reading, for example, the I/P can make up the deficiency at home or hire a tutor for precisely what is needed.
5 I/Ps are at an income level where buying extra tutoring is no problem.
6 If the I/P’s child might be special needs a psychosocial assessment is readily arranged — contrast with the often two-year waiting period for other parents.
7 Once such an assessment is made, an IEP (Individual Education Program) is negotiated between school and parent, and here again the I/P is advantaged because of knowledge of the maximum that can be available. Once the IEP is in place, extra funding and resources are made available.
8 If an I/P sees there is a poor fit between their child and a teacher it is relatively easy to switch teachers as again, the “insider” language is a bonus — knowing how to explain why the child would be better off,, using language in an “unthreatening” way that does not reflect on the other teacher.
9 I/Ps know the critical stages of child growth and development and press their case with adeptness and urgency, which in other parents is seen as “pushy” or “helicopter parenting”.
10 I/Ps are knowledgeable about the legalities of malpractice and can use this as background allusion to further press their case if needed.
11 I/Ps are conscious of the safeguards that should be in place in cases of bullying, adoption of new untested programs or psychological invasions of privacy and know how to insist on safeguards or know how to exit from questionable practices.
12 I/Ps know full well what a healthy and productive learning experience is and if all efforts fail know how to ride out a crisis and provide make-up solutions or antidotes at home.
13 I/Ps know that they are the client in a school situation when their child is at issue and know the routes, angles and procedures to follow if they meet with resistance instead of responsiveness and are not easily discouraged from pursuing their rights and entitlements.
14 Frankly, I/Ps fully know parent rights in education and just don’t want them written down for other parents to know. http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2014/07/parent-rights-their-childrens-education/
The only way all parents can access their rights as insiders do now is the program of Education Savings Accounts to be made available — an account from which to draw in choosing schools and services in the best interests of their child. Parent involvement as it stacks up now is a cruel illusion for everyday parents.
Tunya
That is life under capitalism. Some get more some get less. The Randian Libertarians would say they are just more worthy.
The State Of Parent Involvement In Schools
Today I found my talking notes for a workshop I led at a conference — Stereotyping and Discrimination in Education — Nanaimo, BC, Nov 13, 1976 (39 years ago). It was co-sponsored by the local teachers’ union and Malaspina College, with funding from the Office of the Secretary of State (Ottawa).
My topic concerned parent involvement in education of their children. We had a handout to aid discussion. These are some of the items:
Q: Are there conditions in the formal education system that could be detrimental to the education of children, and which parents should know about, and take a part in correcting?
A: Yes, parents should be concerned about the following:
– 1) teacher union/school board collective bargaining
– 2) student suspensions
– 3) student records, student labeling, mislabeling
– 4) vandalism, “disrupted” youth, alienated youth
– 5) stereotyping of parents
– 6) “innovations”, experiments, psychological and pseudo psychological techniques
– 7) downgrading of the basic skills
– 8) absence of meaningful standards, evaluation, assessment
– 9) lack of parent participation in education
– 10) teacher education often unrelated to the realities of the classroom
– 11) poor information services, little two-way communication between the system and consumers (parents, students, public)
Q: Are there ways that parents can be more involved?
A: Yes, here are a few suggestions:
– 1) formation of parent or school advisory councils in every school
– 2) useful information services, genuine two-way communication
Q: What is the basic minimum each parent should expect now in their child’s school?
A: 1) Easy, comfortable access to the child’s school, teacher and principal
2) All information the school has on the child, all information on the programs child involved in
3) No negative effect or reprisal to the child because of parent’s involvement
Are parents any better off now, 40 years later? Seems like parents still have a very shallow role in school affairs generally and with regard to their own children.
Yesterday’s Marni Soupcoff column on “The Rise of the Parental State” is relevant to our online discussion. Building upon the experience of Maryland parents, Danielle and Alexander Meitiv, she makes the case that today’s parents should be freer to raise kids, within sensible limits) in their own way:
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/marni-soupcoff-rise-of-the-parental-state
Surveying hundreds of Parents Reaching Out projects over the past year (2014-15), I noticed that the vast majority were aimed at “educating” or “correcting” parenting practices. It begged the question – Are Ontario’s PRO grants only perpetuating the educational “parental state”?
If every parent used their own judgement the CAS would have to triple their staff.
Parental judgement is terrible. This is why we need a powerful state to intervene for the collective good of society.
Children are not the property of their parents.
Paul, you’ve nailed it with your assessment of PRO grants. We do not have such grants in BC, thank heavens, but the reality is the same, and parents are vulnerable to being “fixed” by not only the state, but also by the union, by utopian edprofs (who too easily get media space), and even by fellow parents who are lapdogs to one partner or the other.
Examples of the latter:
a) if you check #FACErallyBC on Twitter you’ll see what is ostensibly a parent rally against “underfunding”** that does, albeit improbably, seem to be organized by people who have responsibility for children but are not teachers. But you’ll also see it was swarmed by unionists, left wing politicians, and teachers to the extent that I’d be surprised if you could find 5 “only parents who pay taxes” per site on average.
b) a group of parents of special needs children who have removed their children from school were recently surveyed BY OTHER SPECIAL NEEDS PARENTS and the results used by the latter purported “advocates” to try to reanimate the idea of full integration, which the surveyed parents had declared unresponsive and brain dead for their children – and thus in the long run to lure those parents, many of whom are happy and relieved to have rescued their children from catastrophic school situations, into returning their children to the crucible.
Parents REALLY need to be on their guard nowadays because they have NO friends, not even fellow parents.
Even when education is viewed through the lens of the law, the legal duties and rights of parents rarely get attention; the primary interest is in how to manage “problem parents”. It is preferred that parents simply breed, toilet train, and then deliver their offspring for institutional purposes – not state purposes according to public wish, by the way, but institutional purposes that often oppose and co-opt the state – ie, seditious objectives. Questions and expectations from parents are NOT encouraged. You would never know, from listening to references to parent engagement and involvement, that parents cede not one iota of custody when their children are enrolled in school. Full guardianship duties and rights remain with parents, which is why parents can remain liable for what their children do in schools (see Dean v. Nanaimo-Ladysmith) even if they have no say about the conditions under which an incident occurred.
It is for that reason that I undertake the legal projects that I do, because although parents’ duties and rights are well delineated in family law, education law takes no account of family law except where schools are put between divorcing parents. Education law is increasingly seen as fully interchangeable with labour law, an arena in which parents and the public conveniently have no standing. There is only additional recognition of privacy law, but the latter is examined only vis a vis students, and thus is a further lever to excise parents from their children’s lives.
Disguised by the pretty terminology of parent engagement and parent involvement: there is a gross violation of civil liberties and Charter rights going on here which a very large and privileged insider cult is vested in continuing, and it includes lawyers because parents don’t hire lawyers as often as school districts, unions, ministries, or other parts of the system do. It is my belief that parent rights are presently (legally) where Native land claims were in the 1970s, and overdue for the same legal workup. We only need the cases to be brought, but so successful is the marketing of lapdog^^ parent engagement that they are not forthcoming.
If we can assert parent rights and duties in court, all the other conflicts in the education system will simply evaporate, because parents will choose what teaching they like, and starve of sustenance what teaching they don’t like. I picked up a couple of used books today on educational psychology, and had to laugh – this field will not need to exist when parents can simply choose what teaching they like without having to answer for their choice – just as now they can remove their children from the country altogether if they are not in tune with the state, and there is not a field of study called “migration psychology” that purports to figure out what the ideal state configuration is for children to be in at various times of their lives as there no doubt would be if migration were compulsory and dictated by “experts.”
But UNTIL we can assert parent custody rights in court, all the conflicts will continue, along with the grooming of parents to play in them, because the profit is in doing the same thing over and over again (there is a recent book by this name about education reform).
** Underfunding is a bogus concept formulated by a bureaucracy hungry for growth rather than performance. Baumol’s cost disease notwithstanding, any idiot can figure out that if something exceeds your capacity to pay, you rethink whether you continue to do it at the present scale. That applies to weddings, to homes, to military activity, and to education systems. The education system has been so successful at conditioning the public to believe in the absurd idea of ‘underfunding’ that the concept is surfacing and gaining traction in fields still otherwise capable of logical thought, such as law. I discussed its use in a comment on this blog: http://representingyourselfcanada.com/2015/04/14/not-de-cruz-but-the-srl-case-you-should-have-been-paying-attention-to-this-week/
^^ For the term “lapdog parent” I have to credit a 1978 article in Homemaker’s Magazine.
Dear Karin
looks like everybody is wrong about education except you.
Government, boards, teachers, ed profs even other parents.
You know how that sounds right?
Much of what Karin says rings true. It’s refreshing to see it expressed so convincingly. She’s going deep, Doug, in waters rarely visited by educational observers.
Choice is failing in the USA.
The OECD says it is a failing strategy we simply cannot afford.
The USA and UK continue down this idiotic road but make no serious progress.
Voucher experimenting Sweden just keeps falling further and further behind “pure public” Finland.
SAT ACT scores fail to budge in reform oriented USA.
CHOICE is a strategy for the totally self absorbed indivualistic oriented types.
It is retrograde and reactionary harken in back to some golden era that never existed.
Nobody hoping to move a nation state forward, to close achievement gaps, to raise the outcomes would EVER choose a CHOICE oriented system. They would choose instead it’s total opposite, an EXCELLENCE FOR ALL system.
What I think confuses Doug is his oblivion to the carefully circumnavigated and even deliberately obfuscated fact that parents have no duties to the school system as a whole, nor any duty to the future of schooling, nor to the future overall. Their duty begins and ends with their own child, and consists of making one decision for one child today. And it is their right to make a different decision tomorrow, depending on the outcome of today FOR THEIR CHILD.
They also have no obligation to take into account global, national, provincial, or even local collective outcomes. They have no obligations to children who are “gapped” achievement-wise from their child, either ahead or behind. Legally, their duty is to their child only, and their only right is to speak for their own child.
Hence the difficulty of having any collective parent voice: no parent has the duty or right to speak for or influence the decisions of any other parent.
But that isn’t going to stop anyone from trying to “sort and arrange” parents into a chorus for economic elites. This very morning, the release of the BC Court of Appeal decision in BC brought out this little gem:
“We need to continue to educate parents now more than ever about class size and composition issues that affect their kids. #bced”
The message being that not only can parents not trust the duly elected government, but also that they cannot trust the courts – ergo, sedition and undermining the rule of law. But under it all is the most damaging message of all: that parents cannot be trusted and must not trust themselves to draw conclusions about the best interests of their own child and make decisions accordingly.
And THAT is the road to Residential Schools 2.0.
Kari so few people actually care about those issues that Canada moves on with the world’s best education system regardless. We graduate more students from post secondary than any other nation. That is what matters.
Parents should have basically no more rights than they have today. We neither need nor can we afford to runs around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to create a boutique education for every kid.
I get so tired of these tangential issues.
The point at which parents and children become tangential to the system is about the point at which the rationale for having and publicly funding a system evaporates, and the point at which compulsory attendance fails to meet the test for Section 1 of the Charter.
Oh the system is thinking about parents and children but the system does not come to your conclusions. They are very busy with far more important topics than boutique self absorbed choices for each child. Collective advance is far more important than selfish, ego driven, me first, priorities.
The Charter IS annoying, isn’t it. Self-absorbed boutique lives for everyone, and no respect for the collective. Funny, that about captures the response of teachers in BC, conditioned to believe they are special in law and should have a boutique relationship with the government, now aghast that the BC Court of Appeal has dared – DARED – to give the government the ability to put the needs of the whole collective above their own.
Anyway, Doug, I have a lot of work to do that convincing you of anything doesn’t advance, so sayonara, unless you come up with something useful.
That case will be reversed at the SCC and everybody knows it.
The debate about the role of parents should focus on one question: Are schools a place to help build societies or are they a place where children compete against each other?
Th vast majority and by that I mean 90% are totally satisfied with the general concensus thar is public education. The malcontents are very frustrated hat they cannot find much support anywhere so they hurl accusations at everybody.
The plain fact of the matter is that their ideas are just not very popular.
GUMP Schools No More!
On the issue of a better deal for parents I just had this published in the Globe and Mail on their story of the BC Court of Appeal decision supporting the BC government vs the BCTF:
BACK TO BASIC PRINCIPLES – No More GUMP Schools!
“The province is charged with the democratic responsibility to develop education policy in the public interest and is held politically accountable for the policy choices it makes. Indeed, the provision of public education is one of the longest standing obligations of the provincial government, dating back even before British Columbia joined Canada in 1871.” (Judgment BCCA 30AP’15)
Yes, in its expansion westward the federal government made provision for education by setting aside school endowment land to enable local communities to organize schools. There was never a stipulation that the state was to provide that education. The state’s role was policy. Public schools as they evolved were meant to be a safety net (a backup) for parents not able to educate their own children or to organize schools. Public education is a broad term for the provision of education for all — not meant to be a public utility.
The problem has arisen that we now have GUMP schools as Jeb Bush puts it. Government-run, Unionized, Monopoly, Politicized schools. Florida is one of a number of American states now providing Education Savings Accounts where parents can direct funds from an account in their child’s name to their choice of school and services. It’s time we discussed ESAs in Canada as an option to these GUMP schools — so high cost and so inflexible. The need to modernize education provision is amply illustrated by our toxic School Wars in BC, which we’ve endured for the last 40 years.
Matt and Doug are right on this one- supported by the history of public education world wide. It ain’t perfect, but nothing of value is.
The challenge is to find ways for better collaboration and communication between “education” and the “public”– a challenge we face in other aspects of society whether we are looking at medicine, military, or manufacturing, forestry, fishing, or farming.
Democracies are complex which can be either-or both- a strength and a weakness.
As for GUMP schools and Jeb Bush- why take advice from a privileged scion from a foreign country whose schools teach us too much about what NOT to do?
Schools are and always will be works in progress. People should read what is known as the Kliebard article. Schools refectory the compromise in society as teachers, parents, business, Labour , environmentalists, feminists, LGBT, conservative, Liberals, socialists recently Big Tech and a host of others struggle to reshape it in their own image. Nobody can ever win but the struggle reshapes schools as we move forward.
This struggle is far bigger than most people believe. When parents wonder “why can I not get what I want it should be simple”. It is not simple. Their are other very powerful forces pulling in other directions.
WOW — Great To Talk About The Future
So, instead of holding on to past, hide-bound structures and fiefdoms we can now talk about the future.
Firstly, how about stopping the control-freak behavior?
I agree — “Schools are and always will be works in progress.”
Then, why not let it happen?
This is what Alvin Toffler, eminent futurologist, says: “education will require a proliferation of new channels and a vast expansion of program diversity. A high-choice system will have to replace a low-choice system if schools are to prepare people for a decent life in the new . . . society, let alone for economically productive roles.” (Power Shift, p369)
If vouchers, tuition-tax credits, charter schools are not the most desired direction to go in, then ESAs certainly point to a promising way. The entrepreneurial spirit Toffler talks about would lend an eager hand to produce and proliferate education choices more in tune with the preferences and needs of the client base rather than remaining in the current “producer-capture” stultifying mode.
It seems like you just do not understand the nature of power and the dialectic. Every single organization involved in adulation truly believes that education would be much better if only THEIR sector had more power and more of the say.
It is a power struggle of Titanic proportions. Parents are inherently divided . One only needs to look at the orientation of SQE and P4E.
The only real power parents have is their dwindling voting power and they will always choose the “smaller class size keep schools open more resources, forward looking, peace “party over the “privatizing, religious, phonics, testing warlike” party.
Most of these directions used in the US have not delivered.
Why not?
Education is a societal good, not a private business.
Education, among other important goals like literacy, numeracy. etc. has a civil mission- promote democratic behaviours in our diverse society; otherwise,we get
– Baltimore
or
– North Korea.
Parent choice has one major concern – it’s mainly an urban issue. Rural centres have hard enough time keeping schools open to have any discussion about vouchers and parents’ roles. In Ontario, rural and urban divisions are the central theme when one looks at the political landscape.
When people discuss grants, the urban priority neighborhoods and rural communities should be the main recipients.
Privatization is a conservative idea. As Matt says rural parents have to concentrate on keeping heir public schools. The cities are all under control of liberals and socialists who spot privatization as an enemy virus as soon as it appears. Even Alberta is shifting left it seems. Not a lot of desire or furtile ground for privatization.
The sex ed curriculum in Ontario is a great example. There were consultation hearings. When the opponents complain that they were not consulted they really mean we don’t like it but the government would not deep 6 it. In a Forum poll 44% like it 40% hate it and 16% are not sure/have no opinion/don’t care. The 40% are a significant minority and can’t believe that they are not a majority and cannot believe that they are not being heeded.
At their core they are Evangelicals and immigrants from more socially conservative cultures.
Toronto Star had interesting article today on the decline of the Swedish system. Article mentioned decline since growth of private system which promotes profits over results. Also says teachers need more respect and money and students need less power and control (noted increase in lates over the last decade).
When Sweden privatized it was very close to Finland which was 96% public andremained so. Ever since that time, the gap has continued to widen with Sweden falling further and further behind.
To draw an analogy, Ontario recently privatized its winter highway snow clearance. Since then the AG says, the 2 hour average tk clean the highways has grown to 4 hours. The private companies only put down 20% of the salt compared to the previous amounts and now serious injuries property damage and even deaths are being attributed to privatization.
Education is not well suited to private business. The incentives are all in ghe wrong places. To make any money at all, it must be done on a very long slow process with very low profit margins to maintain quality. Nobody can generate a high rate of return over a short period and also offer a quality product..
As a result, investors look elsewhere or offer shoddy products.
[…] parentales et aux fins visées lors de l’octroi de ces subventions en Ontario (Parent Engagement in Education: Who’s Being Funded to Engage-and for What Purpose?, 2015). Dans son article, il aborde la popularité croissante de l’idée de l’engagement […]