Two retired Ontario educators, Dr. Denis Mildon and Gilles Fournier, have now surfaced in an attempt to preserve and protect the educational investment legacy of the Dalton McGuinty Liberal reform agenda (2003-13). In a Toronto Star opinion column (July 6, 2015), they repeat the familiar claim that Ontario’s system is “considered one of the finest in the world.”
Ontario’s educational supremacy is presented, as usual, as a statement of incontestable fact. “Though sound research, innovation and policy development Ontario’s system, ” Mildon and Fournier contend, “has become a model of equity and inclusiveness in education and, as a result, in student achievement.”
Ontario education under McGuinty was certainly among the best resourced systems in the world. With OISE school change theorists Michael Fullan and Ben Levin championing increased system-wide investment, spending skyrocketed by over 57% from 2003 to 2011 to $22 billion while school enrollment fell by some 6 per cent. Public funding poured in to support a series of Poverty Reduction initiatives, enhanced special program supports, universal full day Kindergarten, and even Parents Reaching Out (PRO) Grants for parent education.
The origin, of course, of the now infamous “Best System” claim is the two McKinsey and Company reports (2007 and 2010) purporting to identify and then analyze the success of twenty of the world’s leading education systems. It also echoes the very wording used by the Ontario education reform architect Michael Fullan in a high profile 2012 Atlantic article assessing the success of his own initiatives. Aside from Fullan’s 2010 report forward, there is surprisingly little about Ontario initiatives in the actual report, except for one passing reference to PRO grants.
Repeating such claims,referencing the reform advocates themselves,is wearing mighty thin as fresh evidence accumulates that closing the education equality gap does not necessarily translate into improved student achievement. Even more telling, much of the McGuinty era funding-driven “progress” was fueled by increases in spending that are simply unsustainable.
Outsized claims of educational excellence based upon the McKinsey & Company reports are now highly problematic. British researcher Frank Coffield’s 2012 critique of the reports, published in the Journal of Education Policy, has shredded the research and raised serious questions about the reports’ credibility. Alarmed that the report’s analysis and prescriptions have “hardened into articles of faith” among politicians and policy makers, he argues that the McKinsey-Fullan system-wide reform agenda will “not improve school systems.”
Much of Coffield’s critique of McKinsey-style reform applies to Ontario, the Canadian province where Fullan field-tested his school change theories from 2003 to 2013. Centralized reform initiatives, like Fullan’s, he shows, reflect “an impovershed view” of the state of teaching and learning, favouring professionalization over school-level initiatives.
Coffield is particularly skeptical about the legitimacy of the whole assessment. Claims of student success by McKinsey and Fullan are problematic because of the “weak evidence base” and suspect claims about “educational leadership” that “outrun the evidence” in the reports. He’s also troubled by the McKinsey-Fullan language which sounds “technocratic and authoritarian.” Cultural and socio-ethnic differences are also “underplayed” in such systems-thinking and there is little or no recognition of the role democratic forces play in the public education domain.
One of the few Canadian educators to raise flags about the McKinsey-Fullan ideology was former Peel Catholic Board teacher Stephen Hurley. Writing in March 2011 on the CEA Blog, he expressed concern over the report’s basic assumptions – that teachers come with “low skills” and that centralized approaches are best at fostering professional growth.
Hurley pinpointed two critical weaknesses of the McKinsey-Fullan reform agenda. “As we move forward, how do we give back to our teachers that professional space to develop a strong sense of purpose and efficacy? How do we as teachers work to reclaim our identities as highly trained and highly competent professionals?”
Two years after McGuinty’s fall from grace, serious questions are being asked about whether the lavish education spending actually produced better results. Staking the claim on rising graduation rates is suspect because, while the graduation rate rose from 68 to 83 per cent, we know that “attainment levels” do not usually reflect higher achievement levels, especially when more objective performance measures, such as student Math scores,stagnated during those years.
Upon closer scrutiny, the Mildon and Fournier commentary is not about protecting student achievement gains at all. Defending current time-consuming evaluation practices, smaller class sizes, preparation time, banking of sick days, ready access to sub teachers, and current curriculum approaches sounds far more like a teacher-driven agenda for Ontario schools. Wrapping Ontario education in that “world leading school system” banner, does not have the appeal or resonance it once had now that parents and the public have a better read on the actual results of that rather high-cost reform agenda.
What did the Dalton McGuinty Education Reform agenda actually achieve in terms of improving student progress and achievement? Where are the independent assessments of McGuinty education reforms supported by serious professionally validated research? Will the Education Reform global “success” story turn out to be essentially a carefully constructed, nicely-packaged mirage?
Personally and many of my educator friends saw a tremendous change after McGuinty came into power.
All of a sudden,school boards were no longer given the autonomy to react and solve their problems.
The Fullan and Levin team did a lot of harm because technology in no way trumps instruction or pedagogy.
The Literacy and Numeracy secretariat was formed.It`s very expensive and they became the agency that dictated reform in instruction but truly,not one good thing has happened.Results have not improved and they became yet another layer of bureaucracy.They certainly don`t seem enlightened.
And then,there`s the all day K expense,none of us needed that and the province could not afford it.
I have always said,since McGuinty,things have deteriorated and many Directors of Ed who had different autonomy before him saw a tremendous change,not for the better.
One place to look is the adult literacy gap,they have declined.All that has a genesis in the early years and yes,I agree,immigration must be considered in the analysis.
The explosion in Ontario education spending from 2003 to 2013 is clearly reflected in the Sunshine list. Take a close look at the growth in the number of educrats earning over $100,000 per year. Teachers attribute this to Michael Fullan and his Whole System model dependent upon centralized education initiatives. Educrats certainly benefitted far more from Fullan than regular teachers.
Using the Sunshine list data analysis tools, a few enterprising teachers zeroed in on the proportion of Ontario education spending now going to high priced educrats earning over $100,000 per year. Today some $3 billion of the $22.4 billion spent on Ontario education goes to paying the bureaucrats now numbering well over 500, or roughly five times the number in 2000. This is likely to be the real legacy of Fullanism. No wonder teachers are beginning to speak out on such matters.
http://ontariosunshinelist.com/#data
Paul. $100 000 is peanuts today for professionals. In 2-3 years 50% of teachers will be on the list. Same with cops firefighters.
1) Canada has the world’s highest post secondary graduation rate. Time Magazine says this makes us the world’s most educated people. 2nd Israel 3rd Russia.
2) Ontario is 44% of Canada and #1 would be impossible without high Ontario results. #1 data is the only data that actually matters- far more important than PISA.
3) Spending on education and a high wage unionized environment is critical. Ask CD Howe. Compare Massechusetts to Louisiana.
4) Lack of poverty and lack of “concentrations of poverty” are both critical see Finland OECD.
5) Testing charters and vouchers are having zero effect in improving USA UK. It is killing aggregate results in Sweden and Chile and they know it. = policy review.
What stops Canada from pulling even further ahead of all other nations?
– we need wider and deeper ECE.
– we need free tuition
-we need even smaller classes
– we need even higher wages benefits and pensions to attract students away from law medicine architecture into teaching.
-we need to stop teacher bashing. Our teachers have delivered the world’s finest system.
-we need greater transfer payments to the poor, higher mini wage, more infrastructure investment to create jobs.
-1st we need to kill and bury the corporate education reform movement.
It is part of the anti woman anti poor anti minority anti union reactionary privatizing 1% movement for global corporate domination.
It is a dying dinosaur but can still do a lot of damage before all legs are in the air.
Welcome back, Doug. You are in rare form and only too happy to trot out the usual Ontario-centric educational chest-thumping rhetoric. Many leachers, as you know, consider Fullan to be an administrative empire-builder who thinks most teachers need to be improved through system-wide initiatives. Surely there is a middle ground – setting higher standards and then getting out of the way–respecting teacher autonomy!
I hate Fullan’s guts. He is a teacher basher and his reforms had little to do with Ontario ‘ s success. I wrote an influential paper distributed to the federations and the bureaucracy. Title -“The Glass is Half Fullan” Levin just a side kick.
Ontario/Canadian success is due to hard working teachers and support staff working closely with parents of the P4E type.
The system is seriously underfunded as can be seen in the negotiations. When the water is low in the water hole the animals look at each other differently. University students are developing life long debt problems.
Governments need to tax more spend more and then get out of the way. Right now the province/board side is trying to lower compensation and raise class size. How dumb is that?
Yes Ontario has a deficit. Tax increases in corporate, wealthy individuals, tobacco, gas, alcohol, could eliminate the deficit overnight.
Tommy Douglas always said “deficits are the clearest indication we have that we did not tax enough”.
Mild on and Fournier are trying to tell the province and boards that attempting to raise class size and more on-call and control over prep time WILL lower the quality of education.
I dare say ASKING FOR IT causes teachers teachers to HATE management, LOVE the union and feel totally unappreciated by management. This causes alienation resulting in many teachers “doing less”.
I saw the role of trustee as demanding more money from Queens Park, not accommodating their cutbacks.
This is why we need to bring Research Ed to Canada.
I could not agree more Tara. “Education research” shows that testing increases the dropout rate and that charters and vouchers add no value.
Look at Ohio charters.
Look at vouchers in Sweden and Chile.
Disasters.
Why are they still promoted then?
$$$$$
Here is one of the major problems I see with the current funding system and education in general. It is completely based on grants with few opportunities for communities to have input into how the funding is spent. If communities want their education funded provincially, then there comes responsibility for how the money is spent and it allows taxpayers from other parts of a province to give their voice into how your local community is spending the funds.
Ideally provincial funding should cover the needs of our schools. If schools and communities want additional resources than there should be ways for them to pay for it locally. I look back at Junior Kindergarten in Ontario. Most places did not have this program decades ago. When Ontario went to provincial funding and standardization, all boards had to begin to offer the program, even if some did not need or want it.
When a board says it does not need or want a provincial initiative, that is not the same as saying a majority of parents or citizens don’t want it.
But there is also a difference between wanting something because you truly want or need it and wanting it because others have it.
Another example is pools in Toronto. Many are located in schools because they were constructed back when education was more locally funded. With the transition to provincial funding, there was no funding criteria to pay for these pools. Why can’t local communities be able to pay for initiatives like these ones? More local funding would allow a greater discussion about finding programs that would help meet the needs and views of local communities. It would also help to develop community hubs.
My commentary has prompted Malkin Dare of the Society for Quality Education to do a little more digging to see whether student achievement levels improved under the McGuinty Liberal reform plan. Today’s SQE Blog post, headed, “A Little Complacency is a Dangerous Thing,” provides evidence that Ontario student test scores actually declined from 2013-13.
Here’s her conclusion:
“Although Educhatter doesn’t get into the accuracy of the belief in Ontario’s education supremacy, a glance at trends over time on the two main comparisons of international achievement – PISA and TIMSS – show a significant decline in the reading and math achievement of Ontario students since 2003. All of which suggests that the educational supremacy mantra is in fact incorrect, and that the McGuinty approach should be jettisoned in favour of an approach that results in better student achievement.”
The link: http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/a-little-complacency-is-a-dangerous-thing
Methinks that Malkin’s research puts an end to the education establishment’s claims about ECE, free tution and the like. But then again your’re entitled to your pipe dreams
Because she is not looking back to 2003 at the start of the govt. Besides the only vector that really matters is post secondary graduation where nobody is close to Canada.
When you try very hard to educate everybody, a democratic approach, scores are difficult to hold. When you kick massive numbers to the curb and only educate elite kids it is a breeze to have high scores.
You thinks wrong as usual.
Malkin is dead wrong but nothing new there. Ask what the OECD thinks of the Canadian system. Easy to find.
There are many in the world education community who call Ontario “the Finland of North America”.
Public Education Leviathans Imploding
“It is the business of education in our social democracy to eliminate the influence of parents on the life-chances of the young. – F. Musgrove, The Family, Education and Society, 1966.
Imagine an education conference invitation, which has the above quote. The conference — Family Choice, Schooling and the Public Interest, May 7-9, 1980 was held at Simon Fraser University, BC. I suspect the conference was not any genuine effort to advance the cause of family choice. I suspect it was — more like a wartime reconnaissance mission — to gather intelligence about the nature of the threat of the movement for choice — AND how to avert and conquer it.
At the moment we are discussing the yeasty atmosphere related to public education — here —and globally. Serious critiques are being mounted not only by policy people but also by actual front-line teachers who dare to question (disrupt) the prevailing doctrines and actually write books and stage quick little conferences (researchED) to emphasize evidence as the byword replacing belief systems.
We have innovative funding approaches called Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) being tried in the US wherein parents get 90% of the education allotment placed into a bank account from which they draw — upon locating the services and products and schools they deem best for their children.
Even as bloated school systems continue to have their apologists who try to maintain the “mirage” of current schooling models (Mildon, Fournier) we also have parents on the front lines clamoring for reforms that recognize the need to maintain basic skills (eg – Math petitions). The media is sensing good stories and is doing their homework besides parroting the official establishment line.
For too long — over 150 years — parents have been treated as colonial peoples to be cajoled and hoodwinked into compliance with centralized government monopoly education systems (Parents and Schools: The 150-Year Struggle, Cutler).
Well, now we are seeing parents asserting their biological imperative as never before. The natives are restless. More parents are questioning the 21st Century mantras that are being ground out by central offices. Parents are tired of paying private tutors for lessons untaught. They are showing more interest in ESAs, in basic skills taught for their tax dollars, in home eduation.
They are daring to ask: Do we still need schools? See this latest book: International Perspectives on Home Education: Do We Still Need Schools? Rothermel, 2015 http://www.amazon.com/International-Perspectives-Home-Education-Schools/dp/1137446846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436465877&sr=8-1&keywords=Rothermel+International+perspectives&pebp=1436465900525&perid=1XMZJSVRPGKC5F6D8AS6
The idea that parents and teachers and unions are on opposite sides is risible.
The vast majority of parents support the public school system largely as is. In Canada we have the world’s greatest education system by far.
BTW public schools and their boards do not answer to parents alone. They answer to all eligable voters in their districts.
The public school system is to serve SOCIETY not just parents.
Paul,
Congrats lots of ink in National Putz however;
Our K – grad school must be seen as a highly successful unbroken chain leading to the World’s Greatest Education Results (Time Magazine the Henry Luce official house organ of the GOP). UT #14 in the world, way above our weight class, is only part of the proof. Three universities in the top 50, ahead of China, Japan or any much larger Asian tigers -paper tigers more like it.
Russia and Israel are far behind.
Fullan and Levin had nothing to do with it. The success of the Canadian system was built by social programs and teachers unions.
Canada #1 !
Saying anything but this is downright unpatriotic.
Today’s National Post carries a shorter and tighter version of my Blog commentary. Here’s the link, in case you somehow missed it like me:
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/paul-bennett-ontarios-leading-school-system-mirage
As an international educator and administrator I am familiar with the “McKinsey and Company” reports. The latest report has been highlighted at leadership conferences, grad courses and professional development gatherings from London to Istanbul and Madrid to Kathmandu in the hopes that school leaders will adopt and adapt some of the strategies employed by 20 of “the world’s most improved school systems” to improve their own schools. When done with a skeptical mind and critical eye, this has been an effective exercise.
So, I was pleased to find your article there to provide a “fresh and critical” perspective when I opened the Post this morning. I felt a little shocked and dismayed when I read your description of Coffield’s August 2014 article and how it has “shredded the research” upon which the reports by “McKinsey and Company” are based. Indeed, you do an excellent job of setting the reader up for just such a reaction when you write:
“Outsized claims of educational excellence based upon the McKinsey & Company reports are now highly problematic. British researcher Frank Coffield’s August 2014 critique of the reports, published in the Journal of Education Policy, has shredded the research and raised serious questions about the reports’ credibility.”
One problem with this, however, is that this is not a “fresh” perspective and was not published in August 2014 as you state; it was first published online in October 2011.(http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680939.2011.623243#.VaAK4MZViko) And the same is true of Stephen Hurley’s comments on the report, first published in March 2011.
The misdirection continues when you conclude from the critiques of Coffield and Hurley that the problem is a “teacher-driven agenda for Ontario schools.” This is most definitely NOT the spin that Hurley would want put on his statements. Hurley refers, in his comments section, to another 2011 piece, this one by Rick Salutin in The Star (http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2011/03/25/saving_public_education_why_teachers_matter.html) in which the “Finnish miracle” is discussed. As Salutin points out, the success of the Finnish system is founded on their “commitment to teacher autonomy.”
Your article attempts to dismiss the claims of Mildon and Fournier as politicized and self-serving, however, anyone who takes the time to follow up on the work you quote can’t help but come away feeling that the shoe belongs on the other foot.
Thank you, Brad, for bringing your considered and informed comments to our online discussion. I stand corrected on the Frank Coffield article and see that it appeared online in 2011 and in print in 2012. The version I had was a later iteration, possibly prepared for a subsequent paper or talk. You will see I have corrected that factual error.
Stephen Hurley’s CEA Blog post does raise the two concerns mentioned, albeit in his usual polite and nuanced fashion. All I did was bring them into sharper relief to clarify that Stephen was very uncomfortable with “whole system change” that trampled upon teacher autonomy. So am I and that’s been the case ever since I began to observe how standardized curricula and tests, in the wrong hands, can do harm to innovative teachers with ideas of their own. We need cross-system testing but nor “time-consuming testing regimes” that gobble up more and more of the actual instructional time.
You seem to accept Michael Fullan’s philosophy and school change theories, but I’ve always been skeptical of his whole approach. Whole System Change theorists like Fullan do not change their spots. I still find it amazing that he has not been seriously challenged by “insiders” in the education establishment. I’m beginning to suspect that, horrors, Rob Ford might have found the answer — the “gravy train.” Hope I’m wrong, but it looks that way to someone who actually knows most of the key Ontario players in Fullan’s entourage.
School Insiders Know The “Gravy Train” Will Cease
Someday, somewhere, someone — an “insider” — will write the story of how the well-intended public school system was hijacked by vested interests and social change ideologues. As long as these school systems, these GUMP schools, continue to exist they will continue to fail the smell test. (Government, Unionized, Monopoly, Politicized schools is what Jeb Bush calls them.) The gravy smells sweet to insiders but to others it reeks with rip-off opportunism.
Those in control, at many levels, continue to collude to retain the status quo. Apologists are many. But, someone will talk. Already challengers such as mythbusters (Daisy Christodoulou) and dissident educators (Tom Bennett’s researchEd) are setting the stage for greater challenge to an out-of-date system. http://www.amazon.ca/Seven-Myths-About-Education-Christodoulou/dp/0415746825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436571931&sr=8-1&keywords=7+myths+education
Meanwhile the Nevada ESA plan stands as a portent of the future — wherein public funding for education will be deposited into the bank accounts of parents to choose the services, products and schools that best suit their kids’ needs.
Meanwhile home education will continue to grow. Even Henry Giroux, arch left-wing critic of neoliberal schooling, praises home education in face of “the loss of legitimacy of a dominant institution that supposedly bound us together — the common school.”
(Latest brain research shows why teaching is an inate ability begun in childhood)… Teaching is a natural human ability that starts developing in childhood, author says….. http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/teaching-is-a-natural-human-ability-that-starts-developing-in-childhood-author-says/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article_bottom …
What a joke. Try tell parents that you have a school where nobody has teacher training. See how you do.
The core problem is that the “reformers” cannot accept Canada as the world’s best system because it totally destroys their entire narrative.
A RETRACTION, An APOLOGY, And A “HEADS UP”
RETRACTION: In a previous post on this thread I made mention that home education was a significant challenge to those complacent with the current public schooling status quo. In my post — School Insiders Know The “Gravy Train” Will Cease — I provided a quote which I attributed to Henry Giroux.
In fact, the quote is from a chapter done by Michael W Apple in the book — International Perspectives On Home Education: Do We Still Need Schools? Rothermel, 2015.
APOLOGY: My apology to Henry Giroux for mixing him up with Michael W Apple. I do not know what Giroux makes of home education and the primary role of parents in the education of their children. However, I do not think I mischaracterize either Giroux or Apple, as an “ arch left-wing critic of neoliberal schooling”.
HEADS UP: In the new book on Home Education mentioned above — expensive ($100+) and very academic — I was very surprised to see such a thorough treatment of the subject by a prominent progressive professor, Michael W Apple. His chapter is entitled: Education as God Wants It: Gender, Labour and Home Schooling. Besides facts and figures he also comments on the laudable role parents assume in the “extraordinary amount of physical, cultural and emotional labour.” Instead of the state’s work, these parents, he says, “have a kind of knowledge taken from the ultimate source — God.” [It would be a great service to home educators and others if this chapter could be printed as a monograph online and become easily accessible to all interested.]
I am very happy to support home educators. It removes one more right wing crank from the public system each time and leave the public system to progressives.
I keep wanting the “Ontario critics” to point to a country or a state within another country that has overall superior results to Ontario and Canada?
Would it be Singapore, Finland, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Korea, Japan….where is the nation that is better than Canada?
Crickets chirping.
I find myself growing weary of the use of constrictive and restrictive “data sets” to somehow bolster the reputation of one jurisdiction over another—one school over another, one province over another, one country over another.
Even if the data that is constantly cited here is accurate, even if it is objectively obtained and analyzed, it doesn’t tell the whole story. There are important contextual issues not addressed. There are powerful stories not being told.
Quoting 80% graduation rates, for example, as being the “best in the world” doesn’t tell the story of the 20% of young people that, for one reason or another, chose to leave school early. Nor does it tell about the students that may have been pushed through to graduation by some politically motivated “student success” program, but may not really have the skills or knowledge to carry on to post-secondary. It doesn’t ask the important questions of who is missing from that 80% and why!
Quoting success on numeracy and literacy tests may allow us to pat ourselves on the back about how great our schools are, but it doesn’t tell the story of the programs that have been scaled back or cut altogether so that extra hours could be spent to prepare for this “success”. It doesn’t say much about what we’ve lost or sidelined to receive acknowledgement on the international stage.
The further we step back from the reality of schools, the easier it is to spin an entirely different narrative. Distance blurs our vision and makes it easier to make pompous proclamations and lay back in a bed of laurels.
(I suspect that there is a connection between the distance created by relying only on statistics for indicators of success and the distance created when the “cries from the corridor” are depersonalized by the academic rhetoric that develops around certain ideas and ideals.)
As this is likely my last “contribution” to the blog I can only agree with Stephen on both points about this thread and the Peter McLaren thread.
Thank you Stephen for some rational input. Listening to union militant Doug Little continually monopolize every discussion is tiring to say the least.
These ex-school system teacher/bureaucrat/consultants forget they are no longer in administrative meetings where they can mislead people and try to impress each other with their twisted educrat statistics and wanna-be “facts”.
“Quoting 80% graduation rates, for example, as being the “best in the world” doesn’t tell the story…”
This also doesn’t take into account the severe dumbing down of all education standards (elementary, high school, and university) in Canada over the last 30 years. If you dumb it down enough, even someone with ZERO education can “graduate”. Then we could claim 100% graduation rates, and reduce education spending to zero, LOL!
There has been no dumbing down of standards. Much of the calculus taught in high school today was taught in university one generation earlier.
That is why we need destreaming if you don’t want “dumbing fown”
Streaming is dumbing down in action bit it has been with us for generations. It is totally unnecessary but yet when I say abolish applied level many conservatives jump to defend it.
The variable in high school should be time not level yet we are moving in the opposite direction.
“Statistics don’t tell the whole story” is usually a follow up from someone who just lost the statistics was and would rather talk about Mary or Tommy.
Tym sounds like the grumpy old man on Saturday Night Live.
Tym if you string together a lot of cliché s from 1956 and some corn pone wisdom you still don’t have an argument.
This is world data from Time Magazine OECD Stats can. Not something I drew up on a serviette at Starbucks.
Doug, wow, four replies to shout out more educrat mumbo jumbo and fancy paradigms. Sorry, but none of that holds any water with me.
You say “There has been no dumbing down of standards.” That is a lie, pure and simple. Destreaming, patterning, and all the other fancy (unsuccessful) curriculum is a bunch of crap that just employs more useless twits in the education sector producing less and less results every year.
The kids can talk a big story. Most of them can bullshit you until they’re blue in the face. But they can’t perform basic tasks with any accuracy or quality or complexity. They can’t build anything without a dozen mistakes.
I don’t need any studies or Time Magazine (quality news source, LOL) statistics. All you need to do is sit in a Grade 6 classroom for 30 minutes, or attend a high school orientation even for the IB program, or listen to any professor teaching first year courses at a university and it is OBVIOUS that our education system is a DISASTER. No cliches here pal, just practical, first hand research.
The Deans of community colleges will share their stories with you about the lack of skills in graduate students as well Tym.
Love your posts,you speak the truth versus edubabble.
I`d love to see how many drop outs there are in first year university,the students are overwhelmed with what they can`t do.
There certainly is evidence that standards have been eased to show that students in both secondary and post-secondary are more successful than previous generations. Admission standards are higher, but more students seem to be meeting these standards. There is also incentives for schools to keep students in post-secondary education since more students mean more money.
In terms of what students can or cannot accomplish in post-secondary education, at what point do we look at the students and question their responsibility in their own education? People mention the lack of basic skills, but there are many students (I would even say most) who have worked to acquire these skills and will be successful in post-secondary education. Post-secondary institutions have also commented on the rise of parental involvement in their children’s education. Once again, when does a student become responsible for his or her education? In past generations, students who lacked these basic skills did not go to post-secondary education. One of our major issues with post-secondary education is that students seem to see it now as an expectation, not an earned privilege.
Mary and Tommy indeed…and others!
Google “CHARTER SCHOOL CORRUPTION”
You certainly have enough reading material to last the rest of the summer.
A taste
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/08/how-will-charter-schools-deal-with-their-corruption-scandals/
Some try to say -oh minor growing pains. Wrong- the rot lies at the very core of charter school legislation.
David Berliner eviserates “reform” approaches.
http://dianeravitch.net/
Charter schools in Ohio are playing a role that actually widens the achievement gap. They make a difficult situation WORSE!
Ontario’s claim to educational supremacy sparked some curiosity. A few years ago, I seemed to recall similar declarations for Finland. Angela Watson’s blog, The Cornerstone, has a great little post featuring the now famous social media visual of a Finnish teacher proclaiming why Finland had “the best system in the world.” It sparked quite a bit of backfire, including a few correctives. Watson posted Nina Smith’s “12 Myths about Finnish Education Debunked”:
http://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/2013/03/12-myths-about-education-in-finland-debunked.html
Ontario’s school change wizards, it seems, are not the first — or the last– to make such inflated claims.
Finland ‘ s rep was built on PISA scores that said they had the best reading scores for 15 year olds in the PISA rankings. Finland also has only 5% poverty and their poverty is not concentrated.
I actually consider Canada’s post secondary graduation rate as an even more significant marker.
The problem for Reformers Paul is the like to throw stones at Finland, Canada, even Korea but the best they can come up with as actual support are “no excuses charter schools” in USA. The Miracle schools solution always collapses on close examination. Even KIPP the leader has a poor record preparing their kids for college as most drop out when they have to learn independently.
Major charter figures are now realizing that most charters fail and the charter movement has a responsibility to put the Ohio types out of biz.
The unionized charter school is inevitable.
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/18/charter_schools_worst_nightmare_a_pro_union_movement_may_change_charters_forever/
This one is for Tom B.
Failure of charters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/07/06/growing-evidence-charter-schools-are-failing
Is the topic charter schools or is the topic “Ontario supremacy in education”?Is Ontario`s supremacy real?
Training Ontario teachers as we speak and teachers candidly speak of the smoke and mirrors and fake fuzzy literacy and math instruction behind closed doors…as well as the hollowness of their teacher prep courses.
Thanks Doug!
People like Tom introduce “no excuses charter schools” Jo Anne.
Let’s look at the facts as Joe Friday on Dragnet always said.
Canada has BY FAR the highest % of post secondary grads in the world. Ontario is 44% of Canada. Ontario punches WAY above its weight class in international university rankings with UT now #14.
TIME Magazine a conservative publication says the high post secondary grad rate means Canadians are the world’s most educated people. Americans travel to Ontario to visit “the Finland of the Americas”.
Reformers can go on ad nauseum about the fact that Ontario/ Canadian education is not perfect and they are right, it is just better than EVERYBODY ELSE. As John Diefenbaker used to say “don’t compare me to the Almighty-compare me to the alternative.
Reformers want us to adapt endless lessons from the USA, UK and Australia all laggards who are miles behind Canada. They are coming here to learn from US.
You cannot change poverty schools with choice.
http://dianeravitch.net/
Although poor and middle class children are BORN with similar brains, it is now clear the the effects of poverty causes enough brain damage to effect school results.
There is no program, no choice program, no voucher, no phonics or DI that can seriously compensate for that. There is only one solution and that is the serious mitigation and eventual elimination of poverty so that not one citizen lives below half of the average wage, the definition of poverty.
It is actually quite easy to accomplish.
http://www.ibtimes.com/poverty-affects-brain-causes-lower-test-scores-study-2017488
Arizona, a crucible of low pay, privatization and corporate reform now has a severe teacher shortage.
http://dianeravitch.net/
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2015/07/thompson-1.html#.VbfLMCdZTqB
The utter and complete failure of corporate reform.
Would you look at that!
http://www.businessinsider.com/set-your-kids-up-for-success-2015-8?op=1