Organization for Quality Education: Equity through school choice

Newsletter of the Organization for Quality Education, March 2002 Issue

The Homework Headache

(the lowdown on homework hassles — and what to do about them)

Small is Beautiful

(tips on how to create high schools that work for all their students)

The Trouble with Direct Instruction

(an explanation of why educators cling to discredited methods)

Surveying the Candidates

(a handy guide to Ontario’s

educational future)

Poor Schools

(a tour of the schools in India, where richer is not necessarily better)

Straight from the Heart

(a good news story about a six-year-old who learned to read)

Apples and Oranges

(sample questions from two very

different math assessments)

Remedial Remedy

(a modest proposal to hold school boards accountable for their failures)

No $ for Texts?

(surprising statistics on the textbook shortage in Ontario

Reading Beyond Grade 3

(a discussion of how to develop

children’s reading comprehension)

Learning How to Score

(continuous improvement, as showcased at a Hamilton school)

Lifeshort Learning

(an exposé of the funding structure for post-secondary education)

The Best Bang for Our Buck

(a new take on the class size question)

 

And lots more - Publications of Interest, What’s New?, Member Survey on Teacher Strikes, OQE Activities, Letters to the Editor, etc.

From the President

Hating America and ‘Balance’ in Education

 

 

 

 

         

          The executive of District 12 (Toronto) of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) performed a valuable public service by allowing the publication in its District 12 Voice of a piece entitled “Why America is Hated.” The newsletter staff’s subsequent defence of the polemic in the Toronto Star was even more enlightening: “We make no pretence of being ‘objective.’ We do not have a ‘balanced’ view of the Mike Harris régime. We do not have a ‘balanced’ view of oppression anywhere. We side with the oppressed and against the oppressor. We view America, and Israel as its agent, as the prime oppressor, in this case the Middle East.”

          As a regular reader of the District 12 Voice, I have been appalled at the strident, sophomoric tone of this newsletter. I often wondered how Toronto teachers could leave the control of their local ‘professional’ association and their reputations in the hands of such extremists. I also wondered how long it would take before the Voice engaged an unperceived trip-wire during one of its rants and belly-flopped into the public domain. Now we know.

          While District 12’s leadership is far more extreme than the provincial organization, all the federations at all levels continue to propagandize rather than inform their members on controversial issues. The most recent example of this was the PD Day on February 8th in Toronto.

                             Continued…