SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

The times they are a-changin’

GUEST BLOG BY JOHN EDWARDS

I have heard it said that paper books will likely represent less than 15% of books read in 10-12 years. So, things are definitely changing at a pace that is almost unimaginable.

Suffice it to say, the current education process/system will not escape major and dramatic change as well. The K-12 education area has received more venture-related investment in the last year than in the previous 15. In fact, the VC money has moved from colleges and universities to K-12. Here is one small example:  http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/  There are dozens. 

The dramatic reform of education is now taking place from the outside in. The iPad and related are the Trojan horses and profit is the motive. It will not be too many steps down the line before “educational outsourcing” will be on the agenda. Who will provide the guideposts so that parents know they are on the right path? SQE’s role may have to shift from reform to serious, certain and fully independent guidance.

Who’s In Charge?

I came across this interesting blog run by the Chair of the Upper Canada District School Board on behalf of the board.  Who’s In Charge of the Schoolhouse? challenges the provincial government over the recent contract negotiations.   This board, along with a slew of others around the province, is ticked off that they have been ignored at the bargaining table.  They sent a letter to the minister letting her know what’s what.  And boy, are they ticked-off:

       ”The past week was not a good one for confidence in “Public Education” What’s surprising is, the central champion of increasing the public’s confidence, the Liberal Government, was the chief destroyer of the confidence we had all worked together to establish.
Bent on trying to push blame for the failed Provincial Discussion Table talks on teachers and School Boards, the Minister of Education and the Premier deliberately mischaracterized the possibility of labour action disrupting the beginning of the school year, teacher compensation and the actions of local School Boards. The intent was clear. They wanted to whip up public sentiment to position themselves as the saviours. As saviours they would reluctantly call back the legislature to pass legislation to accomplish the bargaining position they wanted from the outset.”

Wow, that’s pretty bold. I give them credit for being courageous considering the possibility of a retaliatory take-over under supervision is always a threat they face.  One trustee I know at a different board told me that the current situation is a joke.

Of course the real answer to the question of who is really in charge is very obvious.  The sad part is that YOU (parents and taxpayers) are NOT.

The source of out-sourcing

Anyone who is worried about outsourcing should read this article by Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.

First he points out that lower wages are not the main reason behind out-sourcing.

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States but contracts with over 700,000 workers overseas. It assembles iPhones in China both because wages are low there and because Apple’s Chinese contractors can quickly mobilize workers from company dorms at almost any hour of the day or night. But low wages aren’t the major force driving Apple or any other American-based corporate network abroad. The components Apple’s Chinese contractors assemble come from many places around the world with wages as high if not higher than in the United States.

So, if lower wages are not the main reason behind out-sourcing, what is? 

Put simply, America isn’t educating enough of our people well enough to get American-based companies to do more of their high-value added work here. Our K-12 school system isn’t nearly up to what it should be. American students continue to do poorly in math and science relative to students in other advanced countries. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, and France all top us.

Switch the word “Canada” for “America” and presto - the root source of Canada’s out-sourcing.  H/T DH

A Tale of Two Schools

GUEST BLOG BY CHUCK

In my town until recently there were two public elementary schools:  Pretty Good PS and Pretty Bad PS. Then my school board, in its wisdom, decided to merge the two schools. Before the merger, the schools’ EQAO scores were as follows.

Pretty Good PS:  Reading 72, Writing 72, Math 88 (Grade 3)    Reading 76, Writing 64, Math 48 (Grade 6)

Pretty Bad PS:    Reading 36, Writing 55, Math 82 (Grade 3)    Reading 50, Writing 38, Math 38 (Grade 6)

Two years after the merger, the new school’s EQAO scores were as follows.

Merged PS:        Reading 51, Writing 59, Math 61 (Grade 3)    Reading 70, Writing 72, Math 54 (Grade 6)

Although the students are now housed in a spiffy new school with lots of bells and whistles, I somehow doubt the parents of the Pretty Good PS cohort think the move was an improvement. All that glitters is not gold.

It Doesn’t Add Up or Does It?

This NY Times piece, reprinted in today's National Post, is a discussion about the need (or not) to teach complex mathematics to high school and college students.  Andrew Hacker, a retired political science prof, argues that because students have such a high failure rate, it shouldn't be mandatory for senior high school and college students to have "to master polynomial functions and parametric equations."  He may have a point to a certain extent.  I suppose that if you are going to be an English major, why be required to take advanced algebra? However, he goes on to say that "Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent."  Hogwash.  

SQE might argue, conversely, that the reason there is such a high failure rate is because mathematics fundamentals are not taught very well in the primary grades.

The future is here

This video is well worth watching, because it puts flesh on the future of online learning. Although it focuses on post-secondary education, please note that K-12 students can take these courses. Furthermore, there is no reason why the concept cannot be applied to less advanced content.

Sunday at the Movies (Social Media)

This TED talk about the possibilities of the changed communications landscape is of general interest, and as well it is of particular interest to SQE as we prepare to launch four new videos into the social media next month. Stay tuned. H/T JC

Small is beautiful

That central planning doesn’t work is being demonstrated yet again by the schmozzle surrounding the Ontario government’s attempts to impose zero-increase contracts on the province’s teachers and support staff. As this Globe and Mail report shows, now both the province’s school boards and the local bargaining groups have joined the revolt. Of course, this sort of thing could never happen if individual school administrations were free to decide whom to hire and how much to pay them. A word to the not-so-wise….....

Listen to Mom

Walmart Canada asked 2000 moms what they found the most challenging aspect of being a parent. Among the top findings were: “Keeping their children’s diet healthy (72%), followed by the financial burden of having kids (67%), keeping them on top of schoolwork (47%), ensuring adequate exercise (38%), scheduling activities (31%), getting them into the right schools (26%) and finding affordable day care (20%)”.

I find it interesting that a quarter of moms had as their top concern finding the right school for their children - a statistic that obviously doesn’t preclude it from being a secondary or tertiary concern of other moms. The inference is significantly more than 26% of moms are worried about their children’s schools. Too bad so many school boards make it difficult or impossible for parents to switch schools. H/T DW

Social Promotion = Academic Failure

Here is more vindication for parents whose kids were promoted to the next grade even though they weren’t ready. This study by Jay Greene and Marcus Winters extends earlier research that followed retained students for two years and found they made greater academic gains in subsequent years than similar students who were socially promoted. The latest study followed some of the students for as long as five years and found that the advantages “do diminish, but they remain statistically significant and educationally substantial through middle school.”  Professors Greene and Winters “hope to continue tracking these students through high school, graduation, and even college, but so far it looks like there are enduring benefits to ending social promotion.”