SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Provincial Parent Board Silenced

It seems that by speaking out the Provincial Parent Board has lost its voice.  This is no case of laryngitis either—the vocal chords have been permanently cut.

Moira MacDonald reports in today’s Toronto Sun that Education Minister Kathleen Wynne has decided to dismantle the Board by September of this year.

Seems that several PPB members had criticized the ministry and minister because they felt they were being hamstrung by bureaucratic blockades preventing them from representing parents’ voices in the province.  So much for allowing parental engagement. 

It’s already a shame that school councils, which began with such hope and promise, have lost their lustre.  School councils’ main purpose was to monitor student achievement and to allow parents to advise on issues affecting their children’s education. Most now have fundraising as their main purpose.  This latest move to stifle parents smacks of censorship and control. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

MacDonald writes:  “We should also wonder what this means about the government’s commitment to letting parents truly have a voice. If the system can’t handle skilled, opinionated parents at the highest levels, what are the chances for those up against an obstinate school principal who’s out of the media spotlight.”

We should wonder indeed.  We should also wonder why the only voice the minister seems to listen to is her “Partnership Roundtable”—a group made up of the usual stakeholders of teachers’ unions, school board associations, principal’s associations, and other organizations supportive of the current government.  Remember what happened to the School Finder Website the day after she met with the Partnership’s vocal oppostion to the comparison feature? ‘Nuf said.

MacDonald’s article ends with this question: “How many times will government ask parents the same questions and get the same answers before parents see their ideas transformed into real change?”

SQE has the easy answer: break the monopoly and let parents choose their schools!

Teaching to the Test - or Teaching the Test?

Ontario’s College of Teachers makes public its disciplinary hearings, which make interesting reading for anyone with a blind faith in his or her children’s teachers. Check out the June 2009 batch. Of particular interest is the case of Annette Snow, a principal who cheated during the province’s EQAO testing. Snow “opened sealed tests, permitted photocopying, and encouraged teachers to ‘do what they could’ to ensure good test scores”. “During the administration of one grade 3 test, Snow provided instructions, suggestions, and help to students on how to answer questions to ensure they gave correct answers, including providing an example of a ‘story web’ on the blackboard.”

No Fail Policy and the Ivory Tower

It seems that Ontario Deputy Minister Levin’s memo regarding the government’s “No-Fail” policy has garnered a response from Ivory Tower Blues author James Côté and Jon Cowans.  It is a scathing analysis of Levin’s “propagandistic missive” (the authors’ words, not mine):

 “If we are not providing secondary school students with a meaningful and challenging education, is it any wonder that some opt to leave before graduating and others lack the suitable preparation for post-secondary education? If Levin were committed to a full disclosure of the facts, he would be directing the Ministry of Education to address the limitations of the system over which it has a fiduciary duty, not ignore the facts that point to those limitations. A disservice is being done to all by his misinformation.”

Côté speaks from experience and is not the only voice speaking out about lax standards.

In the latest issue of our newsletter, The Forum, SQE reported on the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations survey which indicated that first-year university students are less prepared than ever before.  Incoming students have lower writing and numeric skills, lower maturity, and a belief that good grades are an entitlement.  The OCUFA president noted that the Ontario government has been applauding itself for increasing high school graduation rates but that many of the graduates are inadequately prepared for university.

Making Schools Safer for Whom?

The June 8 entry on the Crux of the Matter blog discusses the school safety bill recently passed by the Ontario government. Coincidentally, right around the same time it was announced that three Ontario school administrators who had failed to report an alleged sexual assault on one of their female students would suffer no legal consequences. As one of the Crux of the Matter commenters points out, parents would be foolish to put their faith in government promises to protect their children in school.

Canada’s National Debt

Here’s a very graphic way to educate your students about budgeting in general and  Canada’s national deficit in particular. At press time, each Canadian’s share of indebtedness was more than $14,000 - and rising fast.

Learning Can Be Fun

At FREE RICE, children can earn grains of rice that will be distributed to the world’s poor through the United Nations World Food Program. To do this, they must correctly answer questions on a variety of topics - from world capitals to math questions to vocabulary to foreign languages to English grammar. Try it yourself. It’s addictive!

Charter Schools in Georgia Doubling

While the griping about the School Finder web site rages on—you know how parents will avoid schools in poor areas say the site’s critics—the idea that parents in less affluent areas may want to find better performing schools for their kids never occurs to them.  Empowering low-income parents to choose better schools pays off for students:

From the Georgia Public Policy Foundation:

The number of charter schools in Georgia nearly doubled last year and may double again in the next two years, according to the Georgia Department of Education.  Last year, 33,000 students were enrolled, up 26% from the year before and 56% from two years ago.  Athens Banner-Herald columnist Walter Jones notes, “Although charter schools statewide have more poor and minority students than traditional schools, their graduation rates and scores on standardized reading, language and social studies tests also were higher in the 2007-08 academic years.  Figures from the 2008-09 school year aren’t available yet, but the three year trend shows steady improvement as charter schools have caught up and passed traditional schools.”

Living in a Fool’s Paradise

Ontario’s Minister of Education is in the news today boasting that the percentage of successful students on Ontario’s literacy test has risen from 84% of eligible students who chose to take the test to 85%.

Those who take comfort from this slight uptick ought to take a look at the sample test booklets provided by the EQAO. None of the reading passages is higher than a grade 8 readability level, and most of the questions are dead easy. Some people might in fact find it a bit worrisome that 15% of participating 15-year-olds (almost 15,000 students) failed such an undemanding test.

Add to this the fact that the number of eligible students who participated dropped by about one percent this year (meaning that about 6500 students ducked the test), and the percentage of eligible students who received “accommodations” rose by about three percent. And don’t forget the 10% or so of ineligible students (students who were excused from writing the test because they were virtually certain to fail). 

All in all, it translates into a non-pass rate of about 31% or 40,000 Ontario students. Small comfort indeed.

Why, President Obama?

Click here to watch a very powerful five-minute video about the cancellation of the Washington, DC school voucher program. Even though it has allowed tens of thousands of poor, mostly-Black students to escape their failing inner city schools, President Obama has effectively killed the program. Of course, President Obama doesn’t have to worry about sending his own daughters into a ghetto school since he can afford to send them to the Sidwell Friends School, one of the best independent schools in the city, with tuition of upwards of $32,000 a year. 

Shopping for Public Schools

As any real estate agent will tell you, a lot of parents choose their homes on the basis of how good the neighbourhood school is. Savvy parents, anyway. To make it easier for parents to figure out which schools are doing a good job, the Ontario government has set up a School Information Finder site. Until recently, the site had a shopping basket feature that made it really easy for parents to compare schools, but this feature was removed after People for Education, an organization that purports to speak for parents, objected. 

Click here to watch a recent TVOParents - Your Voice debate on this topic. It is actually pretty interesting to watch Annie Kidder, spokesperson for People for Education, try to explain why she sends her own daughter to a special school but is actively working to prevent other parents from being able to do the same. In the words of Michele Landsberg (wife of Stephen Lewis) who sent two of their children to independent schools, “It was against our principles to do it, but you do not sacrifice your kid to political principles.” Presumably, she thinks it’s okay to sacrifice other people’s kids to her political principles.

On the other side, defending parents’ right to choose their children’s schools, is Claudia Hepburn, an articulate and passionate believer in school choice. Unfortunately, for some reason the moderator chose to give Claudia only about half the air time allowed to Annie Kidder, and so viewers may be somewhat frustrated by the one-sidedness of the discussion.

The TVOParents site also gives you a chance to vote on the issue of whether parents should have easy access to comparative information about polls. At press time, the poll was running 69% in favour, 31% against.