I would support Doug’s idea of a community hub model.  The hub (no longer a ‘school’) would bustle with teachers, social workers, nurses, dentists, bus drivers, and lots of volunteers.

But I would go farther - let parents hire and fire the administrators, set priorities, and decide policies.  Perhaps some will stay with the local board, others will bring in a new operator, and some will run the hub themselves. 

Make individual hubs the bargaining unit for union negotiations, eliminating province-wide contracts.  Eliminate boundaries and let parents choose the most suitable hub for their kids - subject to space constraints which can be managed with waiting lists or lotteries.

Ruthlessly close hubs that parents do not support with their own children.  And create a mechanism where parents can come together to create new hubs. 

Parents that want excellent in academics will tend to group together in excellent schools.  Parents that want excellence in sports will similarly group together. Parents that mismanage their school will be hurting their own kids, and those schools will quickly empty out. And parents who don’t care won’t be disappointed.

An unqualified yes to dental care and vision care for all children up to 16 at a minimum.
It is ridiculous that in a place as rich as Canada this is covered by OHIP.

Breakfast and or lunch for these kids whose parents are on very limited incomes that would be good. However this is mostly a red herring. Very few people here are so poor that they cannot feed their children.

I agree with Tom; parents have diffent expectations. Parents should be able to send their kid to a school that best fits their and their child’s focus. School choice is a must.
If music is the most important .. parents should be able to choose that.
If French is important .. parents should be able to choose French immersion.
If academics is important .. parents should be able to choose academics.
If parents wants IB or other special programs then the parents should continue to be able to choose IB if that’s what the parents want. I don’t see what’s Doug’s problem with IB. IB is open to any student that wants it and is selected. As is a lot of students - anywhere between 20 to 50% - that start IB do not finish IB. Why? Mostly because ourstudents finish grade 8 not knowing what their counterparts in other countries do and because they are not used to working at that pace. In addition the fact that IB cannot inflate marks like the regular programs do is a deterrent since for admission to secondary education only the canadian marks count.

Most of our students, even good students, don’t even want to consider IB, let aside be able to do it. Why? Simple.
Why should they work hard if they don’t have to? Why should they work hard and have to compete with inflated marks from the regular programs?

I don’t see any problem whatsoever with applied and academic.
Academic is open to any student who can do the work. There are paths for student to move from applied to academic if they want to and are able to.
Most applied students cannot do academic level work or do not want to because they don’t want to work that hard.

CORRECTED!

An unqualified yes to dental care and vision care for all children up to 16 at a minimum.
It is ridiculous that in a place as rich as Canada this is not covered by OHIP.

Breakfast and or lunch for these kids whose parents are on very limited incomes that would be good. However this is mostly a red herring. Very few people here are so poor that they cannot feed their children.

I agree with Tom; parents have diffent expectations. Parents should be able to send their kid to a school that best fits their and their child’s focus. School choice is a must.
If music is the most important .. parents should be able to choose that.
If French is important .. parents should be able to choose French immersion.
If academics is important .. parents should be able to choose academics.
If parents wants IB or other special programs then the parents should continue to be able to choose IB if that’s what the parents want. I don’t see what’s Doug’s problem with IB. IB is open to any student that wants it and is selected. As is a lot of students - anywhere between 20 to 50% - that start IB do not finish IB. Why? Mostly because ourstudents finish grade 8 not knowing what their counterparts in other countries do and because they are not used to working at that pace. In addition the fact that IB cannot inflate marks like the regular programs do is a deterrent since for admission to secondary education only the canadian marks count.

Most of our students, even good students, don’t even want to consider IB, let aside be able to do it. Why? Simple.
Why should they work hard if they don’t have to? Why should they work hard and have to compete with inflated marks from the regular programs?

I don’t see any problem whatsoever with applied and academic.
Academic is open to any student who can do the work. There are paths for student to move from applied to academic if they want to and are able to.
Most applied students cannot do academic level work or do not want to because they don’t want to work that hard.

I have never been a big fan of the community hub model, for reasons that has more to do with rights of the individuals as opposed to the common collective. What is very difficult to do in the community hub model is to ask the individuals who differ from the normal needs of the common collective to adapt and go without. In a school model, a community hub model the K to 12 education is obligated to abide by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and are duty bound by the education legislative acts. The latter is obviously easier to fulfill than for the K to 12 to abide by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ergo, the community hub model has a tendency to exclude individuals of the common collective by the very nature of the government services such as education and health, to protect themselves legally from civil actions of the individuals.

In a community school hub, the services that are offered, are the services that best fits the generalized needs of the school collective based on the government agencies and their best interests.

A paper - The School as a Community Hub: Beyond the Iron Cage - http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCgQFjAA&url=http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/ourselves/docs/OSOS_Summer10_Preview.pdf&ei=4RZgU9qvDsWt2QX3_oFY&usg=AFQjCNGR0Db0aehBj8sOLSLiPaUBtAF35w&sig2=iMiGyGT3_KuGBMCHcUDB1Q&bvm=bv.65397613,d.b2I

On page 21 - “The pedagogical model is exemplified in a contemporary setting by the “Knowledge Producing Schools” described elsewhere in this book by Rowan and Bigum. But it is an essential feature of many strands of the movements for Progressive Schools and L’Education Nouvelle in the first half of the 20th century.
So the full community hub will yoke the interactive neighbourhood school with the multi-use hub to produce a kind of New Commons where education for all, health, recreation, poverty reduction, cultural expression and celebration, and environmental responsibility can all
come together to develop and sustain flourishing communities on principles of citizenship, co-operation and social justice. This is how our schools can become a bulwark against the principles that would reduce them to factories producing skilled elites, compliant
workers, and eager consumers in a drive to achieve competitive advantage and measurable prosperity in the world of neo-liberal globalization.”

At this point it leads to - So What is a Community? - and into the rights, leaving quite quickly as most papers do when it comes to the rights of the individuals, and especially those who differ from the generalized needs of the collective.

It is a good read to see the other side that condemns neoliberalism from the perspective of people like Doug Little, but offers little in solutions or even deeper discussion on the delivering of government services in an increasingly centralized operations, that ultimately makes Doug’s conclusions - “All of these policies fall within the bounds of progressive liberal/social democratic philosophy. Almost all can be accomplished or have at least been initiated within the two year life span of the average minority government. Many cost very little. Some actually save money over the long haul. Those bigger ticket items can be amortized over longer periods of time.” - a pipe dream.

One thing to talk about democratic philosophy, it is quite another thing to see it in action in real time. From P4E, the latest report on Special Education - “49% of elementary and 41% of secondary principals report they have asked a parent to keep their child with special education needs home for at least part of the school day” http://www.peopleforeducation.ca/pfe-news/new-report-shows-special-education-challenges-continue/

So much for schools being inclusive eh?  Yesterday, I was in town getting a new hair-do . Us women had a chat about the questionable education of our children, and it led to harsh criticism about the lack of services for children with learning difficulties in the 3 Rs. At the end of the day, community school hubs just like their counterparts must produced students with the skills and knowledge sets to prepare students in their post-secondary and work lives as young adults.