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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Indications of Discontent
It's pretty tricky to get a handle on the level of parental dissatisfaction with schools, since polls yield confusing and conflicting data - depending on things like what questions are asked and how they're worded. Here, for example, is a recent Harris/Decima poll which suggests that almost half of Canadians consider the country's public education systems inadequate.
This pretty much confirms our perception here at School for Thought, where we are perennially amazed by the continuing popularity of our free remedial reading and remedial math programs and my free book How to Get the Right Education for Your Child. Even though we are known to only a very small fraction of interested parents and teachers, our resources continue to fly off the shelf. Clearly, there is a huge hunger out there for information and materials that can bail out the untold numbers of children who struggle in school. If you are a parent or teacher who is in this situation, you can access information about additional good teaching materials at our schoolproofing site. If you have very young children, we strongly encourage you to consider using some of the resources listed there for preschool children.
There are lots of other free Internet resources responding to the same demand. Here's a website that lists some of them.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Being Thankful for Small Mercies
Wondering how likely current proposals to expand free early education are to yield positive results, Elizabeth U. Cascio took advantage of an unusual historical phenomenon to study the long-term effects of universal kindergarten programs. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, many American states began to offer kindergarten for the first time, leading to dramatic increases in kindergarten enrollment over a very short period. Dr, Cascio decided to look into whether the cohorts who had access to kindergarten did better than the cohorts who had not. She examined some key outcomes for both groups, including high school dropout rates; earnings; public assistance receipt; completion of some post-secondary education; employment; and incarceration.
It turns out that the kindergarten cohort did exactly the same as the non-kindergarten cohort - except for two small effects (white children were 2.5% less likely to drop out and 22% less likely to be incarcerated). There were no positive effects whatsoever for black students.
In the researcher's words, "Though there are clear limits to the generalizability of these findings, they do provide some tentative lessons for policymakers. On one hand, the higher rates of preschool participation among children today suggest that any positive long-term effects of extending universal public schooling to four-year-olds may be even smaller than those estimated here for kindergarten. On the other hand, the universal preschool programs being proposed today have a more academic orientation than kindergarten has had, and may therefore have larger impacts on long-term well-being..."
However, in contrast to the Americans' approach to academically-oriented preschool programs, the full-day kindergarten programs currently being envisaged in Ontario do NOT have a more academic orientation - meaning that there is no counter-balancing hopeful element for Ontario children. It seems highly likely that full-day kindergarten will have little or no effect on student outcomes.
At least we can take some comfort from the fact that universal kindergarten didn't actually worsen outcomes.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Full of Sound and Fury, Certifying Nothing
Although most people assume that certified teachers get better results than uncertified teachers, the accumulating evidence suggests that, on average, uncertified teachers get as good as or better results than their certified colleagues. Anyone who has done his or her time at a faculty of education will probably not be surprised by this fact. Paraphrasing Bismarck, preparing teachers is like making sausages: it is better not to watch them being made.
In 2003, the Ontario College of Teachers asked its members to rank the sources of their teaching skills. Pre-service training at a faculty of education was ranked ninth, after such things as common sense and input from family members. It gets worse. The requirement of a year of busy work at a faculty of education serves to deter many talented and hard-working individuals from entering the teaching profession. Furthermore, teacher training is not only unlikely to confer much pedagogical skill on its victims, but also it frequently fills their heads with foolish fads.
As George Will writes, "If you were ill and could miraculously be treated either by Hippocrates or by a young graduate of the Johns Hopkins medical schools, with his modern technologies and techniques, you would choose the latter. But if you could choose to have your child taught either by Socrates or by a freshly-minted holder of a degree in education, full of the latest pedagogic theories and techniques? Socrates, please."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Premature Sex Education
There are now 939 private schools in Ontario (more every time we check). The Ontario Government's new health education curriculum promises to encourage the creation of even more private schools, as parents run screaming from the province's publicly-funded schools. The mandatory new curriculum will have eight-year-olds exploring their sexual orientation and gender identity, while 11-year-olds will be taught the virtues of masturbation and 12-year-olds will be encouraged to keep condoms handy at all times.
We're wondering if this is one of the Ontario government's cost-cutting measures as it struggles to come to grips with its projected $25 billion deficit. After all, every time it loses a student, the province saves more than $10,000. What other explanation could there be?
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The Myth of Helplessness
It is a truth universally acknowledged that students from more advantaged home backgrounds tend to do better in school. The 2003 PISA looked into this phenomenon, investigating how well students' backgrounds correlated with their math scores. The researchers found that countries differ greatly not just in their overall performance, but also in the extent to which they are able to reduce the association between socio-economic background and performance. Chapter 4 of the report focuses on this issue.
If the correlation between socio-economic status and student achievement varies widely, then clearly there are things that teachers can do to mitigate their disadvantaged students' handicaps. School for Thought would be only too happy to make some suggestions.....
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Eliminating Reading Failure in BC
Chilliwack, BC trustee Heather Maahs has taken some flack from the local union and reported here for this presentation to her board about her trip to the UK (paid for by herself) to observe an effective reading program.
SQE has written quite a bit on the Clackmannanshire (more here) and West Dunbartonshire experiences (and more here). Toe by Toe is based on the results of the landmark Johnson and Watson longitudinal study (read it here) that changed the way beginning reading is taught in the UK--for the better.
It is based on direct instruction of systematic, explicit phonics, termed synthetic phonics in the UK. What got Heather into hot water with the BCTF was that she suggested teachers wouldn't necessarily be needed to teach the program. Speaking on behalf of the thousands of parents who have signed up to use our own similar Stairway to Reading, we concur with Trustee Maahs.
We just wish that more education ministries, faculties of education, and school boards would pay closer attention to the research and start developing and using effective instructional programs.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Just the Facts
What do you make of this newly-appointed university professor whose main goal is to turn his students into activists and revolutionaries? (Of course, these students' activism have to be directed in directions of which the professor approves, such as environmentalism, ethnic studies, and communism. We're guessing that students who demonstrated against, say, abortion on demand or higher taxes would flunk his course.)
It's one thing for university professors to promote such obviously-biased ideology, since one can argue that university students are aware what they're getting into and can stick-handle around the issue if they wish. However, elementary and secondary students have no such luxury, since they're pretty much stuck with their teachers. In addition, being younger, they are more impressionable.
It seems to us that the elementary and secondary grades should be declared an ideology-free zone.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
A Matter of Chemistry
Here's a link to two pages of the 1966 Ontario Grade 12 Chemistry curriculum. Excluding the title page, table of contents, and a one-page preamble, there are only 18 pages of curriculum content. This is a very short, clear, and specific outline of the year-long (non-semestered) course that teachers were expected to cover. Those who disparage old curricula on the grounds that they emphasize rote learning and regurgitation might be surprised to read the following in the preamble.
"It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the aim of the course is to create an understanding of the subject, rather than to provide information to be memorized. The course provides an introduction to the experimental study of chemistry, to the simple theoretical concepts of structure, bonding, reactions, and solutions, and to the language of the subject. To achieve understanding, the student must learn to think and to experiment for himself. To communicate his ideas to others he must become familiar with the language of the subject and be able to illustrate theory by the use of facts."
The scientists among us might be interested to compare the 1966 Ontario grade 12 curriculum with its counterpart, the recently-revised 2008 grade 11 science curriculum. This link leads to a page whence one can access both the 2000 and 2008 versions of the grade 11 curriculum. We would be interested in your feedback.