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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
A Psychological Conundrum
Further to yesterday's posting about the court challenge to Indiana's school voucher program, here's a posting about court challenges in other US states - Colorado and Louisiana. Not mentioned is Utah, where a state-wide school voucher program was recently cancelled as a result of a ruling by the Utah supreme court.
So today I'm pondering a psychological question. It's easy to understand - intellectually - why the usual suspects always take legal action against school voucher programs - they don't want poor children to be able to escape from public schools, taking unionized teacher jobs with them. But emotionally, how are these people able to look at themselves in the mirror in the morning? Their actions have the direct consequence of wasting billions of taxpayers' dollars, distressing millions of parents, and blighting the lives of tens of millions of children. How do the usual suspects live with themselves?
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Indiana)
Indiana is the first US state to implement a state-wide universal school voucher program and so of course the program was taken to court by the usual suspects. And when a lower court upheld the voucher program, the usual suspects appealed the ruling to Indiana's supreme court. Here is a short interview about how the supreme court is likely to rule.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The Learning Curve Around the World
Today, I have something for those of you with many idle hours to fill. The Learning Curve is a very comprehensive analysis of the education systems of 50 countries. It comes with all kinds of charts and graphs and indices and profiles and case studies, such that if you have the inclination, you can while away many happy hours exploring the report. Canada actually does pretty well in the rankings, coming 10th.
From the executive summary, here are five lessons for education policy-makers.
- There are no magic bullets: The small number of correlations found in the study shows the poverty of simplistic solutions. Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results, and individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focussed system-wide attention to achieve improvement.
- Respect teachers: Good teachers are essential to high-quality education. Finding and retaining them is not necessarily a question of high pay. Instead, teachers need to be treated as the valuable professionals they are, not as technicians in a huge, educational machine.
- Culture can be changed: The cultural assumptions and values surrounding an education system do more to support or undermine it than the system can do on its own. Using the positive elements of this culture and, where necessary, seeking to change the negative ones, are important to promoting successful outcomes.
- Parents are neither impediments to nor saviours of education: Parents want their children to have a good education; pressure from them for change should not be seen as a sign of hostility but as an indication of something possibly amiss in provision. On the other hand, parental input and choice do not constitute a panacea. Education systems should strive to keep parents informed and work with them.
- Educate for the future, not just the present: Many of today’s job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist 20 years ago. Education systems need to consider what skills today’s students will need in future and teach accordingly.
H/T JE
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Delusions of grandeur
According to Adam Radwanski's column in today's Globe and Mail, Premier Dalton McGuinty would like to add to his legacy as education premier. Believing that he has already brought about "high standards in reading, writing and arithmetic", Mr. McGuinty would like to "reach higher by fully embracing higher order skills".
And, you know, to a certain extent there would be some logic to this position if the province's students had already reached the aforementioned high standards in reading, writing and arithmetic. But how in the world can Mr. McGuinty delude himself that they have? Ontario's provincial tests report only around 70% of the province's students as being adequately prepared for the work of the next grade (and even this figure is inflated, if truth be told). Canada's illiteracy rate is holding steady at about 42%, innumeracy being even higher. Ontario's results on international testing are slipping (watch for the TIMMS report to be released this month).
Which all goes to show the dangers of self-delusion. It's a good thing Mr. McGuinty is leaving before he can inflict even more damage on the province's students.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The union gravy train
C-377, a federal private members' bill to require labour unions to disclose information about their spending, continues to wend its way through parliament. It has now passed second reading, and on Nov. 27 it was deemed reported without amendment in the House of Commons. I'm not sure what this means, exactly, but I suspect there's a good chance the bill is going to pass.
The bill is being fought tooth and nail by the unions. I get it that they don't want to have to reveal how much they spend on politics, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are even more exercised about having the public find out how much money union executives get. This blog by Mike Antonucci hints at some of their perks of office.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you
The following was sent to me by JE. While it's hard to believe it's on the up and up, it's still fun.
An Elementary School Teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!
1. Don't change horses until they stop running.
2. Strike while the bug is close.
3. It's always darkest before Daylight Saving Time.
4. Never underestimate the power of termites.
5. You can lead a horse to water but how?
6. Don't bite the hand that looks dirty.
7. No news is impossible.
8. A miss is as good as a mister.
9. You can't teach an old dog new math.
10. If you lie down with dogs, you'll stink in the morning.
11. Love all, trust me.
12. The pen is mightier than the pigs.
13. An idle mind is the best way to relax.
14. Where there's smoke there's pollution.
15. Happy the bride who gets all the presents.
16. A penny saved is not much.
17. Two's company, three's the Musketeers.
18. Don't put off till tomorrow what you put on to go to bed.
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you have to blow your nose.
20.T here are none so blind as Stevie Wonder.
21. Children should be seen and not spanked or grounded.
22. If at first you don't succeed get new batteries.
23. You get out of something only what you see in the picture on the box.
24. When the blind lead the blind get out of the way.
25. A bird in the hand is going to poop on you.
26. Better late than pregnant.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Wisconsin)
Milwaukee was the first American city to introduce school vouchers, and the state continues to be in the vanguard of school choice. Here the governor of Wisconsin reveals what he has up his sleeve. link
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Education leaders are letting teachers down
Apparently, something like 94% of teachers believe that students perform better when lessons are delivered in their preferred learning style. This fad has swept the edworld, spawning countless workshops and manuals and other money-making endeavours, even though it has been totally debunked by cognitive scientists and empirical research.
So I was thinking about this in the context of most teachers' apparent belief that good teachers are born, not made. (I base this statement on most teachers' lack of interest in learning about what the more successful teacher down the hall is doing.)
If teachers are told to implement practices like teaching modalities (pedagogy which is, let's face it, tremendously difficult to implement given very heterogeneous classes of 25 students) but experience no success when they do so, what then can they conclude but that they are not very good teachers? No doubt they assume that the teacher down the hall is way more successful because he or she is a much better teacher who can make teaching modalities work - when the truth is that the successful teacher down the hall is probably ignoring all the BS about teaching modalities and instead using proven pedagogical practices like direct instruction.
Long story short: the pressure on teachers to use unproven - or even disproven - teaching techniques contributes to their feelings of professional inadequacy. Not only do these fads hurt students, they also hurt teachers and the teaching profession in general. H/T Chas