I take issue with this statement on diversity - ” As the region grew, its population became more diverse. Schools could no longer be used to distribute Gideon Bibles or to host “Christmas” concerts. A requirement of fairness for all religious and cultural backgrounds has dictated a secular outlook, or at least one in which many faiths are recognized. ”  I also take issued with the generic name of conservative Mennonites, because within the Mennonite denomination, there is very distinct groups of Mennonites. For the St. Jacob’s area, the Old Order Mennonite branch would be the branch that has their children attending the Three Bridges school.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Order_Mennonite

Not to be confused with the Amish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish
The history of the Mennonites as shown here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonite  - is obviously a diverse group on its own, and its rather ironic the school officials and the media are doing their utmost, to downgrade the Mennonites diversity to the more generic labels of conservative Mennonites or the general label - Mennonites.

A CBC radio clip - Just listen to it, and no doubt one will come to the conclusion, it is being closed for religious reasons and not financial reasons. http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Local+Shows/Ontario/The+Morning+Edition+-+K-W/ID/2419794983/

On the school board web site - http://www.wrdsb.ca/planning/accommodation-review/woolwich-and-wellesley-townships-elementary-schools-accommodation-review/

Reading the comments of the D’Amato article, the misconceptions are evident but what is obvious the meaning of diversity. Diversity according to the public education establishment is really all about eliminating the differences by outlawing the differences or controlling who will or will not be able to have special status above the norm. The norm criteria is dictated by the education establishment, and thus everyone must adapt their differences to fit the norm. Another way of looking at it the students in the inclusive classroom, where the norm is no one has vision corrective lenses, and any student who have corrective lenses, must remove them before a test. Don’t laugh, because it happens daily across the schools regarding LD students. Their accommodations due to learning differences are seen as an unfair advantage over the non-LD students in the inclusive classroom. .

Diversity is all about the differences, and in that way - the article is correct in stating that - “But still, once Three Bridges is gone, many of its children will vanish from the larger public community. They’ll be taught at their own private schools and work in their own isolated communities. The only contact we’ll have is the occasional glimpse as we buy produce at a farmers’ market or go for a drive out in the country. Like ghosts, they will be among us, and yet invisible. ” 

Its obvious, the school board is no longer willing to accommodate for the diversity in the Mennonite communities. Nor are they willing to accommodate for the unique needs of rural communities. One-sized-fits-all and lets pretend everyone is in the norm, holding the same values and beliefs as everyone else and differences are to be discouraged that do not meet the criteria of the public education establishment.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

The UN is very clear, find everybody or find nobody with religious schools. I agree. Find no religious schools. Why people expect the state to support their religious beliefs is totally beyond me.

North York board had a great deal worked out with Jewish community. Regular public school 8 till 2:30 in very Jewish areas, religious classes and Hebrew 2:30 till 5pm, only pay for the later. Deal fell through. Religion must inform all classes all day said community, then no deal said board.

Relentless Homogenization — Why?

Even as society and the world is growing ever more pluralist, diverse, and irrepressibly entrepreneurial, our governments and their agencies (especially public education systems) are pushing people into common molds and decreasing choices.  Particularly, they want us under their thumb at all times — to be monitored, to keep paying huge taxes and to keep consigning our young and old to government services.  This is norming of a public-sector centric world — government as parasite and predator. 

I’m not alarmist without foundation.  Philosophers, economists and other careful observers of the social, political, economic world express these fears of big government — de Tocqueville, Jean Francois Revel (How Democracies Perish), Hayek (Road to Serfdom).

Today, on another thread I posted my analysis of the love-in between Gore and Wynne in Ontario.  They’re tightening the noose, folks.  See my post:  When THE ENFORCER Comes To Town, Be Afraid . . . /index.php/blog/read/be-afraid-be-very-afraid

I posted similar thoughts on an American blog: Invisible Serfs Collar today regarding their Thanksgiving Celebration tomorrow http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/once-again-being-grateful-for-what-we-know-and-appreciating-why-it-matters/#comment-351135

This blog is worth following as Robin Eubanks has done the homework on the push to homogenize and standardize education.  Her book and blog trace the trajectory.  If this title of her book — Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon — sounds too conspiratorial, let me leave you with this “discovery” of hers.  See if it fits your experience.  It certainly fits the education scene here in BC.

Pages 34-35 explains the origin for her title.  It goes something like this — people are glad that finally a PhD scholar in math is taking over that area of teaching — they will know it, know how to teach it, etc.  What those hiring didn’t know was that this PhD was based on study and thesis work on Equity Pedagogy, something “widely divergent with what parents and taxpayers and maybe even school board members would assume they were getting.” Instead they hire someone whose degree was geared “to move the course work away from the transmission of math knowledge, skill, and practices.” 

Thus, the title — Credentialed To Destroy.
 

POSTED ON BEHALF OF TUNYA

Relentless Homogenization — Why?

Even as society and the world is growing ever more pluralist, diverse, and irrepressibly entrepreneurial, our governments and their agencies (especially public education systems) are pushing people into common molds and decreasing choices.  Particularly, they want us under their thumb at all times — to be monitored, to keep paying huge taxes and to keep consigning our young and old to government services.  This is norming of a public-sector centric world — government as parasite and predator. 

I’m not alarmist without foundation.  Philosophers, economists and other careful observers of the social, political, economic world express these fears of big government — de Tocqueville, Jean Francois Revel (How Democracies Perish), Hayek (Road to Serfdom).

Today, on another thread I posted my analysis of the love-in between Gore and Wynne in Ontario.  They’re tightening the noose, folks.  See my post:  When THE ENFORCER Comes To Town, Be Afraid . . . /index.php/blog/read/be-afraid-be-very-afraid

I posted similar thoughts on an American blog: Invisible Serfs Collar today regarding their Thanksgiving Celebration tomorrow http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/once-again-being-grateful-for-what-we-know-and-appreciating-why-it-matters/#comment-351135

This blog is worth following as Robin Eubanks has done the homework on the push to homogenize and standardize education.  Her book and blog trace the trajectory.  If this title of her book — Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon — sounds too conspiratorial, let me leave you with this “discovery” of hers.  See if it fits your experience.  It certainly fits the education scene here in BC.

Pages 34-35 explains the origin for her title.  It goes something like this — people are glad that finally a PhD scholar in math is taking over that area of teaching — they will know it, know how to teach it, etc.  What those hiring didn’t know was that this PhD was based on study and thesis work on Equity Pedagogy, something “widely divergent with what parents and taxpayers and maybe even school board members would assume they were getting.” Instead they hire someone whose degree was geared “to move the course work away from the transmission of math knowledge, skill, and practices.” 

Thus, the title — Credentialed To Destroy.
 

Bears repeating - “Pages 34-35 explains the origin for her title.  It goes something like this — people are glad that finally a PhD scholar in math is taking over that area of teaching — they will know it, know how to teach it, etc.  What those hiring didn’t know was that this PhD was based on study and thesis work on Equity Pedagogy, something “widely divergent with what parents and taxpayers and maybe even school board members would assume they were getting.” Instead they hire someone whose degree was geared “to move the course work away from the transmission of math knowledge, skill, and practices.” “

What is Equity Pedagogy? - “We define equity pedagogy as teaching strategies and classroom environments that help students from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural groups attain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to function effectively within, and help create and perpetuate, a just, humane, and democratic society. This definition suggests that it is not sufficient to help students learn to read, write, and compute within the dominant canon without learning also to question its assumptions, paradigms, and hegemonic characteristics. Helping students become reflective and active citizens of a democratic society is at the essence of our conception of equity pedagogy.

Pedagogies that merely prepare students to fit
into society and to experience social class mobility
within existing structures-which are characterized
by pernicious class divisions and racial, ethnic, and
gender stratification-are not helpful in building a
democratic and just society. An education for equity
enables students not only to acquire basic skills but
to use those skills to become effective agents for
social change. We believe education within a pluralistic
democratic society should help students to gain
the content, attitudes, and skills needed to know reflectively, to care deeply, and to act thoughtfully.”
http://www.unco.edu/cebs/diversity/pdfs/Banks_Equity Pedagogy_An Essential Component of Multicultural Education.pdf

An example that takes place at the bottom - http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blogs/what-are-equity-pedagogical

Small rural schools, including small schools that educate children such as the Old Order Mennonite branch will always be at high risk of disappearing at the hands of the education establishment who are seeking to standardized education for all children via through the pedagogues of where the end goal is to eliminate the transmission of knowledge and instruction to the children.

Shades of double-think and the book 1984 - Equity Pedagogy could easily be translated to holding two very contradictory beliefs in one’s mind, and seeing both as being true.  Or being conscious of the truth, but relay carefully constructed lies to the students so they too would question their motives and actions in everything they do through the ideology of believing the world is democratic, just and humane even though the realities tells the student the opposite.

More than likely, the students at Three Bridges will go to their own schools, and the public school board will be the losers, losing some diversity for the sake of gaining more homogeneity in standardizing education while pretending that every student is equal in their learning needs and education needs.

An observation of the pass few weeks - been reading some interesting papers where the public education establishment will be wrestling and doing a lot of in-fighting in the matter of, whether the public, parents and students have the right to access education services that best fits their learning needs. Perhaps the Moore case is just the beginning of many lawsuits across Canada, taking the government and social institutes for systemic discrimination and not providing the education services best suited for the students’ learning needs, and as well crossing all government policies that violates the individual rights of the citizens. The conversations and discussions are taking place since the revelations of spying by our governments and related policies.  The education system is one of the focuses to try to explain the actions, events and the erosion of constitutional rights. Why indeed, when another rural school closes, it elicits a shrugged from the populace and they call it progress. Like sheep, board on a bus, for a 30 km trip to a box school where the bells and whistles of the school are access according to the needs and belief systems of the education staff of the school and the school board.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

What a funny reform movement, we love pluralism and diversity, we hate standardization. Here is a standardized test. It is good for you. It came from the government. Taxation is really bad. Can I have some of the tax money to run my school?

We should all be able to teach what we want the way we want. Here is common core. We support it. We’ll, most of us do. Schools don’t need extra money. Can I please have some corporate support.

You should not need credentials to teach. The education colleges are doing a bad job.

How Can We Keep Up With The Issues Re 21st C Learning?

I’ve been following the development for years, and so have a number of readers here on SQE.

But, many people — family and friends and “the man on the street”  — have NO idea !

Now that 21st C Skills or whatever it’s called is being dumped in our laps — in BC, in Ontario, and soon in your neighborhood — how to bring people along is a challenge if we care to be involved in a meaningful way.

My effort has been to try cartoons as a more multisensory approach.  I did #1, and #2, and now find I have to backtrack a bit, with #3.  I would appreciate knowing if these “Lesson Plans” can work to help parents and others participate in this needed debate.

The Big Disguised Shift in Education - 1
http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2013/11/zack-hill/

Book Discovery – AHA – 2
http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2013/11/book-discovery-aha/

Hypnosis of Parents and Public – 3
http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2013/11/hypnosis-of-parents/

There is a private “contact me” section on my blog if you don’t want to comment on SQE.  Thanks so much.

Doug, standardization of education is already occurring at the individual students’ levels. That is if the student’s learning needs are not within the norm of the classroom learning and education needs, education services to remediate the problem areas will be denied or are provided the one-sized-fits-all solutions to the lowest common denominator. in the inclusive classroom.

Worse yet, is the standardization solutions for diversity beyond the learning needs, such as religion, race or gender. In the case of religion, the students are asked to dropped their faith values that do not matched the norm of the classroom and the school, during the operational hours of the school. If the student(s) cannot do this, the school will provide a space outside of the instruction hours on school property with or without a fee.

The public school of today, is no more secular than it is democratic. Especially when the secular and democratic values being mandated are the values and ideologies of the education philosophies and pedagogues that the educators hold in high esteem in conjunction with the educator personal beliefs, that at the end of the day, are asking students to put away their faith values in the closet, until school is over for the day. Would a school asked a student to put away his or her gayness in the school closet for the school day? No, but yes for faith values that lie outside of the dominate faith values the students hold.

The Moore case, it was called discrimination because it was asking the Moore boy to access the education offerings of the school, without the tools to access the education offerings. Likewise, for students who hold faiths that are the minority of a given school population. They can only access the education offerings,  providing they are willing to put their faith into the closet while at school.

Standardized testing is a much different beast and not at all discriminatory. However the standardization of an education governing how and what ways students can access education offerings and services can and often are discriminatory where ever the standardization forces runs counter to the personal belief structures and learning needs of the students.

What is really surprising in the case of the Three Bridges school, the school board has simply closed down the school on the pretense of low enrollment without formulation and announcement of plans to accommodate the Old Order Mennonite students into the local public schools. The school board used their authoritative arm to closed down a school, grandfathered the special education provisions given to the Old World Mennonite students without vigorous consultation on the school board’s part. The ARC process and protocols offered the school board the easy way out, that has often been cited as being discriminatory towards small rural schools, and where consultation is controlled and narrowly define by the school board officials. http://www.wrdsb.ca/planning/accommodation-review/completed-accommodation-reviews/woolwich-and-wellesley-townships-elementary-schools-accommodation-review/

Directing the readers to September 18, 2013 - the analysis - “As the ARC proceeded through the review
process, conversations with the Three Bridges Public School community indicated that any change involving Three Bridges Public School (renovation/rebuild, boundary change, closure, etc.) would likely result in a loss of some enrolment for the Board…..it is estimated the Board could experience a loss of up to 65% of the existing and future Three Bridges Public School students to the parochial system.” http://www.wrdsb.ca/board-meetings/files/2013/09/WWARCadminanalysisSept23-10.pdf

If one reviews the reports, the future direction of the school board is obvious - the closure of small rural schools will continue until all small rural schools are no more. The ARC process created by the education establishment to do the dirty work of closing down schools, and than the education wonks have the nerve to control the Old World Mennonite students as to what pubic schools they are allowed to attend. “As Tables 6 and 7 illustrate, even with a loss assumption of 100% of the enrolment derived from the Three Bridges Public School community, the financial savings from the closure of the facility ($350,000) are significantly greater than the revenue loss tied to enrolment ($250,000).”  The busing transportation should eat up the savings in no time. Ergo, the school board had all intentions of closing down the Three Bridges school. The ARC process was used as the easy way out for the school board officials who are uncomfortable with a Mennonite school that is an outlier from the other public schools.

The Old World Mennonite parents did not stand a chance against the rigged ARC process. Why would they, when parents fully equipped with lawyers, have had their own community rural schools shut down regardless of the push back from parents.