So why is that happening?  The Liberals aren’t ideologues, they don’t hold to any particular world view other than attentively catering to voters in order to stay in power.  Who are the voters that the Liberals are wooing with these ineffective old programs and expensive new ones? 

I don’t believe voters want whole-language reading instruction, muddled math, failing teachers, and lower educational outcomes.  Yet I don’t see a groundswell of demand for accountability or research-based curriculums.

Is it because parents don’t know that schools are under-performing?  The size of the after-school tutoring industry suggests that many parents know that their kid needs extra help.

Most voters don’t have school-age children, surely they didn’t ask for these new programs.  They would tend to want the lowest-cost system consistent with producing skilled workers to support the economy. 

Parents who send their kids to private schools are twice as likely to vote as others, and yet they get no benefits from higher spending on public education.  They would probably like public education to go away, they aren’t pushing for these programs.

Is it because public education is ‘free’, so people don’t feel that they have the right to demand better, as they would if they were paying customers?  Is it because voters are not aware of options and believe there is no other way?

Are teachers so malignant that they are willing to sabotage kid’s futures in order to get a few extra days off?  I’m not sure I believe that.

I’m running out here.  Perhaps the Liberals ARE accurately following the wishes of the voters, and we have an incorrect assumption that better schools is good politics.  Perhaps we need a more nuanced understanding of what voters want from public education.

Hi Malkin,I have been aware of your work for years and still have a copy of your book called Could Still Do Better.I also have tried,I started a school for kids with L.D.,a non profit which failed within three years because we couldn`t get partial funding from the government.We offered daily pull out sessions in Orton Gillingham,a model I experienced personally for my son at the Gow school and repaired a problem efficiently and quickly that was destroying his life.
As you know,my company now trains teachers how to do this and it SHOULD BE OFFERED to every kid that struggles to learn to read and spell early-prior to the label they spend billions of dollars on justifying their failures and especially after the label is hung.

I guess,what I feel after all these efforts on our parts and many others who tried and failed-is that I see malpractice and ego at the core of the problems.
A-the researchers have huge egos and control as well as justify instruction.
B-Educational research is very different than medical research,they can stack the deck.
C-There is a lack of care and concern for the victims,those that fall through the cracks.
D-Ministries of Education are indeed political infrastructures and they only operate to appease the Unions o they can get reelected.

Some ideas for improvement…the Universities don`t serve teachers well with their teacher prep,the teachers are basically at the mercy of these licensing institutions.Unions are huge stakeholders,why don`t they get involved in professional development.

I think what happened with the Harris years is in spite of talking about research based practice-if none of the fold has a bible-how can we convert-people keep doing the same thing because no one teaches them how.Besides,conversion is tricky business.

I am as dumbfounded as anyone because morality is missing as is accountability..
I`ll be interested to read your blog this week.I hope no one gives trite answers to an extremely complex problem.

This is an interesting post, and one that enjoyed reading.

Our Ward in the HDSB has been challenging the School Board and Government for 13 years total (I’ve only been involved for a year or so) around the dissatisfaction that many parents are facing with respect to curriculum and program accommodation.

In Halton, and specifically Oakville, the FI program is overwhelming the school system.  We have had numerous Boundary Reviews, almost every 2-3 years.  Children are being moved around without a care in the world about their wellbeing.  All children, both those in the FI program and those in the English Program.  I know a family, with a child in Grade 3, who has moved 3 times with the HDSB’s changes.  It’s unhealthy.  We are feeling as though our concerns are falling on deaf ears. 

Last year, we lobbied the Liberal Government for their help.  We wanted them to step in and put some controls in place for a Board that seems to be running rampid, and not upholding it’s mission statement of being “committed to every student”. 
Not only were we essentially turned away, but we were told over and over again that the school boards govern themselves.

We received no support, no guidance and no assistance.

No one seems to want to have ownership over the success (or lack thereof) of our education system.  When asked to help ensure the quality of education for all students be improved, we were denied.  I truly believe it’s because no one really cares.  It’s not their children, it’s not their future, it’s not their concern.  A curriculum was develop and institiuted, and that seems to be enough.  A Board is elected to make decisions for that Region, and therefore, the Govenment won’t interfere. 

But people, families, communities are completely unaware.  Life is hectic, and taking on a School Board or a Province requires dedication.  Decisions are made, without proper input from those people that will be affected the most.  Parents are trusting the teachers, administrators, school boards and government to protect the education of their children, but we also must take their learning responsibility into our own hands.

I’m not sure what the solution is.  But someone needs to be accountable for what is happening in our education system.

The common ideology among everyone nowadays is that school is synonymous with education. Education comes in all shapes and forms yet our education system has done its best to marginalize differences among students (for better or for worse) and perpetuate the message that students who don’t pursue higher education are failures.

Placing a public sector union in charge of advocating on behalf of children and parents will surely be met with a union who advocates for its own needs. This is the exact same scenario when you walk into an Ontario hospital where invariably your provider is not only looking out for your best interest, but the interest of his/herself and the state (revenue). What we have done to healthcare to minimize consumer influence is mirrored in elementary to high school choices. Parents and students are both dissociated from the value of education because 1) they don’t pay for it directly, 2) they have been spoon fed the same propaganda for about 30 years now, 3) schools and lenders are not being honest about realistic prospects after graduation to maintain high enrollment.

Until people understand that personal freedom and economic freedom to spend ones money, just like the right to own property, is invaluable in a free society. The leftist ideology of want to provide cradle to grave protection is coming at the cost of innovation, efficiency, and most of all personal freedom.

Great postings, here, and great idea to do one topic per week.  I’ll add my two cents’ worth…

Halton Parent, I completely understand your frustration and admire your tenacity to stay in the system and affect some change.  I’m homeschooling my kids – not a path I wanted to take, but it is working well for us.  We’re taking it a year at a time.  The alternative was to keep them where they were and try to “afterschool” them while still doing the tremendous busywork required from their school.  And I do mean busywork. 

I don’t think the school had any intention of really teaching them how to read.  Oh, they are all over phonemic awareness, guessing through context and memorizing sight word lists.  But I quickly realized that I had to do what I had been systematically taught (at a Jane and Finch elementary school, no less!) more than three decades ago.  Ditto for basic math skills.

I’d like to add a comment about French Immersion.  I joke with my public school friends (and they agree with me) that FI is “public education at a private school price”.  What I mean is that the same pedagogical pitfalls are found in FI as in the English stream, except now you’re messing up kids twice – once in their native language and a second time in FI.  Consequently, parents are paying for tutoring for BOTH English and French subjects! (In our area, the Oxford Learning Centre runs about $80 per week, per child, for two hours instruction in French.  If you do the math for two kids in FI who both require French and English tutoring, which is very common among the parents I know, the cost is $320 per week.  Wow.)  Why is this happening?  There is very little math instruction in grade 1 FI, and even less reading instruction.  In our area’s FI school, the FI is 100% French only until grade 3, after which the instruction is 50% French and 50% English. 

To be fair, the teachers are, for the most part, well-meaning and care about the students.  However, they have graduated from programs that don’t teach them how to teach the fundamentals directly and systematically.  Boys are failing in droves because of a feminized classroom that emphasizes feelings over facts, group work over competition and emotion over reason.  Add to this politicization of the classroom and you begin to wonder if the schools are run by Orwell’s Thought Police where 2 + 2 equals 5.  (The flavour of the day is sexual diversity.  Here’s an example and I kid you not: the principal at our former school was excited about teaching diversity through math.  So, if Susan has two mommies and three daddies, one of whom is transgendered…well, you get the idea.  Hardly helps you to become a competent engineer, does it?)

I could go on, but I know that I’m preaching to the converted.  What can be done?  I don’t know.  How do you infuse common sense back into the public schools?  This site is one step towards educating parents and I’ve referred several of my public school friends to it.  Change is a very slow process in monopolies.  I’ll take it one conversation at a time.  But let’s keep talking.

School Boards are self-governing corporations.  Their main focus is with self-preservation, which includes a set of politics of their own.  They have way too much autonomy and can only ever be held to account through a court of law, something which the “average family” cannot afford.  While the Liberal Ministry of Education boasts about the requirement of parental engagement, there is a disconnect at the local school level. 

I don’t believe our public education is free.  My hard earned tax dollars contribute towards the salary of my board administration.  Yet many parents get the door slammed in their face by these very individuals.  Our education system has produced some very passionate teachers/administrators, but it has also produced some teachers/administrators who have no business over the emotional, physical and educational well-being of our children.  Our educational system requires a complete overhaul with input from the families it is supposed to serve.

Hi Malkin, I love the blog experiment you are running. 

And I realized from the comments above that perhaps the difference between the C and L governments is not in politics-and-education but in their approach to organizational change.  No one wants under-performing schools and failing students, but it’s how you try to improve them.

Organizations tend to resist change – it is painful and disruptive - and there are few examples of large changes that were not imposed from the outside.  A determined and gifted senior manager might be able to tinker at the edges, perhaps implement a diversity program, but serious change requires a crisis.

I think back to General Motors a few years ago.  It is certain that every stakeholder – managers, workers, suppliers, retirees, shareholders, and even loyal customers – wanted GM to make better cars at lower cost.  But nothing could be done until the crisis came.

Perhaps that’s the difference – the Conservatives are willing to create a crisis, or at least a disruption, in order to force change.  The tax credit was intended to put the pressure of competition on the boards, brutally forcing them to make unpopular decisions, or shrink and layoff staff.

But parents and voters HATE disruption, perhaps even more than they dislike corruption and incompetence.  And you can’t predict how an engineered crisis will play out - whether you will get desired results or perverse consequences - only that the transition will be awful either way.

Here’s my last thought - crisis comes for different reasons, and it is increasingly likely that discontinuous change will come to public education anyhow.  The internet is a whirlwind of disruptive technologies for education.  Voters in the US are moving towards Public School Choice on both sides of the political spectrum.  Ontario’s public finances are a mess.  We may not have to invent or impose a crisis, it may come uninvited.

Tom, you’re implying that the Liberals want to improve education in Ontario.  The Liberals know that they can’t possibly be endorsed by the teachers’ unions, in order to get elected, and at the same time effect change that would benefit students:  it just doesn’t rub both ways.
The Tories under Harris did genuinely want to improve education here in Ontario, and were vilified by the teachers’ unions for daring to champion the children’s and parents’ cause.  With no accountability the teachers just went nutzzz.
How is this the same?  Please elaborate.

Bev: I’ve never met ANYONE who didn’t genuinely want to improve education.  I doubt that you have either.

Let me give a glib answer that will satisfy a Liberal-basher: of course you can improve education AND satisfy the teacher’s union - simply spend more money.

I can just hear the snorts of derision on that one, but now we are talking about HOW rather than ascribing base motives, and that’s my point.  We need to be more nuanced in our understanding of the politics of education if we hope to make a difference.

Bev, we are both advocates of Public School Choice because we think that the ‘invisible hand’ of competition will improve outcomes.  We see the amazing benefits that competition has brought in other areas, and wonder how any reasonable person can fail to see what a good idea it is. 

But we also recognize that the market sometimes fails to deliver what we hope.  Reflect on the health care debates in the US, that’s not the kind of choice we want.

So yes, I think the Harris government was broadly right with their small tax credits implemented in baby steps over many years.  But let’s be fair: that was simply one of many possible organizational strategies towards everyone’s goal of better education, it could have ended badly, and reasonable people might not agree with it.

In the comments so far, I am hearing general frustration with the lack of accountability in the Ontario education system and at the same time a kind of you-can’t-fight-city-hall resignation.

Tom, on the other hand, thinks that a convergence of disruptive technologies, provincial financial woes, and trends towards school choice in the US may propel Ontario into radical change to its education delivery structure.

If Tom’s right, this change will probably not come in time for many of the kids currently struggling in public schools - and so their parents have a duty to find their own solutions (like home-schooling, private-schooling, and after-schooling) - but at the same time everyone should stand ready to help influence the coming changes and direct the debate towards a new structure that will benefit the next cohort of students.

Bismarck said that laws are like sausages - it’s better not to see them being made. Even so, I think we would all be wise to pay close attention to the coming changes to Ontario’s education laws.

Change will come, sooner or later.  But what change?  There is little public discussion of alternatives; we like to complain but we don’t want to engage with the messy details of options, solutions, or the hard choices involved.  Malkin has been a lonely voice on these topics.

We use the term ‘Public School Choice’, but that could mean a dozen different things - Charter Schools, vouchers, tax credits, scholarships, relaxed school boundaries, overlapping school boards, portable teacher pensions, specialty schools, corporate schools, etc.  What specifically are we talking about?  How do these ideas affect our existing private schools, our home-schoolers, our tutoring industry?  What are the costs, what are the risks?  Who benefits?  Who pays? What happens to the poor, the disabled, immigrants, kids with incompetent parents, etc?  Who regulates?

What other options are available for improving education?  We refer to some types of teaching as ‘research-based’, but that research is mostly inconclusive and almost always shoddy.  It’s been 13 years since the National Reading Panel identified a few dozen barely-acceptable research studies out of a mountain of rubbish.  Did we learn anything?  Can anyone point out the research we should be following?

How about improving the ‘customer service’ of schools.  How specifically do we address bullying, homophobia, disruptive students, ineffective teachers, inadequate facilities, haphazard extra-curriculars, digital natives, etc? 

And how do we make our voices heard?  How do we put the heat on politicians and the spotlight on school boards.  How do we move these discussions into the public arena, and engage citizens and voters. 

None of the political parties has much enthusiasm in reforming Education, and rightly so since the voters don’t have much interest.  Either we coalesce around the ideas we support and demand the action we want, or the Ministry of Education will consult with the teachers, the unions, and the academics in private and then tell us what we are going to get.

Hi Malkin,we need a really good education reporter-no one wants to take it on-for example-Keewatin Patricia School Board-lowest reading and math scores I have ever seen year after year,no one puts their feet to the fire.

Their excuse,what do you want from us,we have so many First Nations children.
Reporters needed.
These atrocities need to be in the press.

A free market will sort everything out.  I witnessed the same in Tokyo and Singapore.  Parents aren’t verbal:  they ‘walk the walk’ so-to-speak; so in other words, when they have the luxury to pull their children from a school that they were unhappy with, it would happen, and very quickly at that!  Don’t believe for one minute that a teacher who (I saw this happen) over the March break loses six students (plus the balance of their tuition) doesn’t have a serious conversation with the principal and head-master!  Money talks, and that’s why monopolies don’t work—like the Soviet Union.  Capitalism works because everyone by nature wants a little more than others—just take a look at the people feeding at the taxpayers’ trough at all levels of government for example—they’re greedy and want a little more than the rest of us. 
Tom, a free market would balance out in that teachers could teach the way they believe is the best approach, and some parents would patronize.  Over the years, the bottom line would be academic achievement (again I saw this played out), and with the shoe on the other foot (the parents’) failed methods would soon hit the garbage bin, and effective results would be implemented.

Part 1

“Porath explains that students with learning challenges often benefit from complex learning that requires full concentration”
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2013/05/30/ubc-study-explores-why-students-with-learning-disabilities-excel-in-opera/

Pray tell, what does the above quote have to do with any of the above posts? Actually, the public education system along with a great many politicians will dismissed it as sheer poppycock and calling for the education professor from UBC to have her research buried a bit deeper, in fear the gullible public that children with learning challenges are capable of learning. As the stats will bear out across Canada, its only in the public education K to 12 system, one will find on average, 96 % of LD students are at the bottom of the achievement charts.

The latter, the data bits are part of the negative outcomes of education policies and practices that keeps LD students at the bottom of the achievement charts. Along comes an education professor, and a researcher who are voicing what one will never hear in the public K to 12 education system, or even pondered for a minute or two on - ” “At universities, we need to remember that we might be overlooking the next genius somewhere because they learn in a different way,” adds Hermiston. “We can’t be so set in our ways that we won’t try to find a way to reach that student. It’s always possible.”

Indeed, as other posters have cited, the negative outcomes that the public K to 12 system, is routinely ignored. Ergo, frustration sets in and then reality finally sets in, discovering that the public education establishment are quite content to keep the status-quo that caters to their best interests at the expense of the students. Better yet, let the politicians gathered at the fault lines of inequities being spoon fed the misconceptions that best serves the education establishment, and by extension the political powers, by the filters of the education establishment.

Harris became an enemy of the public education establishment, when he decided to addressed the outcomes of students and where the inequities shine brightly in the data streams. Its considered a crime by the education establishment to focused on the outcomes of the students.

Why is it a crime? The public education system is designed specifically to provide education services based on the political concept of equality of opportunities.  The education acts are legally framed within the parameters of equality of opportunities, to ensured that the public education model are only required by law to provide and to delivery a set of education services. What is never guarantee within the framework of equality of opportunities, are the outcomes of students.

Its where the inequities flow from and dance within the light of the outcome data streams. More importantly it provides the reasons for the education establishment to be used as a fortification to reinforced the original political purpose of establishing a public education system. Its why the education model is within the framework of equality of opportunities, and to give weight to what is really a political concept of equality, the education acts have been created and enacted into law.

In Wikipedia - “Equal opportunity is a stipulation that all people should be treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers or prejudices or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity

Does it sound fair?  If one ponders for a moment, isn’t the political concept of equal opportunity, a concept of let us all pretend we are equal, even though in reality, in the real classroom, the majority of students are hampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, preferences of the education establishment, and as well every student comes with their own unique built-in factors?  Built-in variables on cognitive ability, health, home environment,  and a host of other external variables that often clashes with the artificial barriers, prejudices, and preferences of the education establishment.

Part 2

For example, a preference of the education establishment is the use of the poverty theory. Used often by the education establishment to provide the reasons why its justified to redirect education funding for purposes of providing low-income students an equal footing with students whose parents are more able to provide.  After school homework club or a breakfast program are such programs that are created to provide an obvious need. Ergo, the poverty theory fits in perfectly within the political concept of equality of opportunities to a T. However, the equality of opportunities cannot and is not designed for the purposes of outcomes of students. Equality of opportunities are designed to paved away the barriers that gets in the way of learning in the present but not the future. The education model is specifically designed to educate children in the present with nary a thought on their futures and their outcomes.

What the present day education model lacks, and it doubtful that it will every be embedded legally in the legislative education acts, is equality of outcomes. Doubtful, because within the public and private sectors, the dominate preference is equality of opportunities. Why? Equality of outcomes,  would mean that the education authorities would be legally held accountable to the outcomes of programs, student achievement,  but more importantly the inequities that arises by the artificial barriers, prejudices and preferences of the education establishment.

Equality of Outcomes - “A mainstream political view is that the comparison of the two terms is valid, but that they are somewhat mutually exclusive in the sense that striving for either type of equality would require sacrificing the other to an extent, and that achieving equality of opportunity necessarily brings about “certain inequalities of outcome.”[8][23] For example, striving for equal outcomes might require discriminating between groups to achieve these outcomes; or striving for equal opportunities in some types of treatment might lead to unequal results.[23]Policies that seek an equality of outcome often require a deviation from the strict application of concepts such as meritocracy, and legal notions of equality before the law for all citizens.[citation needed] ‘Equality seeking’ policies may also have a redistributive focus.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome

A few of the inequities posted: 1) Halton DSB Parent - “No one seems to want to have ownership over the success (or lack thereof) of our education system.  When asked to help ensure the quality of education for all students be improved, we were denied.  I truly believe it’s because no one really cares.  It’s not their children, it’s not their future, it’s not their concern.  A curriculum was develop and instituted, and that seems to be enough.  A Board is elected to make decisions for that Region, and therefore, the Government won’t interfere.”

2) Leandro Avita - “Education comes in all shapes and forms yet our education system has done its best to marginalize differences among students (for better or for worse) and perpetuate the message that students who don’t pursue higher education are failures.”
3) Anastasia - “ Here’s an example and I kid you not: the principal at our former school was excited about teaching diversity through math.  So, if Susan has two mommies and three daddies, one of whom is transgendered…well, you get the idea.  Hardly helps you to become a competent engineer, does it?)”
4) York Regional Anti-Bullying Coalition - “
5) Joanne - “Their excuse,what do you want from us,we have so many First Nations children”

As you can see, the notion of equality is complex, and within the complexity of equality, the inequities dances in the light of the outcomes, in a public education classroom. For that matter the inequities dances in the light of the outcomes in every nook and corner of the public education system.

Why is it or as Malkin puts it - “If the administrations I have dealt with - at the school, school board, or provincial level - were guided by considerations regarding the students’ well-being, they would have listened to the valuable information we have to offer. That they are unwilling to listen suggests that political considerations over-ride the good of the students.”

Part 3

The Moore Supreme Court of Canada ruling, provides the answer within the framework of legal considerations. The Supreme Court of Canada, found that the BC school board had discriminated against the Moore boy by not providing the education services needed to access the education opportunities that are provided for children who do not have any learning problems. In the case of the Moore boy, he needed education services in remediation of reading, writing and numeracy. Essentially what was provided by the school board, was a desk, a set of books without providing the tools and the skills to access the education opportunities. Pretty hard to do so, when a child is having great difficulty in reading, writing and numeracy. The Moore father, had discovered as most parents have, the public education system, its structure is not set up to be guided by the considerations regarding the student’s well-being and ultimately their future outcomes. The Moore boy was dealt in the present within the equality of opportunity framework and embedded in the education acts, for the purposes of denying education services beyond what is provided for each and every child in the classroom.

Another question arises, what is the mechanism or fuel that keeps the public education model chugging away, without paying mind to the outcomes of students, their welfare, and their well-being?  What keeps equality of opportunities as the dominate equalizer in our public schools?

To put it bluntly, the fuel is the built-in design features of the public education model. Built-in from the beginning arising from the 19th century knowledge matrix, the structural systemic discrimination that is throughout the education model.  In a paper from New Zealand,  “Structural discrimination can occur unintentionally, and includes informal practices that have become embedded in everyday organisational life and effectively become part of the system, i.e. “how we do things around here. Put simply, it can be discrimination by habit, rather than intent.i

Because it is located in habits and built into structures and systems in often covert ways, structural discrimination can be more difficult for those in power to identify than individual discrimination or personal bias. Researchers have identified a specialised form of structural discrimination in New Zealand, referring to “inclusion in principle, through use of encompassing and inclusive speech, together with a resource-based exclusion supporting disparity in fact.”ii Organisations or systems may not be conscious that their rules and practices discriminate against specific ethnic groups. Yet these unconscious practices serve to perpetuate disadvantage. Consciously examining organisational rules, systems and practices through the “lens” of structural discrimination allows possible bias to come into view. Only when any bias becomes visible, can structural discrimination be appropriately addressed.”
http://www.hrc.co.nz/highlights/a-fair-go-for-all

The real meat that addresses structural systemic discrimination can be found on the legal files, to which the bulk of discrimination taking place within the public education model,  is structural systemic discrimination and rarely the individual/personal discrimination.  Structural systemic discrimination crosses the span in every nook and corner of the education model, and its why some students are denied reading remediation and others are granted it. Why some parents have their way, and other parents are denied. Why as a parent, I am still fighting for accommodations for my 17 year old, who was formally identified as LD in 2004, and another parent who posted on the WISE math web site, in part; “. Now she hates math-says she “sucks” at it and has even taken to counting on her fingers “like the others do in class”. I was told by her school principal that rote memorization was “shown by research to be a waste of time”.
http://wisemath.org/join/

Misinformation and bias rampant and often becomes part and parcel , embedded into the curriculum. Misconceptions becomes accepted fact, resulting in students never reaching their full potential,  and as a result their academic futures are at risked. Another type of structural discrimination at play, is the regulation/rules regime of the education system. The latest which is happening across Canada,  is withdrawal of support for students with disabilities, to help them navigate their way from high school to post-secondary. Its now up to the students and parents and often they don’t have the know-how to navigate the post-secondary student support services.

Part 4

Structural systemic discrimination is undergoing a transformation by the legal beagles. Some have taken to renamed it as social pollution. Very apt name for systemic discrimination of the public education system. A paper entitled,  Regulating the Social Pollution of Systemic Discrimination Caused by Implicit Bias , that gives examples across the span of society. Can it be regulated as the title suggests? Time will tell, but meanwhile the forces across the social-political spectrum are gathering together to demand choice. If anything the institutionalized systemic discrimination is now visible within the public education system, and no longer hidden behind three walls of deep opaqueness.
http://www.californialawreview.org/assets/pdfs/100-5/05-Sarine.pdf

As York Regional Anti-Bullying Coalition has stated, and bears repeating - “Their main focus is with self-preservation, which includes a set of politics of their own.  They have way too much autonomy and can only ever be held to account through a court of law, something which the “average family” cannot afford.  While the Liberal Ministry of Education boasts about the requirement of parental engagement, there is a disconnect at the local school level.”

Social pollution of the worst kind, that aids and abets the best interests of those who work in the public education system at the expense of the students’ academic education, their futures outcomes and by extension society, the economic systems and democracy. Put in a different way, 12 years of schooling, there is no guarantee that your children will have a solid foundation that enables them to take full advantage of the education opportunities. The access gates are locked to all students with weaker foundational skills, that has allowed the social pollution to multiplied at this junction, that gives way to the downloading of having parents become responsible for the foundational skills according to their ability, income and social lines. It benefits the public education system because it develops the knowledge gaps of students, that will served the public education system well-being into developing new programs, remediation to addressed the knowledge gaps of students as adults.

I end,  education is far too important to be left in the hands of the politicians and the education establishment. Between the two, they would not know what true equality looks like because all they ever known are the inequalities that are posing as true equalities.  Its time for choice.

I think you all speak overly politically,the devil is in the details.
The problems lie with Ministries of Education guided by Universities,they are like I used to be,I actually used to think these profs knew what they were doing;meanwhile,they couldn`t teach strugglers to read for love or money.
They are like would be cooks who write recipes and don`t know how to cook.
The recipes fail.In cooking,we get inedible food,in human life,we get lives wasted.
The invisible nature of the low literacy and numeracy of the otherwise intact human being allows them to get away with it.
“Modern illiteracy is a story of needless misery and waste”.Steven Pinker,cognitive neuroscientist,Harvard

Not overly political, but in legal terms. The public education model was enacted into law, by the education acts. What has not changed is what the public education system has been legally charged with, that is providing and delivering education to the masses. Nowhere in the education acts, whether Ontario or any other province, does it state what the basic education will be comprised of and a breakdown of the components of the academic skills and abilities that children must have. The task of the public education system, and what the public education system has been charged with, is to delivered education services to the masses. As well as the legal authority to accomplished the task of delivering education services. The public education system is not legally charge in providing a quality education for all students that passes through their doors.

Its why, the education officials right down to the educators of the classroom, can effectively ignore the research, the advances made in learning, the parents, and any other peoples’ that want reform to the way children are being educated academically. Many people have called it what it is, education malpractice

There is few options left, and what is visible is the fallout, the outcomes of low literacy and numeracy, refusing to meet with SQE for the last 10 years, parents being told misconceptions and outright lies that rote memorization harms the child,  to the latest from Toronto, where a parent has already paid $20,000 in legal fees, for a bullying case that should never have occurred in the first place, if the school authorities were doing their jobs and many more negative outcomes that are small in nature, but cumulatively potent that causes lasting damage to children, their academic futures and ultimately society, the economic systems, and democracy. 

There is no guarantee under the education acts, that a child will received a quality academic education.

That is up to the Moore ruling, where a school board was found to have discriminated, by not providing the tools and skills to access the education opportunities that are provided and delivered by the school board. Its a very important ruling, because it is stressing the outcomes of dyslexic children. The Supreme Court of Canada did not buy into the school board argument, that it was not discrimination because they were providing education services based on the collective needs of the LD students. Its now called discrimination, and the ruling has implications for all students.

No longer can the public education system continued to operate as they have been doing, delivering a set of education services without regard to outcomes of students as a group or the individual. No longer can they operate according to the social-income status of students, when it comes to the academic component of students. Its why the low-income schools, have the highest percentage of students with low literacy and numeracy skills. Education services are being delivered according to the social-income status of the students. The academic component is dependent on the social-income status of parents, their knowledge bases to provide for their children what the public education system no longer delivers to the schools. Another name for it, is systemic discrimination that allows and promotes lower quality of education services to the point that what is offered is the right to enter an inclusive classroom, a desk and a set of books. The students have no access rights to the tools and skills that are essential to take advantage of the education opportunities.

The Moore ruling is very important to the academic futures of all students. That said, watch for the funding expenditures to climbed in student support services. The school districts have been busy beavers in 2013, in protecting themselves from civil suits regarding the academic component of an education. How? By providing assessments and other evaluations for senior high school students to determined why they are struggling in learning. Far too late for students who are struggling in learning, but very convenient for the elementary schools who can continued on as it was before the Moore court ruling. Education practices and policies that hinders learning for a percentage of the student population, when students are educated by social-income status and a basic education is whatever the education authorities deem it to be.

So yes the devil is in the details, and choice is the only option that is left, because the public education system and its stakeholders are not about to change their ways, nor become legally responsible for the academic components of education using the measures of outcomes. Not on their menu, and its why here in Canada the education stakeholders are fighting choice tooth and nail when it comes to the academic components of education.