I guess whenever you are dealing with human beings this happens. I assume it happens just as often at vouchers schools, charter schools and private schools and probably happens far more often at schools where non-certified teachers work.

There are regular writers on here that present posts full of grammar errors but have a lot to say about others. What does it say about them?

It certainly does matter. Educators are role models, and should have high standards when communicating in their native language. My mother would start over, if the excuse note for the school, was not perfect without spelling and grammar mistakes.

In the Globe article - “Paul Olson, president of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, said educators strive for perfection, and he understands where the parent is coming from. But Olson said parents need to prioritize between their children receiving a solid education, versus a dangling participle or misplaced semicolon on a child’s report card. “If I make a grammatical mistake and otherwise I give your kid a great day, I’m going to call that a good day,” Olson said.”

The old strategy of getting parents to accept second best, perhaps third or fourth best, and for some no education services. All in the name of downplaying and discounting the role teachers play in delivering education services of poorer education quality.

Rather amusing, to read the sage advice of parents having to picked their battles , done up in the language of prioritizing their concerns. The union president must be reading the web sites for parents to counter the silly parents who have strange old fashioned ideas that teachers should be role models of high standards. A solid education includes coherent writing without spelling and grammar mistakes, last time I check.

At the very least, society should expect the educators to have high standards when executing and communicating in their native language. They should be setting the example for the common folk, and not asked the common folk to reduce their standards to accommodate the writing weaknesses of teachers.

Just published in Globe and Mail comments:

Is There a Connection — Sloppy Accounting & Sloppy Spelling & Grammar?

1 So coincidental and probably correlated — that this problem comes from Coquitlam, British Columbia. Today’s news is that this School District has a budget problem — “Spending cuts ahead for Coquitlam school district after discovery of $7.5-million shortfall.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/education/Spending+cuts+ahead+Coquitlam+school+district+after/7836281/story.html

There are standard accounting principles, which, from the story, seem not to have been applied.

2 Similarly, there are standard English principles which don’t seem to have been applied in this school. The parent says that communications sent home from the school “regularly” and “invariably” have spelling and grammatical errors — from both teachers and principal. 

3 The G&M’s counselor, in trying to frame a proper response to this beleaguered parent, canvases a number of sources.  She suggests going to the teacher first, then the principal.  But, the principal is also making these communication errors.

4 Then, someone in the Peel School Board, instructional services,  says, that first, it’s conditional that the parent must be “respectful”.  This kind of defensive reply always bothers me.  What if the parent behaves appropriately, but is self-confident, and NOT deferential as implied.  When we buy stamps at a government post office, do we have to kowtow first? No, we don’t!

5 Then the counselor seeks advice from the public relations spokesman for the Vancouver board (He calls himself a “storyteller” in describing his job.).  His standard reply is to follow the steps — teacher, principal, district office.  How many parents find this works?  The only thing that does is probably going to the media or going to court — that’s how unresponsive the public school system has become.

6 Next, and this must be a joke, the counselor asks a teacher union president.  He flippantly answers that his main obligation is to give the “kid a great day.”

7 This service from the Globe & Mail — The Guidance Counsellor — is to help readers navigate the education system.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, the answer fails to satisfy.  Educators are supposed to be professionals and should be held to professional standards.  Remember, the complaining parent said these were frequent errors.  Someone should be in charge of standards.  Who is it?  And, aren’t we fed up with all this defensive rigmarole?

The G&M advice was exacty correct. For those who want to continue the fight against ADK or ECE, all I can say is good luck with that. It is so popular that even the PCs are afraid to touch it because that could kill their chances to win the next election.

Does that not tell   you something? 107 out of 107 mpps support ADK with wrap around child care.

Nobody would be against the idea of ECE, just like no one would be against the idea of workmen’s compensation benefits for workers who have been hurt on the job.

What people will debate on, on how ECE is administered, in the same way of the falling standards within the public sector. One should expect high standards with high quality services,  in the same way, that I would expect an accountant to know all the available deductions that I am entitled to at income tax time. More importantly, knowing that 2 + 4 = 6, because it might be the difference between paying the taxman as opposed to receiving a return of tax monies.

The public education should not get a free pass, when they are in error. Should promptly apologized to parents, and do their utmost not to repeat the error or as they do often,insist that they are correct, and the parents are wrong.

Many of a story out there where parents are correcting the elementary teachers concerning math errors made by the educators, and of course in the fuzzy math textbooks. They hear the same old story line, as in spelling and grammar errors. If you don’t like it, take it up to the principal and then the school board staff. Meanwhile, legions of students from one year to the next are being taught incorrectly, because the educators will not adjust their attitudes, and self-correct.

Try it once, in the case of a math test that would have meant a perfect score of 100 % for my child. Instead she received a 97 %. Bit peeved, I wrote to3 top math web sites, asking who was correct - the teacher or my answer. Received the responses in record time, that is within 24 hours saying that I was correct. One that went to the trouble explaining in great detail why I was correct. All three also had a lot to say about the math curriculum, and educators weak understanding in arithmetic concepts.  Evidence in hand, eager to have the mark change to 100 %, I go to the teacher. To no avail, and the reason given was that that I was wrong, including the three top web mathematicians and the answer sheet of the school board director in charge of math programming was correct. Unto the principal, the same reason was given, plus the new one, it would mean the only one that would received 100 percent would be my child. I responded, I have no idea the number of students who had the same answer as my child, but what I do know, the students who received 100 percent,  had the same answer as the one of the answer sheet. All to no avail, and no I did not go up further, because the culture of the public education system, the same response and attitude will prevail at the board level. 

In the culture of the public education system, the insiders are always correct, because they believe that they are the experts even when they are wrong. So 2 + 4 will sometimes equal 7 or 5 or 116 and not just 6 inside the math classroom, just like it is telling parents don’t make a big deal out of it when it comes to the spelling and grammar errors of the educators. The great crime is to point out the errors of the educators…...

Surprised you guys like Noam Chomsky. He is farther left than anyone in the NDP in Canada. Hugo Chavez loves NC. 

I’m not surprised that some teachers make grammar and spelling mistakes.
After all the younger ones have been through the so-called “progressive” education themselves and they simply don’t know any better and they don’t think it’s important.

It happened to my son in grade 4 who pointed out the teacher’s mistake. Fortunately the teacher’s showed character and goodwill. She admitted she may be wrong, asked the whole class look the word up in the dictionary and upon finding out the correct spelling - my son’s - asked everybody to write it down for future reference.

Realistically, it does happen to all of us from once in a while but in important communication that represents one professionally is unacceptable to me.

Those are the teachers that have produced the most successful education system in the world. Our education system is considered a competitive advantage in the business world.