SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable,  must be the truth

Back in the nineties when Ontario introduced legislation mandating school councils, there was huge interest all over the province. The vast majority of schools had dozens of capable, committed candidates for their school council that first year, and the elections had a robust turnout. The next year was a different story. Few schools had enough candidates to force an election, and the school councils were mostly acclaimed. What happened, you ask? Well, the capable, committed candidates on the first-year school councils quickly discovered that the principal had no intention of allowing them to have any meaningful input or carry out any meaningful function other than raise money, and so they got tired of wasting their valuable time and moved on. The second year, for the most part, it was only candidates who were content with going through the motions, and so there were so few candidates that they automatically were appointed to the council. And so it has continued to this day.

This is confirmed by a recent Parents for Education survey, as noted in Educhatter’s latest blog, where 90% of school councils spend on average less than 10% of their time working on the school improvement program - even though that is what the Ontario legislation created them to do.

So we are left with the question of why principals and other education leaders don’t want capable parents as part of their team to raise education standards. Essentially, it boils down to two possibilities: either the education leaders don’t think capable parents would be helpful in a drive to raise education standards or else the education leaders don’t want to/don’t think they can raise education standards.

The former possibility (namely that education leaders don’t think capable parents have anything to offer) is not at all plausible, as it is well accepted that parental involvement - of any kind - leads to enhanced student learning. Furthermore, school improvement schemes are far more likely to be successful if they have input/buy-in from all of the stakeholders.

Which leaves us with the explanation that education leaders don’t want to/don’t think they can raise education standards. Is this possible?