Early learning Is the most cost effective path to making the education system more productive.

Ken Crisp, Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

Business is sold on the idea.

Perhaps Head Start, and other quality pre-school programs are only as good as the pedagogy practices, teacher training and knowledge base, and education policies of the primary and elementary grades.

In the WSJ - “The Department of Health and Human Services released the results of the most recent Head Start evaluation on the Friday before Christmas. Once again, the research showed that cognitive gains didn’t last. By third grade, you can’t tell Head Start alumni from their non-Head Start peers.

President Obama has said that education policy should be driven not by ideology but by “what works,” though we have to wonder given his Administration’s history of slow-walking the release of information that doesn’t align with its agenda.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324081704578236132869279590.html

I only make the point, the gains made as a pre-schooler can only be truly called gains, if the primary teachers, the schools and education practices build upon the previous foundation of gains.

The Head-Start program is being funded and will probably be funded for many years to come, because of the real cognitive and learning gains that are made for the low-income children.

However, as stated - ” Once again, the research showed that cognitive gains didn’t last. By third grade, you can’t tell Head Start alumni from their non-Head Start peers.”  Certainly true in the data streams, and below are the reasons why.

1. Starting in grade 1, education and pedagogy practices are ideological based, and not on what works.
2. Staring in grade 1, the use of SES variables are the focus to guide instruction and intervention. Again not on what works.
3. The SES variables and the theories that has been propagated are based on the deficit model using the ‘ideal model student’  that no student in reality meets. The ideal model student is a combination of the pedagogical ideologies, belief systems of the education stakeholders, assumptions without supporting evidence to back up the assumptions. Again not on what works.

I could expand it to 20, to include reading, writing and numeracy instruction which for the most part are based on ideological and pedagogical dogma and again not on what works.

The inevitable outcome at the end of grade 3, the cognitive gains made by the low-income children in the Head-Start programs will be the same as the children who did not attend the Head-Start programs.

The political ones who are in control of the funding, and the political ones who would like the funding dropped are skirting the real problems - the public education systems and their practices. No one wants to upset the sensibilities of those who work in the public education system, and their treasured pedagogical and education practices that are very unkind to the cognitive development of students.

The closer the student is to the ideal student model, the better it is for the student. But not for the students who have SES variables that places them at higher risk for learning struggles. The pedagogical practices, the child-centered learning theories, the constructivist approaches hinders cognitive development of children and as such, steady gains are not made, nor do the children retain the cognitive gains made in Head-Start.

I believe in pre-school, but not the kind that has been cooked up by the Ontario education system, nor the all day kindergarten programs. Pre-school befitted all my children, but for my youngest child, whatever cognitive gains were made, were all lost within 3 months of entering grade 1. Instructional practices, ideologies, belief systems of the educators and the knowledge base of educators all contributed to the loss of cognitive gains and further erosion of her cognitive strengths.

Many reasons were given out by the education officials, and all were based on the external SES variables but not the school variables nor the practices based on the ideologies.

A parent story from the Susan Barton site - even has pre-school in it. The parent ends - ” I have been struggling with this, along my children, since 1995. It was only in 2011 that we realized it was dyslexia. How frustrating for us as parents. And how horrifying and belittling it has been for my children all these years.”
http://susanbartondyslexiastories.com/2013/01/15/do-not-give-up/

In the public education system its all about the ideologies, and never on what works based on the research. The Head-Start funding will continue, the Ontario early childhood education funding will continue, even though there is zero evidence in the data streams. to continue. After all, we have to keep the public education system going, supplying the future jobs for educators to take care of the fall out and causalities of students’ learning on not what works based on the research, but what is good for the educators’ pocketbooks.

That is Len Crispo from Ontario Chamber of Commerce (spell check) arghh.

Page 9 of Pascal report lays out all of the research. The business community wants it, polls show it to be very popular, even Tim Hudak will not oppose it. Problem? I dont think so.

In a nutshell for the interested and the armadillos,

“Functional stupidity” is the latest theory, conceived by Mats Alvesson and André Spicer, to describe the perilously bovine state into which many large organizations can easily sink. It is not the first contradiction in terms applied to such problems.
Attributable to: http://tinyurl.com/atuh66h

It seems like a very apt lens to view many different spheres of human endeavor including education.

“Alvesson and Spicer define functional stupidity as an ‘inability or unwillingness to use cognitive and reflective capacities in anything other than narrow and circumspect ways. It involves a lack of reflexivity, a disinclination to require or provide justification, and avoidance of substantive reasoning’. [
http://odhegroup.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/rethinking-leadership-development/

An abstract - ” Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation. This gives rise to forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals’ internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones. This can have productive outcomes such as providing a degree of certainty for individuals and organizations. But it can have corrosive consequences such as creating a sense of dissonance among individuals and the organization as a whole. The positive consequences can give rise to self-reinforcing stupidity. The negative consequences can spark dialogue, which may undermine functional stupidity.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01072.x/abstract

How very interesting Frank, because it connects to what I was tracking yesterday, to what Joe/Doug stated in his last post. In the process, I came across Fullan. What has Fullan got to do with my search terms as I was wondering yesterday. Using the functional stupidity theory, Fullan fits in perfectly as an example of the functional stupidity theory in action, concerning his take on system group theory. But not to be outdone, a quick search using functional stupidity theory for education, brought up a wealth of information pointing out the “forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals’ internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones.”

On Education News - 2012 - Mathematics Education: Being Outwitted by Stupidity

It concludes - ” Parents and professionals who benefitted from traditional teaching techniques and environments will remain on the outside — and the public will continue to be outwitted by stupidity.”
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/barry-garelick-math-education-being-outwitted-by-stupidity/

Yes indeed, the stupidity theory is an very apt lens to view education and other government services. In public education models, it certainly shows that the functional stupidity theory is at work, and blossoming in some provinces, including early childhood education models, being operated by the public education system.

I think i get it now. All of those intellectuals and professionals who disagree with you are stupid but the autodidactics of the education reform movement who deny poverty is the main engine of lack of success and deny Canada is a world leader in education are very smart. Got it.

Correction Doug - it is the ones’ high up in the ivory tower that are questioning the theories and the way things are done in organizations. In fact I read another theory, although not of education, but of unions, that should put the union heads in a snit.

That said, yesterday I ran across an Ontario report, for 2003. To save the reading on page 57 - “Overall, according to the NLSCY data, 28.6% of Canadian children (0-11 years of age) were found to be vulnerable; in other words, over one out of every
four children.  About 14-16% of children had low MSD or PPVT-R scores (children 0-5 years inclusive).  Close to 10% of school-aged children had poor math scores (about 1 ½ years or more behind their peers in computation skills).  About 21% of children 2-3 years of age and 17% of children 4-5 years of age were found to have behavioural disorders, with hyperactivity predominating.  Only a small percentage of children scored poorly in both cognitive and behavioural domains.  Ontario was at the national average in cognitive problems and a couple of percentage points below the national average in behavioural
problems.”

Continuing on page 58 - “Children in low-income households were more likely to be vulnerable (about
37% of them in the bottom quartile of families), but a key finding of the Willms study is that the majority of vulnerable children are not from low-income families.  In each of the other three quartiles, approximately 25% of children had either
cognitive or behavioural difficulties.  In other words, socio-economic status (and particularly mother’s education) matters to child outcomes, but it is not the only or even main factor.”

On page 60 - ” Overall, about 32% of all children (approximately one out of three) scored poorly on two or more of these measures of school
readiness, and were judged as likely to have problems in readiness to learn.  Most children scored well, but a significant number, spread across the district and in different schools,
scored poorly on readiness to learn.”

The measures are - 1)  physical health and well-being, 2)  social competence, 3)  emotional maturity 4)  language and cognitive development 5)  communication skills and general knowledge
http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/investing/reports/rp24a.pdf

How funny the report of 2003, on early childhood education was promptly ignored for the new version minus the above facts, that anywhere between 30 to 32 % found across the social economic classes, are students who are not prepared for grade 1. The majority having problem either behaviour or cognitive problems. Also was ignore the important findings of the 2003 report, pertaining to the set-up of early childhood education to optimized value and maximizing effective outcomes.

As of today, in 2013, and as it will be in 2016 if early childhood education does not change its structure, and focus, one can conclude that 30 percent entering grade 1 are not prepared for grade 1.

The stupidity theory fits in perfect, because as it is define by one, “as an ‘inability or unwillingness to use cognitive and reflective capacities in anything other than narrow and circumspect ways”, the focus oof the present early childhood education has been on SES variables, completely ignoring behaviour and cognitive problems of young children crossing all social-economic classes.  Besides being myopic, it places approximately 30 % of students in a grade 1 class at risked for reading, writing and numeracy failure.

Further to my search yesterday, there is a wealth of studies concluding the same thing, pertaining to early childhood education. All hailing within the education ivory towers, with outside researchers confirming

The title of the blog post is apt - playing politics with taxpayers’ money. Apt, because the early childhood education program was all about the politics, and clearly not for the little tots, kindergarten students or to benefit future society.

Education funding is unsustainable as it is. Even the other researchers in the ivory towers of business, administration or public policy are discussing it, getting together with the cognitive, psychology, sociology experts who do have very interesting data to share with them. They are picking apart the public education system, its theories, the operations, the pedagogy and its just a matter of time when all will be exposed.

Interesting get-together in Alberta. “New interdisciplinarity is about bringing together experts in varied domains to address a matter of common concern. This conference will gather leaders in neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics – along with innovators in resource development, the learning sciences, and other domains – to connect and collaborate on the improvement of numeracy, spatiality, and other vital mathematics competencies.”
http://mathconnect.org/wp/

You wont derail the movement to more and more ECE,it is very popular with parents and the business community is all in. Only right wing ideologues and Christian fundamentalists oppose it. They simply dont have much influence when they lose business as an ally.

On the other hand, i have written and lobbied for skewing the ADK towards the poor and only later to the middle class if or when the financial crisis is over. They dont listen because the Liberals depend on middle class votes.

Nancy,

Excellent and insightful.  One need only look to the usual suspects who seem ready, willing and able to throw whoever or whatever under the bus to fuel and further their “cause”; or better replace cause with “self vested interest”. It is not until the wheels fall off the bus that there might be some acknowledgement that the bearings should have been specified differently. However,  we the rhetoric spewers aren’t engineers or mechanics. This is definitely “somebody else’ responsibility”.  Perhaps, if the dialog of divisiveness was set aside with some humility and open listening, there might be a chance to find an effective, mutually respectful solution that actually works as more than a rhetorical foil to help societies challenged and poor.

I found a quote by Noam Chomsky which I felt was quite pertinent to this discussion:  It goes:  “The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have.” 

It would seem that the endless finger pointing, weeping and gnashing of teeth done by the powerless representatives of a clearly upper middle class constituency might be better focused on demonstrating some of the responsibility associated with their very privileged position in society.