At the end of the second part, and which the third part will be of interest - “In the next exciting episode, we will explore just how K-12 became a MOAB (Spoiler Alert: politics!) and what we can do to improve matters.”

Where MOAB is ‘mother of all bombs’ - the connections and networks of politics within and outside of the public education system, that maintains the status-quo.

I have always amazed at the number of employees of the public education system attached to my child’s simple case of a mild learning disability, that morphed into a new label of ‘specific learning disability’ , that neatly avoids any specific wordings and definitions of reading disorder. Amazed at the number of employees attached to my child’s documentation, because it was the 5 employees at the school board level that did everything in their power to keep my child in the low reading ability category.

Easily done, in school communities where there is no private education services and/or parents cannot afford to access the private education services. Ergo, parents and their children become highly dependent on the public education services, that allows the creaming off of student dollars, to be redirected to services, staff and resources that maintains the status-quo of low productivity - high labour costs - small academic gains.

On the economist pages - of interest

” Education remains the trickiest part of attempts to reform the public sector. But as ever more countries embark on it, some vital lessons are beginning to be learned”
http://www.economist.com/node/21529014

“There are three reasons why economics is valuable for the analysis of school reform. First, econometric methods and evaluation techniques developed over the last decade (especially in labor and public economics) are very useful for analyzing school reforms. Second, many of the puzzles in K-12 schooling are related to financing, and most structural school reforms are loosely based on economic arguments. “
http://www.nber.org/reporter/spring98/hoxby_spring98.html

“Efficiency in Education - The Choice of Outcomes, The Choice of Inputs, The Transformation Process and Implications for Policy”

Read more: Efficiency in Education - The Choice of Outcomes, The Choice of Inputs, The Transformation Process and Implications for Policy - StateUniversity.com http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1945/Efficiency-in-Education.html#ixzz28iPZlob3

Back to the number of education employees attached to my child’s documentation. The number of employees would have been significantly reduced, if my child had received approximately 100 hours of reading instruction in the primary grades, that honours the science in reading instruction. But more importantly, along with another 40 to 60 percent of her classmates in the primary grades. How efficient is it, at the beginning of formal schooling, the absence of inputs that are not chosen by the employees of the public education system, that would prevent future reading difficulties, allowing students to work productively and efficiently in obtaining an education within the public education system?

Not very efficient, but the economists have already figure that one out, but alas the public education sector and its employees are highly resistance to change. The White Paper - Curing Baumol?s Disease:
In Search of Productivity Gains in K?12 Schooling
http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/Lecture_Series/20120427_Roza/Baumols_Disease.pdf

The book on this subject was written by C. Northcote Parkinson: “The Law of Delay”.

Usurpers By Any Other Name Are Still USURPERS !

While waiting for the TSUNAMI of teacher union advertising about BC ?underfunding of public education? to hit public and media ? we may be comforted that there are LABELS to pin on this kind of behavior.

News:  ?Court scraps B.C. pre-election spending limits . . . [there]  . . . will be no limits to how much money third parties can spend on advertising leading up to the campaign for British Columbia’s May 2013 election. ... ?

The BC Teachers Federation was a leading challenger in the court cases against limited spending and ?Victory? was theirs as they now prepare to ramp-up their ?year of provincial action.?

BC does well in international assessments of school achievement . . . but the BCTF warns that they will start their campaigns soon to highlight ?underfunding? !

*** Yes, ?Baumol?s Disease? ? labor-intensive industries get more expensive without improvement in productivity or results ? applies to government public education in Canada.

While the effect somewhat describes the public education industry, the label is itself awkward and not precise.  However, we?re on the right track to grapple with terms that help us explain our utter frustration with both the growing costliness and growing unresponsiveness of public schools.

*** Someone suggested Parkinson?s Law ? work expands to fill the time available ? killing time.

I will submit a few other economic and sociological terms used to express our frustrations:

***    producer capture or provider capture ? producers capturing or ?farming? their consumers to make them compliant captive audiences, e.g., a psychiatrist unprofessionally creating client dependency,

***  empire-building ? make-work projects and fabricating ?needs? to demand bigger budgets and resources,

***  bureaucratic growth ? paper-pusher syndicates or ?see how government grows?,

***  BLOBism ? calling the education cartel or ?family compact? the BLOB (Bloated Learning Organized Bureaucracy) says it all in a nutshell and encompasses the whole self-appointed conspiracy ranged against the consumer and taxpayer ? unions, university teacher training, teachers, principals, superintendents, school board trustees, etc., and including the ancillary units such as labor relations boards and public service employers associations, etc., etc.  And this was a neat term picked up by the media and some politicians.  ALAS, even using this term hasn?t made a dent in any system resistance and obstacling of reform. 

***  usurper?s grip ? with awareness that one has invaded some one else?s territory in order to keep it, all kinds of mechanisms are employed to retain illegal territory.  Thus, since parents, on behalf of their young children, are really the ULTIMATE holders (owners) of responsibility for their children?s education, they are the ones against whom the usurper employs psychological warfare ? intimidation, non-recognition, denial of rights ? and concrete barriers such as lawyers, communications spin doctors, red-tape, impossible hoops to navigate, etc.  Parents are still treated as the system?s worst enemy.

Usurpers By Any Other Name Are Still USURPERS ! ? part II

My deduction tells me that ?the system? is indeed a usurper of parent and student rights.  I concur with a well-known psychologist and education writer, Seymour Sarason, that there needs to be a structural change ? that school boards need to be abolished ? and that the democratic principle, ?All people should have a voice in decisions that affect them?,  be institutionalized in all our schools ? public and private.

If we just think a bit about all the suffocating education system?s diseases we can easily see how eliminating regional school boards would produce welcome reforms.

Here is the best article I can find that distills Sarason?s two most important books, ?The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform? and ?Parental Involvement and the Political Principle - Why The Existing Governance Structure Of Schools Should Be Abolished?
http://leading-learning.blogspot.ca/2006/08/robert-fried-on-seymour-sarason.html

This article was written in New Zealand and applies there.  Important to note that when this article was written in 2006 New Zealand had already experienced 23 years of individualized school boards at each school, thus the 11 governing core principles should be expanded to 12 for our North American audiences ? #12 - Abolish regional school boards and have each school have its own governing board that includes representatives from teaching staff, students from the senior grades, parents and principal.

POSTSCRIPTt:  New Zealand?s international school scores rate as well as Canada?s.  Furthermore, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) rates New Zealand as the least corrupt nation in the world.  I attribute this self-perception held by New Zealanders as a mark of how they feel about their public institutions and I would further project that 30 years of self-government of their schools has enabled self-government to be a transferable skill that spreads to the rest of their civic culture.  To see the agenda of their School Boards Annual Conferences ? where professionals and parents intermingle ? is to be wowed!