POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG - FROM 4 DIFFERENT E-MAILS

Madteacher asks who pays for needed reforms

The classic Liberal/social-democratic argument is that it is far cheaper to pour money into education than to not do it.

Everybody seems to understand this when it is their own children but lose interest when it is other people’s children. We all happily pay for tuition in pot secondary or pre-school if we believe OUR kids will be helped.

Everybody understands the wisdom of insulating their houses or buying high efficiency appliances. The initial costs make us grumble but we realize that it is much cheaper in the long run.

Education is the same. It is expensive but ignorance is far more expensive.

If you spend the needed money on education

1) productivity goes up, corporations and workers make more money

2) most of the negative costs of society drop like a stone.

There are gigantic savings in law enforcement, courts, prisons, EI, welfare, public housing, and so on…

The savings from massive spending on education is actually far greaters than the initial costs.

All the people are happy living in a highly educated society with high productivity and low social costs.

Americans understand this problem as “it is much cheaper to send a kid to college than to send him to prison.”

Just think if our Aboriginal population all became well educated. It would empty our prisons.

TWO

Madteacher wants to make the Libertarian case for Freedom

Libertarians want to make the case for freedom but usually only when it is convenient for them. We cherish something called democracy. Democracy means “The People Rule”. The people have chosen to have medicare, public pensions, public transportation, public libraries, ... they agreed to tke up a collection to pay for these things.

If you don’t use libraries you don’t get your books paid for.

You can’t opt out of paying for the police, the fire dept, ambulances, the army, medicare, roads airports, .....

The People have decided that the collection they have taken up is basically for PUBLIC schools. You don’t get to opt out and get your money back. The money was not collected for YOUR children. We tax childless people and people whose children have long since graduated for education because education is a COLLECTIVE GOOD, not an individual good.

An educated society raises the standard of living for everyone not just the people involved.

It is just too bad for Libertarians that the vast majority of people do not agree with their self indulgent freedom of choice.

The Chinese translate INDIVIDUALISM as SELFISHNESS.  Something to think about.

THREE

Equality of Outcome is a goal. We need to work towards goals.

Equality of outcome if profoundly misunderstood especially by those who do not want to understand it.

There is not a single advocate of Equality of Outcome who believes EVERY CHILD can be brought to the same level.

Equality of Outcome means the elimination of CATAGORIES of achievement

for example we have arrived at Equality of Outcome when:

There is no difference in rich/poor education results; no gender differences; no racial differences; no cultural difference of any significance.

FOUR

While other nations invest in their public system, only the USA cut funding during the recession. With all of their misdirected efforts in charters, vouchers, testing, deprofessionalization, etc this is all causing the USA to fall in the % of its population with post secondary education.

The OECD points to the underdeveloped ECE situation compared to most other nations. Time for public education to be extended down to age 2. Voluntary of course but fully funded.

I like that. 

But it runs into the problem that we REALLY DO want to decide for other people.  Try saying this sentence: “It is none of my business how you decide to raise your child…” and see if you can resist adding a ‘but’ or ‘as long as’ clause.

The elephant in the room are radical Muslim fundamentalists. I doubt there are enough of them in Canada to make a hockey team, but a tiny handful keep themselves in the news.

Hello all,

Curriculum—check it out—then the education act.

Teachers are required to deliver the current curriculum as determined by the ministry of education.  For many years the curriculum made sense….then political ideologies and political parties started messing with the system. 

I mourn for the courses that I taught three curricula ago—they made sense and were properly connected within all strands of high school.

I absolutely weep when I get the new textbook bereft of any heft and full of mistakes—-> a new resource that costs hundreds of thousands per board—->  $$$$$  why?

The big game is:
~the principal’ s political agendas as they set teacher timetables,
~the board administration as they set the principal’s agendas,
~and the ministry curriculum as they set what will be delivered in the classroom. 

Teachers are at the bottom of this twisted food chain.  You want to make a real change then focus on the folks that choose the music that we all dance to.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DAVID HARRIS

I regularly read your blog but almost never read the comments as was the case with this topic. Here is my definition from 1996-97: Education is a cultural activity which allows families to pass on essential knowledge, skills and character to their dependent children so that when they become adults, society will be strengthened by their positive and meaningful contributions.