I think this is true for many boards across the province including my own where half of the trustees are former educators/principals. When no one wants the job of trustee it’s typical of municipalities and boards to go fishing for candidates.

When this happens it makes a mockery of the role of trustee and further erodes it. It can’t get much worse, AND Bill 177 did nothing to help.

I did the job for 5 years. The only way to attract good people is to pay a half to full time wage say $40000-$60000. You will get good people coming out of the woodwork. As to educators running for office when they retire, so what, there is no conflict of interest when they are not paid by the school board or the unions. Who else knows anything about education? Only trained educators.

Mr. Little, under the Education Act, who is responsible for deciding what “satisfactory instruction” is, and whether or not a child is receiving “satisfactory instruction”?

What is a trained educator?  Do you mean ‘government trained and approved’?  Define what you mean by “trained”. 

And if by trained, you do in fact mean government trained and approved, and therefore unlikely to use or approve nonsense like direct instruction and phonics—in that case Mr. Little, how have people managed to learn anything at all over human history given that public schooling is only a relatively recent innovation?

And if only government approved education supervised by school boards manned by trained educators making the salaries you suggest—if only this scenario can produce a truly “educated” person—then how do you explain, for example, George Washington Carver?

Keep in Mind Mr. Little, in regard to your comprehensive truth claims for your vision of education, that if one and only one case contradicts your theory, then it is false.  No hand waving about “anecdotes”.

Most people want a “government approved” doctor when they are sick or a “government approved lawyer when they are in trouble” or a government approved police officer or firefighter or ambulence attendant when needed. It is the same with teachers. Most parents, not all of course, want government trained and approved educators in their schools.
Maybe that is just me being radical again according to you but it seems to be the way things are done around here.

Maybe that is why we have the world’s second best education system in Canada and put more young people in post secondary school than any nation on Earth. Good going professional, government trained educators.

Children aren’t going to school because they are on fire, or sick, or have committed crimes.  These are most inapt analogies.

Children are going to school to learn, not to remedy a fault.  But according to you this can only be done by your gov’t approved system.  Please answer the question I have now put to you three times regarding satisfactory instruction and the education act. 

A good many people now homeschool, and the long term results are out.  Would you care to tell us what those results ca, and what that may mean for your claims about “educators” vs. ignoramus parents?

By what criteria do you continue you to claim Canada has the second best system in the world? I hope you have more than one, and I hope it includes competence of graduates and participants in core skills required for success in life and business.

And by the way are you paying any attention to what honest university people are saying about the skills of in coming students, and the level of remediation necessary for first year students?

Sorry Doug.  I have the choice of doctor and last time I needed an ambulance and fire truck to attend me in a car accident I rec’d a bill for those services. So you’re philosophy is as out dated as you’re spin.

Why pay trustees good money to simply cheerlead for the gov’t and have their local control slowly eroded year after year.

What Bill 177 does is essentially hang trustees and boards out to dry by a gov’t that’s distancing itself as far away from being accountable for student achievement, JUST in case it’s bad news….but close enough so that in the next election campaign they can use any good news to their advantage.

To answer Charles and Chuck together (are you the same guy or different guys?)

Ask the public is they want government trained and certified teachers or not? Any answer not in the affirmative is simply risible. Remember I see all of the polling on education, that is why I am so sure of my positions and so sure that yours are only held by a tiny faction. For example, 15% supported John Tory’s plan to fund religious schools.

People who want to homeschool can knock themselves out but just don’t ask for money for opting out. I guess they prove small class sizes can help, LOL.

Who says we have the second best system in the world? The OECD headquartered in Paris, a wester capitalist think tank. Only social-democratic Finland does better and they also spend the most on education although their salaries are only on the average for northern and western Europe. They use PISA and Timms testing to determine we are second best.

What about all the profs saying the kids aren’t prepared? They have been saying this since Socrates and Plato. The younger generation is always going to H E double hockey sticks. The universities can always institute an entrance exam if they like but Canada operates on a mass, give every kid every possible opportunity philosophy no an elite see how many kids we can keep out of university philosophy. You will be surprised to find many of those kids are ESL and many who are not will be in post-graduate school a few years from now.

Canada has a fantastic socialist education system. Could it be better? Sure, Ontario for one does not spend nearly enough. Have-not Manitoba spends 10% more per student. We need smaller classes, we need to demand Masters degrees from incoming teachers, we need to extend ECE down to toilet training, we need free tuition and more bursaries for poor kids, we can do a lot. We put more students in post-secondary than any nation on Earth but I would like us to pull away from the pack by doing much more.

If we eliminate the EQAO we will have fewer drop-outs and that will help. Our economy will just soar over others if we follow these recommendations.

Let the record show that Doug Little does not speak for me or for any of my colleagues whose views I know.

We know the system is far from “fantastic.”  There are very serious problems. This is not the place to discuss them in detail. Of course I don’t necessarily agree with all critics of the system either. As long as we just pat ourselves on the back about how great we are nothing will improve.

Hopefully Doug will enjoy his retirement and his fantasies about Ontario education. I am going to file his remarks under “Humour.”

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My life to date as a teacher, trustee, journalist, union operative, and active parent has been dedicated to the problems of Ontario education and by extension Canadian education but if we don’t correctly understand our situation as the second best we will adopt the wrong reforms like charters vouchers and testing from really horrible jurisdictions like the USA. I have outlined the reforms necessary. they can all be found in one form or another at;

http://www.thelittleeducationreport.com

We are making some small progress with capped classes in primary grades and the ELP but we have a long way to go to be #1 consistently. Lets all work together to get the tax increases necessary to have a really great system.

I hope that these parents from the Blue Water District School Board area persue this thing till they’re satisfied that it’s been resolved properly.  Children especially should be looked after by those entrusted with their care, and it doesn’t sound at all like this is happening.

Sounds like you’re singing of the NDP songsheet Doug old boy! Keep it up because it just reminds me how glad I am that they’ll never again be returned to power in Ontario.

Liberal or NDP Chuck, sometimes one sometimes the other, I have always worked for the candidate with the best chance of keeping the Tory out. This is what they call on Star Trek, “The Prime Directive.” Ontario can make progress only if we keep the PCs out, when they win sometimes just like Sisyphus, the rock rolls down the hill and we have to start all over to rebuild the system.