I’d like some clarity:  did the teacher who didn’t like the text that was recommended to help an ld child use anything else, or did the teacher do nothing. 

Furthermore if the teacher did nothing, where was his boss, the principal, and why didn’t he step in and tell the teacher to do his job? 

So maybe you have a child who struggles with reading.  Perhaps he is in grade 5 or 6, and can barely read a grade-2 chapter book.  He ‘reads’ using memorized words and guessing from context and from first-and-last letters.  His comprehension is very low.  He can’t figure out proper names.

So you check the research on reading disability, which ALL points to systematic phonics, which helps a child sound out words and develops phonological awareness.

But your teacher and your school’s reading specialist believe in multiple-cuing programs like ‘Reading Recovery’ which helps the child become a better guesser (and for which there is absolutely no research support). 

This is not a hypothetical question for about 10% of parents.  What do you do?

We don’t need anything elaborate.

The government simply reimburses all parents of K-12 kids $1,000/mo. per kid for money spent on education. The kids are eligible for funding from 4 until they are 18 years old.

The parents are free to spend that money however they choose - anywhere in the world, any curriculum, any system. Pay to send your kids to public school, private school, create an informal “school” with 10 other families in your neighborhood, sign up for online education and sail around the world. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s vaguely education related then you get reimbursed.

The only other requirement is that every kid has to write a set of tests at the end of December and the end of June every year. The standards and expectations are clearly documented for each grade. You pass or you fail. If and when you make it to the end of the Grade 12 standards you can apply to College or University if you choose. If not, well you’re free to try again - on your own dime of course after you turn 18.

In fact, when a kid passes each year, any excess funds that the parents didn’t spend up to the full $12,000 per year per kid gets automatically deposited into a college fund specifically for that kid.

I would personally bet a big pile of money that the results would be FAR better than what you get now. And much much better value.

No studies, no data, no research - just my opinion. And my opinion is based on fair and logical analysis since I am completely unencumbered by any union affiliations or other special interests - unlike others who comment on this board. My opinions are truly “for the kids”.

    Big difference between having rights and knowing what they are. Parents have some rights now like bringing their concerns up the ladder and making official complaints but if you don’t know you have them (I didn’t know I could ask a doctor for a referral). Also the educational establishment is a bit of a “black box” where you never really know what is happening and, mostly, are never really told.

      Maybe something under the ministry of health that does evaluations of all children in the younger grades at the beginning of school and then compares that to the child’s performance 4 months in (could be some simple tests… Just trying to flag issues at first). I think it would be very important that it isn’t run by the department of education (moral hazard).

      Then, if issues are found, remediation could be done and/or further testing and/or other long term interventions. It should be automatic and not determined by the school or parents complaints (although they could still be allowed to ask for testing to stop children from falling through the cracks) Separate tracking by a separate department. Similar idea to keeping the courts and police separate.

    Out here there is some concern that the money allocated for SE is not going where it should be. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Cash+should+follow+kids+with+special+needs+petition+says/10001897/story.html and the province is moving in that direction already but I don’t think it goes far enough. All remediation should be determined and done by a separate group (“bootstrapping” could be done by teachers hired by the dept. of health). I think it is too much to ask of teachers to be medical doctors and physiologists as well as teach. The major thing is that the determination process should be removed from the schools and be automatic as that would be the only way to determine if a child’s problems were caused by a LD/SE issue, inadequate teaching methods, malnutrition or some combination of all. Also, as the money would come from the department of Health, they could ensure it is directed where it need to be (people tend to defend their own budgets).

      I don’t know how it works elsewhere but I was astounded that my child couldn’t be referred to health services by his doctor until someone with a Bed pulled the trigger. Nothing against the person with the Bed (who did pull the trigger) but it seems to me that it is like asking a carpenter to run triage in an emergency room. Unfair to everyone including the carpenter. And what if the issue was something that wasn’t so obvious?

Tom,

  This is a group doing the remedial reading at our school (apparently as part of some research). Know anything about them?

http://calgaryreads.com/resources/reading-research-2/

TDSB has what 40 alternative schools. On top of that an array of alternative programs. Too many in my opinion.

Nobody on Earth runs a ‘designer’ school system where the parents choose the curriculum and the teacher then impliments it.

If you took that to a staff room they would be rolling on the floor with laughter.

Just try to get an abortion in New Brunswick. Try to get the state to pay for many medical procedures or cures. They will refuse calling it quackery or untested or unproven or whatever.

The medical system works the same way as the education system. The only way it can work.

These teachers have 25 students. Do they have 25 curruculia and 25 pedagogies 25 textbooks for science.

Parents have to get real at some point.

Who exactly are you responding to Doug?

The K to 12 should indeed have a built-in safety net for parents. The K to 12 is a black box that prevents parents from obtaining help within the K to 12 for their children, and more importantly if the child is not the typical child of convenience for the K to 12 establishment. The trouble starts if children are the inconvenient children who are not served well by the 19th century industrialized K to 12 education model. Below is a story of an American couple who confronted the black box of the K to 12.

” My wife and I have degrees in neuroscience, psychiatry, and psychology. We have the means and the leverage to go to experts and to the courts. But even with all that leverage, we still barely saved our son from a system that couldn’t grasp the disability it was dealing with. How many families and children get ground up by that system? If our experience is any guide, parents should be vigilant, and if something doesn’t seem right, always stand up for your child.” http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/how-apraxia-got-my-son-suspended-from-school/

I really like Tym Barker’s solution. Perhaps then and only then, the K to 12 will drop the multiple-cuing reading programs, so children like my child will no longer learn to read by memorizing the words. Is it really necessary for the K to 12 establishment to maintained the K to 12 black box because they still feel threatened by parents who are perceived to be undermining the authority of the K to 12? In October of 2001, I was correct in my assertion that my child had a learning disability, but it took three long years fighting within the K to 12 black box to obtained an assessment to test for LD. Three wasted years for my child, and all because I questioned the instructional methods, the curriculum and requested an assessment in October, of 2001. The K to 12 crowd saw my actions as undermining their legal authority and expertise in education. In my eyes, I was being a good parent advocating on the behalf of my child, who did indeed had serious struggles in learning the 3 Rs.

Nick:  I like the article you shared about the Mom with the petition.  The school board spokesperson kicked her to the curb on it - they know better how to spend the money they collect for helping her son.

There was a recent story like that in Ontario - here’s what education officials felt was the best use of money earmarked for autistic students:  http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/10/ontario-liberals-misused-1-6m-in-education-funds-lawsuit/

The money should go directly to the parents (perhaps in a voucher) and let them negotiate the best deal they can with any school they choose.

- - -

I think Doug was responding to my question about the mom who wants phonics and gets ‘Reading Recovery’, or perhaps one of 40 anti-bullying, leadership, music, or whatever programs. 

The description of teachers rolling on the floor with laughter while the child gets passed from year to year without reading skills is cruel.  Teachers are also trapped by our dysfunctional school system, they know how to do better too. The short-term fix is to direct school funding to the parents and let them choose.

Doug, who are you to say there are too many alternative education methods. Where’s your data? Where’s your proof?

Ontario could be the first in the world to offer a “designer” education system. You just have to implement my simple system above.

When we get freedom of choice and competition in our education system our kids and society will be better off.

There will be no more entitled laughter in staff rooms.

The Canadian medical system is broken. So is the current education system.

Teachers need to get real. Time to move out of the dark ages.

Another short term fix is getting schools to honour research.The research on how to teach Reading and do early reading intervention is tantamount to Mount Everest but do they maliciously ignore it to pat the consultants on the back?

I trained a group from Ottawa last week,high schools are overrun with students who can`t read and spell and naturally students can`t write a paragraph or essay.

The reality is it`s a con and teachers know and they`re overwhelmed by it.

Doug speaks of the K to 12 education based on the deficit model. A paper by Paul Gorski - http://www.edchange.org/publications/deficit-ideology-scornful-gaze.pdf 

The K to 12 system the deficit thinking model is embedded and enclosed to protect the educator experts from the non-experts or non-educators. A common definition - ” The “deficit” model focuses on the student as the major problem, neither looking within the environment nor the instructional practices in the classroom.”  It is the social-political ideology behind the deficit thinking model that is designed to separate the educators from the non-educators. The sad outcome, students, parents and others lying outside of the K to 12 are systematically marginalize or pathologized based on the knowledge differences between non-educators and educators.

Doug last post is sadly the evidence of deficit thinking, where the parents are viewed as broken and lacking various levels of knowledge by the educators. Therefore, parents knowledge and skills are suspect and lacking in validity and are constantly dismissed by the K to 12 education crowd. 

Tom writes - “Teachers are also trapped by our dysfunctional school system, they know how to do better too. The short-term fix is to direct school funding to the parents and let them choose.” I agree 100 percent, but sadly the embedded deficit thinking of the K to 12, extends to the classroom teachers. who are perceived as lacking lesser expertise by the educators not working in the classroom. Good teachers’ finds a way around it to help their students. In my case, the teachers turned a blind eye to my activities at home regarding re-teaching and tutoring my child, because they too knew my child needed help that was beyond their scope of expertise. My child’s teachers saw the wonderful outcomes in their classrooms. As one teacher expressed to me, “It was sinful that my child never received timely and effective remediation of the 3 Rs by the school and school board.”  So much more can be done for all students, but the K to 12 crowd would rather keep the dysfunctional school system model entrapping the classroom teachers and non-educators to do the bidding of the education experts without a safety net for teachers, parents and students.

Tyn,

Nobody needs to invent a new school system based on competition.

All one needs to do is look at the leading nations of the world who base their system on powerful public unified uniform I dare say unionized systems in Finland, Korea, Canada, Singapore Japan ...
Look at the top of PISA.

Now look at USA and its #17 floundering system based on a misdirected attempt to cure their problems with choice.

They are going nowhere fast. Check out the charter disasters in DC.

Doug,

No one needed to invent the automobile or the internet. But fortunately someone did.

I don’t care about the so-called “leading” nations of the world. Twenty wrongs doesn’t make a right.

The USA doesn’t have true free choice like I’m promoting in my simple solution above.

I don’t care about charter or any other specific system. Let each parent decide and spend their tax money for what they believe is the best solution for their kids.

Meeting or not meeting clearly published standards at the end of each year will soon sort out the best quality and value.

You will be amazed how fast word travels and the best systems will emerge.

I don’t want you to be allowed to have it but far more importantly the vast majority don’t want you to have it.

I am happy to have a vote on the question in any province any day.

You will lose it because the vast majority want the system we already have.

Doug: perhaps you are right, but we vote every four years.  The majority can be awakened to demand change.

The value of this blog is that it persistently exposes the falsehoods that keep the majority asleep.  Ontario has become an outlier in rejecting school reform, and our schools continue to decline and under-perform. 

Change will come, the question is how much damage will be done before the majority demands change.  Maybe the SQE will help change come sooner.

What does it tell you when no political party in Ontario will touch these ideas with a barge pole?

Even the PCs saw John Tory go down in flames talking like this.

Doug,

It doesn’t always come down to a vote.

Traditionally the masses go about their daily routines and continue to be manipulated by those in power. But today with exponentially increased communications all over the world you are witnessing more and more revolutions, civil wars, anarchy - seemingly out of nowhere. But in reality, these people (not necessarily a majority) have had enough. Enough suppression and anger to create huge changes through other means, with very little warning.

Even in more stable countries like Canada all it takes is enough people like me who say “adios” and take their toys and money to another province, or state, or even the Cayman Islands for example.

You can blow that off as bluster all you want. But with today’s mobility I can switch my corporate charter to a tax-free domain in about 72 hours (there are no “hard” assets to speak of), travel at will, work from anywhere I have an internet connection, and pay allegiance (and some form of reasonable tax) to those that I choose - not those out to line their own pockets in some antiquated system.

It’s already WELL underway in Ontario’s manufacturing community. Very soon you will see it happening with the average person who follows suit for a variety of reasons - over-taxed, over-regulated, poor access to medical care, non-competitive education for their kids, etc.

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT your nice little entitled monopoly falls apart.

I shall add, another revolution underway is the exchange of knowledge, information and stories by various groups of people. A parent posting on facebook about a school, could very well be trending within 24 hours across the globe. This came into my e-mail box today. It has gone out to almost 16 million users - “We’re on a mission to unlock the world’s potential. Most people think their intelligence is fixed. The science says it’s not. It starts with knowing you can learn anything.” 
https://www.khanacademy.org/youcanlearnanything

Before you know it Doug, the entitled K to 12 monopoly might be crossing swords with those who believe that intelligence is not fix. Instead of 1 or 2, or even a hundred, it will be two million Canadian parents wanting to know why the school insists that their children are only capable of achieving 50 something and no more. The K to 12 also has a belief that little can be done for students, until all the social ills and inequality are fixed.

Recently, every time I watch tv, there are commercials for online schools.  They’re competitive, so in order to get their optimum enrollment, they’ll have to keep improving their product—a quality education.

My prediction:  online schooling willl hit the educational state monopolies the way free trade hit manufacturing—it’s barely noticeable now, but before the educrats know what’s happening they’ll be closing schools and laying off staff, because no one will want their shoddy yet outrageously expensive products.

Just look at Canada Post—another monopoly that refused to try to compete, and whose unions kept insisting on more and more.  With their high prices and reduced services they’re drumming themselves right out of business.

When unions get too greedy, they drive customers away.

Bev,

You are 100% right. Online education will eventually bust through the teacher union dams like a massive tsunami.

There is no better learning experience. I’ve done it. I know teachers who’ve done it - and admitted it was a superior experience. The learning experience, the flexibility, the 24/7/365 group problem solving is amazing, effective, and you can choose the best of the best to be your “personal instructor”. No question in my mind that ALL education will be online within 10-20 years.

Yes, Doug and others will retort that you’ll never replace in-person education for every situation, there’s no way it will work for lower elementary grades, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

It will be a freaking tsunami like they’ve never seen in their lives.