http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/2008/09/11/groups-to-face-poverty-battle

Lambton Kent is a pretty high poverty community which explains EQAO scores.

There is nothing wrong with the kids. 

The only bullet on the teachers to-do list that has any possibility of improving reading scores is the 7 hours per week of student tutors. 

The graphic novels will amuse students that only pretend to read, but guessing from context isn’t real reading.  The rest of the list is busy-work that won’t move the reading needle even a bit.  It is the legendary “every form of assistance short of actual help”.

Parents with struggling kids have surely figured out they will get no help from this dysfunctional school.  Hopefully they will firmly reject the school’s insinuation that it is somehow THEIR fault.

The SQE’s Community Reading Project has expertise, methods, and tools for fixing the worst readers, including phonics drills that work on Smartboards or tablets.  It’s all free.  /index.php/blog/read/ask-yourself-this-question-why-arent-public-schools-doing-this-themselves 

Teaching reading is not rocket science.  If parents or council members want to start a community-based volunteer project to rescue struggling readers then contact us, we’ll help you succeed.  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Poor kids will have lower results period. Call it the Iron Law of SES if you like. Their are interventions that can be made at the school level but at best they can mitigate 20% of the gap. The real solution is the elimination of poverty.

Poverty is not intractable. 

USA 20% Canada 22% Finland 5%

Posted on behalf of a blog reader: 

“.....low economic status of the folks in Lambton-Kent – he couldn’t be more wrong.

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=FED&Code1=35046&Data=Count&SearchText=Lambton - Kent - Middlesex&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&A1=Income of families&B1=All&Custom;=&TABID=1 “

For some inexplicable reason, the links don’t work in the comments section so I’ll put it up in the post above as a post script.

Income of individuals in 2010
Family income in 2010 of economic familiesNational Household Survey data footnote 141 31,210 ...  ... 
Median family income ($)  72,074 ...  ... 
Average family income ($)  85,715 ...  ... 
Median after-tax family income ($)  64,460 ...  ... 
Average after-tax family income ($)  73,000

SES the cause of low student performance?!

The incredible success of inner-city charter schools in the US, schools located in pockets of dreadful poverty, should have stomped that obvious slander out long ago. 

Harlem Village Academy runs the top-ranked middle school in New York state.  KIPP WAYS was named the top “No Excuses” school in Georgia.

Poverty is not an excuse for a child not succeeding in school, but it does needs to be taken into account.  It is educational malpractice to operate a school that ignores the effects of poverty,

http://globalnews.ca/map/1384838/mobile/

Are you kidding Tom. Lay off the propaganda. Reading results for charters is below public schools. Kids in DC charters are failing reading. The majority. 55% proficient in math.

http://tinyurl.com/mvn6ac2

Tom please. The hype does not square with reality

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/13/geoffrey-canada-just-tell-the-truth/

http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/04/10/teacher-quality-at-kipp/

KIPP class avgs 10-20. Nice with corporate top ups.

Guess small classes are great for KIPP or all the private schools that lead with small class size, just not for public schools.

Doug:  Diane Ravich makes a good living shilling for the highest bidder.  She is a pundit-for-hire, pay her enough and she will advertise anything you want.  But she isn’t worthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as Geoffrey Canada.

There’s a non-profit called ‘GreatSchools’ whose only task is to highlight top schools of all flavors - public, private, charter, etc.  Here’s what they have to say about Harlem Village:
http://www.greatschools.org/students/3851-Excellent-school-series-Harlem-Village-Academy-Middle-School.gs

In ‘Class Warfare’, Steven Brill described a KIPP charter school that co-located with a public school in NYC.  Same kids, same SES, only difference was the lottery that picked the winners and losers.  It was night and day across the painted line down the hallway that separated the two schools.  On one side, kids preparing for college, on the other side they were on the conveyor from school to jail.

We have those same crappy, failing public schools here in Ontario.  At Nelson Mandela Park in downtown Toronto, only 34% of grade-3 kids achieved the minimum EQAO level in reading, only 37% in math.  And it isn’t the worst school (and it’s lovely inside, thanks to a $30M renovation).

It’s not lack of money.  Ontario sends boards $11,450 for each student, plus considerably more if the student has an IEP, plus extra funding for low-enrollment schools, construction, etc.  Our school boards spend north of $250,000 to put a teacher in front of 20 kids.

It’s time to hand control back to the parents, give them a choice of where they want to send their kids.  I’ll bet that our ‘excellent’ public schools will be popular in the leafy suburbs where they really are excellent, and that’s fine.  The non-performing ones will have to improve fast, or close.

Oh please Tom you cannot cherry pick. You are like all the other propagandists who have quit saying “charter schools are great because they ate a disaster”

Now they try to find one here one there and say ” people shold go to QUALITY CHARTER SCHOOLS.

There are no miracle schools. Guys like Gary Rubenstein will soon show that apple and oranges comparisons.

Kids can come from the same building. Who chooses to go into a lottery who will volunteer parent time who will fill out a multipage contract who will not be SE or ELL or behavioural problem who will be a pushout.

Well all know the games being played by charters. Experienced educators know how all the games are played.

There is no secret sauce. Long hours, smaller classes pushouts whatever and the results at the end of all of that manipulation is nothing to brag about.

Everybody knows the game.

All the classic charter school tricks to manipulate enrollment and change their demographics right at the school front door.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.ca/2013/08/charter-schools-dozen-dirty-tricks.html?m=1

One Worst Education System

Funny, how every nation thinks they have the best system — and it must be public education by government teachers, centralized curriculum planning, compulsory, graded, age-related groupings, etc.

Yet, schooling systems in different countries differ substantially from each other.  What is agreed, universally, is that each nation must have ONE, universal system. 

Books have been written about the “one best system”, a search for an efficient, progressive structure — producing docile, conforming students.  A book that had considerable influence was even called, “Dare Schools Build A New Social Order? by Counts.  This one did have considerable influence in foreshadowing current social justice and equity agendas.

A book worth reading is “Progressively Worse” by Peal.  Further explanations why illiteracy, poor math, entitlement mentality are outcomes in progressive schools. 

Can we agree we’ve now evolved “one worst system”?.  Yet, people, or those in the education establishment, still insist that they must be in charge — they are to call the shots — one system for all with dribs and drabs of a few options here or there. 

The “One Worst System” is dreadfully scared of a publically funded arrangement where clients, not producers, drive the provision.  Choice is the only way to open up the field so that both clients and producers can build the relationships necessary for the best education possible for each child.  So much is known about what good education for individual needs can achieve.  It’s such a pity that rigid control freaks and ideology run the show!

It’s such a hopeful (Yes, hopeful!) signal that there is so much more discussion about options in education being tried out in different parts of the world — charters, vouchers, School Savings Accounts, low-cost private schools, etc. etc.  And let’s not forget the sure way, without much debate, that stands the test of time and prepares so assuredly for college or career readiness — Home Education — and the old standby (besides many curriculum choices now on the market) — the old standby — World Books course of studies which will guide you safely and easily to being well-educated without the hassle.  See their durable list of many decades for all 14 levels P-12 http://worldbook.com/typical-course-of-study?wbredirect=1&Itemid=216

How I love reading the simple expectations.  Would but the public schools match these expectations!

Doug:  Anyone with an internet connection can refute the hysterical claims in the blog you cited.

BUT SO WHAT?  Even if those claims were true, even if charter schools were deeply flawed, why does every single kid in Regent Park have to attend the execrable Nelson Mandela Park School?  Every single kid given a life sentence of counting on his fingers, because of his parent’s postal code.

And it really is a life sentence.  It starts in the new all-day Nelson Mandela kindergarten, the parents have no other choice.  No possibility of university, no hope of escaping the poverty.  It ends in the part-time precarious jobs available for high-school drop-outs, or worse. 

I’ve met some of the teachers at Nelson Mandela, and they are doing the best they can in the current governance.  Huge amounts of money are being squandered.  But the kids are failing, because we are failing them.  We know how to do better, but we choose not to.

Students at KIPP and Harlem Village are on their way to university, on their way to a better life.  Kids at Nelson Mandela are on their way to jail.  Blech.

Keep dreaming Tom. Nobody democratically votes to put a few ahead at the expense of everyone else.

Ask John Tory. We would have likely had a Tory government since 2007 except for his crazy idea of school funding.

Charters are WORSE than public schools. KIP & HCZ are creaming. Everybody knows it.

thanks for sharing.The incredible success of inner-city charter schools in the US, schools located in pockets of dreadful poverty, should have stomped that obvious slander out long ago.
Link school

The Harlem Village school has a 5 star rating. The rating is by parents. The opponents to charter schools are battling the forces the rights of the individual students versus the rights of the collective. The same can be applied to Canada where the public K to 12 education establishment are doing everything in their power not to have parents/students make use of their individual rights to obtained a decent education. Or one that includes good skills in the 3 Rs. Really is hard to do in Canada, because the K to 12 education establishment controls who will or will not received a quality education.

Take for example Riverview Central School, the school that is being discussed in the blog posting. Due to the declined in the EQAO, the school was signaled out in the ARC process. The school won but has been reconfigured to a K to 6 school for the 2014 - 2015 school year. The grade 7 and 8 students must now do a 40 minute bus ride. ” He said moving the Grade 7 and 8 students to WDSS will give Riverview kids a richer learning experience.” versus the parent - “Hooper pointed out that if the board followed through with the ARC recommendation, many students would choose to send students to Catholic schools or private schools.”  http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/2013/05/28/lkdsb-trustees-to-make-final-decision-june-11

Now in Malkin’s post - “The school seems to be more concerned about how parents are doing things at home.  Considering school councils’ main job is to monitor student achievement, I’d say the school is not being accountable at all and puts all the blame on the parents. Again.” Ditto for the school board who are not being accountable to the students and communities they serve. So what did the school board do when their plans hatched by the school board were threatened by parents?  Shut down the communication links. Hence, as good as my skills are, the last link is dated May 28, 2013. I had to combed the school board website and cobbled together the facts for the present day.

The games of the public K to 12 establishment are underfoot. First rule - To erode the communication processes, in order to lower the discussions to facts not based on the current realities on the ground.

Nancy is right, we should stick to the topic.  But can’t resist pointing out Doug’s obviously silly ‘Nobody democratically votes for…’ statement.  It is consistent with other hysterical falsehoods from the anti-reformers, just hoping that something sticks.

It’s getting hard to name a country that doesn’t have school choice.  The US and UK are leaders in charter schools.  Here in Canada, Alberta has fully-funded charter schools, and BC provides partial funding for charter schools, homeschooling, and private schools. 

Ontario already has some school choice - students can enroll into one of four different school boards, and 30% of our kids are currently enrolled in religiously oriented, fully funded public schools.  We have an oligopoly instead of a monopoly, the boards are very careful not to compete with each other.

Yet even so, Ontario’s education system is in a slow decline, and costs are spiraling up.  All monopolies / oligopolies do that.  We too will embrace charter schools one day, it’s just a matter of how far we are willing to let our schools decline first, and how many disadvantaged kids we are willing to hurt. 

Tom,

You mentioned in one of your posts that you met with some of the teachers at Nelson Mandela.

Did you meet with the principal and the previous principal?  How about the superintendent?

Each child brings in 11K before the IEPs and the ESL designations.

Want to fix under performing schools? A*U*D*I*T*

follow the money.

Finland Korea Japan Singapore all the leading countries have very little choice.

There is zero choice quality relationship.

Momnipotent,

If a parent could have even HALF of that average per-pupil funding, put it towards a school of their choice and get a better result, THAT would be a better way to “follow the money”—by having it follow the child.

Neighborhood should not be destiny.

Ask for a vote on that question alone. You will not get 25% support. No political party will touch it with a barge poll after the John Tory fiasco.

Doretta,

I would love to give you your wish if I could.  What would the hundreds of thousands of families in my community do with the power of 6K and choice?  Where would they go? 

How do schools with competent principals making choices as academic leaders - purchasing textbooks, mentoring teachers, connecting with students - happen?

We do not have these leaders , have not for at least 20 years. We are bereft of academic leadership. 

You argue choice but the choice is one bubba (Principal) in a community extinguishing what is left of the academic flame compared to another bubba (Principal) in another community doing the same….........  what is the choice?  The students still need a seat at the table but the tables thanks to the leadership are in the same creaky, cranky, slightly awful banquet hall….........  you know the one…..... where the host pays $80 per plate and the guests receive about $8.89.

LEADERSHIP - Principals - need attention.

I’ve been out of the education reform loop for many years, one of the reasons being the Doug Littles of the world. No matter how much factual information is slammed into the face of ideologues like Little who oppose choice (and are antidemocratic) and any serious reforms to public schools they can always post nonsense knowing that it will stick with other like minded ideologues. You cannot change the mind of the ideologue. They don’t care any more about the poor than they do about improving schools.

So if Korea, Japan and Singapore are doing so well with their education monopolies, then why don’t the Little’s of the world advocate for the Asian Tiger methods? 

Why debate him? A complete waste of time.

Greg

We actually do better than Korea Japan and Singapore overall but I do advocate some Asian reforms to math.

#1 math specialist teachers from grade 1.

LOL! This coming from a guy who says “Lay off the propaganda”. We do better at math than The Tigers? What kind of math? The new Ontario math that requires seven pages of explanation on how to add two single digit numbers together?

How does one spell ‘loon’?

I don’t think School Board members understand the variety of methods for teaching reading.  This has been going on since 1989 when the Ministry withdrew the phonics reading series from its list.  The following year the sight word readers were removed.You’d think there’d be a glimmer of understanding by now.

Christina: That is the crux of the problem, isn’t it - understanding that is? It’s not that the people who work at the Ministry, or the Boards, or those awful education faculties aren’t bright enough to understand what works and doesn’t work in educating people. They don’t care to understand as it is not in their best interest. Where is the incentive? All human motivation comes form some sort of incentive - to work for food so as not to starve; to obtain an education so as to be employable; and to improve at your craft and trade so that maybe your company stays in business. With educators, it is not in their incentive structure to want to get better at what they do. Where would the payoff be? Better educated students? Their salaries would not increase if their students were better educated. That would mean testing. Educators are trained that testing is essentially a bad thing as it promotes the ‘C’ word (competition). All competition is bad they are told. Some psychology PhD types educated at OISE even say that standardized tests lead to bullying. You don’t need testing when we know all teachers are excellent anyway. And besides, it’s really all about poverty. Once we eliminate poverty, destroy the wealthy, and put the Doug Little’s of the world in charge, we will finally have education Utopia. Wait a minute, the Doug Little’s already control the boards, the Ministry, the education faculties, the teacher unions, the college of teachers, the CBC, the Toronto Star. When the heck are they going to get rid of poverty with their grand 5 year Soviet plans?