The kids T-shirt should say “Let me rise at the expense of others.”

At less than $7,500 per child, hardly.  Another myth busted.

Huh????

Doug, the NEA is well dislike among any parents who have special needs children. The NEA hates the IDEA laws, that were put in place so schools are force to do what is right.

But it is in school choice, and where the LD parents were pushing for choice for their parents, was where the battle started, with the LD parents. They also dislike and with a passion, all effective programs for LD, especially reading programs. Many of the quality schools, the private ones, have the effective programs in place. Actually, they are the best effective programs for all children, from grades K to 6. Something like, (I cannot remember the exact stat) 97 % of children by grade 6, are very good readers, and have excellent reading strategies, no matter what income or any other factor.

Doug, even I know, if I had the money, I would send my kids to a private school. I phoned one private school, a few years ago, asked them what type of reading program is being run in the primary grades. More than likely, if my kid attended there, her learning problems would not be severe enough, to warranted testing. These are the same reading programs and teaching methods that SQE advocates for. The same advocacy is taken place in the LD world, as well with children who are high functioning down syndrome, as well as the autism society, for their education component.

Let’s not forget the attention deficit disorders, and of course many other parents, the leading researchers, and many other influential people, the NEA should never and for any other teachers’ unions have the inclusive power and authority over children’s education, and should never called themselves effective advocates for children.

Here is a link of:
NEA’s Legislative Priorities
http://www.nea.org/home/13158.htm

Note carefully, how they are going about to give themselves even more power, and at the school level, protecting the teachers, and certainly not the welfare of their students. Please note, how they are downgrading achievement for students who are struggling, over to special education exclusively. This plan, the special education teachers will play a pivotal role, in hiding the stats of low reading and writing achievement.

I am sure, when I hit the parent sites in the United States, there will certainly be talk about it, and my guess, the parents will be comparing to what is happening at the local level and NEA priorities are.

Doug, what do you mean “at the expense of others”?  Could you be explicit?  I’m not being doctrinnaire here - I honestly don’t know what you mean.  Thx.

David, Nancy, and all - please check out how Mr. Little is using his provocation here as fodder for his own website.

a “little” education into the machinations of spin does indeed go a long, LONG way.

This dude doesn’t have blinkers on at all:-)

Nancy is describing a situation I’ve heard about from four different people so far: students about which parents were told by the school were slow and would probably never be able to read well.

These four students did learn to read well later on.

Two of them were taught by their mothers who are not teachers.

One of them went to a private school that is using a direct intruction phonics approach.

The last one happened to change schools in grade 2 because the parents moved and he was lucky enough to happen to have a middle-aged teacher who taught using a phonics approach.

( That teacher actually apologized in the parent-teacher conference for using traditional teaching methods she was used to, for being strict about correct answers and for not being very modern! )

How is it acceptable for a school to hurt and abuse children?
This is abuse; not only you don’t do your job to teach but on top of that you convince young children - six, seven, eight years old that they can’t amount to much.

In these cases we are probably not talking about any kind of major medical problems but simply a combination of bad teaching with perhaps children that are a bit slower or more easily distracted when they are six or seven or eight.
Or simply children that are logical, don’t learn by simply looking at the text and memorizing words.

These are normal children. How did we end up making learning disability cases out of them?

Why don’t we have compulsory reading tests at the end of grade 1 so that the problem is recognized and the students get help as soon as possible?

Such a reading test at the end of grade1 will take what - 10 minutes per child maximum - and can be done today.
The results would be send home to parents, so that at least they know and they can do something to help their child as soon as possible.

This would cost no money and can be done today.
It would only require common sense and goodwill.

Thanks for the note Chuck.  I’m aware of Mr. Little’s website; I’ve checked it out before.  I read his article about the “conservative” education websites - quite interesting.

For the record, I have no intention of trying to influence Mr. Little’s opinion for the simple reason that his mind is clearly made up already.  He’s also got first hand experience in an area I know little about.  However, it looks to me like he’s got some assumptions with which I strongly disagree.  Also, some of them look just plain weird.

Mr. Little, if you’re reading this, what on earth do you mean by “someone else’s expense”?  Who’s expense?  How?

Also, before I forget, I would like to publicly commend Mr. Little for his initiative and entrepreneurship in putting together his website.  I assume it’s for-profit?  Well done!  It’s good to “see” that Adam Smith’s invisible hand can deliver information and view points on a topic as important as children’s education.

(And hats off to Malkin Dare et al for putting together this website as well!)

no problem David.

Using this site and others to promote his own is a rather market-driven and entrepreneurial approach to say the least. Perhaps Little is a closet Conservative given the for-profit advertising contained on it.

What is that term? Do as I say…......

Europe,
The majority of reading problems occurring in the primary grades, can be eliminated by excellent reading methods and programs, where the phonemic sounds come first, than the next stage of phonics, and so forth.

The majority of dyslexics and that is well over 80 % are mild to moderate, who have reading disorders that can be solved by good quality reading programs that are not whole language, or any of the many versions.
The increase in the dyslexic population, has been looked at by the top researchers. Even though, at present the researchers are doing a tap dance with public education, there is a working theory, that there is two types of dyslexics, The developmental dyslexic, which would be my daughter, and the acquired dyslexics, the ones who are exposed to lousy reading programs and poor teaching of reading, writing, and numeracy skills. It is estimated that 20 % of students in a primary classroom, are from both groups.

Another 20 % are students, who have outside variables that are impacting them, lousy home life, low income, and etc.  The second group within the next 20 % have other disorders, such as attention disorders, physical disorder and so fourth.

Now, it is 40 % of the students in a classroom that the odds of becoming skillful in reading, writing and numeracy are slim to none, using whole language approaches. Now the kicker is, there is another 20 % in the classroom, who will not do well under a whole language approach, because it is not the way they learn. So these students will be impacted too.

It is estimated that 60 % of children in any classroom using whole language approaches, will never become accomplished readers, and among them will have various strengths and weaknesses, where how well they read, depends on the individual’s strengths and weaknesses. Without a firm foundation in core reading, the writing and numeracy skills will be weak, depending on the weaknesses in reading.

Assessments plays a role here, and the schools do have them, but they do not do enough of them. By not having mini-reading assessments, the teacher is doing a disservice for at least 60 % of the children. It is here where the majority of the 60 % are barely passing the assessment, and the ones that do not pass, is a practice that is occurring across the country. A practice of sending the reading material home to practice, before assessment of the reading material. For children who have the reading material sent home, this is the core group of the dyslexics and the sprinkle of the other groups.

Children are being taught to cheat by the public education system, parents are taught that it is OK to help the teacher, so she or he would not look like a bad teacher, and the school can continue to ignore 60 % of the students, and avoid hiring of the necessary staff needed plus the cost of resources.

You see, it would not look to good, if close to half of classroom, leave for their remedial help, that does occur outside the regular classroom, The strongest advocates for whole language approaches are the unions and the staff (educators) at the board level. I have not met one at the board level, who will defend the whole language approach, using the same tactics as Doug has in the past and still at it.

And yes Europe, there is many inexpensive ways that our teachers could use, but in many cases they are not allow to, because it has to meet the approval of the board staff and the union top guys.

I think if you read Diane Ravitch’s new book there is a long chapter regarding how charter schools are involved in “creaming” sometimes called “skimming”. This means the charters use a long series of insidious techniques to create a motivated group of students and keep others out. These include lotteries, contracts, demands of parent involvement, expulsions, recruitment, resriction of SE kids, restrictions on ELL (ESL) kids, no homeless kids, interviews, strict attendance policies that result in expulsions.

Charters are either public schools or they are private schools. They cannot say they are public but use exclusionary policies. normally used by private schools. Either everybody can go, nothing like this above or go all private.

Charters are well known for expulsions just before tests. All of the “hard to teach” kids are dumped back on the public schools.

Please don’t think this is just Little gassing off. This is a serious critique that must be addressed. Charters cannot take public money and use exclusionary tricks.

Charter schools, are started by a group of individuals, who share a common vision of education. For some it is ensuring the basics, while others it is an enrichment, and for others it is with children who have learning problems. No matter the visions, parents who signed their children into the various charters, are made well aware of the rules, and the charter mission.

Yes, restrictions take place, and it is done for a reason, because the charter school does not feel it would meet this child’s learning needs. From what I have heard from other parents, this takes place in a very respected way, where their is a full explanation given by the school, where it gives a parent a deeper understanding of their child’s needs. For a child like my LD daughter, there is an excellent chance for her to get into any charter school, that is mainly reserve for normal children. The reason being, is her good grades at the public school, despite her learning problems. As for the learning problems, a good reading and writing program will solve that, a service that many schools in the public education do not provide for various reasons. You see, the charter school, will admit her, because they have the resources and the experience teachers to correct her learning problems.

Public schools uses exclusionary tricks each and every day. It is regular practice, where ever a public school is. As for charter schools, if that was the case, expelling students just before tests, than why would charter schools that are formed by a group of individuals, have waiting lists, year after year. The charter schools that are run by a corporation, are the charter schools that are guilty of these practices, as public schools are.

The charter schools in Alberta, can be an example. If I moved to Alberta, I would enroll my LD kid in the LD charter school, to work and target her learning weaknesses, and she would still be carrying a full course load on top of that. After one year, providing she no longer needs help, she would be enrolled in the charter school, where they concentrate on sciences and maths. She would be welcomed at the school, because they are looking at her accomplishments, and not through the filter of LD and associated problems. They will look at the hard data, and documents, but a public school, 9 times out of 10, will not do this. In a public school, oh she has LD, she is not academic material, and who cares what the hard data states.

Nancy Charter schools cannot have it both ways. If they use every trick in the book to exclude “undesirable” students, they cannot then turn around and say, we are superiour. Easy to be better if you push some out who pull down scores. KIPP and others are notorious for incredible turn over. Who educates their push out. You got that right.

give us a break Doug please. Schools in your beloved TDSB creme students. Need we go through the whole Rosedale thing again? Or perhaps any of the other alternatives within that board?

Many charters were started by educators.

Hope you’re liking all that bait your taking Nancy:-)

It happens in a very small way in some public schools but it happens in a major way in almost all Charter schools. It is standard operating proceedure. The problem you run into is that the Charter system cannot grow without watering down their standards because there are only so many “good kids” in the inner city and the suburbs don’t need choices. Their PS’s are great.

You do not think public education systems are not doing the same thing, by pushing students into basic and applied courses. because these students do not have the skills in reading, writing, to do the work in academic or advance. In the stats, it is telling who graduates with type of diploma and how they present the information.

(NL info/other provinces have similar setups)
Academic honours: average of 80 % or more
Academic: a pass - which only indicates 50 % average or more
Practical (applied) - only indicates 50 % average or more.
Only the Academic honours, will received all the honours, and scholarships,

About 22 % of yearly graduates across Canada are in this group, This stat has remain steady since the early 1990s.
As for the other diplomas, the main bulk goes to both groups, and where the lowest diploma is becoming the biggest group.

With some initiatives that began in the various districts across Canada, it is hope that it can reverse the figures, where the majority of graduates have Academic diplomas. Below are reasons why, I do not think it will work, because of systematic faults that are part and parcel of the system.

Mind you, the last time I talk about this is a while back, and it is not until high school, when a lot of parents for the first time, are having major trouble with schools, having their simple questions answered at the time of course selection. For parents who have always dealt with the school on various issues, they become aware of this problem early enough to try to prevent the school and board to over-ride decisions made by parents and their children. They are better equipped to handled the school.

By high school, a lot of parents are not too happy with the public education system. One of the reasons, and a more common one, schools have a tendency to lie to parents, by omission of major facts about their children, and important information of services that the school has to offer to help their child. Without both, the school and board, looks no better in their eyes, than the latest CEO who raided the pension plan, laid off the employees, filed chapter 11, and than resigned with a big fat bonus.