Glad that at least some of the disadvantaged children are benefiting by going to charter schools, but when it’s generally said that the middle class U.S. children do well, I don’t see it.  Their literacy skills are poor and math is abysmal.  I just hope that now that charter schools are catching on that the bar will be raised at the very least to International Baccalaureate levels in all subjects.  I think that eventually charter/voucher systems will slowly raise the bar—when one family sees little Johnny thriving at a school it’ll raise expectations at other schools—and ultimately, much to the chagrin of the teachers’ unions, it will catch on here.

This is accounted for by self selection and longer hours. We all know the drill by now.

You want longer hours in public schools, ok fine, it will be expensive.

Schools that take in self selected (motivated) students and kick out their mistakes always do better.

In other words, Doug, you’re saying that, when given a chance, poorer children can do better.  This is despite the fact that you’re always insisting that their dismal performance has nothing to do with the quality of education.  Now, you’re contradicting yourself by saying—in so many words—that the teachers’ unions would be unwilling to allow their teachers to work the extra hours needed in order to provide a better education for the poor.  This means that it is the system that is failing the poor because of the unions’ total lack of compassion for the most vulnerable in our society.  So this is what left-wing thinking is really all about—don’t look after the most vulnerable in our society, instead keep the big unions/corporations mighty regardless of the consequences to the poor.  I like the term Doretta’s used ‘champaigne socialists’:  it works here.

Achievement scores of a school, indicates that the school is doing something right.  What are the factors influencing the achievement scores?  Besides teachers and teacher methodology/practices are the resources that the school has at their disposal. Resources could be the amount of computers, to supplies to the parents’ abilities and skills, and how the resources are used and applied on a daily basis.

Whether charters or public schools, I believed the difference in achievement scores, hinges on the resources and tools of the school. It is how the resources/tools are employed in the school and what should also be measured along with the achievement scores are the resources and tools.
For example, it is not enough to state the number of computers, because it does not tell anyone how they are being used.

It would be interesting to see how the charter schools stacked up with the public schools, by showing the resources/tools and compare the achievement scores. I wondered if there is a relationship between the two.

Bev, your premise is exactly why Waiting for Superman got made.  Bravo!

Of course poor children can do better, everybody knows that. The question is HOW and under what circumstances can they do better. SOME say the answer is charters, vouchers, DI, phonics, testing, union bashing etc.

I say, and the vast majority of people who have actually studied the question say, ECE, smaller classes, better curriculum based on their experience, better training for their teachers, more education for their teachers, more supports staff, and the mitigation of health issues such as low birth weight, dental problems, nutrition, housing, and so on are the solutions.

There are many reasons that Finland leads the world but one of them is that class divisions in Finland are much smaller. Canada’s class divisions are much smaller than the USA which is a major reason that we do much better that the USA. American style poverty is not possible in Canada.

Why are you allowing this Dean/Doug ... whatever ... to post again?

He’s just repeating ad nauseam the same unsubstantiated opinions in the same rudimentary, inflammatory style.

Europe Doug/Dean has been particularly nasty in repeating his mantras, and I will predict it will only get worse. I believed he is wallowing and crying the blues since Ford has become the mayor of Toronto.

It?s Vital to Hear All Sides in Debates

I frankly find Dean/Doug?s input very helpful and indeed, critical.

There are so few instances where teacher unions speak their true minds, and DD bursts it out in full measure. If what he says is typical of what teacher unions say and believe, then it IS very useful to hear this side. Maybe I?m too simplistic, but I think teacher unions are first and foremost 1) powerful vested interest groups which seek to enhance their self interest (income, benefits, job protection, etc. ) and 2) when they do engage in education discussions it is to put forward elitist notions ? teacher knows best.

So, besides portraying a good and zealous teacher unionist, DD also reminds us that we, in Canada, live in a veritable ?nanny state? with all the good things that socialized medicine and socialized education bring us.  Unfortunately, there are costs and DD will never acknowledge that there are many downsides ? high costs, sloppy standards, robbing-of initiative, etc.  When he talks of Finland as an ultimate ?nanny state? with high school scores, he fails to tell us that the suicide rate is high and that plumbers are scarce while ?overeducated? young people wait for government jobs.

Who else but DD is a frequent commentator on US blogs to remind them that we, Canadians, are a superior bunch because of our ?unionized socialist public school system? as in a recent comment regarding the movie ?Waiting for Superman??

As long is DD is respectful of people?s opinions and continues to engage in rational debate, I say, welcome. It?s refreshing to hear a teacher union apologist be so open. He is a dandy foil for some of our, as I would say, more practical conversations and suggestions. 


I?ve always enjoyed his links for further information and am delighted to be able to read more of the socialist mind-set which so dominates education.  I can?t understand why this is so, and why people do not object.  I left socialism behind in my 20?s when I saw it as a flawed philosophy. 

I?m currently finishing reading ?Discourse on Voluntary Servitude? by la Boetie (1552), have just received Minogue?s book, ?The Servile Mind? (2010) and have just ordered ?The Art of Self Persuasion?, Boudon (1997) a sociological, psychological, anthropological exploration into self-delusion.

Looking for insights.

” Let us therefore learn while there is yet time, let us learn to do good. Let us raise our eyes to Heaven for the sake of our honor, for the very love of virtue, or, to speak wisely, for the love and praise of God Almighty, who is the infallible witness of our deeds and the just judge of our faults. As for me, I truly believe I am right, since there is nothing so contrary to a generous and loving God as tyranny—-I believe He has reserved, in a separate spot in Hell, some very special punishment for tyrants and their accomplices.”

?Discourse on Voluntary Servitude? by la Boetie (1552)

Things have only change in degrees. Today we have security from tyrants, but at what price?  To hear the socialist rantings of people, who want to take away our remaining freedoms of deciding what is best for us? 

Thanks Tunya. You have given me a great idea, for grade 12 English. I am sure my child would write a great paper, on la Boetie and compare it with what is happening today. She would have fun with it, even though I still be correcting her grammar.  That is, if they are still doing that kind of thing once she reaches grade 12.

Dumbing-Down is Part of the Collectivist Agenda

I fear the 21st Century Learning forecasts!  Collaboration, the big key word I hear, means ?group think?. I fear that the excitement being generated is dulling our senses to the safeguards we must insist on before installing these wholesale reforms. 

Of course, parents who are supposed to be the advocates and overseers of their children?s education are very effectively excluded.  Just give us your children.  We?re not going to be ?the sage on the stage? any more.  We?re going to be ?the guide on the side?.  Trust us !

These are experimental times with experimental procedures. Will parents be dumbed-down and trivialized?  Is the ?new? education sound or frivolous?  Is individual freedom going to be replaced by collaborative learning?  Are youngsters going to be habituated to the state at earlier and earlier stages through seductive ECE? What will the new technologies breed?

La Boetie, in his book ?Discourse on Voluntary Servitude: The Politics of Obedience? (1552) described a half dozen ways in which tyrants, despots, rulers maintain their hold on a submissive populace.  One way is to suppress education.

?The Grand Turk [Sultan of Constantinople] was well aware that books and teaching more than anything else give men the sense to comprehend their own nature and to detest tyranny ? [People who] have preserved their love of freedom, still remain ineffective because, however numerous they may be, they are not known to one another.?

So, the Internet is here to help us, many centuries later.  Not only to recognize tyranny and its methods, but to probe what it is in human nature that so voluntarily submits to this coercion

The internet helps those who value freedom to become ?known to one another.?  And in particular, this website (Society for Quality Education) in Canada helps us connect.

Actually, the main points espoused by la Boetie were in direct refutation against Machiavelli?s ?The Prince? which was a manual for state control using deceit, patronage, political manipulation and central control.  La Boetie argued for the simple refusal of people to consent to their own enslavement.  Easier said than done, of course, but he did not counsel for the overthrow of tyrants or even wish then necessarily to fry in hell.  He pondered long and hard in his essay how it is that human nature, born free, becomes accustomed to servility.

In Education we know that those who choose home education are these freedom-loving people (many of them) who wish to have nothing to do with the state.  That their taxes go to support government schools is felt by some as a necessary ?safety net? to ensure a relatively civil society.

That online education is becoming a voluntary choice for many students and families is another instrument that is helping people to unravel from state precepts. 

To Nancy and her daughter in Grade 12 I hope you will capture the simplicity in the message of la Boetie.  I know that I have been profoundly affected.

Don’t be fooled by Dean/Dougt Tunya. His hypocrisy knows no bounds.

He talks a good game on these forums and champions the public system but in his other educational life he’s a key administrator for a private school.

Do yourself a favour and visit the Retire Educator for this truly stunning revelation.

Dean/Doug likes it both ways. He comes here to slam the widening of parental choice and charter schools yet by all accounts is personally doing well by his private school dallyings.

Don’t waste your time defending him because it’s falling on deaf ears here.

Clement Attlee, the Labour Prime Minister of UK after WW2 was asked by the Tory L of O if now that Labour had won, he would be abolishing the first class cars on the trains. His answer, “Labour believes that we shouls ALL travel first class”

This is the answer to all detractors. In Education, the left believes our goal must be continuous improvement so that every single kid with the desire and brains to go to university, gets there. I measure success as the % of students with a BA increases every single year.

We really ALL want improved education and most of us want improved PUBLIC school education. There is a true disconnect in how to accomplish that. I will give the #1 answer in the next post.

So why don’t your students just enrol in those great public high schools for their credits to prep for Canadian universities rather than paying a lot of money?

Big words that say nothing are easy; of course everybody wants the best for the children. So?

Why exactly it’s not already happening now - after all we have “professionals” and we spend 10,000 public CAN/student?
Are the “professionals” taught how to teach well?Are they competent?
Are the “professionals” accountable?

Demagogy ...just demagogy.

Of course you would quote Attlee, a fellow socialist, until his dying day..

“Clement Attlee, the son of a solicitor, was born in Putney in 1883. Educated at Haileybury and University College, Oxford he became a barrister in 1906. Attlee developed an interest in social problems while doing voluntary work at a boy’s club in Stepney. Converted to socialism by reading the works of John Ruskin and William Morris, he joined the Independent Labour Party in 1908.”

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUattlee.htm

Attlee, certainly did his part in keeping public education based on class structure in his country.

“In regard to education, the main legislation, Butler?s Education Act of 1944, had been passed before Labour came into office. Labour?s job was to implement it. The act of 1944 provided for secondary education for all to the age of fifteen?a
great step, though probably seventy-five years too late. As implemented, this meant that all schoolchildren had to take an examination at age eleven (the dreaded ?eleven-plus?), which determined whether they would be placed in a college-prep type high school (the grammar schools), a technical high school (few of which were
actually provided), or the ordinary high school leading to employment (the secondary modern schools). This tripartite system was not a great success. Not only did the eleven-plus exam terrorize many ambitious households, it also failed to make the kinds of distinctions in ability that it was supposed to. Moreover, it did not democratize education or open British society to merit as the Labour party had hoped. Middle-class children on the whole did better than working-class children,
who came from families that normally did not cultivate academic achievement. Butler?s Education Act left the elite public schools untouched, and the Labour party did not have the nerve to attack them. Thus the new educational structure, which
existed until the 1970s, increased social mobility for some working-class children but not as many as expected; on the whole it helped preserve the class system.”

http://lyceumbooks.com/pdf/PeoplesBritishIslesIII_Chapter_11.pdf

It is rather odd, socialists even the ones today, professed equality for all, but often only delivered policies that serve dishes of inequities.

Seeing as we all know by now that “Dean” is Doug Little posting under a fake name might I comment that, as well as being a bit juvenile, he might as well simply post under his real name?

Oh, and get some new material!

...but the old material wins all the debates,

only at your website Doug.

Tunya, this problem which you’ve sited before about Finland being short of skilled tradesmen, is very common in other countires, including Canada:  here there are many skilled trades jobs which cannot be filled.  Perhaps Finns are overeducated as you say, but getting an excellent grounding in the basics leads to the freedom to choose to go into skilled trades.  Here, many candidates have to be taught the basics—the job our public education is supposed to be doing.  University was originally for aesthetic purposes, not utitilitarian, so people can get their aesthetic degree, and then go on to learn a real skill.  I believe that in England, law, medicine, engineering are not faculties in universities as they are over here because, in England, they keep universities for asthetic learning.
The suicide rate is high in Finland, as in many northerly countries, including Sweden.  The difference is that Finland is first of all acknowledging it, and secondly trying to deal with it, whereas in Canada, we have a 42% illiteracy rate, and very depressed children, yet our government refuses to acknowledge the problem, let alone deal with it.  Our government would rather continue doing the public sector unions’ bidding instead of looking after these very serious problems.  Here in Ontario, we are not a nanny state to anyone but the public sector unions. 
What startles me most, Tunya is that you seem to leap to two conclusions:  that because Finland is a nanny state that it has a high suicide rate, and also the nanny state produces too many overeducated citizens.  The nanny state in Finland does not cause the above occurrences.  Please don’t jump to conclusions and then state them as fact.  The rest of your blog above I totally agree with.