The idea of looking at ‘outliers’ in the attempt to prove poverty does not cause low achievement is like looking for 90 year olds who smoked all their life and didn’t get cancer. “You see, smoking does not cause cancer, look at Fred!”

KIPP has a formula of longer hours, Saturdays, late nights, teacher always on call, summer programs etc etc.

It also pushes out SE, ELL and behavioural kids. The problems with projects like KIPP is the problem that even American reformers now admit, they cannot be brought to scale, in other words, they are not a mass solution.

They also get massive funding from private foundations.

Sooooo the problem with that is???

Is it about making sure kids learn or what???

Or is it about maintaining the status quo.  Hmm.

American reformers undestand that it is a problem. Charters are experiments not “a new system\’ If the so-called success is based on push outs or extras or long hours then they are useless experiments for the whole sustem.

Only experiments open to all within PS hours with no extra funding are valid.

How can anyone argue against success? These students are making it. Hallelujah! That’s what the name of the game is isn’t it?

Let’s have a fundraiser to help Doug escape from inside of the box shall we?

Time for the excuses-R-us folks to climb down off tire rhetoric and move out of the way for the success of students who have by all accounts been written off by a system more concerned with jobs for adults than education for children.

They are creaming first of all (take the best kick out the rest make it more difficult for PS.

They are heavily supported by foundations. Are foundations going to support all schools in the future? No not enough money.

Teacher turnover is very high. The model cannot be shifted to other schools.

The secret is very long hours at low pay so new idealistic teachers will do it for a very short time, not sustainable. No board will pay the needed overtime rate.

The reformers in the USA even say. projects that are nort scaleable are of little use.

This is wonderful news about the escape from poverty.  As a mother I can only imagine the amount of despair parents whose children are trapped in lousy schools must feel.  It was bad enough coming back from Asia to Ontario for me when my children had to enter an Ontario public school—they’re educated, but there are priceless parts of their education that were completely lost—music, art, languages, and a love for literature to name a few.
It would be interesting to see what kind of teaching methods KIPP uses:  they seem to have to put in a lot of extra hours.  Would it be because of poor teaching methods at prior schools?

You will notice the NAACP opposes charter schools. In their view, programs need to be designed to lift ALL out of poverty, not spring a tiny group ahead.

Doug, the Kipp schools are successful, but what you never want to discuss why they are successful.

That said, in Canada there is low income schools beating the odds, on limited budgets and resources.

A few links just on the first page of the google engine. So many more, to attest that the school plays a major role in achievement, as well as the community supports and access to the supports.

http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/viewpoint-changing-academic-standards-one-community-centre-time

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/about_us/external_research_application/docs/V5_I1AcademicResilience.pdf

http://www.saee.ca/upload/026.pdf

Doug, why do you look for problems, when success is staring in your face?  You remind me of the educrats who dismiss my child’s steady achievement grades, and used it denied accommodations and SE services. While at the same time, dismiss my home tutoring, and stated it was just a fluke, I may have taught my child how to write a test, but it was my child that wrote the test, without anyone else standing over her shoulders, giving the answers to her.

None of the educrats at the board level bother to ask me what I was doing at home, for such positive achievement results, until my child was in grade 8. By that time, she was winning awards in the science fairs, and progressing nicely. They could not have the two images in their mind of the dyslexic student achieving at consistence Bs and As.

Kipp schools provide the necessary foundation, so the students can stand on, and in the same way I provided the help for my child, to obtain the firm foundation. The same foundation skills of the 3 Rs, where education policy there is no stress and emphasis put on, as a necessary characteristic to prevent low achievement of children. I believe all students are quite capable or maintaining a 70 something average, and only if they have the solid foundation to stand on.

Nancy,

You seem to block or misunderstand everything I say. Hard to say if it is intentional.

Nobody ever said poor kids can’t make it. All people like me have ever said is they are far less likely to make it because they have many barriers both inside but particularly outside of school which must ALL be removed if we expect any real success.

Alex Park and its school Ryerson are model schools in how to do at least half of what needs to be done but only that. The 3rd paper is too long for me to read today.

Did you see even one of these “success stories” where the researchers said phonics and DI ae the secret? I have not.

What we on the left are saying is that there is ONE and really ONLY ONE problem in education everywhere. This includes Alberta, Finland, the USA, China or any nation on Earth. The poor do not do as well as the non-poor and this hampers economic growth, equity and human happiness.

There are many reforms both inside and outside of schools which taken will improve results. Each on their own will improve results, somewhat. If every single one is done big changes can be expected. They include:

Smaller classes
ECE-ELP
Higher educational demands for teachers
more resources
eqity oriented programs
all resources targetted to the poor
free post sec tuition + living allowances
summer programs
after school programs.

Outside of schools

Less poverty
more health intervention for pregnant poor women
more nutrition for poor kids. (I would give 2 meals a day free at schools)
free dental care for everybody with clinics in poor neighbourhoods
higher welfare and EI
better housing for the poor spread all over.

In my opinion we need to do every single one of these reforms. When will we know we have done enough? When the data shows us there is no SES gap in education results.

Doug, my post was all about what the schools can do, and the few links provided are some of the efforts made by schools, on a shoe-lace budget.

In your post what is outline is a another concoction of inequalities in various percentages. As well as a big headache for the sitting government, where resources are handed out according to postal codes. Too bad for the low-income attending a typical middle-class, no free dental for you.  A recipe robbing from Peter to pay Paul, and a terrible way of providing services for all low-income kids no matter the postal code.

My links that I provided are much better, in supplying the individual needs of the students and the communities they live. Having a community youth centre like the first one, that is described for Toronto, is very much like the youth community centres found in all rural communities, except the NL centres runs programs up to the age of 30. Sinking funds into the youth centres in rural areas, have boosted the community connection between the schools and the community. A bridge, to impart values of an eduction, engaging youth, and it does keep youth out of trouble. Last time I check, the youth centre had 8 computers, a video room, a weight room, a homework club, and tutors to help with school work. Plus many more things, including help for resumes for jobs.

The current equity policies of the public education system, need a lot of work, because they have built-in mechanisms that creates the inequities in the first place. And in the end, slams the future doors of students and limits their choices.

By avoiding discussion of schools and what they can do, by changing and manipulating the outside variables of students, instead of focusing on the variables of the school and reform practices that tends to slam the future doors of the students.  Kipp schools is doing it one way, but another school in a different state is doing it differently and having success. Can the reforms be replicated on a large scale? No, why expect success across many schools, when each school is unique in its make-up of staff and students. No one teacher is alike, nor are the students. One of the curses of centralization, are the large-scale reforms, and expecting good results across the school districts.

Your focus is on the low-income students only, and the hell with the rest of the low-income students who do not in heavy density pockets of low-income.

No matter the size of the class, if reading instruction does not change, the same 40 percent of students will read below grade level at the end of grade 3, even when every health need is provided, three meals a day, and a laptop on each desk. From all the reading that I have done, the advocates of the poverty theory, the emphasis is replicated a upper middle-class education, rather than tending to the individual needs of the students. The upper middle-class has the means to tend to the educational needs of their children, but not the parents who must relied on the public education system for the education of their children. A good place to start is to improve the foundation of the 3 Rs, so the students actually have the ability to do advance high school work, and the options of post-secondary.

It is about time the public education stopped downloading the responsibility unto the parents and the communities for education. To continue to blame the communities, the students, the parents for low achievement, just to keep the status-quo of a minimum basic education, that does not ensure a solid foundation is looking after the self-serving interests of the stakeholders within.

I wish you would not guess or assume Nancy, you are usually WAY off.

All outside benefits would go to all poor kids no matter what school they go to.

Inside benefits (small classes etc) would go to schools with poor populations.

Try to actually read the posts, inside school reforms vs outside school reforms.

Nothing will change on the pedagogy-curriculum front because very very few people believe what you and Jo Anne and Chuck and john L and other believe. Believe me I have been around politics all my life but if anyone really supported your priorities there would be political support for your choice positions. No important politician supports you in Ontario. Tim Hudak wants to run so far away from choice you can’t find him.

Your position is very weak because very few people support it.

Great one Doug. Just wondering how it will all work out, Make the low income kids stand with their name tags, for free services. How would you get dentists on board, willing to accept lower fees, for what is normally costing 150.00 for a checkup.  Never mind the filling of cavities, and x-rays.

I know the best way is to have the government cover for basic dental care, for all children to the age of 18, like in NL, for people who do not have the insurance. At least every kid has no reason not to visit the dentist. At least the dentists in NL do not mind the lower fee schedule, It is a lot better than your plan, redirecting core funding away from the other kids, in order to offer services over and above that the other kids are not entitled to.

Wonderful way, of showing kids the principle of unfairness. Finland knows a thing or two about equality, as well as the dangers of confusing equity with equality. You should go on the Finland sites, and explore the deep discussions on the very topic of equity and equality.

Doug, the Canadian blogs are alive with demands to go back to the basics in math, as well as a few other issues that are boiling over on the back burner. All the service cuts to students, just to pay the bloated bureaucracy of the public education system. Toss in the latest revision of autism, which is soon to come to Canada, because the educrats will be itching to toss most of the high functioning autism kids into the inclusive classroom, with limited access if any to the therapies that they need. At least it is the worries of American and Canadian parents of autism children.

No Doug, I am not far off, and in fact I am on target.
Parents want results, and not the bells and whistles. Some of the most cost effective methods lies with the school board and the schools. to effect change.  Sending parents to meetings, to show them how to do the so-called irrational and illogical math, is a waste of money. You ought to see the comments from the professional parents, to expect them to go to parent schools after 18 years of schooling. As they all said, no matter the education level, and if the educrats are telling the truth, all parents should be able to follow the curriculum, and have no problems in answering their kids’ questions on homework form grade 1 to grade 8.  Rather insulting to all parents, telling them they don’t know how to addition, multiplication , division or subtraction in the correct method. Or as the educrats said to me many moons ago, I was engaging in learning at home, that was giving my kid an unfair advantage.  It is why tutors are in demand, and we have an education system that does not dare to put out a survey to find out how many actually do seek tutoring in its many different forms, including asking a neighbor to help their children. A lot of that is going on within the communities, where other people who don’t have kids, are helping their neighbour kids to pass math.

Than there is grandparents Doug. A whole army out there who are not at all please. A lot of grandparents are the tutors for their grandkids. Not to please on the low standards of the public education system, nor please about the current bullying policies, that only aggravates and pushes bullying out into the communities.

Kipp schools are popular for good reason, high expectations, rules that do not change at a drop of a hat, and no soft bigotry of low expectations at play. As one American blogging parent stated, who lives in an area near a Kipp school, anything is better than the local school, and with Kipp there is no danger of the Kipp school closing, like the 3 local schools that have closed.  All parents want are good quality schools, safe schools, and an education that equips their children with the skills and abilities into adulthood.

As usual very long and a stream of consciousness all over the map. Sure free dental care for all is great. Nobody needs a tag, I go to the dentist with a dental plan card, maybe the next person pays cash, we hardly need tags or lineups. The province would issue a card to poor people to get free dental care, the gov.t would pay the bill like medicare. Where is the problem.

Just dding on to one of the world’s best education systems.

I guess if all of the kids who have problems are a condemnation they all the kids without problems are a medal of honour for the system.

As a teacher for nearly 40 years, I teach a course for 25-30 kids 90% of successful, 10% are not. The 10% who are not successful have terrible attendance records, never have their homework done or in some cases even attempted, waste time in class disturb others, and so on.

Where is the personal responsibility for that? Is that the teacher’s fault? I certainly never felt those kids are particularly my fault, you phone home, counsel them, You help them in class and-or after school, you do your best but we cannot coddle students forever.

When they are adults and absentee constantly, don’t work hard, cause trouble what kind of employee is that?