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Society for Quality Education

The Trouble with Politics

November 30, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) at 07:39 AM

The Ontario government is wild to lower the province's high school drop-out rate, and it also really really wants to improve the worryingly-low number of students who pass the provincial tests. To this end, it has already spent a great deal of money on expensive programs like class size reduction and it is now embarking on another massively-expensive program, this time the expansion of all-day kindergarten. Now comes strong evidence from Harvard of a low-cost way to raise test scores, reduce drop-out rates and crime, and increase college attendance. Manna from heaven for the Ontario government, surely? Well, maybe not.

The problem is that the Harvard researchers were analyzing the results of a public school choice program in Charlotte, North Carolina in which students were entered into a lottery to attend the school of their choice. The researchers compared the outcomes of the lottery "winners" with the outcomes of the lottery "losers", and found that seven years after their random assignment, the lottery winners were doing much better than the lottery losers. 

Unfortunately, it's very unlikely that the Ontario government would even contemplate the introduction of school choice, as the province's teachers' unions are adamantly opposed. Isn't politics fun?

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Comments

The teachers’ unions may be opposed, but if there were huge popular support for the idea, their opposition wouldn’t matter much. I haven’t seen any sign of a groundswell of public opnion supporting school choice, however. That is what is needed. A lot of teachers actually like the idea, it would benefit teachers, too, to find a school with a compatible philosophy, curriculum and so on.

Posted by urbanteach on 11/30 at 11:04 AM

urbantech’s right. Seems that parents and school communities have been lulled by a government into thinking all is well in our schools because the unions are happy. Nope. All is NOT well but unless SQE is willing to start the revolution that groundswell will not happen until we’re dead. SQE might find a way to get to those young parents out there by getting their material into the schools and to the parents like that People Education Group does.
Unless SQE can out outreach that bunch talk of choice will not make it out of the blog world.

Posted by Chuck on 11/30 at 11:59 AM

Well, you know what Niccolo Machiavelli said 500 years ago. “It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had the actual experience of it.”
Clearly, we need an intrepid champion. Don Quixote, anyone?

Posted by mdare on 12/01 at 03:44 PM

The reason you are not getting anywhere is that the vast majority of people are satisfied. They have not been lulled into anything. You guys are a radical, unrepresentitive minority. When any politicians listen to you they just get into trouble. After John Tory, it is clear choice is a dead duck.

Believe me I work for Vector Polling that does all the polling for many unions. Support for expanding choice is about 15%. Those opposed are strongly opposed.

Posted by Doug Little on 12/25 at 11:26 PM

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