This entry was supposed to precede the above…s o r r y…

I consider conflict of interest as corruption, that is, it is wrong, compromises decision-making in school boards, and should have legislation preventing it.  However, in most parts of Canada there are not strict restrictions on who can be trustees.  This is one of my six corruptions I decry in our BC experience for 2009:

Conflict of interest – trustees who are teachers or ex-teacher union officials, have family on staff, in the role for 30 years, who have signed teacher union pledges to support teacher causes, etc. …

Here is my full essay on the topic:

CORRUPTION: BC’s Education Nightmare – I

It’s just a matter of degree.  Expect all schools and school systems to be vulnerable to corruption – anywhere from pilfering a pencil from a school to outright criminal embezzlement as we’ve seen in the Detroit Public School system. The education systems, being the biggest or second biggest spenders of public money, have few stringent accountability measures to counter what is a system replete with opportunities for wrong-doing.  All at the expense of childrens’ education, of course.  In Detroit the “culture of corruption” is so severe that only one in four students graduates.

For the New Year, the new decade (2010), I wish to see a rededication to the task at hand – proper education of the young.  All else is secondary or non-essential. And, I’d like to see a lot less corruption. The two go together.

Fortunately, tough economic times help in the task of eliminating waste and refocusing on the essentials. It’s like in the Depression – maximize the resources you have.

In New Zealand when the government saw that it had “created a massive, unresponsive educational system where parents had little or no influence”, which didn’t meet acceptable achievement levels, and which “consumed 70 cents of every education dollar, with only 30 cents spent in the classroom” they did something radical. They implemented a very simple organizational change to switch those figures around.  District school boards were replaced by parent boards at each school, very much as we have in our independent schools. Those who care the most were now in charge. Parent trusteeship is voluntary, no pay!  (PS:  The Ministry was reduced to half its former size. Money saved is ploughed back into the schools, special services, and indigenous education.)  See: http://4brevard.com/choice/new-zealand.htm

Does our government in BC have the guts to do something so simple? Something radical.  The present system is totally unacceptable and getting worse by the month. There never was a year like 2009, rudderless and full of holes.

Before I list some of the corruptions we’ve seen in the last year let’s stop a moment to review what corruption is. Very simply, it is anything that robs the intended recipients of goods and services and/or deviates from its intended mission.  This deviation might be as simple as pilfering a school pencil, which is not a criminal offense, to the criminal embezzlement of millions of dollars, as we’ve read about in the Detroit Public School system.

Basically, to corrupt is to spoil, alter, or debase something into less than what it is supposed to be. Passing the smell test is another way of putting it.  “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark”, that is, the fish is rotting from the head down.

These are just some of the corruptions, debasements and questionable practices discussed on this blog this year:
1.  Cronyism, nepotism—which was outed in the debates concerning deployment of TOC’s (substitute teachers). A dedicated page on this blog now has over 1,000 comments.
2.  Double dipping—TOC’s who are retired but still working on call, superintendents retired and on pension and working under contract.
3.  Conflict of interest – trustees who are teachers or ex-teacher union officials, have family on staff, in the role for 30 years, who have signed teacher union pledges to support teacher causes, etc.…
4.  Using school property for private commercial purposes – producing materials for sale, organizing businesses, charging high telephone calls to foreign countries for business….
5.  Conventions, junkets, retreats in distant locations and in expensive settings.
6.  Overspending by a school board because of poor accounting practices and poor reporting…
… more later …

I guess the way corruption is defined in Canada it is through legislation. You have a perfect right to say the above items are inappropriate, morally corrupting in fact but they are either legal or illegal. Sometimes we find out that what everyone thought was legal (Oliver Carroll case) ws in fact, not legal but until someone changes the law or takes your situations to court, you may not like them but they are legal and therefore, to most people, not corrupt.

Tunya has worked hard to inform, which I’m grateful for…
Legal and moral do not always fit in the same bag, and one would hope that people whom we’ve entrusted our children to would demonstrate integrity to the utmost; otherwise they’ve let us down.
Thank you again Tunya

The problem is right or wroug is highly subjective. They believe that what they are doing is fine because it is legal.

Conference Board of Canada gives Canada an A and finds it is the second best school system in the world behind Social-Democratic Finland. Should we be satisfied? No, as education activists we should only be satisfied when Canada is first by a wide margin.

To get into first place I believe we need to do what is proven to work. We need to continue to extend the system downwards to 3 year olds, we need still smaller class sizes, we need better teacher training as pre-service and in-service, we need higher salaries to motivate the best to choose teaching and we need to demand a Master’s degree for new teachers.

I believe these reforms will put us in first place where we must be for resons of human capital development, for social anti-poverty reasons and for reasons of human fullfillment.

What criteria are the CBC using to determine the quality of our system?

And even if they are right, so what?  After all, right and wrong are subjective things, aren’t they?

Doesn’t that make everything you’ve asserted on these pages subjective?  Shouldn’t you respect the fact that other “subjective” views, eg. those that oppose your points of view here, are therefore equally valid?  So therefore what right do you have to control the money and resources of “the public” through public education? 

Other, that is, than your subjective desire to control everything that happens?

What then, is the difference between your point of view and that of any dictator randomly chosen from history, or from the present?

Remember, Mr,. Little, any reply you give here, any truth claim, is from now on to be understood as your own subjective opinion,.  And any evidence you cite originating outside of your own cranium is merely the subjective truth claim of another.  Even the evidence of your own eyes, the truth you see, is just subjective. After all, what can you do about the chemical reactions underlying your thoughts?

And so is your observation that your opponents are “Malkintent”, cultlike, elitist people who know nothing about education.

In fact, why even bother to claim that one either knows or doesn’t know anything about education?

If the system extends down to three year-olds, should the education act be amended to require attendance at school from the age of three?

And did I get your answer to the question “under the education act who determines whether the child is receiving a satisfactory education”?

And what about the question, “Why bother with a public system if it only makes a 1% difference in the educational outcome, since in your own words 99% of the success of education is related to social class?

Different Education Activists Have Differing Agendas

Not all education activists are the same.  There are many stripes, philosophies, and outcomes desired.  Some activists even believe the end justifies the means, thus questionable means are also up for debate.

In this current discussion I want to focus mainly on the ideological, self-interest positions espoused by teacher unions.  And since we have Doug Little as a long time union activist participating in these debates I will address his comments.

First, he thinks the Finland socialist model is one to emulate and overtake.  But first, he infers, we must adopt more socialist methods.  One of these being “to extend the system downwards to 3 year olds.”  Please note that both Finland and Sweden have school starting at age 7, with free voluntary pre-school available at age 6.  Even though Canadian provinces are moving in the direction of earlier provision of Kindgarten the jury is still out on the benefits and harms.  Just rereading David Elkind’s two books, “The Hurried Child: Growing up too Fast Too Soon” and “Miseduction: Preschoolers at Risk” should give parents, educators and policy-makers serious pause.

Secondly, I will challenge Mr. Little’s recurring opinion that what is good for teachers is, by definition, good for kids.  For this I will quickly skim through two areas where teacher unions have been a real deterrent to the best interests of children and families.

a)  Teacher unions oppose meaningful choice.  It is in their self-interest to have monolithic, monopolistic, central-command, soviet style delivery models of education through government (public) schools.  This style of distribution is dysfunctional, counterproductive and open to serious corruption.  This clinging to the device of ensuring a captive audience does not guarantee quality nor meeting of individual differences and preferences. However, government-funded choice through charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits, etc. enables the client, the consumer (not the producer) to fulfill their needs.  The needs and interests of the consumer are NOT equivalent to that of teachers.

b)  Teacher unions intervene and dominate education decision and policy-making. This is not incidental coincidence.  This has been a deliberate, incremental, insidious intrusion by unions into those areas that had previously been reserved for lay and community control. The fact remains that school boards are either heavily influenced by teacher unions or are made up of educators or ex-union officials.  This should be a clear conflict of interest but governments (probably because of union intimidation and threat of withdrawal of campaign donations) fear to police this distortion of democracy.

I could go on, but what I’m trying to conclude is that teacher interests—which collectively might thrive under socialist methods and policies – do not square with the interests of students and families, nor the general public interest. 

If there is such a trend in Canada, it needs to be turned around.

This is a famous quote from Albert Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers:

“It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.”

I guess the answer to almost all of your questions is “democracy” . So far, in this democracy, people do not want charters or vouchers, they want a strong public education system, not a fragmented every person for themselves system.

Of course it is my subjective opinion but it seems most people agree with me although a few agree with you.

No we should not demand all children be in public ECE at age three but if it is free I would expect a maybe 90% enrolement rate.

Only a strong public education system can mitigate the effects of social class but it is so much easier with progressive social policies like higher minimum wages.

Meaningful choice has been put in front of the Ontario voters twice, once with the repeal of the Harris private school credit and once with the defeat of John Tory. Ontarians just do not want to fund options outside the public system, in fact if the United Nations “everybody or nobody” pint of view were put to the Ontario people 70% would opt to end the catholic system before they extended it to “others”.

Yes, a more socialistic approach to education does seem to work.

BC just made Kindergarten full day. This is the new direction mainly because it is becoming common sense that extending the system downwards is good for the economy.

Confessions from X-Teacher Union Activists—“More Harm Than Good”

The Society for Quality Education (SQE) has done a tremendous service to open up the question:  “Whose Interests Do the Teachers’ Unions Truly Represent?”

The Video – The Truth About Teachers Unions http://vimeo.com/2439019 is worth revisiting and forwarding to others.  Its message—How teachers unions protect bad and incompetent teachers, and block school reform efforts.

Posted over a week ago, the entry has generated a lively discussion and 34 comments.  I made 6 comments, and in each tried to show how teacher unions are detrimental to the interests of students and parents and to education reform generally.

I won’t add any more of my opinions now but will just bring forward the case of two ex-teacher union activists who are renouncing the behaviors of their unions in thwarting needed reform.

NUMBER ONE:  Myron Lieberman, over 30 years an activist, then turned academic,  wrote the book:  “The Teacher Unions: How They Sabotage Educational Reform and Why”. Just by reading the 9 customer book reviews (some for, some against) in Amazon.com you get a good flavor of the book.  One review starts out:

Don’t Let The Union Head Catch You Reading This Book!!

http://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Unions-Sabotage-Educational-Reform/product-reviews/189355421X/ref=pr_all_summary_cm_cr_acr_txt/177-8640172-6908661?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

NUMBER TWO:  David W. Kirkpatrick, teacher union member since ’64 and a top officer in the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and now a Senior Fellow at the Think Tank the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution wrote a very comprehensive article called – Teacher Unions and Educational Reform: The View From Inside.

http://www.psrf.org/gur/gur_19.2_kirkpatrick.jsp

These are some of the topics:

-  NEA and AFT Block Education Reform – consistently block or cripple any significant change, such as school choice and charter schools … the system forces teachers to prefer conformity for themselves and their students …
-  Unions Prevent Teacher Participation and Influence – “if you are going to hear from any of our members we will decide which ones it will be.”
-  Serious Research Only Used to Block Change – At the same time they claim they will support change if research proves it correct, they oppose conducting the actual research
-  Teachers Isolated, Silent and Compliant – “teachers give up their individuality…all the rank and file need to do is to co-operate, to follow faithfully the suggestions of the central leadership group.”
-  Voucher Opposition: Example of Union Tyranny
-  Union Control of Teachers, Administrators and School Boards
-  Union Violation of Teachers’ Rights
-  On Education, Unions Inept
-  Unions Attack Reformers

How is it that teacher unionism has grown so pervasive, adversarial and powerful?  Are there no challengers?

Teacher unions fight vouchers and private charters because they are bad ideas that simply take our eye off the ball of the real problems in education which are the lack of success of poor and some minority students.

You cannot have your police taxes back to hire your own security. You cannot have your fire dept taxes back to protect your own house from fire. You cannot have your library taxes back to buy your own books and you cannot have your public education taxes back to start your own schools or homeschool. If you want to pay for private schools + pay your public school taxes knock yourself out.

Tunya,  thanks for the recommendations. 

I’d also add that Mike Antonucci writes a scathing blog called Intercepts.  http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts

He takes a look at the unions from an insider’s view.

The voucher system is racist. Stop arguing.

If the vouchers are racist, you’d better watch Dr. Howard Fuller on the topic.  I think, well I know, he would absolutely disagree.

http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779116&ts=2008-01-29 20:00:48.0

Mr. Little,

Re: “the real problems in education which are the lack of success of poor and some minority students. “

You forgot to mention Ontario Scholars who can’t write essays or in fact perform almost any University assignment to an acceptable standard.