Oh how I wish we had people like Dr. Howard Fuller, willing to stand in the limelight, and do battle for better education for all Canadians. Unfortunately, our political and power structures differ from the Americans, and our top people with knowledge, who could advocate for children, effectively are silence, in fear of loosing one’s job, or grant money, or being push out and labeled on the fringes.

There is various groups involve with children, in Canadian society, many of them are charities, non-profits and individuals, the researchers who quietly work, to make advances in education, and the learning of a child.

The critics fight us, because we are not as organized as we should be. If we come together, unite, we would be a power house to reckon with. Plus it would provide protection for those who may loose their livelihood, or grant money due to political games. A powerhouse, who could act as a central station, supplying information, how tos, and knowledge across the country. One of the biggest reasons, why choice has not arrive in this country, is the ability of the public education to isolate parents from one another. Often this ploy is used, because one value that is shared by most Canadians, is following the laws of this country. There is quite a few parents, who think it would be against the law to talk about their children’s problems to another parent inside the school. I remember the day, the school tried to one on me, and I responded, the privacy laws are for you, to keep your trap close, and not for the ordinary citizens, who can talk to anyone they choose, and disclose any type of personal information, and right down to the colour of their underwear. This is just one of their ploys, and many more to keep parents disorganized and confused.

I think a strong grassroots much merged, unite the various groups involved with children, before the leaders will come out of the woodwork, leading the charge. I know we have a few Dr. Howard Fullers kicking around in Canada, and in fact I know two from my experiences in getting help for my daughter at such a early age. It is people like that, who have not thought well of the public education system, and the political games they have to play, just to help their own charges to have a chance in school.

Just being a parent here, this line is worth repeating.
?Consider the impact of putting the right kind of parental choice in the hands of families who have little or no power because they control no resources, no levers of influence over the decisions and decision-making process that impacts their children?s education. Consider how this power may change the shape of the future for their children?

Milwaukee voucher program a failure, not improvement is scores vs Public schools.
Choice is fine but overrated. Choice outside the public system is privatiztion and tht is vry unpopular but I understand from a political point of view why some people would want to blur the lines.

Let me repeat this in case you didn’t understand it the first time:

“Why do they continue to perpetuate myths about parental school choice? Why do they ignore education research, or worse, call into doubt the credibility of the researchers?”

“Polls consistently show younger African Americans supporting school choice by 20 points more than their elders. Those numbers are echoed in Virginia, where a November 2009 Braun Research poll showed support for charter schools at 68-19 among black voters under age 45.”

“Alveda C. King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has called school choice “the civil rights issue of the ‘90s,” —
http://www.angelfire.com/mn/nflchoice/alveda.html

“Support for school choice has mainstreamed, and it’s only a matter of time before the political barriers are brought down.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer April 1, 2009

Ever wonder why there is more support for school choice in the USA than anywhere else in the developed world? It is because they have a serious maldistribution of resources that Jonathan Kozal called “Savage Inequalities” in the ay they fund schools so that suburbs often have 10X the resources of inner city schools. Choice is a ghetto issue in the USA because the middle class have great public schools at the expense of the hyper-exploited poor. Take a look around.

Stop making assumptions about what the poor in the ghettos want and don’t want Doug.

Wither the days when people actually believed what you’re trying hard to sell. Must be hard recognizing that your philosophy is on the way out.

School choice is right across the spectrum, and not reserve for the lower income groups. In fact, the more income, it is a natural right for parents to have choices.

School choice movement actually started with the middle-class, and the demand of parents to send their children to other schools outside their zones, for various reasons.

In Canada, the school choice movement is being hammered by the centralization of education, and where the set-up of the system, actively regulates school choice, for the majority of the population. As a result, people with means or knowledge, or both, can access and enjoy school choice.
But this is changing in Canada, where pressures are building up to strike against the heart of our public education model.

It is parents who are becoming more vocal, more organized and where the centralization model caves in to the demands of the parents, at the local level.

At the moment, it is a lot of little fires. Little fires where parents are demanding long-distance courses, to soften the reduction of courses that are taking place at the high school level. Another example, is the face book site in Ontario, where grassroots activism, is taking a novel turn, suing in small claims court for bullying and other education issues. More and more sites, are popping up run by parents, talking among themselves on various education issues, and it makes the education authorities very nervous.

It makes them very nervous, because information is not longer filtered by the education system, and what the education system loves to do, control the information pipeline.

I dare say, it peeves parents when they learn new information from other sources, and where the information should have been given in the first place by the school.

Parents are becoming more informed, no matter where one is on the social/economic ladder. When parents do get inform, school choice is seen as a solution, not only to their personal situation, but is seen as a way to limit discriminatory practices, and to created a more equitable education system.

I will make the assumptions I want thank you Chuck. I have actually visited these schools. I have toured the worst schools of Boston and NYC. I have met with the parent leaders as well as the staffs. I happen to know what I am talking about. You say you don’t agree with privatization but you promote privatizers like Fuller every day. The NAACP doesn’t want vouchers or charters they want the public schools well financed and fixed.

Education is like a kitten with a ball of wool. You throw a new one and they lose interest in the last one pretty quick. Haven’t you noticed Chester Finn has now moved on from the failures of testing and charters neither of which budge the needle even a little bit.

The new issues are national standards and teacher bashing. That will take us about a year or so before those blow over. One of these days the Yanks are going to realize they need to fund ghetto schools. They have the lowest paid teachers, the most unqualified and uncertified, the disaster budgets, crumbling buildings while the suburbs get $ 12000/kid the inner city often gets $5000. Really fair.

Where are you getting your figures Doug, From what I can see, a bit outdated. Here is a report called New York City Improvement, Before and after Mayoral Control.
http://tinyurl.com/yeaf2hw

Also using funding per student numbers, depends on a host of other factors, that really are the funding costs needed to support the student, but necessarily to fund direct education needs of the students. Such factors of teachers’ salaries, bus transportation, taxes imposed, property taxes, maintaining buildings, capital costs, and so on.

What I and a great many parents would like to know, how much of it goes directly to the student and his learning needs?  Good question, that no one wants to answer or provide the data for it. It would be interesting, if the numbers as I suspect have remained steady over the last 15 years or so, with no actual increases, and ergo, direct education needs are receiving less of the funding pie, to finance the other parts of the education arms.

Read carefully Nancy, most improvement took place BEFORE mayoral control. It is very unpopular in NYC.

Nancy just an FYI, never make more than one question or point in the same post. If you do you can bet Doug will skirt around the important one.

I agree with many of the points Dr. Fuller makes.
TEACH the parents to be a partner in their children’s education, what a concept.

Yes Mark, Dr. Harold Fuller has a sense of humor. I laugh out loud, on his comments on ‘crazy mothers’. I just love it these days, when I walk in the school with a mission, I get the same image, where the school wished that they could lock and chain the door, to prevent me from talking to them. I have been told, or LD parents (mostly Americans) have told me, when that starts to happen, you have their respect, and they are a little bit afraid of you at the same time.
Yes, a wonderful concept teach the parents to be a partner in their children’s education. The public education system here in Canada, do a very poor job on that one, and where I live, for the most part the meaning is to become ‘yes’ parents, agreeing to everything the school asks of them, without question.

Everybody agrees with that Mark. The original motherhood statement.

And yet we hire people with BA’s MA’s and PhD’s and they can’t seem to grasp this simple concept.

Have you ever heard of the term “Self-fulfilling prophecy”
Poverty is an excuse, not a reason.

You are free to believe this nonsense Mark. Even the right wing Toronto Sun is changing its mind. Poverty is not just a reason for lack of success in school, it is the single most overwhelming reason. You need to explain, if poverty is not the reason, why all the data and all the experts are wrong and you are right.

Did it ever cross your mind that the main decision makers involved in education have rejected the favourite techniques after a very careful examination.

And who are the decision makers Doug?  The state, and it is the public education system + the state, that would rather keep the status-quo, if for any other reason, but keeping a certain percentage of each generation, blind, deaf and mute, who only hear, see, and respond to the state.

The state that knows all, especially the needs of the poor.

I am going to contact a woman, who has always been low-income, and just lives down the road from me.

I would not be surprise to see what her reaction would be, but I wagered you would be very surprise of her bitterness toward the public education system, and attitudes like yourself and many within the education system holds to this very day. Contempt for the poor, disrespect for the poor, and above all, making decisions for their children, because you do not think they do not have the intelligence or the skills or the abilities to decide what is best for their children. The public education system, wants to do the thinking, and decision making for the needs of the poor.

I have seen it in my case, apparently stay-at-home moms who are not working, and have an education, are also targeted too, often being treated with the same type of disrespect, and contempt, as the poor is subjected to.

Our terrible system that is rated #2 in the world by the OECD a business oriented think tank, also notes that Canada has the second smallest gap in the entire world between the rich and the poor. Should we stop there? Of course not. My whole site is dedicated to making us number 1 and by a wide margin.

The only reason why the public education system is getting away with it, and claiming number 2, is the Ontario Education system, controls what is seen, and what is not, just like other provincial system, and for that matter federal governments.

As for OECD, calling that a think tank, is like calling the department of education, a think tank. I think not.
“Our mission

OE CD brings together the governments of countries committed to democracy and the market economy from around the world to:   

Support sustainable economic growth
Boost employment
Raise living standards
Maintain financial stability
Assist other countries’ economic development
Contribute to growth in world trade
The Organisation provides a setting where governments compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies.”

http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_36734052_36734103_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

Now let’s see what a everyday think tank does.

“Who We Are

Demonstrating the benefits of sound economics
We are an independent international research and educational organization with offices in Canada and the United States and active research ties with similar independent organizations in more than 70 countries around the world.

Our Philosophy
Throughout our exploration of issues that affect citizens, we attempt to discuss complex economic subjects in a manner that can be easily understood by everyone.

Ideas that Improve People’s Quality of Life
In raising the level of understanding about the effects of economics and public policy, the Institute’s ideas contribute directly to improving the quality of life for people of all ages and income levels. People should have choices as opposed to government telling them what to do.

What is Public Policy?
Public policy includes debate, recommendations, laws, and regulations relating to any course of action that may be undertaken by a level of government, and that affects the public.

Analyzing the Consequences
Our researchers analyze the likely consequences of public policies and ask: based on the results of research, what should the public policy be? Is there a more effective solution to the issues and problems people face other than looking to government as the answer?

Support Greater Choice and Personal Responsibility
The Fraser Institute is a registered non-profit organization. We depend entirely on donations from people who understand the importance of impartial research and who support greater choice, less government intervention, and more personal responsibility.”
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/aboutus/whoweare/

I used the Fraser Institute on purpose.

By the looks of it, the OECD is another arm of the global corporations, and at least think tanks are independent research bodies, who are trying to provide educational materials for the general public.

I am certainly wondering, if you are not ‘in the closet’  capitalist, who has marching orders to con as many people possible, that like a capitalist, that you are only looking out for our best interests. Most of your arguments, are the same way as a free market, with no government controls over the free market, but government will regulated the people, according to the dictates of the corporations.

Nancy, Who do think is behind charters and vouchers (big corporations) who is behind testing (big corporations) who is behind merit pay (big corporations) don’t be so naive.

1. There is a difference between charters started by a group of like-minded individuals in a community and a charter with corporate funding. A big distinction.
2. Merit pay is being pushed by all types, and not just the big corporations, Even I would like to see some type of accountability in the public schools, where there is no accountability of not supplying the needs of the child, but more so, the blatant disregard of ignoring learning struggles, unless they are pushed back, by means of threatening to sue.
3. If you check corporations that deal with education products, their biggest clients are the public education systems. They are their bread and butter clients.
Either way, corporations and public education system have common interests, to protect the status quo.

As I said google “Education fraud and charter schools” page after page but the big trend is the corporate charter. Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons (Walmart) Green Dot, KIPP all going corporate.

I think there is a big difference between corporations selling desks and paper to school boards and corporate controlled schools.

You given me a good laugh for the day, when you really think the corporations are selling desks and paper to the school boards. Only the big guys are there, and a little guy down the road from the local school board office, will be lucky to have one of them come in their store, and buy a couple of reams of paper. Than again, the little guy does not miss their business, because it is more hassle than what it is worth, and even a demand for a discount is the final rub. Believe the small guys are out, and the big guys are in, sitting at government tables, discussing education policy from A to Z, and supplies for schools have long been centralized in the department of education.

In some places, they are not even allow to buy food from the local grocery store to supply their cafeteria. Even here, it is central office that decides what is good for the kids, and not the local school.
Doug, check out the next gala bash that the education ministry is holding. Find out who is really attending, and there is more corporate there, than anyone else.

Doug there is some benefit in living in smaller provinces, compare to big urban centres. We see more because of being small, compare to Ontario. It is easier to hide it, since most people don’t care what the education minister is doing, and what dinner bashes she or he is arranging. In the smaller provinces, or the ones that do not have a large population, there is not a whole lot to do besides reading all of the newspaper, looking at the pictures, and most know who are the movers and shakers of the province. Another plus, is that we read more, and have a deeper understanding of the system, a system that is and always should be watch, because it is in our best interests to do so.

Charter schools is a option,and a viable option. The fraud you speak about, are corporations committing fraud, with the education authorities of the state, looking on with their eyes wide open, while the fraud was being committed. If it was not for parents to complain,  the fraud would have continue unabated. Thank God, for parents. 

The charter schools that are started by the local community and committed teachers, are the ones that are a going concern. Here is Canada, one just has to look at Alberta. And there is many more across United States, that are doing well, for a lot less money, and parents who have children attending are quite happy.

Charters do nothing but move the problem around. They don’t move education forward. They don’t close the achievement gap, they don’t contribute anything really. Diane Ravitch is right about them.