Thanks Doretta,

I wondered why Dean Little was suddenly spouting off about poor teachers earning so little - geez, at $93000/year, I feel hard done by.

Little does Dean Little know, that teachers are among the best paid professionals.  Check out Stats Can, if you don’t believe me:

IT Manager - average salary: $70,000 - they would be responsible for dozens of programmers and millions of dollars of budget.  No permanent contract though.

Real Estate Broker - average salary: $50,000.  They now have their own professional college al la COT.  Similar Schooling? You don’t need a university degree, but the continuing Ed is a killer.  They have MORE than a teacher:  they are required to complete 24 credit hours every 2 years.  Teachers? None.

Mr. Little wants to be compared to lawyers and dentists, doctors?  He forgets, that they have to pay for offices, secretarial help and so on - teachers kinda have that taken care of.  He also forgets the high price they must pay for malpractice insurance ...

... that reminds me, hope he has some of that himself.  Any of those Chinese students feel cheated, they can go after more than just their tuition.

I hear you Wayne.

I am very familiar with the lot of those other professionals you describe.  I’m married to one (hint: he’s not in the healthcare or law field). I’m not complaining—never have.  I do know what it is like live through severe economic downturns, uncertainty, and upheaval. I’ve lived through three severe recessions in my adult married life. It is never easy and always extremely stressful—often devastating. 

When the first one hit Alberta in the early ‘80s and my husband & I were forced to return to Ontario, a friend who worked in teaching practially bragged “WHAT recession? I never noticed.”  I thought just wait.  Rae Days in the 90s was my friend’s chickens coming home to roost.

What I have seen, is that in a downturn economic cycle, the effect on public sector takes a little while to play catch-up, but catch up it does.  And it’s catch-up time again.

This time the economic downturn has been so severe, it becomes culture-changing. We have already seen the long decline of private sector union participation and their influence. That is why I think it is interesting that several pundits point to the make or break state of public sector unions.

Doretta,

The next 18 months will easily prove the point - one way or another.

The union will obviously want McGuinty back in in 2011.  Our current contract will run out in 2012.  I understand that the union will be looking for yet another 4 year deal (to take us to 2016) at 3%/year again.

Considering that this contract will run out leaving top end teachers at $93,000, compounding 3% for four more years would mean that top end teachers will be making $104,672.  Since it only takes 10 years to get to top end, and we have an aging teaching force, about 80% are at top end.  What will the public think when the Sunshine list grows by about 80,000 people?

That wouldn’t be the end of the inflation, however.  Currently VP’s and principals make between $101,000 and $110,000.  Obviously their salaries would have to go up. Otherwise, why would someone leave the classroom to go into administration with no union to protect them and earn less money?  Also, the senior administration at the Board office making between $130,000 and $180,000 would have to have their salaries - they’re doing such a good job, they deserve it. *cough*

Wayne, if these figures are typical, and after 10 years of teaching most people can make 93,000 then the compensation of teachers, is quite a bit higher than for other professionals with 10 years experience.

Bank branch managers for example, usually make10,000 to 20,000 less and they are responsible for the staff and for the client experience and work 12 month a year.

Seriously, if on top of everything else we are paying that kind of money, the system even more out of whack than I thought.

Europe,

Although I am not familiar with every contract in every board, what I have heard is that the range of variability in contracts is very small.  There is about a $2,000 to $3,000/year difference between the lowest paying contract and the highest.  Where contracts vary more widely now are other teaching and salary conditions:  number of students, number of supervisions, number of on-calls, board contributions to health plans and so on.

It’s not just the salaries, but the benefits and retirement payouts that also add to the compounded costs.

Readers should take a peak at our updated Sunshine Ontario site http://www.sunshineonschools.ca
to see exactly how much school boards’ budgets are devoted to these expenses and future benefits payable.  No wonder the roof caved in!

terrific post!
You’re right on the money Doretta. Looking at what amounts to a Christmas Wishlist from ETFO it sure becomes clear that that union, if not all are suffering from a clear case of disconnect from the real world.

In the private sector that I work in we’re losing workers every month - another 10 gone last month, finding efficiencies and trimming the fat is what the company’s owners expect. No such thing as job security, or bonuses.

I do believe with the election of Ford and the election of Hudak for Premier in Ontario (which WILL happen), that we’re approaching the tipping point in Ontario and the governing McGuinty Liberals are going to do everything in their power to divert our attention from how they’ve squandered our tax dollars.

Wayne - how many pairs of shoes does your contract allow you to buy in a year?

Chuck,

Our contract is shoeless.

These are terrible wages but American wages are significantly worse in many areas, (Rochester teachers make more than Ontario, so do some others) but people on the right keep going on that teachers are not good enough but don’t want to pay more.

The best countries realize they must pay FAR more for education. Even American CEOs are now saying teacher wages are pathetic.

I said on Educhahtter that teachers should be making $150 000 at the top of the grid, maybe
$90 000 to start but it must be much harder to become a teacher. I suggest 2 masters degrees and 2 years in teachers’ college.

China now pays the highest % of GDP in the world towards education. Are they stupid or are we stupid? Emerging nations like Korea and Singapore are radially increasing their education budgets. I believe an extra $5 billion would help the
Ontario education budget.

People have got to get it through their heads that education spending does not belong on the liabilities side of the ledger, it belongs on the assetts side. It is exactly like spending on R&D. Most American experts say the USA is in a hole beause the government does not spnd enough on R&D. Education spending is mass R&D spending. The more you spend, the higher is the standard of living, the fairer the society is and the happier the society is.

Education dollars are returned to the economy at a minimum 4:1 ratio, many say more. Conclusion? Education spending is better than free, better than investing in blue chip stocks.

All of our competition realizes that mass education spending IS the answer including much higher teacher wages. Some people are slow to get this.

I’m pretty sure that Doug is still wearing his dual personality Halloween costume and tricking us here with the usual.

Wayne “Our contract is shoeless.”  I asked because my sister-in-law told us that she gets 3 “good quality” shoes each year “thanks to her contract”, so that whole cosmetic surgery thing might not be such a stretch.

Oh, there’s Doug being temperamental again.

Now he wants you to believe the public is in favour of adding $6 Billion to the education budget ($60,000 difference in average salary x 100,000 teachers).  Unfortunately, he forgets that only 6% of the Ontario public is in favour spending more money on education if it means increasing taxes (OISE study).  Although he’s been told this many times, he doesn’t get it.  Talk about being slow - glacially slow.

You do know about Doug being temperamental don’t you - he’s about 30% temper and 70% mental. 

We really have 2 choices.

1) Spend radically more on education from age 3-grad school.

2) Start falling behind the nations that do spend increasingly more on education. It remains the single solitary way to improve the ecomomy and our standard of living.

Up to you, no other choices.

What is wrong with orthopedic shoes in a contract as compared to semi-private hospital coverage? You need to think of these benefits as deferred wages. Wages would have been just that much higher if benefits had not been included.

Time for the $150 000 teacher.

You better read the survey again Wayne. 67% want an increase in education spending and 60% (you forgot one 0) would be willing to pay more in taxes to achieve more education spending.

Seems like you always find yourself on the wrong side of public opinion.

Thanks Doug,

I did misread that and left out one zero.  However, I also read the actual table that data was based upon.  For those who responded to the question about an increase in education spending:  26% said that they would like to see an increase in line with other government spending; 38% said a slight increase, while only 29% said increase spending greatly.  Your $6 Billion goes beyond greatly - but that’s a fine point you fail to understand..

Good to see you have publicly placed yourself square in the camp of less than one third of the Ontario population.  There is one other group that has consistently scored in the 25-35% bracket for 16 years in this same survey - those that advocate funding for private schools.  Looks like you have more in common with the people here than you thought.

The rumblings have been happening for a long time.
Tax dollars are scarce, throughout the world. Even in the pretend democracy of China, that Doug likes to cite, without the depressing stats that China shares with other countries.  Dropped-out rates, poor school buildings, resource-poor, are just a few of the outcomes, where the education expenditures are concentrated at the top and aimed mainly at their top students.

I have been reading a lot on the economics of education. Various viewpoints are abundant and the solutions, but they do share one common aspect. And that aspect is that education expenditures is directed at things, that has little impact on the economic scale. As it stands now in this one article, “The biggest error governments are making is to blindly push for more and better everything at all levels of education: more teachers, flashier facilities, more technology in the classroom, and more elite universities. Saudi Arabia, for example, is currently spending $13 billion on a single graduate school. All such efforts may seem sensible, but studies by academics at Munich’s IFO Institute and Stanford, among other places, show that simply spending more on education doesn’t yield better results. Kids don’t necessarily learn more if they sit in smaller classrooms, in more modern and better-equipped schools, or even if their teachers are better-paid (as opposed to just better). According to Ludger Woessmann of the IFO Institute, merely raising per-student spending has zero effect on achievement. The United States, France, and Germany have upped spending significantly in past decades only to see performance stagnate, while countries like Sweden and Finland have boosted quality through structural reform.”
http://www.newsweek.com/2009/08/01/dumb-money.html#

Like the Ontario Elementary Teachers’ Federation and their agenda for 2011.  A wish list designed to maximized the number of teachers, support staff without making any changes to the structure of the education system. For example, one wish is: “To support teachers to successfully integrate special needs students into regular classrooms, it is important to provide additional professional support. There must be greater access at the school level to educational assistants, counsellors, and child and youth workers.”

Where is the educational component for SE children?  Reforms of teachers’ unions, are quick to provide reforms, that are addressing the social aspect of students, but never the educational component, in reading, writing and numeracy. Likewise the document, is advocating for more teachers and support staff in areas of art, music, technology skills, and libraries. Take for example, the librarian suggestion: “The provincial government allocates $100 million to support the administration of EQAO tests and a vast number of data-driven
literacy and numeracy initiatives at the board
and school level. The government would
get greater return on its investments if it
shifted its allocation of resources away from
these initiatives and increased support for
teacher-librarians.”  What is questionable, is stating that having teacher-librarians would get a greater return, than the EQAO investments being made?  Where is the stats to back that up, or is because the librarian is a teacher, and therefore is qualified to teach literacy skills to students? 

Economists across the world, including the OECD are questioning the investments being made in education and how the monies are being invested. As Doretta has describe: “This time the economic downturn has been so severe, it becomes culture-changing. We have already seen the long decline of private sector union participation and their influence. That is why I think it is interesting that several pundits point to the make or break state of public sector unions.”  I too believe that where we are in the present economic state,  becomes culture-changing.  Where unions whether public or private, are going to take a beating. People without the benefit of unions, are not buying the line anymore that unions help to keep the wages up in sectors without unions. Yet, when minimum wage increases, there is demands from the unions to increase union salaries, to maintained the wage gap.

http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/core.cfm?p=literacyRead.cfm
<http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/core.cfm?p=literacyRead.cfm&navID=literacyRe
ad&L=1> &navID=literacyRead&L=1

This is more responsible for the destruction of children`s lives than unions-and money will not fix it-if Doug Dean had a billion dollars tomorrow he and the gang would still be doing same old-

There is a half a billion dollar longitudinal study that says how kids learn to read so we can get 95% success-the mind of the teacher is to be creative and develop their own instruction(their training)-as recommended here by the Literacy Secretariat.
How can we fault them.
Progressivism-let them figure it out-
A circuitous very discouraging battle-with egos running the show.
Medicine and health have their flaws but nothing like this!

From a teacher on the Huffington Post-
It`s the same here everyone!

“We hold students to high expectations. We know that challenging them is crucial to building skills and helping them become critical thinkers. We study Bloom’s Taxonomy to understand levels of thought and creativity among our students, noting the importance of guiding them to high-level thinking. Why then are we satisfied with providing teachers a superficial overview of pedagogy? Instead of frameworks for how to reason and make conscious decisions about a teacher’s role in society, accreditation program curricula tend to function in the basic rungs of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I do not mean to say that teachers are not capable of profound study. They certainly are, and they should be treated like the highly competent, brilliant people that they are. I dare say, more challenging courses might be a helpful tool in coaching some out of the profession. If programs better fused intellectual, socio-political aspects of education with enhanced practical application in a clinical practice (student-teaching or residency) setting, we would be one step closer to a more highly qualified, socially conscious teacher pool.

There are some excellent schools of education. I took some powerful courses in the education department during my undergraduate career. Nonetheless, I find it shocking how poorly crafted and minimally academic many education programs are. I am surprised that there has not been a backlash within accreditation programs among teachers who want more rigor and stimulation.”

Amen

I challenge current thinking-it`s not the Unions-it`s this-the messes are made K-3

My apologies-before I left I wanted to remind us of this-

“Our knowledge of what works in teaching reading has come to us through
science. This new information can be put to use to provide a sensible and
successful approach to teaching children to read ? children without any
reading difficulties, children who are at risk for reading problems, and
children who are already known to be dyslexic.
There is now an evidence-based guide to teaching children to read
enti-tled Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching
Chil-dren to Read. Single copies of this booklet can be obtained free of
charge by visiting http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org/publications/researchread.htm or e-mailing
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).”

Quote-Dr.Sally Shaywitz

That is how it works Nancy, unions fight for high EI high welfare, high pensions for everyone and naturally union wages willbe stacked on top of this.

Unions are the spine of our democracy as was seen with Lech Walensa and Solidarnosc in Poland. A union brought down that totaliterian regime.

You can see unions fighting for the people in the streets of French cities today against the cruel rapacious greedy forces of capitalism.

Yes North American public sector unions fight for more for their members—they have to justify those high dues somehow.  However, private school Dean said:  “All of our competition realizes that mass education spending IS the answer including much higher teacher wages. Some people are slow to get this.”

The only person who is slow to get it—and IT is this—- there is limited money. . For every dollar that has to go to paying Peter another dollar has to come from Paul.

Tax money is not unlimited either.
If the economy keeps going the way it seems, soon the only people who can afford to pay taxes will be the public sector.

I agree with Doretta-
I don`t blame the Unions-but the thought you should get more money galls me-

Jo-Anne, I’ve seen your add in the Globe and Mail a few weeks ago.
When checking the links, I noticed that one of your teacher business partners seems to be teaching at a Toronto elementary school that has the IB PYP programme.

Would you know what methods of teaching reading are used for the IB PYP programme?

The teacher from TDSB is retired and she purchased a license to operate a reading clinic.

You could easily call her-her business I don`t think I am allowed to discuss on this site.

Ok, thank you.
I was just curious to find out about the IB PYP and MYB curriculum and teaching methods, not about a particular teacher or reading business.

Anyway, ... doesn’t matter for me anymore, my boy is older already.
It wouldn’t probably have mattered anyway since you can only register to these IB PYP and MYB schools if your are in the cachement area. The real estate is out of reach.

Yep. Doretta’s got it right.
Further as the demographic in Ontario ages the priority for their tax dollars will change too and I can bet that “education” will rank lower and lower on that priority scale as the pre-retirement and retirement boomers start asking for something in return from school boards and educators for their tax dollars.
Doug/Dean’s double standard is at play once again.

What people fail o alize is that massive increases in education spending are acomplished without increasing taxes, the deficit, the debt or by taking away from other programs. They are not just free they are better than free, spending on education actually generates revenue through increased productivinty and lower social costs. Therefore, the more you spend the more you have left. Education must not be seen as an expenditure but as a strategic investment.

Any nation that has billions for new jet fighters, helecoptes new prisons and soldiers in Afganistan has billions more to spend on education where society actually makes progress and nobody gets killed.

Never mind that Ontairo’s running a 25B deficit, (just for this year!), and no government in their right mind is going to raise taxes to pay for the unionized public sector demands for higher wages, fewer hours, and even heftier benefits—especially when people are leaving Ontario to find work, and many of those staying behind are experiencing wage freezes or pension and wage/salary cuts.  Will these greedy unions co-operate?  Absolutely not.  They’ll behave the same way we’ve seen the Greek and French public sector employees behave in recent months, which will only make matters worse for them.
What’s going to be really interesting to listen to is the LIberal and NDP platforms for the up-coming election. 
Whilst on this tangent, I got a call from the NDP asking for $$.  The woman who called had a very thick accent.  It galls me that this union-loving corrupt party beguiles the immigrants—wait till they see their beloved party in action—like the NDP supporting TTC fare hikes to keep the union happy which is to burdensome for the poor in Toronto.  Our family, used to support the NDP, but that was a looong time ago…

I have tried in vain Bev to get you to understand that it does not cost any money at all to increase education expenditures because the money + 4X the original amount is recoverd in increased productivity and lower social costs.

Let me use the standard analogy. Does it cost money to insulate your house to the maximum R value? Yes it does but not much. Then why do people do it since it costs money? They do it because they understand that their initial investment will be quickly recovered and aftr that point they ill make significant savings on their heating bill.

Education spending works the same way. The savings involved are many X the initial cost. Therefore the more we spend on education, the richer we will all be as our productivity rises and our social cost go down. No need to add to the deficit.

All the people hired to fix the schools, teach in the schools, clean the schools also stimulate the economy. They spend money in local businesses and every last person in the community benefits.

Doug,

You have failed to make anyone understand your math because you don’t understand it yourself.  Your equation: “money + 4X the original amount”.  The original amount is what makes everyone balk.  Don’t talk nonsense about future return on investment meaning there is no investment.  No government has $6 Billion to invest solely in raising CURRENT teacher wages.  Furthermore, you talk about reducing class sizes at the same time as well as other social programs.  The true tab for your “reforms” could well be twice or three times the 6 billion.  Introducing a $12-18 Billion increase in spending (note, by your own words, this is the original amount) would be political suicide.  Go ahead, push your NDP friends to go for it - they will never be elected in Ontario ever again.

Yes, Doug, you are glacially slow.

I’ve come to learn that facts don’t get in the way of a good spin of the truth Wayne. Has nothing to do with math really…it’s all about common sense and that never goes out of style.

Not to worry about Dean/Doug though he’s got both is public and private ends covered (if you get my drift).

The problem is that nobody pays much attention to the same tired old cliches anymore, Doug, and that’s all you offer anymore.

Why not spend the time more productively;  say enabling comments over at your spot.  I suspect there are lots of folks who’d love to comment on your musings; maybe that’s the problem,...

Thanks Chuck, John L, I get you!

The only thing I would take issue is the use of the term “anymore”.  Tired cliches is all Doug has ever had - here, MendEd, The Retired Educator and several dozen other Blogs he creeps around.

Nobody has ever listened to his claptrap - hence the use of the term glacial.

Well then, Dean.  You have, at least, me convinced! 

Applying your economic savvy, we can cure all ills if only we’d spend a kazillion, bazillion more dollars on public education - it costs nothing!  Oh, and I assume the seas will start to lower and the earth will begin to heal. 

One question though.  Given your understanding of insulation (from reality) and value for money please advise at what point we reach maximum R value in education spending. 

I look forward to receiving that figure.

Doug has been pretty busy reading the latest on economic social values and value-added theories in education. This afternoon, I have read some papers that defied not only common sense, but neglects the aspect of the essence of human nature. I did find one paper on the benefits of early childhood education, that made sense and defines what Doug is trying to say.

“Cost-benefit analysis in early childhood holds that education is both a consumptive good that gives
immediate benefits and an investment good that gives personal and social benefits well into the future.9 From an economic perspective, cost-benefit analysis entails estimating the monetary values of streams of costs and benefits in order to measure the programme?s net value as a social investment. There are two core components of a cost-benefit analysis: a detailed estimate of all programme costs (regardless of the source of the financing) and the identification of multiple programme benefits or effects. Benefits or effects must be assigned a monetary value. Cost benefit requires the use of a control or comparison group
who serve as estimates of the cost of the programme without the intervention and a participant group from whom estimates are derived for the intervention.10 Constant dollars are calculated by analysing streams of costs and benefits over time. Additional analyses can include discounting costs to the present by using appropriate rates of discount which reflect the opportunity cost of public resources.11.”

http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/crc.37/Bernard_van_Leer_Foundation.pdf

The above link, comes from the Unicef people, and presents reasonable hypotheses, but mainly based on the global aspects. However, the progressive educators especially in North American and Europe have taken the reasonable arguments and theories of the Unicef people, turning social value theory into the mish-mash, feel good, everyone is happy by controlling the human capital as though they are mere hunks of ore, waiting for processing. Some papers ran the theme of ‘Working to Learn’, or other versions like it, where the human capital are trained rather than being educated, starting from birth to end of life, by the state. Some of them read like a communist manifesto, or taken from the pages of Marx.

The detractors have a lot to say about. The costs are one big factor, where 100 billion dollars would be the cost in United States for public education.  The other big factor, is the social values and the underlying assumption that their impacts are long lasting, right to the end of life.  For example, pre-school has social value that decreases learning difficulties, dropped-out rate and increases achievement and graduation rates. But many of the papers goes further by stating it decreases crime, and other high-risked behaviours. The trouble is there is no studies to back it up, except in studies that are divided along class-status and even here it just points in the general direction, because of the many other variables influencing crime and high-risked behaviours.

As Doug has stated, “Education spending works the same way. The savings involved are many X the initial cost. Therefore the more we spend on education, the richer we will all be as our productivity rises and our social cost go down. No need to add to the deficit. “

What he is striving for, is to have the state meet our needs. It is where we worked and do everything for the state, as a collective. A lot of the papers I have read, there origins are from the Chinese educators - the pretend democracy, who locks up their lowest skilled workers in gated communities at night, to prevent them from harassing the growing middle-class society.

No doubt the magnitude of the “return” on education is largely a function of where you’re starting from.  An education system which is wildly underdeveloped/underfunded will have a big return from increased spending, however a system which is already well funded will have far less to show from incremental funding. 

That’s the thing Doug could never get his head around; comparing the Canadian system to others can’t be done without allowing for all sorts of variables above and beyond how much money is spent.

I suspect he’s too busy fixing his site to reflect on the big picture and add to the level of discussion.

OECD believes the same as the Perry study in Yipsilanti Michigan.  re ECE, return is a minimum of 4X investment, therefore ECE program is better than free. Same applies to all education. No nation on Earth has even approached the optimizing point on the curve where increased investment does not return itself many times over. Even Finland.

Insanity = Doing the same thing and hoping for different results.

The fact that our children don’t learn today is due to the “child-centered?”, “progressive?” teaching “methods?” and due to the poor quality of teacher training.

Unless we change the causes: the poor quality teacher training and the teaching methodologies we won’t change the results.

We could change these things today, with no extra money if there is a political will to do so.

Two years of teacher college is more than enough to teach future elementary teachers (grade 1 to 6):
- how to teach reading and writing
- the basic math that they need to understand and how to teach it

Of course we will have to have a good sequential curriculum and solid textbooks for that curriculum so that they can follow good quality tested in the field materials as opposed to rediscovering the wheel every week by themselves.

If we try to do things differently there is a chance we will have different results.

If we keep doing what we have been doing ... we will have the same results no matter how much money we throw at it.

” No nation on Earth has even approached the optimizing point on the curve where increased investment does not return itself many times over. Even Finland.”

According to Dougma, their is no optimizing point, and therefore no point when investment in education by government becomes less efficient, less return, and where more government investment will return negative investment returns.

In a way Doug did answered the insulation question. In his world, the more insulation one has, the better the savings. Of course he completely ignores the science of when one moves pass the optimizing point of insulating a home, and inefficiencies sets in.

That said, there is a paper I have read that would be of interest to all, called The Impact of Government Spending on Economic Growth.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/03/the-impact-of-government-spending-on-economic-growth

Of interest is three sections.

1.  The behavioral subsidy cost. Government spending encourages destructive choices. Many government programs subsidize economically undesirable decisions. welfare programs encourage people to choose leisure over work. Unemployment insurance programs provide an incentive to remain unemployed. Flood insurance programs encourage construction in flood plains. These are all examples of government programs that reduce economic growth and diminish national output because they promote misallocation or underutilization of resources.”

In the case of education expenditures by government, it may encourage leaving the education into the hands of the schools by parents, or large groups or communities leaving the public education system due to dissatisfaction. Either way, the government moves to spend more by enacting laws to prevent the kind of behaviour not in keeping with the government goals.

2. The behavioral penalty cost. Government spending discourages productive choices. Government programs often discourage economically desirable decisions. Saving is important to help provide capital for new investment, yet the incentive to save has been undermined by government programs that subsidize retirement, housing, and education. Why should a person set aside income if government programs finance these big-ticket expenses? Other government spending programs-Medicaid is a good example-generate a negative economic impact because of eligibility rules that encourage individuals to depress their incomes artificially and misallocate their wealth.”

In the case of education, it may very well encouraged parents to spend their money on non-related education items, since the education system provides everything.

3. “The market distortion cost. Government spending distorts resource allocation. Buyers and sellers in competitive markets determine prices in a process that ensures the most efficient allocation of resources, but some government programs interfere with competitive markets. In both health care and education, government subsidies to reduce out-of-pocket expenses have created a “third-party payer” problem. When individuals use other people’s money, they become less concerned about price. This undermines the critical role of competitive markets, causing significant inefficiency in sectors such as health care and education. Government programs also lead to resource misallocation because individuals, organizations, and companies spend time, energy, and money seeking either to obtain special government favors or to minimize their share of the cost of government.”

The third problem is an ongoing problem in the present day education system and in the health system as well.

The link I have provided, is a well-balanced article on government spending.

Europe, Our students have never been more literate in the past than they are today. It has 0 to do with teaching methods.

Did I mention Canadian 15 year olds are #2 in the world behind Finland.
? This is not open for dispute. These are facts. Many of you seen to admire developments in the USA wheere they are #19 not Canada where we are #2. Why do blacks and hispanics pull the whole USA data down. The methods are the same from rich to poor but only the poor do badly. Fifty years of social science research says the poor do badly in school because they are poor. Not because of the methods used.

Your ideological blinkers do not allow you to see that the elimination of real poverty and increased spending on schools to mitigate the problem is the answer. HCZ is doing well primarily because he has funding for health dentistry, glasses, nutrition etc.

Doug it is your ideological blinkers on, where you are treating social science as a real science.

“Another way of putting the problem is that we have no reliable way to measure counterfactuals?that is, to know what would have happened had we not executed some policy?because so many other factors influence the outcome. This seemingly narrow problem is central to our continuing inability to transform social sciences into actual sciences. Unlike physics or biology, the social sciences have not demonstrated the capacity to produce a substantial body of useful, nonobvious, and reliable predictive rules about what they study?that is, human social behavior, including the impact of proposed government programs.”

In education policies, we see social science being applied, where claims are made to parents and their children that the teaching methods in reading instruction do not matter. Well in the real science of cognitive learning via through brain scans, it proves without a doubt that reading instruction does manner.

“Over many decades, social science has groped toward the goal of applying the experimental method to evaluate its theories for social improvement. Recent developments have made this much more practical, and the experimental revolution is finally reaching social science. The most fundamental lesson that emerges from such experimentation to date is that our scientific ignorance of the human condition remains profound. Despite confidently asserted empirical analysis, persuasive rhetoric, and claims to expertise, very few social-program interventions can be shown in controlled experiments to create real improvement in outcomes of interest.”

It is why the public education system, is in such a mess today, where even bona-fide dyslexics are not given the proper reading instruction, because the educrats are still ignorant of the human condition and I might add the real science in reading.

“But what do we know from the social-science experiments that we have already conducted? After reviewing experiments not just in criminology but also in welfare-program design, education, and other fields, I propose that three lessons emerge consistently from them.

First, few programs can be shown to work in properly randomized and replicated trials. Despite complex and impressive-sounding empirical arguments by advocates and analysts, we should be very skeptical of claims for the effectiveness of new, counterintuitive programs and policies, and we should be reluctant to trump the trial-and-error process of social evolution in matters of economics or social policy.”

Our children are the guinea pigs in real time, without anyone inside the education system being held accountable for the many failures of the public education system. As for Doug’s blinkers, he want wants to trump trial and error experimentation on a captive audience, based on dubious assumptions and stats that favours his position.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_social-science.html

You only make yourself look foolish with those arguments Nancy.

One can apply traditional methods or progressive methods or anything in between, the rich poor split is still there, it was worse in the 1950s and it will be there so long as poverty and its coconditions are not mitigated.

What jurisdiction on Earth I mean large jurisdiction not a one off school somewhere, is operating the way you would like Nancy? Anybody?

This is the latest from Nova Scotia, where applying data using scientific methodology, assumptions are made, discounting other factors, personal biases will come into play, where a series of recommendations are made.

“Nova Scotia is cracking down on students who skip school.

Beginning next September, students who miss more than 20 per cent of class time in a course will receive a failing grade.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/atlantic/nova-scotia-to-fail-students-who-skip-too-much-class/article1782632/

On the left side, within the article is the link for the PDF report.  The report and the recommendations, it is doubtful that it will decreased absenteeism.

Further into the report, it summarizes the issues of all parties, including parents.

For Parents: “School safety was a major concern for parents, as were positive relationships between students and teachers. Even more parents than students felt that poor relationships between teachers and students lead to attendance issues. Parents were very supportive of tracking student
attendance and providing clear and consistent rules for absenteeism.”

For Teachers: “The majority of respondents to this survey were teachers; therefore, their perspectives are fairly clearly reflected in the overall summary of responses to the survey questions. There are,
however, a few occasions where the responses from teachers stood out. Unlike students and
parents, teachers did not put the same level of importance on positive relationships between
students and teachers. Like parents, teachers did see the need for clear consequences for absenteeism. Finally, more than any other respondent group, teachers believed that a
database to track student attendance would help to reduce absenteeism.”

As for school administrators, they felt like teachers positive relationships between student and teachers were not important, as parents who felt poor relationships between students and teachers lead to absenteeism.

In the recommendations, parents concerns on poor relationships between students and teachers were not addressed effectively. In my opinion, the concerns were discounted, in favour of looking at it from the teachers and administrators viewpoint, where the recommendations are formed based on modifying the behaviour of students and parents.

As was stated in the last post on the dangers of treating social science as a real science,  the public education system must become aware of the impact of human social behaviour, and how social behaviour can unraveled the education policies, where money is being directed or even wasted, where there is little significant improvements.

In the case of Nova Scotia’s new policy on absenteeism, the report clearly shows parents do not shared the same reasons and values as held and shared with the educators and administrators. The human behaviour will come into play after the recommendations are legislated,  The parents will find ways around the rules, to avoid situations in order to protect their children. In other situations, parents may become more demanding of the school meeting the needs of their children. I can see this one happening especially when parents are homeschooling their children after-school for 2 to 3 hours or paying for a private tutor.  Also a likely scenario that will be played out are the students who already have a high rate of absenteeism, will come to school able and willing to protest by not doing their homework or complete assignments. Will that too become unacceptable behaviour? 

At that point in high school, students who do have high absenteeism, are at the point where the new rules for suspension, and failing of a course, will give them another reason to dropped out at the age of 16. By the end of grade 10, in my child’s class - I fully expect to see at least 10 students dropping out of school as they turned 16. No one really wants to know the reasons of the students who are dropping out, including the underlying causes that led to them dropping out in the first place.

This article appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on the nightmare of all day JK. It is written by a teacher.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Full+classes+kindergarten+nightmare/3761845/story.html

Nancy - pay not attention to the little man behind the two faces of Doug/Dean. I find your posts very much reflective of the realities of education rather than the old rhetoric that the only real thing that’s going to unclog the barriers created by what Doug/Dean is a good dose of laxative.

Great article on all day JK too Doretta. That’s more like the reality of what’s going on than the dream of cocktail socialists to raise another generation dependent on the state for everything….no thanks!

“You only make yourself look foolish with those arguments Nancy.

One can apply traditional methods or progressive methods or anything in between, the rich poor split is still there, it was worse in the 1950s and it will be there so long as poverty and its coconditions are not mitigated.”

Foolish, when providing supportive evidence from the economic experts?  As the article has stated, even economics is not fool proof, or an exact science due to the many other variables at play. I rather be foolish, than making claims that cannot be supported by the science or the experience of other people.

As for wage gaps in the 50s and 60s, the gap was much smaller, and where one could live on minimum wage, still having enough to have a good time on a Saturday night.  The 50s and 60s brought good prosperity for the people, after WWII. Most people could afford to buy a house, eat well, and have enough left over for a vacation for their family. Doug, you should be grateful for the 50s and 60s, that brought change that effectively brought a shift in thinking. Without that change, the life of a teacher or even the GM worker would be a hardship without the social services such as health and education. Ditto for the parents.

Effective public education is a difficult task for governments to undertake, when cultural, values and attitudes are constantly shifting in a free society. Much easier to do in a place like China where their citizens are trained from birth, to behaved and be obedient to the demands and goals of the state.  The political structure is set up and designed to ensure obedience toward the state, or otherwise their is harsh consequences to behaviour that is unacceptable to the state.

Hi All

  It may be time to consider not bothering to get into back and forth debates with Doug, yet again.

I suspect he’s decided to simply attempt to monopolize the discussion, as previously.

Heck, we could even declare this a Doug-free zone until he enables comment over at his site; presumably he’s willing to offer the same service over there he so generously takes advantage of here.

Why wouldn’t a teacher encourage discussion?

Sounds like a sensible idea John L.
Actually, in the same way as the negative ads and media only helped Rob Ford in Toronto, so too does the fare at Doug’s website. Thanks to Doug/Dean that Photo of Hudak just helps Hudak with recognition. The next just reminds visitors of why Ontario needs Hudak. Keep up the great work for the PCs Doug/Dean.

As a concerned retired teacher, citizen, parent and grandmother I would be questioning the implementation of this ill-thought-out program. In conclusion, I would not be placing my child or grandchild in this program as it stands now.”

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Full+classes+kindergarten+nightmare/3761845/story.html#ixzz14Fpuf34d

Another example of implementation without considering all of the variables and knowledge known at the point of implementation. When my youngest attending pre-school, starting at the age of 2 1/2, the classes consisted of no more than 12 children. Each class was divided by birth months. One class consisted of children all born between the months of January to June, and the other class from July to December. The children who were born in the month of May, June, November and December were treated slightly differently in the context of development stages, and the school had developed plans over the years, when situations like cranky children arose, as they do. For badly behaved children, the child was immediately removed from the classroom, to have a chat with the director, and perhaps a phone call to chat with the parent.

I agree with the teacher, and I can understand why the retired teacher would not recommend the all day program as it stands now. I believe we will so here from the parents who have enrolled their children, It should be interesting to hear the negative comments, and all based on a badly flaw design and implementation of the full day kindergarten.

We’re producing students who have little basic knowledge, spend time doing higher order thinking that’s not really higher order thinking, and when all is said and done, these students will not be have either skill set—basic knowledge or higher order thinking. Elementary students should be doing developmentally appropriate work, setting a solid foundation in basic skills, so that they can move on to higher order thinking when they are developmentally ready!

The Unions don`t care about achievement in every teachers`s class-they care about money,