I’ve seen similar “feel good” ads about Ontario’s early learning program.

Trouble is that it’s not going over well with many boards.

Hmmmm let me see. A video led by a woman with the most obvious conflict of interest one can imagine, a direct commercial interest. She opposes a plan 67% want, hmmm she complains that the government can’t run anything, Hmmm America is beeing badly beaten not by countries with huge private sector systems. America is being bypassed by 18 nation that use their, socialist, publicly funded unionized school system to beat the pants off the USA so the American conclusion is there is something inherently wrong with PS systems. Many of these countries have highly advanced public childcare/ECE systems.

Doesn’t sound very smart does it?

Sure, Dean.

About as dumb as touting the excellence of our socialist, publicly funded school system and charging the Chinese $28,000 a head for your private school.  Why not just bring them here to learn in our public schools if they are so superior?

Wayne

  One of the strategies PS Boards are pushing is to actively recruit foreign students to help offset declines in numbers so Doug is actually competing against the very system he keeps preaching the virtues of, although I suspect Doug cherrypicks far more than they would.

Irony, no?

The Early Learning Program in Ontario should never have been mandated for all boards and schools.

I expect as we move on and the costs prove too costly for boards that boards will slowly let this program slide or leave it to those “have” boards who can afford it.

Shoving it down our throats isn’t a vote getter.

I loved the way Stossel countered all the dubious claims made by the advocate; sorta reminds me of how quickly vacuous or inaccurate claims are shot down here.

Doug, the lady who had her own pre-school concern, is right. Right about the quality and the one-sized fits all approach in the public education system. My children all went to pre-school, and there is a big difference when they enter the public education system. In so many ways, a child just becomes another number in the public education system. No longer concern with the little things, and more concern with meeting outcomes, regardless of where the child is and her circumstances.

Basically I believe for the most part in “one size fits all” we can allow a small amout of public sector choice to give a tiny amount of space to people who otherwise never shut up but we will never give public money to private schools.

So the government is going to move into her neighbourhood and offer competition to her at free or subsidized prices. Boo hoo.

If we extend the subway to we need to compensate the auto companies. If we build more libraries do we need to compensate Chapters?

Still 67% favour the policy as he says. Same % as Ontario. Hmmmmm

The one-sized fits all approaches in education, benefit the unions greatly.  One-sized fits all approaches always requires access gates, and is the main cause of inequities within the education system. The inequities are solved by teachers’ unions, of calling for more money being spent on more staff, and often are used as the union’s traction to increase their salaries. Doug likes the one-sized fits all approaches, because it benefits the union in the long run and at the same time, allows the inequities to continued and festered, so the ills of the education system, can be blamed on society as a whole.

Children suffer greatly when teachers are allowed to comingle their interests with those of kids; essentially the welfare of children is used as a bargainning chip.

I suspect it’d be an interesting exercise to go through a Board budget line-by-line and ask how the funds spent actually benefits kids, rather than the happy teachers make happy kids jive we so often here.

I’ve yet to hear how the money spent rewarding teachers for not abusing sick time does anything useful.  In the real world the default is that employees don’t abuse sick time.

This article appeared in the Ottawa Citizen. It is written by a teacher and describes a very un-Utopian version of all-day JK.

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

I guess the 67% who want it must be wrong and the 33 % who don’t want it must be right.

Simple solution. Province helps fund ECE in the boards that pass a majority motion that they want the program. No motion, no money for your board. Watch how fast they all pass the motion.

Doug, it is wrong to based your argument on surveys. It is wrong to based decisions via through surveys.  ECE in Ontario, looks good on paper, just like other education programs and policies. Policies to be successful, depends on the implementation design and the necessary funding to achieved the core goals.

Your solution is a political one, Pitting boards, the education ministry, parents, children and the teachers unions to duke it out. Fighting over funding vs the badly flaw policy of ECL. What is worse, the children pay the price. I wonder if any of the educrats when they were cherry-picking from the Ontario report, thought of having consultations with private pre-schools and the non-profit pre-schools, taking advantage of their expertise, and the many different types of children they have dealt with over the years. The problems and what has been successful over the years.

I suspect the leadership of most of our teacher unions wouldn’t be overly willing to abide by the results of polls done of the citizenry, particularly if it impacted on their membership, so let’s be careful of claiming they’re the be all and end all.

Surveys have their place but they’re not overly conclusive of anything.

As we’ve discussed at length a survey can be tailored to get whatever result the folks sponsoring it desire; hardly rocket science.