Oh yes there is a big shift, but not the type that is being claimed by the authors. Doug Firby,  Editor-in-Chief and National Affairs columnist for Troy Media writes, “Voters on the left are as anxious for new style of leadership as are voters on the right. As I have written several times before, voters crave any politician who offers good government unencumbered by ideology.

It is an exciting time in the Canadian social fabric because there has indeed been a shift. Towards accountability. And more intelligent political discussions. Politicians of the future who use tired old lines and once-successful voter manipulation strategies will find themselves in the dustbin of history. It is that very fate the federal Liberals are desperately trying to avoid.

This revolution is being fueled by much more than demographics. It is also being fueled by the powerful new Internet tools that have turned once-venerable institutions, from newspapers to the music industry, inside out. As we saw in Egypt, these are tools that can bring governments to their knees.”
http://beaconnews.ca/reddeer/2013/03/internet-tools-real-cause-of-canadian-big-shift/

The public education systems of the provinces are not immune and are undergoing dramatic changes under the cover of darkness. Mr. Firby, believes as I do, its not because Canadians and immigrants have shifted to a conservative mindset. Its the shift and the desire for accountability without the ideological mindsets for the education of children. The internet has given the fuel to spurred the reform changes, that the public education stakeholders continues to opposed at every turn.

Charter schools is one of the reforms out of many to respond to what the public education system is no longer doing - and that is to provide a solid academic foundation for the children to stand on, with the skills and abilities that are crucial in their young adulthood to navigate in their adulthood.

Is it a conservative value to desire accountability in a public education system? Is it a conservative value to want strong curriculum and standardized testing? No. Its a value held by many Canadians and immigrants across the political spectrum.

Who in their right mind, would want, “the fuzzy and feel-good nostrums still embraced by much of the Central Canadian education establishment.”  No people want their children to be educated without the ideologies and private agendas of the education establishment. If it requires charter schools, so be it.

On a side note, I learned yesterday as reported by my 17 year old, how far the provincial public education boards will go to limit the number of students taking online courses in NL high schools. How? By capping the number of computers at 6 computers for each school, which in the end diverts students from online learning to the classroom offering basic and standard curriculum that may not meets the learning needs of the students nor the credit requirements for first year post-secondary.

Yes there is a shift among the Canadian public - its the demand for the public institutes and government to change their ways, their methods that are more in keeping being held to high accountability to outcomes of their policies and practices.

The EXIT Impulse Is Growing Stronger

All over the world where central governments with their public service unions have a strong, coercive role in public education, there is more clamor for choices.  By both the consumers — parents — and policy makers.

In 1987 I wrote about home education gaining momentum.  I said there were two basic impulses driving this:  The Exit motive, and the Entry motive.  The Entry impulse was parents feeling they were doing the right thing on behalf of the best interests of their children.

This is how I described the EXIT impulse:

” . . . exit impulse, whereby parents are driven to escape the traditional, institutionalized, formal systems — state or independent.

Parents are increasingly getting fed-up with the politics, the hidden agendas, the lack of responsiveness, the vague standards.

Their concerns over discipline, abuse, incompetence, malpractice, strikes, and other disruptions are largely ignored. Since parents are not structured into the decision-making of their schools, no-one really listens to them on either quality or content questions.

Some families actually feel diminished and some say they have been made to feel inadequate as parents after some school meetings.

Thus, to preserve family integrity and pursue their children’s best interests in the acquisition of education skills and knowledge, parents opt for the home education route.”

“All over the world where central governments with their public service unions have a strong, coercive role in public education, there is more clamor for choices.  By both the consumers — parents — and policy makers.”

How apt and timely Tunya. Today, marks the day in Newfoundland and Labrador where centralization is taken to its zenith in the K to 12 public education system. In today’s budget it was announced and where the education minister chose to hide rather than face the questions of the press - “In the wake of declining student enrolment, and recognizing the need to adjust the administrative structures in place to support K-12 education, Budget 2013 makes provision for two provincial school boards in Newfoundland and Labrador as of September 2013 – one English-language board and one French-language board.

Since school board administration was last consolidated in 2004, enrolment has declined by almost 14,000 students, or 17 per cent. Given that demographic reality, and the need to direct the maximum funding available into classrooms, the Provincial Government has re-examined the school board administrative structure to ensure it fits the educational system it serves.

Four current English-language school boards will see financial and administrative services amalgamated into one district office, located in St. John’s. There will still be a strong regional presence in offices in Gander, Corner Brook, and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Senior executive and managers, and itinerant supports for students and teachers, will be in place, on the ground, in all the former school districts. In addition, many staff now located in satellite offices under the current board structure (Labrador City, Lower Cove, Stephenville, Grand Falls-Windsor, Burin, Clarenville, and Spaniard’s Bay), will be deployed directly into schools.

Further details of the new board structure will be provided in the coming weeks.”
http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2013/edu/0326n13.htm

Even the government chose to hide and duck the questions of one and all, where education is decided by central office - St. Johns using the tried and favourite method of Pravda, Soviet style - one sized fits all, completely standardized to fit the political and economic agendas of the government.

As a parent, I am glad its my youngest child’s last year in the K to 12 education system, because education services beyond the so called inclusive classroom of one-sized-fits-all and standardized to fit the needs of a government looking for the spare cash to pay for their pet Muskrat Falls Hydro project will be the start of the new grand experiment, that has been repeated by many before them - that centralization is not effective for delivering education services to the public.

More so in a province that is vast and diverse in geographic landscape where each community within a region are unique in culture and learning needs for their children. One-sized-fits-all being operated out of St. John’s central just won’t cut it. In fact, the reality is many parents where choice of schools is not even an option, may be just the catalyst for homeschooling, charter schools and a host of other education alternatives that are in more in keeping with the families living in the coastal communities across NL. 

If anything, it would certainly add more fuel to the fire, when parents find out their children have to await for SE services such as language and speech services and reading services on a rotating schedule of the travelling support staff. Oops too bad, it was a snow day, your child will have to wait until the next schedule day on the rotation. Oops too bad, the hearing will go as schedule in St. John’s over your child’s suspension even though the parent lives in Labrador.

Yes, the wind of change is blowing in Canada. However, the NL government must be deaf, mute and blind to the big shift away from centralization of delivering education services to one that preserve family integrity and parents choosing education that best fits the needs of their children. Now that is a conservative value, that more parents processed than all the bureaucrats and politicians who seem to think one-sized-fits-all is good enough for the province, who still want to bossed the parents and decide the education services for one and all, because they know what is best.

A conservative government acting as though they are in the old Soviet Union. And they did this with style by refusing to answer the press about the changes to the K to 12 education system. They chose to hide in good Pravda fashion.

Perhaps Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson is on to something,  of the changing values of their citizens that governments refuses to see and acknowledge.

Charter schools are to free markets as firewalls are to freedom of the press. The outcomes will be the reverse of those intended by the strategic barriers.

Education is built, not bought. Consider the disdain with which counterfeit credentials are regarded.

Literacy grows the top line, and restores fiscal balance. Literacy and school climate improve where parents engage to build students’ education.

View the WHY+HOW of parent grants in Ontario public schools, 2012: ow.ly/icorE
Results repeated in 2013.

I have to laugh whenever I hear someone talking about Canada becoming divorced from traditions of its past, due to moving from left-wing towards centre.  Folks, Canada has been left-wing for only the past 45 years or so, since Trudeau forced his brainless vison on us.  For three centuries prior to that, we were what you might call conservative —in every way.  Traditional social conservatism is what the Canadian past is made of.  The aberrant politics and social destruction of the mid to late 1960s was a strange blip in our history, and if we are lucky, it will soon be but a bad memory.  I can’t get over my fellow Canadians thinking that the past 45 years of unfortunate and contrived left-wing ideology forced on us in the 60s represents what Canada really is.  I have heard that ridiculous statement too often.  Think about it —what were Canadians from, say, the mid 1600s until the late 1960s?  Why force a definition on us from the only the last unfortunate 45 years?