POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

You are spitting into the wind Malkin. Early education programs run by the state are a juggernaut backed by extensive research.

This is combined with a serious looming Labour shortage. Government wants the moms to work. Their taxes far more than pay for the program.

Part 1

“All three studies use the Early Development Instrument (EDI) to measure children’s progress…..to measure “school readiness to learn.” It has been used to claim that 25 to 30% of children are “at risk” or “vulnerable.”7 “Vulnerability” is a relative measure defined by scores in the lowest 10th percentile in one or more of the five EDI domains”
http://www.imfcanada.org/issues/full-day-kindergarten-ontario-fine-print

On the EDI web site - “The EDI is a population-level research tool. This means it measures developmental change or trends in populations of children. Although Kindergarten teachers complete an EDI questionnaire for each of their students, the results are not used to evaluate individual children.”  http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/edi/

Bingo - The EDI is used on a regular basis in Canadian kindergarten classes as an individual assessment of children. The 2013 sample - http://www.offordcentre.com/readiness/files/edi_2013_en.pdf

Not a single question if the child has experienced a speech delay, did the child crawl, when did the child walk, and any other developmental milestone delays, that the research in the child studies fields have confirmed without a doubt, the said child will be at high risk for learning difficulties in the basic 3 Rs. I also noted, another question missing in the Language and Cognitive Skills section - Demonstrating special skills in engineering and other related spatial skills.

The reason, why I mentioned spatial skills - it is the one area that is more or less not paid attention by the current early childhood education gurus of the public education system. Nor are the kindergarten teachers trained and have the knowledge, a child with high spatial skills and whiz in taking things apart or putting things together just by looking at a picture, but has weaker skills in some items in the area of language - are kids who are at risk in having early learning difficulties in the 3 Rs, and perhaps signifying a learning disability, that needs immediate intervention.

That said, in the American article - ” In contrast, children served by TN-VPK were more likely to have received school-based special education services than children in the control group (14% to 9% for the full sample – reported results aren’t separated for the intensively studied sub sample)”  There has been long conversations on the parents’ forums, regarding the differences of early childhood education based on the social-income status of parents by the public education system. One set of parents, mostly low-income are upset about their children being classified with a label of LD or ADHD, and its done without ever bothering with a professional diagnoses. The other set of parents are middle to high income groups, where the public educators are telling this set of parents, their children are progressing nicely and any parents concerns are dismissed. By grade 1, begins the foot traffic by the wealthier parents that have the means to go to the private clinics and private tutors for diagnoses and remediation of the difficulties in the 3 Rs. The low income students and others without the means have to made due with the local school.

Part 2

The problem with the EDI assessment, just like most of the early childhood assessments used by the public education system, are not effective. In the article from the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada has stated - “However, the EDI results merely support the consistent finding from other research – that boys, children whose first language is not English or French, and children with birthdays late in the year (ie younger) are all at significantly higher “risk” of being “unready” for school.”  The EDI certainly doesn’t measured what it should measured and that if the child is ready for grade 1.

The final concern, would be one question of the EDI that would caused me great concern and I would be telling the teacher to stuff the assessment where the sun don’t shine. I have no idea why it is in the EDI, but it certainly violates the charter rights of citizens. The question is in Section E - Additional Questions - ” attended other language or religion classes - Specify if known, please print. http://www.offordcentre.com/readiness/files/edi_2013_en.pdf

Is going to Sunday school or a Church youth group during the week, cause for alarm by the public education establishment?  It comes to no surprise that Ontario’s universal full-day kindergarten program has not produced any positive results to justified the 2 billion dollar start-up costs in Ontario. “In conclusion, the Queen’s report highlights no effect for senior kindergarten students. Good results were limited to junior kindergarten students in high need schools – the minority of schools in Ontario.”

Given that, what does that say about the readiness of students entering grade 1, ready to learn to read, write and do numeracy?  It doesn’t bode well for children, when one considers the pedagogy and education philosophies that are aiding and supporting the education theories, and where in 2013 - the theories still cannot identified children at risked for early learning difficulties in the 3 Rs. http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/dmccrary/ECE_460_Files/Module_One.pdf

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Nancy, there are far bigger corporate forces at work than you understand. Business wants state early childhood education now. They get it. ASK and more frees up more female Labour.

So if that is the case Doug, tell me all about the Corporations that are sitting at the government and union tables directing the show of education of what will be and not be. Well you’re at it, tell me why there has been such a struggled over the last 40 years in providing daycare spaces and other inconvenient facts such as the narratives of spin based partial on the truth, but nevertheless are falsehoods to hoodwink the public into believing the employers are asking for more female labour. Don’t forget to include the inconvenient data streams such as the unemployment rate, the number of women in various occupations. If by chance you can’t find it, just check the business pages of any news media or perhaps one of the Globe or Star series on the number of families accessing daycare. Then take a swing over to PEI, and here the cursing of families and the cost of daycare and early childhood education now under the authority of the PEI government and the education ministry.

Then get back to me on the corporate forces demanding daycare spaces for their female labour force, because if you were reading the news this pass week, the business community has indeed been questioning the public education K to 12 system and the quality of the grade 12 graduate. Yes, here in Canada, and not the USA. I have never read an article of employers demanding daycare that is operated by the education ministry. But who knows, perhaps I must have missed it, and caught the many ones of employers not wanting to hire child bearing women and the increase in the number of women being fired because they are pregnant.

That said, this bears repeating again - ““Poor children deserve effective programs, not just programs that are well-intentioned.” To which I might add, disadvantaged children deserve not to be the pawns of ambitious politicians. Furthermore, given the one and a half billion dollar annual cost of Ontario’s program, I would add that taxpayers too deserve not to be the pawns of ambitious politicians.” I would add, women should not be pawns of ambitious politicians, but that is not going to stopped the forces within the public education establishment to continue on with the status-quo at the expense of the children education and by extension, the public.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Fairly recent panic by biz Nancy, witness TFW programs “skills crisis” OMG. Everybody noticed Quebec program freed up hundreds of thousands of women to work and their taxes covered the cost of the childcare. More workers, biz loves it supply and demand.

A 2012 study - on women participation in the labour force in Quebec - http://www.usherbrooke.ca/chaire-fiscalite/fileadmin/sites/chaire-fiscalite/documents/Cahiers-de-recherche/Etude_femmes_ANGLAIS.pdf

Low fee childcare program in Quebec - “March 2011, 215,000 subsidized spaces were available. In non-subsidized (but regulated) daycare facilities, the number of spaces understandably crumbled at the end of the 1990s. However, it has bounced back since, first slowly until 2008 and then more rapidly since 2009. As a
percentage of the total number of available spaces, non-subsidized spaces have jumped from 2% in 2008 to 8% in 2011. This recent increase in non-subsidized daycare stems from the rise of unmet excess demand for subsidized spaces, and also from the increase in the refundable provincial tax credit for daycare expenses in 2009.”

In essence Doug, women labour participation rise to match the Canadian average and the number of women with children working rise just above the national average and Ontario’s average since the introduction of the low-fee childcare program in Quebec. Note also, it was found that there was significant savings for both levels of governments since the introduction of low-fee childcare program in Quebec. That is reducing the number of women with children on welfare to the 20 % mark and initially reducing the number of women claiming the childcare tax deductions. However, the latter number has been increasing since 2009, with women opting for non-subsidized childcare arrangement for various reasons, including no space at the government day cares.  Table 1 and table 2 are of interest.

Considering the Quebec study, is the two billion start-up costs in Ontario worth the expense, using Doug’s argument of increase in the number of women in the work force?  Note that Quebec is not Ontario and Ontario already is starting off with the second highest of women participating in the labour force since the introduction of Ontario’s daycare and early childhood education compared to Quebec who had some of the lowest numbers in Canada and now are beating Ontario by 4 percentage points. 

Doug, you still have not answer my question, who are the corporations sitting at the government and union tables directing public education, what will be or not be in Ontario education and daycare?