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SQE Newsletter
Vol. 23, No. 1. March 2014.
ISSN-1201-215 |
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Help Us Get our Message Out!
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FROM THE PRESIDENT
All parents should be able to choose their children's schools, and furthermore all parents should be able to access good information to help them make intelligent school choices. Canada is considerably behind the US when it comes to informed school choices, but there are a few school rankings available - as follows.
Alberta, BC, Ontario, Quebec ( Fraser Institute)
Maritime Provinces ( Atlantic Institute for Market Studies)
The theme of this newsletter is school choice. Read on.
Malkin Dare
PS If you believe in school choice and would like to make a donation that will help us spread the word, click here. |
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 A veteran of the school wars herself, with the scars to prove it, Malkin Dare has had lots of experience dealing with education problems. If you want some been-there-done-that advice, give Malkin a call at 519-884-3166 or e-mail her at [email protected].
Question
I am a single mother with a baby and a four-year-old who just moved into a new neighbourhood. As I understand it, our new apartment is located right on the border of the catchment area of my daughter's assigned elementary school, meaning she will have to walk more than a kilometer to school (realistically meaning that I would have to drive my daughter to school every day and pick her up). However, there is another public school only two minutes' walk away but, according to the rules, I apparently can't send my daughter to that school. Is there anything I can do?
Signed, Busier than a one-armed paperhanger
Answer
Dear BTAO-AP, There is likely not much you can do, as there are probably lots of factors beyond your control - perhaps the nearby school is bulging at the seams, perhaps some of your neighbours have already tried to get their kids into that school, perhaps your school board is very rigid about out-of-boundary transfers, and so forth. If I were you, I would start by talking to some of your neighbours and find out what the deal is. They may know of a helpful (and powerful) trustee or some other kind of loophole, you never know.
As a last resort, you could always consider throwing yourself on the principal's mercy. After all, you do have a very good case on compassionate grounds. And you might get lucky - it's always possible that the school would welcome the additional of a kindergarten student because it would solve some numbers problem (for example, one more kindergarten student would allow the school to avoid a split grade). And if you meet with the principal, be sure to take your daughter along so the principal can see for himself how charming and well-behaved she is. it also wouldn't hurt to mention that you have a background in fund-raising (just kidding).
And I get the last word, as this is my column. There is no reason why elementary schools have to be huge and widely spaced. It would be totally feasible to operate many more small four-room schools located within easy walking distance of most people's homes, allowing the schools to offer a more personal and community-oriented service and making it possible for the children to get some exercise walking back and forth to school.
Regards, Aunt Malkin
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 If you are a parent or a grandparent, you know how much you cherish your young offspring. You want these precious, vulnerable children to have a chance to grow up feeling beloved and safe, with every opportunity to realize their potential and live happy and fulfilled lives Yet many parents are forced to gamble on their children's education, having little or no control over the choice of school where their kids will spend thousands of hours every year and which have a major impact on the children's characters and futures.
In Israel, the Ministry of Education believes that parents, rather than school board officials, should be able to make decisions about children's schooling. Accordingly, Israel is running a pilot project in 25 cities, keeping in mind the possibility of expanding the program to the rest of the country. Parents in these 25 cities can choose from a wide array of schools - public, private, specialized or generalist.
The Israeli Ministry of Education has three main goals for its school choice initiative.
- To raise academic standards
- To decentralize and make it possible for municipalities to be more responsible to their communities
- To integrate diverse populations (for example, native-born Jews with new Ethiopian and Russian immigrants)
In the early stages of the project, about 20% of parents have chosen to move their children to a different school, and the vast majority of parents (95%) are getting their first choice.
It seems highly likely that these children are better off under the new system, since parents who know and love their children are bound to make better choices than remote education officials who have never laid eyes on the children.
Parents want the best for their children, and school officials should be moving heaven and earth to help them accomplish this - as opposed to standing in their way.
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 A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown.
The authors posit that technological developments are driving a new culture of learning - one that "takes place without books, without teachers, and without classrooms". The new culture of learning comprises two elements: "a massive information network that provides almost unlimited access and resources to learn about anything....[and] a bounded and structured environment that allows for unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within those boundaries. To the extent that the authors' claims are correct, there are significant implications regarding the potential of virtual learning to replace traditional schooling. The excerpt (p. 26) tells the story of Allen, a freelance computer hacker.
Allen's skill was developed in two ways: first, by experimenting with various computer language programs and compilers and second, by making mistakes. The second part would prove to be the most instructive but not for the reason one might think. Computer code provides almost endless flexibility in design, naming conventions, and routines - so much so that programmers are expected to document their code in plain language within the program to help others decipher their algorithms. But as anyone who has spent even a small amount of time around computers knows, when you run into a problem, the first thing the computer does is give you an error message. That message provides information that is often very specific to the language, program, or computer, but it is almost always completely incomprehensible and therefore useless. In some cases it can be indecipherable to even the most seasoned computer-programming veterans.
Allan took this failure and turned it into a learning opportunity. As he was learning to write code, he would write his program and run it. When it crashed, as it usually did, he would copy the obscure error code that popped up and paste it into Google. Within seconds, the search engine would present a list of discussions, FAQs, blog posts, and manual pages all citing or referring to that precise error. He learned incredible amounts of information, including the dos and don'ts of using particular aspects of code for different problems...
Ultimately, Allen mastered every computer language he needed to start and run his own business - without ever attending a single class on programming.
 The Triple Package: How three unlikely traits explain the rise and fall of cultural groups in America. Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld.
The authors tackle the puzzling question of why certain groups, for example Asians and Jews, tend to do much better than others - as measured by test scores, income, and occupational status. Their hypothesis is that the successful groups are linked together by three cultural commonalities - a superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control. The authors do not succeed in proving their hypothesis - the book is far too anecdotal and glib for that - but they do start a conversation that doesn't involve IQ about "why some individuals rise from unpromising origins to great heights, when so many others, facing similar obstacles and with seemingly similar capabilities, don't rise at all". The excerpt (from the introduction) explains that the necessary ingredients (which can be summed up by the word "grit") can be instilled by all parents in their children.
This unlikely combination of qualities [the triple package] is part of a potent cultural package that generates drive: a need to prove oneself that makes people systematically sacrifice present gratification in pursuit of future attainment. Groups that instill this kind of drive in their members have a special advantage in America, because contemporary American culture teaches a contrary message - a message of self-acceptance and living in the moment.
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| And Now For Something Completely Different |
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Because it's sometimes quite tricky to get a handle on kids' actual skill level, some free seat-of-the-pants assessments have sprung up. 
Reading Test (the Part 2 passages correspond to grade level)
Spelling Test
Math Test
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