Jack's Newswatch

Canada’s First Nations University (FNU), located in Regina Saskatchewan, will soon be closing its doors because of infighting, financial scandals and mass dismissals, the most recent example being the firing of its Chief Financial Officer, Murray Westerland, in December 2009, just days after he released a damning report.

So, while it may have been necessary for the Conservative governments in Saskatchewan and Ottawa to pull the public funding plug on FNU from an accountability point of view, as a former university teacher myself, I also want to point out the human costs in terms of damaged futures, blighted careers and the destruction of institutional and cultural memory.

Continued at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Ontario Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty seems to have no shame when it comes to hypocritical policies regarding child care — particularly when there is now evidence that it is giving with one hand while taking away with the other.

For full details, read this Toronto Star column by Laurie Monsebraaten, as well as what I have written before on the new and very expensive full day JK/SK program – also called the Early Learning Program (ELP).

More at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Today at Jack’s Newswatch, I noticed an interesting headline of a column in the Ottawa Citizen by Joanne Laucius. In the article, Laucius was reporting a struggle going on within Ottawa’s public school system between parents and board trustees and administrators — to keep alternative schools, well, as alternatives.

Read the entire article and it will become very clear what alternative schools are really all about. Yes, they may include schools that are more “crunchy granola” as Laucius says or aimed at a particular cultural group. But, they are also much more than that. They are about parent choice — namely, increasing parental and community involvement — and the Ottawa board axes that type of initiative at their peril. I mean, the Lady Evelyn Alternative School has been going on successfully for 27 years!

Continued at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 3% [?]

What would you say if I suggested that parents place their children in a full day child care program that was going to cost them $42,857.00 a year? Based on 50 weeks a year and 5 days a week, that works out to around $172.00 a day or $25.00 an hour. Very expensive childcare indeed! 

Well, according to the National Post’s Kenyon Wallace (h/t Jack),  the recently announced Ontario full-day junior and senior kindergarten is going to cost just that — plus much more because I am not including any capital costs. And, of course, all paid for by Ontario taxpayers.

Which means, without a doubt, a good idea ill-conceived, ill-timed and badly implemented is going to become a structural deficit that no political party will ever escape. Doubts? Well, here are the facts:

More at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Talk about betraying Ontario students and their parents! During the Christmas holiday period, when most people are busy, the McGuinty government quietly announced that it was dropping the Fall elementary school report card.

Why? In my opinion, it was done for two reasons: (1) to appease the teachers’ unions; and (2) to instill a progressive ideology/belief that all children are equal, that no child should ever “fail” or be judged in relation to other children.

Mind you, Education Minister Kathleen Wynn doesn’t call it capitulation. No, if there are no teachers or other union members protesting at Queen’s Park, she calls it co-operation. And, she doesn’t call the dropping of the Fall report card at the elementary level part of a “no fail“ policy that continues at the high school level. No, she calls  it equity and inclusion – which is not what I call equity — equal opportunity for all — not sameness for all.

Continued at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The CBC reported yesterday that the Vice-Chief with the FSIN (Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations), Delbert Wapass, told a news conference last Friday, that they want a completely separate provincial education system for First Nations’ children and youth in the Province of Saskatchewan “to advance their educational destiny.” (See today’s Canada news here.)

How a separate education system would do that, Mr. Wapass doesn’t say. So, as well-intentioned as that dream might be, I have to ask: Could such separateness actually turn into a nightmare by doing  the complete opposite — by segregating Aboriginal young people even further than they may feel they are now? In other words, would such an education system be the path toward self-actualization or ghettoization and apartheid?

So, let’s look at this situation carefully. While I don’t know the ins and outs of every Canadian province’s and territory’s educational practices and legislation, in Ontario there are four education systems based on religion and language. So there is precedent in this country for a variety of separate such bodies based on societal expectations.

Continued at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 4% [?]

I tend to view myself as a “progressive” conservative, or red Tory, particularly when it comes to education policy and programming. Yet, the differences in worldview between left of centre liberal progressives and centrist progressive conservatives is truly amazing. And, I am talking here about small “l” liberal and small “c” conservative pragmatism, not political party partisanship.

The reality is, however, we are like two ships in the night, sailing alongside one another, but never actually intersecting at any point other than in the importance of the journey itself. For example, during the last couple of days, a debate about the importance of education has been going on at Crux of the Matter between myself and Doug Little, of the “Little Education Report.” Check out this thread, as well as this one (towards the bottom).

Continued at Crux of the Matter.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Mindelle Jacobs wrote a column in Tuesday’s Edmonton Sun that caught my eye. Titled “Selling kids on [post-secondary] education isn’t easy,” it is essentially about young people who are brought up in a home environment where post-secondary education is either not a priority or not possible for financial reasons. 

Referred to as the “access gap,”  the Canadian federal government decided to find out if anything could be done to eliminate or reduce that “gap?”  To do so, the Canadian Millennium Foundation (CMF) teamed up with the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) to conduct a number of pilot projects in both Manitoba and New Brunswick.

Essentially, what they did was provide career and financial planning workshops with students right in their high schools. Interestingly, while the findings of some of the projects are promising, others show little or no change in participation — suggesting that not completing a post-secondary education is about more than access to money. For example, Jacobs explains that:

Continued at Crux-of-the-Matter.

Popularity: 3% [?]

It should be no surprise to anyone that the right kind of homework, for the right reasons and in the right amount, can improve a student’s academic success. Yet, as I wrote yesterday, some parents are trying to stop that practice altogether.

Why? Because it seems that some parents feel that classroom teachers are simply giving out busy work, like worksheets with exercises that apparently have no purpose other than to eat up huge chunks of valuable after-school family time. However, are those exercises what we used to call drills about mastery — say of the times tables, multiplication and division? If so, they serve a very important purpose.

In any event, as a former learning specialist, and knowing how relevant after-school study and review can be, I decided to write an article on the value of homework — not just for those parents who are becoming very frustrated with what they feel is the “busy-work” practice – but for teachers who are expecting non-relevant work to be done as homework.

First, I would ask teachers to consider what their answers to the following questions might be.

• Does the homework you are assigning have anything to do with what you are teaching during school hours?
• If yes, how does it reinforce that teaching?
• If yes, how does it teach students the reading, study strategies and skills they need that are transferable to all their classes and courses?
• If no, what is your rationale for expecting students to do the work?

Then, I would highly recommend teachers survey this Google page on the subject, as well as read this specific article posted at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University website. Written by Hanna Skandera and Richard Sousa, it is titled “Homework Pays Off.”  For example, they write:

“Although the amount of time spent on homework is easily measured, using time as the only barometer for success can be deceptive. An exhaustive analysis of numerous studies regarding homework provided by the School Improvement Research series concluded that homework is most effective when it is:

• Relevant to learning objectives,
• Appropriate to students’ learning ability and maturity,
• Assigned regularly,
• Collected, corrected, and reviewed in class,
• Assigned in reasonable amounts,
• Well explained, and
• Supported by parents.”

In other words, there is a lot of research that indicates homework properly assigned, can improve not only a teacher’s learning objectives, but a student’s general academic performance.

So, teachers, if you don’t want to be told you cannot assign ”any” homework, decide what homework you expect to be done just as carefully as what you write in your regular day and curriculum unit plans — and then explain those purposes to the children and their parents. Because, you owe it to your students and their parents to get it right.

The crux of the matter is, therefore, that homework CAN improve academic achievement — something I hope parents will think about very carefully before they demand that the practice stop. Because, the purpose of children and youth going to school is, is it not, to learn?

C/P Crux-of-the-Matter.

Popularity: 4% [?]

There seems to be a battle brewing on the homework front, possibly due to a misunderstanding by those on both sides of this debate. Here, here, here and here, for example, are some links to articles about parents fighting back — particularly Tom and Shelli Milley who just signed a “no homework” pact with the Calgary Catholic School District.

Yet, lost in this whole argument seems to be a misunderstanding of what “learning” is all about and what internal/cognitive strategies children and youth need to acquire skills and knowledge — technically referred to as assimilating and accommodating new learning.

So, for me, as a former learning specialist, the key point I want to make here is to explain that all students (no matter what their age) need time to learn “how to learn” strategies that many of us take for granted – like repeated readings, repetition and verbal rehearsal. And, small amounts of homework — depending on a child’s age – could accommodate that requirement.

Now, for those who are asking themselves why teachers can’t simply do all this during school hours, the answer is that it is no longer possible to do so (if it ever was). I mean, schools used to be about language arts, math, phys ed, social studies and science.

Now, however, teachers must also teach about dental hygiene, keyboarding, navigating the Internet, sex education, equity and inclusive education, world religions, and no doubt subject areas I don’t even know about.  Yet, there are still only so many hours in a school day!

So, the crux of the matter is that homework can be and, in fact, should be a very important tool for “assimilating” what is learned at school. What it shouldn’t be, however, is an either/or battle between family life and school. Because, some targeted homework can serve a very important purpose.  

Something both parents and teachers should think about because the consequences later in life could be profound. In other words, do I disagree with the Milley’s contract? You bet I do and for very important reasons.

C/P at Crux of the Matter. H/T Skinny Dipper and Jack.

Popularity: 3% [?]