RSS Feed

  1. Family Right to Education Choice #1

    February 20, 2014 by Tunya

    For a copy of Parent Rights in the Education of Their Children see:  http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/PARENT_RIGHTS.pdf
     
    The rights compiled here are those that generally apply in most democratic countries. They have been gathered from sources in Canada, United States, England, and Australia. Some of these rights are self-evident, some are inscribed in law. Others are simply standards which parents have grown to expect when good educational practice is followed.
     
    1. THE RIGHT TO CHOICE
     

    “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)

     
    This means, that while parents have a duty to see that their children are educated to a reasonable level of self-sufficiency and citizenship, they can choose how this is to be accomplished: public, private or church schools, tutoring, correspondence courses, home study, or other styles. If a style other than a public school is chosen and the parents are challenged, the onus is generally on the state to demonstrate that the child is not being educated at a level equal to his peers in a public school. The mandate of the public schools is to make available to all children in the community an education which is free, appropriate and equal. Parents have a right to choose and expect at least that minimum for their child.
     
    Added notes, Jeb 20, 2014
    Those words above were written in 1975 when a group of parents sat down to gather and codify parents rights.  Much os what was written then undoubtedly apples today — with revisions or additions necessary to meet current times, especially concerning the ubiquitous presence of technology.
     
    HOWEVER:  On this topic of choice and parents as consumers/ clients, customers of the education system, I am ever watchful that some are trying to recast parental primary role into a more incidental support role.  Progressives generally quote the UN Rights of the Child and forget the UN Declaration of Human Rights when talking about children.
     
    Other progressives want to define "students" as the customers, and teachers as "oin loco parentis.
     
    Still others insist that the learners are "students and teachers" together.
     
    All these attempts at watering down the primary family responsibility in education need watching and challenging. 
     

    Category GOOD NEWS, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | No Comments

  2. 40 yrs Ago — Have Things Changed in Education?

    January 27, 2014 by Tunya

    I'm going to draw parallels from how parents were treated 40 years ago to today.

    My first experiences of frustration and stonewalling by "the system" led me to search far and wide for help. Locally, little was available, and the PTA was, as we know, tame and in place to maintain the status quo.

    I searched the literature, and one of the first items of note was an American group, National Committee for Citizens in Education (NCCE).  They did good work on parent rights, student records and did a fabulous newspaper.  Will bring these forward from time to time.

    Note: That was 40 years ago.  Before today's quick, instant searches via Internet.

    Today, I'm just going to list the Table of Contents of their book  Public Testimony on Public Schools, 1975 to show the extent of their findings after hearings and research:

    1. School Governance in Trouble
    2. The Public Hearings: Pressure Systems
    3. The Public Hearings: The Central Issues
    4. The Public Hearings: The Underlying Concepts of Governance and Policy Making
    5. The Erosion of Lay Control
    6. Teachers' Organizations and Bargaining: Power Imbalance in the Public Sphere
    7. Alternative Educational Experiences: The Demand for Change
    8. The structure of Citizen Participation: Public Decision for Public Schools
    9. A Plan for Governance: Recommendations and Dissent

    I will start with the recommendations in a subsequent post.

    For now, I would recommend that those intently interested in this topic of parent involvement and it's history to get this book, used, as there are still copies floating around.  It provides some sense of the importance of parent involvement then, and now. The "now" is becoming VERY, VERY important — now — because we are being overwhelmed by new forces which are intent on "transforming" education for the 21st Century — with litte regard for parents.  They are being sidelined even more than ever before.  

    The only thing that will save parent rights, role and duty in the education of their children is for parents to embody the law which is on their side as having the primary responsibility for education.  Issues of parental consent will become ever more crucial.  This book will help trace the gradual and, I would say, deliberate erosion of parents in education.  

    [I will be looking, hard and long, even with the help of the Internet, for literature on how modern-day usurpers and colonialists pacify and exploit their subjects. TA]

    Category Book Reviews, Education Reform, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Home Education as a “Movement”

    January 11, 2014 by Tunya

    The Birth of the Home Education Movement – 1972 – Mexico

    I remember people ardently ranting and raging against oppressive compulsory schooling.  About poverty and the thwarted aspirations of the poor.  About the escalation of schooling as destructive as the escalation of weapons. About school and medical systems showing declining results as more money was being poured in …

    These were the heady discussions students and academics enjoyed at CIDOC (Center for Intercultural Documentation) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in the Spring and Summer of 1972. Deinstitutionalization was the main theme.

    I had just completed teacher training at Ottawa Teachers College and was there (two young daughters in tow) to listen to the lectures of Ivan Illich who had just published the book Deschooling Society.

    His ideas had already spread via many articles in magazines and book reviews.  His complete book is available, all short 116 pages, for reading online or downloading athttp://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/ If you dare comprehend the book, you will be a different person.

    “School is obligatory and becomes schooling for schooling’s sake: an enforced stay in the company of teachers.”

    “Unquestionably, the educational process will gain from the deschooling of society even though this demand sounds to many schoolmen like treason to the enlightenment. But it is enlightenment itself that is now being snuffed out in the schools.”

    “Two centuries ago the United States led the world in a movement to disestablish the monopoly of a single church. Now we need the constitutional disestablishment of the monopoly of the school.”

    These words were spoken way before we had online education. If people pride themselves now on the advances of this technological magic, just read the chapter of 40 years ago, “Learning Webs”.  “Everywhere the hidden curriculum of schooling initiates the citizen to the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent. … a huge professional apparatus of educators and buildings which in fact restricts the public’s chances for learning … It should use modern technology to make free speech, free assembly, and a free press truly universal and, therefore, fully educational.”

    Illich was a priest, a philosopher, an inspired prophet. He laced his talks with Greek myths and poetry. When we heard his version of how Prometheus tricked the gods out of their monopoly of fire, we tried to project that concept to health, education, welfare and other fields monopolized by the state.

    Neither Illich nor any of our discussions ever conceived of the notion of home education as a movement, though we frequently talked about home care of the sick. It was not till I had a discussion with John Holt, the author of such books as “How Children Learn” and “How Children Fail” that the movement toward home education started to percolate.

    So, one morning, beneath a heavily-laden mango tree from which John partook, this was our conversation:

    John: Now that you have completed teacher training, where are you going to teach?

    Tunya: I didn’t get training to teach in a school. I took it to teach my own children.

    J: Is it legal?

    T: Yes, I’ve studied the legislations. It’s possible across North America and England. Parents are to cause their children to obtain an education at a school or elsewhere. It’s this “elsewhere” clause that allows home education.

    J: Well, at least you’re now qualified to teach them.

    T: I also found out that you don’t need a qualification to teach your own children.

    J. What about socialization? They’ll be different.

    T: Kids should be individuals. They’ll have plenty of friends from the groups we belong to. Besides, there is a lot of negative socialization in school …

    J: What if they want to go to college?

    T: They will probably be strong, independent learners and will have an advantage to transfer in…

    J: SMART CITY!

    5 years later John Holt, who already had a large mailing list of people interested in education reform, started the Home Education Movement with his newsletter, “Growing without Schooling” and the rest is history …

    Meanwhile, Dr. Raymond Moore was spreading the word amongst his mainly Christian audience (The Learning Home) and paid frequent visits to Vancouver, Canada, especially when we held Home Learning Fairs in the 80’s.

    Besides jump-starting the home education movement John Holt had the wisdom and foresight to caution against the threats and antagonisms that arise from people splitting off from conventional schooling. This quote is worth posting front and center on our bulletin boards, and deserves a lot of pondering in our present day (Feb 2010):

     

    “Today freedom has different enemies. It must be fought for in different ways. It will take very different qualities of mind and heart to save it.”

    The link to my article which helped validate the movement in Canada is here: Home Education – The Third Option (1987)http://education-advisory.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/homeeducation-third-option.pdf

    See also: Parent Rights and Their Children’s Education (1977)http://genuine-education-reformtoday.org/2010/04/06/parent-rights-and-their-childrens-education/

    by Tunya Audain

    Education Advisory http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/

    2010/02/09

     

    Category Education Reform, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | 1 Comment

  4. Withholding Report Cards — Immoral, Illegal

    January 7, 2014 by Tunya

    Parent Rights Endangered in BC’s Teacher Strike (2011-12) 

    1,  Parent rights bargained away

    Parents were not at the table when their rights were bargained away.  No one spoke up or objected to their rights being used as a bargaining chip.  It’s like having a father sell his wife or a parent sell a child.  It’s as bad as that!

    2.  Parents deprived of a comparative report  —  graded

    The right lost to parents was not being able to receive their first progress report card this Fall.  Three such graded report cards are to be sent to parents and that is specified in the School Act.

    3.  Withholding reports is illegal

    Parents not receiving these cards according to the School Act makes this illegal.  Parents could sue.

    4.  Parents obtaining private assessment should be able to charge back.

    Since parents are supposed to receive such a progress report card which would help them compare if the child is at grade level, below, or above.  Surely then if they obtain such a assessment privately, shouldn’t the fee be chargeable to the school board?

    5.  The rule of law is being held in contempt

    What’s the use of legislation and laws if people ignore them?

    6.  Reports are tools for parents for making informed decisions

    With a report card parents are better able to decide if they have made a good decision in enrolling their child in that school.  If the parent is dissatisfied, they are well-equipped to either advocate for better services or withdraw to another setting  —  another school or home education.

                The suspicion is that people in the system – unionized teachers AND admin, etc  —  don’t mind keeping parents in the dark, so that they are handicapped from removing students too easily.  Keep the kid in the seat above all else, for the full dollar.

    7.  Not receiving the report card is equivalent to having a contract broken.

    The quid pro quo of contracts is I do something, you do something.  I enroll my child, you provide me with a report of how they’re doing.

    8.  With the strike continuing indefinitely, the next two reports are also unlikely.

    It’s way too late for parents to make alternative arrangements so late in the year.  A whole year could easily be wasted.  Private schools say they receive a good number of new enrollments in January.

    9.  The new replacement procedure makes parents beholden to the teachers.

    The onus is now on the parents to initiate communication by email, phone or other means and any meeting must be in school hours.  Working parents would find this difficult.

    10.  This shift seriously undermines the authority of the parents in relation to government schools.

    Instead of public schools being seen as accountable to parents, it is now the parents who are seen as the supplicants or petitioners to the central government.

    11. All the points above serve to erode the centrality and primacy of the family in education of the young. Undermining the role of the family in education is a serious affront to the health of civil society.

    12.  All of the  points above add further fuel to the arguments for having more publicly-funded alternatives to the public school system so that families have more elbow room to help accommodate their children’s educational needs.  We live in a free society, don’t we?   Vouchers, charters, School based management…

    13.  With the messaging from some union leaders that the strike could go on “indefinitely” and one pres, Karpuk from Kamloops saying, “we should stay here forever”  I really wonder if keeping parents domesticated and “begging” for feedback, and principals getting punished by overwork and sick leaves, and teachers (workers) in charge of the workplace, is probably what these progressives want anyway ….

    Category Education Reform, Obstacles | Tags: | No Comments

  5. The BIG Disguised Shift In Education

    November 16, 2013 by Tunya

    ►  What is the "Shift”, the "Transformation"  in public education K-12 in the 21st Century?

      √     Many Western nations are planning or are in the early stages of implementation.

      √    Common Core Standards, 21st Century Skills, Personalized Learning are names used.

    Huge thanks to two brilliant cartoonists — John Deering and John Newcombe — who vividly are giving us another tool to help decipher this new social experiment tossed into our laps.

     

    educ - Zack Hill - John Deering - John Newcombe

    Where Do They Get These Ideas?

    Is the school administration itself simply a parrot of even more distant managers?  Has some travelling lobby of consultants or change-agents been in town lately?  

    What is the literature brought forward that supports this SHIFT that puts students in charge?  And why?  What are the intended outcomes? 

    Is there, by chance, some international connection?  UN agencies?  International organizations?

    Well, this OECD news release (2003) gives more clues about an envisioned new global social order. 

    http://148.228.165.6/fpes/OECD.pdf

    Individuals are to learn to “function in groups and social orders”  to mobilize the “social and behavioral components including attitudes, emotions, and values and motivations.”

    IS THAT CRAZY?  Or some deliberate attempt to actually manipulate human behavior for a new world order?  Some people still consider human nature to be infinitely "malleable" !

    The shifts we are now seeing and talking about, 10 years after that OECD report are:

    √ from individual to collective,

    √ from “sage on the stage to guide at the side”,

    √ from content to process,

    √ from knowledge and skill based to inquiry/discovery-based,

    √ higher-order comnpetencies needed — creativity, collaboration, critical thinking

    √ from reporting to parents to communicating with parents,

    As a long time observer and activist in parent rights I am seeing these changes happening  — NOW — with very minimal preparation.  I worry about the psychological damage and meltdowns resulting from ill-equipped push already happening.  Parents and grandparents are witness to family anxieties.

    I worry the most because this shift is experimental and untested and questionable. There are no safeguards.  Protocols on human psychological experimentation are absent. And, it’s being foisted on an uninformed and uninvited public, without consent. In other words, why is this shift so hasty, stealthy,so programmed and giving the appearance of being shifty — surreptitious, dubious, devious and deceitful?

    “progressives are forever ready to mold and remold society at will and have no doubt about their ability to control events.”  – Albert Hirschman

     

     

    Category Education Reform, Obstacles, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

Older Entries
Newer Entries