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‘GOOD NEWS’ Category

  1. GOOD NEWS: David Banks NYC Schools Chancellor

    December 14, 2021 by Tunya

    My comment to ECC, 14 Dec, in response to William Brown posting BCP on Letter from the trenches: Parent describes K-12 dystopia — my addition some GOOD NEWS

    Again, another whack at the education system! There seems to be no end to the stories about the school disasters parents and students experience. Some of us old-timers never questioned that our school days were all for the betterment of ourselves and society. It is such a horrible feeling to see current events pushing toward an END of civilization. It’s shameful to think that public schools contribute to this downfall.

    Thanks again to this ECC forum, and the regular contributors who do so much to keep us up to date. This latest story from Bruce just adds to our sorrow. Thanks, William, for this latest.

    To bring forward some GOOD NEWS, we read about the appointment of David Banks as Schools Chancellor in New York City, by the new Mayor, Eric Adams, effective Jan 1 in the New Year. From the news stories, here are some great promising quotes:

    • New York City education system is essentially flawed and needs to be fixed from the bottom up.
    • “We’re going to go back to a phonetic approach to teaching. We’re going to ensure that our kids can read by the third grade,” Banks said. “That’s been a huge part of the dysfunction.”
    • Banks says he’s thinking of establishing special schools for kids with learning disabilities, and he also plans to expand gifted and talented programs, and specialized high schools.
    • The mayor-elect [Eric Adams]is also vowing a laser-like focus on the Department of Education’s budget. He says right now, the money is not being spent properly and taxpayers are being shortchanged.
    • Mayor Adams said he wants to educate the whole child, and that includes making sure they have eyeglasses and healthy food if they need. He’s also committed to testing every child to see if they have dyslexia.
    Please watch the videos in these stories:

    Incoming Schools Chancellor David Banks On Why So Many Black, Brown Students Aren’t Reaching Proficiency: ‘They’re Teaching Wrong’

    Mayor-Elect Adams’ New Schools Chancellor David Banks Vows Change Is Coming To Dept. Of Ed: ‘We’re Going To Turn Over The Tables’

    Category Education Reform, GOOD NEWS, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Family choice in education

    February 1, 2021 by Tunya

    It’s heartwarming to read American news about school choice. With the pandemic showing that health costs are going to be a priority for many years to come, other social spending costs are being probed for belt-tightening. Education is being examined — not only for efficiencies, but because alternative models of delivery are popping up and gaining favor at the legislative level.

    And the question is being asked: Should the government be the provider, in near-monopoly terms, of education to children? In such a top-down, bureaucratic system, each layer creams off their share before the beneficiary, the child, gets any benefit from the ed dollar.

    This latest article from Education Week notes progress on the school choice front.  https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/covid-19-may-energize-push-for-school-choice-in-states-where-that-leads-is-unclear/2021/01

    In the first weeks of 2021 one-third of American state legislatures are considering such moves as:

    – tax-credit scholarships
    – education savings accounts (ESAs)
    – increasing public charter schools
    – support for microschools (learning pods, pandemic pods . . .)
    – Covid special relief funds to assist families with computers, etc. for online learning

    In political science language we can see legislatures shifting to “governance” of education, which is funding, regulating, overseeing and auditing education providers. Through family choice provisions all kinds of new innovations can develop, good programs will thrive and poor programs will be defunded.

    Of course, there are detractors, including the militant Badass Teachers Association, not a union, but active in all states, with organizational capacity and reach. They oppose choice, accountability and testing.

    In Canada, we need more information on family choice in education and not be detracted by those who may rise in fervent, self-interested opposition.

    [posted on my Facebook, Educhatter post of 20 Jan ’21]

    Category Education Reform, GOOD NEWS, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  3. research ed Toronto Nov 10-11, ’17

    November 14, 2017 by Tunya

    My Parental POV & Significance Of researchED in Toronto (Nov 10/11, ’17)
    I wasn’t there, but was tuned-in to the audio and twitter feeds. Hoped to hear things that would warm my parent-advocate’s heart. This was, after all, not for parents but a conference intended to inspire teachers to become more research and evidence-based in their practice. That in itself is #1 in my praise of the conference. On the whole, I feel parents strongly do want their kid’s teachers to be grounded in practices that are proven to work — not fuzzy stuff. I have always said that the education field lacks discipline and rigor and not a profession like health, accounting, or engineering. Pleased to hear someone on the first panel say to this effect: “ Why is education the least empirical of all human pursuits? We need to build an empirical base.”
    #2 A highlight at the conference of 30 speakers was Michael Zwaagstra, with standing room only. If his presentation was anything like his article of the same title: Content Knowledge is the Key to Learning, I can see why it was popular. Maybe it got out that he has strong views on progressivism and its latest manifestations in the provinces of AB, BC and ON where some parents are getting a bit antsy. Read just the Executive Summary, p4, of 18 and you get the picture: http://michaelzwaagstra.com/…/FC200_Content-Knowledge_JL311…
    #3 It was twittered out that Greg Ashman, a “graduate” of three such researchED events in Australia had just been published in a UK magazine — worth reading — https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/a-teacher-tweets/ People who have been bedeviled by the education enigma should be happy to know there is a movement where the leading founder says: “We are at the mercy of gurus and snake oil fads without evidence-based education.” (Tom Bennett, #rEDTO17)

    [on FB 12 Nov ’17, with some of my comments in conversation]

    = Tunya Audain Brave New World ? ? ? 

    Jan 2016 this OPINION by a university professor, David Livingstone, described BC’s new curriculum, designed by “education experts”.https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Grassroots-Education/3UuuiBWJU74
    “The next generation will lack the desire, the ability, and even the attention span to read with understanding. Their thoughts will become shallower, not deeper . . . No longer tethered to the past, the future will look more like a blank canvas upon which “the experts” can plan a Brave New World.” Such is tyranny.

    Michael Zwaagstra presents similar fears and in his essay hits hard on the need for proper reading methods to be taught. His presentation will shortly be in audio and I’ll report when.

    Doesn’t all this smack of our fears a decade ago, Heather? You, as trustee, visited a successful program to teach reading in Scotland.You brought back the information. Why don’t school systems learn? Who runs the show? These are questions that must be asked, AND answered.

    – 

    Accelerated Contradictions – False Dichotomy – BC New Curriculum

    I can remember when Michael Fullan, one of those mentioned at rED2017 as a “guru”, visited BC in 1986. His topic: New Cultures for School Improvement. (I wasn’t there: It was for administrators.) It’s been a steady flow of such gurus to BC who undoubtedly chalk up massive frequent flyer points!

    In January 2015 Tom Albury (GELP) said: “This is a pivotal moment for BC . . . if we can continue to work together in this way we can build on how far we've got and really accelerate and sustain this — we'll achieve what nobody else has yet achieved and that is to transform the system across the whole province.” 

    Where are we now? It takes an international event like reasearchED in Toronto to highlight BCEd Plan as a False Dichotomy (Zwaagstra’s slide)  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOYEthYXcAAphSq.jpg

     

     

    Category Education Reform, GOOD NEWS, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Defining Home Education

    October 9, 2017 by Tunya

    Defining Home Education

    I agree: The term “unschooling” is a bit problematic. Unschooling is like deprogramming. Like you’re trying to decontaminate or undo something. Also the terms “to school” or “schooling” have connotations of indoctrination or training.

    When Ivan Illich first proposed “deschooling” in 1971 he was talking about the “planned process which tools man for a planned world . . . Inexorably we cultivate, treat, produce, and school the world out of existence.” (1971) Deinstitutionalization is also a term he used. His book — Deschooling Society — is free to download off the Internet.

    Increasingly in the literature and research you will see the term “home education” being the preferred term. My article “Home Education: The Third Option”, 1987, is available for download from Academia. The Global Home Education Conference will happen May 15-19, 2018, in Moscow & St Petersburg, Russia. For a quick read on how the movement got rolling with John Holt’s help read: https://gaither.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/john-holts-conversion-to-home-education/

    [ comment sent to FEE — https://fee.org/articles/schooling-was-for-the-industrial-era-unschooling-is-for-the-future/?utm_source=zapier&utm_medium=facebook ]

    [ also posted on my FB — Homeschooling, unschooling, deschooling — What? First see this incredible interview with a 13yr old homeschooled student —https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/916429930321317889  ]

     

    Category Education Reform, GOOD NEWS, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Effective Schools Checklist

    April 4, 2017 by Tunya

    EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS CHECKLIST

    Ron Edmonds of Harvard who put the term “Effective Schools” on the map with his speech “Some Schools Work and More Can” in 1978 said:

    “We can whenever, and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need in order to do this. Whether we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”

    EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS CHECKLIST

    ___ 1. Instructional Leadership — Principal is an effective communicator (with staff, parents, students, school boards), an effective supervisor, & the instructional leader in the school.
    ___ 2. Focused School Mission — General consensus by the school community (staff, parents, students) on goals, priorities, assessment, accountability. The mission statement is published and reviewed regularly.
    ___ 3. Orderly Environment — Purposeful atmosphere conducive to teaching and learning.
    ___ 4. High Expectations — Demonstrated high expectations not only for all students but also for staff as well. The belief is that students are capable and able to achieve, that teachers are capable and not powerless to make a difference.
    ___ 5. Mastery of Basic Skills — In particular, basic reading, writing and math skills are emphasized with back-up alternatives available for students with special learning needs.
    ___ 6. Frequent Monitoring of Results — Means exist to monitor student progress in relationship to instructional objectives (and results can be easily conveyed to parents).
    ___ Means to monitor teacher effectiveness
    ___ A system of monitoring school goals
    ___ 7. Meaningful Parent Involvement — Parents are kept well-informed re: programs, goals, etc. There is ample opportunity for them to keep in touch with their child’s progress. They are consulted for feedback about the school and when changes are foreseen. Parent-initiated contact with the school is encouraged.
    ___ * 8. Avoidance of Pitfalls — Up-to-date awareness of good educational practice plus retaining currency in the field concerning promising and discredited practices.

    * Most “effective schools” literature repeats the first 7 points. But, Edmonds’ original article (1979) stressed “one of the cardinal characteristics of effective schools is that they are as anxious to avoid things that don’t work as they are committed to implement things that do.”  This addition to the 7 points was made by a parent advocacy group in 1983 in Vancouver, BC (Canada). It was felt by these parents that if these 8 points became part of a school’s commitment most concerns, if any, could be easily addressed.

    Category GOOD NEWS, Opinions in media, Uncategorized | Tags: | 1 Comment

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