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‘Obstacles’ Category

  1. Parent Meetings With School Officials

    January 20, 2014 by Tunya

    A meeting with school officials can be daunting — all these related meanings with different twists convey the absolute TERROR some parents may feel — intimidating, unnerving, scary, overwhelming, demoralizing.  You get the picture.  Parents can be dumbfounded, regardless of their composure in other settings in their capable lives.  There are far too many instances where parents are made to feel INADEQUATE, and this won’t help.  If your dealings on behalf of your child have come to a point where “THE MEETING” is scheduled, here are some pointers:

    FIRST:             Make sure any meeting is convenient to you.  You can ask for more convenient times.  Especially, if you need to bring a lawyer.

    SECOND:        You should NEVER go to a meeting by yourself.  Take someone with you, and not just for comfort, but also as witness.  Sometimes these events are the beginning of a longer journey.  A priest, a lawyer, just about anyone will do (a neighbor), even if they don’t speak.

    THIRD:            Take in a Tape Recorder and turn it on immediately at the start.  Say that the meeting will be taped in case you need it later.  You can place the tape in a sealed envelope and keep it with you.  You may need it for court purposes or for a meeting in Executive session with the School Board.

    FOURTH:        You, as parent have the RIGHT and DUTY to monitor your child’s HEALTH, EDUCATION AND HAPPINESS.  That’s one reason we have Report Cards.  But, also, you are always monitoring your child’s physical and mental health.  You do this because you’re living with your child and know his or her day and night behaviors, feelings and fears. Your concerns, beyond the academic, should be shared.

    FIFTH:      Malpractice court action is a possibility.  If your child is suffering HARM — that school behaviors are causing FEARS, PHOBIAS OR NIGHTMARES — and you can get medical verification in support, you can sue.  Officials need to know this is an extreme, but available, path parents can follow.

    SIXTH:     Do not hesitate to withdraw the child from the school if you see it in the best interests of the child — a mental health break may be indicated.  Home education by correspondence courses or other means discovered using the Internet or local support groups could provide the tools and peace of mind for a home-based program.

    [My comment:  Parents must realize that, by law, in the end result, THEY ARE responsible for their child’s education.  Only in totalitarian nations does the state dictate.  Please see this list of Parent Rights, codified after studying good practice about this matter         http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/?s=parent+rights ]

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

  2. New Teaching Programs Fill a NICHE, A Need

    January 19, 2014 by Tunya

     

    While Teach For Canada (TFC) is still in it’s infancy it is definitely well-meaning. The idea of Teach For All projects is now active in 32 countries around the world. Three main principles inform this movement — 1) overcoming education inequities, 2) improving disadvantaged schools, and 3) advancing teaching excellence.

    What’s to dislike about that? It should appeal to all well-meaning folks, regardless of political stripe. The TFAustralia project was officially launched in late 2008 by the then Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard MP (Labor).

    Parents, in particular, are EXTREMELY anxious to get their children educated in their lifetimes. They are not easily put-off by promises of improvements over the long-haul. Increasingly, parents and public see choice as the only strategy to bring about satisfactory education in a young person’s lifetime.

    In the UK a Report by the Sutton Group unleashed scathing headlines that parents were “cheating” when they found ways to enrol their kids in their preferred schools or who used tutoring services to supplement or remediate schooling. The title of the report — “Parent Power? Using money and information to boost children’s chances of educational success”. Why shouldn’t parents do all they can to help in social mobility? Keep them off the dole (welfare)?

    Again, I’m going to applaud the Australian Coalition politicians who have launched a Review of the education system to determine public opinion. They, at least, seem to care about parents.

    I find the comments of the new Minister of Education, Christopher Pyne, so refreshing.

    *** “Those who are critical of the review and question the sincerity of the government’s motives might be forgetting that incoming governments not only have a right to review their predecessor’s policies, they have a duty to do so, to ensure policies are still relevant, needed, cost-effective and meet voters’ expectations, as variously expressed in the most recent and decisive election.

    *** “we need a national curriculum, we must ensure it genuinely meets students’ needs, matches parents’ expectations and drives education quality.

    *** “This nation’s curriculum policy must not be captured by any fad, by any vested interest group, or by those pursuing political or narrow agendas.”

    This is tomorrow’s news from the Minister — they are ahead of us in more ways than one!http://www.smh.com.au/comment/politics-have-no-place-in-curriculum-review-christopher-pyne-20140119-312p8.html?rand=1390161192866

    Our politicians in Canada would be petrified to have to listen to “parents’ expectations”. Besides, the BLOB won’t let our provinces have education Reviews. They’ve got the politicians wrapped up as pretzels.

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

  3. Why Is Education So Vulnerable To Gurus ?

    January 18, 2014 by Tunya

    Michael Fullan, a leading guru in the education field — books, consultations, system turn-arounds, etc. — said it best,  "People only call me a guru because they can't spell charlatan".

    It’s amazing how gullible people in education are.  As long as there is a sweet-talker, with lots of edu-babble and gobbledygook, with solutions that will take 10-20 years, they buy it.  WHY?  Because, anything to delay the inevitable disestablishment of the bureaucratic dysfunctional system is worth buying into.

    So, actually it’s not gullibility.  It’s practical, self-serving,  “mutual need” to support these gurus (charlatans – I’m sure people on this site can rhyme off a dozen names).  Gurus keep on working and chalking up the Air Miles, and “the systems” buy more breathing space to pad their bloated bureaucracies.   And the politicians, who DO HAVE SOME POWER, are just slavish patsies in the hands of sophisticated apparatchiks.

    Except in Australia where the new Prime Minister and new Minister of Education have just launched a Review of the National Curriculum developed by the ousted Labor regimen.  These politicians want to determine what the public expects in education as they became convinced there was a “left-biased” worldview being fostered at present.  A Report is due in 6 months time.

    Regarding Diane Ravitch — of course she “protests too much”.  Sol Stern of City Journal has probably produced the best treatment of how one person stood out in earlier education reforms as the voice of wisdom and knowledge and is now the opponent of practically all she stood for.  http://www.city-journal.org/comments/index.php?story=9665#comments

    Again, it says a lot for the susceptible nature of the education system that they accepted Ravitch for so long.  This new wave of common core transformations, however, is not jumping on her protest bandwagon and anti-TFA barrage. 

    She claims she is right to repudiate her previous certainties as she has seen “the light”.  But, Dianne, can’t you see the 800# gorilla, the elephant in the room?  Are you blind?  The teacher unions you champion must surely be acknowledged as part of the problem in public education.  Credibility is shot when a blind-eye is turned on their role in dysfunction. 

    She has been asked to “atone” many times.   

    [posted to Educhatter on topic of Teach for America, TF Canada, TF Australia  http://educhatter.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/teach-for-canada-whats-causing-all-the-commotion/#comment-12482 ]

     

     

    Category Education Reform, Obstacles, Parent Tribal Memory, Teacher Unions, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Culture Wars In Education

    January 16, 2014 by Tunya

    The parallels are unnerving — the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 60’s with its beatings and wholesale intimidations  — and the browbeating and intimidations in imposing the common core/21st Century Learning — both were/are meant to permanently change minds and behaviors to what the elite demands.

    CC/21CL methods are demonstrating these CCR similarities:

    – Dumbing down, moving populations to mediocrity through equality measures, assuring compliant populations

    – Brain changes through withholding of basic skills in key early years — Left/Right sides of the brain are engaged differently through phonics and math drills than with inquiry and discovery.  Brain pathways can be irreversibly crippled for later corrections and precision learning.

    – Language is used to deceive — parents are told they are empowered with new engagement and communications strategies, but the effect is to befuddle and enfeeble parents from true monitoring of their kids in schools.

    –  In the Chinese Cultural Revolution the “olds” were to be forgotten, demolished, (old street names, photos of ancestors, solid old furniture) to be replaced by the “news” — new customs, new culture, new habits, new ideas. In the Final Report by Deloitte (p26) — Preparing Youth for 21st Century Responsible Citizenship, this is what is revealed as a  “threat” to our young  — “old thinking by old people in old problems and old constructs.” A good number of similar change-agent documents are painting “traditional”, “conservative”, and “Right” thinking as “old”, outdated.

    These are just a few disturbing conclusions I’ve been tormented with this week.  I’m only a granny with grandkids in school.  I really worry for the parents who have charge of their children full time.  How can they possibly handle such disturbing news that their children are being used as guinea pigs in untested experiments?  A story came out today where teachers themselves were crying because of new reporting methods being imposed on them.  http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/911015/calgary-elementary-teachers-being-driven-to-absolute-tears-over-report-card-changes/

    Australia has just announced a Review of its NEW NATIONAL CURRICULUM, developed during 6 years of a Labor government regime and which was seen as producing a curriculum with a decidedly leftish worldview.  The new conservative government anticipates a volatile 6-month Review period.

    [I posted the above on an American blog — "Invisible Serfs Collar" with the following note to the author:

    BTW Robin:  This last post of yours was the most disturbing of all your other 200 posts.  That Deloitte article which I looked up really tore the cataracts off my eyes. And your conclusion:  “Deliberately creating the discontent and then mining it for ever increasing political power and diminishing mass prosperity” is way too depressing.  But, it’s the recurring theme in your book and posts and reality as it’s being revealed to us.  The CCR lasted 10 long years!]

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

  5. Government Schools Enfeeble Parents

    January 14, 2014 by Tunya

    This is now TWO WEEKS since I started to COMPILE a KNOWLEDGE BANK for parents dealing with public schools.  As I refresh my memory by going through my archives I see that things are NOT GETTING BETTER.  The same obstacles and mindsets of the system still prevail to stymie parents.

    Did you score 100% or near in the Dysfunctionality Rating ?  http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2014/01/disturbing-trends-for-parents-1981/

    I am going to develop my thesis that things are GETTING WORSE.  As COLONIZERS AND USURPERS the players in the system are now employing ever more sophisticated pscyhological techniques to rob parents of their natural-born instincts and shape the language to ENFEEBLE PARENTS TO STAY COMPLIANT TO THE SYSTEM'S NEEDS.

    I will develop this theme as I go along. Deliberate deskilling of parents, in my opinion, is a moral crime.  Compliant parents actually harm the cause of public accountability in public education.  If ordinary citizens feel that parents are satisfied, or non-complaining, then they too will be lulled into avoiding DUE DILIGENCE in how taxpayer money is spent or corrupted.  

    FIVE ALERTS CAME IN TODAY that cause me to start this train of commentary EARLIER THAN LATER.

    1   The annual PARENT SATISFACTION SURVEY is now going out.  The results are always the same — parents love their school, but think the whole system is doing poorly. "Stroking" of parents in individual schools is proving very successful !

    2    REPORT CARDS are to be changed in a number of districts to eliminate grades, to be replaced with "communicating" with parents.  This is ILLEGAL and outside the requirements of the School Act (BC).

    3   Again, the teacher union, is ACTIVELY PROMOTING PARENT WITHDRAWL OF STUDENTS from standardized tests which test for basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic.

    4   Our BC TEACHER REGULATION BRANCH makes it easy for parents or public to easily check ithe credentials and status history of any teacher in a public or publiclly funded school. Today, in one school district out of 60 I found I was unable to access the list of names of teaching staff.  A query is in place.

    5   I am closely following what's happening in AUSTRALIA with their just announced REVIEW.  Even on top of a recent complete curricular change, considerable criticism had arisen.  I briefly summarize one Editorial titled "Learning by Gobbledygook." Apparently the previous overhaul yielded considerable "wooly expressions and overt social engineering". ALL curriculum subjects are to integrate and contain THREE OVERARCHING PRIORITIES – indigenous history/culture, global engagement (especially Asia) and sustainability.  "In toto" this editorial continues, this "review is very much in order."

     

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

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