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‘Obstacles’ Category

  1. Who Listens To Parents?

    January 13, 2014 by Tunya

    It doesn’t matter how logical and practical parents are with their suggestions — it doesn’t matter how much common sense they demonstrate — parents don’t seem to count in decisions being made about education of their children.


    The letter from the young parent in Cowichan School District, says a lot —

    "This is exactly the suggestion I wrote on my form at the Cowichan School District initial consultation. School boards should be abolished and school-based management adopted. Imagine how much money could be saved and how much more child focused the system could become."  But who will listen to such sensible suggestions?

    Far too many decisions in public education are made for the convenience of “the system”. It’s become, unfortunately, an employment agency for educators and bureaucrats who easily overwhelm any logic coming from parents who advocate for their children.


    Older parents can’t wait for the day they will “graduate” with their children and leave all these frustrating, often unsatisfactory, school relations behind.

    Really old parents, who are now grandparents, can’t believe that the same old problems keep arising, with parents still left out in the cold.

    Whereas the other players in the system have the benefit of strong organizations and an institutional memory, parents do not. Reinventing the wheel is the norm. But, of course, any parent’s blurted out commonsense is still left in the dust as the system steamrolls ahead with its own priorities. 

    And parents, on a day-to-day basis, are really too busy with their children to do much research or organizing.

    Thankfully, with the Internet, we are blessed with some enhanced ability to sort through issues. Parent knowledge is a scarce and untapped resource, rarely consulted or instrumental in decision-making. About the only time this knowledge counts is when families decide to home educate or choose a private school for their child. Or, if they live in New Zealand, they are involved in school-based management.

     

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

  2. DISTURBING TRENDS FOR PARENTS – 1981

    January 12, 2014 by Tunya

    Why re-invent the wheel?  Most enterprises learn from the past.  While institutions that parents deal with — the school boards, the principals, unions, etc., etc. all have massive resources to draw upon and an “institutional memory” to be able to advance their causes and needs, parents do not have this knowledge bank.

    I’m trying on these pages of PTP to bring forward “old” pieces of information and will also be adding new material.  For today I will briefly provide quotes from my 1981 newsletter showing DISTURBING TRENDS IN EDUCATION

    1 — DECLINE IN PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT — “If we believe in the principle that public education is of the public, for the public, and by the public, then the present trend is bad. In my study I have found that we have less public involvement that we had ten years ago.”  – Dean of Education, Art Kratzmann

    2 — POLITICS IN TEACHER TRAINING — “Too often education faculty members seem bent on pressing particular dogma or ideology”. Walter Hardwick, former Deputy Minister of Education, BC

    3 — PARENTS NOT AWARE OF DECLINE — “I don’t think parents are as acutely aware of the achievement decline  . . . I think there’s an enormous unawareness on the part of parents as to what the schools are doing.” John Goodlad

    4 — CRIME/LD CONNECTION — “I estimate that 80-90%% of the young people who came before me in the provincial court were learning disabled as revealed by their pre-sentence reports.” Judge Nancy Morrison

    5 — PURSUIT OF PANACEAS — “Schools, probably more than any other institution in our society, seem to be particularly vulnerable to fads, poorly tested concepts and the need to appear scientific.” Irwin A Hyman, Policy Studies Review

    6 — BLOATED  BUREAUCRACIES —  “In Toronto, only 5,000 of the school board’s 9,000 employees are teachers.” TODAY magazine

    7 — LIP SERVICE TO PARENT INVOLVEMENT —  “Will we as professionals welcome parent involvement . . . or will we follow governmental regulations in the most patronizing way, meeting the regulations only because they are required?” Special Education In Canada

    8 — MISTEACHING LEADS TO LEARNING PROBLEMS — “I always see far more problems in the WAY the students have been taught previously than in the students themselves.” W A T White, University of Oregon

    9 — SCHOOL BOARDS OFF TRACK —  “School Boards deal largely with fringe elements instead of more basic features of school organization and the main components of curricula.” OECD Review Canadian Education ‘76

    10 — DOMINANT TEACHER POWER —  “Citizens seek to enlarge their control of schools. This comes at the same time that teachers seek increased autonomy FROM lay control. Thus, laymen and teachers are on a collision course.” Donald Myers in “Teacher Power”

    2014 Exercise — Match the Quotes to the Issues and Score 0-10 with  0 = NOT applicable, 10 = VERY applicable today.  TOTAL SCORE ________________ = DYSFUNCTIONALITY LEVEL

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

  3. 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

  4. Back to the basics

    January 4, 2014 by Tunya

    In Defense Of “Salt-of-the-earth-parents”

    As a descendant of prairie pioneers and further back yet of Russian peasants and serfs — I am keenly self-conscious of highbrow town folk talking down.

    To tell a parent to lay off “the basics” is the ultimate put down.

    I would hazard this projection — universally, EVERY parent in the world knows what he or she means when they say they want “the basics” for their kid in school.

    It’s not just town folk but the teacher establishment that can make a well-meaning trustee feel “inferior” and put-down.  When our new Minister of Education, Peter Fassbender, was announced after the last provincial election, it wasn’t long before a “JOB” was done on him — a reminder of who’s who in the zoo, so to speak.

    As a 70s trustee Fassbender was caught up in the “back to the basics” movements of the time when “fads and frills” started creeping in.  Reminders of that time when “status quo” won over reform efforts are brought up to this day.  If you read the story, note one parent comment — “As for Fundamental Schools…they are going strong in Langley and are no longer a joke but have looooooooong wait lists and once you do get in … well, you have pretty contented families.”

    http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/06/09/peter-fassbender-and-the-back-to-basics-education-movement-in-the-70s/

    I can say that what parents mean by “the basics” is why early schooling — in most areas of the world —  to this day is either called “primary”, “elementary” or “fundamental”.  It’s seen as a foundation, the crucial first building block.  When will “the system” commit to this?

    This is the Wikipedia take on the topic:

    “The major goals of primary education are achieving basic literacy and numeracy amongst all pupils, as well as establishing foundations in science, mathematics, geography, history and other social sciences.”

    I simply cannot understand why teacher unions object to our “Foundation Skills Assessments” in BC and why all teachers can’t commit to “the basics”.

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

  5. Edcamps For Parents ?

    January 3, 2014 by Tunya

    Parent resistance is something no edationist wants to see.  Their worst fear is that parents will find alternatives to their public subsidized schools 

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

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