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‘Obstacles’ Category

  1. Teacher Unions Use Shady Tactics

    March 21, 2016 by Tunya

    Teacher Unions Use Shady Tactics

    Here is the case of Michigan Education Association (the teacher union) working hard to retain its members who now have the right to opt-out resulting from Right To Work Legislation. Rather sneaky tactics have been employed — only one month (Aug) allowed for opting-out, address changes where letters must be received by due date, etc. http://www.mackinac.org/21632

    Though not unique in its behavior as a militant, adversarial teacher union, here, from their handbook on Crisis Planning is how they counsel members as they prepare for strikes:

    “The Heart of an Effective Crisis Campaign
    “In terms of a bargaining message, the public responds most positively when we talk about children, quality in the classroom and the future.

    “Here are some messages that have been successfully used . . .

    •  Our working conditions are your child’s learning conditions.
    •  It’s not about dollars and cents; it’s about our children.
    •  School employees support your children. Please support your school’s employees.

    “Consider these questions when making decisions about community PR:

    •  Does it create urgency to act so that children and their education won’t suffer?
    •  Does it disrupt normalcy and destroy the mood that everything in the district is fine?

    “Consider guiding principles as you plan crisis activities:

    •  The threat of action is usually more powerful than the action itself.
    • Pick a target — personalize — and polarize the opposition.

    I call these “shady” tactics, but apparently they’re normal procedure.

    Our public education systems across the world are vulnerable to capture by vested interests — for economic, ideological & dominance purposes. They are neither under civilian control nor well served by governments too eager to appease for the sake of labor peace.

    Reform efforts are piecemeal and efforts like right-to-work legislation have little benefit to children’s futures in their lifetimes. The only promising far-reaching move is for governments to direct earmarked education dollars directly to the consumer as Education Savings Accounts do. This is a movement that has already gained 5 adopting US states and eager interest in a good number more. Canada needs to seriously talk about this model.

    Category Obstacles, Teacher Unions, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Don’t Deceive – parents “CANNOT” fix schools

    March 19, 2016 by Tunya

    NOTHING We Can Do To Fix Schools

    Michael Zwaagstra’s Book — What’s Wrong With Our Schools: and How We Can Fix Them — is a total FLOP. It’s a 6-year-old book for Canadians. Nothing has happened in 6 years to improve education ! I might like a traditional Zwaagstra-type school but most schools today are of the progressive, Alfie Kohn type. There are at least a dozen such books in the US, all with the instructions of what to do to fix failing schools. NOTHING WORKS.

    Until we have “A to Z schools” — or call them Alfie (for Kohn) and Zwaagstra (for Michael) schools — that is, a variety of choices, we will continue to rant and rail and things will get progressively (yes, “progressively”) worse.

    See this article about university students: Pass, Fail by Srigley in April’16 Walrus: https://thewalrus.ca/author/ron-srigley/

    “Remove your professor hat for a moment and students will speak frankly. They will tell you that they don’t read because they don’t have to. They can get an A without opening a book.” Srigley writes about the wasteland that many universities have become.

    I like Arizona Senator McCain’s proposed legislation to give every American First Nations Student an Education Savings Account equivalent to 90% of the Bureau for Indian Education’s funding to buy a private school education. I believe in public funds for education, but not in the monopoly hands of public or bureau schools.

    Only in this manner will we get the “A to Z” schools that will serve the education needs of students instead of the pet schemes of monopolists and faddists.

    [to FB – SQE]

    Category Absurdities, Obstacles, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Weak Government Allows Teacher Union Power

    March 19, 2016 by Tunya

    Governing Side Allows The Gouging

    The ultimate goal is LABOR PEACE. Thus, the governing bodies, whether Central government or school boards, capitulate to heavy-handed bargaining ploys. The bargaining ploys are international tricks-of-the trade. Whipsawing is one of the strategies. If one teacher union in X county achieves a benefit through collective bargaining, others will soon use that fact as a catch-up issue.

    Since these sessions are not transparent and held behind closed doors, rent-seeking is also a ploy. This insider trading leads to sweetheart deals.

    Add on the fact that union dues are 100% tax deductible and we can easily see that a teacher union confers huge costs on the public purse.

    Peace is extracted because the government side fears public disruption.

    The best books on this topic of economic costs and lost opportunities for education reform for our children are by Myron Lieberman and while the information applies to American systems the international scope is relevant to our Canadian scenes. Google — Released-Time Subsidies — and you will get 7 instructive pages on this issue highlighted by the G&M article above.

    [ Posted in G&M article http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/tdsb-osstf-fight-over-subsidies-for-union-staff-member-salaries/article29283670/ ]

    Category Absurdities, Book Reviews, Obstacles, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Amish in PEI – helping widen education choice in canada

    March 4, 2016 by Tunya

    Home Education — Lessons To Be Learned

    As a “movement” home education was “jump-started” by John Holt in the 70s.
    John Holt’s Conversion to Home Education https://gaither.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/john-holts-conversion-to-home-education/

    I’ve been involved from that time. But, I learned early on in my half-century of parent involvement to stay under the radar. WHY? Because the moment any breakthrough appears for the parent (CONSUMER) side the system (PRODUCER) side immediately goes into containment-mode. Parents as consumers are seen, and treated, as a hostile enemy. Producer-capture of the industry continues. To this day, the control is overwhelming. Parents have been nearly totally seduced and coerced into compliance and complicity into a one-size-fits-all monopoly model of schooling.

    Long story. With the link above you will see how I wrote about the movement for Canadian educators and about the predatory state and how Holt expressed fear of creeping fascism (see comments).

    Thus, when I saw how a government (in PEI) actually responded to parents’ interests in educating their children and removed a restrictive obstacle, I rejoiced. Please see form mandating a teacher advisor: http://www.hslda.ca/assets/images/member/provincial_pics_and_forms/PEI-Intent_to_Homeschool_Notice.pdf

    NOTE: That provision is now lifted not only for the Amish but also for any other parents undertaking home education. Please consider what such an advisor entails — 1) difficulty in obtaining such educator who is unfettered from union or other constraints; 2) an advisor whose mindset is undoubtedly influenced by 120 semester hours in a government teacher training program.

    Seeing that educators are even now raising the alarm that PEI’s responsiveness to its constituency is a sell-out to privatization simply illustrates how the producer side raises fears when it sees any leakage from its self-serving domain. Their radar has now sounded the alarm !

    BTW: That “Homeschooling in Canada” Report Paul Bennett references is worth reading. But without having to go into all 68 pages here are some choice “signals” that will be noted by those threatened by consumer voices.

    – “The four western provinces and Quebec have the most extensive, recent, and detailed provision for home schooling. British Columbia should be noted for its newer policy in Distributed Learning and Saskatchewan for its especially extensive proactive consideration of home schooling.” pg 32

    – “Although Prince Edward Island has updated its regulation, arguably it has done so because it is routine to do so, and not because of a proactive shift towards home schooling.” (Strange. This, 2015 Report seems unaware that proactive activity was involved on behalf of the Amish community intending to settle in PEI.) pg 32

    – In Saskatchewan, parents’ voices and communal action combined with a new ethos of responsiveness in the province and focus on student achievement have resulted in district boards offering increasing amounts for homeschooled students within their jurisdictions. Parents, for example, who register their children in the largest school board in the province are eligible to receive up to $1,000 per home-schooled student. pg 22

    A question was asked: Does the PEI concession to Amish education open the door for greater freedom of choice in education for others? YES, it does. The restrictive clause was not only removed but the discussion engendered has been educational and enlightening. We now know that that particular clause was designed as a deliberate disincentive to home educate. We know that proactive lobbying helps sway progress, as in PEI and Sask, for example. . And we know that there is such a thing as “a new ethos of responsiveness” in government (as in Sask). Let’s hope that this discussion launches more efforts to loosen the producer-side’s suffocating stranglehold on prevention of widening education choices in Canada.

    Thanks for bringing this matter forward, Paul There’s lessons to be learned if we pay attention.

    [published as a comment in SQE    http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/

     and Educhatter :   https://educhatter.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/school-choice-in-pei-will-the-amish-school-open-the-door/#comment-19666 ]

    Category GOOD NEWS, Obstacles, Opinions in media, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  5. disabling professionals create jobs

    February 29, 2016 by Tunya

     

    Confessions From A Disabling Professional

    “ . . . new needs are created just to justify the role and occupation of professional experts . . .” John McKnight, Professionalized Service and Disabling Help, 1977, http://www.panarchy.org/mcknight/disabling.html


    As one who benefited from a school system before it became the self-serving industry it is today, and, now as a granny concerned for future generations, I am constantly searching for explanations how and why all this went wrong. I am from Canada, and I see we are very backward in monitoring our education services. Neither our media nor keen educators as Greg Ashman probe or do investigative work to bring forth troubling information about Reading Recovery, for example, and ask the obvious question — How can a discredited methodology be allowed to continue to do harm to young students? I have anecdotal information that RR is also a common practice here as it is in New South Wales, Australia.


    I’ve been reading a book — The Future of Whole Language, 1996, by Susan Church (at that time a whole-language consultant in Nova Scotia, Canada)— and this is what is said about RR — “ . . .the real danger of Reading Recovery lies in its success. Because the program does seem to help children on their way to becoming readers and writers, it lets the institution off the hook. It allows us to continue to blame the children for their failures . . . “


    It does seem, doesn’t it, that whole-language enables the production of more jobs in education by the act of predictably disabling a portion of students as fodder for the sub-industry of “remediation” or “intervention”.

    Category Malpractice, Obstacles, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

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