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This is SQE’s very own video, available free in DVD form, and it shows just how good charter schools can be. Not many parents can watch this without wishing they could send/could have sent their children to one of these schools.
Congratulations to the University of Western Ontario for making it onto Playboy magazine’s list of the ten top party schools. Ranked fourth, Western is the only Canadian university to make the list. Quite a distinction. Well done!
So this honour (to my alma mater, BTW) has started me thinking about other top ten lists that Ontario elementary and secondary schools might be eligible for. For example, what about the school that showed the most movies in one year? Or had the most popcorn parties? The most hours lost to non-academic pursuits like assemblies, field days, parties, class trips, values courses, and so forth?
I’m confident that a great many Ontario schools will be able to offer strong competition in these categories. Bring it on!
All over Ontario, declining enrolment has led to threats to close dozens of schools, and the natives are restless: Hamilton, Peterborough, Oakville, and many more communities. Feelings are running high, and there appear to be no easy answers. But there is one possibility that is not being explored.
This option is laid out in our new quick study “Danger - or Opportunity?”. Basically, we are proposing that instead of closing schools with unused space, the school boards find creative ways to keep them open - by, for example, renting out the surplus space to agencies with complementary services or by moving the students to smaller venues like a YMCA or a church. These reinvented schools offer potentially significant benefits - but they would require flexibility and openness to new ideas on the part of their school boards.
Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time….....
Do you know of a Canadian university student who would like to earn $1,500 plus a trip to Washington? Then tell him or her about this essay-writing contest on the morality of free enterprise.
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees are holding their noses, but it may be that the relentless hemorrhage of some 5,000 students every year (along with the resulting surplus of space in schools and parents' resistance to school closures) is going to force the board to agree to a group of "private-school-like academies". More here.
Clearly, the board is in an approach-avoidance conflict. If the board doesn't offer the kind of schools parents want, parents and students will continue to vote with their feet and enrollment will continue to decline. On the other hand, the trustees suspect and fear, deep in their hearts, that the new schools will be very popular, with favourable reviews and long waiting lists - much more popular than the white bread progressive schools they favour and which enjoy a virtual monopoly at present.
If the trustees dither much longer, there will be no possibility of launching the new academies this September. If it weren't so important, their indecision would be amusing.
This new study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation reports that grade 3 kids who are reading below grade level are 4 times less likely to graduate from high school. And if the kids are from poor families, they are 13 times less likely to graduate from high school than their wealthier peers who read at grade level or better. The researchers didn't look at grade 1 kids who are reading below grade level but it is likely, based on other research, that the same applies to grade 1 kids.
Primary teachers have an awesome responsibility. Their students' futures are literally in their hands!
While I'm on the subject, we promised to mention the International Dyslexia Association's (Ontario Branch) conference in Toronto on May 7 in Toronto. More information here.
We have frequently mentioned the importance of phonics in beginning reading and how important it is that children learn how to decode. After all, it's pretty hard to understand a written passage if you can't read the words!
However, merely learning to decode is not the whole story. It is also necessary that children be able to understand the words they are reading. And that's where vocabulary and general knowledge enter the picture - as brilliantly elucidated by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. in this article from the latest issue of American Educator, the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers. Consider the following passage (taken from Dr. Hirsch's article).
"When Luca Turin was a boy growing up in Paris, according to Chandler Burr's ebullient new book about him, 'he was famous for boring everyone to death with useless, disconnected facts, like the distance between the earth and the moon in Egyptian cubits'. Mr. Burr sets out to explain how such obsessive curiosity turned Mr. Turin into a pioneering scientist who, in the author's estimation, deserves a Nobel Prize."
Dr. Hirsch points out that, although the passage does not require expert background knowledge, there are still a number of things that readers need to know if they are to comprehend it. "We need to know first that this is a book review, which aims to tell us what the book is about and whether it is worth reading. We need to understand that the reviewer is favorably disposed to the book, calling it 'ebullient', and that it is a nonfiction work about a scientist named Luca Turin. we need to have at least a vague semantic grasp of key words like ebullient, boring, obsessive, pioneering, estimation. We need to know some of the things mentioned with exactness, but not others. It's not necessary to know how long a cubit is. Indeed, the text implies that this is an odd bit of information, and we can infer that it is some form of measurement. We need to know in general what Paris is, what the moon is and that it circles the earth, that it is not too far away in celestial terms, and we need to have some idea what a Nobel Prize is and that it is very prestigious. Consider the knowledge domains included in this list. Paris belongs to history and geography; so does Egypt. The moon belongs to astronomy and natural history. The Nobel Prize belongs to general history and science."
The article goes on to explain how important a shared background of vocabulary and general knowledge are. Dr. Hirsch is making the case that all schools should teach a common curriculum - especially important given the incredible extent of student mobility (about one-third of American students every year, according to the article).
I have tried to hit the highlights of the article because I know that, with the exception of Nancy, few of our readers are likely to take the time to read the whole thing. However, it deals with an important concept, one with far-reaching implications, and I do urge you to take the time to learn about the importance of providing all children with excellent vocabularies and a generous fund of shared general knowledge.
This three-part TV show is very funny and worth watching but, if you don't have 30 minutes to spare, just watch Part 2.
The latest additon to our lending library is Campus Confidential: 100 startling things you don't know about Canadian universities by Ken. S. Coates and Bill Morrison. Though ostensibly written for students, the book contains a great deal of information that will surprise many parents, teachers, taxpayers, and even professors. Canadian universities have undergone a lot of changes over the last 25 years. Here are a few little-known facts: a university degree is no longer a golden ticket to landing a job; the university one attends matters very little; university administrations' top priority is filling spaces; and cheating is rampant on modern campuses. The excerpt (pp. 61-63) reveals the shocking extent of academic failure.
"There's a nasty secret that rarely surfaces in public discussions about universities. Many students - at some places perhaps nearly half of all those who enter - do not graduate. Across the country, tens of thousands of students each year leave campuses, some to transfer to other educational institutions, others for jobs. But the vast majority leave as academic failures.
"Think about that for a moment. Remember how much time and effort young Johnny devoted to picking a university, paying tuition and room and board, and launching his studies? Now, imagine how he feels when he fails three or four mid-term exams, struggles with essays and lab reports, crashes during final tests, and then gets the dreaded Dean's letter requiring an extended academic holidy, often in mid-year when his probation runs out. Contemplate the phone call: 'Hi, Mom. I got kicked out of school. Can I come home?'
So much is loaded into this experience. Forget the money; you can write that off as an unfortunate investment. remember that young people, coddled from birth, have little experience with failure. They have been told that prosperity and opportunity require a university degree. They know their future depends on it. And now they have been rejected by the institution that was the repository of their career ambitions. Failure in university is a life-limiting experience.
"Why is the failure rate so high? even the best schools, attracting only the top students. lose up to 10 per cent of their first-year students. Issues of maturity, too much beer, the discovery of sex, wrong program choices, laziness, homesickness, and money woes are part of the challenge.
"But the real culprit is the national conceit that all students who want to go to university should have the chance. University, according to this belief, is a right, like shelter and medical care. Other countries limit access to (publicly funded) universities to students who have demonstrated aptitude and motivation.
"No such elitism for Canada. even the top schools are comparatively accessible. Our national mantra about equality of opportunity is no better displayed than through the expensive university admission processes. Universities need money to survive. Students provide money. Therefore students are heartily welcomed, with inadequate concern about their ability to succeed.
"The current approach is wrong. Students who fail carry a heavy personal burden. Their parents are disappointed - with their child or the institution - as well as out of pocket. The cost to the government is considerable. And classes with large numbers of students ill suited for study can produce a very unhappy academic environment.
"There is enormous variation in academic success rates. Universities that attract mor students of lower academic achievement (below 75 per cent is a good cut-off, given today's grossly inflated high school grades) have lower graduation rates. The data on this crucial topic is collected but is rarely disseminated and does not form part of the maclean's ranking of universities - even though it may be the single most important measure of institutional effectiveness.
"Greater honesty is needed here. A dismally large portion of the students going to a Canadian university in any academic year will not graduate. If incoming students knew this secret, some of the weaker ones might find a better training option elsewhere. Others might be more motivated and might work harder, knowing how many actually do fail and are asked to leave. This dirty little secret needs to be aired."
We have mentioned a number of times that Florida is the US state with the most and the best school choice. The graph compares the learning gains of low-income grade 4 and grade 8 students on the national tests of reading and math between 2003 and 2009. (As an aside, get a load of the negative trend in West Virginia - a state with zero school choice.)
American parents of low-income children who are struggling in school would be well advised to head for Florida. Canadian? Well, there's always Alberta!