It is odd that the forces realign in prefect unity, to close down Flowervale, with the high achievement scores, waiting lists with a Liberal government anxious to do it their way. Is direct instruction that much of a threat?

Below is a link, for the test scores from 1999 to 2006. Impressive to say the least.
http://www.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/page.cfm?id=S00000099&sc=434

Another curious thing, is the absent of historical information about Flowervale, and many dead links. It is almost like someone or some groups would like to erase the history of Flowervale Public School.  I also found old links on American sites, that listed Flowervale Public School as a traditional school. One would think that there would be a few newspaper articles archived for viewing. And yet I could not find one - it is as if the school never existed except under EQAO. Thank God, for the collection of stats.

I would be interested in looking at the other schools, because I still do not buy the reason that parents and even younger ones are not interested in traditional schools.

It’s the “tall poppy” syndrome at work.

Sadly, I must say that I think TDSBNW is probably correct in most areas of GTA.
It took me a long time to come to believe it, but I think that for the majority of parents academic rigour and training are not a priority.
In my experience the parents that tend to care about rigorous academics are about 50% of the parents that are first generation Canadians, some professionals - the ones that have attended very rigorous school themselves, some parents who have lived overseas for a long time or have studied overseas (and are familiar with other school systems and their result)s and some parents belonging to communities that have been discriminated against in the past such as jewish people.

Second generation canadians tend to care first and foremost about their children’s self-esteem, feelings, and social skills which they think are best developed by leting children magically learn things at their own pace (regardless of the quality of the teaching, regardless of the amount of practice).

They tend to be more likely to make sure their kids get to hockey practice 3 times a week, which is good for them because it pushes them to do their best. However making sure that their kids know how to read is barely on the radar because the kids have to learn at their own pace and making them practice would destroy their self-esteem and their motivation.
Yes, I am exagerating, but that’s the type of behavior I have seen again and again. There seems to be some sort of twisted logic and magical thinking that kicks in regarding academic learning that is impervious to any rational argument.

Guys, sorry, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but you are not typical in any way. I’m very glad that I found SQE, I will always be grateful for Stairway to Reading, but you, us, we don’t have the same way of thinking as the majority.

Don’t get me wrong: I love sports, I think they are essential for health and just a wonderful way to spend one’s time. I also think that if done the right way they do teach perseverance, fair-play, learning your own limits and then going past them.
I think kids need both academics and sports.
It is just the disparity between the emphasis on sports and the emphasis on academics that puzzles me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do in practical terms.
This whole mess has started and is kept in place from the top.
If gradually we get people with a different mentality and belief system in positions of authority in the ministry of educations and the faculties of education things may start changing.

Also, I think it has also become a problem of public opinion awareness: we have to make it obvious that the emperor is naked.

I’ve been reading Chip Heath and Dan Heath books: “Made To Stick” and “Switch” and I have started to think how some of the principles can be applied to our problem.

Continuing to discuss parents’ attitudes ...

See ... I think part of the problem is that because we have no standards, the parents are lulled into this comfortable place that everyhing is ok. And even if it’s not totally ok, it will be, because they tell me it will be and I am a good parent and he is a good kid and we are doing what everybody tells us we should be doing. So things will be ok, when the time comes.

By the time it is obvious beyond rationalization that it is really not ok and it will not become ok it is so late in the game that it becomes a sisifean effort to catch up.

If we had real standards, and tests to test the students against those standards ( the kind where results from one year can be meaningfully compared to results from previous years)  at the end of each school year, then we can start a reality check process.
Yes, obviously, standardized testing does not solve achievement problems on their own.
And yes, obviously, at least initially kids will get hurt because they will be asked to show mastery when they have been poorly taught.

Well .. they will get hurt less anyway then if the problem is hidden away under the carpet for a few more years. At least their parents will get to know earlier that not everything is ok and at least some of them will take action and help their kids earlier.

When standards begin to matter, parents would not be able to afford to ignore them.
Kids would not be able to ignore them.

The way it is know the buck get passed from grade 1 to grade 2 to middle school, and the bubble tends to start bursting in grade 9 and then really burst by grade 10 when there’s no way to tiptoe against the massive lack of skills and knowledge that has been accumulating during all of these 9 years.

TDSBNW, I do think there is interest in a traditional elementary and middle school in certain groups; I don’t know how you can reach them.

Your target group are the parents like the ones that attend information nights at high school programs such as TOPS at Marc Garneau, parents like the parents of students attending AYJackson.

Europe - the sticky principle could possibly explain why whole language, and other programs filled with non-concrete examples are always going under transformation. The latest is multi-literacies, filled with edubabble, and not at all simple.

“Nope. Our book was written for a type of problem, not a type of person. The problem is this: When you have an important idea, how do you communicate it in a way that has impact? How do you construct a great idea? Teachers and businesspeople and ministers all have this problem in spades, so our book will help them—but only with this one problem! We’ve got absolutely nothing to say about long division or finance or salvation.

The cool thing, to us, is realizing that the idea-playbook is similar for these diverse sets of people. Good science lessons and good Hollywood movies both raise mysteries that cause people to *want* to listen until the mystery is resolved. Aesop’s Fables have survived over 2000 years because of their concrete examples, and if you want your business plan to survive more than 15 minutes, you’d better be concrete as well.

Once you’ve got a great idea in your head—whether you’re in engineering or business or teaching—there are a handful of principles that will help you communicate it. That’s where our book comes in.”

Read more: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/the_stickiness_.html#ixzz1DYm8DUrt

Aesop’s Fables is a rare book to find inside a school….............and yet it survives. Of course it is not on the approved lists of books to read, but I used it for my children. A book that conveys simple morals, without the if, buts, and complicated thinking.

Read on a few more posts.  The saga continues.

TDSBNW, I’ve been thinking some more why you haven’t seen a demand for a traditional alternative school.
Who knows, maybe you could use this information somehow ...

First of all, I don’t think many parents know that it is possible to start an alternative school.

Secondly the parents that would consider getting themselves into such an enterprise would either
- have to be well aware that the public school system is not a traditional school (that is: a school that is not teaching reading phonetically, spelling, standard math algorithms and does not have clear expectations ) before their children start grade 1
There are few such parents.
- to have had enough dissapointing experiences with the public schools to be ready to risk big on something different
This parents are already hurt and most likely would not trust somebody within the system.

One of your biggest problems is that in my opinion the parents that would most likely want a traditional school are both working full time and can’t afford to take time off work to participate in organizing a school.

Your other problem is that before someone gets to know you and other similarly minded teachers or principals, how would these parents even know that there are still teachers out there in the public system that believe in a traditional school and are competent to teach in such a way?
Because you guys have been forced by circumstances to fly under the radar, it is not at all obvious that you still exist. It has certainly been a huge pleasant surprise for me.

I think that at least a good 20-30% of the parents whose kids attend a private all-day kindergarden program with a good reputation would be interested in such a school.
They are parents that are already aware of the problems.
Most likely another category would be parents that are considering French immersion for their children.

TDSBNW, do your seriously think that such a school would not get shut down once it started showing results?
I think it would. As long as you depend on an outside administration you have no control over to provide you the location, to allow only the teachers who fit the program to teach there, there are so many tricks that can be played upon such a program!

Everything is set up in such a way so as to drag all students down to the lowest possible denominator and then to be able to point out that no school is able to do better because of problems outside the school’s control.