Money Down the Drain

A comment to The True Cost of a Free Lunch pointed us to an excellent article in City Journal which discusses the characteristics of kindergarten education that actually confers academic and social gains on disadvantaged students. Unfortunately, the type of teaching approach (highly-scripted direct instruction) that is identified as being best for disadvantaged students is out of fashion in Ontario, and thus unlikely to be used here. Unless Ontario education leaders experience a sudden conversion on the road to Damascus, we stand by our prediction that the province’s fancy new all-day kindergarten will end up costing Ontario taxpayers an arm and a leg, enriching the coffers of the teachers’ unions but making no difference whatsoever to student success.

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