Not much on the teachers’ unions kicking up a fuss, but the survey is in response to the new changes made in November of 2011.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20120120/OPINION/301200031/1015/Editorial-Sound-off-school-choice?odyssey=nav|head

Fox video
http://www.fox4now.com/multimedia/videos/?bctid=1290748200001

I somehow doubt it that the survey results will show parents preference is the neighbourhood schools, in this day and age of uncertainly. Parents would like to have options, when the local school is no longer meeting the needs of their children. Nor do they want to return to days when parents had no options.

TDSB has had an open boundary policy for almost 40 years and has the high density and transit to make it as easy as possible to travel to another school. The even provide bussing for French Immersion and yet 90% of the students attend their neighbourhood school.

Choice is a distraction. We need to focus on excellence through equity. Do the leading nations achieve their leading positions through a choice system? No they don’t, they achieve excellence by building up their public school systems and putting a heavy collective, not individual emphasis on those having difficulty for whatever reason.

It seems the totally opposite opinion on all matters of education comes out #1. The worst possible value in education is competition.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

the only clear distraction to choice are closed minds and old notions that just never did have students in mind.

From the article Doug referenced:

“A master’s degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country.”

This is more important than most people want to admit.

Another note to Doug: the Finnish success in Math should be taken with a grain of salt—the PISA survey tests a certain type of math. The TIMMS survey is more indicative of real math ability (such as problem solving and higher order abstract thinking). Finland recently dropped out of the TIMMS survey because they were doing so poorly.

Look instead to Singapore, S.Korea, Japan for math. And the way they teach there is NOT the way that it is stereotyped. (Even in that Atlantic article! Read the forth paragraph.) It is far from “rote” and “memorization” based. That’s a stereotype based in pure ignorance. And the evidence of the incorrectness of that stereotype is in the results of the TIMMS. Rote memorization and a poor understanding of the fundamentals of mathematical thinking would result in a poor TIMMS result (see the US and Canadian results…).

the only clear distraction to choice are closed minds and old notions that just never did have students in mind.

From SQE’s own FI research paper there are really 2 reasons for private schools. The first are elite schools to give the sons and daughters of privledge an advantage. They might not make it in an equal opportunity merit based system.

The second big piece are religious non catholic (but some catholic) schools.

Students hardly chose those, their parents chose those because they wanted to indoctrinate their childred into one faith without giving them a free choice of faith or no faith. They are afraid if they wait too long it “will not take”.

None of this is for “the student” this is all “for the parents.”

” they wanted to indoctrinate their children into one faith without giving them a free choice of faith or no faith.”

Boy Doug, it is you that is the snob, including the elites within the education system, that uses indoctrination in all aspects of educating children. From teaching children to exclude based on ability to being taught it is okay to discriminate based on ability to employing instruction and curriculum that induces shame unto the parents and children inside the school walls.

Indoctrination is what the whole education system is all about, to ensure that children and parents follows the values of the education system that all work to the agendas and best interests of those that work within the system.

Free choice of faith does not exist within the pubic education system, and not when they curriculum and practices seeks out to remove all of the admirable and strengths of Western faith, and the Western Christian values that created nations and the democracy tenets. In its place, a selection of how Western values as well as their faith values have conspired to oppressed people throughout their history, and are guilty of many sins. The ethnic European, Canadian, and America students are taught to feel guilty about the Christian faith and the values attached to them.

In a school yard, it certainly does not take long when kids of different faiths other than Christian exert their new found power, bullying other children because they are white. White = Christian in the indoctrination of the public schools, and breeds intolerance.

Intolerance is what is taught, and is a big topic in Europe. The main culprit that is being single out is the public education systems and the indoctrination of children breeding intolerance.

The public system must be by definition secular and since it follows science, must point out all of the places where religious dogma has led to serious problems with progressive advancement, Galileo, Darwin, Crusades, Inquisition, Witch craze, Salem, Residential schools, Holocaust, and on and on. The public system must not just be athiest but in fact antitheist.

Some people want to avoid all of this with religous schools. Few support this.

Nancy,

We must smash the chains that bind one generation of religious adherents to the last generation and start each generation anew with science and reason not myth and superstition.

Doug said, “From SQE’s own FI research paper there are really 2 reasons for private schools. The first are elite schools to give the sons and daughters of privledge (sic) an advantage.”

If you read the paper, and go on to read Dr. VanPelt’s thesis, disappointment with the public schools was a strong reason:

“Disappointment with public or separate schools
was a factor in choosing their private school for 94
percent of surveyed parents. 75 percent said this
disappointment was a very important factor in
their choice.”

On pages 23 and 24 of the paper, the two groups of parents (academic and religious) had their top ten reasons listed.  http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/reports/OntariosPrivateSchools.pdf

Having their kids in an elite atmosphere was not among them:  “The most highly rated reason for choosing any private school was the dedication of the teachers, which was seen as very important by 91 percent of all parents. In addition, more than 80 percent of all parents declared as very important an emphasis on academic quality.”

The number one reason for choosing private common to both groups of parents was safety.

Of the more than 900 private schools in the province, about a dozen would be considered “elite”. Our study dispelled many of the myths about private school parents in Ontario.