Florida Reading is not greatly improved due to school choice-I am very sorry to disagree with you Malkin.It is greatly improved because of the work of the Florida Centre for Reading Research-Jo Torgesen`s team and their tremendous effort to identify kids at risk very early and provide ongoing PD so teachers deliver research based RTI(Response to Intervention).

They are an epicentre of knowledge in reading research and they are spreading it effectively to teachers in the State.Nice to see it`s starting to pay off.
They are winning the war to bridge the literacy gap.

Do you think that the Ontario public schools would listen if we had a similar centre in Ontario? I doubt it. My argument is simply that school choice forces schools to be open to change.

I see-I just feel it isn`t the reason for the improvement in Florida-I feel the Federal pressure for results is the reason for the improvement and we don`t have that here in Canada so for us school choice is imperative as a strategy.

First link is to research on READING FIRST, second is to the Florida Dept of Education.  Taken together, it doesn’t sound like school choice had any bearing on the matter.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/10862960903583202

http://www.justreadflorida.com/reading_first.asp

Reading First is a federal program mandated under the No Child Left Behind Act and administered by the Department of Education in Washington.  Maybe that’s the key for us - get Ottawa involved.

oops, no, i retract that.  it explains Florida’s success, but it doesn’t explain West Virgina’s failure.

I go along with Joanne, that it was the federal pressure more than choice in Florida. However, in the years spent online in American LD chat lines, choice was used by parents very early on for their children’s reading issues. Florida parents became more knowledgeable about reading because of the presence of the Florida Centre for Reading Research, and their connection to the public education system. Choice became very important for parents who had children with reading issues, and the need to have the reading issues being fixed early on, since public schools were known to used the wait and see approach.

So, both are right - federal pressure, choice and the Florida Centre for Reading Research all help to raised the achievement levels for the children in Florida.

As for Canada, I believe there should be federal dollars and a heavy presence looking over the shoulders of provincial governments regarding reading/literacy. The federal government has the stats to prove that low literacy and numeracy is a major headache in Canada’s economy.  It is time to redirect and add more federal monies to the root of the low literacy and numeracy levels - the provincial public education systems of K to 8; and order the MOEs to choose a selection of reading programs based on systematic explicit phonics.

My little fantasy.  A good start is to have our senators and MPs tell the public the role of provincial public education systems have played in keeping low literacy and numeracy rates steady, and on the upward trend for years. I can hear the screams of educrats, each time the government brings out the stats in different areas of society, and the final stat, where after 12 years of schooling, about 33 % of graduates have low literacy and numeracy skills…................. year after year after year.

I share your fantasy!Federal pressure definitely needed.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=1c947d23-47c1-4d9e-ab8a-066912787998

Parents must know-outrage needed.

Here is the final report from the CLLR. 

http://docs.cllrnet.ca/NSEL/finalReport.pdf

“Low literacy skills cost Canada billions of dollars annually. The costs associated with low literacy
can be summarized as: 1) opportunity costs; 2) remedial costs; and 3) intergenerational costs.
Opportunity costs include increased unemployment, reduced academic achievement, lower GDP, and lower income for the individual. Remedial costs include higher costs for health care services, criminal justice systems, education, and social assistance. Finally, intergenerational costs occur when the literacy challenges of parents are passed on to the next generation. The impact of increasing literacy skills is enormous: for example, if the level of literacy proficiency of every Canadian at Level 1 and 2 was raised to Level 3, the impact would include an additional $11 billion in tax revenue each year and a saving of $5 billion per year in employment insurance and social assistance payments.”

The report confirms what I have stated in the last post, and casts a negative light - a very bad one - on the public education system.

http://nselwiki.cllrnet.ca/index.php/National_Strategy_for_Early_Literacy

The sad part, and how the educrats went to work lobbying against the research findings of the CLLR to: “Between 2001 and 2010, The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet) supported research, training and knowledge exchange programs to improve the language, literacy and numeracy skills of Canadian children. This work was supported primarily by Industry Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence Program. That funding ended in 2009, and the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network ceased operations on March 31, 2010. “

The educrats from the ivory towers of the teachers’ colleges were the point men, in leading the charge along with the national teachers’ union and principals federation. There is always a few in Ottawa, lobbying for their best interests, to ensure that education stays within the provincial public education systems and their structures. The public education systems have also co-opted the literacy agencies that are peppered across the country, where effective remedial programs based on the research and science, are pushed to the side in favour of the whole language approaches and the God awful math methods, pushed out by the educrats of the teachers’ colleges.

“CTF speaks out whenever the interests of teachers and students are at stake. We liaise with federal departments and organizations whose work affects education, children and youth; we strive to keep private interests out of public schools; and we work hard to educate governments and citizens about the potential for harm to public interests in international trade agreements.”

http://www.ctf-fce.ca/AboutUS/Default.aspx

“CAP is committed to partnering with the Canadian education research community in order to provide more timely and more informative articles for readers. The CAP Journal is distributed to all CAP members and to non-association members (via individual subscriptions) in September, January, and May. The publication features a mix of leadership and education topics in each issue and contains a number of regular articles (i.e. book reviews, student leadership advice, CAP news, etc.) as well as several feature articles on a selected theme (i.e. special needs education, Aboriginal education, student transitions, etc.).”
http://cdnprincipals.org/?page_id=7

In both cases, there is nothing and I mean nothing on the search their archives of The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network.  The research from teachers colleges, very few research projects cites the researchers from the CLLRN. Just two parts of the education system, who claim to work for the best interests of education for children. They sure have done a good job, on conning the public, including a great many politicians and senators, and create a nice little niche where they become the experts to go to in all things in education.

The newest rant, is the urgency to put more education dollars towards the low-income, of the public education systems in Canada, as well as in other countries.  In the report from CLLRN, it states that the percentage of children that are at risk for reading failure are 60 % from the middle to the affluent income range, and 40 % from the low-income range. A figure to remember.

Another issue in Canada, and how the provincial public education systems have so much influence and sway over federal and provincial politicians, are their tactics in stopping federal funding dollars to the national organizations of Autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, and the other disorders that are calling for national funding, and standards for all public schools. The educrats have put the developmental disorders and other disorders to be used as a political football to their own nefarious interests, and still maintain the image to the public that these children need only a little bit more of the questionable progressive methods developed by the educrats. The effective methods that have been developed by the real researchers, are pointed out as being too costly. Not true, but reports like the last report of the CLLRN are buried to ensure the truth will never come out.

In Canada, I believe it will have to take a national class-action suit, and hopefully the autism and LD crowd will lead the charge. After paying out the rewards to the parents or the children, the public education systems will be force to change their ways, the structure, that has done so much harm to the children and their potential. It be something to see, the real researchers lining up behind the parents, and the pseudo-researchers of the public education system. It be something to see, how the educrats would explain why they have ignored the research, the real science, and chose to follow a philosophy with a worship only found in cults.