I never thought I’d say it but a cautious thank-you to Dalton McGuinty although it has been long rumored that Dalton was a fan of charter schools.

Guess the unions have a choice to make of their own.
Will it be the NDP or the Liberals they bolster in the next election?

I will have an article this week that McGuinty hs fallen in with a bad crowd. The federation often say that they have their heart in the NDP and their brain in the Liberals. The NDP is closer to the fed view but is too small so they need McGuinty to keep the real Visigoths the blue devils, out of power, kind of like Whoppie Goldberg in the centre square to block. McGuinty’s record is a glass half full.

We also can’t stomach Fullan and Barber as well. Barber was an advisor to Joe Klein in NYC and did he ever screw up that town with charters all over the place but zero growth in NAEP test scores.

The charter test bandwagon has not stopped south of the border inspite of the fact that under this direction America keeps on falling in international rankings. Remedial class for Obama and Duncan.

Duncan did a terrible job when in charge of Chicago schools which naturally earned him the national gig.

more likely he plays basketball with the Prez

It’s fast becoming clearer why the change in Minister of Education happened if Dalton’s going to explore taking a page from Obama’s playbook.

Guess Obama didn’t think he did a bad job of Chicago schools at all all.

The pendulum is swinging again to the right and it’s not the conservatives doing it.

The Liberals have always been half reactionary and half progressive. That is why they are Liberals. They are indecisive, cowardly, calculating, fence- sitting, wet finger in the wind, types. When they sniff ECE and slashing primary class sizes will be popular they do it. If they fear that killing the totally useless and destructive EQAO would hurt them, they keep it. It is spineless jellyfish politics but aren’t we all used to it by now?

I hve now fear of American bandwagon education policy because like a kitten with a ball of wool, if you throw them a new one they will be all over that one. With both Diane Ravitch and now Chester Finn of all people saying conservatives need to wise up to the facts that testing and charters are failed policies there is a shift happening already. The new things are teacher bashing and national standards. The first is dead end but the second has real possibilities. I support national standards. So do huge numbers of business type conservatives but social conservatives like the recent Yahoos in Texas (check out that mess, they are just making up history now) don’t want your national types messin’ with Texas. I’m sure the red necks right across the south feel the same way. National standards would expose the fact that Bubba isn’t learnin’ much down where cousins marry.

I suspect the “rednecks” in the “South” are no more likely to marry their cousins than anyone else.  As a person who claims to be an expert on all things educational I’m a little surprised at all the nonesense.  Keep in mind that the STAR study you referred to as evidence of the need for small classes in Ontario was done in Tennessee, you know one of them “southern states”.

Studies on classroom size suggest that the benefits of smaller classes take place when otcomes in very large classes are compared to vey small classes, however marginal differences in class size have no impact.  Simply put McGuinty benefitted kids not at all by cuttings classes in the low-middle twenties, the bulk of the ones in Ontario, to his artificiallly low cap of twenty.

As an excuse to dump money into a portion of the school system where numbers of students are declining it was great theatre but it was not a priority in the real world.

Alarm Bells Clang, Loud and Clear – Ontario Education Summit – a Colossal Hoax!

This Ontario Education Summit, to be co-chaired by Michael Fullan and Sir Michael Barber, strikes a wrong chord right from the start.  These “turn-around” gurus should be the LAST persons to lead or chair discussions on the topic of education reform.  They are both in severe conflict of interest here.  They should disqualify themselves right from the start.  They are married to the system!

The only reason we would have these people start such a conference is if they used the platform to REPENT.  Say they’re sorry for the systems they’ve been involved in; provide chapter and verse of where they’ve misled, delayed, diverted, stalled, etc., etc. true education reform.  After such CONFESSIONS, they should hand over the chair to someone who does NOT have a special interest or stake in the system.  Someone who is disinterested in the outcome other than that the deliberations should produce something productive from the participants.

The chair should be somewhat like a Registered Parliamentarian who goes beyond just conducting a good meeting but gets to the essence, the core principles, of why the meeting is being held.

Sure, this Summit will have speakers, but that’s for inspiration or ideas.  But the major work of this summit should be in deliberations and workshops to produce working solutions to the problems to be dealt with. 

For more on what a Registered Parliamentarian can do, read the following:

What is a Registered Parliamentarian? By Eli Mina, M.Sc
http://www.elimina.com/insights/parliamentarian.htm

Interesting, this Mr. Mina.  He says he goes beyond offering procedural interpretations, but provides advice to “rescue organizations from procedural nonsense.”

Frankly, the procedures and program so far outlined and endorsed by the Education Minister Dombrowsky and Premier McGuinty smacks of the biggest hoax and nonsense soon to be perpetrated on the long-suffering citizens of Ontario!

Don’t worry John, we are very happy that conservatives continue to argue that class sizes make no difference. Both from a pedagogical perspective but also from a political perspective, you have lost the argument before it starts. The belief in and the reality of smaller classes
is supported by a significant majority of the population. Prents in the vast majority want smaller classes.

Frankly I agree with Tunya. These people, Fullan,Barber and Duncan are all failures following failed conservative policies of testing and charters. They have nothing to add. If they want a real eduction summit, invite Diane Ravitch and Linda Darling-Hammond who can pinpoint how these conservative policies have failed the USA.

A recent article in the “Wall Street Journal” by a Harvard professor of government includes an even-handed summation of the research on charter schools (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123470465841424.html?mod=rss_opinion_main).  The preponderance of evidence appears to be that, on average, charter schools are achieving significantly better results than comparable conventional public schools. In addition, another Harvard professor, along with a German colleague, examined the international evidence - and came to the conclusion that “the greater the competition between the public and private sector, the better all students do in math, science and reading”.

The Harvard paper can be found here:

http://educationnext.org/school-choice-international/

Summary:
“Our findings from an international study of 29 countries speak quite clearly. Competition from private schools improves student achievement, and appears to do so for public school as well as private school students. And it produces these benefits while decreasing the total resources devoted to education, as measured by cumulative educational spending per pupil. Under competitive pressures from private schools, the productivity of the school system measured as the ratio between output and input increases by even more than is suggested by looking at educational outcomes alone.”

One wonders if parents would prefer small classes to… 

Oh, right; they weren’t given any other possibilities of what the money could be used for, say, updated schools, more textbooks, more computers, more facilities, etc.

All things being equal and if no other options are offered I daresay parents would opt for smaller classes.

As already stated there’s no difference between the outcomes in Daltie’s artificial classes of 20 and classes of slightly more than that.  One wonders when our teachers lost the abilty to do what they’ve always been capable of doing.

As to having “severe conflicts of interests” and being “married to the system” as disqualifiers that’d pretty much out the entire teaching profession as being regarded as contributors to discussion/advice on education policy, right?

I’m hoping we hold the same high standard for all participants in the debate.

The polls tell us that not only are smaller classes the preferred option of parents among choices but they are also the second best use of the money behind improving teacher quality.

John, I don’t say you can have this or this or this in education. If they all make things better then you can have this and this and this. The money could not be better spent than on the kids, unless you would rather steal it from them John and spend it on what, submarines, bombers? guns?

Arne Duncan did close dozens of Chicago schools and it made absolutely no difference. The kids had to walk over to the second worst tier of schools which became the worst although they were not that bad before. This inncorerect solution comes from a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem. The problem is not in the rncipal or the teachers or the building or the support staff. It is also not in the parents or the children. The problem is poverty. If the children were not poor, the same children would be doing fine. If you took the same “failing” teachers over to the rich schools they also would be doing fine. The only variable in the equation is poverty as it always is.

What poll Mr. Little? The People for Education internal poll of their dwindling supporters and unions? A little self-serving isn’t it?

Class size was never an issue in my region, so the move to a small cap proved a hardship and way too expensive because in a region of continuing declining enrolment we sure as heck didn’t need to hire more teachers. That’s what this class size plan was all about. It sure wasn’t about the kids.

Same for the Balanced School Day that got shoved down our throats and the move to semester our secondary schools. All unions driven.

I think it bothers the hell out of you Doug that Duncan took your favourites….poor schools in low economic neighbourhoods and turned things around proving all of the rhetoric you’re spinning wrong.

It is interesting that Duncan will be the keynote speaker at the conference, Building Blocks for Education: Whole System Reform. Here is a link, that is well-balanced in presenting views, of Duncan and school reform in Chicago.
“But Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policies are not really about Duncan or his successor. The biggest threat to finally achieving equitable and quality education in Chicago’s low-income African American and Latino/a schools is not the individual who carries out the policy but a system of mayoral control and corporate power that locks out democracy. The impact of those policies includes thousands of children displaced by school closings, spiked violence as they transferred to other schools, and the deterioration of public education in many neighborhoods into a crisis situation.”
Reform took place in Chicago, because of the political system, and how education is governed under the political process.
It should be interesting, who attends the conference. How many of the education ministers of other provinces will show up as observers?  But what will be more interesting, how the reforms that took place in Chicago, will reappear in a different versions, in Ontario and the other provinces. After one reads the article, I would not be surprise to see reforms that will reduce teacher unions to having far less power and influence, so charter schools and other alternatives can take place in the public education system. It is speculation, but parents within the public education system, within schools, have lost their influence a long time ago, and are not in any means, highly organized within the system. Once teacher unions are less powerful politically, than the reform of education will take place with great gusto.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/23_03/arne233.shtml

Every poll Mr Sheep,

OISE polls over many years, P4E polls, Vector Polls, all of them show very strong majoriterian support for small class sizes but I’m happy that conservatives campaign against small classes because it help keep them out of power.

The beauti of declining enrolement is that you don’t have to hire more teachers, you just need to keep the ones you have.

The funny thing about Duncan Mr Sheep, it failed and everybody in Chicago now acknowledges that it failed. For those who like tests to keep score, no improvement in Chicago.

Doug, small class sizes, and the cheer leading section for small class sizes, are based largely from studies conducted from primary classes. As you get into high school, the few studies that have been conducted it is not class size, but teacher quality that impacts learning. It also shows, there is no significant change in achievement, when it comes to sizes of high school classes. But there is significant achievement rates at the primary and elementary levels, that shows smaller classes, students achievement rates increase dramatically.
And you are wrong, when it comes to schools and declining enrollment. The opposite happens, a school will have less teachers, because the funding formula for schools is based on student population. Some education systems, are now basing in part, the needs of the students, and the number of teachers. But the schools would have to show a significant need for increase teachers. As a result, this newer policy has not change anything at the school level, for many of the schools. Schools with declining enrollment, have less of everything, including specialized teachers, and teachers working within those schools, the general teachers are being ask to take over work, that the specialized teachers once did in the schools.
Even in the community where I live, the rumors are that the high school will loose their special education teacher, and quite a few teachers who will retire at the end of this year. The teachers who will replace the retired teachers, will be the freshly minted teachers, who are not experienced, nor have the background to teach specialized courses. The first sign is the number of courses have been reduced. As of September 2010, high school courses will be available only for the essential core subjects, and the rest will be mickey mouse courses of healthy living, and learning how to cook a can of soup. My kid, as well as other students, are upset about this turn of events, especially for students who wanted to take skilled trade courses. They will not exist for the class of 95’ or for the ones that come after them. Furthermore, another move that has taken place, is the removal of basic courses, and at that time I could not understand why the removal, when other schools do offer them. It made sense, when I heard the rumor of the special education teacher leaving at the end of the school year, and basic courses will now be only for special education students. Now any teacher will be able to teach the basic courses, in English and Math, without the need of a special education teacher. Who cares if the SE students have different learning needs, or even have the ability to take applied courses, or even have the motivation, the desire to take applied courses!  According to the talk, and what little I have had confirmed, apparently SE classes and basic courses, will have anywhere between 20 to 30 students, that are grade 10. Some of these students and their parents are upset, because it is being force upon them, and are now thinking of dropping out in the grade 10 level, with the blessings of the parents.And where the drop-outs.  And Doug, the bulk of these children, have the ability to learn, but was not given the proper help in the first place and did not have parents, who had skills and abilities to help their children at home. The only student who is not slated for SE classes, is my daughter.
The rural high schools, no matter what part of the country are dealing with exactly the same things, as what is happening within my community.

Nancy, your posts are so long and dense there is a disincentive to read them.

I know very well the funding formula says fewer kids fewer teachers. You need to understand from my viewpoint that when rules say you must do this, my atitude is “change the rules”. The funding formula is up for review this year. We need to convince McGuinty that another round of class size reductions is in order. I agree with you about teacher quality in fct I would say that teacher quality trumps class size even in primary but I don’t believe in economic trade offs. I want better teachers and class size reductions and ELP and more resources and free tuition in first year and newer better schools and higher wages to attract the best and more support staff and better resources.

It is very sound economics to demand everything in education be first class, no trade offs because the payback is many times the cost. You invest an extra $3 billion, the economy grows by 8-9 billion as a direct result. This is how it works in education, the more you spend, the more you have left.

The reality is, there is always economic trade offs in any type of system, company, including a family unit. What you want, the trade off will be in not making repairs, student fees will rise, construction of new schools may be drastically reduce, etc. The kicker is that all the have-not schools which is the majority, money would have to be poured into those schools, to raise their status from have-not to haves. The increase in personal, would sky-rocket, plus the resources needed, and in some schools they never have the resources of a wood shop, nor the room for such luxuries. Also in your world Doug, the administration and governance will not need to change. I question people within the system demanding more money, than refuse to be held accountable at any level of the education system. Have you ever been held accountable for failing your students?  Have a school ever been held accountable for failing to provide the necessary resources, for a child to become an accomplished reader?  Change has to happen to the whole system, and you should be worry about this conference, and what will be the discussions. The union?  The governance of the system? The accountability issues?  Or will it be on the school boards, the one place where they squeezed parents, children and teachers into puppets on a string, to dance to their tune on command.

Where did I ever propose we “steal it” from kids and spend it on submarines, bombers or guns?

Creating all sorts of strawmen and ascribing claims to people which weren’t made doesn’t add to your value here; certainly kids who make things up are
seen as a little dishonest, right?

Feel free to challenge me on what I actually said, however if you embellish or make false claims you’ll be called on it.

See it as expecting you to behave as the “educated” person you keep claiming to be.

On the issue of dumping billions more into “education” there’s no way of knowing what benefit it provides uinless we know, exactly,  how it will be spent.

Then there’s the issue of what other things the billions won’t be used for, social housing, the environment, public transit, healthcare,et al.

Unless you asacribe no value to any of those things Doug’s claim that spending it on “education”
is a nobrainer is rubbish.

I am going to try to explain this to you again John maybe this time you will get it. You are talking about opportunity cost, or whatever is spent on one thing is not available to be spent on something else and you are such a selfless socialistic kind of guy you want to spend it on public transit and social housing. Good for you.

Suppose I were to tell you that I had an investment vehicle where you would put your money and it was guaranteed to go up. You would sy there is no such thing, even blue chip stock can go down which is why there is always a risk.

I am saying tht is not so. Investing in education by society is so good that there is an absolute guarantee that the investment will go up. It is far better than the LCBO which returns $1 billion to the Ontario treasury every year. The investment in education of $1 billion causes the economy to produce many times that investment. Yes you must not invest too much in palaces for the director et all but so long s the money is invested in teachers, more and better, class size and ELP it is absolutely guaranteed to go up and carry society up with it.

Education is an investment in human capital which unlike the old capital, (buildings, machines, trains, planes, mines etc) is investing in people. This is the new high value added investment for all societies. The ones who do it will be rich societies. The ones who do not invest MASSIVELY in human capital production will be left behind. Human capital radically raises the productivity of a society draws in investment and makes everybody richer.

On the negative side, for every billion you invest in education you save $4 billion in welfare, EI, criminal justice system, property damage, even the health bill and medicare.

Education makes a society so rich that it can easily afford the public transportation and social housing you are very concerned about John and because of the increased productivity, we can do it without a tax increase in fact, if we go about it right, we can cut taxes.

Do you think Finland, Singapore, Japan, Korea the rest of Scandenavia, and other competitors of ours are stupid to pour so much of their money into education? Are you aware of the rate that India and China are producing engineers and scientists?

John we really face two stark choices ahead 1) invest massive amounts in education or 2) Watch out standard of living collapse to the point that it cannot pay our pensions.

That choice is up to you.

Throwing insults, to avoid reality is not going to help your side. Everytime the teachers get raises, the children get reduce resources, services, or cuts of services, such as a cafeteria, reduce to a canteen. The further away from Toronto and the metro area, we pay property taxes for far less services. Rural areas have a lower population base, and therefore cannot raise taxes, or tinker with this service or that one, like big urban centres have and can do. Ditto for schools and other services. Until funding formulas in government services, stop using the base in population, the inequities are going to be present, and noticable in rural areas.
The way the system is, when one part gets more money, another part will get less money. When a population is large, they will get more money, more services and more of everything, and when the population is small, monies and services received will be much smaller.
The bean counters, the politicians, like it this way. So all the stakeholders can fight over the pot of money, and depending on where the stakeholder is on the ladder, they will have more power and influence, than the ones below them. Doug, you have not been in schools of late. Check out the bathrooms, for soap and toilet paper. They probably do not have any, because they ran pass their quota for the month.Check out the light fixtures and windows, either need a electrician and window repair is on a waiting list. Check out the paper handouts and how many sheets are allow for each student, and probably for some students they have gone pass their quota, and no, parents are not allowed to provide paper. Check out how many times, classrooms are clean, and if they do chalk boards, that is the janitors who only seem to be real busy in the hallways scrubbing floors. Check out snowplowing operations, and that is if they have the money to do so. Check out work and text books, where a little bit of a rub with an eraser, the text will disappear. I don’t hear the teacher’s union complaining about these issues, and there is lots more where that comes from.
As John has stated, would it not be better to find out how the education dollars are spent, with the breakdowns and how it impacts the various parts of the system, before more money is piped through the education system?

I leave John to defend himself, but I had a good chuckle, the education systems of the Asian countries, there is not much of a chance for a migrant worker’s family, to reach for the dream of being an engineer, or higher aspirations. Some will sacrifice, and most of their income will go toward private tutoring for their kids. However, most of the kids in the lower income groups, are out working by the age of 16. In Asian countries, senior high and post secondary education, is mainly for the growing middle-class and of course the 20 % of the population who are considered the elite in the Asian societies.  As for the Nordic countries, it is starting to crack, and what is being seen in Greece, will be seen in Nordic countries. Just a matter of time, and Doug, quite a few ordinary working people have lost their pensions, or it has been drastically reduced, due to the economic crisis, and no laws protecting pensions, from money grabbing CEOs. Just think of Nortel…........
News flash, cut backs are taking place on social items such as special education services, literacy programs, lunch preparation, narrowing of the criteria to qualified for unemployment insurance, welfare benefits, or for that matter federal tax credits. The paving over green spaces, or removing the playground equipment, to save on maintenance. Affordable housing has been sadly neglected for years, at all levels of government. You don’t have to be a socialist, to note cutbacks. God, the 1960s sure looks good, compared to the present. At least back than, schools were producing good readers, writers and they even had a firm foundation in arithmetic. Now, we have a bunch of specialists coming out of the high schools, with one student knowing a whole lot of one subject, but not so much in other subjects. A while back I was at the store, looking for my discount, that I did not received because the store’s system were down. The clerk had to do it manually and than key it in the system. I was nice as pie, knowing her calculations were wrong, and she was going to refund me only $3.41, when it should have been $11.41. I taught her a math lesson, without her feeling dumb, and she said I was never shown how to do it. She also told me, now she will be able to estimate discounts in her head, before she proceeds with the calculations. We talk more about the lousy math instruction, and it is her words not mine. The clerk was only out of high school for one year, working as the assistant manager for the store.
It goes to show you, how well the public education system, prepares the student. Don’t you think, being well versed on arithmetic procedures, is in the best interest of all students and customers?

Not much to defend against, Nancy!

  Being lectured by Doug is rather akin to be gored by Bambi; it might happen but you wouldn’t really notice.

His schtick is to bombard us with the same worn out old claptrap that investing in “education”, he never actually articulates much beyond an all-encompassing and hazy defintion, even if done at the expense of all sorts of other “progressive” ideas
is key.

Rolling the same old twaddle and hoping for a different result isn’t the sign of a serious intellect.

Ya John because your ideas are so deeeeep.

Reminder to all commenters:
Before this starts to degrade to school yard, “nyah, nyah, nyah”, lets keep the debate civil please.  If there is nothing left to debate, move on.

Everyone’s opinion is welcome.

People will view your post as anti-teacher raises and therefore anti-teacher.

It is not a zero sum game as many here like to characterize it as being.

We need higher teacher salaries
AND
smaller classes
AND
more beautiful buildings well equipped in every way
AND
better teacher training and in service training
AND
More support staff
AND
free first year tuition post secondary
AND
An ever expanding ECE program earlier in life
AND
More parent involvement
AND
more high tech schools

These are not trade offs. If Canada wants to have the very best education system in the world in order to create the most productive high standard of living, equitible, happy society we must do ALL of these things rapidly. Our competitors are doing this because they are well aware that the only real competitive advantage a society has is its brain power fully developed. Get with it people.

Nonsense Doug, I never stated anti-teacher, but what I did state, is that teachers receive raises, and the overall budget for resources directed at the students are either reduce, or disappear.
Doug, you always neglect one important factor in your list, actually two, research-based curriculum and increase resources that are directed at the students. These are the two items that are often neglected or ignored, for the beautiful building, well-paid staff, in favour of asking parents to pick up the slack when it comes to curriculum and resources.

Nancy,

When you insinuate that teachers wages are a problem, teachers stop listening and place you in the enemy camp. Some of you will find this one difficult I’m sure but teachers feel substantially underpaid compared to people with similar education, engineers, architects, pharmasists etc. They don’t even make $100 000 yet at the top of the grid.

If teachers were paid in the same way as engineers, architects, pharmacists, I would expect them to be as professional using best standard research-based practices that have proven to work and are effective, Furthermore to compare teachers withe the three professions that are mentioned, are all professions that take a greater numbers of years to become duly certified, compared to a certified teacher, where 4 years is the norm.

Funny that you mentioned the professions, for they are strong opponents of the math curriculum being taught at our schools, and their greatest complaint is the lack of a strong foundation in basic arithmetic.

If any of the teachers reaches the pay scale of $100,000, I would fully expect each and every student to become accomplished readers,writers and skilled in numeracy. In our society, we fully expect our engineers, architects and pharmacists to be as professional as possible,  because they often do hold our lives in their hands. Much like teachers who hold the education cards for our children.
And Doug if you have done your research, most parents object to the obscene salaries and bonuses being paid out in the upper levels of the education system, and where most senior staff have not seen the inside of a classroom for a very long time.  Yet their policies impact all that are below them. Lets not forget the education consultants, and outside experts to teach the latest curriculum, that often are connected to the publishers of education products, or in some cases, work for them.

But still overall, education budgets for teachers salaries have now reach the share of 53 % of an education budget, according to StatsCanada, 2005. I am sure, that share has increase since than, and probably is well above the 55% mark.

There are very few sectors of society, groups or individuals who wouldn’t happily settle for more of everything.  Sadly, the reality is that the resources must be allocated to fund things identified as highest priority. 

A more useful analysis would compare just how much of our national resources we’re already spending on education.  Claiming that our “competitors” are ramping up spending quickly doesn’t mean much if we don’t have any info on how spending relates in the first place.  It may well be that they’re simply ramping up spending to levels we’ve already achieved years ago.

I suspect we’d never be able to spend enough on education, or anything else,  if the goal we’re trying to reach is “more of everyhting, all the time”.

Then there’s the issue of how well the money already allocated is being used…

If there is evidence that Canadian spending is substantially lower than our comparables I’d like to see the numbers.

Readers who want to know the portion of Ontario school board budgets that are devoted to salaries and benefits are invited to visit:  http://www.sunshineonschools.ca

My mistake, the salaries have take a bite from the overall revenue of the the boards, to creeping well pass the 60% mark, where Toronto is at the 73% give or take a few percentage points.
What is interesting, how expenditures increase in salaries and transportation to some degree, the student expenditures have remain the same percentage overall, but has not kept up with inflation and other cost factors. Very little of the increase in budgets have been directed at the students, and where the bulk of the increase have been directed at salaries. If this is the pattern, within the next ten years, school boards will be paying well over 75 % of their revenue to salaries, where the Toronto board will be well over the 85 % mark, if all factors are the same.
The smaller rural boards seem to be doing a better job at managing expenses, in comparison to the Toronto board, and where more money is directed at the students, comparing the ratio spent toward student expenditures and overall revenue. This could be related to cost factors, such as property taxes, where the Toronto board and other heavily built up areas, will have higher expenses, compared to their rural counterparts. It also includes higher wages found in the cities, as opposed to the rural boards.

The TDSB is in a state of perpetual “budget crisis”.

In the past the Liberals would step in and bail it out however, given the budget problem it has, that may not happen anymore.

Years of not taking steps to live within the money available are coming home to roost; witness the torturous path to actually dispose of unneeded space.  That meant diverting funds out of other parts of the school budget to carry the unused space.

1) The proportion of the boards’ budget that is teachers and support staff has always been in the same area, it is a labour intensive business.

A huge expansion of education John, is actually self financing or FREE since the productivity gains radically outstrips the cost. It is as if you brought in a high efficiency expert to look at your society and he/she said spend as much as you possibly can on education because it is the only way to rapidly upgrade your society. Education is very expensive. Ignorance is much more expensive.

At the TDSB as well as many other boards only a fool would say they have anything nearly close to enough money to provide quality education. It is simply stupid and false economics to cut education. It is like a corporation that fires its R&D operation.

Canadian society really has 2 choices

1) radical increases in educational expenditure at all levels.

2) A falling standard of living falling behind more and more nations year after year.

For #1 to happen, #2 surely will. 

Health care spending is almost half of all government spending, and as the boomers retire, that number is sure to increase.  Some estimates put that number up to 70% or more.  In order to keep education spending at its current level or to increase it, taxes surely will have to increase significantly. 

Again, considering that most boomers, the bulk of the current wage earners, are retiring and school enrollments are dropping, I cannot see how such spending can be sustained.  Something has got to give.

Doug, self financing or free???  If that was true, federal and provincial government, are discovering another money pit, in the adult schools, and retraining schools, where the majority of adults are taking remedial courses in reading, writing, and numeracy, before they can even begin to take retraining.

In the political circles, they are questioning the increasing amount of monies, being funded, and are questioning why. Some, if not all are coming to realization, that our public education systems as you put it, are not doing their job in the basic ABCs of education. Perhaps this is the reason of the conference that Ontario’s premier is holding with the American education secretary, Duncan.

It is not only in the adult and retraining schools, there is also remedial courses at the colleges and universities for first year students. Colleges have taken it one step further, by introducing a first year prep course, for upgrading in literacy and numeracy skills, before a student is allow to take their chosen studies. Here is where parents, who are paying the tuition, are questioning their local politicians as to why this is happening. Than you have parents like me, who have LD children are questioning why the schools do not provide effective programs for reading, writing and numeracy issues, and that is after they have paid a great deal of money to tutors, or do it yourself at home
.
Schools are very laboured intensive, but they are certainly not intensive in areas of their teaching methods, nor does the public education system keep up to date with the advances that have been made in learning and how one learns. Nor does removing resources, such as art, music, or not buying the curriculum part, that is directed at the students. Such niceties as CDs, or workbooks or manipulatives in many cases do not exist. The downgrading of the science labs, wood shops, home economic rooms, and other hands-on-experience, have now reemerged in courses that is a poor versions of the old. The use of high-tech devices, including computers is all over the place, and where it is used the most, are at the schools in the upper middle-class and high-income range. But the school down the road, will be lucky to get a smart board in each classroom.

Education has to be cost-effective, not expensive. Cost effective, where no child graduating out of high school, will ever have to take remedial courses in reading, writing, and numeracy. And in today’s world, the bulk of jobs are working jobs, where the requirement for reading, writing and numeracy skills are much lower, than the professional jobs as a surveyor, or an engineer. The bulk of the jobs, are at a high-risk of termination, disappearing forever in industries such as the fishery or forestry or even the auto industry. What governments are discovery, for retraining to occur, one needs the basic sub-skills of reading, writing and numeracy to learn new knowledge. Just ask any lay-off worker, who has gone through retraining, they will tell you a tale of remedial learning in the basics ABCs. Some will even go much further, and state I was never taught those things at school. It is not that they cannot read, write or do basic numeracy calculations, because they can do these things. But not very well, because they were not taught in the first place.

It really would be great to see the numbers to actually support the claim that we need a “massive increase” increase in education funding to stay competitive with anyone else.

As has been stated previously, unless there’s evidence beyond the anecdotal it doesn’t “prove” much of anything.

There’s been no effort made to support the claims being made with anything in the way of rigourous analysis.

Then you have the claim that a massive increase in education spending would be “free”.  A lttle background to support such assertions would be useful.

The Perry study outlined the financial gains from serious investment in ECE like the ELP. The STAR study from Tennessee shows the gains from low class size. The OECD outlines the gains that its member states can make from heavy investment in education.

John, some day you need to understand that education spending does not go on the expenditure side of the ledger. It is an investment that ALWAYS returns many times its expenditure.

To put it clearly for you, the more money you spend on education, the higher your productivity is which means the higher your government revenue grows from productive companies which means the faster your deficit shrinks.

The Star study, was done using primary grades, like the many showing class size.

“The results of Project STAR show clearly that average pupil performance in the primary years can be increased (with reduced class size) by approximately one fourth to one third of a standard deviation without the introduction of new materials or curricula and without retraining the teachers.” They also stated that in contrast to other education reforms that focus on specific subject areas and generally require some reorganization of course content, teaching strategies, and/or class scheduling “the effects of reduced-size classes were found on every achievement measure administered in Project STAR… To realize performance gains as extensive as this through any combination of student grouping, individualized instruction, or tutoring would be both difficult and expensive, if it were even possible to implement or maintain such an approach”. In summarizing their fourth grade findings, the authors stated that “Significant achievement advantages in a broad range of content areas were maintained one full year after the small classes were disbanded. Further, there is evidence that pupils who had attended small classes became more assertive in classroom participation behavior in comparison to their peers who attended regular size classes”.
http://www.heros-inc.org/star.htm

As for the Perry study, “Lifetime Effects: The HighScope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40 (2005)
This study — perhaps the most well-known of all HighScope research efforts — examines the lives of 123 African Americans born in poverty and at high risk of failing in school.

From 1962–1967, at ages 3 and 4, the subjects were randomly divided into a program group that received a high-quality preschool program based on HighScope’s participatory learning approach and a comparison group who received no preschool program. In the study’s most recent phase, 97% of the study participants still living were interviewed at age 40. Additional data were gathered from the subjects’ school, social services, and arrest records”
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http://www.highscope.org/Content.asp?ContentId=219

I do not object to either study Doug. The studies were conducted under the protocols of the science method, and designs are excellent. Of course, this is coming from a parent, that has prior knowledge that was taught at the high school level, without it, I probably would have a difficult time with the language and would not be able to tell a bad study from a good one.

As I was searching, I bump into the Eric site. Easy to understand language, talking about the benefits of Preschool Programs.
http://www.ericdigests.org/1994/lasting.htm

All my kids were enrolled in nursery school. The first one had the Montessori one, and the other two had other nursery schools that was more structured, but well-suited to their needs.

That said, I know the value of pre-school programs. What I question, can the public education provide the same quality as I have seen over the years?  Will the public education system, begin to educate the parents, and the general public, why pre-school programs are important?  And here I am talking about the whys, and detail explanations that public education systems are loath to give at any time. The stuff that has been delivered to my door from my children, I sometimes shake my head, filled with busy info, but not new information.
Until parents become full partners in every sense of the word by the public education system, the parents will not be fully engaged, and ELP that is planned for Ontario, will a pale comparison to what is happening elsewhere.

Keep in mind the STAR study was done in one of those, as one of our more prolific posters puts it, educational backwaters in the American south which may or may not have much relevence for Ontario.  As Doug likes to point out the American “experience” and the Canadian “situation” are very different things.

The Perry study of poor African-American kids in Detroit will, once again, raise the issue of how applicable the results are to Ontario.

Unless one allows for a myriad of other issues it’d be very nearly impossible to isolate one component of the study and claim it has relevence to Ontario, especially when it was done in an environment almost entirely unlike ours.

Doing apples to apples studies would be more useful.