SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Remind Me.  Why Do We Need a Literacy Secretariat Again?

The Ontario Provincial Auditor General has really slammed the work of the Ontario Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat.  His report can be found here. Moira MacDonald at the Toronto Sun highlights some of the findings in her column today.  School For Thought has always wondered what the heck these people were actually doing with the $340M of taxpayer dollars they’ve spent so far.

While the auditor, naturally, pointed out the lack of fiscal responsibility, his value-for-money analysis looked at what is nearer and dearer to our own hearts—is the Secretariat and the programs they encourage actually effective? Well, it seems no one knows because no one has actually taken the trouble to find out.

      “Government guidelines for transfer-payment accountability require that ministries have the oversight capacity to ensure that recipients (in this case, the school boards) are using the funds for the intended purpose and achieving the desired results. Appropriate oversight would include communication with the school boards on a regular basis, ongoing monitoring to ensure that objectives are achieved (including receiving reports from school boards), and taking corrective action when necessary. The school boards we visited had not carried out sufficient assessments of secretariat initiatives and how these contributed toward improving student achievement.“*

      “As a result, we questioned whether the Secretariat or school boards have adequate information to know whether secretariat resources are being directed to the program initiatives that provide the most benefit.“*

Considering that literacy among our Grade 3’s and 6’s has flatlined over the last few years, we conclude that all the library books, literacy workshops, inservicing, balanced literacy programs, smaller classes, etc. have not translated into the hoped-for results.  On the other hand, if some schools and boards have been successfully using direct instruction of systematic, explicit phonics, we wouldn’t know that either. 

      “While acknowledging the Ministry’s position, we still believe that it would be useful to identify which programs and initiatives work-and do not work as well-in schools.“*

Thank you, Mr. McCarter, so do we!

*Taken from the Auditor General’s report