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Newsletter of the Organization for Quality Education, June 2001 Issue |
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(a look at the seemingly paradoxical effect of publicly-funded religious schools) |
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Saving Inner City Schools (a blueprint for parents and municipalities) |
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Leveraging Teaching Time (a powerful homework program that can double and triple student learning) |
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Semestered Out (an amusing description of the drawbacks of semestered high schools) |
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Child-Centred Funding (an overview of the various methods for attaching funding to students) |
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Sowing Dragons’ Teeth (a sobering reminder of the social consequences of educational failure) |
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Managing to Improve (an inspiring story of how one principal made dramatic improvements at her school) |
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Easy When You Know How! (an affirmation of the power of step-by-step math instruction) |
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The Delphi Method (a fancy name for an even fancier method of social manipulation) |
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A Silver Lining (a serendipitous result of the withdrawal of extracurricular activities) |
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The Emperor’s Clothes (an explanation of why most education reform is not resulting in much improvement) |
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High School Rankings (board-by-board comparisons on the grade 10 literacy results and the Fraser rankings) |
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Canadian No-Excuses Schools (profiles of two northern schools that arebeating the odds) |
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And lots more - Publications of Interest, What’s New?, Ballot Report, Letters to the Editor, etc. |
From the President
School Choice is Personal
&#I’m sitting in a room on the 18th floor of the Toronto Star building on an April afternoon. Bill Robson and I, on behalf of OQE, are here to provide parent perspectives on a number of questions raised by the Effective Schools Task Force. The task force, led by former Education Improvement Commission co-chairs Dave Cooke and Ann Vanstone, has been asked by the government to recommend things that can be done to improve student achievement.
As soon as discussion begins, the representatives of People for Education deplore the emphasis being put on student achievement in the task force’s discussion questions. Quickly, the home-and-schoolers jump in with the same complaint. Bill and I do our best to argue for the need for province-wide measures of student achievement to provide objective and reliable information for improvement plans and also to give the public some indication of how well or how badly our schools are doing.
As the others persist in arguing that school effectiveness can’t be determined through test scores, I am at first irritated because the objectors don’t seem to realize that student achievement is the raison d’être of the task force and that it must consequently be the focus of the current meeting. The irritation turns to exasperation when I recall that for over 15 years the citizens of Ontario have been asking for better data about how our schools are doing — a democratic wish that is once again being dismissed by the majority in this room.
But then I realize that the parents opposite are no less committed than Bill and me, or any other OQE member, to the well-being of their children. It’s just that they see the world very differently.
A few days later, I am at the Ministry of Education attending a Client Group meeting for the Teacher Testing Project focused on improving performance appraisals for teachers. Early in the discussion, Frank Gue, the other OQE director present, argues that these appraisals must take into account the test marks of their students analyzed on a longer-term, value-added basis. The room becomes very quiet. The Catholic school trustee to Frank’s left is the first to break the silence.
"You don’t actually mean that, do you?" he asks.
"Yes, I do ," replies Frank matter-of-factly.
A lot of head-shaking and groaning follows. One speaker after another explains why using student test scores to evaluate
Continued…