INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Newsletter of the Organization for Quality Education, June 2002

Opinionated Students

(a clarification of the difference

between free speech and infallibility)

Decentralizing and Diversifying

(Andrew Nikiforuk’s account of the

revolution in Edmonton’s schools)

Global Lukewarming

(an eye-opening look at the chasm

between Ontario science textbooks and the truth about global warming)

Springboards to Success

(proven strategies for teaching higher-order skills)

In the Nick of Time

(a charter school comes to the rescue)

Socialized Education

(an amusing rant about how Ontario’s schools teach the perils of central planning — by mistake!)

Making Allowances

(reassuring news for the parents and teachers of teenagers)

The Data on Calculators

(statistical indicators that seem to

nix the use of calculators in classrooms)

Whole Engineering

(the lowdown on Architectural Deficit Disorder [ADD])

Learning-Enabled Students

(evidence from around the world about school choice and the mainstreaming of special needs students)

Underappreciated Undergraduates

(a look at professors’ contempt for teaching — and what to do about it)

And lots more - Publications of Interest, What’s New?, Member Survey on Teacher Strikes, OQE Activities, Letters to the Editor, etc.

From the President

Dear Minister Witmer

It’s time to bell the ministry cat

          Congratulations on your appointment as minister of education. OQE looks forward to continuing to work with you and your ministry to improve learning results for all Ontario students.

          We are glad to hear that you and Premier Eves will be taking a less confrontational stance on education issues. OQE has agreed with much, but certainly not all, of what has been done by the Conservative government over the past seven years. Often, we have cringed at the ham-fisted and sometimes mean-spirited ways in which new programs have been announced and implemented. Improving the tone is important — but it is not enough. There are real problems persisting in the system.

          For one, public dissatisfaction with the way that incompetent teachers are being dealt with remains very high. A recent poll by the Ontario Principals’ Association showed that a whopping 83% of Ontarians support your government’s well-intentioned (but unfortunately named) “teacher testing” program. While encouraging you to keep moving on initiatives aimed at addressing this public concern, we ask that you shift your primary focus from mandatory professional development to using performance appraisals as the primary vehicle for identification and corrective action relative to teaching incompetence.

          A more pressing problem, however, is the stagnation of student learning. Despite a better elementary curriculum and the implementation of report cards that teachers and parents can understand, the province-wide EQAO tests continue to indicate that Ontario students are not learning as much as they should, especially with respect to reading and writing skills.

          OQE feels that the chief cause of this stagnation is the unwillingness to take a ‘clean sheet’ approach to reviewing the root causes of poor learning. While the amount of time parents spend reading with their children gets a lot of attention, the impact of classroom teaching methods is seldom analyzed. This blinkered approach to looking at test scores is a result of your government’s push for more accountability not having gone far enough.

          We have cheered as your government made available information about where school boards spend their money. The easy-to-follow data on your ministry website invite best-practices comparisons — comparisons that show, for example, that the Toronto  public board,  undoubtedly  the most  vocal critic of  the new  funding  formula, spends twice  as  much of  its  operating

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