| INSIDE THIS ISSUE |
School Councils
(little-known information about the role of school councils) |
Edmonton Fights Back
(a case study from Alberta on the galvanizing effects of school choice) |
No More Weeding Out
(an innovative plan to improve university students’ chances
of success) |
50% Math
(OQE’s annual ranking of Ontario boards on the basis of the grade 9
math tests) |
Reading Incomprehension/Reading Comprehension
(a once-known-but-now-forgotten way to improve academic achievement) |
Vouching for Vouchers
(a report on the impact of vouchers on PUBLIC schools in Florida) |
Educational Dinosaurs
(a trip back in time to old-style union tactics — fossilized in
today’s teachers’ unions) |
Teachers to Learn From
(thumbnail sketches of two inspirational high school teachers) |
Al-legory
(the al-lusive al-chemy of al-gebra) |
Good Choices for Teachers
(an obvious-when-you-think-about-it way to offer teachers greater
job satisfaction) |
Learning Styles — Not!
(the folly of matching teaching methods to students’ supposed
learning styles) |
Heading Off Headaches
(practical ways to nip students’ anti-social behaviours in the bud) |
The Write Stuff
(evidence on yet another area in which child-centred learning
shortchanges boys) |
| And lots more - Publications of Interest, What’s
New?, OQE Stuff, Letters to the Editor, etc. |
|
From the President
If Only. . . .
The Good
While reading the morning paper a few weeks ago, I came across a column written by a member of the local school board. The author was writing about how education policy can play a major role in closing the achievement gap in schools.
Some of the proposed changes were impressive!
- Schools henceforth were to be evaluated not on inputs made to the system, but rather on students’ outputs.
- No longer were schools to be measured by criteria such as partnerships with the community, family involvement, or the number of computers in the classroom. The focus would centre squarely on ensuring that students were learning.
- Accountability would result from measures such as a requirement for schools to show how they would close the achievement gap, with special attention to disadvantaged students.
- Funding would be provided for teaching methods that had been scientifically proven to work, not for educational fads or “feel-good” programs.
- To that end, direct instruction would replace co-operative learning, phonics would replace whole language, and computation would be exchanged for “rain-forest math”.
- Local school districts would have more flexibility to use their funding for their own particular needs.
- Parents would be offered increased school choices, such that they would be allowed to transfer their child from a low-performing school into one that better met that child’s needs.
- And low-income students at under-performing schools would be entitled to free supplemental tutoring services and after-school programs.
The Bad
I wasn’t dreaming, but neither was I at home when I read this article. Come on now, you knew this couldn’t be happening in Ontario. I was in Palm Springs, California, reading The Desert News.
The Ugly
The approach to education reform in Ontario is decidedly different from that taken by our friends on the sunny west coast of the United States.
I came home to a bombardment of messages from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario about its “Campaign 200”. In their words, if we give every elementary teacher a guarantee of 200 minutes per week of prep time, our students will have a better chance for success.
Life is so much simpler here in Ontario. No need to confuse everyone with standards and accountability and choices.
continued...
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