Society for Quality Education

Volume 19, Number 1, March 2010. ISSN-1201-215

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Our goal is to provide reliable information on successful educational practices. As a result, we try to provide good teaching tips and other great information about schooling in every issue. Please let us know if there is a particular topic you would like us to address in a future newsletter.

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Best regards, Malkin Dare

PS We would appreciate it if you could take a moment to answer our poll (scroll down to the bottom of the page) concerning your use of outside tutoring services like Kumon or Sylvan.

MAIL BAG

Devil in Details

In the Food for Thought section of your last newsletter, you wrote "the point is that the accountability measures brought in by the Harris government didn't bring about major improvement and, in fact, they didn't last all that long. Most of them have already been undone by the subsequent Liberal government or subverted by the education establishment." It seems that key people in the Ministry of Education during the 1995-2003 tenure have admitted to poor implementation of the new policies, due either to hurriedness or lack of foresight. Present or future governments should be aware of the need to fine-tune new initiatives with more public input and longer trial periods. Etobicoke, ON

Teacher Evaluation

During my teaching "career", my evaluations were supposedly carried out by my principals. Since my first principal spent his time avoiding contact with students other than the most senior, and since he did not know his arsenic from a positive hole in negative space, he kept away from me. Except, of course, to let me know that "I will determine who passes in Grade 13 Chemistry, not you!", in which, of course, he was correct. Another principal, one who pretended to know some science, breezed through one class and told me he was pleased that my students were "busy" doing lab work. He made no effort, however, to determine how productive they were in their business. Who is qualified to evaluate a high school teacher? Most probably, the best solution would be to canvass ex-students some ten years on, after further education and/or some experience in employment (or unemployment). At least these people would bring an uninhibited and personal view of the value of a particular teacher, and not the false view of an ignoramus whose career has progressed to the point where he/she has finally got out of the classroom. Peterborough, ON

All Can Learn

We taught Stairway to Reading to our kids last summer and in the fall when we could. At Christmas, we pulled our kids out of school and have been homeschooling ever since. I'm not a professional, but even I can see the drastic change in my kids' reading skills. Last summer, they both failed the first level of the S&R test; now they are at levels 3 and 4 respectively. The biggest surprise is how well my daughter is doing. She has/had an IAP certifying her as a "slow learner" (the board quack's exact words) and tested lower than average IQ. We were told by one special education teacher to teach her life skills. In the short time we have been teaching her and with her hard work, my daughter is now reading the "Secrets of Droon" book series, a half to a full book a day, with excellent comprehension and retention. There is nothing wrong with this girl other than the fact that whole word and "they'll catch on" teaching methods don't work for her. Port Hope, ON

ASK AUNT MALKIN

A veteran of the school wars herself, with the scars to prove it, Malkin Dare always has lots of advice to offer. If you want some been-there-done-that advice from Aunt Malkin, call her at 519-884-3166 or e-mail her.

Question

How do I deal with teachers who misquote and misinterpret things that I say or write? For example, when I wrote that my daughter's work has deteriorated since she left her religious school, the teachers invited me to meet with them on the topic of whether the grade 7 curriculum is too demanding. Her younger sister skipped a grade, gets straight A's, and learns nothing. School is wasted on fluff: little buddies, assemblies, silent reading, etc. When I complain, the teacher berates my daughter for her parent's complaint. Kamloops, BC

Answer

I rummaged around in my answer bag for a solution to your education problems, but I regret to have to inform you that the bag didn't contain a single tip on how to totally change the orientation of your daughters' school. It seems clear to me that there is no upside whatsoever to continuing your attempts to influence the school - and plenty of downside. In my opinion, you would be wise to immediately cease your efforts to intervene on your daughters' behalf, and instead start working on establishing the polite sort of working relationship one should have with any professional. This will make life easier for your daughters and yourself, not to mention the teachers.

Of course, this approach will do nothing to advance your daughters' learning. On this front, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that your daughters can learn, given decent instruction. The bad news is that it's up to you to make it happen. I realize you may be outraged at the prospect of letting the school get away with its arrogance and incompetence. But even worse is the fact that parents can (and often do) waste years trying to get help from the school, precious years that children's can't afford to lose.

In my book, How to Get the Right Education for Your Child, I outline the various options available to parents whose schools are failing their children. The Society for Quality Education makes free copies of my book available, and I would be happy to send you a copy on request (the book is also available on-line ). To order a print copy, click here . In a nutshell, you can either supplement the school's inadequate services by teaching your daughters yourself or by paying tutors to do the job, or else you can opt out of the school entirely by choosing a different school, public or private, or by deciding to home-school. Every option has its positives and negatives, and these are outlined in my book.

So there you have it. I wish I could tell you about other options - like how to sneak a common sense pill into educators' thermoses. Unfortunately, however, science has not yet found a cure for progressive teaching methods.

Regards, Aunt Malkin

Aftermath

This parent accepted my offer to send him a copy of my book, and reports that both he and his wife loved it and found it very helpful. They are currently trying to supplement their children's education after school and on weekends but, as he points out, there are limits to how much one can teach kids after they come home from the place where they are supposed to be learning. He and his wife are still considering their options, but they are mulling over the possibility of sending their daughters back to the excellent private school they had attended in Kelowna before the family moved to Kamloops - either sending their daughters to board with another Kamloops family or splitting up the family so that the girls' mother can live with them in Kelowna. This option was characterized as going for broke, since the family will have real difficulty paying the bills.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The Customer is Always Right

Take a minute to think about the kind of school you would choose for your children if you could have anything you wanted. Would it be Montessori? Single sex? International Baccalaureate? Very structured? Science and math emphasis? Year-round? French immersion? Uniforms? Religious? Very small? Sports-oriented? Great books program? Special education?

Once you have finished building your school in the air, think about the kind of school your friends or neighbours might conjure up. Chances are, there will be some significant differences!

The purpose of this exercise is to make you think about the almost infinite array of possible schools out there - leading to the realization of how unnecessarily rigid current education systems are in forcing most children to attend a cookie-cutter school assigned by school board bureaucrats. Most modern schools are sterile creations that appear to come straight out of a Soviet central planners' manual. What is the logic of forcing parents to send their children to these mind-numbingly uniform schools? When all schools are alike, it is inevitable that a significant number of students and teachers will be ill-suited.

But when parents and teachers are allowed to choose from a wide array of very different schools, a number of things change.

The odds improve that students and teachers will find a school well suited to their unique interests, needs, and talents.
Parents and teachers having chosen their schools, become more involved in and more supportive of their school.
Schools are motivated to be more responsive, since their continuing existence depends on being able to attract enough families.
With school boards no longer in charge of assigning children and teachers to schools, the role of the bureaucracy is diminished.

There is a high degree of choice available in most other sectors these days - day cares, restaurants, tutoring services, university programs, automobiles - all offering a competitive service. There is no reason why parents should not enjoy abundant school choices that offer similarly-excellent service and responsiveness.

WHAT'S NEW?

Go to School for Thought, our brilliant blog, for breaking education news, helpful teaching tips, interesting tidbits, and heated debates. Join in the conversation.

BOOKS OF INTEREST

Crazy Like a Fox: One principal's triumph in the inner city. Dr. Ben Chavis with Carey Blakely

The author is a highly-unorthodox Lumbee Indian who has transformed California's American Indian Public Charter School from a school "that in 2000 was on the brink of closure because of lousy attendance rates, lousy test scores, and incompetent leadership. In 2008, American Indian Charter School had the highest test scores of any public school in Oakland; it was the fifth -highest-ranking middle school in California out of approximately 1,300 middle schools in the state." This despite a school population that consists mainly of poor minority students! With his no-nonsense approach, Dr. Chavis pulls no punches in debunking the myth that poor minority inner-city students are doomed to fail. Focusing on back-to-basics ideas - academics, attendance, and hard work - he has created a structured school that delivers astounding results. An American Indian who comes from humble sharecropping roots, the author emphatically rejects a culture of victimization so common in today's schools. Here are two examples of his take on the "soft bigotry of low expectations".

Excerpt (pp. 87-88)

"Most public school educators do not see eye to eye with me. I didn't agree with the philosophy of victimization then; I don't agree with it now. I have no problem badmouthing educators who cheat minority students with their pity, community circles, bead making, general math for twelfth-graders, bilingual education for twelve years, sheltered English immersion, and low expectations. Can you think of a better way to screw over minorities in education and dumb us down? We get the watered-down academics, the victimization, and the teaching of culture, while most middle-class students get rigorous English, math, science, and history courses. Is that logical? Where did educators come up with this idea that minorities are so fragile? We are resilient people; we don't need kid gloves; we need a sound academic education and educators who prepare our children to work hard and be as smart as any other group of people."

Excerpt (p. 249)

"You know what the problem is: you're all middle and upper class and you want to give these kids the opportunities you had. Well, you can't do it. You can't give them all the basketball camps, piano lessons, and art classes you attended. But you know what you can give them? Your academics. They need your academics. They don't need your love, your touching, or your pity."

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How testing and choice are undermining education. Diane Ravitch

This book is interesting because the author is a prominent education reformer who is repudiating policies which she once supported - in particular, accountability measures and school choice. The vast majority of the book is devoted to the problems with the accountability measures in the US, and it would be very hard to argue with her conclusion that they are not working well and may even be harmful. Point to Ravitch. And we'll give another point to Ravitch for her most important recommendation of introducing a national curriculum, even though this section is a bit sketchy, because a national curriculum, if well done, is likely to increase student learning. However, the chapter in which Ravitch nixes school choice is not very convincing as it condemns school choice solely on the grounds that there has not yet been the spectacular improvement anticipated by school choice proponents. In our opinion, the jury is still out on this one. The excerpt illustrates one of the ways that high-stakes accountability measures tempt students and educators to try to game the system.

Excerpt (p. 155)

"The most reprehensible form of gaming the system is plain old-fashioned cheating. There have been many news stories about a teacher or principal who was fired for correcting students' answers before handing in the tests or leaking the questions in advance to students. In some instances, the cheating is systematic, not idiosyncratic. The Dallas Morning News analyzed statewide scores in Texas on the state's high-stakes TAKS test - which determines schools' reputations and teachers' rewards - and found evidence that tens of thousands of students cheated every year without being detected or punished. The cheating was especially pervasive on eleventh-grade tests, which students must pass to graduate."

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