Archive for April, 2014

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April 23, 2014

Standardized testing is detrimental to students’ education

By Robert Green | Published April 22, 2014 by the Montreal Gazette

Though education is an issue of great importance to Quebecers, the only education-related issue discussed in the recent election campaign was the question of where in the education bureaucracy to find savings that could be redirected to schools.

Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault said he favoured abolishing school boards, while Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard said he wanted to trim the staff within the education department itself.

Trimming bureaucratic fat sounds appealing, but it can also have grave consequences for the quality of services. This is particularly true in the case of school boards that provide front-line services to students.

Now that Couillard is set to officially take over as premier this week, I have a modest proposal for him: He could save some money by cutting the bureaucracy involved in the production and administration of high-stakes standardized tests.

os-ed-standardized-testing-front-burner-intro--001There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that such testing does anything to improve educational outcomes. For more than a decade, the U.S. has been involved in an education reform driven by standardized-test results. Over this time, student achievement has not improved, while a host of other negative effects have been observed: the narrowing of curriculum, the widening of achievement gaps related to race and class, and growing rates of student stress and depression.

The problems with standardized testing have become so serious that there is now a growing movement of parents and educators in the U.S. advocating that parents opt their children out of such tests.

Meanwhile, the country whose students consistently rank highest in the world, Finland, imposes no standardized tests whatsoever. Finland’s approach is to focus on equity over excellence, ensuring that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, are given the support they need to succeed.

Finland worries about the resources going into schools, while the U.S. worries about the test results coming out of them. Quebec needs to learn from this.

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April 21, 2014

Ontario teachers turn to free online resources amid budget cutbacks, study finds

By:  | Published Mar 31, 2014 by The Toronto Star

Ontario teachers are turning to free online resources in droves — more than textbooks and e-textbooks — marking a “significant change” in learning, says a new report that raises questions about how to ensure the quality of web materials used in the province’s classrooms.

The survey of 1,349 Ontario schools by People for Education found when elementary teachers need new materials, 36 per cent of school report they turn to the web for freebies, 31 per cent say print textbooks and 19 per cent online resources produced by publishers, for which there would be a cost.

Among high schools, one in three report teachers using print textbooks and one in four free web materials, says the report, to be released Monday.

“The world has changed very quickly and a lot of us assume you can find the information you need online — which you can. But a discerning eye for the information is very important,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of the research and advocacy group.

“…We do feel as if it’s a bit of a wild west out there in a lot of different ways. We’re not saying it’s wrong or bad, but we are saying we need to think how we can be assured that kids are getting really high quality material, whether it’s free online or not.”

Part of the move to free online resources is budget cutbacks. But unlike buying textbooks that must be on a list approved by the province, “(there’s no) well-established system for vetting the quality of the free online resources that is widely used,” says the report.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2014/03/31/ontario_teachers_turn_to_free_online_resources_amid_budget_cutbacks_study_finds.htm

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April 20, 2014

Teach For Canada can only make things worse

By Ben Sichel | Published Jan 2 2014 by no need to raise your hand

Have you heard of Teach For Canada? It’s a new project spearheaded by Nova Scotian Kyle Hill, a Rhodes scholar and business consultant; and Vancouver-born Adam Goldenberg, former speechwriter for Michael Ignatieff and fellow at Yale law school.

Hill and Goldenberg want to address “educational inequality” in Canada, i.e. “[f]unding gaps, infrastructure deficiencies, and rapid teacher turnover” in rural and Aboriginal communities. Their solution? A program that would send university graduates (from any degree program) to work as schoolteachers for two years in these communities. Hill and Goldenberg hope to attract “some of Canada’s top graduates – our country’s future leaders” to their program, who would take their places in classrooms following a summer-long training period.

Teach for Canada takes its name from Teach for America (TFA), the U.S. program which for the past 23 years has sent bright-eyed young college grads into some of America’s toughest inner-city schools; schools where students tend to score lower than average on standardized tests and thus ostensibly need a dose of extra energy to succeed.

TFA, though, has become a lightning rod for controversy in the climate of the “education reform” wars in the U.S. Just maybe, critics note, sending people with no experience in education except a short summer training program into some of the U.S.’s toughest, most down-and-out neighbourhoods is not such a great idea, especially if these young, relatively inexpensive teachers take the place of more experienced teachers during a round of layoffs.

Read more: http://noneedtoraiseyourhand.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/teach-for-canada-can-only-make-things-worse/

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April 15, 2014

Teachers: A Call to Battle for Reluctant Warriors

by Anthony Cody | Published April 14, 2014 by Ed Week

We just wanted to teach.

When I was drawn to teach in Oakland, I saw a chance to give students the chance to do hands-on experiments, to answer their own questions, and explore the natural world. On field trips to the tide pools I found out some had never even been to the Pacific Ocean, an hour’s drive from their homes.  I did not enter teaching to prepare students for tests. I wanted my students to think and reason for themselves.

We teach the children of the middle class, the wealthy and the poor. We teach the damaged and disabled, the whole and the gifted. We teach the immigrants and the dispossessed natives, the transients and even the incarcerated.

In years past we formed unions and professional organizations to get fair pay, so women would get the same pay as men. We got due process so we could not be fired at an administrator’s whim. We got pensions so we could retire after many years of service.

But career teachers are not convenient or necessary any more. We cost too much. We expect our hard-won expertise to be recognized with respect and autonomy. We talk back at staff meetings, and object when we are told we must follow mindless scripts, and prepare for tests that have little value to our students.

No need for teachers to think for themselves, to design unique challenges to engage their students.  The educational devices will be the new source of innovation. The tests will measure which devices work best, and the market will make sure they improve every year. Teachers are guides on the side, making sure the children and devices are plugged in properly to their sockets.

Read more: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2014/04/teachers_a_call_to_battle_for_.html

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April 12, 2014

Teaching the History of Quebec to English-speaking Children: A Teacher’s Journey

The following article was written by Perspectives II High School teacher John Commins following his participation in the Comité Elargi (2003-2007) that was responsible for vetting the most recent changes to Quebec’s History curriculum.

Pour lire la version originale écrite en français, cliquez ici.

First thanks for this opportunity and the thematic of the ENJEUX. My assumption is that the vast majority of you who will read this article are members of the French origin majority community, so I will be writing to you. I will try to describe what its like to teach history to English speaking kids in Quebec specifically and broadly what it is like being an English speaker who enjoys teaching Quebec history. Be aware that this work is my own; it comes from my personal journey and perspective. Keep reading and I guarantee this article will have a happy ending.

First lets talk about language, yes we have to this is Quebec! In Quebec I am referred to as an Anglophone. I hope that I am among the last generation that will be referred to as Anglophone. When English speakers are together they rarely if ever identify themselves as Anglophone, it is usually when the interlocutory is part of the French origin majority community that that designation is made. It is more striking amongst allophones, “ I am a what….. an allophone?”

diversityWhen identity is searched for amongst English speakers it’s usually ethnic. Irish, Greek, Italian, Jewish, Portuguese, sometimes Montrealer, Quebecer or Canadian and very rarely….English. This is the nature of the English speaking community in 2012. The English speaking community of Montreal is as diverse as any in urban Canada. When I am at my school the staffroom is comprised of teachers of Greek, Italian, German, Eastern European, Sri Lankan and Irish backgrounds, except for our Principal, Jacques Monfette, he is from Shawinigan and is French origin.

The turn to linguistic designations to describe what I would argue are concerns that are ethnic in nature, provides us with non-racial language that is becoming less and less productive. Lets be honest using linguistic terms to discuss ethnicity has become a way to avoid talking about ethnicity, and specifically the French origin community’s ethnic insecurities. After all at the end of the day I am also a francophone, and proud of it. I am also hoping the children of Law 101, after completing twelve years of scholarity in French would be considered francophone, if not what do these linguistic designations mean, do they only change with assimilation? If that is the case why won’t people say it?

When the PQ was elected in 1976, it was a necessary electro-shock for the English speaking community, including my 15-year-old self. It was a rupture with the past that would require English speakers to start recognizing that not speaking French was not only counter productive, but bordering on insulting. To be a full partner in the Quebec state, speaking French was now key, to be a full citizen of the Quebec state speaking French was necessary. The idea of what language you spoke at home was not, that’s been a more recent and troubling change amongst a small fringe in the nationalist community. Along with the new reference to Quebec’s “ historic” English speaking community, which is obviously an attempt to marginalize the English speaking community. With 94% of Quebecers now able to speak French, French is our common language.

There is an English speaking community in Quebec it has existed here for 250 years, it is a community that will continue to exist, a community tied to institutions like Concordia, and to neighborhoods like N.D.G.. It has always has been a community in transition and I believe a community that can make a positive contribution to this state, culturally, socially, politically, especially our kids. Now who am I?

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April 9, 2014

Why Are Teachers and Students Opting Out of Standardized Testing?

by Michelle Chen | Published April 7, 2014 by The Nation

After years of drilling, assessing and scoring youth to exhaustion, more than 25,000 kids in New York have defied the educational establishment in a test of wills. The “opt out” movement has exploded in schools across the state and other regions of the country, as students, parents and teachers resist the standardized testing regime that has fueled a free-market assault on public education.

Some New York teachers have placed themselves at the vanguard of test resisters, alongside student and parent activists, and are now using their professional leverage to deepen the battle lines in the ideological conflict over education reform.

The rebellion stirring in city classrooms was presented recently to New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña in an open letter from a group of “Teachers of Conscience” at the Earth School, an elementary school in Manhattan. Accompanied by a philosophical position paper detailing principles of a progressive education, the teachers declared their opposition to English language exams for third-to-eight graders:

We can no longer, in good conscience, push aside months of instruction to compete in a city-wide ritual of meaningless and academically bankrupt test preparation. We have seen clearly how these reforms undermine teachers’ love for their profession and undermine students’ intrinsic love of learning.

And there’s something to hate for everyone in these standardized tests. Students become miserable and bored with constant test-prep; parents and caregivers grow frustrated with curricula that seem to be failing their children (inspiring them to organize likeminded families to facilitate their children’s test resistance); and teachers have raged against the imposition of formulaic, stress-inducing reading and math drills on their classes. The latest batch of English tests left educators and students feeling “outraged,” “defeated” and “devalued,” according to reviews on an online teacher forum. (At several schools, including the Earth School, the majority of students refused the exams.)

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/179214/teachers-and-students-opt-out-defy-testing-machine#

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April 3, 2014

PQ pushes history rewrite

By CATHERINE SOLYOM | Published April 2, 2014 by The Montreal Gazette

Excerpt:

Education Minister Marie Malavoy, who had famously remarked that the 2006 history course “drowned (or evaded) the whole issue of sovereignty,” tried to put anxieties to rest.

“Anglophones can’t be excluded, they are part of the national narrative,” said Malavoy, who is not running for re-election. “It’s an inclusive approach.”

Not everyone is convinced. Robert Green, who teaches history at Westmount High, welcomed some aspects of the

Photograph by: John Mahoney, The Gazette

Photograph by: John Mahoney, The Gazette

new course, particularly the return to the chronological approach to the two-year course, divided at the 1840 mark (the creation of one Canada). The “dysfunctional” thematic approach in Grade 10 – which included discussion of three kinds of liberalism – was despised by teachers and students alike, he said.

But the new course will probably exacerbate the biases already found in the curriculum, Green said. For example, the role of the Irish during the Patriotes rebellion in 1837 is hardly mentioned, and discussion of the Second World War centres on how francophones didn’t want to participate. There’s almost nothing on the Holocaust.

Then there’s the depiction of First Nations, during the Oka crisis, for example, with no mention of how both federal and provincial governments negotiated in bad faith with the Mohawks, or of the racist riots on the LaSalle side of the Mercier Bridge.

“Yes, it’s disturbing, but it needs to be talked about,” Green said.

Read more:http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/pushes+history+rewrite/9688918/story.html

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April 2, 2014

A Response to Gilles Duceppe

Since the group of teachers and students from Westmount High released our video “A Lesson in Values for Madame Marois” the response has been overwhelming. In the first 72 hours the video was posted it was viewed nearly 27,000 times. The teachers involved and Westmount’s principal have been flooded with messages from former Westmount students saying how proud the video made them to be graduates of Westmount High.

westmount-high-video-against-secular-charter-of-valuesPerhaps most satisfying was seeing how the release of this video put the Parti Quebecois into damage control mode. Many of the newscasts on the video featured a very uncomfortable looking Pauline Marois having to state that her Party was not against cultural diversity, religious freedom or freedom of expression. How she squares this with Bill 60 which clearly infringes on these fundamental freedoms is beyond me, but I was glad she had to answer this question nonetheless.

The other element of the PQ’s damage control strategy has been to have Gilles Duceppe write two columns (here and here) in the Peladeau-owned Journal de Montreal questioning the professional integrity of the teachers involved in this video and suggesting that it was inappropriate for Westmount High to take a political position on this issue.

Apparently Mr Duceppe had not watched the video to the end where it clearly states that this video was not produced by Westmount High but by a group of concerned teachers and students from Westmount High.

Nor did Mr Duceppe bother to investigate how the students in the video came to be involved. Had he done so, he would have learned that this was not an activity done in class, but something done outside of class time with a group of students participating voluntarily with the explicit written consent of their parents.

But more importantly, I find it very interesting that in neither of his two columns on the matter does Mr Duceppe address the substance of the video’s message. I would like to know exactly which political statement Mr Duceppe feels was inappropriate for students in the video to read. Was it students reading a direct quote from the Quebec Charter of Rights & Freedoms? Was it students reading from the UN Declaration on Human Rights? Was it students reading from the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child?

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