With Canadian public schools spending an average of $18,120 per student, it’s striking that many non-profit independent schools deliver education at similar or only slightly higher costs.
If you want to blow your hair back, chart the inflation-adjusted spend per student in Ontario public schools against EQAO results for the last 25 years. Then, just for laughs, do a similar comparison of the number of teachers employed versus the number of students enrolled.
Lay on top of this the avalanche of evidence from post-secondary institutions that their freshman students are woefully unprepared, and it’s impossible to conclude anything other than this: spending more money and hiring more teachers has not led to improved outcomes—and might actually be making things worse.
To be fair, in the last decade, the issue of classroom complexity has become a legitimate concern. Between kids with learning disabilities and needs that formerly would have been accommodated in a special-ed classroom, kids with behavioral issues (some genetic, some environmental), kids with limited or no English/French language skills, and the negative impacts of the COVID remote learning experience, the average teacher is facing a classroom very different from those of a generation ago.
Even so, clearly we need a complete rethink. And delivering public education through private service providers should be on the table.
If only I could access the kind of data I'd need to blow (what's left of) my hair back. The problem is that system-wide (or even school-wide) data representing metrics like post-secondary preparedness is noticeably missing.
Even the EQAO system only provides a few years' worth of historical results.
EQAO is not a perfect measure of anything. But when the system has "we will never be measured" as one of its guiding principles, you have to play the cards you're dealt.
As for the hair, I have a bit of siding left but the shingles blew off years ago 😉
If it wouldn't immediately mean the creation of an entirely new federal dept or agency with 10k employees, I'd support a mandatory, national standardized test of basic skills. Much like the old Canadian Test of Basic Skills.
I just remain gob smacked that Danielle Smith can sleep at night given the parsimonious funding she provides for any form of education from our tax dollars while lining the pockets of her cronies!
"The education revolution isn't a distant dream. It's happening now, it works and it's ready to scale. The only question is how quickly the rest of the world will embrace what's possible when we stop accepting that school has to be the way it's always been."
What if kids could learn in 2 hours a day, test in the top 1% nationally, spend their afternoons mastering other great skills, AND love school more than vacation?
What sounds impossible is already happening at Alpha. If you are a parent like me, it’s impossible not to wonder how to make sure your kids will benefit from this enormous innovation.
The public school system needs a rethink for sure….one complexity that needs to be considered is what kinds of kids and parents can afford to move out of public education. Not the poor. And there is ample evidence that kids from less well off households have a harder time in school, get poorer outcomes. Showing up to school well fed improves outcomes. So…if schools are declining, then well off parents who can afford private education, whose kids are predisposed to do better, will migrate to private schools. The public schools will inevitably be educating the portion of the school population that is headed to lower outcomes and needs more resources per capita.
Why would it have to be that way? If governments subsidized privately delivered education at the same per-student rates as they cover public schools, then many/most non-profit private schools could presumably provide education without charging parents anything. By comparison, many of the voucher systems in the U.S. seem to specifically target poor families with opportunities.
If you want to blow your hair back, chart the inflation-adjusted spend per student in Ontario public schools against EQAO results for the last 25 years. Then, just for laughs, do a similar comparison of the number of teachers employed versus the number of students enrolled.
Lay on top of this the avalanche of evidence from post-secondary institutions that their freshman students are woefully unprepared, and it’s impossible to conclude anything other than this: spending more money and hiring more teachers has not led to improved outcomes—and might actually be making things worse.
To be fair, in the last decade, the issue of classroom complexity has become a legitimate concern. Between kids with learning disabilities and needs that formerly would have been accommodated in a special-ed classroom, kids with behavioral issues (some genetic, some environmental), kids with limited or no English/French language skills, and the negative impacts of the COVID remote learning experience, the average teacher is facing a classroom very different from those of a generation ago.
Even so, clearly we need a complete rethink. And delivering public education through private service providers should be on the table.
If only I could access the kind of data I'd need to blow (what's left of) my hair back. The problem is that system-wide (or even school-wide) data representing metrics like post-secondary preparedness is noticeably missing.
Even the EQAO system only provides a few years' worth of historical results.
EQAO is not a perfect measure of anything. But when the system has "we will never be measured" as one of its guiding principles, you have to play the cards you're dealt.
As for the hair, I have a bit of siding left but the shingles blew off years ago 😉
I just asked ChatGPT how "standard" the EQAO was. The response wasn't encouraging: https://chatgpt.com/share/695e6eb5-443c-8001-ba0c-31e1db47700f
If it wouldn't immediately mean the creation of an entirely new federal dept or agency with 10k employees, I'd support a mandatory, national standardized test of basic skills. Much like the old Canadian Test of Basic Skills.
I just remain gob smacked that Danielle Smith can sleep at night given the parsimonious funding she provides for any form of education from our tax dollars while lining the pockets of her cronies!
"The education revolution isn't a distant dream. It's happening now, it works and it's ready to scale. The only question is how quickly the rest of the world will embrace what's possible when we stop accepting that school has to be the way it's always been."
What if kids could learn in 2 hours a day, test in the top 1% nationally, spend their afternoons mastering other great skills, AND love school more than vacation?
What sounds impossible is already happening at Alpha. If you are a parent like me, it’s impossible not to wonder how to make sure your kids will benefit from this enormous innovation.
I encourage anyone interested in improving education to listen to the conversation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a06qSgfccZs on Alpha School.
I've read about Alpha and I'm certainly curious to see how it performs long-term - and how it scales.
The public school system needs a rethink for sure….one complexity that needs to be considered is what kinds of kids and parents can afford to move out of public education. Not the poor. And there is ample evidence that kids from less well off households have a harder time in school, get poorer outcomes. Showing up to school well fed improves outcomes. So…if schools are declining, then well off parents who can afford private education, whose kids are predisposed to do better, will migrate to private schools. The public schools will inevitably be educating the portion of the school population that is headed to lower outcomes and needs more resources per capita.
Why would it have to be that way? If governments subsidized privately delivered education at the same per-student rates as they cover public schools, then many/most non-profit private schools could presumably provide education without charging parents anything. By comparison, many of the voucher systems in the U.S. seem to specifically target poor families with opportunities.