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.
I have three school age grandchildren. My grandson attends a private school as he has some learning disabilities; his sister is in the public school stream. The particular private school specializes in dealing with learning disabilities and my grandson had to be tested by appropriate experts before becoming a student. My son and his family are (thankfully) able to afford the tuition cost for grandson.
My remaining granddaughter is in public school and also has learning disabilities. The public school system here in Calgary has accepted that she has problems [she also has been tested and was designated appropriately for needing assistance] and has designated additional funding for her school to allow an extra resource person to help her. Having said that, the extra funding has been received by the school but has not been utilized for the benefit of my granddaughter and has simply been chewed up by general school spending at the local school. The result is that granddaughter is really, really struggling at school.
My daughter and her husband do not have the resources to send granddaughter to private school but they have applied to send her to the same school as grandson. She qualifies - as determined by psychologist, etc. testing - but we have to wait to see if she makes it off the wait list. Then, daughter and son-in-law have to find the money which means that my wife and I have to assist. This will not be easy, not whatsoever, but my wife and I will beggar ourselves to assist granddaughter.
My point in this recitation is to recognize that there are a lot of kids with difficulties and parents and grandparents are doing all that they can but sometimes that isn't enough. But parents and grandparents keep trying.
To simply argue that provinces do or do not spend enough is an insufficient argument in my view; not irrelevant but insufficient. An important thing to do is to recognize that the movement over the last number of decades to bring all kids into the same classroom in the name of "fairness" and "inclusion" and such is insufficient and, in fact, often harmful. It seems to me that many children would benefit from specialized classrooms on either a full time or part-time basis and that would assist with some of the issues of classroom complexity.
So, yes, the overall spend is an issue but so is the way classrooms are organized. And, I am quite certain, there are many other factors that need to be considered.
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.
Sir, you mention the issue of "classroom complexity" and I absolutely agree that that is a real issue that is causing an incredible amount of difficulty for teachers, students, parents, boards - everyone. However, however ....
As I consider that particular issue I have to think about how things were in "my day" [I am seventy-five so "my day" was long ago]. In my day, and for the first part of my kids' education, there existed separate classes for English as a Second Language, kids with "learning difficulties." kids with physical difficulties and so forth. In other words, the "standard" classroom was complicated with a lot of variables but the most [please pardon the word] egregious types of complications were channeled into separate streams. It came to pass, however, that parents (in particular) howled about the "segregation" of their kids and insisted on their little Johnny or Suzy or Mohammed being put into the "regular" classroom with the result that we see today.
I have great sympathy with the parents who decried the "segregation" of their children but I have to think that we are now reaping the result of those good intentions run amok.
From my perspective, the driver for "mainstreaming" the kids who formally would have spent all or most of their time in special ed wasn't their parents. It was the educrats and pedagogy "experts" who pushed for it.
I turned 55 this week, so 75 is no longer "old". 😉
Anyway, no matter who pushed for mainstreaming - and I agree that the educational establishment [you know, those who now scream about complexity in the classroom] - I think that it is just out of hand.
I expect that parents of many kids would welcome their kids being segregated somewhat if they could get better assistance but I can guarantee that the educational establishment and, particularly, the unions would fight tooth and nail against the idea.
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.
David, this is a topic that is close to my heart.
I have three school age grandchildren. My grandson attends a private school as he has some learning disabilities; his sister is in the public school stream. The particular private school specializes in dealing with learning disabilities and my grandson had to be tested by appropriate experts before becoming a student. My son and his family are (thankfully) able to afford the tuition cost for grandson.
My remaining granddaughter is in public school and also has learning disabilities. The public school system here in Calgary has accepted that she has problems [she also has been tested and was designated appropriately for needing assistance] and has designated additional funding for her school to allow an extra resource person to help her. Having said that, the extra funding has been received by the school but has not been utilized for the benefit of my granddaughter and has simply been chewed up by general school spending at the local school. The result is that granddaughter is really, really struggling at school.
My daughter and her husband do not have the resources to send granddaughter to private school but they have applied to send her to the same school as grandson. She qualifies - as determined by psychologist, etc. testing - but we have to wait to see if she makes it off the wait list. Then, daughter and son-in-law have to find the money which means that my wife and I have to assist. This will not be easy, not whatsoever, but my wife and I will beggar ourselves to assist granddaughter.
My point in this recitation is to recognize that there are a lot of kids with difficulties and parents and grandparents are doing all that they can but sometimes that isn't enough. But parents and grandparents keep trying.
To simply argue that provinces do or do not spend enough is an insufficient argument in my view; not irrelevant but insufficient. An important thing to do is to recognize that the movement over the last number of decades to bring all kids into the same classroom in the name of "fairness" and "inclusion" and such is insufficient and, in fact, often harmful. It seems to me that many children would benefit from specialized classrooms on either a full time or part-time basis and that would assist with some of the issues of classroom complexity.
So, yes, the overall spend is an issue but so is the way classrooms are organized. And, I am quite certain, there are many other factors that need to be considered.
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.
Sir, you mention the issue of "classroom complexity" and I absolutely agree that that is a real issue that is causing an incredible amount of difficulty for teachers, students, parents, boards - everyone. However, however ....
As I consider that particular issue I have to think about how things were in "my day" [I am seventy-five so "my day" was long ago]. In my day, and for the first part of my kids' education, there existed separate classes for English as a Second Language, kids with "learning difficulties." kids with physical difficulties and so forth. In other words, the "standard" classroom was complicated with a lot of variables but the most [please pardon the word] egregious types of complications were channeled into separate streams. It came to pass, however, that parents (in particular) howled about the "segregation" of their kids and insisted on their little Johnny or Suzy or Mohammed being put into the "regular" classroom with the result that we see today.
I have great sympathy with the parents who decried the "segregation" of their children but I have to think that we are now reaping the result of those good intentions run amok.
From my perspective, the driver for "mainstreaming" the kids who formally would have spent all or most of their time in special ed wasn't their parents. It was the educrats and pedagogy "experts" who pushed for it.
I turned 55 this week, so 75 is no longer "old". 😉
No, 75 isn't old - rather, it's ancient.
Anyway, no matter who pushed for mainstreaming - and I agree that the educational establishment [you know, those who now scream about complexity in the classroom] - I think that it is just out of hand.
I expect that parents of many kids would welcome their kids being segregated somewhat if they could get better assistance but I can guarantee that the educational establishment and, particularly, the unions would fight tooth and nail against the idea.
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.