loading...
Chuck Poulsen/ Needlepoint Class
It got to the point with George W. Bush – and Jean Chretien – where whatever they said, I’d just assume the opposite was true. They were so consistently reliable in their misinformation that one hardly had to do any research into the matters.
That’s somewhat the way I feel about School District 23 and its self-serving autocrats and their sycophants who run it: teachers, their union, board members and administrators—the whole cartel.
This is not to say there aren’t any good administrators in District 23. For instance, former superintendent Ron Rubadeau was the best CEO of a bureaucracy I’ve ever dealt with as a reporter. The fact that former board chair and current board member Moyra Baxter hated him proves my point.
There are also many good teachers, the majority. Unfortunately, there are also many bad teachers and none of them ever get fired for incompetence.
The educationists again have their dangling participles in a knot because the Fraser Institute’s school rankings for Grades 4 to 7 were released last week.
The institute is a right wing think tank, i.e., lobbyists who make Gordon Campbell feel better about himself every time he cuts a social program.
But the FI does some things that are necessary and that includes rating the performance of B.C. schools.
The educationists are against this because the data collected by the FI doesn’t provide an accurate picture.
I suggest the educationists don’t like the rankings because they point a finger at the quality of the job they are doing.
The educationists started their attacks on the FI years ago, claiming the rankings put undue pressure on kids and the teachers. Competition was bad for the frail psyches of both groups.
If you walk into any school, you’ll see a display of all the sports trophies the school has won. If it’s good enough for athletic achievement, why shouldn’t a school’s academic performance also be tested against other schools?
The educationists have changed their tact, probably because they realized that parents wanted their kids’ school rated. The educationists are now saying the FI’s data base is too narrow to provide an accurate accounting.
There are eight indicators used in the FI secondary school rankings, including average provincial exam mark, differences in performance between males and females and graduation rates. Maybe it’s not perfect although it sounds pretty good to me. It’s also better than nothing, which is what we would have without the FI.
The chairman of the school board, Rolli Cacchioni, called the FI rankings “absolutely irrelevant.”
“If you’re going to use statistics to rank, they have to be valid… they have to be defensible,” he said.
Cacchioni also said that the provincial government needs to sit down with trustees, the teachers union and other stakeholders to figure out credible ways of assessing schools.
There obviously should be teachers on board, but what’s the union doing at these meetings? It’s slightly nauseating to witness the school board bowing and scraping to the teachers’ union at board meetings. The union even gets to talk first, ahead of parents.
The teachers’ union is an arrogant bully.
More to the point: Why are the educationists calling for a summit on a ranking system now, rather than, let’s say 20 years ago?
If this proposed meeting determines a formula for how well each school is working, that’s only because the Fraser Institute forced the educationists to do it.
****
Is anyone, aside from Kelowna MP Ron Cannan, excited about Kelowna getting a pass port office, and a second rate one at that x Every time I’ve renewed a passport through Ottawa (or wherever it goes back East), it’s worked fine. I know Cannan has worked hard on this and good for him, but excuse me if I don’t jump and shout.
Chuck Poulsen is a retired journalist, but can’t seem to stop writing. You can contact him directly at needlepoint@shaw.ca. His column appears Wednesdays.
loading...
Although I admit that I am guilty of looking at the results of the School Rankings, it certainly does not bear any decision on the school that my daughter attends or how good of an education that she is receiving. Am I happy to see the school she attends at the top of Kelowna schools, on a superficial level…sure.
The one thing that I completely disagree with is the process in which the determination of ranking the schools is undertaken. The Fraser Institute uses quantitative analysis in the hope that they offer some qualitative solutions. The person who said “The numbers don’t lie” clearly did not take a course in statistics. Numbers do lie.
These tests are done in Grades 4 AND 7, not Grades 4 to 7. How can the Fraser Institute qualify the numbers for an elementary school where the student population is K-6 and compare them to schools where the population is K-7? The major question I have about the results of these “report cards” is for example: Watson Road Elementary is a K-6 school, but the Fraser Institute gives results for Grade 7 students. How can the Fraser Institute give a grade to Watson Road Elementary when the students providing results no longer attend that school and go to Dr. Knox Middle School? Or for that matter, any other K-6 elementary school in SD 23?
The Fraser Institute bases these results, by their own admission on public records, but the tests are anonymous. Only the parent of the individual child can access the results for their child through the Principal of the school. Therefore, the Fraser Institute, due to the anonymity of public records, cannot reasonably retrovert the results of a Grade 7 student to the Elementary they previously attended. Nor should the elementary school get credited or discredited for the results of that particular age group.
I somewhat agree the Rolli Cacchioni. The results are irrelevant of the overall quality of the school it’s supposed to rank on quality. Even the Fraser Institute warns against solely using these numbers to choose a school for your child to attend. What it does do is take time away from our child’s education to assess them on things that are not necessarily based on the learning outcomes as determined by the Ministry of Education. Schools now take class time out of their schedule to “prepare” students on how to take the test. If a student is prepared on how to take a test, then it skews the results because they were only taught how to take the test, not showing what they really have learned up to that point in their education.
I remember taking these FSA’s when I was in school and since it didn’t actually go towards my grades, I didn’t take them the least bit seriously. I remember one year, I tried to draw a picture of a sailboat with the questions I answered on the multiple choice sheet. Once these kids reach grade 7 (and for Secondary schools Grade 10), they view these as “what’s in it for me” and the answer is…nothing.
Please continue discussion on the forum: link