A provincially mandated fantasy

As destructive as the EQAO’s tests are to the school system, you local schools, individual students and common sense, now it is being used to rank schools in a socially destructive way.

Check out http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/sift/index.asp where you can rank all the schools in the province using the fantasy that the results are meaningful.

But you do not need an expensive test and web page to rank schools like this.

Just move into a socially upscale community and you can guarantee that the numbers will be high. When you are looking at standardized testing, you are looking at the relative wealth of the community it serves not the quality of its schools.

You can excuse the narrow minded right wing Fraser Institute for buying into this with its on its site http://www.fraserinstitute.org/reportcards/schoolperformance/, it is part of their social mandate to dump on public services.

But what is really pathetic is that this is a government of Ontario site.

Your tax dollar, working for you.

You can sign the People for Education letter against this at  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2gDbDb40viR8TodiNiXXFg_3d_3d

SAT Canada Inc.

It is SAT season in the good old USA. Hundreds of thousands of students are preparing by taking SAT courses if they can afford them. Those courses are actually worth it because they have been proven to boost scores by significant amounts. If you cannot afford them – too bad. There is a real class based education system down there. Up here too but that is another story.
The tests are very important. They are needed because universities and colleges cannot depend school marks because the qualities of high schools vary based on class and other reasons.
Here, schools do differ as much so can usually work out whom they want enrolled from transcripts.
Up here, in Ontario, we have our standardized tests but they are not used in this way and that is a good thing.
But if you look down south, you might be looking at our future. Here is what might happen.
• The EQAO is privatized for to an American  firm for not much money. (see the 407 deal)
• The EQAO starts charging for tests and other products just like the US College Board.
• As resources are drained from public schools, standards among schools start to spread as poorer communities get less academic help.
• The EQAO will then be used by post secondary institutions like in the US.

Ah progress.

Take a look at this American Site. http://www.nomoretests.com/why.html

Or this site that supports my efforts. Campaign for Public Education.

Google it yourself.

This small blog

I noticed a small flurry of interest in this blog recently. Nothing like others but still some people searching for views on testing have looked in. Great. It is my hope that there will soon be a movement to boycott the damaging, expensive and discriminatory tests.

Proving the obvious

“There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistic.” Benjamin Disraeli said it; Mark Twain liked to repeat it but the Toronto District School Board developed some interesting stats it in its report: 2008 Parent Census, Kindergarten – Grade 6: System Overview.

The Report shows simply that poverty effects school performance.

It shows that while kids do worse on the provincial standardized tests for a variety of reasons like immigration status, family structure, ethnicity and parental education; each of those factors influence family income and family income is the factor that most reliably reflects on academic success.

Student coming from well off families that are ‘just of the boat’ usually have little problems adapting to our schools. Single parent families earning over the $50,000 a year also do not seem to be struggling with the system.

But two-parent, well settled and well educated families struggling below the poverty line have more in common with the stereotypical ‘welfare mother’ when it comes to academic success.

The issue is class. It will always be class.

The report suggests that breakfast and lunch programs would help and that is undoubtably true however there are many more ideas that could help like smaller class sizes, aggressive music and art programs and annual out door education trips.

The standard that is used is provincial standardized testing. The tests show that poorer children do not do that well on standardized tests and probably not well in school. Ok. That is interesting. But any teacher could have told you that for free if you just asks them.

Consider that to test all the students in Toronto cost over $12,000,000 a year, you could wonder if it is worth the effort. I do. How many hot student lunches could that buy.

The school system has always struggled to deal with working and lower economic class families. It did not matter too much with a booming economy. Children, cast off the academic wagon could always go on to an industrial or clerical job that could support them.

But today, with a shrinking economic system, these students have an uncertain future.

Parents, today believe that breakfast and lunch programs could improve children’s chances. At one point, education in England had nutrition programs. It was just considered part of their budget.

Some poorer children, of course, will do well in spite of their economic status just as some ‘rich kids’ will not. But we are dealing in statistics and statistics never relates directly to individuals.

That is why the blame for systemic school failures can always be individualized.

What is disappointing is the waste of human potential. The chances of finding the next Mozart or Einstein among the few rich kids is minimal. They are, most likely, in the many poorer kids who are having problems getting a basic education.

This report not only proved the obvious that poor children are struggling in our schools, it showed how expensive the standardized tests are in proving this.

Don’t have a cow, Man

Did you see tonight’s Simpsons epsode. It is mostly about standardize testing. The principal discovers the true meaning of education and cancels the test. Its a boycott. Way to go Skinner!