[Posted to Society for Quality Education blog of 2014 08 21]
Commitment & Training Come FIRST Before $$$ & ###s
You know what’s happening in BC? Teacher strike threatens to last all Fall. Teacher union wants more funding ($$$) and more teachers (###).
Government has a website for parents What To Do — www.bcparentinfo.ca Have the kids take Food Safe, First Aid courses, get some credentials. Download free textbooks. Etc. In my essay to the parent group, which had an emergency meeting this weekend, I suggested a few points:
*** With the government making 3 important concrete overtures to parents — $40 day for under 13yr olds, the parent website, and the Minister of Ed on public TV saying he wants to get parents involved — I warned that this could be lip service UNLESS parents presented some conditions — parent rights, real special needs requirements met, and a COMMITMENT TO READING.
*** Re: special needs —1) audit where current SN $ is going; 2) specifically trained SN teachers (Is there training available?); 3) regular teachers need to have skills/tools to help identify SN and work with parents to get proper services.
*** Re: Reading. I said the education establishment has to stop seeing phonics as an ABOMINATION and use it as part of the tool kit to teach reading to early learners.
*** Re: Poor reading and “pipeline to prison” connection, I said that the usual refrain of “correlation does not mean causation” is FALSE in this instance and that this connection does hold — a large percent of prisoners can’t read and were NOT taught to read.
*** Please see this Letter to Editor relating to the strike, then read comments. It’s amazing that educators still see Self Esteem must precede Reading. Amazing, that someone suggests a whole host of gimmicks, including a “reading ring” ! Will all these homeless people and prisoners be given a “reading ring” instead of being taught in the first instance with direct instruction? Why seek technology instead of avoiding human teaching as evidence proves it works? How can we still, in 2014, accept the WILLFUL STUBBORNNESS of the trade to refuse to teach reading?
http://www.langleytimes.com/opinion/letters/271862291.html
People and politicians need to really weigh the preventative costs against the resulting negligence burdens — economic and human that result from crippling the young by our unaccountable education systems. There is probably 1 to 10 ratio of prevention vs negligence costs. Any economists help figure? And remember, psychic costs and human suffering cannot be measured in $s.
That’s why I’m really hoping this BC teacher strike really starts asking these important questions. These questions are popping up, and there is real NERVOUSNESS that parents, as a THIRD FORCE, may FINALLY bring some common sense to the field of education.