Canada's Education System May Not Be As Good As Some May Think

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Careful, jolinar's really grumpy with people who have him dead to rights today...

Wow, dead to rights eh? You have provided 0 evidence to back up your claim, I have provided multiple sources and you have me dead to rights? Ok. You got me.

[peter12]

Seriously, jolinar wiped the floor with you guys.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

Not even close. Anyhow, I provide examples form multiple sources, they are not all going to be saying the exact same thing. Many of those sources showed a decrease in reading and writing.

A source didn't say they should learn resume skills over Shakespeare, you did. The source you quoted to prove your point contradicted you. You can't just roll your eyes when someone points it out. Which way is it?

And how long does it take to learn how to write a resume? It's not exactly rocket science.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by bcb

So you admit then, people DO have a choice.

It looks like our only point of contention is funding.

We are going in circles now. It's been fun though.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by opendoor

What about people who don't even have kids? Using your logic, why should they pay anything towards educating other peoples' children?

Sounds good to me. Same should go for seniors.
As has already been mentioned of the amount of money that is spent on education, the smaller portion comes from the property tax.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by bcb

agreed



I don't personally know any 'chair warmers'. Not saying there aren't any, but then again most companies have a few. The chair warmer notion is a tad stereotypical.

How do you determine merit? popularity contest? good looks? parent survey? Remember simply linking teacher performance to standardized testing results is erroneous, as tests only tell part of the story, and because results swing wildly from class to class.

Point 1: Most companies do have 'Chair Warmers', you're absolutely right. They also tend to get worse remuneration and fewer promotions. Pay in the private sector is (almost) never directly linked to years of service.

Point 2: Determining merit has no silver bullet - the point that I think you were trying to make. That said, standardized testing, peer reviews, student reviews and an annual performance review can all be used to come up with a rather complete picture.

From my experience, students will always complain about teachers. Also from my experience, where there's smoke, there is quite often fire.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by bcb

Sorry, to clarify, it probably isn't a law. (You can read the Alberta School Act) to find out. It's more convention, based upon so called 'best practice' in education circles. All I'm saying is that the teachers likely didn't have any say in the matter.

Sorry - but that's a pretty lame excuse.

I'll clarify a best practice for you, on behalf of parents, please feel free to share with coworkers:

"If the student is not ready to be promoted to the next grade level, don't allow it to happen"

I feel bad for teachers....they've been forced in becoming babysitters before educators. That said, there sure is a lot of buck-passing in the education system. And 'bcb', before you argue with that, re-read what you wrote:

"Sorry, to clarify, it probably isn't a law. (You can read the Alberta School Act) to find out. It's more convention, based upon so called 'best practice' in education circles."

Translated:

1. Go research my point for me, I can't be bothered.
2. Although I'm empowered to do the right thing, my peer group frowns on it.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

Point 1: Most companies do have 'Chair Warmers', you're absolutely right. They also tend to get worse remuneration and fewer promotions. Pay in the private sector is (almost) never directly linked to years of service.

Point 2: Determining merit has no silver bullet - the point that I think you were trying to make. That said, standardized testing, peer reviews, student reviews and an annual performance review can all be used to come up with a rather complete picture.

From my experience, students will always complain about teachers. Also from my experience, where there's smoke, there is quite often fire.

I would say through my public high school education, at least 6/10 of my teachers were decidedly middling with very little incentive to go above and beyond.

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

A source didn't say they should learn resume skills over Shakespeare, you did. The source you quoted to prove your point contradicted you. You can't just roll your eyes when someone points it out. Which way is it?

And how long does it take to learn how to write a resume? It's not exactly rocket science.

Rouge, it is much more than just learning how to type a resume. Cover letters, interviewing techniques and styles, how to act during an interview, how to approach possible references. These are things that could affect their lives greatly. I don't know what the time is spent on it in CALM, it isn't much and if it is only 2 days, that means it's 2 classes, so what 2 hours worth?

Are there any teachers that teach CALM on CP that can confirm how much time is spent on this area?

[Sample00]

great read, folks. Thanks for making my morning.

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

Sorry - but that's a pretty lame excuse.

I'll clarify a best practice for you, on behalf of parents, please feel free to share with coworkers:

"If the student is not ready to be promoted to the next grade level, don't allow it to happen"

Actually, while it might not be written in law, teachers aren't allowed to hold back students these days. It comes down to funding - if a student is held back, the government has to pay for an extra year of their education, and they're refusing to do that, and instituted a policy that no student can be held back. This is the source of a lot of the problems in the education system IMO, since teachers have to spend a lot of time working with students who aren't functioning at anywhere close to their grade level, resulting in less time working with the rest of the class.

On the issue of being able to choose between different types of schools, such as arts schools, sports-oriented schools, etc. - I'm not actually convinced this is a good idea, particularly at the elementary school stage. While choice for parents sounds good, I think we should strive to get each child as well-rounded an education as possible so that they can choose which path they want to take in life when they're older, rather than their parents deciding early on they should be focusing on arts, science or whatever. At the high school level it might be a bit different, when kids can start to decide on their own path.

I'm also not keen on private schools based on particular religions - I think exposing kids to a range of ideas and beliefs is important and religious education should be kept at home. Maybe it is a result of me being a bit of a children's rights advocate; my view is that the long-term good of the child (including being able to make his/her own mind up about what to believe after being exposed to a variety of ideas and being taught to think critically) outweighs the parents' desire to have their kids kept in an environment where they are indoctrinated in a particular world view.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by peter12

Seriously, jolinar wiped the floor with you guys.

If a pile of uncritically and hastily assembled internet garbage that proves nothing about his original point is "wiping the floor"--then I'd hate to see what a "collossal failure" looks like.

The fact is, jolinar lost the argument before I even got involved--because he was talking with someone--bcb--who knew far more about the subject than he did. I probably should have left well enough alone--but I guess I smelled blood in the water a little bit. But I can't take credit for the kill--that was bcb's, and it happened before jolinar's little "meltdown" at the start of this thread.

The fact is, I wasn't even going to bother with a point-by-point attack on jolinar's OP--because he really isn't worth bothering with that kind of effort. He's the type of poster who hides behind the mask of anonymity in order to constantly take needless umbrage and treat every debate like a pole-pissing contest where he can't go to bed until he
"wins." Combined with his exceedingly poor grasp of formal logic and argumentation, the result is at times annoying--but more often risible.

You, on the other hand, are a poster for whom I have a lot more respect, and so since you bring it up, I'll offer my assessment of the argument. Before crediting jolinar with the "win"--let's not forget what the argument was originally about: vouchers and school choice, which I understand to be a policy plank of the WRA.

This is important, because if you look carefully you'll see that when he started this thread, jolinar moved the goalposts a little closer for himself--what he attempted to prove was now not the value of vouchers, but that "there are flaws in the education system"--which nobody ever disputed.

So his post then, consists of this "evidence":

1."Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Meeting Our Needs?" This is a policy paper from the Canadian Council on learning. Hilariously, it focuses on post-secondary education outcomes, making it utterly irrelevant to the point. Lots of interesting stuff in there, including some "poachable" quotes. Even jolinar's quote actually talks about literacy outcomes among adults, not high school students. I'd say "good try," but... it really wasn't.

2. An editorial article. Interesting, but doesn't rise above the level of anecdote. A good read, though--and could by itself have been an interesting jumping off point if the topic were "learning outcomes in Post-Secondary Education." Let's remember, though, what the topic is: "the failure of Canada's primary education system, and the value of vouchers in fixing it." Note that neither of those has so far been addressed.

3. Now things start getting really funny. An anonymous post in a comment thread? He's making this too easy.

4. The last one is a news article that cites a post-secondary math teacher's opinion on the preparation of students for university math. This is far and away the best piece of evidence jolinar has--no idea why he buried it at the bottom. It isn't exactly an empirical study of learning outcomes in high school, but it'll do for internet message board purposes. If he'd stopped here, we could probably have had a discussion about it, and it could even have been interesting.

However, he keeps going:

5. A study on adult literacy, which includes people up to age 65. Note the important problem here: many people over 18 who live in Canada didn't go to high school in Canada. Note that none of the authors' "recommendations" have anything to do with school. Again, interesting stuff, and really good work--but not really relevant to THIS discussion per se.

6. Here's where he's just not reading carefully enough. The last piece of evidence is a review article that cites the same study he just linked above. Even this article recommends nothing about schools--certainly it doesn't claim that vouchers are a good idea. Instead, the author puts the onus on families, which I think is pretty smart.

The rest of jolinar's rant I won't address--including the personal attacks on me--except to say that this:

You knew what I meant when I said teachers (meaning primary and secondary) and you knew what I meant when I said educators (PSE). Yet instead of having a debate you try and pick a fight about semantics.

has to be the weakest backpedal I've ever seen. I was supposed to assume that "educators" implied post-secondary? I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. If anything "educators" implies primary school teachers, which is how I read it.

The rest amounts to jolinar trying to shift the onus onto me to prove that his claims of fact are wrong--and you and I both know that isn't how it works. If you make a claim, you back it up. It's not unreasonable or rude to expect people to do that. I didn't claim that Canada's primary education system was perfect; as far as I know, nobody did. Merely that vouchers are at best an unproven and at worst a dangerous idea, based on alarmism about an educational system that really isn't all that bad.

To sum up: jolinar moved the goalposts back far enough that he would no longer be required to supply evidence to support vouchers. Instead he tried to find flaws in the educational system as it exists, a far easier task. But he even failed at that, providing exactly one relevant piece of evidence in six links, and not one that proves very much by itself.

If that's "wiping the floor".....

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

If a pile of uncritically and hastily assembled internet garbage that proves nothing about his original point is "wiping the floor"--then I'd hate to see what a "collossal failure" looks like.

The fact is, jolinar lost the argument before I even got involved--because he was talking with someone--bcb--who knew far more about the subject than he did. I probably should have left well enough alone--but I guess I smelled blood in the water a little bit. But I can't take credit for the kill--that was bcb's, and it happened before jolinar's little "meltdown" at the start of this thread.

The fact is, I wasn't even going to bother with a point-by-point attack on jolinar's OP--because he really isn't worth bothering with that kind of effort. He's the type of poster who hides behind the mask of anonymity in order to constantly take needless umbrage and treat every debate like a pole-pissing contest where he can't go to bed until he
"wins." Combined with his exceedingly poor grasp of formal logic and argumentation, the result is at times annoying--but more often risible.

You, on the other hand, are a poster for whom I have a lot more respect, and so since you bring it up, I'll offer my assessment of the argument. Before crediting jolinar with the "win"--let's not forget what the argument was originally about: vouchers and school choice, which I understand to be a policy plank of the WRA.

This is important, because if you look carefully you'll see that when he started this thread, jolinar moved the goalposts a little closer for himself--what he attempted to prove was now not the value of vouchers, but that "there are flaws in the education system"--which nobody ever disputed.

So his post then, consists of this "evidence":

1."Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Meeting Our Needs?" This is a policy paper from the Canadian Council on learning. Hilariously, it focuses on post-secondary education outcomes, making it utterly irrelevant to the point. Lots of interesting stuff in there, including some "poachable" quotes. Even jolinar's quote actually talks about literacy outcomes among adults, not high school students. I'd say "good try," but... it really wasn't.

2. An editorial article. Interesting, but doesn't rise above the level of anecdote. A good read, though--and could by itself have been an interesting jumping off point if the topic were "learning outcomes in Post-Secondary Education." Let's remember, though, what the topic is: "the failure of Canada's primary education system, and the value of vouchers in fixing it." Note that neither of those has so far been addressed.

3. Now things start getting really funny. An anonymous post in a comment thread? He's making this too easy.

4. The last one is a news article that cites a post-secondary math teacher's opinion on the preparation of students for university math. This is far and away the best piece of evidence jolinar has--no idea why he buried it at the bottom. It isn't exactly an empirical study of learning outcomes in high school, but it'll do for internet message board purposes. If he'd stopped here, we could probably have had a discussion about it, and it could even have been interesting.

However, he keeps going:

5. A study on adult literacy, which includes people up to age 65. Note the important problem here: many people over 18 who live in Canada didn't go to high school in Canada. Note that none of the authors' "recommendations" have anything to do with school. Again, interesting stuff, and really good work--but not really relevant to THIS discussion per se.

6. Here's where he's just not reading carefully enough. The last piece of evidence is a review article that cites the same study he just linked above. Even this article recommends nothing about schools--certainly it doesn't claim that vouchers are a good idea. Instead, the author puts the onus on families, which I think is pretty smart.

The rest of jolinar's rant I won't address--including the personal attacks on me--except to say that this:


has to be the weakest backpedal I've ever seen. I was supposed to assume that "educators" implied post-secondary? I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. If anything "educators" implies primary school teachers, which is how I read it.

The rest amounts to jolinar trying to shift the onus onto me to prove that his claims of fact are wrong--and you and I both know that isn't how it works. If you make a claim, you back it up. It's not unreasonable or rude to expect people to do that. I didn't claim that Canada's primary education system was perfect; as far as I know, nobody did. Merely that vouchers are at best an unproven and at worst a dangerous idea, based on alarmism about an educational system that really isn't all that bad.

To sum up: jolinar moved the goalposts back far enough that he would no longer be required to supply evidence to support vouchers. Instead he tried to find flaws in the educational system as it exists, a far easier task. But he even failed at that, providing exactly one relevant piece of evidence in six links, and not one that proves very much by itself.

If that's "wiping the floor".....

Thanks for proving my point earlier. Remember, the one about the sun. It's going to be a good year on CP I can tell.

[Shazam]

Posit: Things with flaws are bad and must be fixed.

Empirical: The education system is flawed, therefore bad and must be fixed.

Emprical: Jolinar of malkshor is flawed, therefore bad and must be fixed.

Ahh, see, it's that simple.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

Actually, while it might not be written in law, teachers aren't allowed to hold back students these days. It comes down to funding - if a student is held back, the government has to pay for an extra year of their education, and they're refusing to do that, and instituted a policy that no student can be held back. This is the source of a lot of the problems in the education system IMO, since teachers have to spend a lot of time working with students who aren't functioning at anywhere close to their grade level, resulting in less time working with the rest of the class.

I (really) appreciate your comments, and understand them fully. Teachers are placed in a tough spot in this regard - no question. I'm going to be SUPER clear here....I appreciate teachers and respect them very much! It's a hard job that gets harder every year. None of my comments are intended to diminish the respect that teachers deserve - they are purely to identify things that I don't happen to agree with.

That said, I still don't see why teachers can't 'Fail' a student. I understand the multiple reasons why it is an undesirable outcome, but I still don't see why teachers aren't allowed. Is the "...policy that no student can be held back" actual written policy?

At the very least, I think that teachers have a professional duty to flunk a lousy student, period. Unless there is an actual written policy that forbids it, the failing of students should be a regular occurrence. Lastly - if that written policy actual does exist, the teacher's union (and it's members) have a professional duty to bring it to light and argue against it.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

Maybe I should use fire fox then. A lot of those mistakes are simply typing errors. It tells me something when you only attack spelling errors in a debate rather than the content. For sure there are errors in my post because I put it all together in a matter of a few minutes. I could careless. What I am not doing is spending hours proof reading a 3 post posting. When I am trying to get it on as fast as possible so I don't spend my entire night on CP there are going to be mistakes and I could care less.

Why is it that you hold everybody up to a higher standard, except yourself?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by bcb

I don't personally know any 'chair warmers'. Not saying there aren't any, but then again most companies have a few. The chair warmer notion is a tad stereotypical.

I knew a few in my day.

Grade 8 that was all we had all year long. Chair-warmers.

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Why is it that you hold everybody up to a higher standard, except yourself?

Can you explain how the post you quoted is relevant to your comment? Someone tells me that firefox has a spell check and I say I don't use it. I admit there are spelling mistakes in my post yet I never once attacked any other poster for any kind of typing or spelling error or claim that anyones ideas are less relevant because of any such errors. I provided evidence to back up my claims, something that no one else has done. I don't want to spend all night on CP and never say anyone else has to either. So I really don't understand how you think I am holding people up to some kind of standard.

I started this thread so the other one would not be derailed. I made my point and provided evidence to back it up. Some people agreed some people respectfully disagreed and others completely could care less about actually debating and just attacked the poster without bringing any meaningful discussion to the thread. Some people just completely dismissed all the evidence without providing a meaningful reason as to why it was not correct. At the beginning I stated my opinion because of what I had read and heard. I provided examples of what I read and heard. Instead of people debating the information in those examples and providing reasons why they may or maynot be founded they decided to just attack the people or groups that provided the information.

Everyone knows my opinion. It is not set in stone. Bcb has provided a bit of personal experience which is good. No one has yet provided hard facts as to why I should change my mind. I don't want an American style education system but like I said in the beginning, my view is more choice is always better. So unless anyone posts anything else with some material facts than I am done posting in this thread.

[Khel]

I just skimmed 3 pages of posts, and there wasn't a single comment about the OP's extension cords???

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Khel

I just skimmed 3 pages of posts, and there wasn't a single comment about the OP's extension cords???

It was in the original thread that started this discussion.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...&postcount=107