They allow a set government amount per student to be directed to a school provided they charge under the max amount of additional fees. They also have a government run program.
This way the cost of schooling is born by the government but you still get the benefits of competition and private delivery.
My understanding is that Sweden's system has been a mixed bag at best. The idea initially was that there'd be more individual locally run schools, sort of a cottage industry for education, but it ended up being a bunch of equity firms and huge corporations running many of the private schools in the country.
The idea of increased efficiency hasn't really been borne out either, especially when private schools have to devote portions of their government funding to things like advertising and profits rather than actually putting the money into the product. One of the effects is that teacher salaries have dropped and it has gotten where student demand for teaching programs has sunk to the point that they'll basically take anyone who applies.
I actually am on the teachers side for the most part on this one but find the language being used interesting
Started out to be an insult to the teachers.
Then it was a slap in the face.
Now its a 'direct assault'.
I predict the language will escalate further:
The province honorium reduction is an anal gangraping of teachers.
then,
The province has performed a holocaust, a cultural genocide on the teachers of Alberta.
I'm about a pro-union as they come but I agree they don't do themselves any favours with the hyperbole.
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I actually am on the teachers side for the most part on this one but find the language being used interesting
Started out to be an insult to the teachers.
Then it was a slap in the face.
Now its a 'direct assault'.
I predict the language will escalate further:
The province honorium reduction is an anal gangraping of teachers.
then,
The province has performed a holocaust, a cultural genocide on the teachers of Alberta.
It's the idea that teachers will just do it any way because they care about the kids that is the insult.
You do a job for your O&G company. The next year, the company comes to you and says "We really need you to do this job again this year. It's integral for us as a business that it get completed, and everyone in the company is relying on you to do it. The whole year will have been a waste of time if you don't do this job, that's how important it is."
"We've also decided that we are going to cut the wage for this job in half."
Do you or do you not feel slighted?
I can't think of a time where I've had a boss come to me and say 'we're cutting your wage in half for the same job and expect you to still do it, but if you don't, that's no sweat off our back, we'll spend more money to get someone else to do it for worse results instead of paying you what we paid last year.'
I don't even think Sliver would do his job for half the wage, even if it meant the bottling machine broke and became unusable as a result, costing everyone else their jobs.
This is on top of things becoming more difficult for teachers anyway. Not only do they work long hours, spend their own money on their students, but now they're supposed work for half wage as well?
My understanding is that Sweden's system has been a mixed bag at best. The idea initially was that there'd be more individual locally run schools, sort of a cottage industry for education, but it ended up being a bunch of equity firms and huge corporations running many of the private schools in the country.
The idea of increased efficiency hasn't really been borne out either, especially when private schools have to devote portions of their government funding to things like advertising and profits rather than actually putting the money into the product. One of the effects is that teacher salaries have dropped and it has gotten where student demand for teaching programs has sunk to the point that they'll basically take anyone who applies.
That article mentions that there is a growing gap between schools and the top students group together in similar schools. It doesnt state if these top schools are for profit or public. The issue of teachers wages is interesting. The public system in Sweden is still the largest single employer of teachers so it should be setting the prevailing wage for the industry. This in turn should drive the best teachers to the public system and the private system should atrophy. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...0JK32620131210
This is also an interesting article where it appears poor regulation of both teachers and schools is partially to blame. About 25% of students go to these private schools there.
Another thing to note is there is no public or political will to get rid of the private choice based system.
It's the idea that teachers will just do it any way because they care about the kids that is the insult.
You do a job for your O&G company. The next year, the company comes to you and says "We really need you to do this job again this year. It's integral for us as a business that it get completed, and everyone in the company is relying on you to do it. The whole year will have been a waste of time if you don't do this job, that's how important it is."
"We've also decided that we are going to cut the wage for this job in half."
Do you or do you not feel slighted?
I can't think of a time where I've had a boss come to me and say 'we're cutting your wage in half for the same job and expect you to still do it, but if you don't, that's no sweat off our back, we'll spend more money to get someone else to do it for worse results instead of paying you what we paid last year.'
I don't even think Sliver would do his job for half the wage, even if it meant the bottling machine broke and became unusable as a result, costing everyone else their jobs.
This is on top of things becoming more difficult for teachers anyway. Not only do they work long hours, spend their own money on their students, but now they're supposed work for half wage as well?
I can't imagine an Engineer doing that.
It isn't your boss asking you to do it though is it? Its a separate contract. An engineer would politely decline and let them export the work to China or accept the job and do it at the agreed rate.
Teachers shouldn't feel insulted they should just decline the work.
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Why do we care so much about standardised testing?
Because pretty much every University in the world relies upon the standardized testing scored to know that the people they are letting in meet the standards they want.
I am just assuming that we want our kids to have the chances to go to University.
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
It's the idea that teachers will just do it any way because they care about the kids that is the insult.
You do a job for your O&G company. The next year, the company comes to you and says "We really need you to do this job again this year. It's integral for us as a business that it get completed, and everyone in the company is relying on you to do it. The whole year will have been a waste of time if you don't do this job, that's how important it is."
"We've also decided that we are going to cut the wage for this job in half."
Do you or do you not feel slighted?
I can't think of a time where I've had a boss come to me and say 'we're cutting your wage in half for the same job and expect you to still do it, but if you don't, that's no sweat off our back, we'll spend more money to get someone else to do it for worse results instead of paying you what we paid last year.'
I don't even think Sliver would do his job for half the wage, even if it meant the bottling machine broke and became unusable as a result, costing everyone else their jobs.
This is on top of things becoming more difficult for teachers anyway. Not only do they work long hours, spend their own money on their students, but now they're supposed work for half wage as well?
I can't imagine an Engineer doing that.
Owning a business, I'm pretty much as susceptible to the ups and downs of the market economy as it gets. On my main line of widgets (~35% of my business), we haven't been able to increase our prices since 2008. My costs keep going up, so yes, I do work for less doing the same job year after year. This is very normal for any business owner, or anybody who owns shares in a company. Profits are good some years, not so good other years, and sometimes they are very bad. It's not insulting, just a part of the ebb and flow of the market economy.
Teachers and other government employees are insulated from these types of things that people outside that environment view as normal. If one year a certain job was worth $200 per day and this year it's worth $100, that's okay. Maybe at $200 it was a sweet deal and at $100 it's not as good. If they couldn't fill 70% of the positions a month out I'd tend to agree the pay was too low, but since they are very close to filling all the positions I think it's fairly clear they're close to finding the right spot for this pay.
That article mentions that there is a growing gap between schools and the top students group together in similar schools. It doesnt state if these top schools are for profit or public. The issue of teachers wages is interesting. The public system in Sweden is still the largest single employer of teachers so it should be setting the prevailing wage for the industry. This in turn should drive the best teachers to the public system and the private system should atrophy. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...0JK32620131210
This is also an interesting article where it appears poor regulation of both teachers and schools is partially to blame. About 25% of students go to these private schools there.
Another thing to note is there is no public or political will to get rid of the private choice based system.
I'll provide a comment here since I ended up working in Swedens education system for a couple years.
Having a low wage has created a vacuum for teachers. So at this point in time, there are more jobs than teachers, in fact, last year, there were not even enough students in teacher colleges to take on the vacant positions. The low wages are partially caused by the hiring of non-certified teachers. As that becomes a reason to have a lower salary.
The issue with the "free" schools (think public but alternative, similar to our charter schools which do not answer to the board) schools now also becomes the idea of parents who choose to send children to alternative education tend to be parents who are also more educated, aware and involved in their children's success. This actually creates an artificial bubble in terms of performance for these free schools. Which becomes a selling point for these free schools to draw teachers in who do not want to work with as many serious behaviour issues in classrooms. Which forces those salaries down. Keep in mind that the free/for profit schools are trying to turn a profit. Low salaries, higher profit.
Other parents become aware of these high performing schools and you have a growing net of involved parents choosing these free schools. Public schools now have a population of parents who are not as involved and do not provide as much support. (I am speaking in generalities, not all parents fall into one category or another, but these were the trends I observed)
Regardless, high performing private schools develop a reputation. Low performing schools develop a reputation. Students of certain demographics are drawn to certain schools, wages can be forced down due to a combination of untrained teachers and a desire to work in a specific environment.
Consider also that schools with the best reputations have 5 year waiting periods. Families who are not on the ball are not going to be attending. Parents on the ball will also be there ready to support little Henrik every time the teacher calls home or gets a bad grade.
Families who would immigrate recently to the country tend to suffer the most as they don't even have a chance to be considered for a higher performing school.
On the plus side, staff and students get a free hot lunch served everyday so I never had to pack a lunch for my kid either, and before and after school care was part of the package for all schools regardless. Another big plus.
Another side note, since the topic of diploma marking is occuring. National exams are marked by the individual schools in June. Every September an article in the newspaper comes out listing specific schools that either marked too hard or too easy on the National test. Interesting times with education over there. I always heard that Sweden had a good educational system, and maybe they did a long time ago, but right now it seems to be having quite a few issues and despite all of our complaints, Alberta isn't doing as poorly as we may tend to think. The fact that so many people in this forum have questions, concerns and comments on this is a very good thing for the state of education in the province.
Last edited by ma-skis.com; 05-17-2014 at 12:09 AM.
Reason: their there
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Teachers and other government employees are insulated from these types of things that people outside that environment view as normal. If one year a certain job was worth $200 per day and this year it's worth $100, that's okay. Maybe at $200 it was a sweet deal and at $100 it's not as good. If they couldn't fill 70% of the positions a month out I'd tend to agree the pay was too low, but since they are very close to filling all the positions I think it's fairly clear they're close to finding the right spot for this pay.
You keep saying that teachers should work for below value for the good of the customer, and then when they do that you use that to set their new, lower market value.
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I'll provide a comment here since I ended up working in Swedens education system for a couple years.
Another side note, since the topic of diploma marking is occuring. National exams are marked by the individual schools in June. Every September an article in the newspaper comes out listing specific schools that either marked too hard or too easy on the National test. Interesting times with education over there. I always heard that Sweden had a good educational system, and maybe they did a long time ago, but right now it seems to be having quite a few issues and despite all of our complaints, Alberta isn't doing as poorly as we may tend to think. The fact that so many people in this forum have questions, concerns and comments on this is a very good thing for the state of education in the province.
thanks for the input.
I see this marking your own national exams as a terrible idea to evaluate students. Teachers are incentivised to inflate grades as it will improve their school performance and personal performance. The Alberta model of centralized grading will get much better results.
There was a recent case of this in Calgary where a private schools marks consistently had higher gaps between the 50% of the school grades than the diploma exam grade. At least with central marking you can identify these trends.
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You keep saying that teachers should work for below value for the good of the customer, and then when they do that you use that to set their new, lower market value.
It has not been established that $100 is below market value.
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There was a recent case of this in Calgary where a private schools marks consistently had higher gaps between the 50% of the school grades than the diploma exam grade. At least with central marking you can identify these trends.
This is actually one reason why I would advocate against private schools. Teachers in private schools are not paid any more and aren't trained much differently.
But parents in those schools pay large sums of money for teachers to do the same job they would in public education. So I would think that there would be increased outside pressure to generate results.
"If I paid x dollars, I should see x results." What happens when people who are used to paying for things and getting them don't get what they thought they would.
Not all parents choose private education for this reason though, sometimes, it's a logistical issue, sometimes the local schools are full and bussing is garbage, sometimes kids have such distinct needs the public system cannot do justice for them and alternatives have to be explored.
This is actually one reason why I would advocate against private schools. Teachers in private schools are not paid any more and aren't trained much differently.
But parents in those schools pay large sums of money for teachers to do the same job they would in public education. So I would think that there would be increased outside pressure to generate results.
"If I paid x dollars, I should see x results." What happens when people who are used to paying for things and getting them don't get what they thought they would.
Not all parents choose private education for this reason though, sometimes, it's a logistical issue, sometimes the local schools are full and bussing is garbage, sometimes kids have such distinct needs the public system cannot do justice for them and alternatives have to be explored.
Choice is good, but at extremes it can be abused.
The public sector isn't immune either. I was working in university recruitment as a student when the U of S introduced Scholarships for all students getting over 90 93 and 95 averages. Each year I worked there the number of local students getting these scholarships went up. It was pretty clear that teachers were giving students bumps in grades to hit these scholarship numbers.
The difference between an 89 and a 91 isn't measurable in a social science so giving that minor bump to good students makes sense on an individual basis.
At least in Alberta the diploma exams allow it to be monitored.
It would probably be more accurate for the thread title to say '... currently short". There remains the possibility that the ~30% shortfall is filled by willing bodies, but I suspect that it won't be. I expect that everyone who was willing to sign up at the lower rate of pay or who didn't really care that the rate was reduced has already done so.
I remain a staunch supporter of public education (of course, I am biased), but I feel that we teachers as a collective do ourselves a disservice by using wording like "direct assault" and "insult" and so on to describe our feelings towards the province's actions. That being said, Mr. Johnson has been particularly (and unnecessarily) aggressive/combative towards teachers. I don't really expect him to last too long in his current role.
The public sector isn't immune either. I was working in university recruitment as a student when the U of S introduced Scholarships for all students getting over 90 93 and 95 averages. Each year I worked there the number of local students getting these scholarships went up. It was pretty clear that teachers were giving students bumps in grades to hit these scholarship numbers.
The difference between an 89 and a 91 isn't measurable in a social science so giving that minor bump to good students makes sense on an individual basis.
At least in Alberta the diploma exams allow it to be monitored.
agreed regarding bumps, but the discrepancy between an 89 and a 91 is much different than what was happening in some private schools... Link
Quote:
Grades of the 19 students at the International School of Excellence in the city's northeast plummeted 38.9 percentage points on the provincial exam, nearly four times the provincial average. While only two of the students managed a 50 per cent score on the exam, everyone ended up passing the course on the strength of an average classroom mark of 78 per cent that included seven A students.
That is a pretty ridiculous spread between the classroom grade and provincial grade.
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Private schools in Canada and the US are based on dollars.
Lower teacher salaries, selective admission and public subsidy make them attractive destinations, however, because of their for profit nature they are inherently worse at delivering quality educations.
Quote:
Charter school operators want to have it both ways. When they’re answering critics of school privatization, they say charter schools are public — they use public funds and provide students with a tuition-free education. But when it comes to transparency, they insist they have the same rights to privacy as any other private enterprise.
But a report released Monday by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy — two groups that oppose school privatization – presents evidence that inadequate oversight of the charter school industry hurts both kids and taxpayers.
Sabrina Joy Stevens, executive director of Integrity in Education, told BillMoyers.com, “Our report shows that over $100 million has been lost to fraud and abuse in the charter industry, because there is virtually no proactive oversight system in place to thwart unscrupulous or incompetent charter operators before they cheat the public.” The actual amount of fraud and abuse the report uncovered totaled $136 million, and that was just in the 15 states they studied.
One more point: When the Common Core tests were given a year ago, students in charter schools got the same average scores as students in public schools, even though the charters have few if any students with severe disabilities (and the public schools in poor neighborhoods have nearly 15 percent), and the charters typically have half as many English language learners. There were a few high-flying charter schools, but even more high-flying public schools. On average, there was no difference between the public schools and the charter schools.
But charters will not end the poverty at the root of low academic performance or transform our nation's schools into a high-performing system. The world's top-performing systems — Finland and Korea, for example — do not have charter schools. They have strong public school programs with well-prepared, experienced teachers and administrators. Charters and that other faux reform, vouchers, transform schooling into a consumer good, in which choice is the highest value.
The original purpose of charters, when they first opened in 1990 (and when I was a charter proponent), was to collaborate with public schools, not to compete with them or undermine them. They were supposed to recruit the weakest students, the dropouts, and identify methods to help public schools do a better job with those who had lost interest in schooling. This should be their goal now as well.
Instead, the charter industry is aggressive and entrepreneurial. Charters want high test scores, so many purposely enroll minimal numbers of English-language learners and students with disabilities. Some push out students who threaten their test averages. Last year, the federal General Accountability Office issued a report chastising charters for avoiding students with disabilities, and the ACLU is suing charters in New Orleans for that reason.
Because they are loosely regulated, charter schools are often neither accountable nor transparent. In 2013, the founders of
an L.A. charter with 1,200 students were convicted of misappropriating more than $200,000 in public funds. In Oakland, an audit at the highest-performing charter schools in the state found that $3.8 million may have been misused when the founder hired his other businesses to do work for his charters.
Charter schools are "public" when it is time to claim public funding, but they have claimed in federal court and before the National Labor Relations Board to be private corporations when their employees seek the protection of state labor laws.
Most research studies agree that charter schools are, on average, no more successful than regular public schools; that evaluating teachers on the basis of their students’ test scores is fraught with inaccuracy and promotes narrowing of the curriculum to only the subjects tested, encouraging some districts to drop the arts or other nontested subjects; and that the strategy of closing schools disrupts communities without necessarily producing better schools. In addition, the “Common Core State Standards” in reading and mathematics that states must adopt if they hope to receive a waiver from the US Department of Education have never been subjected to field-testing.
So, yes, there is a crisis in education, a crisis caused by ill-considered federal legislation that sets utopian targets and then punishes schools and educators when they cannot meet impossible goals. As a result, cheating scandals have been discovered in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Baltimore, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. Some people do terrible things when faced with unreasonable targets and draconian punishment.
The response to the current crisis in education tends to reflect two different worldviews. On one side are those who call themselves “reformers.” The reformers believe that the schools can be improved by more testing, more punishment of educators (also known as “accountability”), more charter schools, and strict adherence to free-market principles in relation to employees (teachers) and consumers (students). On the other are those who reject the reformers’ proposals and emphasize the importance of addressing the social conditions—especially poverty—that are the root causes of poor academic achievement. Many of these people—often parents in the public school system, experienced teachers, and scholars of education—favor changes based on improving curriculum, facilities, and materials, improving teacher recruitment and preparation, and attending to the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children. The critics of test-based accountability and free-market policies do not have a name, so the reformers call them “anti-reform.” It might be better to describe them as defenders of common sense and sound education.
Steven Brill’s Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools celebrates the improbable consensus among conservative Republicans, major foundations, Wall Street financiers, and the Obama administration about school reform. Brill, a journalist and entrepreneur, portrays the leaders of today’s reform movement as heroes. They include Wendy Kopp, who created Teach for America (TFA) and raised some $500 million for the organization over the past decade; Jonathan Schnur, whom he credits as the architect of the Obama administration’s $4.35 billion competition called Race to the Top; Michelle Rhee, chancellor of schools in the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2010; Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public schools from 2002 to 2010 and now chief adviser to Rupert Murdoch; Eva Moskowitz, leader of the Harlem Success Academy charter school chain; and David Levin and Michael Feinberg, founders of the KIPP charter schools.
Quote:
rill’s telling, anyone who opposes DFER’s definition of school reform is a defender of the status quo or a tool of the unions. He disparages the eminent scholar Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, because she criticized Teach for America. Darling-Hammond believes that future teachers should have a deep grounding in the professional skills needed to teach children who require special attention, such as those who are new immigrants, those who have disabilities, and others who have marked difficulties in learning; she also believes that future teachers should be committed to teaching as a career, not short-term charity work. Yet Brill derides her views because higher standards for entry into the teaching profession would surely exclude TFA recruits, who receive a mere five weeks of training before they become full-time teachers in some of the nation’s most challenging schools. As a critic of the current reform agenda, I too am one of his targets; I will deal with the false allegations he makes in a different forum.
Brill believes that teachers are the primary reason for students’ failure or success. If students have great teachers, their test scores in reading and math will soar. If they don’t, it is their teachers’ fault. Reduce the power of the unions, he argues, and bad teachers could be quickly dismissed. Of course, bad teachers should be dismissed, and many are. Fifty percent of those who begin teaching are gone within five years. But once teachers have been awarded tenure by their principal, they have the right to a hearing before they can be fired. If hearings go on for years, the district leadership should be held accountable.
Unfortunately, Brill is completely ignorant of a vast body of research literature about teaching. Economists agree that teachers are the most important influence on student test scores inside the school, but the influence of schools and teachers is dwarfed by nonschool factors, most especially by family income. The reformers like to say that poverty doesn’t make a difference, but they are wrong. Poverty matters. The achievement gap between children of affluence and children of poverty starts long before the first day of school. It reflects the nutrition and medical care available to pregnant women and their children, as well as the educational level of the children’s parents, the vocabulary they hear, and the experiences to which they are exposed.
Poor children can learn and excel, but the odds are against them. Reformers like to say that “demography is not destiny,” but saying so doesn’t make it true: demography is powerful. Every testing program shows a tight correlation between family income and test scores, whether it is the SAT, the ACT, the federal testing program, or state tests.
Brill seems unaware of these findings. He expresses enthusiasm for tying teachers’ evaluations—which determine whether they will be fired—to their students’ test scores, but the weight of research evidence is against him. He often cherry-picks a single study or recounts an anecdote to support his views, but is apparently ignorant of the many studies that qualify or contradict what he believes. Studies of teacher effectiveness agree that there are wide variations in the quality of teaching, but they don’t agree on a mechanical formula to identify which teachers are more or less effective. Ultimately, that judgment must be made by experienced supervisors who frequently observe the teachers’ performance.
Private schools in Canada and the US are based on dollars.
Yep. I think people who have no experience with the inner workings of a private school would be absolutely shocked at just how much money gets poured into things that have little to no benefit to the students.
Some of the more prestigious private schools that I'm familiar with each spend millions of dollars every year simply in an effort to attract future students and keep the money flowing. They send people all around the world to try to recruit prospective students to the school and they spend a fortune upgrading already adequate facilities to try to try to outdo competitors. And none of that has any real educational benefit.
I can't help at chuckle whenever I hear people talk about how much more efficient private education would be. When you're forced to compete for students you either need to charge a high enough tuition that there's money to do that or you need to divert money from actual education and put it into PR. And that's what we're seeing in Sweden where lower standards and pay means they can barely attract enough warm bodies to fill teaching vacancies. Compare that to their neighbors in Finland where teachers are rigorously trained and well supported.
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