School Information Finders, new education Bills and elementary curriculum reviews

[Annie Kidder]

I'm going to try and keep everyone updated at least once a week about all the goings on in education - and maybe with bits of gossip from the front. We go to a lot of meetings and there are lots of plans afoot in education - Bills that are going to mean big changes to the way boards work, potential changes to curriculum and new policy about parent engagement.

First a quick update on the consultations on the School Information Finder

The "Finder" is a tool on the Ministry of Education website that allows users to find out an array of information about individual schools across the province: things like schools’ EQAO test score results, the percentage of newcomer students, special education students, parents with university education and families below the Low Income Cut off.

When it appeared, lots of people objected to the site because it encouraged users to compare schools based on these very narrow factors. Initially it actually had a “school bag” that users could put three schools in to compare their stats. The province took away the school bag, so now you have to use a pen and paper to compare schools.

Though the site has been in place since the spring, this month the Ministry of Education is holding “consultations” on the content on the site. (Which brings the phrase “closing the barn door after the horse has fled” to mind). They did a survey of over 800 parents – asking them what they would use a site like this for – and they’ve brought together the Provincial Partnership Table (representatives from principals’ councils, Directors of Education, Deans of Education, teachers’ federations, trustee associations, the Ontario College of Teachers, Aboriginal Associations, students’ groups and the four provincially recognized parent associations) to ask how the site could be changed to make it more acceptable.

for more on the parent survey, click here

for more on the research on websites like this in other jurisdictions, click here

for more on Week 2 of the consultation, click here

for the letter from the four provincial parent groups, click here

Bill 177 hearings announced

The Standing Committee on Social Policy will hold public hearings in Toronto on Monday, October 26 and Tuesday, October 27, 2009 regarding Bill 177.

The Bill itself makes a number of amedments to the Education Act concerning the role of trustees, school board chairs and Directors of Education. The most significant aspects of this Bill and a previous Student Achievement Bill passed in 2006 are the rights they grant to current and future Ministers of Education to make regulations that have huge implications for school boards. So we should all pay careful attention to the progress of this Bill.

You can click here to read a synopsis of the Bill.

To make an oral presentation on Bill 177, contact the Committee Clerk, Katch Koch, by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 22, 2009. Collect calls will be accepted: [phone]. Or people can make written submissions to Katch Koch, Committee Clerk, Room 1405, Whitney Block/Bureau 1405, Queen’s Park, Toronto ON, M7A 1A2 or by Fax: [phone]

Elementary curriculum review

There is a new report out about the elementary curriculum. And a survey for parents, community members and educators.

Do you have concerns or suggestions about Ontario’s elementary curriculum? Do you worry that it might be overcrowded? Does it focus on the right things? Do you have ideas about what would make it more engaging? Here’s your chance to tell the Ministry of Education what you think.
Click here for the report, and for the survey.
Coming next week - more on the exciting doings at the Provincial Education Partnership Table.

[Cathy]

make that "slippery slope" - oops.

[Cathy]

It's a slipper slope in which the government, not parents decide the scope and ways they wish to be "engaged" with their schools.

Annie - it's already being compared between schools. The Valuation section of the Accommodation Review process lists parental involvement and school councils under value to school, student, community I believe.

It's a ridiculous step in which we're allowing politicians to determine what "engagement" should look like with parents and no matter how you slice it that's wrong. If we were just in our first year of recognizing the involvement of parents in the education or our kids then, maybe a skeletal definition would be needed but, folks...we've over 11 years into this parent/school system "partnership" and let's not forget that it WAS a "partnership" were we after at one time. Now it's just "engagement".

What next total divorce? Relationships aren't built on lockstep definitions or promises of money. Not healthy relationships.

It may be a make work project when all is said and done but in the end you can't force "engagement" of any one to anything.

[Sheila Stewart]

I guess I have helped in turning this blog into a parent engagement topic! :) I also support any way in which parents choose to be involved, and how much. My concern is with the impression one can easily get at the school or board level that all the ways are not equally valued, or even dismissed because they might not seem relevant to student achievement, given how that is often defined/measured. This draft policy seems to clearly recognize the importance and value of supporting all kinds of parent involvment/engagement. It mentions the positive results of a genuine partnership--I like that...it is key. I may be tired and need to read it some more, but when I start to read sections that suggest boards should "establish indicators to monitor parent engagment in ways which support and foster student achievement", we are getting back to definitions, comparing, and measuring, are we not? There seems to be a focus on strategies. Different schools/boards may need different strategies, but will they be equally accepted? I am not clear who will have time/be responsible for supporting all the different strategies and enhancements and monitoring them? The education day seems to be one busy day!

[Mike Hunt]

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2009/10/building-parent-engagement-in-schools.html

I'm with Cathy. Parental engagement means different things to different people; its as personal as, well , getting vaccinated or not. My idea of parental engagement may be drastically different than the parent next to me - does that make it any less valid? When we start attaching definitions towards the roles of parental engagement in "the system" we impose conformity to a static norm thereby eliminating the personal and the individual completely and thus losing the creativite potential and jeopardizing the integrity of the entire process.

[Annie Kidder]

Guess what? Just what you fear is coming soon to a theatre near you. We're just sending out a draft new parent engagement policy. And you're right that it may be used to to measure and compare. One of the ways boards will be judged is on the effectiveness of their parent engagement/involvement strategies.
The policy looks fine (but I've only had time to glance at it), particularly because it doesn't seem to include a kind of hierarchy of parent engagement - which goes to your point, Cathy, that there isn't a standard definition of engagement.
More on this at the conference too.

[Cathy]

"Parent Engagement" should rightfully mean different and very personal things to each and every parent. Someone once very wisely told me that no government, school board or school administration can buy or put a price on the kind of relationship necessary to build parental partnership, involvement or engagement for their school community. Their should never EVER be a standard definition for "parental engagement" because what is means for me may be something different for you Sheila or another parent who is engaged but may not feel comfortable on a school council or have time to be in the school as often as some parents are.

As soon as we have to ask a politician to define the role of parents in the system the door gets swung open widely for a measuring and comparison of parents just like we have regarding EQAO, fundraising and other
issues where some love to go and overuse the "have" and "have not" labels.

I've often heard Annie worry about the public system becoming a two tiered system when I believe it's already a multi-tiered one.

The one common thread for all parents is that their kids need an education. How that is determined is also just as personal a decision as is "engagement".

[Sheila Stewart]

I just reviewed the letter again from the four provincial parent groups on the School Info Finder site. It has actually been referred to as a tool to help parent engagment?! Parent engagement is being defined in so many ways now--how confusing for us to know what we should be focusing on and to understand what really makes a positive difference for schools and students.

[Cathy]

Looks to me that parents like the idea of having as much information as possible to educate themselves with in order to make the best educated decision for their children.

Who can argue with that? As People for Ed. advocates for parents though how does your position for the MOE not to allow comparisons help Annie? Parents compare schools all the time. Even before I had kids other parents recommended to me which school in my community was the "better" school. It wasn't an informed
recommendation, just their opinion.

If we're so against comparisons then I think that you need to lead the way to encourage all schools and boards to do away with comparing (and ranking) children as they do when they hand out awards of excellence. In order to do that they have to compare children....and someone always loses. Believe me when I say that, having been the mother of a kid who was in a gym class in elementary school where the teacher divided the class into "the best" and "the rest" My child, from the Kindergarten to grade 4 was in "the rest".

[Annie Kidder]

you say tomAYto I say tomAHto

[Sheila Stewart]

Oh, maybe I am mixed up.....the most recent one was called the "parent involvement policy". This one might be different...."engagement"?