Parental Control Over Education Issues is Becoming a Run-Away Train

Educators recognize the need for parental involvement in their children’s education and not just in signing agendas and ensuring work gets done (although that is a very valuable contribution to a child’s success at school).  We love our parent volunteers and participants in school events.  Such behaviour truly reinforces a good attitude towards learning and self-esteem in kids.

Now, onto the focus of this blog. I remember when my daughter was in grade 4 and I received a form letter from her teacher informing me that the sex education unit was about to be taught in class, and if I didn’t want her to participate, I could have her withdrawn from class during that time.  And you know what?  I actually gave that serious thought.  I thought 9-years-old was a little young for a child to be studying human sexuality and reproduction.  I didn’t want her to lose her childhood innocence.  I look at that perspective differently now. I received the same education starting in grade 5 and it didn’t  forfeit my childhood.

I thought the letter home was sensible and a good preparation for families to be aware that their child would be learning about “where babies come from.” This was the school’s means of communicating with families about curriculum.  In the public school system, however, parent advocates are becoming fanatical about teachers sending letters home to the family whenever certain words, phrases, or perspectives in curriculum will be taught.  For instance, there are certain parent-run advocacy groups, who “appear . . . to be irate about gay students,” and cannot tolerate gay and lesbian clubs in public schools.  They want to know if these words, that is, gay and lesbian (shhhhh!), are being used in class and if so, will the teacher be promoting homosexuality.  Hence, should a lesson be scheduled that includes homosexuality, or the use of the word homosexuality, the classroom teacher must send home a letter to families in advance, giving them the option to pull their children from class.

Heather Mallick, a reporter for the Toronto star, states in her column that sinful issues include “evolution, social acceptance of gays and lesbians, birth control and “environmental worship.” PEACE Hamilton (Public Education Advocates for Christian Equity)  provided a form list of things that angry parents can demand their children not be exposed to in class. The “traditional values letter,” being sent out by some Muslim parents in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park area, “includes situational ethics, Satanism, new age beliefs, bestiality, homosexuality, birth control, abortion, the encouraging of infanticide and the notion that condoms might help ward off disease”.

After I wiped the tears of laughter out of my eyes, I found myself posing the same question as Mallick, who teaches bestiality?And the ongoing debate between evolution and God (something PEACE has not initiated) is a curious one.  I am a Roman Catholic teacher teaching in an RC school and I fully support the concept of evolution.  There is too much valid scientific evidence proving the existence of Cro-Magnum Man, Neanderthals, and other pre-human species to argue the point. I really like the Lucy story, hypothetically explaining the first semi-humans to begin walking upright.  Cool.

In all seriousness, the angry coalition of parents is demanding that teachers send home  form letters to parents every time the aforementioned subject matter will (or might) be taught to students. Thus, the teacher must advise specific students to leave class for 20 minutes, or go home, and others to put on noise-cancelling headphones (that will work well with the school policy of not using cell phones, iPods and other distracting technology in class). And I love the implication as to using noise-cancelling headphones.  It’s reassuring to know that my teaching is nothing more than noise. Thank you for that.

So far it is only the public schools that are beginning to make noise about these blasphemous issues, but often where you have the origins of a movement in one school system, you end up with some influence over another.  Hopefully this won’t happen in Dufferin-Peel.  I can’t see my board taking up such a foolish and clearly prejudiced movement in its schools.  But should it ever come to that (and that is a long shot, at best), I’d better get my computer updated and the cartridge replaced in my printer.  I’m going to be using a lot of overtime typing form letters about classroom vocabulary, where instead I could have been grading children’s work, or preparing materials for the next day’s lessons.

What is an Individual Education Plan?

In special education an individual education plan, or IEP, is created for a single student’s learning needs whether these needs are challenging or advanced. An IEP creates a modified curriculum for a student. Modification means the curriculum is tailored specifically to this child’s needs. As a result s/he does not follow most of the regular classroom curriculum. That special needs student may learn the same subject at the same time as his or her peers, for instance transformational geometry strand in mathematics, but the IEP student does not learn or get taught curriculum at the provincial or state level. Rather, the student’s curriculum is modified to assist the student in improving his or her learning skills, or putting advanced (gifted) skills to better use. An IEP requires the consent of the student’s parent or guardian and cannot be put in place without it. Yearly, the school is required to re-test the child in order to determine whether or not the child needs to continue using an IEP.  Watch what is an individual education plan?

An IEP is part of the Education Act in Ontario.  It is a legality and any student who requires curriculum modification is entitled to an IEP by law.  If deemed necessary, the student is also entitled to assistive technology, for example software that translates a student’s speech into text in a word processing program.  This type of assistive technology is especially helpful for children with reading difficulties or phonemic dyslexia. Since assistive technology is very expensive a school requires additional funding to provide AT to its special students.  In that case the school’s Identification, Placement and Review Committee (IPRC)  examines the student’s full academic history, receives feedback from the classroom and special education teacher about the student’s progress, and discusses the situation with the student and/or parents. Watch what are learning disabilities?

All schools are required to establish an IPRC by law. Sometimes consultants from the school board, such as autism specialists, attend the meetings to provide valuable input.  Although parents and the student are invited to offer suggestions about the IEP, the IPRC has the right to reject these suggestions if they are deemed unreasonable, unhelpful, irrelevant, or otherwise.  In that case the family may appeal an IPRC decision to an Ontario tribunal to determine whether or not the IPRC has made a correct decision. If the tribunal supports the school’s decision the parent is permitted to take the matter further and appeal to the Ontario Supreme Court. Watch best practices and accommodations.

Along with IEPS, classroom teachers usually provide accommodations for special students. An accommodation does not require parental or administrator consent and is not a legality. An example of an accommodation includes moving a student’s desk beside the teacher’s; not seating an ADHD child near a window since outside activities are distracting for this student; reducing the number of questions a struggling student answers in math compared to the assignment given to the rest of the class and so on.  Accommodations are not necessarily used for children with IEPs.  They are also used for children with disruptive behaviours and weak academics. Watch learning disabilities accommodations

There is no such thing as Good or Bad Labels…they’re all Bad

I remember when I was working for the Peel Regional Police in Mississauga, Ontario.  I was a secretary in a bureau and one day a police officer strolled into the lunch room grinning from ear to ear. “I just got a phone call from my wife!” He crowed. “The school told her my son is gifted.” Watch What is an IEP?

I wasn’t a teacher then and I had not even been to teacher’s college yet, but instinctively I was dubious about both the label and the telephone call.  As it turns out it was a public school and I was not surprised.  Public schools can be so laissez-faire about serious matters. I wonder if a teacher also calls a family to inform them that their child has a learning disorder or needs to be in special education classes?  Imagine hearing such poignant information over the phone?  You just don’t do that.  My school system (Roman Catholic or Separate) doesn’t permit teachers to simply call up families and say “guess what?…”  It is unprofessional.  It denies the parent the ability to have an extended conversation with the teacher since a mere phone call is not intended to be an in-depth interview. Most of all however using a label about a student misleads parents and students.  It marks students for better or for worse.  Let’s not forget that special education also includes “gifted” children. Watch Special Education Teaching: Understanding Special Education Terms

I can hear opposition to my statement about public  boards and their laissez-faire attitudes. Yes public schools can be wonderful places of learning and they do have terrific teachers but the issue I am discussing here is not about that; it’s about the manner in which a student assessment is communicated to families.  Imagine you are contacted by your doctor’s office and the receptionist informs you that you have cancer.  Just like that.  Wouldn’t it be more prudent for the receptionist to telephone you and ask you to attend an appointment with your doctor?  And yes you want to believe that educational labels do affect families as hard as if someone has cancer.  In fact I have researched families who committed murder after a special education assessment was made about their child.  No joke.  One family murdered its own child; the child had been assessed as low functioning and the parents were ashamed to have him as a family member. This is the incredible impact that schools and educational labels have on families. (Public schools take note:  Watch Special Education Referral

Special education is a label that leaves me feeling ambiguous.  A “gifted” child belongs in special education but most of us forget that and assume the child is behind. Besides every child has gifts to offer the community. Sometimes a family thinks gifted means the child is a prodigy. Wrong. I think it’s time to lose the “special” in special education, too (see my post Taking the Special out of Special Education). How about advanced? And I really have no use for slow learner.  This has to be the unkindest label of all, and again one of the most confusing for families.

Often when a family hears it’s child is a slow learner it is believed the child eventually can catch up to the rest of the class. Wrong.  It means the child will always work beneath curriculum standards for his/her grade level and will always be a step behind his or her peers academically. These are the sort of details parents need to discuss with both the special education and the regular classroom teacher in an interview about a child’s assessment; not a frivolous phone call that leaves many questions unanswered and may be very misleading. I couldn’t entirely pinpoint why that phone call irritated me before I became a special ed teacher.  Now I get it. Watch Special Education Teaching: Defining Special Education

Zero Tolerance in Ontario Schools … Extremist or Justifiable?

The public knows Bill 212, or the School Safety Act as Zero Tolerance, however the Bill itself does not mention the term zero tolerance anywhere in its legislation, nor was it meant to be used in an extreme manner. It was introduced in Ontario by the Ministry of Education in 2000 in response to the growing concerns of educators, students and families about incidents of bullying, violence, threatening and other criminal acts committed at both the elementary and secondary school levels.

The SSA’s premise was that the Ministry was cracking down on children with severely dysfunctional behaviours at school, particularly those who were victimizing educators and peers. The Bill gave educators rights they had not previously held:

1. Administrators had the right to expel students
2. Teachers had the right to suspend students for one day

The first year Bill 212 was enacted very few school boards saw an increase in student suspensions, however between 2002 – 2003 suspensions grew exponentially with a 7.2% increase province wide. There were cases when suspensions and expulsions were enacted for the slightest of reasons, making a mockery of the Bill and hence evoking the label zero tolerance. Generally however most schools in Ontario used the Bill as a reaction to harmful student behaviours such as bringing illegal weapons to school, threatening students with a weapon, physical and sexual assaults and so on. video: zero tolerance in schools

One unfair aspect of the Bill however was that some schools had only a very slight increase in suspensions while others increased suspensions in significant numbers. Usually this was due to a school’s location: rural schools did not suspend as frequently as urban schools and urban schools in needy communities experienced significantly more suspensions than urban schools in upscale neighbourhoods. In response to these imbalances the Ontario Human Rights Commission conducted informal interviews with a number of students and parents, one social worker, one lawyer and one teacher. What they discovered was that in addition to the difference in suspension stats between rural and urban schools, more black students than white students were being suspended, and children with behavioural disorders including those on an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for these disorders were frequent targets of suspensions and expulsions. video: what was the problem with zero tolerance?

The Liberal government conducted a 5-year review of the Bill as recommended by the previous government and along with the OHRC report, they amended the Bill in an attempt to eradicate these issues. Mitigating Factors were introduced in 2005 and they were to be investigated and applied to all cases of student suspension and expulsion. Mitigating Factors included:

1. if the student comprehended the long term consequences of her/his actions
2. if the student comphrended the damages caused by her/his actions
3. if the student was on an IEP for behaviour
4. if the student was under significant duress eg, divorce or death in the family
5. if the student was remorseful and made an attempt to right the wrong she/he had caused

and a number of other considerations. However MFs did not excuse intolerable student behaviour, nor did they always result in an alternative to suspension or expulsion. video: e-safety in schools

The extreme application of Bill 212 emphasized administrators’ differences in how the Bill was meant to be applied. However it also dealt harshly with students whose behaviour was unacceptable in a public school. Above all, victims’ rights were considered first and foremost which was the original intent of Bill 212. Is isuspension and expulsion extremist in cases of one incident of student misbehavior? It depends on the student’s actions. One school I knew of when I was still teaching in the elementary panel experienced a very distressing incident that involved what a student’s parents perceived as zero tolerance. A male student beat up his girlfriend on school premises. The administrator had him expelled but his parents appeal to the OHRC who had the boy instated into the same school as the victim. On his first day back at school the male student located the victim and beat her up again. Zero tolerance? I fail to see why the OHRC was successful in returning this student to school. Quite frankly I have never regarded OHRC with respect since that case, and for other reasons. OHRC is an extremist group, as are many human rights groups worldwide and this case is a strong argument as to why their legal power must be monitored closely by other associations, and by government. video: first grader with camping utensils suspended

In Ontario, Zero Tolerance appears to be a thing of the past, but issues dealing with student safety are an ongoing concern in both the elementary and secondary panels. The Federal Election has begun in Canada yet none of the government parties campaigning for the majority of seats in the House have even mentioned the SSA. Sweeping these issues under the rug however is not going to eliminate them.  Safe Schools and Zero Tolerance: Policy Program and Practice in Ontario

NDP General Canada Election 2011 – Education Platform

Good afternoon students. Poor Jack. He hasn’t had the opportunity to be especially vocal about where the NDP stands on Canadian education. He seems awfully quiet about school. In fact for all my surfing the only tidbit I have pulled up about the NDP’s education platform is rather disturbing: teachers will be allowed to go on strike again. Yep. Strike.

Once I was a teacher who went on strike. I was entering the teaching profession in 1996 during the Mike Harris reign of terror and approximately 90% of the teachers I knew weren’t working after their unions advised us to walk out. Pretty hard to go against that kind of tide and work peacefully with colleagues when the strike is over.

Don’t get me wrong. There were many issues in education under the Tory government with which I didn’t agree but taking classroom time away from children, making kids into pawns if you will, is not the way to handle negotiations. Indeed when teachers returned to the classrooms our particular union advised us not to offer extra-curricular activities to children until further notice. What? Our staff went about reinstating the extra-curriculars on day one. And our union never did follow up. In other words, for another eight years until McGuinty took the throne we would still have waited on the go-ahead to continue children’s valuable after-school activities. Yeesh.

Layton suggests something along the lines of tax breaks for student loans but he hasn’t said it very loudly. Perhaps he’d change his mind if his party was voted in, which we know won’t happen. Meh. Save your vote for a party that has real power and that party is not the NDP.

video: Jack Layton Discusses NDP Education Platform 2011

Harper vs Ignatieff – Education Platform – Elections Canada 2011

Good afternoon students.

40% of Canadian voters have indicated their support for the Conservative government. Yikes. Heaven forbid you be misled and think the other 60% is for Ignatieff. Heck, no. There are those voters who haven’t responded, those who like Layton, those who want to go green and those who will likely spoil their ballot entirely.

This is not good. There are certain campaign promises of Harper’s that sound pretty good. I’m thinking specifically of Pathways to Education for elementary and secondary students but most of Harper’s promises are made on the wind anyway.

Ignatieff impresses me even less. He hasn’t really presented a campaign, at least not one that he’s broken down the numbers on and he hasn’t stated explicitly where the money is coming from. He has suggested big business naturally but I doubt every penny of the 8 billion he proposes for education and day care will come strictly from corporate taxes. Somebody somewhere else is going to take the hit for that. Anyhow he’s bringing back grants for post-secondary students and as wonderful as that sounds, we know students have to be in particularly difficult circumstances to receive them.

Visit the tongue-in-cheek debate if you will, a digital animation penned by yours truly.

video: Harper vs Ignatieff –  Canada General Election 2011 – Education

Canada’s General Election 2011 and Education – Details, Gentlemen, Details

Alright students.

1.       Let’s take a look at Harper’s engaging platform about Canadian education. In Harper’s case adult education is a major focus as a response to the recession his leadership helped to exacerbate across our nation. No he didn’t cause it, in all fairness we know it began south of the border with a little problem brought on by American mortgage loans, however Harper’s response to thousands of unemployed people was rather ambiguous, I thought.

This is the current Conservative platform for adult education in Canada: Support for Apprentices and Tradespersons

• Introduce the Apprenticeship Incentive Grant, a taxable cash grant of $1,000 per year (to a maximum of $2,000 per person) to help apprentices pay for the first two years of education and training.  Let me interrupt here. $1,000.00 a year to re-educate an adult in an apprenticeship?  Is Harper serious?  How many courses will that pay for? Maybe 2 courses and a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee during breaks? 

• New Tradesperson’s Tools Deduction that gives workers an annual tax deduction of up to $500 for expenditures in excess of $1,000 for tools required as a condition of employment. Let me interrupt here. A tax deduction does not necessarily put cash back into one’s pocket. Out of pocket for 1K is still out-of-pocket for 1K. You don’t have the $1,000 for the new tool kit?  Call back when you do, kid.

• Raise the limit on the cost of tools eligible for the 100% capital cost allowance from $200 to $500. Let me interrupt here.  Whoop de doo. This is to take place only when the “budget is balanced.”

• New Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit that provides employers who hire and train new apprentices a tax credit of up to $2,000 per year for each eligible apprentice. Let me interrupt here. Better a tax credit than a tax debit but notice how Harper slips it to the business enterprises in Canada? It’s all about the bucks with those Conservatives.
video: First Students to Interview Stephen Harper during 2011 election campaign – Harper put his foot in it again …  he actually admitted to the student interviewer that one thing he worried about when he was in university was the double digit unemployment rates that awaited him upon graduation….um, aren’t unemployment rates in the triple digits now, Harper?

2.    Let’s take a look at the Liberal Platform on Education:

*  among the new measures are a slew of proposals on education, including the Canadian Forces Veterans Learning Benefit, which would offer full tuition of up to four years of post-secondary education or trade education, for former soldiers, expected to cost an estimated $120 million over two years. Let me interrupt here. What??  Old soldiers can have free degrees?  What about young, current students who are attempting to enter the work force and add their tax dollars to the Canadian pool?

*  TUITION UP 200 PER CENT: Tuition fees have more than doubled since the B.C. Liberals took office. Underfunding of trades and apprenticeship training has meant long waiting lists even while there is a looming trades shortage in the province. Colleges and universities across the province have had no choice but to cut programs and staff positions. Let me interrupt here. Once again it’s all about the adults and never mind the kids. The scary thing about B.C. is Harper’s platform speaks directly to those struggling post-secondary students but if they are attentive it won’t escape these students’ notice that Vets get free degrees under Harper’s regime and they, alas, never, ever will.

Article: Liberal Platform Numbers ‘Don’t Add Up’ Harper says – that’s because Ignatieff is going to tax big business rather than the little guy (you know, the traditionally Liberal approach Liberals take to such matters)….that’s what Harper is all in a tizzy over and is in such a hurry to point out to Canadian corporations.
video: Michael Ignatieff on Education – what does China have to do with anything?
video:  Digital animation:  Conservative Party of Canada Follies Episode # 33

3.     Let’s look at the NDP Platform on Education.

*  They don’t have one.  Nothing. Let me interrupt here. Who cares?  They aren’t going to win anyway.

*  oh here’s  a nugget for you:  EDUCATION AS AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE – The platform is silent about the NDP’s plan to let teachers and support workers go on strike.

• o        Carole James, pre-platform: “I don’t support essential service legislation for teachers.” – source: Vancouver Sun, 16 Jul 04
• o        Carole James, pre-platform: (Smyth): So you would remove education as an essential service, a designation it has now, and allow teachers to strike.” (James): “I would.” – source: Mike Smyth Show, CKN

Let me interrupt here.  Teachers can strike. Kids can stay home and not learn. Remember the Ontario fiasco? Oh Jack, Jack, Jack. Naturally the NDP are silent about education. Who’s going to vote for that?

Into which ring shall I throw my hat?  Not Conservative.  I don’t like recessions.  Not NDP. I don’t like invisible platforms. I guess I’m stuck with Liberal. Nothing much going on with education except some $4,000.00 grants for post-secondary students, (good), but there are a few promises (ahem) outside of education that sound almost plausible.  I don’t know. When I wake up tomorrow I’ll probably decide to vote green. Or spoil my ballot. That’ll teach them. Class is over.
video:  Jack Layton Responds to Harper Budget – I couldn’t find a YouTube about Layton and education, naturally …  remember he’s keeping that whole teacher strike thing on the down-low.

Article:  Election 2011: Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff – Education and Defence