Parents ‘n Schools

To me, one of the deepest tragedies in government schooling is the potential energy of 1 million parents (in Alberta alone) being frittered away on fundraising to add a single penny to every taxpayer dollar (in addition to the upwards of 20 pennies charged in fees).
I believe that energy is of much greater potential value […]

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News item here in Calgary this morning is that 12 of the Calgary Board of Education’s 200 or so schools will be without permanent principals (acting principals have been appointed in their stead) because of a grievance filed by the teachers’ union regarding a leadership assessment test those principals were required to write in the […]

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Occasionally government schools in Alberta and Canada will announce with a degree of fanfare how they are doing in international rankings (eg., PISA). Generally they are doing pretty well.
But being the best in the world in schooling rankings isn’t like being the best at the Olympics. Such rankings are generally not a measure of higher, […]

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In the Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, scientist Lewis Thomas describes a list of science’s “Seven Wonders” not in the usual sense, but along the lines of the things he “wondered about” the most. Number One on his list was our planet itself — “Of all celestial bodies within reach or view, as far […]

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Under the category of “everything I read is about government schooling”, I came across this little blurb from Dick Armey, former Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, speaking at Hillsdale College in Michigan about conflicts in government between what he called “legislative entrepreneurs” and “legislative bureaucrats”:”By legislative entrepreneurs, I mean a person who […]

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Go to www.education-consumers.com
Look all around, but particularly at the “About ECC”. I personally appreciate every word, and every part of how it is set up and what it is about. When I grow up, I want to be more like them.
Cherish its striving to be independent. Appreciate its priorities. Recognize its uniqueness and all-too-rare-ness.
The thing […]

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One of the serious challenges government schooling faces, I believe, is that too much of its administration is premised on the belief that its problems are best solved by the government granting more money. And this approach is founded on the underlying belief that the public would readily be willing to give more money to […]

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Budgets in government schooling are presently a nickel out of every $100 for parents and the rest for schools. But I have looked into the not-too-distant future of schooling and it is not 99.95% schools and one-half of one-tenth of 1% parents.
It already isn’t.
Under the 80/20 rule of life, 80% of everything 80% of children […]

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I have read a lot of education-related stuff. Books. Articles. Magazines. Reports. Stuff that celebrates achievement. Mostly stuff that describes challenges. The government schooling industry is beset with challenges.
In 99% of what I read the thing that hits you is how you’re never mentioned. Parents, I mean. Not as part of the problem. Not as […]

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Jane David, Director of the Bay Area Research Group and co-author of “Cutting Through the Hype: A Taxpayer’s Guide to School Reform”, wrote an article in the March, 2008 issue of ASCD’s Educational Leadership that summarizes research on grade retention (ie., repeating a grade). Her conclusion was that the research was generally inconclusive as to […]

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