Quote:
Originally Posted by Ether
Can someone name 2 metropolitan areas in the US where the secondary education system is "working"? If not, how about internationally? And what is the cost per student per annum, and what are they doing differently from Chicago?
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Well, yes... and no. By and large, I'd say the secondary education system is working pretty good across British Columbia. It costs the province about $8,700 per FTE student in Vancouver, with slightly varying amounts in other parts of the province.
I don't know what we are doing differently from Chicago, mainly because I don't know a lot about Chicago, but all of the 40,000 public K-12 teachers in BC belong to the BC Teachers' Federation, a respectably strong union that isn't afraid to go on strike, or withdraw extracurricular activities, when they feel it is needed. Typically the reasons for withdrawing services tend to centre around working conditions, such as class size and support for special needs students, but the BCTF is also quite willing to point out that if you don't pay teachers a decent, professional wage then it makes it difficult to recruit decent, professional people.
On the other hand, I can tell you lots of reasons why the B.C. school system isn't "working". Some will blame teachers, some will blame government, everyone will believe they are right. Some will call for more detailed testing, others will point out that standadized testing reduces the room for innovation and creativity. Some will say the solution is to hire more teachers, others will say the solution is to fire more teachers. In public education there are no shortage of opinions!
One thing I am pretty confident of, however, is that if you tell someone over and over and over that they are stupid and useless... that they will start to believe you. And once they believe you, they'll pass that on to their kids. And once you believe that you are stupid and useless, well then what's the point of going to school? Why try when you know you suck before you even start? Canada did that to our native peoples for generations, and while we are now starting to realize the harm that we did, and are trying to find ways to undo it, it is an uphill battle.
On the other hand, the school I taught at, David Thompson Secondary, was largely populated by immigrants who came to Canada so that their children would have a chance to get an education, study hard, and prosper in a free and open democratic nation. Although their parents might not have had a great education, the kids were told that education was important, and that hard work would be rewarded.
I taught some awesome kids, and we did some great things. If someone had swung by my shop, they would have said, "Wow. Education is sure working here! This guy is a great teacher!"
I wonder what they would have seen and said if the students were coming in without breakfast, from broken homes, with the idea that they were stupid and useless.
The amazing thing is that there are schools in these situations where teachers are accomplishing wonderful things for many kids.
I don't know whether those comments are relevant to Chicago or not, but I think it is important to say that teaching students who think learning is important is much easier than teaching those who don't... and those values are instilled and reinforced outside of the school system by family and community far more loudly than they are by the school.
I suspect the teachers in Chicago, just like my colleagues here, just want to do a good job in an environment where they can have some success, be respected for their hard work, and receive a decent, professional wage for doing it.
I really have no clue what the specific issues are in the Chicago strike, but I'll bet I've touched on some of the big ideas... and perhaps contributed a bit of insight into where education is "working" and where it isn't.
Education isn't a production job... it isn't a sales job... it isn't an engineering job or a banking job. It is really tough to put metrics to it, and it is almost impossible to calculate the "value add" that an individual teacher provides their students.
But it is really easy to make a few bold statements about education and turn it in to a political football.
Jason