Archive for the 'Blog' Category

Abolish School Boards - a movement?

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on November 23, 2009
in Abolish School Boards, Blog and Education Reform
. 0 Comments

 

Abolishing school boards would release intended education dollars to their intended targets – students.  At the moment far too much of that earmarked money is skimmed off at the school board level for: a) junkets and expensive conferences/professional development for trustees, administrators, consultants, etc. many of whom have little direct relationship with students; b) professional services such as public relations advice, legal services, and other non-student related fees; c) entrepreneurial businesses and recruitment of foreign students meant to add income (profits) to the budget but which may actually yield serious expenses and costs; d) misspending due to faulty accounting and reporting procedures; e) etc., etc.

I also have a dedicated website on the topic:  Abolish School Boards – help eliminate the redundant bureaucracy – a self-serving barrier between parents and their childrens’ education.  http://abolish-school-boards.org/

This is my essay “Abolish School Boards” published on the blog Report Card, a production of the Education Reporter, Janet Steffenhagen, for the Vancouver Sun.

Abolish School Boards

(by Tunya Audain, 091122, published in Report Card blog of Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun Education Reporter on story, “Trustees have tough job but no power, columnist says” 091122 http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/default.aspx)

“District’s new decals a sign of poor management”. That’s the title of a letter to the editor by Craig Johnston to the North Shore News, who, in true whistleblower fashion, alerts us to what he perceives as misconduct of the school board and a waste of taxpayer dollars.  This self-aggrandizement, he says, is “nauseating”.  (This item was discussed in a previous blog story.)

Were it not for citizen watchdogs alerting us through media channels I fear that the public would never see how public institutions such as school boards are abandoning their intended mission – that of serving the best interests of children instead of their own perverse needs.

It’s no wonder that there are increasingly more calls for abolishing these twisty and twisted school boards of today.

Coincidentally, in the same issue of the North Shore News as was Craig’s letter, a regular columnist, Bill Bell, has some very harsh words regarding school boards as pretenses of local government.  In a previous article he calls “School trustees Victoria’s puppets” and this state exists regardless of the political ideological regime, whether NDP, Social Credit or Liberal. http://www.canada.com/northshorenews/news/viewpoint/story.html?id=95b2a310-5421-43b5-9646-f975e8883d78

In his latest column as reported above, Bell, a well-know media person, ramps up the “Abolish School Boards” movement.  From citizens in this education blog ever more frequently calling for the demise of this dysfunctional and counterproductive structure, to school board candidates (I was one last fall whose main plank was to work to abolish school boards), to an ex-superintendent, Doug Player, arguing for dissolution of the boards, we now add a media voice to the call.   http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2009/10/11/dissolve-school-boards-and-move-education-to-municipal-councils.aspx

It is definitely time for more citizens to add their voices to dismantle the present inefficient model of education delivery.

In the cause of liberating education dollars away from the vested special interests – and there are dozens of categories here (teacher unions, administrator groups, teacher training institutions, burgeoning legal outfits, public relations consultants, early childhood education lobbies, etc., etc.) – and bringing commonsense and local autonomy back to the grassroots, we must challenge this cancerous behemoth that suffocates. No wonder they call themselves “stakeholders”.  The “stakes” are indeed high!

More citizen voices need to be raised against those powerful groups who insidiously and consistently block needed reform out of selfish greed. Yet, and we see it all the time, they say they do it for the children!

A philosophy that trusts local parents and local teachers to produce educational results is a far better and much simpler form than central control and thousands of middle men and suckers who feed off the opportunities so easily exploited. The present school board model invites misspending, corruption, diversions and adventurism.

It is downright unethical and immoral what is going on under the cover of school boards.  The Detroit public school scandal is a cautionary tale of just how evil this can become.  Look it up.

The model school board that HAS proven most successful over time is the one that exists at the local school.  That has stood the test of time – the one room school house, the private independent school, the parent-participation pre-school, the charter school.  The dollar already is supposed to follow the child.  Bring it back to the local school instead of channeling it through the school board offices where it is mercilessly skimmed before reaching the classroom. Whether it be vouchers, charters, tuition tax credits or some other model, we need to recover those precious dollars that are needed for our precious children and grandchildren – FOR THEIR EDUCATION AND SPECIAL NEEDS.
091122
 

Nobel Winner, Elinor Ostrom, Offers Hope for Responsive Schools

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on November 4, 2009
in Accountability, Blog, Education Reform and The Literature
. 0 Comments

 

Responsive Schools Key to Good Society: Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Winner

Can citizens effectively and efficiently manage their own affairs?  Their own schools? Can self-governance work in education? YES, there is this hope for schools — provided there is limited central state interference and provided powerful special self-interest insiders don’t dominate.

That is the message Elinor Ostrom, a co-winner in this year’s Nobel Economics prize, passes on to help empower people at local levels to 1) challenge outsiders and self-interests, and 2) confidently evolve the procedures, rules, and oversight which serve their interests.  She cautions against any one-size-fits-all model. Local people, local governance.

She and others of her school of thought challenge the usual dichotomy in seeking solutions – state or market.  Should there be state finance, control and provision of services and resource management OR should the markets prevail?  There is a third way – shared ownership.

While Ostrom’s work has usually dealt with user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, she has also been embraced by development workers, especially in third world countries.  Her general principles apply to any area where citizens manage their own projects — without the heavy fist of the state or the invisible hand of the market.

Ostrom distinguishes the three methods of provision:  public, private, and civil. She sees more citizens becoming involved in policy analysis and application if they are to avoid becoming “the objects of an authoritarian regime” or exploited for profit.

Self-governing, adaptive organizations follow these principles:

1.  Balance power at many levels within the structure (checks and balances)
2.  Monitor performances and hold designated persons accountable
3.  Accept conflict as healthy, indicating need for mediation or more problem-solving
4.  Empower citizens and communities with enforceable rights to check abuses of authority

Regarding the education field she comments that simplistic solutions can go “amok”.  Amazing word to be used by an academic — "berserk, demoniacal, possessed, insane, characteristic of mental derangement” (Wikipedia)! 

After studying 70 years of school district consolidations in the name of efficiency and equity she found that these “top-down, command-and-control solutions” did not result in better achievement or lower per-pupil spending.  She concludes that “policy makers are reconsidering the consequences of past reforms and recommending charter schools, voucher systems, and other reforms to create more responsive schools.”

In other words, she concludes, “state control has usually proved to be less effective and efficient than control by those directly affected” and sometimes even “disastrous in its consequences.”

What applies to common-pool forests and fish-stocks applies to people services as well.  That is why school-based management, independent schools, charter schools, parent participation preschool cooperatives, etc. work so well.  Unfortunately, today, they are often resisted and blocked by powerful self-interests. 

Fortunately, however, we now have a more prominently revealed social science to help those who seek shared ownership solutions to social services. Change activists in education could gain a lot of tips from studying the works of Elinor Ostrom.   (See: “Policy Analysis in the Future of Good Societies” by Elinor Ostrom) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/good_society/v011/11.1ostrom.html

091104
 

Cease and Desist (C&D) Letters to Parents

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on October 31, 2009
in Blog and Parent Involvement in Schools
. 0 Comments

 

Sometimes parents are seriously discouraged from pursuing complaints or criticism through receipt of cease and desist letters from a School Board, teacher union, or other public service union related to schools.  Here is an interesting article:

 

http://www.parentseduchoice.org/links/Article%20-%20Canadian%20Family%20-%20Goliaths.pdf

Goliaths vs. Davids
Teachers’ unions suing parents
By Andrew Nikiforuk
Canadian Family, March 2005, p. 28

In Alberta and British Columbia, two powerful teachers’ unions are suing parents for defamation. Although both unions claim to champion the downtrodden, the lawsuits also deliver another, less comforting message. The targets of both of these actions are blue-collar families whose alleged defamations arose in the course of advocating for their children’s education.

Let’s begin with Dawna McGowan, a 42-year-old mom and former school volunteer in Hinton, Alta. The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) is suing her and her husband, Ken, a Canadian Pacific engineer, for $210,000 and has placed a lien on their home. It started when McGowan challenged a principal for releasing pupil information to a photographer. Before long, things turned ugly.

She is now one of four Albertans being jointly sued by the ATA for defamation. After defendants received unusual "cease and desist" letters from the ATA in 2001, they contacted Denis Lapierre, a longtime parent advocate who posted the letters on his website, Schoolworks!_now shut down. Deluged with support and inquiries, they posted other items on the site, explaining parents’ respective complaints. Though none accused a specific teacher or school district of offensive behaviour, the ATA deemed the material defamatory to the profession and sued Lapierre and the four for $1.8 million.

Robyn Reid, a single mother with three special-needs boys in Red Deer, still can’t believe the union’s tough stance. After one of her sons had been placed in a special-needs class, Reid identified several educational gaps in his program. When the local school and school district refused to provide extra tutoring, she took her case to the province. "I wasn’t out to get teachers, I was out to get the right education for my child," she says. The ATA disagreed to the tune of $150,000. One of the sued parents has already declared bankruptcy.

For posting the original letters, Lapierre is facing a lawsuit of more than $1 million. He’s shut down his advocacy business and his website. "The purpose of the lawsuit is to silence us, and it has worked," says Lapierre, who now drives a truck and can’t afford his legal bills.

Sue Halstead, a mother of five children in Comox Valley, B.C., agrees. The well-known child advocate operates a feisty website that among other posted criticisms, dares to itemize the behaviour of teachers who have been criminally charged or disciplined by the profession. Her site is still active but now displays several apologies since her receipt of a "cease and desist" letter. But neither apologies nor the removal of the offending documents stopped nine teachers, a former trustee and a parent represented by the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation (BCTF) from suing Halstead last spring for "using the internet to wage a personal attack on certain participants in the B.C. education system." That’s already cost Halstead $23,000, and she and her husband, a school janitor, can’t afford a lawyer for her trial. "We’re going to lose our house, and all I tried to do was tell the truth and protect children," she says.

Neither of these lawsuits strikes me as wise or civil, not to mention just, Terri Watson, president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, describes the BCTF’s legal action as "inappropriate" and operating with a "clear imbalance of power and resources." Democratic institutions such as schools, she adds, need people like
Halstead to test the system and foster improvement.

Jinny Sims president of the BCTF, counters that the suit against Halstead was in no way launched lightly and is "not about pitting one parent against the might of the BCTF. It’s about defending our members, who are being damaged in their work and personal lives." Dr. Gordon Thomas, executive secretary of the ATA, admits that his association is "not ecstatic about representing teachers in a defamation suit" and notes that it has launched only two such actions in the past 82 years. "What we are after is the fair representation of our teachers."

The ATA claims that one of its primary mandates is "to arouse and increase public interest in the importance of education." The BCTF makes similar claims. But how do these lawsuits support that goal, let alone help children? To restore civility to the educational arena, both provinces need to set up an ombudsman’s office, where parents and educators can hash out their differences on equal ground. When teacher unions start suing parents, the behave more like punitive corporations than enlightened public organizations. Strangling dissent, even allegedly hurtful dissent, doesn’t strengthen education any more than it strengthens democracy.
 

BC Education System Creaking, Cracking, Croaking!

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on September 11, 2009
in Accountability, Blog and Obstacles to Reform
. 0 Comments

 

I just published in a local blog the following comment on mismanagement and "accounting errors" in Langley School District.  I infer from my comments that this may not be the only jurisdiction with major bookkeeping and reporting flaws. I am calling for a full-scale forensic accounting examination of the accounts, reporting and due diligence of the school board.

BC Education System is Creaking and Cracking and Croaking.

(by Tunya Audain, comment published 090911, in The Report Card blog by Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun education reporter on topic: “Education Minister and quote of the month” 090910)

Look at the Langley school district fiasco — a $4.8 million deficit suddenly balloons into $8.3 million due to “accounting errors”.    That $35,000 paid by the School Board for a financial “review” is peanuts compared to what a proper forensic accounting examination would cost.  But, it would be worth it.  It would ferret out, item by item, digit by digit, the cause and effect of the problem revealed by the shocking and stunning disclosures this week.  It’s not as if there weren’t warnings and red flags all over the place.  They were there, but were snubbed and dismissed.

A proper forensic accounting report, I think, should be properly and appropriately ordered and financed by the Provincial Government.  It would:

-   Catch what the board’s auditor and external review failed to catch
-    Provide an accurate account of assets and liabilities
-    Discover if there has been deception, cover-up, fraud
-    Determine if proper accounting procedures were followed
-    Establish if there was proper reporting and administrative response
-    Check if the board of trustees were well-informed in a timely manner for decision-making and oversight
-    Examine if proper accountability procedures were in place and followed
-    Determine if the law has been broken
-    Provide evidence for future litigation if supporting data is revealed
-    Comment on whether a “blind eye” was turned on complaints and alerts by members of the public
-    Further the public interest  
-    Clarify the language used in reporting to the public and media, eg, what constitutes “cost pressures”

Whether small or large corruptions are found, or none at all, mistakes have certainly been made and incompetence has been acknowledged. It’s not just “underfunding” that’s brought on this state of affairs.

A recent research paper, entitled: Corruption and Educational Outcomes: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back by Francis Huang  http://journals.sfu.ca/ijepl/index.php/ijepl/article/viewFile/142/59

says :  “…corruption has the potential of holding back or sabotaging a country’s education progress – much like taking two steps forward and one step back…turning a blind eye to it does not make it go away but actually encourages it. Eliminating corruption involves a culture change and a shift in mind-set along with the implementation of accountability systems and processes.” 

Huang further elaborates that it’s no surprise that corruption might occur in education systems world-wide (she studied 50 countries) because “education is the largest or second-largest budget item in most countries and opportunities for corrupt practices are numerous.”

Given that last observation, shouldn’t the whole Ministry of Education and all boards have forensic accounting reports done?  At $8,323 per child shouldn’t we want to know what percentage of that actually reaches the target?

Or are we funding a self-serving industry, serving selfish vested interests?  Only a credible, in-depth examination will tell us if the present model is effective and efficient or if we need to search for better models of education delivery.
 

 

Precious Cartoon for Back-to-School

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on September 1, 2009
in CARTOONS..., Blog and Education Reform
. 0 Comments

 

With ever more demand for choices in education– from parents, students, teachers — here is a CARTOON which says it all.

Print it out in full color, post it on your bulletin board, fridge. Pass it on!

http://education-advisory.org/Involved/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/back-to-school-cartoon-from-vic-lee2.pdf

 

This URL will work if you copy and paste it into address bar.

 

Privacy in the Internet Age

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on August 4, 2009
in Blog, Parent Involvement in Schools and Parent Rights
. 0 Comments

 

On July 30/09 I saw this interesting interview with the host on CNN with Kyra Phillips:

 

education-advisory.org/Involved/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/privacy-in-the-internet-age-cnn-090730.pdf

 

It relates to parent rights and duties and student rights.

 

 


 

Parents Need Effective Tools in Education

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on December 19, 2008
in  TOOLS 4 Effective Parents and Blog
. 0 Comments

Parents need easy and accessible tools for effective advocacy and guidance of their children in pursuing their best interests in education,  Effective tools are those that give parents confidence and empower them.  Some of these might help.

I’m starting a new category – TOOLS 4 Effective Parents — which will include the following in Pdf form for easy copying:

Available

 

Free-choice Educational Experience with Multi-age Children

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on December 9, 2008
in Blog and Education Reform
. 0 Comments

OTTAWA EAST SUMMER PROJECT (’71)

Ottawa East Summer Project was designed at the outset as an educational experiment where multi age children would interact, learn and play together in a free-choice atmosphere.

Upon obtaining a $10,700 grant from the Federal Government Opportunities For Youth (OFY) program in the summer of 1971 five staff were hired as “enablers” to work with 200 students, ages 4 – 11 years. The main criterion for hiring was the stated intention of the university students to pursue teaching careers.

Using the freely offered facilities and grounds of St. Patrick’s College in the east end of Ottawa the activities set up included sculpturing, painting, puppets, sewing, acting, woodwork, gardening, sports and writing.  During the first stages the children were able to mix-and-match their activities and were able to thus acquaint themselves with all the staff and the rest of the children of the neighborhood who during the school year attended three different schools (French Catholic, English Catholic and English Public).

The ongoing stages saw the children initiating their own projects, giving them the opportunity to expand their talents and leadership abilities.  Older children helped teach and supervise younger ones.  Parents and grandparents and local teen-agers developed into a volunteer force to help the children.

The experience was considered a tremendous success and substantiated the growing move in educational circles towards more of a community concept in education – children learning from other children, parent involvement, using the children’s own interests to teach skills as reading and writing. This, combined with the use of the total neighborhood as a learning environment, provided a meaningful setting for educational outcomes.

The children, brought up in such a setting, it is felt, develop more in the areas of independence, resourcefulness and creative thinking than children brought up in the more traditional, desk-oriented schools.

I had just graduated with a teacher certificate from Ottawa Teachers College (’71) and did the main conceptual work in preparing the proposal for the grant and coordinated the project. 

Tunya Audain
 

Tips for Trustees from a “failed” Candidate

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on November 23, 2008
in Abolish School Boards and Blog
. 0 Comments

While I ran for school board trustee in the last election, Nov 15/08, I kept my fingers crossed that I would NOT be elected. I dreaded having to go to interminable meetings for three years of my life.  I did run to bring to public and institutional awareness the need to seriously examine the very relevancy of school boards in this day and age.  I did learn a lot during the campaign and from my research and thus I have some insights to offer.

TRUSTEE AWARENESS #1

My HOMEWORK on school board issues during my recent trustee candidacy yields a lot of interesting information. I did not get elected, however did garner over 1/10 of votes. My website continues: http://abolish-school-boards.org

As well, I will publish on other sites as news comes in. With that in mind, I share the following:

1. Getting more money for schools. Most candidates I heard or read about said they would dedicate themselves to this effort.

In Quebec the opposition (ADQ) says they would abolish school boards to save $125 million annually. To compute for BC that would mean a saving of about $70 million annually. Instead of the savings going back into provincial coffers perhaps that money should be spread out to BC schools or for special needs. Would BC trustees consider that sacrifice worthwhile?

2. Few trustee candidates mentioned any kind of system-wide reform. Most just wanted to hunker down and improve their own district.

Meanwhile, our sister province to the east, Alberta, seems to have province-wide reviews every few years. Right now they are in the midst of a review of education for special-needs. In 2003 a Commission on Learning produced 95 recommendations with the Ministry of Education acting on 88. The Minister told school trustees Nov 19 that another review is imminent, that “he wants to get people talking about education…that could lead to changes in the legislation that governs how schools are run.” When asked if that meant abolishing school boards, he answered, “…governance is part of that discussion and if we’re not doing governance the right way, then we should be open to the concept of how we should do it.” See "Education System Could Face Changes".

These reviews, if genuine, definitely lead to greater responsiveness to what citizens express and want. For example, Alberta has had enabling legislation since 1994 to provide for greater choice through charter schools where parents, teachers and principals run individual schools. This autonomy allows flexibility in meeting accountability standards as well as providing for creative programs to emerge. This is something that BC should consider for its citizens as well.

A worldview approach has significant educational and decisional implications. BC also needs these focused conversations outside the periodic provincial elections. A commission of inquiry soon???

3. School closures due to falling enrollment seem to be a BC political no-no.

Meanwhile, trustees in Boston, even in the midst of closing six schools, are expanding in other areas to improve school quality. They expect to add more “pilot” schools which have more “autonomy than other schools over budget, staffing, governance, classroom teaching standards, and testing programs.”

4. Trustee candidates see themselves as volunteer public servants called to do good things for their community. They don’t see that they’ll be paid to do a lot of busy work and a lot of frustrating political wrangling and manipulation.

A little flavor of the jockeying and fighting that goes on and the ideological agendas at play was evidenced during the recent board elections in Langley. However, rarely do we see anything comprehensive like “Confessions and Frustrations of a Long Time School Trustee”.

Well, there is such a book, not with that title though. The 1998 book by Russell J. Edwards is called “How Boards of Education Are Failing Your Children” and available from $.33 to $1.00 plus shipping (about $5-6) from AbeBooks or Amazon. It’s a long rambling, stream of consciousness, full of insider gossip, political and personal, dirty tricks, etc. Written by a well-intentioned “Master School Board Member” who wants to tell “what is wrong with the educational process and why it is so hard to make progress and solve problems.” Highly recommended, especially for trustees who think it’s a “nice” job and think they’ll get anywhere during any 3yr term.

5. Fads come and go, yet they continue to be embraced for the WRONG reasons. What they really do is buy time for the system to carry on business-as-usual — not for any real reform.

Canada (except for Alberta) it seems is wedded to the pro forma model of consultation as noted in the OECD report of 1976 meaning — going through the motions, affecting concern that is not genuine, perfunctory…

Here is a recent gross example of such a fad from the US. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation poured millions, NO, over 2 billion dollars into converting large high schools into smaller ones. 8 years later, Nov 11/08, the Foundation called a meeting “to admit candidly that the new small high schools had not fulfilled their promise.” Please see "Bill Gates and his Silver Bullet"

Critics of this program show the harm done to students, 8 years of their lives lost, whole schools turned upside down…millions of taxpayer dollars wasted, good teachers quitting rather than being forced to support a plan they knew would be detrimental for their students…

I’ve been reading the 12 page promo for the Iowa Lighthouse Project that BC trustees will be considering in their upcoming training in Dec and I’m really hoping it is not being sold as another “silver bullet”. By trying to make trustees more “effective” this still consigns parents to a secondary, auxiliary role. Parents having choice and voice can move “stuck” schools and scores far better than expensive trustees and school boards.

Campaigning to Abolish School Boards

Published
by
Tunya Audain
on October 24, 2008
in Blog
. 0 Comments

 

(Below are my background notes for the 2 minute presentation taped for local TV.  I don’t know how the final will look or sound.  Air time (Cable 4) for West Vancouver candidates are:  Sat Nov 1, 8-9:00 am & Sun Nov 9, 6:30-7:30pm. I’m running for School Board in West Vancouver, Canada, Nov 15/08.)

The last time I ran for School Board Trustee in West Vancouver was in 1975 and I ran then as a parent of 2 young students in the school system.  I wanted to make things better for them and others in West Van schools.  I did not get elected.

Now I’m running as a grandmother, 33 years later, and in all that time I do not see things having improved….responsiveness to student needs, relationships with parents don’t seem to have improved…parents are still frustrated and families are still not meaningfully involved in governing their schools or successful in pushing for achievement goals.  In fact, things are worse, more complex, more entangled than ever…..

I’m running not for power or to sit for 3 years at symbolic school board meetings.

I’m running in order to have conversations on issues with people during this election period.

The main issue I present is that of the relevancy of the school board system itself.  I see the school board as an unnecessary 4th level of government.  Why do we cling to the large central control institution of school boards when we have the successful model of independent schools where parents govern their own schools?  Or we can try the charter school model where teachers and parents govern an autonomous school.

If school boards were abolished we would achieve enormous cost savings, perhaps to the amount of $1,000 - $2,000 extra per child which could either go to all students or dedicated to serving special needs.

Other issues are community education.  Should school boards, for example, run Yoga and quilting courses? No.

Should school boards recruit and educate international students — for profit?  No, that is not their mandate.  Leave that to the private sector.

Other issues I want to discuss with people are vouchers and tuition tax credits.  What about the idea, in the name of transparency, of having the board post online their cheque registry of ALL expenditures?

Basically, my belief is that the best decision-making is that done closest to the individual and in the case of education, closest to home.  That means having the family as closely involved in choices and decisions in education as possible. 

The best model for school governance is local autonomy, therefore we don’t need school boards.  Phone me or visit my website:  http://abolish-school-boards.org