The big box picture

Big box stores (I hate them); big box hospitals (people die in them); big box entertainment centers (more dreadful movies than ever); big box schools (where even more kids are left to rot and fall through the cracks).

History will judge this historical era, where despite all the hoo-haa about the information age, society was dumbed down to the lowest common denominator; society wanted everything on the cheap, but instead it cost society dreadfully.

We can bet our bottom dollar

We can bet our bottom dollar that there are some brainwashed, warped economist minds behind all these crimes against humanity, in the interest of "savings", while increasing and transferring the long term real costs on others.

In reality, "Small is beautiful" (Schumacher) and more efficient, because "Human labour, (in this case the teachers and maintenance) doesn't cost anything to an economy, because it is energy neutral."

I wonder when they'll come out into the open to suggest the long standing plans of the rulers for the implanting of microchips into babies destined for certain professions.

In the interest of "efficiency", of course.

Ed Deak.

We'll end up fighting each other ...

When the Vancouver School Board process ramps up this fall to start closing schools, you better believe that the answer to the political fallout will be to pit school against school and parent against parent. I hope that the voters aren't so shortsighted that they don't see that by lobbying to save their neighbourhood school over another the politicians get what they want: no accountability. They have already reworked some contracts to allow elite, private schools to move into those empty buildings. That's defending public education for you.

Bigger is not better.

There has been a tendency in the last seven years to ascribe to the notion that bigger is better. Bigger has economies of scale but does not provide better service. It never has yet the ideologues still hang on to the notion. We're seeing a reversal of service delivery principle "when you need it where you need it". Now everything has to be concentrated into large, cold impersonal institutions. This is such a risky venture when it comes to kids that it borders on criminal.

We can spend billions on a 14 day celebration, we can give our politician massive raises and gold-plated pensions, we can cut taxes to folks who make $250,000 a year, we can give $500,000 severance package to people who had to leave their jobs because they screwed up, BUT we can't provide a decent learning experience for our kids.

Some school district have gone to a four- day school week to make ends meet. Others have off loaded costs to parents, cut janitorial services, library services and special needs support. It is an outrage.

skywalker re Offloading costs to parents

I agree with you skywalker, and if you're concerned now, just wait to see what VANOC and our school boards have in mind for kids in the next couple of years.

I wrote about it in detail in my blog and book. Here are a couple of excerpts;

from www.OlyBLOG.com Oct. 2006 ...

"According to an "editorial" in the Vancouver Sun on October 19, 2006, an anonymous CanWest writer thinks that local school children should be forced to become Olympic volunteers, and accordingly, that teachers should be forced to manage the program.

The Sun obviously didn't say it in these exact words, but it is exactly what they mean."

read more here ... http://www.olyblog.com/f/06/SchoolsCloseF10192006.shtml#SCHOOLS

from Leverage Olympic Momentum - Feb. 2006;

"Everyone in an Olympic region gets in the ticket-selling game including students, parents and the school system, whether they want to or not. The public school system in most countries is already stressed, and adding a heavier workload severely impacts their primary mandate, which is to improve the educational experience for children. Olympic organizations don't see it that way. They see the public school system as an organized association with a captive audience.

It's one thing for universities to get involved, but at the public school level it causes a myriad of problems that aren't easily resolved. To begin with, students in the public school system are younger and cannot take on the more complex administration workload that a university student can assume, which means it is passed on to teachers and parents. Students can however be counted on to do the grunt work. Inviting the Olympic enterprise into the school system also opens the doors for corporations like McDonalds and Coca-Cola. In Sydney, Olympic education kits sponsored by Coca-Cola and IBM were distributed to schools as early as 1995. It was a sophisticated branding project to get students tuned into Olympic ideology and subsequently introduce them to Olympic commercialism. The programs were presented using an educational subtext, but in reality provided a direct channel to impart the associated brands into the young budding psyche.

School documents were branded with corporate logos, and students did literacy and numeric tests with Olympic themes. When interviewed by media one young student thought there should be a "test to see how much McDonald's you could eat in an hour." end of excerpt

An irony in Vancouver is that schools are closing here because the Olympics drove house prices up so obscenely high that families left. When they left, more schools closed.

Big Box often better

Bix boxes do have advantages. I went to a big box secondary school in Vancouver (Tech). The course offerings in large schools are always much better than their smaller counterparts.

Some students suffer in large environments, but others do very well. I think larger schools are always much better than 150 students rattling around in a school built for 500.

Big Box

Good point Martin, but at the public school level, smaller, although small is relative, would offer a more congenial environment for social development, which at a grade school level is a big part of a child's education.

The teacher to student ratio is also important and it should scale appropriately dependant on the size of the institution.

A larger school is inherently more competitive and as long as it is managed properly it would prepare students for the big world (through immersion) at a more intense level than a smaller environment, so you have to take that into account too.

Keep in mind that I'm referring to the public sector, not private schools, which have a completely different mandate.

The question being, do I prefer my child to have a more local, or a global perspective?

It's never too early to start. If more children had a global vision 50 years ago maybe we wouldn't be in such an environmental mess today.

Insularity and myopic vision have serious downsides.

Whiners!

Wow. All a reporter has to do these days is throw out a hot-button word like "big box" and we all have to sit back and watch the ignorant parochialism fly.

I'm from Victoria, but went to a HUGE (3,500+ pupils) public high school in Toronto that would dwarf any in BC, and you know what? I got a top-notch, first-rate, individually-tailored education (the school ranged in programs from those for "gifted/smart" to severely mentally handicapped and everything in between), all from highly-qualified, experienced teachers, and all the multicultural, community-oriented social skills a kid raised by a single mom could ever ask for her son to learn. What matters is not the size of the school, but the quality of it. Large schools can pool resources and offer the kinds of programs and facilities most small schools can only dream of, from larger and better-stocked libraries, to athletic facilities, to science labs, to fine arts studios, to auto repair shops. What's more, larger schools are a product of increased population density and improved public transit services, and thus tailor well with plans to reduce CO2 emissions. They're not part of some vague corporate conspiracy.

The right questions to ask are about the student-teacher ratios, quality of equipment, extra-curricular activities, qualifications of the instructors, etc. But spare us the 'rage against the machine' diatribes. They're a non-sequitur.

I'll side with Martin

Vancouver has at least 2 more 'big box' schools, John Oliver and Winston Churchill. I don't know the student populations at present but both have held around 3000 at times in the past. The shops, science labs etc. were excellent.

The kids that get lost in the education system tend to get lost no matter what size the school is unless there is someone looking out for them.

That's because you are missing the point.

Large institutions are OK as kids get older. Even then most kids would prefer to be in a school of around 500 students. While they are in the early years a large institution is a poor place for personal development. The law of averages will apply and of course some will get a good education is schools with 3500 students. I think the studies still prove that smaller places are better for kids. For some a school of that size would be a disaster and often it is. Your comment "I got a top-notch, first-rate, individually-tailored education" might be a debatable point. How do you know that in a smaller school you might not have been more individually challenged to avoid comments like . "Wow. All a reporter has to do these days is throw out a hot-button word like "big box" and we all have to sit back and watch the ignorant parochialism fly."?

Many private schools pride themselves in not being large, impersonal institutions and we so frequently hear the "private schools are better" on these pages. I guess they know something funniously doesn't.

Large schools can indeed be

Large schools can indeed be very efficient, when there are enough students within walking distance.

But what we see here are cases when little children have to sit on the buses for long periods because of closed schools.

It is a different thing when parents make the conscious decision to move to certain areas without nearby schools and accept the responsibility. Our son like all children in this area have been and still are doing, sat on the bus for 3 1/2 hours every day when attending highschool, but we accepted this when we moved here.

But when perfectly good schools are closed and 5 - 6 year old children are forced to travel, it becomes a highly questionable decision and any "savings" are often based on partial, phoney figures

Ed Deak.

Quite an imposition

I hope the travel time was used productively, but believe such a commute a heck of an imposition on any student - probably quite unhealthy, also.

If this was the sole choice, I'd not be surprised at a growth in home-schooling. It would certainly seem to encourage it.

And here I just finished watching.........

...a travelogue about Switzerland, and their penchant for "anything BUT big box". So how come it works for them? A population that actually cares.....?

empty communities

The right-wing agenda wants to rip the very heart out of our communities. What better place to start than by closing neighbourhood schools. Instead of a brisk walk to school, put the kids on a bus and send them to the other side of town. Rather than have a school soccer field available to the folks, sell the property to the highest bidder and build condos. This is all part of the grand scheme to transfer the public assets of the province to the private sector. Is anyone really surprised?

Ed, No argument.

No argument about driving long distances, the Barkersville area school is a prime example. A commitment must be made to ensure that outlying areas get a reasonable shot at the same education as an urban area and anything in excess of a 20 min. bus ride is excessive at least in my mind.

Idiotology

It's not surprising to see the teachers unions, everywhere, resist the accountability now demanded by the consumers.
School Boards are equally guilty of advancing the failed methods that they support in order not to confront the teachers union.
The govt. funds students on a per ca pita basis.
I will say it's around $7,000.00 per year.
So they give any given school board 7K per student enrolled.
Now there is more subsidies than that. Much more.
So if each of our children are allowed 7K, why can't I get this money, as a voucher to spend as I will?
After all, it's my money.
I may decide to use this 7K per kid, to educate the child at home.
A laptop only costs $700.00.
I may decide to spend the voucher at the school down the road.
I may decide to spend the money, and some of my own, to send my kid to a private school.
I may like to have the choice to send child to the Super School, with so many choices.
Nobody should be allowed to corner the market on education.
We have seen the negative results of this in areas that have made our lives difficult.
All I ask for is freedom.

Having an emotional connection is important

Although we have had one school closure in my town of 5000 people, we still have two relatively small elementary schools (200 and 300 students). School populations such as these allow for all staff members to know the names of most, if not all, the students. Gordon Neufeld and others have stated that it is very important to have an emotional connection with students in order to promote school success. How do you do that in a big box school? I don't know about you, but I couldn't remember the names of 500 (let alone 5000) students!

September is a tense time in some schools as teachers and teacher assistants are being told they are surplus due to the school having to go down a division (or more). These people who provide direct support to students are being laid off while the Ministry is hiring those new Superintendents of Schools. I invite Ms. Bond and Mr. Dosdale to come to my school to deal with the frustrated/upset special needs students who are having to cope with insufficient support. How about providing some real support instead of staging a photo op while you read to students, Ms. Bond? Funny though. Ms. Bond never replies to my invitation lol.

Ron Erwin

Not really, you have the freedom to buy your kid a laptop, home school them, send them to a private school (subsidized by gov't) or send them to a school in a different catchment area.

So basically you already have the freedom to do any of the things you claim you're being prevented from.

What it comes down to obviously is that "freedom" to you means the gov't giving you $7,000.

IAMC....when it comes to

IAMC....when it comes to accountability to the "consumers", how about accounting the taxation by obscene profits and the multimillion salaries of some executives, which also come out of the "consumers" pockets ? We go to town to shop twice a month and every time prices are up in all the stores, without any rational explanation, but because "competitiveness" now means who can steal more from the "consumers".

By the way, have you ever seen anybody "consuming" anything, by defying the elementary laws of physics?

Or should certain sectors be given "freedom" to steal our eyes out, especially when we hear these perennial complaints about "union bosses" . Funny, that in the vocabulary of special interests, unions have "bosses", but businesses have "leaders".

Skepti....In the interior thousands of kids are sitting on buses for 3-4 hours. Our nearest highschool is about 60 km. This means 80 or more for some kids, with the buses having to make dozens of stops both ways.

This is the price of putting beef on the table of city folks and paying for the office towers.

Does it harm kids ? It depends. Our neighbour's daugther sat on the buses for 12 years and she's now one year from her Master of Science with honours, planning for her Doctor of Science. Others push brooms, but it is their choice.

Home schooling works very well for some, but most would just goof off and we have enough illiterates already.

Ed Deak.

Big box schools

One comment being overlooked is that of Councillor Richard Stewart--a former executive of the BC Home Builders Association--who uses the ugly word "density" The is the developers dream to create even more housing at outrageous costs with no consideration for social housing or what might be called "affordable" housing.
Here in Ladner developers got permission to rip out two 1200 sq. ft. homes and replace them. So now we have 4 quaint homes at $800,000 each!
In Tsawwassen the School Board sold off an old school (which really was a public asset) and replaced it with monster homes at close to a million bucks!
Beware, folks, density, or Ecodensity to use Silly Sam's personally-owned term, is a fraud. Cheers

Dead on Monty

I live in Delta too and concur with you 100%. Eco-density or densification is the term for rezoning residential land to higher density zoning, there by giving the owner windfall profits on the cost of his property.

We have in Tsawwassen a property sold for about $1.5 million; the new owner, a developer got council to agree to higher'density housing' (something the original owner was not allowed to do) and sold the each of 8 new lots for just under $900,000 each; not bad having friends on council.

The shame with TJS, is that we sold off public land without the publics approval. I wonder who's friends on the School Board was friendly with the developer?

Big box schools, just increases the chance of failure, as students cease being individuals and become numbers. No wonder kids do drugs and tune out!

Individuals versus Numbers

"Big box schools, just increases the chance of failure, as students cease being individuals and become numbers."

Again, a non-sequitur. Whether an institution treats its clients in an impersonal way or not is chiefly determined by the conduct of its members toward those clients, not its size.

As for densification, there's no question that it's profitable for developers. It's also better for environment as it reduces overall individual consumption (although this can theoretically be outweighed by massive increases in total population). Either way, you have three choices in a growing city: i) keep density the same and expand residential zones, ii) cut off inward migration, or iii) keep residential zones a fixed size and increase density. i) has the highest environmental consumption costs, ii) is a violation of the Charter right to freedom of movement within Canada, and ii) and iii) both raise land prices. So which would you choose if you were a policy maker?

funniously

Again, a non-sequitur. Whether an institution treats its clients in an impersonal way or not is chiefly determined by the conduct of its members toward those clients, not its size.

Like the police, which cannot guarantee the safety of individual citizens, and only citizenry as a whole, so too can big box schools (as representative of the monolithic school system) guarantee a level of education to the population as a whole, but cannot gurantee the same to individual attendees.

The bigger and more encopassing any system becomes, the less attention it can pay to the individual components of that system.

So we close a bunch of

So we close a bunch of schools which it appears does bother a lot of the younger kids New routes to school and in many cases somebody has to take the kids both ways each day. But using the excuse of falling enrolement is simply not a good enough excuse. The number of little kids we see around thgis neck of the woods indicate we will need more class rooms rather then less rooms. Just a couple of blocks away on Lampston street is a school that was upgraded a few years back. Eathquake proved, the whole ball of wax. Others schools not yet upgraded still take in students. The locals tried very hard to keep it open. But by one vote, it was closed. The guy who ran the school board cast the deciding vote, and then stopped being chair a couple of weeks later. I guess it was his last claim to fame. It shut down and was leased to the military for a french language school. since it was a primary grade school I guess some more renos will be needed for washrooms desks and such. The issue is really underfunding in this provicne for schools and so many other things

Rick........the concept of

Rick........the concept of self sufficiency at any level and field is the biggest enemy of screwball economic theories, especially of the forced collectivization types like communism and capitalism.

Everything has to be big and people moulded to conform to the demands of the rulers. This is part of the big box theory for schools and stores. Independent people are difficult to push around, so they have to learn to be organization types from childhood.

What is killing the family farms and ranches are not necessarily over regulation, but under communism the collectivization with bayonets and under capitalism the control of the markets by the agribiz mafia, putting people out of business at the producer and raising prices at the user levels.

When economists and politicians in the pay of big business hear the words "self sufficiency" they roll around on the floor in foaming convulsions

In the name of "competitive free enterprise" of course!

Ed Deak.

Here's a very thoughtful and

Here's a very thoughtful and well-researched document entitled, School Size, School Climate, and Student Performance, May 1996, Kathleen Cotton It was retrieved one hour ago from:
http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/10/c020.html

I suggest reading the whole thing. Note that this is the American experience, but I believe that most of the findings have a degree of universality. One thing that must be recognised is that BC has a much greater need for smaller rural schools than the USA. I have little understanding of why politicians want to "densify" the prime farmland/estuary/environment of the Fraser Valley/Delta when so much more land exists throughout The Interior that is less viable for intense agriculture, but is perfectly good for home ownership and gardening.

density and the greenspaces

To quote one report from the University of Leeds:

"In an age of global climate change and carbon emission reduction targets, the energy efficiency of urban development is a key factor in the sustainability of cities. Some aspects of the relationship between urban form and energy use have been well described. Newman and Kenworthy (1989), for example, demonstrated a curvilinear relationship between urban density and per capita energy use, through an analysis of 32 cities world-wide. Cities characterised by high density development (e.g. Hong Kong and others in the far East) are the most efficient energy users, whilst low density cities, typified by those in North America and
to a lesser extent Australia, are the least efficient. The differences are attributed to the role of transport, with low density cities typified by highly dispersed activities, making public transport difficult, and thus a high dependence on more energy intensive private transport."

However, setting aside energy consumption due to transport, the other factor to consider in densification is the energy effeciency of the buildings themselves, and you make a good point on that Ed. The solution to this lies in reducing the amounts of energy used to heat, cool or hydrate buildings. Lots of methods exist to do just this (take a look at what they're doing in Scandinavia), such as through better insulation, solar heating and water recycling.

It's key to remember that the goal of densification, at least from an environmental perspective, is to reduce the amount of farmland and wild spaces lost to suburban sprawl and the corresponding rises in energy consumption of the type criticized in the report above. Also, the dialogue on densification includes urban farming, such as through terraced or community gardening, not getting rid of it.

Rick W: system size versus system makeup

The police could gurantee the safety of every individual citizen if there were enough of them! Again, the teacher-student ratio is the keystone to the debate. For example, which system or school would offer the most indivdual attention and education to a student?

a) a school of 20 students and 1 teacher

or

b) a school of 1000 students and 1000 teachers

I exaggerate here to make my point (a third time), that size of a school alone doesn't correlate to quality or individual attention received, but rather the ratio of teachers to students. I fail to see why this is considered controversial or agenda-driven.

Size vs Quality

In university circles, there is an ongoing debate about this point and many 'big' institutions in the States are recognizing that it does not necessarily correlate with quality of educational results or student satisfaction and comfort.

For example:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/16/big

"Officials at some of the nation’s largest campuses say they’re glad to be popular, but not looking to grow. In fact, they said, like an elephant hiding behind a pole, a large campus has to find ways to seem a bit smaller, especially for incoming freshmen."

(from Inside Higher Education)

So while 'big' doesn't automatically mean 'bad' it certainly is not illogical to suggest that small (as for example Harvard) can be pretty good - perhaps even a lot better than ‘big’.

and, just for you, funniously, here's some more research

On the subject of 'big' vs small in schools:

Here's a report from the Carnegie Foundation about them re-investing in the
success already generated by the NYC Small Schools Initiative:
http://schools.nyc.gov/Administration/mediarelations/PressReleases/2006-2007/20070629_small_school_grad.htm

A bit more from the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation:
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_04/gate194.shtml

Mary Ann Raywid of Hofstra
University is an acknowledged expert on the New York City small schools initiative -
She says: small schools do better.

http://profed.brocku.ca/docs/vol1/num1/anum1.htm

If the city, NEW YORK, that has had some of the biggest big box schools for the longest period of time has learned that, on balance they aren't a good option then why doesn't BC learn something from their experience and expertise?

I can only conclude that there are things other than eduction motivating these people. They'ce nearly wrecked health care and they are well on the way to wrecking public education too.

As you can see from the Jones-Wilson document, the positive effects of a small-school envoronment are especially significant when it comes to students from low-income families.

Thanks, GWest. Interesting

Thanks, GWest. Interesting articles. I especially liked this part of the Bill Gates-related article:

"A small school can be as horrible as a big school," she (Meir) says.

As founder of several small schools and author of books such as The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons from a Small School in Harlem, Meier is perhaps the mostly widely known proponent of small schools.

Meier worries that Gates is overly preoccupied with increasing the number of small schools, with insufficient attention to quality."

Which was exactly my original point.

As for the Wilson article, it's clear from reading it that for Wilson "small" is defined in the main as high quality, student and community-focused education, moreso than size (and hence Wilson's reference to the 'school within a school' approach as a viable solution where a large school population is unavoidable).

So, as Wilson defines "small" as "high quality", then that was the original point as well.

PS: if A (big school) does not have a causational relationship to B (bad education), then to argue that A causes B is indeed illogical.

When one reads the bulk of the evidence

One finds that a student has the greatest chance of having success in small schools with small class sizes and highly trained, capable teachers. Principals that have the ability to both, work well with and bring the best out in others is also important.

Yes, some large schools seem to work well for many students, but it is not the direction to take our education system - the evidence is already in. Big things are too unwieldy, to hard to turn in a new direction. Big things headed in the wrong direction run a much greater risk of crushing things. They also have a harder time dealing with crises of the individual nature.

I doubt that neither the Carnegie nor the Gates' Foundations would invest in small schools if it weren't prudent to do so.

I think that for a large school to be successful

I think that when large schools were successful they served a fairly homogeneous community with relatively flat demographics and a minimum of racial and ethnic tension. Canadian suburbia (Mississauga, Pte. Claire in Montreal, Charleswood in Calgary, North Burnaby, the Dunbar area in Vancouver are ones I’m familiar with) in the period from the late 50s up to say 1980 or 1985 would probably qualify and I'm sure there are lots of examples of such communities in other suburban areas around Toronto, Ottawa and Edmonton. But, with the advent of changes to the economic conditions and the effects of immigration and urban blight that began in the Nixon era in the States and the Mulroney era in Canada the conditions in these communities have changed and the big schools just don’t work any more.

I don't think they work in our modern cities although I suppose a uniform community in the Fraser Valley might still create the appropriate conditions for successful big schools. In most other urban areas - I just don't think so - and I think that's what the New York example illustrates.

I know I have some research ferreted away somewhere about observations taken from some Chicago neighbourhoods as well. I'm quite certain that the experience of quality education as a given in a huge school in much of today's Toronto would not hold true any longer.

toronto high schools

the one that i went to in central (city of) in the 90s was by far one of the least homogenous schools in the world, with a student body from every stripe in the rainbow. race, religion or creed really doesn't factor much when the classes are small enough.

i'm not pro-big schools, i just worry that a debate about size distracts people from thinking about the more important questions concerning quality.

I wonder

I wonder how you'd feel about going to a big central Toronto school now funniously and I seriously doubt your positive experience is at all representative or normative of the experience of others.

Nearly everything I've seen and read on the subject leans exactly the other way. I have other research papers and studies that come to the same conclusion as well.

I agree that the optimal situation is one where every class is not too big and every teacher is Mr or Ms Chips... but that's not the real world. I know a young teacher in BC who is trying to teach Grade XII P.E. to a class of 34 in less than half a gym in a one-hour per week time slot. Two of the students are in wheelchairs and each of those students has at least one aide. Most of the time he says it's little more than chaos. It's a big gym, in a big school - but it is always shared with at least one other class. Students don't even have time to shower and change after class.

Small ain't perfect - but, on balance - and in the real world - it's a damn site better than big...and everything I've seen and read on the subject tends to confirm this.

John Young Seems Appropo to this...

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=aa92b24c-5098-41a1-9d79-948a7545f8cb&k=53037

john young

I find it sad that a private citizen must spend his life's savings and last efforts on topics that the highly paid opposition should clearly be fighting. And, isn't it amazing how this government continually tries to circumvent the Charter, the Constitution! by trying to rewrite laws when they don't get their way and tax dollars must be shared for the good of all and not used just for the wealthy?

Build a super highway to a few measily condos in Whistler and a hugely over-budget Convention Centre while tearing apart the health care, education, and services to the poor! It is no wonder to me that thugs/gangs have been on the increase since this government came to power!