To this day I consider my private school education (a Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas) to have provided me with an edge (a positive one) in all my dealings as a person in society. Perhaps I was lucky, but my Brothers of the Holy Cross instructors taught me grammar, literature, history, mathematics well and some things I only now understand. I didn’t know that the singing we did in chapel was Gregorian chant. I will never forget the day that Brother Hubert Koeppen, in world history, started the lecture with, “Today we are going to discuss the first recorded incident of someone taking a sun bath.” Hint, it involved Alexander the Great. I also came to understand the beauty of not only English and other languages but of dead ones, too. Sursum corda, from the Latin Mass, cannot be topped for compact beauty. Lift up your heart.

For the headache that a private school can provide check out what's been happening with the Academex schools in Kelowna, Steveston and Richmond. It's been a nasty year for all concerned as the schools fight for survival.

Fairly recently I read (somewhere) that the government believes it's cheaper to fund private schools than to fully fund public schools and not fund private schools. Perhaps this makes sense to someone with a single bottom line mentality? One of the reasons I liked WAC Bennett was his belief that everyone should be educated in a public school. I went to a private school for 3 years and my parents paid for it - there was also a bursary for students who had good grades but their parents couldn't afford the whole private school fee. Because of attending private school (and an active mother - I won't say "pushy") I skipped a grade in the public system. But I still think public taxes should not fund private schools.

What an unbelieveable tyrrany, that so-called "private" schools, often well populated by students of generally wealthy parents - wget subsidized by public funds - to subsidize the schools of the very same individuals who beligerantly, in a political sense, vote for welfare for the wealthy - aka "tax cuts". Which of course begins to bludgeon the Public Education system, which is on the agenda of the Fraser Think trough's apologists, and their lobby's myopic "reports".

Heiarchical business model believers would like nothing more than to expand education, which is a foundation of cultural and sociental ideas, into a full on business commodity. Exactly as Bush was trying to do with his Education vouchers approach. It fully reeks of the heirarchical, paternalistic (god as business father) religious and educational business school of beliefs.

I'm particularly amused, in a wry sense, of how "brotherly" religious schools pose - so long as one unthreatingly subscribes - actually defers to the religious or "saviour/messiah" or "truth" assumptions espoused within the walls. Try it from within the walls of the "saved..or working on it..servants of god" (who've plainly bought something, line and sinker). The public pose of sweetness and light to the general populace, turns into something else indeed. Same for heirachical schools, espousing defined beliefs of that, um, plump little expression..."excellence".

The argument on the pros and cons of private schools really boils down to the conflict between egalitarianism and elitism. The man who best wrote about this was William A. Henry III in his 1994 book In Defense of Elitism.

When condemning the "government" funding of private schools, remember that the government's money comes from "you and me" in the first place -- including from parents who choose private schools as the educational option that best suits their child's needs. Why shouldn't some of the taxpayers money support this type of educational environment? Another perspective is that private schools save the government money since it costs them less per student. The remaining (est. 50%)tuition allocation can be spent on public education without the corresponding student to educate! If you expect parents who already pay taxes to then pay 100% of their child's education, a corresponding tax deduction/credit should be available. You can't have it both ways!

"If you expect parents who already pay taxes to then pay 100% of their child's education, a corresponding tax deduction/credit should be available. You can't have it both ways!" Oh yes, you can. You can have your children educated in the public school system. If you choose to send your child to a private school, that is your choice. Not someone else's choice. What you choose to do with your extra money is your business not someone else's business. Your taxes go for the public weal, not to elitize your child. Your choice. I've no problem with your spending your extra money on your child, I just don't want you spending my money on private schools.

I'm sure he had an opinion on it. You clearly assign high value to it. The argument (in my opinion) is also about whom so-called standards serve, and what are the underpinning beliefs of the framing executive that informs - and "applys" those standards. Another point of view that one might also consider, was explored by a person names A.S. Neil. He published a book entitled: Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing.

Much of that book is concerned with former private school students, and their parents, who found their way to the School. It was also a boading school. Neil practiced a kind of school democracy that contemporarily is quite rare.

There were regular "school" meetings - and everyone could attend - any student of any age - and everyone also had one vote. Instructor or child. Brought the matter of peer relationships, argument, and status dynamics under a different lens. It also addressed the matter of esteem - power, and the rights and values of others. Are there battles because we listen far too much as peers and lack strict rules - or because we dont listen easily to, and discuss difference, I wonder?

In many educational frameworks, status is assumed, and "exercised" like a weapon. There are no 'innocent' versions of it in my experience. My current view is that when we - all the participants - stop being peers, we cease to be a community that respects; whether in a school, in a relationship, in our environment, or in any act of exchange.

One more reason to close that private school down. Taxpayers are paying sky-high ICBC premiums. Few would know some of the reasons why the King Edward and Granville intersection is a high-risk car accident area. Could it be that accidents happen because of male motorists turning their heads like lighthouses seeing York House students in their natty mini-kilts? I'm for the standard issue public school "uniform" of low rider jeans, short tops and lots of belly buttons.

Bit of a digression here, but ICBC premiums are the lowest in the country.

References were to Henry A. Henry III as posted by Alex. Other posts came in. Abut the comment re: taxes of "you and me", I dont see it that way. If there's a special needs scenario, of a challenged student (very commoin), I certainly understand that contribution - not enough is contributed in my view (read: "tax cut" shortfalls - benefits heavily favouring a wealthy contituency, one might add) - but if a wealthy constituency should want a "private road" built, when we've a worthy "public one" that "you and me" pay into already - I don't agree nor support that argument that the public should "pay some more" for it.

In such a scenario, where there is not genuine need, the "private" school parent is the one trying to have it both ways, frankly, and is being somewhat precious. I feel it also points to a (not so veiled) distrust and dismissal of the general community that a citizen is a part of.

I can vouch for the fact that teachers make ALL the difference in the world - I am a David Thompson graduate myself - when my grad class had graduated - we were called the "secret of the east". We had a professor for calculus, another teacher who dedicated himself to establishing a journalism club - and we put together our own student produced paper, ran our own store, established our own annual. They treated us as people with ideas and let us make the most of ourselves. I saw a large portion of my grad class on campus and many went abroad - but we were better able to cope with the diverse nature of the "real world" - which consists of both men and women with various belief systems. I would have found it a serious disadvantage if the years I spent defining my likes and dislikes was as monotonous and predefined as that which is found in most private schools. Adaptability is a strength that cannot be replaced - and the best things in life - and education - are free.

Opener for Chapter Two "Good Old Golden Days" from William Henry's In Defense of Elitism. "From condom distribution to addiction counseling, schools are spending more and more time dealing with social problems rather than basic education." The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 1993

Thank you Judith and The Tyee for providing a thougtful and factual balance to the tripe trotted out from the Fraser Institue, with the massive support from The Province (how many pages does it devote to FI propaganda anyway?). A big problem with schools like St. George's is not only the funding they receive, but the fact they are able to select whom they accept, by way of requring prospective clients (oops, I mean students) to write entrance exams and sit through interviews. Our public schools are required by legislation to accept everyone (with priority given to kids within catchment area) and to meet the education needs, not matter how complex, of every student. An analogy would be a private healthcare system that receives tax-payer provided funding, but only accepts patients who are healthy or only have very minor illnesses. In spite of these problems, Ms Ince's story shows what a good job our public schools are doing. I do fear that the excellent performance noted by Dr. Bluman may begin to decline as the impacts of the last decade (and more) of cuts to public education start to show up in our graduating students. I hope I am wrong. What this story tells me is that we have an excellent system that is worth fighting to preserve, even at the expense of our elite, exclusive private schools.

Good ol'boys. You would think that the NPA's Councillor Peter Ladner and Liberal MP Stephen Owen might be politically at odds. The fact is that in the recent federal elections Ladner backed Owen because both had attended the same Vancouver Island private school. I find it interesting to see that in spite of an "inferior" private school education both these men attained high political office. What we need is more rugby in our public schools.

Regardless of the merits/lack thereof of private schools, it is not fair to paint private school teachers as less capable simply because they need to take a job that often has fewer benefits than that of the public school sector. Here is why: 1. Currently, it takes an average of 4-5 years to get full time teaching work in the public system. In the meantime a teacher must work as a substitute. The average substitute teacher earns $11,000 per year. That is not a feasible option for many new teachers who are often in their late 20's to mid 30's when they start this new career. Many of these people have significant student loans to pay off, and families to start (just try holding off starting a family when you are a woman in your mid 30's!) or support. Therefore many who start off as subs in the public system apply to private schools in frustration in order to earn a living. 2. Full-time teachers are usually hired from the sub pool, and are done so based on the amount that sub has already worked. In many districts calls for sub work are meted out on an even basis, although more work is given to those who've already worked a certain number of hours. In other words, getting full-time teaching work is usually based on seniority, rather than ability. 3. Even once a teacher hits that 4-5 year point and does get full-time work, there is a very strong chance that that teacher will be laid off within a year (again, due to seniority and cutbacks). This is a highly difficult work situation for those trying to make a life for themselves/pay bills. Obviously there are exceptions to the above (for instance, if you speak French fluently, you can get full-time work very quickly). Furthermore, teacher quality in private schools may be affected by the fact that many such teachers are new to the profession and thus inexperienced. However, this not mean they are any less devoted to their charges nor are they any less capable than the teachers of equal experience in the public system.

This is an excellent article. When I was writing a column for the Province in the 1980s, I learned that UBC had been tracking its students, graduates of both public and private schools, and had found little if any difference in their post-secondary performance. But try to get a copy of the documentation! The subject was considered much too sensitive for public discussion.

I think it boils down to the teachers, as Shirin stated. And the curriculum is extremely important; but again, how a teacher teaches it makes all the difference. One's parents- and whatever spirit one has within; I am a firm believer that though a "good school" can help set you on a good course in life, it really boils down to who you are inside. Take my brother for example- dropped out of highschool at 17, ideal candidate for dead-end jobs for the rest of his days cause he chose to buck the system; but with the support of very loving parents (and a kick-ass sister) he went on to teach himself computer animation (plus he was already a talented artist) and is now a computer animator in California. He KNEW what he was going to do at 16- and with all of society's expectations and demands trying to force him in an opposite direction he went ahead and did it.

It's a system, that's all. As Alex says- because my brother has no "documentation" that he learned his craft (no one gets that he just taught himself) and he has no highschool diploma, he can't get work legally in the US. A week ago he was banned after trying to get back in after a visit to Toronto. For now he will be doing the work from here... however, if he and the immigration official had attended the same "private school" I'm sure it would have been less of a problem... :)-

Mr Killian not only has written articles for just about every Canadian publication but he also teaches at Capilano College, is a noted science fiction author and is a recognized expert on the theme of education. I wonder if he might not think that this success could be partly due to the excellent education he obtained at the Colegio Americano, a fine private school in Mexico City.

Public education arouse out of a desire to create citizens who could engage. Private education's roots are with elite schools for the noble blooded and rich (I'm excluding religious schools). It is mandatory for children to go to school in this country, parents have no choice (And what happened to the profession of truant officer?). But we are trying to turn education into a consumer-based system where parents have "choice" of schools and can go "shopping". People who see themselves as consumers of government services think that there is a choice between public schools and private schools. They also will try out various public schools within and outside their district because they don't believe in their neighbourhood school. I believe in the neighbourhood school, I believe that there should be consistancy across the province in regards to the quality of each public school, and I am happy that people like Dr. Bluman are proving that our neighbourhood schools are doing an excellent job at turning our children into citizens.

Alex, as a fellow-alumnus of the Colegio Americano, knows it was a pretty good school. But I was there for only two and a half years, preceded by a year and a half at Colegio Greengates--a British-run private school where I learned mission-critical skills like converting shillings and pence into pounds and guineas. The rest of my education, such as it was, took place in the public schools of California; my success there was largely due to the habit I'd acquired in Mexico of saying "Sir" and "Ma'am" to my teachers.

I am perplexed at janey j's use of the word consistency. My daughter attended the French immersion system in Coquitlam until grade 10. Grade 11 and 12 she spent at York House. I found her spoken English appalling. It was corrected at York House. She now teaches in the Vancouver public school system. For some years she taught in a school on the East Side. I saw my daughter become depressed and drained. She told me the parents of her children would show up in the morning in their skateboards and the kids would already be crying from abuse and hunger. She did the best she could for years until she knew she needed a change.She presently teaches at anther public school where the problems are different. The students are from families that travel or get transferred to other countries. I cannot see a consistency of education with such diversity.

This is an important debate but let's remember: Liars figure,and figures lie. Recompute the math data for Asian and non-Asian kids separately, and then do the public/private comparison. Extend the analysis to history and literature results. I suspect boy/girl performance might also give us an interesting variation.

Norman has brought up a couple of topics close to my heart. I've been following the "dumb boys" issue for several years, and agree that it would be interesting to see how boys perform in private and public schools...not only in math, but in other parts of the curriculum. As for the Asians, I'm about to embark on a joint research project with a Korean academic; she's trying to figure out how Korean colleges can retain students in a system based on cut-throat competition between schools, and where the students (who score among the highest in the world on international tests) think their teachers are terrible. Such students are eager to study in Canadian and American schools, and I don't think it's just because they think we're slack.

Killian’s “Are we slack?” Recently my daughter came from a trip to Mexico City and she brought me a Sunday newspaper. It had two pages of theater marquees and one page dedicated to dance. Compared to Vancouver you would say this was impressive. But as in the education argument, here we are comparing apples to oranges. There were two pages of plays that were based on sexist humour, there were slapstick plays, glorified soap opera plays, etc. There was not one play this Spanish-speaking theatergoer could have attended. Our young and daring Vancouver theater scene spoils me. It features many premieres by local playwrights. Expecting the rich fare of Vancouver’s modern dance and good ballet I was bored at the prospect of swooning swans and Giselles. I believe that in comparing our school system with others we might run into the same type of differences. The numbers of statistics cannot notice these differences.

I don't have a whole lot of "formal" education, so I must concede a certain feeling of "detachment" from this subject. That said, I am aware enough, even from my more "life" educated perspective, of what is "actually" happening here around "public vs private" school systems. It is the same thing that is evolving around the Neocon driven health care system agenda.

The "debate" is much influenced by perspective, especially by "class" and "class wannabe" perspective-, and for that, the evidence each "side" generates and offers up to the other will be largely viewed as "incomplete" or "unsatisfactory" for one set of partisan reasons or another. We are NOT really going to convince each other. And that fact of underlying "competing interests" needs to be "fessed up to and faced by all.

What is "clearly" happening however, regardless of which is "academically superior" by whatever measure each advances to support their positions, is that like in health care, we are witnessing the evolution of, at least, a "two tier" education system, built fundamentally around competing "class" driven interests. In the end, it primarily boils down to, regardless of all the grand and quantifiable talk, whose parents, like which patients in "the new world order" have access to what kind of funds? Whose wallets are how deep? Or in the case of the "wannabes", and they exist, who is prepared to take on what kind of debt, to see their kid is going to get a "socially perceived" leg up, social "class" advantage.

So, lets stop all the bs, and say that's what it is.

Which, once that is done, at least frees up those of us with an interest in "eliminating" class differences from education, like health delivery, to focus on doing "whatever is necessary" to level those playing fields, without this interminable tail chasing debate-, that is really a ritual "class" dance around the mulberry bush going on. And let's get it on-, in the political and economic fields. Let's fight the "class war" that is clearly going to have to be fought here, because we simply have "irreconcilable" and "competing" class interests.

I'm surprised more of you highly educated folks out there find it apparently more complicated than that. That, or everyone is still trying to be just "too, too nice".

I dont have much in the way of answers regarding "educational" policies, but I do have a lot of questions. Foremost is - "What is the purpose of education?". Most people would say that a higher education improves ones opportunity for a better paying job and most people (and our friends the "economists") could no doubt point to "studies" or polls which confirm that "reward" based premise. But if purely economic grounds are the reason for becoming more educated, another question becomes more relevant. Is the "defined" role of education to supply persons seeking maximum economic gains? Is this why we have schools? Personally, I suspect our societies obsession with an individuals economic value are both pathological and fundamentally unworkable under anything approaching democracy. There's an theory called the "Incentive Trap" that discusses the difficulties of everyone trying to maximize their position. If you're at a movie and the person in front of you stands up, you too must stand, which impedes the view of the person behind you, so they in turn stand up, etc etc etc... until ultimately no one is better off then they were before. It's a nice theory when applied to say, movie theatre viewing, and I suspect that it has some interesting applications to the issue of higher education, but the problem (and curious aspect to me) is, "knowledge" isn't a movie theatre. Unlike a movie theatre or a natural resource , knowledge is not diminished by distribution or use. The opposite is true. By passing on knowledge, we propogate it and encourage extrapolation. We get more back. Everything I've read suggests that westerners are more "educated" then ever before in history, which would seemingly suggest that there is more knowledge available than at any other time. In essence, it would seem that we have quite the opposite of a knowledge scarcity. My understanding of the western "boomer" generation is that almost all of them had ready and relatively cheap access to a university education, and I cant help but believe that that population bulge implies a greater university enrollment that at any other time in history. So we have a "supply and demand" issue that ought to have been "flexed" quite impressively several decades ago. Our educational system didn't break then... why is is "breaking" now? Anyone? Question two ... Why is higher education so expensive? Certainly some knowledge (especially in the sciences) requires tools who's expense can be tied to "inflation" or the extraction of rare resources, but not everyone is seeking scientific knowledge. So where are these rising costs coming from? Is it the infrastructure of these institutions? One might think that our applied knowledge would give us an unparalled advantage in understanding how to disseminate knowledge more efficiently - and God forgive me - more "cost effectively" than at any other time in history. We've been at this for several hundred years. You would think we'd have figured something out by now. But apparently that's not the case. So something else *must* be at play here. There is *something* gumming up the works. I truly don't know what it is, but its evident that our suppositions about the value and utility of knowledge shouldn't extend to its ready availability. Unless we're lying to ourselves. If our society values knowledge as an end to itself, then we owe it to our society to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to access the form of knowledge they seek. No quibbling. No bullshit. If the resource of human knowledge is as infinite as we enjoy believing, access to that resource ought to be infinite as well. Otherwise, we have a "fixed" system of policies of exclusion which work to the detriment of our collective knowledge resource and I believe, our society as a whole. There is *obviously* a fundamental flaw in our societies approach to education. And I'd love someone to actually explain what it is. Anyone? ohhh... hang on.. looks like coyote's jumped in with something, but I've spent so long typing this that... ah hell.. here goes...

okay Coyote. I read your whole post.I like it. Somehow I think that perhaps this thing "gumming up the works" is that of which you speak. There has been a foundational shift in policy *somewhere*... and it very much seems to me that we're all having smoke blown up our asses on what really is the problem. Something's rotten and somebody ain't fessing up.

It isn't really class, and it isn't really elitist. It's a way families have of training their children to take over, and placing them in a position where they can.

The whole public/private thing is a selection process. Like membership in the right clubs.

These private school kids, rebelling against their families like all kids do, are placed among others like themselves then run through a minor kind of well established hell.

By surviving together and sharing horrible experiences, such as escape plotting, bullies, B&Es, criminal endeavors and the rest of childhood's usual furniture together, while conspiring all the while to avoid punishment by blaming others and manipulating evidence to deceive the authorities, they form bonds which will serve them well all their lives. These bonds are only strengthened by the fact that as schoolmates, they come to know intimately each other's personal secrets and misdemeanors, and have seen seen how they hold up under severe questioning. This fosters a trust based on realistic assessments of character and true enlightened self interest.

Just as convicts say 'never trust anybody who hasn't done time', the old school tie is a badge of entrance, and a sure path by which they can get things on one another. Another basis of real trust.

As time passes, the mater and pater become weak and the kids are called upon to continue the lives their families have made, they again and again find schoolmates in positions where they need those bonds of trust and character, and can enter into the strong matrix of shared values and mutual blackmail which are traditionally so necessary to friendship between accomplices at all levels of society.

fhb wrote, "Personally, I suspect our societies obsession with an individuals economic value are both pathological and fundamentally unworkable under anything approaching democracy."

Actually, reading your piece, which I enjoyed very much, for an, I presume, thin thread of wry humour running through it, I think you are heading in the same direction I arrived maybe just a tad before you. You were just more cautiously picking your way through all the intervening shoals and pitfalls , whereas I simply rushed in: fools rushing in where angels.... and all that. :-)

And demonstrating that is the piece I have quoted above from you. I couldn't have said it better myself. And I think deep down there, in the secret heart of hearts of many of us, what you observe about this, I would say, "different classes" approach being "pathological and fundamentally unworkable in anything approaching democracy",is absolutely correct, and we are slowly coming to know it. And it is not workable.

Which begs the question, "What is the real end game objective then, of this New Neocon World Order, be it in education, health or whatever?"

The question practically answers itself, doesn't it? It's certainly not any "democracy" you or I might recognize.

Interesting discussion. I'm one of those boomers that received a relatively cheap university education, at least in comparison to these days. I'm not quite sure of where the answers lie for these very good questions but part of it may be found in observing what feeds the Neocon World Order. I've given this example before but in our town, when the fire department's costs rose, they got rid of the firemen! This is happening in health and education as well, as teachers and nurses will tell you. The complex infrastructure of the machine choose what fits it's mechanics and get rids of what is immediately expendable, even though what is expendable is often necessary to ensure quality.It needs supervisors,administrative boards, accountants, secretaries, tech workers the most because they are instrumental in collecting and managing the money that feeds the machine. That's why everything is more expensive, it has to be, because the purpose is about making money not health care or education. The students and patients will be chosen on their ability to keep feeding the machine.The loss of lives, quality of service, or final outcome is overlooked. When the system finally breaks, they'll just build a new machine.In fact, they'll promote the newness as a positive advance.

The simplest, most effective, most cost efficient, and most egalitarian method of learning is what we are participating in now, a free-wheeling Socratic approach to learning which involves critical thought. When the machine finds out, as it already has, that we are a threat to it's existence because money is not the ultimate purpose here,it will send out it's troops. As it already has.

There was another book written in defense of elitism, Alex-Waterhouse van builder ass: Mein Kamp(sp?) Have you ever noticed how defenses of elitism, are always written by the elite? Surprise! The american public school system now features text books that are 20 years obsolete, treats students like criminals, with prison-like security checks caused by the american lack of SPINE regarding american gun control, all brought about because over priveleged gits like yourself felt it was just fine for them opt out of the social contract by not paying their fair share of taxes, in my opinion people like yourself should be forced to donate several hours of their time a week at downtown eastside needle exchanges, well equipped with lots of lysol for scrubbing addicts toilets, where you could lobby them,for the ongoing destruction of the social contract, because somehow, with all your wealth, it's just never enough is it, you have to take what others have as well: a chance at a decent life so you can be even more disgustingly subsidized with taxpayer dollars, hope you somehow lose your last dime and are forced to sink or swim in this disgusting new era of unprecedented maggotry....but then what can we expect in the current climate , where neoliberals must look to pimps for moral inspiration, because at least pimps attack a much smaller demographic of people, elitism is a disgusting disease with its roots in facism...you suck, fella....looking forward to your eloquent rebuttal: maybe you could contract it out, I know the fraser institute is always looking for new work, no matter who gets hurt.....

"When the machine finds out, as it already has, that we are a threat to it's existence because money is not the ultimate purpose here,it will send out it's troops. As it already has." says Lynn.

Indeed, they are here. I can hear their voices in some of the above. :-)

But it is to my friend Lewis, on one of his famous "rolls" :-) goes the most astute observation of the day, I think, with his, "elitism is a disgusting disease with its roots in facism..." The foundation observation for a full blown doctoral argument, brother. (Chuckling to self.)

I will never understand why so many web-based discussions ultimately degenerate into insulting language. Manners are manners regardless of one’s political stance. I have no elegant rebuttal for elitism. I am not an elitist, just because I mention a book on the subject. On the other hand re: Mein Kempf ( sp, if you don’t own a hard copy dictionary, plug in your approximation into Google) if Fascism (Google will also assist you with that tricky sc combination) and elitism are one and the same thing I find it hard to reconcile the Fascist habit of burning books.

Nice to see the good Dr. Spector over here at Tyee. (often more fun than Shotgun I find.)

You can check out the school by school results at http://www.math.ubc.ca/Schools/FirstYearCalculus/2003_school_study_co nf.html and for physics here, http://www.math.ubc.ca/Schools/FirstYearPhysics/physreport2002.html

The Euclid results are actually listed by name and can be found at http://www.math.ubc.ca/Schools/Euclid/B.C.Euclid_results_2004.html

I would say that it is pretty fair to say that there is a co-relation, a pretty strong co-relation, between Asian surnames and math achievement.

Sadly, there are no similar tests or records for humanities and we are left to simply speculate. However, the history of Canada's immigrants has usually been that first and second generation immigrants excel in those areas which do not put a premium on language skills - math, physics, engineering - so these results are not much of a surprise.

On a related note: one option which is seldom explored in these sorts of articles is home schooling. There does seem to be some indication that home schooled kids outperform public and private school kids by wide margins. My sense is that this is because of the fact parents who homeschool waste a great deal less time than is typically wasted in highschool. But I have no empirical evidence to support that hunch.

As for class war and all, kids who go to private schools are pretty much defined by having parents wealthy enough to send them. That said, the old school tie tends to get a person in the door a little quicker if, and only if, the doorkeeper went to the same school. Which, even with the growth of private schooling, is a diminishingly small proportion of the time.

"what is the purpose of education?" fhb asks - I doubt there is one answer since education is a multifaceted acquisition of experience that will ultimately determine how an individual both copes and percieves their environment and their role in it. The differences between cultures, social class, and even gender in performance tests given for our "one-size fits all" school system does not at all reflect on the students eventual role and potential contribution in their chosen environment. The danger is in assuming these tests do define the "intelligence" (thus, future "value") of the child/student - and then relaying this assessment and fate to the child. What makes a successful person is not determined by which school he/she attended (as is evident by wide diversity inherent in "successful" people)- but the value their family places on both the role of education and the diverse type of education the child receives. The most influential education I have received to date is not the years I spent (and like a glutton for punishment - continue to spend) in university -but it was the time I spent travelling around the world with my family and eventually all by lonesome - to East Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Europe - and throughout N. America. People are different but they all have a common goal, and there is definitely more than one way to achieve it. I found that happiness is evasive once greed for material acquisition sets in since satisfaction is an experience that remains untouched. My mother told me when I was five and determined to remove my share of treats from the paws of my younger brother, "If you are greedy for anything, be greedy for education." Since then, my greed has been unsatiable.

Yes, alex old boy('s) club, I know how to use both google and a dictionary, and neoliberalism is RIFE with inherently fascist qualities, doesn't your 25% UNCAMPAIGNED ON TAXCUT have the stench of the abattoir for you? It should, it's COVERED with the blood of poor and disabled people in this province, as well as that of women, the young, the old , the sick and the dying....sometime when you're putting a fix in with one of the many judges in this province the bc liberals seem to own, while lunching at the vancouver club, you could discuss some of the eugenics programs your wealthy grandparents were no doubt hearty subscribers to, two generations ago in bc, and then ruminate on the utter botch your social class has made of the stewardship of bc.... Your counterparts, the american elite, whose country you are so busy trying to make canada a simulcrulum of, now recruit much of their brain power from other countries, skimming off the cream of their universities, who then abandon their own third world countries, who desperately need them....Why? -because, america, especially since george w. filth, no longer funds poor students in their own country, or even middle class students, preferring the money goes into badly needed taxcuts for billionaires, a sure sign of the coming fall of the american empire, not unlike the romans, when they passed from republic to empire, losing all capability of successfully managing and husbanding their resurces and their society.... of course, the overextended american military, heavily dependent, on dwindling oil supplies may, in fact, collapse first from the coming fossil crisis, combined with ecological collapse....in the aftermath I very much hope to live to see corporations and corporate media face trial for the genocide they have perpetuated, in order to whore for a spoiled, effete, corrupt social class of lying backstabbers... jay "thirdway" currie, wealoth BARELY makes a difference yeah, right I welcome your comments, providing they are not overly pusillanomous, like those of watered-down -house -your intellectual and moral superior, louis the swift...

The comment about arguments breaking down into name calling or similar is a hint if what actually occurs, with a far more insidious and deadly venom via the "private" educational route: Such educational environments are rife with judgements masked by the nasty coating of finely honed (judgemental) politesse and verbally deft superior postures. If you "fit" and cowtow to the status dynamics - all's dandy (well.. survivable). The nasty venom isn't "said" out in the general public (well, not until you buy a newspaper) - but the assumptions and implicit judgements are there - of what "success" means, what poverty and wealth may be representations of, and so forth.

I wonder how many would expect to hear the idea that poverty is a manufactured thing - and that personal greed and judgement of others might be fundamental it - in a private school? When ones reads "cuthroat competition" at a particular school, or within a system, what ideas might underpin the framework - what are the core beliefs being imparted? Whom do they serve? What is the power structure - and the nature of status, reward and punishment. And who's "there" and why - on what account.

In such environments, "the powers that be" make it known in no uncertain terms what proper (and who decides that?), via the mechanisms of direct speech, body language, clothing, the very physical designs and appointments of such places, and the effective marshall of the school's history and ceremonial traditions. The cohorts at such places know exactly what ideas rule. Students may "debate", even joining "debating teams" - but the substance, style and execution of such practices is congruent within the heirchical codes and assumptions - the schools' school of thought to the letter, while within those walls.

Well. good points, kit, well made, I may be disruptive, but it is not only the assumptions, that get to me, The tyee has just finished off a 4 part series, on the destruction, the grief, the deaths, caused by the bc liberal's stunningly callous attack on the poor, to pay for the taxcuts that were "going to enhance social programs, while campbell DENIED in an interview with the georgia straight IMMEDIATELY before the election, that there would be any cuts to social services, he was also warned BY ECONOMISTS OF SEVERAL STRIPES the cuts would not pay for themselves, eight months later he began assaulting the poor and the disabled of bc with cuts and clawbACKS THAT ARE WELL DOCUMENTED TO HAVE CAUSED SUICIDES, AND MANY, MANY RUINED LIVES SAYING, "We have to end the culture of entitlement, YET WHAT A CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT WE SEE IN POSTS ABOVE, not only are the poor and the working poor, the disabled and countless other groups to be assaulted, but our taxes, and user fees, sales tax hikes, etc, etc, ARE taxes, and those taxes we pay, are to go partly to SUBSIDIZE PRIVATE ELITEST EDUCATION FOR THOSE WHO LEAST NEED A SUBSIDY by a government that broke pretty much every promise it ever made, who is giving away as a gift the common good, resources that kept everybody's taxes lower, to its friends and owners, NOW THERE'S A REAL CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT, we are tired of being assaulted to pay for YOUR REEKING SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT, get it?

Thanks to Jay Currie for looking into the correlation between math results and Asian sur-names. And for his semi-official welcome to the Tyee site. Now that I am here, may I make what might be an unwelcome observation. Gordon Campbell has slight interest in how working class kids are faring in the public education system. After all, many of his most ardent supporters and contributors send their kids to private schools. However, many in the NDP have scarcely greater interest in getting behind George Bluman's deceptive student achievement data, insofar as this would raise questions--among others--about the job teachers are doing. Public education is supposed to be the great leveller, but most of what we hear from teachers and their apologists are excuses for, and cover-ups of the shameful results of non-Asian kids in the public school system--both in terms of high school graduation rates and university participation. The dirty little secret of education debates in British Columbia is that the working class the NDP has primarily come to represent are the classroom workers.

I'm adding my voice to the polite complaints about ranters -- Lewis Swift, your post got ignored. Didn't even read it. Too many capital letters, which are a clear sign "I'm OUT Of CONTROL!" I am a teacher, and I attended public and private schools in this province. I have some minor academic qualifications, as well, in this field. Look: private schools don't exactly "get funded" -- as a general rule, they get 35% of the "cost per pupil". That means, in essence, that the public school that student would have attended gets two-thirds of the money anyhow, for nothing. And another thing: there's a huge open secret in this province -- the extremely specific math-skill disparity between Asian and European students. Yes, Asian students blow through the roof of math exams. Great. That's a handy skill. But to say that a school is the best because its top brainiacs outscored another school's top brainiacs is, perhaps, dishonest. This math focus is actually a concern in most honest schools: for example, it is linked with a massive tendency to sign up for Social Studies and English at summer school (a well-known standards loophole) so as to spend more time in math courses during the year . And universities turn out to be well-supplied with Asian math brainiacs who can't write a paragraph, as it turns out. Union politics has a great deal to do with the weaknesses of the public education system. The BCTF is a hugely adversarial union... and it perhaps a good reason to be so. But there's a lot of bad, bitter teachers being protected and retained, and a lot of idealistic young teachers (you don't go into teaching for the money, folks) being rapidly soured and embittered. And ok, my final point. Please give the "social elitism" stuff a rest. It's in the culture -- go to Magee or West Van Secondary for the same stuff. Culture is not controlled by the schools (not in that sense) but by the parents in the community. Thanks for reading my points. Please remember that (like most teachers) I came into this profession full of idealism, and the desire to do good. I am, after a decade, trying to stay that way.

First off, this attempt to direct an attack against "classroom workers" is actually exceptionally transparent in its motivation; to play everyone else off against teachers. Frankly, it is a tactic which many of us in the working class are familiar with, wherever we work. So let's get that blown out of our "class" asses right off the top. (And there is again, a thinly veiled attempt to play the "race card": anxious to please Asian students, played off against less anxious whites, and entirely likely different "cultural traditions" vis a vis "authority", as well as possibly a perceived "home turf" familiarity, and mayhaps some lesser willingness to kowtow because of that. Indeed, there are a whole lot of possible complexities here that go beyond simply the classroom. But mostly what it is, is an old 78 elitist record, titled "Divide and Rule", well worn and scratched from frequent use on the old "Class War" grammophone, and used from even before the time of the earliest arrivals from Asia. Indeed, it's been around as long as "class" societies have, one could safely assume.)

As well is this attempt of Norman to create a purely Fraser Pimpsitute/Liberal versus NDP dichotomy of little real interest or relevance here, certainly to me and many others. So blow that out you ass as well, Norm.

You keep your head buried in the data minutia pile of Neocon education policy and the hyperbole Asian/White divide. Your ass stuck up in the air like that only amuses us and poses an interesting target. For while you are doing that, and attempting to get us to stick our heads in that great paper pile along with you, we are looking at a much bigger picture of what is happening here in the greater political and economic world around us. And what we see, we do not like.

What we see in education, as in health care, and in the "tax breaks" to the wealthy, privatizing, social and union contract breaking, deunionization, Working Forest, raw log shipping, and licking America's boots economy" unfolding before our eyes, and impacting so negatively in our lives, is a dramatic re-creation, strengthening, and re-establishment of a very old pre- 1930s form of capitalism in our society. The very worst of the "ruling class" excesses from which we and our parents had thought we had moved on, in the post war period of prosperity, have and are suddenly returning. And its "Spector" is here again in this province's classrooms, in the form of a very old reality we had also thought to have moved beyond, in the form of this bloody "private" versus "public" school debate, and a renewed attempt to strengthen and expand a "class" based two-tier education system. The likes of which is evolving in health care as well.

Now, I for one, have no illusions about the fruitfullness or use of any discussion about all this with the likes of yourself, the Neocon Liberals, or their supporters here. I am not going to convince you, and you are sure as hell not going to convince me, here along the great emerging "class divide". The issues are not really statistics, policy or even funds availability per se, but competing "class" interests and priorities. And that's a factual awareness of which many of us are only late coming to. But what is clear by now, is that we are really going to need to settle this by quite other means, unfortunately.

And for that, we are going to have to see which side can muster what forces, over the coming months and possibly, even years.

"I wonder how many would expect to hear the idea that poverty is a manufactured thing - and that personal greed and judgement of others might be fundamental it..." wrote Kit.

Amen, brother. And here, in this late crew, are the champions of personal greed and judgement; the "ideological" troops of which Lynn Smyth spoke.

Alas, they are Paper Tigers. :-)

I would think that if there is any dirty little secret cover-up here it is with the attempt to cover stats, reports and information on the private school system. We all know how easy (sure) it is to get information under a foi request, especially if it's something this government doesn't want you to know or if you are on their "enemies" list. The private sector loves to erect fences around itself to protect it's own interests, but it's right out front to accept public funding and when it fails, out it peeks again for compensation from the public.

If there is more teacher support of the NDP now it is because a lot of them last time voted for Campbell's liberals and found out not only as you say that "Campbell has slight interest how working class kids are faring in the public education school system" but also that he has slight interest in the public education system in itself.

Well, Norm, here's an official welcome. Let me say that I'll really miss you and Moe on the telly-too bad:but I ranted here, at the Tyee already about that. So, for what it's worth (Something's happening here,; What it is isn't ........ song fades out..) As a newcomer to the education system (graduated in '67-started teaching in '97-so there was a period of 30 years when I was a Real Person), I am still shocked at how hard teachers have to work. The job itself, just in the classroom, is emotionally exhausting; but that's only the start;there's being a "role-model" -in and out of the school- there's dealing with parent's-good and bad and, all this must be done (on pain of dismissal)under the burden of political correctness.Whew!Most of the staff whon I work with are younger than me but,have been teaching at least 7 years,or more,longer than me-they are too young to remember schools in the '60s. I remember. You didn't talk back. You repected-with out being told (or worse; explained to)-your parents,and weren't embarassed to show it-and if you did 'rebell' or dissagree you were taken seriously by all concerned-not paid lip-service. What? Too secular a society? Drugs-not just by students but their parents? Evil Yankee culture? Too may egg-heads running the system-or not enough egg-heads? If you dropped out in the '60s to mid '70s you could get a good paying semi-skillrd job anf become a contributing citizen. Now, with about 15% of grads going on to post-secondary schooling-and only about 1/2 of those finish. -and there are no well paying jobs for non-grads anymore.So at a time when school has never been so important-it's been saddled with more responsibility, accoutability but less authority and respect. The 'elitist' air that some teachers have (and lets face it;most teachers come from at least middle-class or upper-middle-class backgrounds) combined with real dedication (for some , really, a calling)gives a needed distance from the problems and that is what gets results-back to the individual teacher-private or public. Oh, the rest of the 85%? Some find their way by going back to technical or trade school, some get help, or luck-out-then there's the 1/3 of that non-grad bunch thatbecause they have just never "got it" -and these are from every social strata are going to be trouble-makers (or politicians) It seems the system needs respect-and it'll trickle down-but it starts at the top by the political masters.

Dear gwall. Very nice letter! Keep up the good work.

typing, C+

spelling C-

composition B- (watch your punctuation and spacing, use paragraph breaks)

research A-, (the middle class can hardly be 'elite' now, can it?)

overall grade B- Don't forget to proofread!

"research A-, (the middle class can hardly be 'elite' now, can it?)" scored a Mrs. Grady, on what must be a real apple polisher of a student.

I mean, this guy, at this level, who can't even get his classes straight, is not only a teacher's suck, but a clear failure-, in my neighbourhood.

The middle class, all of it, is actually the upper strata of the working class, any goof knows that-, only being the working "professional/managerial" element of it, at least the "upper" strata part, they tend to have "illusions" about themselves, because of their importance to the ruling class, with whom they tend to be "wannabe" identifiers as a result. (Some, really well positioned, even do manage to get "brought" into the firm, and share in the wealth-, to ensure their loyalty.)

Teachers? My God! The reality of most of their lives is, they scarcely have a toe hold on the middle class at all, and are, in fact, closer to the main body of the working class, from which most have made only a recent "escapement"-, and just barely at that.

Though some of them, like our Mr. Gwall, do still tend to have illusions. I almost wrote, "pretentions". :-)

Hell! I've got almost no "education" at all, and I can do better than this git. But then, I was placed so that I had to "know", which class I belong to-, no ifs, ands or buts.

Let me add my welcome. I guess you must be missing a good debate, you seemed to enjoy that so much at your recently deleted VI. I sure enjoyed listening to it. Hardly anybody does real arguments anymore, and does them respectfully. I'll miss that.

However. (There had to be a however) I think you may have missed how far to the center the NDP has shifted in response to the far right swing of the Liberals and the disgrace of the Socreds. You have surely noticed how ticked the union movement have been at them. Quite ticked and quite often, too.

These days, the NDP can only be considered socialist in comparison to the bizarrely self interested right wing excesses of the party that used to call itself the center. Hell,look at them fairly, and they're hardly more Social Democrat than the Liberal party used to be, before.

It's not very fair to keep characterising them as they were fifteen or twenty years ago. Or characterising the Libs as they were before their sharp right turn either.

Ah, the spectre of norman, and debates about the (social)class room, well, norm, I will congratulate on being only 95% a prostitute, a vastly higher standard of ethics than most right wing pundits, as you did at least occasionally criticize gordon liar, and pointed out more than once (even if for partisan reasons) that paul martin was the first canadian prime minister ever to overthrow an elected government, I must also congratulate you for getting pia shandel out of your life, a reward and relief in almost anyone's world....that said, I found your predictions of a stephen harper majority government somewhat less thab accurate, your support of dudya, redolent with the partisan and your unending determination to ignore the fact that union wages build communities and lives while massive taxcuts simply go to die in the trust funds of the rich, simply -indefensible, and even somewhat pathetic, hope you're enjoying the wisdom of the marketplace re your new unemployed status at island vi, we're all going to be glued to those repeats of "Cops," I'm sure....MR. IGNORE EVERY VOICE YOU LACK COHONES TO RESPOND TO, or simply lack the heuvos and panache to encounter, YOU remind me of every bad and selfish teacher I've ever known or heard of....do you have a teacher's pet in your classes, you know a student, you fawn on, probably bright and successful, while you ignore students, much, more needy, and maybe just as bright, but not a part of your mutual admiration society, maybe even some native students, who you abuse and condescend to? I could be wrong, of course, but there is something so know-it-all and condescending about your post, I can't help feeling this is indeed, the case...too bad you don't read my posts, and thus, won't be able to respond to this charge, oh well, hide,....and, finally, norm, demonizing teachers is the oldest right wing trick in the book, and has, as I said, resulted in countless american jurisdictions, where teachers are paid and treated like dogcatchers, and where students can't even locate america on a map, let alone Iraq, you know, the country whose men, women, and children you are so pantingly eager to see slaughtered, so that dick cheney can implement the latest free market inovation, invading a country, then looting its economy, well norm, I imagine you're going hide behind your celebrity and avoid anything but a glancing referral to my comments, and all the excellent rebuttals of all the arguments you have presented, by both myself and other posters, ah, for a worthy opponent!!

Has anyone heard of a Section 12 of the education act? In BC, parents can register or even enrol their children with the school district and declare a Section 12, under which these schoolchildren are neither obliged to follow the public school curricula, nor is the Ministry obligated to have anything more to do with them. Whatsoever. Homeschools and 'correspondence' schools are only two of some nine or ten options available to parents and children for their education.

No, the Ministry does not track private schools. It does not have to. Private schools are not under their jurisdiction. Private schools can teach whatever they want. More and more universities are expanding their admissions policies to the evaluation of different criteria than merely diplomas, grades and academic awards. It begs the question of whether the traditional education is more of a hindrance than an asset to young people.

Many people succeed without a traditional education. Of course, they are heterodoxical and driven towards fulfillment in ways that a traditional education (and most private schools fall into this category) seems to crush. Most people I know have described their schooling as 'soul-crushing'. Why is that? Why would parents want to subject their children to that? I think there are complexities to this issue that are being overlooked. If you could have had choice over the type of schooling you received, what would you have changed? Why wouldn't parents want that freedom for their own children?

Quite a bit of the discussion here covers the traditional high school through college or university route. I'm surprised at how many people here seem oblivious to the huge numbers of students taking alternative paths through the private sector. Especially through what are currently known as PPSEC approved schools.Typically these schools will charge several thousand dollars ($15,000 is NOT at all unusual) per student and offer 1 year programs. They're generally filled with either young people a few years out of high school and who can't afford to attend a four year program, or immigrants, or middle aged souls who've found themselves displaced from their jobs. The PPSEC school "industry" is VERY big business and very rapidly being assimilated by our neighbours to the south. In the last two years, many have been purchased by American companies. Dubrelle cooking school for instance, is now owned by the Art Institute - out of Pittburgh. The Art Institute recently spent millions of dollars buying Dubrelles and CDIS. Why do you suppose they've done that? Could it be because they know that the provincial government will soon be making arrangements for them? Is this where all those much promised post secondary seats are going to be opening up? How many here (or in the general populace for that matter) are aware of the deep (and VERY quiet) changes taking place at the Ministry of Advanced Education? Putting what are now "PPSEC" approved schools on equal footing as traditional colleges would (and will be) be a disaster. Again : It will be a disaster. I can state from significant personal experience that PPSEC schools are cesspools of unethical behaviour, rife with dubious labour practices, and work on purely profit driven academic standards. (As in, "if the check clears - they pass"). PPSEC schools are an absolute horror show. And no one seems to be watching. PPSEC has (had?) more or less become a government bag man that showed up with some "logo specifications" and then trotted back to their offices with a brown paper bag filled with the take money. Why aren't we paying more attention to these "schools"? Where's the Fraser Institutes report on them? Oh, right.. that's confidential corporate shit. Truly, what goes on in the private post secondary industry is an outrage. Consider that the Chinese Embassy warned students several months ago about coming to Vancouver to study ESL at many of these "schools". Apparently these places have burned all the locals they can, and troll for suckers overseas now. That very public announcement was just the tip of the iceberg ...The lack of attention seems even more grotesque when you consider how many of the loans these students are taking out that end up being paid by - the government - ie: you and me. Beyond the Georgia Straights minor page length examination of the issue some months ago, (I'll admit they bravely took a shot at exposing it, even though they are the MAJOR beneficiary of the advertising dollars for many of them) you NEVER hear the local media examining whats going on at these schools. Ignoring the effect these places of learning have had, and I gurantee you - will have, is not wise. Full disclosure (and a bit of axe grinding) : As of this month, I have been waiting over a year to receive several thousand dollars in wages that I and several other employees of a folded PPSEC school "bounced" on us. If I had written as many bounced cheques as these fucking assholes corporate officers, they'd call it fraud and I'd be doing time served. Different rules apparently...I wonder what would happen if Douglas College had pulled a stunt like that... Anyway, I and over a dozen other people await their Employment Standards tribunal awarded sums while at least one of the former directors pays her their lawyer (who's earned a few grand by now...) to weasel out of ponying up. It's maddening. It's sick. It's typical. Hey, at least I don't have a *loo* with a leak I need to *seal*. I'm just looking for my *pay*, you *see*? And my phonetic adding machine still works too. Does yours?heh.

One of the better arguments against two-tier health care (it must be, since I use it myself in reply to well-off, middle-aged letter writers who've been waiting in pain for a hip-replacement), is that if the influential have an alternative, they'll cease to care about fixing the public system, and we'll go the way of Britain's NHS (until recently). That's pretty much where things stand with public education in BC. The left can engage in denial, such as the statistical obfuscation reported by Ms Ince, or it can fix its proudest achievements. The shameful performance of the education system affects the life chances of working class kids, not the elite. ICBC, one of Dave Barrett's proudest achievements, has survived since 1975 because it has a good product and gives British Columbians good service at a good price. It's too early to say whether health care will go the way of ICBC or of public education. Much will depend on whose interests the left champions--patients and students, or those who work in the system, as is often the case.

Sorry Norman but your pooper is almost full. Barrett wasn't the architect behind ICBC, Bob Williams was.

Norm, wake up and smell the coffee: the privatization of education under the bc liars has been a grotesque farce, especially for the hundreds of innocent victims in bc, who have been forced into campbells latest fraser porkstitute innovation ie, a two tier education system in bc: the private tier he's destroying for everyone but the rich, by allowing tuition rates to triple, and the public one he's ramming down the throats of everyone but the rich....PPS there was an excellent article in monday magazine out of victoria, about a year before monday lost all its nerve. The article concerned the incredible abuse of bc students, by sprott college in victoria, campbell forced both young people and disabled people off social assistance and into canada student loans, during the terrible economic hardtimes after september 11 and the softwood crisis, so they could blow their ONE chance at education on the almost entirely bogus courses created by one group of his friends and owners, the private education sector...most, the great majority of these courses are staffed by under qualified, barely qualified, or sometimes relatives who read the material the night before, well not quite, but, ALMOST...almost no course has anything but a dubious case going for it that it leads to employment, SO, if an opportunity comes up for real training, 90% or more of this VULNERABLE group abused by campbell, for the benefit of his friends, will be both ineligible for student loans, as well as heavily in debt...as if to rub salt into the wound, shirley bond, who seems to have trouble stringing more than a few sentences together, and who DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A BA, but who's been workin' on one for how long now, shirly? no, don't tell me, I don't wanna know....so here we have a pattern absolutely IDENTICAL TO EVERY UNDERTAKING GORDON CAMPBELL HAS ENTERED INTO: DESTROYED CHANCES FOR EMPLOYMENT FOR A PONZI SCHEME BENEFITTING ONLY HIS FRIENDS AND OWNERS -WHY THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF PRIVATIZATION ALL TOGETHER, doesn't it norm, and the right can swim as far up that longest river in the world it likes, the river denial....score: lewis swift 1200 points, norm spector 55 points oh, and buy the way there have already been numerous lawsuits by students in both victoria and the lower mainland, and here's another bit of bc liberal corruption, the entire industry appoints its own investigators, just like the vancouver police, and just like that "investigatory" group, look far a blizzard in hell, before they'll ever find themselves guilty of anything....I'll put you down as undecided norm....don't you EVER long for honest work?

Sorry Norman, the sad reality is that the elite, with a few exceptions, have already given up on this province and it's people. I blame idiots like yourself who are constantly running down everything imaginable and a constant whine regarding who owns the tax revenues. It is not your money after you send it in as taxes anymore than it is still your money after you buy a Nike product. I noticed that Gordo just ordered three ferrys for 500 million dollars. I was led to believe from people like yourself that that price tag was way too high. And I'm sure that industry will just want to flock here once our broken down public school system starts spinning out dropouts instead of graduates. Not!

Even Gordo has given up on BC. All our infrastucture has been sold to people and companies who are from outside the province. Our inquirys are run by politicians from Manitoba. The Ferry contract went to Europe. The Libs have no confidence in any British Columbian except a few insiders who call the province home.

I think that there is validity behind the concern that the government won't fix the problems with the education system if too many people opt out of it. But since public education is the only one under the government's jurisdiction, the pressure is still on. If you opt out, you have absolutely no recourse if your child ends up being shortchanged.

A single type of education does not suit all children, and I support the idea that individuals should have the right to choose what works for them -- especially in some of the far-flung rural areas. At least one set of parents I know homeschool their children because the girls would have no time for the 5 hour drive to music lessons, orchestra practice, workshops, and auditions otherwise. There are limits to an enforced egalitarianism. Still, as we see from the article, parents have to think very hard about opting out because their children could well receive an inferior education.

An interesting post by PPSick about some of the really serious problems with the privatized education system, not to be confused with the elite "private" schools-, but the "lower echalon" ones into which working class folks looking for "quick" education fixes get sucked, like Sprott and others. And always, amidst his capitalized rants :-), Lewis does get in many a good lick. And Eddy Haskel, with his spot on observation that Gordo and his NeoCon Liberal's have "in fact" given up on this province and its people.

Part of the problem this country has always had, is a ruling class which tends to perceive and throw in its lot with whatever prevailing "colonial" power prevails in any given period-, and as a consequence has failed to lead the "rounded out" industrialization of this country into any meaningful degree of self-dependancy. The current one with whom they have delivered us up into this neo-colonial and "servile relationship", of course, is Imperial U.S.A. We went right from the smothering arms of the collapsing British Empire, to now a smothering adjunct of the U.S. Empire, into which we have been plugged, again, as suppliers of wood and drawers of water-, and which has not only skewed our economic development, but is seriously drawing down our underlying resource base. All of which has as well skewed many of our education and other priorities and options as well, as a side note.

Though on this whole issue of education, per se, it really has to be said that, very often, it receives a disproprtional amount of importance anyway, though I do understand the "perception" of its importance of that piece of paper and the "hoped for" by increasingly not delivered life style choices it will bring. Test scores are not really a test of IQ, other than very narrowly defined-, and one of the proofs of that was made public in the media just recently. Some 70% of major companies are not headed by MBA graduates, but non-titled CEOs. (I think I have that figure accurate from recent memory.) Real intelligence and rounded out development requires more than know how or wanting to play the "Test Score" game.

So we should be wary of letting Norm or his coat carriers here, blow to much smoke up our arses around this subject.

Which is NOT an argument for doing away with the education system, but getting it in a more real perspective. It's just that for some folks, unfortunately, it becomes like an article of religious faith. And to the harm, again, of ordinary working folks.

Now, I have a meeting to go to. Ta, ta.

It turned out to be just a very quick meet.

On re-read of my too hurried post above, which I didn't adequately proof read, and for which I get a failing grade, I apologize for the many spelling and grammatical errors. Which, unfortunately, destroy much of the sense of it.

Now that's definitely a largesse load of poop!

What a lot of nice arguments all in a bunch here, I can hardly choose which to comment on first, I just love it when people actually converse.

First Spectre's idea that the elite will abandon us if we let go of the reins is definately not poop. They clearly do think like that, pathological as it seems to those who think people in society rely on each other and owe a duty to the others in our communities. The difficulty with it is that the elite DO have alternatives, always have.The only interest they have in fixing these structures, whether in education or health is financial. i.e., what's in it for us?

ppsick is right in his assessment that private education aimed at the dispossessed is nothing but a false hope, and lewis is right that it's purpose is exploitative. These people do get only the one chance, and when the provincial authorities and the private education providers conspire like that to steal it for petty gains, whether political or financial (if there's a difference anymore) leaves one groping for new ways to say cynical betrayal of trust.

Coyote seems to be saying that until we get a "ruling class" that belongs to British Columbia and feels some loyalty to it above their loyalty to their own personal interests, and can be held accountable somehow improvements will not happen.

You know, as attached as we all are to our own ways of expressing our ideas, I don't think we disagree here at all. Or not much. Norm, lewis, Coyote, I think you guys are all pretty much agreeing with each other! Don't that just beat all?

"These days, the NDP can only be considered socialist in comparison to the bizarrely self "interested right wing excesses of the party that used to call itself the center. Hell,look at them fairly, and they're hardly more Social Democrat than the Liberal party used to be, before." wrote Bailey.

I have a sometimes on again, off again take on Bailey's analyses very often, but here he actually nails it pretty damned good.

World wide pretty much, most recently in Germany, but starting with New Labour Tony, social democracy has taken a large shift to the right, in an effort to capture the centre being abandoned by the more specifically liberal "capitalist" parties generally. And while I tend to vote NDP, for want of anything more definitively left-, in the "strategic" voting environment of prevailing and "would be" democracy in this country, I have no illusions about the internal pressures, especially from the "parlimentary career set" and leadership within the NDP, about its real characterization. Which Bailey has about in a line with my read.

Which is why, in my understanding of what is needed, in terms of the further political development in this country, and available choices for certainly the working class, there is a rapidly emerging need, not only for "proportional representation", which the Greens courageously most recently raised onto the agenda, but a more seriously dedicated "Left" political and ideological "coming together". Without it, the unchallenged pull to the right will continue, almost certainly, eventually taking on a more openly "fascistic" character that seethes just beneath the surface, of especially the new Conservatives, and Reform/Social Credit where it still survives.

If private schools take 35% funding per student from the public purse, then I'm with Erika Shaker on this, that tracking of the private school system should be required. The reason I say this is thus:( and I believe there are a lot of alternative routes to a true education). Private- public ventures often leave the public sector in a limping vulnerable state. After the private venture takes our tax dollar for it's own interests it proclaims independence and suddenly it is off limits to questioning. A good example of this is the new assisted living "businesses" where monitoring or accountibility is negligible. However, politicians like Mr. Campbell can then come along and manufacture a crisis in the public system by denigrating it, then destroy the system in order to privatize it, never being accountable for what he is replacing it with because the tracking of the private system is labelled off limits. It is a rare reporter these days that tries to compare the two systems,( which system really was better) and if they attempt to, as this report on schools does, the information is just not forthcoming from the private sector as it hides behind a so-called veil of independence.

As to Norman Spector's advice that the left should champion the rights of patients and students over the workers in the system. Why is it an either/ or situation? Class size, funding cuts, tuition hikes are all about students. The number of RN's employed in an intensive care unit is very important if you or a family member are a patient there. So are funding cuts. Sorry but I don't want a tired over-worked lab assistant reading my lab results. Again, the right tries to compartmentalize workers, setting teachers as workers up against parents and students, nurses against patients, but students and patients are workers as well and the rights and issues involving the workplace are part of a chain, where all links are integral and part of a whole, and whose strength is determined by that crucial insight.

"Why is it an either/ or situation? Class size, funding cuts, tuition hikes are all about students. The number of RN's employed in an intensive care unit is very important if you or a family member are a patient there. So are funding cuts." writes Lynn, in a piece that tells me she certainly sees through Norman's pretentious "above it all", attempt to put an acceptable mask over his actual right wing views, which still show through his eyes and "shape shifter" style. In the end, for all the shape shifting of his words, it all becomes apparent in the "solutions" he advances, and the way always, always he attempts to play groups of people, especially ordinary workers and citizens, off against each other.

An excellent piece Lynn.

"Coyote seems to be saying that until we get a "ruling class" that belongs to British Columbia and feels some loyalty to it above their loyalty to their own personal interests, and can be held accountable somehow improvements will not happen." writes Bailey.

Now, if you get that from what I wrote, I was in a bigger hurry than even I thought I was, and messed up even more big time. Though nice try, Bailey. :-)

First, I think we are in fact, and hopefully, in my view, approaching a time, like the Barons who compelled the King to agree to "limitations" on his power by signing The Magna Carta, that we can begin to curb the power of the Kings of Capitalism, and expand a model of popular "participatory democracy" into the economy, especially the public and private corporate sectors. Over time, doubtless beyond my lifetime, I would hope to see that evolve into the eventual "withering away" of the prevailing ruling class, much as the old aristocracies of Europe have since the English Civil War and the collapse of the old monarchist ruling system in those countries.

But that aside for the moment, and looking at the particular development of capitalism within "this country", what I say is, a big factor in what has shaped and "skewed" the character and form of "the capitalist economy" here,has been that we have been saddled with a particularly "servile" and "short-sighted" ruling class. Period. And why I say that is, in its anxiety and quest for quick profits, rather than completing the full and independant development of "industrial capitalism" in this country, begun with the railroads, it has been historically content to merely share and participate in whatever prevailing colonial power was dominant at a given time; first the British Empire and, of late, the U.S. Empire.

Flowing from that essentially chickenshit character of Canada's ruling economic elites, has been the consequence of "incomplete" industrial development, and an almost "colony" like dependancy on extracting and shipping raw and, as in the case of forest products, only semi-processed natural resources, into "whatever Mother country". Along with that, of course, rather than taking the "entrepreneurial risk" of an independant development model, this "colonial mindset" ruling class of ours has historically chosen, predominantly, to identify its interests with the ownership and control success of, first, British and then U.S. Empire capital, to which it seeks ever to ingratiate itself and take a "junior partner" role. This ruling class history is still dominant with us, apparent through the history of NAFTA, and not that long ago, the alienation of the hydro power potential of the Columbia River to U.S. industry, for but two "recent history" examples.

The consequence of this for the Canadian people, and its working class, has been to arrive where we are at, drawing down our resource base, diminished secondary manufacturing opportunities for university, trades and job trained labour and professional workers, dependancy on higher value added "finished products" from the U.S. particularly, which to pay for, require ever increasing volumes again, of our raw resource base. All of which, impacts downward and upward through the economy, education institutions and the culture generally.

That all said... And I should begin to draw it to a close here. ...there is really no going back in time for the Canadian ruling class, to fix its historical fuckups-, not at this Neocon juncture in history. Nor does it display any inclination to do so. If the problems of "incomplete" and "semi-colonial" development we have been left by our ruling class are going to be fixed now, I suggest, it is likely going to have to be taken up by other class forces, and likely, especially the working class.

Garry Bannerman interviewed Mr. Brown, Headmaster of St. George's on his program (a few year's back for you who do not remember Bannerman). A listener asked Mr. Brown why their students did so poorly on Provincial tests and Public students did so well? His answer went something like this. St. George's educates the future business leaders of the community who will provide the jobs for the top students from the Public School system. I wonder what Jimmy Patterson who went to John Oliver Highschool would say about that comment. After his retirement from St. George's Mr. Brown went on to start his own school on the North Shore. Mr. Fred Herbst is of the same ilk in his shilling (which is his right)for private schools. Every public dollars spent on private schools is a dollar lost from the public school system. Every student lost to the public system is a social loss as well. The 'creaming' of students by private schools, French Immersion and other programs makes public school socially poorer for the loss of these children. The cheque writing ability of the Creme-de-la-creme, off shore wealthy, and the snob element really do the education system a disservice. They feel their dollar should be matched by the government, something parents in the public schools can never meet. In a another interview on a Calgary station a father stated quite plainly that he wrote the cheque to the private school to make sure his daughter met the right sort of people to ensure her place in Calgary society and to keep her away from the riff-raff in the public schools. What is so hard to swallow is the political shift by ALL our present governments to manage the school system for the benefit of society as a whole to toadying up to the well-to-do elites. What is so hypocritical about private school funding is the big push started when the immigration policy of the Federal Liberals opened the doors to massive immigration from Asia and then left the provinces to pick up the bill for ESL. The push for Private Schools and public funding started the same time as the public schools were flooded with non-English speaking immigrants. (Please note that wealthy well educated English speaking students had no problem obtaining a seat in the Private Schools.)

Absolutely outstanding post, Burgess. I couldn't agree more.

I love all the comments here and agree with most of the observations. The elite want a wall to protect the illusion that they are inherently better human beings than the rest of humanity. I think that it's rather pathetic but it is their right to do so , I just wish they would use their own money to do it. What I would like to address though is the purpose of education which I believe has been corrupted by influences like the FI and the neo-liberal ideologies that seem to direct our government decisions. The purpose of an education is to teach a student how to use their brain to observe, to analyse, and then to creatively problem solve. In short the student should be taught how to learn. This has nothing to do with acquired memorization of history or the classics in literature but more with the ability to take history and see the parallels to modern society , and to write their own classics. Students who develop the ability of critical thought do not do so in an atmosphere of stifling conformity , but in an arena where challenges to the status quo are encouraged and independance of thought is celebrated.

ah, yes. you try to get out, but they suck you back in. so first a few notes about my early years as a teacher on the east side. i started as a combination Kindergarten/Music Prep teacher with a travelling cart of instruments I knew very little about inner city issues it was a tumultuous time in my personal life. in retrospect i was not prepared. i remember philosophy and psychology and the scribble stage but not anything about the teacher's role in the community, or collegiality. But maybe you can't teach that in a university classroom, as i often felt some of our profs, long detached from the real world of daily survival in a classroom, seemed to lack conviction and even perspective. We were especially cynical on returning from practica. it's the inner city, there are issues which i need not go into here in specifics. yes, these are real people living on a daily basis with the difficult task of being human, never mind trying to get all this shit done, all the while wondering why, and trying to fit a little fulfilment in. their purpose seemed no different than people on the west side, save for the fact that they had not as many walls, fences and hedges to keep people from hearing about what was going on in their lives, and so seemed to have more problems. really what they had was less privacy, more tolerance. people seemed to look after each other's kids more. most of the families walked to school. they knew the guy at the corner store. the intermediates stayed sometimes for an hour after school playing basketball, in the front primary playground there was a consistent group of moms chatting. Many of these were the same moms who volunteered for all manner of school events. They were there during school hours, rode along on field trips with 23 6-year olds, sewed costumes,etc..... i could go on but it's already long. in brief i felt supported. i was lucky to find myself among a group of enthusiastic teachers and it was they who taught me about collegiality. little did i know i was spoiled. in later years i subbed and found a distinct variation in collegiality and cordiality in schools. you can tell pretty much from the way you are received in the office and if people have their own mugs in the staffroom. and all those people hanging around after school are a pretty sure sign that something good is going on there. so i thank the east side for my first years of teaching. i still see parents and students, they always stop and talk. some of those kindergarten kids are in grade 8 and 9 now. last hallowe'en i ran into a group of my ex-students who were trick or treating together, in grade 6, with all their parents and it buoyed my faith that there are intact communities out there and long friendships. of the diverse group of parents, i can only think of two who showed up with skateboards, both young, active, environmentally conscious, literate, articulate people. so i think the skateboard comment is more telling this many years later of your opinion of this mode of transportation. as for the drained and depressed part, there were a lot of things going on in my life which had nothing to do with school. as for elite private schools, i can only say that i survived the change and made a few great friends although by grade 11 in such a who knows who world lifelong friendships and allegiances are established, wary of new ideas which represent chaos and a perhaps shuffling of the social order. no regrets, i also learned about myself there

Rather than use free trade as a mechanism to further canadian entrepreneuring, canada's elite have used it as a never ending excuse to sell off canadian corporations to american and other multinational corporations and then sit back and clip coupons, as they continue to regard callous self-interest as somehow being a measure of enlightenment....neoliberalism is a pernicious social disease on the rotting corpus of the body politic. Perhaps, the antibiotic of some kind of socially responsible green hybrid communal capitalism along the lines of the cooperative movement, along with nuremburg style trials for the wealthy for the damage caused by the greed of the effete ruling classes may rejuvenate the rotting corpse that the wealthy are so busy building their mansions upon...ROT makes for a poor foundation -lewis marx swift

In modern western societies, one major role of any business (okay okay.. corporation) is the capturing of its workers labour. It's a ongoing process first demonstrated by the use of machinery (now robots) to replace the high wage industrial sector. Industrial workers a few decades back didn't need high school graduation. A strong back and some rudimentary manual skills sufficed. Those industrial labour jobs are largely gone, due in no small part to our dear friends in the media who regurgitate the economic theories that these tasks are better left to other nations. - typically to those who tow the anti-union line. This process of job loss and "manual labour capturing" by machinery and its "owners" is invariably presented as lamentable but "necessary". To whom and for what purpose remains unsaid, though the inference is usually some nebulous idea of "progress". "Progress" towards what and on who's behalf warrants no closer examination. It's just a given. Coincidentally, at some point in our history, the general public became indoctrinated with the concept that working with ones hands was somehow of less value. "Value" too was never societally defined - simply asserted as being within the realm of economics. That public perception dovetailed nicely with what was transpiring. The "spiel" worked. As an aside, it's funny that this "working with ones hands is bad" doesn't apply to say, a brain surgeon. So our society began earnestly migrating its young to those knowledge based fields, largely in the computing sector. We (yes, you and I) adapted our educational systems to this purely economic based proposition and we continue to maintain and enforce the perception that "high tech" jobs are of greater "value". To whom and for what purpose remains unsaid (again) - or more exactly, "unpromoted." Apparently, "progress" is for everyone that gets "it", but not those who don't. Simply elucidating this absence of public discourse earned those who noted it the label of "leftists" or Luddites or whatever fashionable phrase that served to conjure up the image of those in opposition to someone elses definition of progress. What we failed to notice as a byproduct of this "labour capture" allowance was that these machines could now produce far more, far faster than ever before. Our thinking (!) led to the inescapable fact that we could now produce far more than what we could consume. All those $30,000 cars need people who can afford them. Where on earth to find the next batch of consumers ... The next step becomes corporate acquisition of intellectual skills. So we see things like "knowledge workers" signing over their right to retain the knowledge they develop. In many cases, this signing off process extends to "knowledge work" done on a personal basis. So the process of capturing work has found its newest point of entry in Intellectual and Copyright laws. What was formerly the domain of an individual (their own thoughts) is now routinely sold for an hourly wage or a salary. (on short term contracts of course) Still, the widely held perception is that the "knowledge" or more laughably still, the "high tech" field is where our young 'ins future lies. So we extoll that as the path to whatever form of security or *happiness* we've deluded ourselves into believing is available. We still haven't clued in. Worse yet, we pass these ridiculous delusions onto those who will eventually discover that all our mythologizing on the "value" of education was bullshit. What we thought belonged to our society (an educated, aware, responsible people) was nothing more than mass hallucination induced by one too many dunks in the toilet of "public relations". We believed (in a democracy of all things) that we weren't empowered enough to actually change anything, so we passed that burning resentment, that fear, and those insecurities on and on and on ...until one day Microsft sold us Government 1.0. It too was loaded with bugs. Hey kids - meet the new school - same as the old school. All of this stupidity will end. I don't know whether it will end ugly (my vote) or pretty (LOL) - but it will end. I seriously doubt our society will be marching towards its currently ill defined version of "progress" when oil effectively runs out (becomes too expensive); within the next generation - though more likely before that. That goo that gave us everything we take for granted the last one hundred years is disappearing fast. And unlike our capacity to fool ourselves, oil is finite.While we were busy enjoying our dithering and frolicing across the landscape of ideas contextualized and promulgated by industry and the corporate captains of media, mother nature was getting ready to flip us the bird. We forgot where the "modern world" came from. Not for much longer. I cant wait to see how it will be "spun" in the classroom, or on the nightly news.

It's very interesting to see the layers of this discussion, and how progressively more intimate and more personal (in terms of ones experiences) its become. Humanity seems to enter freely upon the exit of assumed status.

I re-read the Burgess's comment about the headmaster of St. George's, a school I've run by, and paused to view once or twice. I was struck by the feeling of the place - the sense of authority, of traditions in its architecture. I imagined the 'interview' process of the fledgling youths coming with parents, at their squeekiest best. We're so right for this place, you know, we belong, we fit. Think of the look of such a young being at such a moment, and the weight scrutiny.

It kind of makes me sick actually - not the child, but the sickening heirarchical process; the weight of those beliefs met by impressionable (and probably realtively innocent) minds. The desire to impress, to be approved of. And yet, at important levels, some view that world with a very different lens. I'd be curious to know what drove Moe Sahota to pursue a social point of view, having been a graduate of St George's himself (I've read).

Just in case there is a confusion just notice that my first name ends in x. I have enjoyed this discussion lots. Any forum that will include Norman Spector and Steve Burgess is bound to be interesting. We also have education experts like Crawford Killian and educators who have been in the front like my daughter Ale. Now if only those One Trick Rant Ponies(OTRPs) would tone down, just a bit, it would be even more fun. I guess the reason they rant is much like the answer to why dogs.......because they can.

"Humanity seems to enter freely upon the exit of assumed status." wrote Kit.

Too much damned fine commentary here, for me to respond to at any great length, without some time to chew a lot of it over in my mind. I am impressed with Faith's comments, Lewis Marx Swift :-), and fhb's stunning depth. But I especially have to say, that Waterhouse-Hayward, who I'd decided was too far beyond the pale for me to relate to at all, suddenly revealed a human side of himself, and a level of understanding I would have never guessed was there.

This thread is probably about to drop off into the abyss here pretty soon, but in future discussions, I hope we can all continue to evolve in the direction of that place Kit spoke of, that place where "assumed status", and I would say, notions of assumed elitist superiority EXIT. It would be a good thing for us and our discussions, and especially for our mutually shared society.

"...the sickening heirarchical process". God! I have felt that for so bloody long. And I'm not young.

Really, really good thinking and analysis fhb. That part about "manual labour", which I've done most all of my life, and observed the diminishment of its value in late capitalism, was spot on, bro.

Dear Mr. Coyote, I think that the human side of myself that you seem to have suddenly observed might have something to do with you reading my daughter's post. Her name is Ale Waterhouse-Hayward. The American immigration authorities have confirmed my suspicions about my true makeup many times as they say I am an alien.

ugh. That ought to be "Intellectual Copyright", not Intellectual and Copyright... Um... thanks Coyote.... Most of that stuff comes from ideas written elsewhere - Postman (YEY!) and Drucker (asscrack), of all people - so I'm not sure the attributed analysis is strictly speaking, "mine". Appreciate the comment, though. One final note... it's ironic that these varied and marvelous thoughts so carefully mustered and experientially gained will soon float away into the bit-stream of electronic detritus ... the process of "forgetting" part and parcel of the very tools we employ to impart our "wisdom"... "First we make our tools then our tools make us". Kudos to Canadas own *PUBLICLY SCHOOLED* Marshall Mcluhan on his innovative and insightful paraphrasing - and thinking, for that matter. Now I'll take my virtual self and disintegrate into the electronic ether like the rest ...

Excellent post fhb, yes, what DOESN"T get said in the mainstream often goes much more to the heart of the matter (or the lack of heart regarding the things that really DO matter) than what actually gets said, I may have been unneccesarily hard on Alex in this thread, I guess it's the price-waterhouse association, if not connection, it just seems increasingly to those of us "in the lower orders," as some upper class folks used to say, THAT WE HAVE TO SCREAM JUST TO BE AUDIBLE, and I still say a definite sense of entitlement (We have to end this culture of entitlement...) is present in many of the pro public funding of private education posts, norman spector, not nearly as easy to dominate a forum like this as a talk show or newspaper column, is it??

Welcome to the Tyee Asylum Norman. My apologies for the kiyute, he really needs neutering. As for the others they speak for themselves. (apparently Lynn Smith hasn't been laid in decades, which could be a factor). I would also recommend that you don't disturb the little Swift guy, he's prone to hurling maggots without warning. My point was that Barrett was not the "achiever" you think, he was just another social worker with a big mouth who knew how to get under Cecil's skin. Bob William's was the brains of the operation, and ICBC definitely wasn't as good as you think when he was in charge.

I'm not sure whether private schools are better, but I'm pretty sure that public schools could be doing a better job giving working class kids a better education, which is a great leveller in this very unequal world. The research is mixed on the benefits of smaller class sizes. However, there's no doubt that a longer school year would help boost the lamentable high school graduation and universtity entrance rates of non-Asian kids in the BC public system. Contrary to many posters, I think there is a contradiction between the agenda of the BCTF and the needs of students. With limited public resources (note that Carole James says it will not be possible to turn things around quickly), I'd like to see the NDP advocate an 11-month school year (with existing rates of pay). Failing that, it seems to me there is some fertile ground for the Green Party to pursue in the next election campaign.

The people who choose alternative schooling in my rural neck of the woods are not the elite. They are not white-collar professionals. They are predominately farmers or tradespeople. In most cases, their children wouldn't fit well or do well in a public school. Unless we peddle backwards to the one-room schoolhouse in every community, I don't see how a traditional school system is practical for the entire province. Most of the arguments in this comment section seem to deal with high density urban populations where there are very different issues.

And as part of neo liberal planning....we have our province choking public school funding until it cant survive and " can only be saved by private schools " The declining enrollment ? where did those numbers come from ?? ( prob the Fraser Inst ) which means...shaky at best...

I am a bit curious how many of the people who have participated in this discussion actually have children in school right now. Cuts to education always backfire on a society, but I don't think that necessarily means that you keep people from having the opportunity to opt out. Even though my own child is in the public system, I know many children who wouldn't thrive in that environment, and I support alternatives like home-schooling for them. I can't see how you can make public education truly accessible for everyone without destroying the kids who 'follow a different drumbeat.' The one size fits all education doesn't.

And the real Norman Spector does take a stand. Carol James won't help you, he says. The Greens are the entity to find answers, he concludes. As I've said before... the Liberal appologists are looking more and more disshevelled with every post. And as every day passes Gordo gets a better understanding of just how shallow his reservoir of support really is. Rafe Mair once said that the Liberal strategy into the next election will be to split the NDP vote into the Greens but I think the NDP is unified with it's traditional 40 percent of the vote. Be carefull Norman. The Liberal plan to split the vote has backfired on itself and the Greens are positioned well to siphon away support from the Libs. Perhaps if Gordo's paid supporters would just work a little harder and longer for less money some of Gordo's tarnished image might see some new polish. But like that 11 month school year you just proposed, that's not going to happen.

The failure of both private and the public system is the lack of parental support within each school system. Blaming teachers for failure is absurd and one should look at their own contributions before judging. Education should be the responsibility of the whole community; teachers, parents, family, friends, politicians, activists, famous people, ... (i think you get my point). Parents should get involved with their children's school. Help with homework, cooperate with teachers, help teachers by joining field trips and observing class once in while. There is so much material for parents available in public libraries and the Internet on how to properly educate a child. Family can also help in education. For example an Uncle who's got a great skill that he could pass on. Friends can also help to teach things like sharing and socializing. How many movies are there on kids who learned important life skills from friends that had overcome great difficulties like a disease, learning problems, being a refugee, etc. Hanging out with elite won't teach you those things. Politicians can also get involved by creating educational programs and encourage public to participate them. Stars, a.k.a Idols can also play a big role in encouraging critical thinking and sending positive messages of encouragment to the kids. For example, a pop singer talking about different epidemics in Africa. Even mentioning the topic can get a young learner interested and wanting to research the topic. Anyways, this list can go on and on. Therefore I think people should look at themselves before pointing fingers and how they contribute. We find lying corrupt politicians, stars who teach nothing but how to be a good consumer, parents who work all day in front of some computer screen. These are the problems we have to face and not avoid them by signing up for private school and even working longer hours in order to afford tuition. I think a parent spending a few hours participating in their child's education could do much greater than switching schools because in the end, a teacher is just a teacher. There was a time after graduating from University when I worked as a bartender on a Toronto harbour cruise. One night, an elite private school chartered our boat to celebrate their grade 9 prom. One of the teachers told me they're the elite in Canada, the best chosen out of many based on a certain criteria. The first girl entered and asked me if I knew her because she's on TV. I just responded that I don't watch TV and she was all disappointed. I tried to talk to some of the other kids throughout the school, but only got snobbish short answers and weird faces expressing why is this bartender talking to me. Here we are, teaching an elite of snobbish little chumps, who classify me based on my job. Well, good job school, brainwashing these kids all day that they're the elite, the best in the country, and so on. Sorry, that's not an education. I don't remember the school's name but it is administered by the same people that administer Den Haag (not sure about this name either), a musical artistic elite school in North York. Throughout that summer we had many more grade 9 proms and I must say these public school children were much more polite, respectful, and had great experiences to share with me, which I refer to as education.

The Spector of Capitalisms Past has again returned to haunt us, with visions of dividing the unionized working class from other citizen workers, and those outraged with the Neocon Libs cleaved into Greens and NDP -, ever the agent de provocateur, wherever he goes, playing the "sweet-talking" shape shifter.

But, while I don't think any of these dissatisfied folks should feel "particularly" obliged to vote for the NDP, nor that the NDP has any particular "right of claim" to the votes of the left, there is a body of evidence that suggests the Greens are as likely to pull votes from the Neocon Libs. Even here, on other threads, we have West Van residents indicating they had Vote Green signs on their lawns in the recent Fed election. And going out, as it becomes clearer and clearer that the Greens have shifted even further to the right than the NDP, or at least is seeking to share the same "critical" space with its new "above class partisanship" face, the likelihood of them pulling even more votes from disaffected Neocon Liberals, not wanting to vote still perceived "socialist" either, will likely grow even more. (And, I think, folks are slowly "catching on" to what has been happening with both the rightward moving NDP and Greens, though they might not put it in quite those terms.)

I'd go back to the drawing board and review the data pile again, Norman, and wet your arse while its up there in the wind, to see which way it blows, before I proceeded too much further with this "plumping for votes for the Greens" party line. It has the potential to really have an unanticipated effect working against that Neocon Lib lover you keep in the closet there. :-)

Your fawning coat carriers here are obviously impressed with you Norm. The rest of us are onto you, however.

Norman, I wonder how those limited public resources happened? The comment about existing rates of pay is a nice ideological touch as well. How funny that the "lets not give away our public purse" to an already very wealthy strata (via a disproportionate "tax cut")...didn't 'happen' to find its way into your perspective. A "tax cut" is a tax take (as in "on the") - from the stomachs, books and minds of public school students. I'm sure most private school students have a nice breakfast. At least they have that option - and can choose to refuse.

There can never be ethical balance without equal rules - not partial rules for some. We will only ever see the BCTF on side when we first have a clear and fair taxation framework. It isn't there now. About the comment regarding the Greens - the Greens will probably morph into what the "business" community wishes to be - if "business" is represented by any single party and wishes to survive "politically". The Greens business ideas are not the new left, but rather the new coming right of centre.

It is that right of centre constituency, I believe that the Greens will practically draw upon - not the "social left". I get a sense, Norman, that you wish it just sapped the NDP and all things remain same old. There's a lot of misperception at the moment, as to what the greens are. Many many so-called "progressives" don't see the business connection. The next campaign will reveal that plainly, as it will show that the NDP probably has a more comprehensive and compassionate social perspective - though greens will "say" otherwise - by telling you to go to their website. James is not a radical social left leader by any stretch - and she'll need to focus on her business development perspective, and fiscal sensibility, which I beleive she has capacity in spades.

The current entrenched (and politically dysfunctional) corporate ideology appears to be a "my dear fellows, we are entitled (to be above) and should be "thanked" (since we are your "sires and betters" - we create the business money game for all you others to play within. I will argue that that assumption, when held, is a brazen and immoral human violation. It leads to the teeter-totter economic morass we've presently constructed. It's not in any "books" (well maybe in Alex's bother's "good book") - but how many in business (and unions), at an executive level practice vital modesty, vital, because it's a fundamental requirement in not inducing a chain of grab exchanges that inevitably turns fully polar, when unregulated through fair law and fair taxation. Welcome to current BC.

In terms of higher education, this discussion to me is about status. Status dynamics filter into every fibre of communication - and what is education? Higher education, as used, becomes a very tricky turn of phrase. Status is not a thing - but an attitude, a behaviour in moment by moment action - and the issues of it cannot be dodged. It's impacts are all pervacive. It is in the fibre of each and every "educational" social or "business" transaction. Amongst peers - and only peers (and not to mean one's "better than others" club) - there is hope, capacity - and sustainable possibility. In my view, everything else needs fear to operate in a collective setting. We are witnessing that phenomenon right now. For those who may say, "that's life" - I suggest that that belief is one's principal adversary - and not life.

Very interesting article and ensuing discussion. Two points (my apologies if someone else has mentioned them already.) 1) Private schools are not the bastion of the elite. There are many lower and middle-class families who make financial sacrifices to send their children to private schools because they believe in the schools' teaching philosophy, or in some cases, religious focus. 2) As interesting as the numbers compiled by the UBC professor are, their worth is as limited as the numbers provided by the Fraser Institute. The professor's numbers only show results from students in UBC classes. Students' success or failure could depend on a lot of things, including how closely their high school math curriculums followed UBC's math programs, or whether or not their schools offered calculus in high school, preparing them for first-year math in university. Some of the brightest students – possibly from private schools – might have gone to a different university altogether. There's so many ways this data can be interpreted it's hard to tell how seriously we should take it. It's useful, but let's be careful.

REAL Barking Mad Fox: I agree with your thoughts on alternative education - on the remote areas of the coast there are a fair number of children being home-schooled as well because of the logistics of boat travel, as well as a more independent spirit in regards to learning. Faith, above, made some excellent comments on conformity as an obstacle to independent thought. I just think private schools should fund themselves.

Perhaps, public education should open itself to a wider, more diverse approach. Coyote made an excellent point that is transferable to the idea of education about how our approach to developing our economy was to continually take on the prevailing view rather than create a more meaningful, relevant, and new approach of our own making. Education could use a similar overhaul.

Thanks, Coyote, also. You always seem to be able to read to the heart of all our comments.

I disagree completely with Spector on the eleven month school year. There have been lots of studies that support the idea that real creativity and critical thinking comes from having time to play and think. Time to ourselves. We've got both kids and parents so monopolized and regulated by school, work and clubs that it seems almost intentional - that old nine-to five has been continually extended to overtake our lives and has now become a great means of controlling us all.

I have shortened my name to make things less confusing. hey alex: (Donde estas, papi? thank you for turning me on to this discussion.) I like this comment about meaningful, relevant education. So what is that? How do we come to terms with all our differences, give them all value in this canadian society so accepting, nurturing? In my classroom I struggle with this concept of civism, canadian values, what am I to impart to these 6 year olds that is essential information about how canadians see themselves? after a lengthy brainstorm about Canada some of the key points, things these guys love about Canada, included peace,trees, water, not that much noise, not that many bad guys, hockey, and last but not least respect. "we include people". We worked a bit with a program called Virtues, which brings together virtues which are held in high regard in many cultures. The kids really responded to the language. I still see myself during my early, exhaustive years, in new teachers who are trying to get together some lessons and then units and are overwhelmed by curriculum. Over time my obsession with outcomes and objectives has diminished; my focus is the social curriculum. I find if I deal with this, skills and learning will come. My current administrator put it pretty well one day after a hectic week, "The curriculum on any given day is what walks through that door."

In reply to Kit: I opposed the tax cut; it's on the record. I don't recall the BCTF pressing for an 11-month school year when the NDP was in power. Perhaps next time around it will be different. We hear a lot from them about pay and working conditions, such as class size. And very little about the woeful results of the system--particularly how it is failing workingn class, non-Asian kids, and what to do about it. I note, too, that there's been very little in this discussion thread about Ms Ince's article and Professor Bluman's claims. Does this mean that the statistical obfuscations are accepted as fact?

Interesting persectives on meaningful and relevant education. Equally important is the idea of quality time to creatively explore (on the individual students terms), as compared to being 'prepped' to become a "leader" conversant in all aspects of corporate "excellence", ready to manage "human resources". 11 month school year: Why does that really smell of the belief "idle hands are the devils workshop" - the distrust of spontaneity and of human nature. What if our beleifs formed the nature of personal reality that we exepience? What if we engaged this idea in an "eduactional" setting? What quaestions would surface; what would we argue for and why? What is a belief?

A.S. Neil and the Summerhill free school consituents responsed, in a highly unique way to those very questions. Neil didn't lack a view on religious education and held contempt of some of the tyrannies it was responsible for. He had equal sentiments for the "servants of god" and their educational beliefs with regard to what was "good for the child".

That said, Summerhill was a school steeped in the psychological climate of the time, to be sure (this was the fifties), but despite it, Neil went from a full on disciplinarian, to a full on believer in the innate goodness, wisdom and fairness of young people, given a chance to debate as empowered members of their community, and when given power of choice in their becoming.

Empowered debate and choice - not token team debates posing as free expression - is fundamental to esteem, social development, and accountability. Summerhill was indeed also a 'private' boarding school - but to me it appeared to successfully respond as a special needs educational framework.

jeezuz muther...there I was, nicely disappeared into the nether (actually the balcony) with my fruity alcohol laced drink and *still* the finger pointing, "my facts is better than your facts", "I've got a story" stuff continues. All this sound and fury (and cooly rational too) about "what" to do, "how" to do it and still not a sound answer to "WHY" something needs to be done. Enough of the bullshit stats or anecdotes already. What is the purpose of an education? ...or... "Why do people need to be educated?"It's not rhetorical. Honestly. It's the frikkin basis of your argument. Define the purpose of an education. I see a lot of people here simply whipping out the ideological cheat sheets. (stats and quotes mostly) Seriously. WTF does "failing the working class" actually mean? Define "failure"for instance - there's a fine place to start after you've worked out the basic premise. Damn. It's like saying "43" and expecting a pat on the head. Here's a quote for ya'll that oughta help - "What's it all about boy? Elucidate, elucidate." - Foghorn Leghorn.Do us all a favour and show your work - or didn't they teach that in *your* school? Now, bottoms up!

"Education could use a similar overhaul." wrote Lynn. I'm so glad the point was not missed. Reading it afterward, I thought, perhaps the linkage is too obscure. :-)

And your observations on Spector's eleven month school year, an absolutely dreadful concept-, training for the assembly line of adult working life, presumably, I wholeheartedly concur with. Which he seemed to think we would all immediately get on board with as a grand idea, I assume, simply because it was out of the mouth of the great man himself, and reduces "cost pressure" which might impact on the ruling class, and the tax cuts they just gave themselves.

My lower working class suspicion immediately is, that it is rooted in that heirarchical notion, that how you really "educate" people, is to really rub their noses in it, take all the fun out of life and make them suffer-, thus over time securing the appropriate Pavlovian regurgitation of "correct" test answers and high scores. Which because Asian kids are so good at it, is presumably a good thing. Again, I suspect, to "really" turn out obedient cogs in the wheels of "free market" needs and wants. Perhaps the "free market" and Spectorian view of "desired outcomes", but not mine, and I would say anyone concerned that we should have a free thinking and creative citizenry. Part of which is a product of having free time.

Work harder, faster, produce more, take less, do as you are told, let us "manage" things, don't worry about making babies, we'll bring "replacements" in from cheaper, more obedient, better "test score" parts of the world, who genuflect deeper before the alter of the Sacred Free Market, drive bigger cars, consume until you are so obese you burst, and buy, buy, buy. Repeat it often enough, until you believe it, and kick out the right test answers, and all will be well with "their" world. It is. It's a kind of social criminality, harmful to ourselves and the natural world that sustains us.

Norman, I didn't happen to know that you oppoosed the tax cut, but thank you for bringing it to my awareness. Might I ask did you also happen to argue against tax loopholes for upper income earners - that legilsation sahould be reviewed? And the spectacular "profits" (or is it "gouge?")..of banks - did they "earn them"?. I've plainly heard your take on overpaid "union" jobs in the health sector, and others sectors whilst on the show. Please compare, at your conveneince, of course.

Have you opposed offshore ownership of non-tax paying companies like Accenture (formerly Anderson - thanks btw to 'Bailey' for the info). In the quest for "value" to all British Columbians, do you subscribe that we retain our tax base - that the money stays here - and not go to Accenture "shareholders" for instance? Please describe "shareholder". And "real equity". "Work and value". What is equity, and where does it come from, who builds it, what holds it - the actual sources and agencies. At your convenience. This very well might not be the place.

I do know something - "high level" economic chatter, can flatly miss or cleverly sidestep the root meanings of the employed terms - and can be used to knowingly misdirect the focus of the quietly trusting general populace. And those who do that are unconscionably complicit in that violation.

The first one was 20 seconds apart, and now 3 seconds, Coyote. Now cut that out - or I'll have to go and tell the principal on you.

Kit, With respect, I think you're avoiding the question of this forum, which is about education, and the results of the private vs the public system. As you say, this is not the place for the wider debate, though I accept your central point about the need to apportion fairly the costs of government. In the meantime, however, I believe that working class, non-Asian kids are getting shafted in the school system. And that Professor Bluman's statistics are pure BS. Frankly, I was surprised to see the data go unchallenged on this site, which is why I waded in. There's been a lot of rhetoric in the past couple of days--most of it designed to avoid the central issue. In my view, the status quo represents a significant economic loss to society, and a huge moral failure for which we are all responsible. None more so than those who try to cover it up.

Damn! If fhb can have a drink, I'm gonna get me one too. I'm outta here. I just wish I wasn't so hooked on all this politics 'n stuff. It does become a bit of a tail chasing exercise at times.

Largely where we've arrived at on this "education" and the other "big" issues of our time, is where basically two hardened camps have evolved, with some overlap in the cases of some "gentler" souls. When you get to that point, and neither camp is going to give ground, it becomes a "power" issue. You are simply going to have to duke it out. Conflict resolution by "other" means. Most "guys", at least, understand that. Maybe you ladies too? That I'm less certain of.

Yup. That's where "them" and "us" are at. fhb see that too, I think. The question becomes "getting one's shit together" to do it. And that's where we at the bottom of the hill, looking up at the Kings of The Castle, are at; getting our shit together. Always easier said than done, in my experience.

Now, that glass of whiskey. Just one, I promise. :-)

Oh. And a parting view. The outcome of May 2005 is definitely going to impact on it, no doubt, but I really do think it's going to take more than just that, a quiet and friendly "vote", no matter how it goes-, before it get satisfactorily resolved. Not with even James making noises about how difficult it is going to be to undo what's been done, and yet to be done. That does not bode well, I think.

It's going to take warm bodies on the streets; lots and lots of them-, not in a mood to be stopped.

"Plunk!", into the basket.

"Knit one, pearl one."

Norman, I don't purport to have access to the full specific data, in a comparative sense, that you appear to heartily "question" ("bs" as you term it), so I'm disinclined to comment on it in those terms. My perspective is from another vantage point, as ought to be obvious. I also happen to beleive that the perspectives I offer for reflection here are as central to education - more so in my own view - than "math scores" or "success" via public / private systems.

Though your view may be informed by different data, I'd also expect comments swift and full from you as to "what seems" from the article, to be the lack of public data re: the private educational framework. Why all the heel dragging on making all data public, even though public funds go into the so-called private system? FOI to get information on what the public contributes to? Is this not an outrage? Could this not also be an example of "know thine [ideological] opponent and let not ones opponent know thee" - by making all that's challenged in the public system "public" splattered on websites, "Fraser reports" of public schools to point ideological fingers at, and keep critical information about the precious and prized hidden? Any and all credible analysis requires full public access to data - and peer review (not by "apppointees") - nor self-proclaimed "institute tanks" with agenda driven, filtered "reports" - produced by near fundamentalist ideogogues - with agendas as plainly shrill and extreme, as any you or another may "assign" to the BCTF.

Thanks for addressing some of the concerns I mentioned, Lynn. Although I think that providing a publicly funded or subsidized education to the wealthy is an outrage in any society, the 65% opt-out fee which goes directly to public education for a child that we no longer need to teach seems better than some other alternatives I can think of.

Parents who provide an elitist private education for their upper class twits have no idea of the disservice they do their children and how ill-prepared those kids are when they arrive at university without a host of servants. I've seen the results when pampered and spoiled children try to negotiate their laundry, or grocery shopping, or prepare a balanced meal. On the other hand, there are plenty of public schools which draw their students from largely white, upper-middle-class, professional families in suburban neighbourhoods where you won't catch a sniff of panhandlers, the demented, or anyone older than seventy and, frankly, there isn't much difference.

I also really liked Dan's comments about parental involvement, although he lost me at the whole pop idol scenario (hunh??). What Dan doesn't seem to cotton on to, however, is that most families with two working parents are already stretched to the breaking point for spare time and money, and, in today's society, that's getting worse.

The two private schools in the city nearest to me are the Waldorf and the Montessori, and they exist not because their parents want their kids hanging out with rich snobs, but because their whole ethos and approach to education comes from a completely different place than the linear, empirical model used by public schools from the days of Dewey. Nope, most of those kids don't fit into public schools very well. Many of them will probably have a very unorthodox approach to their careers as well. Whereas I can think of a few of them who would probably end up as cannon-fodder for Walmart and McDonalds if they had to go the public route.

Ah, the spectre of norman, the ghost of capitalism's past, (very good, coyote) nearly materialized 2 or3 statements given solidarity by the beandip of actually appearing to take a stance on something besides ndp baaad, neo-conservative, good. Fiisrt of all, subnorman, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PUT IN AN 11 HOUR DAY, NEVER MIND AN 11 MONTH YEAR?? If there is a softer job, a more over enumerated job than right wing pundit, gary feral colon wants it...it's even easier than his job cutting ESL funding which you would no doubt have us believe has had no impact on the education system in bc. In diametrical opposition to right wing courtesans of the ruling class such as yourself, normie, teachers WORK for a living, being among the most overworked and under renumerated members of society. The average teacher attends scool 6 to 8 hours, and spends 2 hours a day in classroom prep, and most often another 2 marking papers' quizzes, etc. Why that's more work than YOU often do in a month, norm... Putting teachers and students on an 11 month schedule is nothing but a recipe for burnout and a massive flood of teachers to the much easier demands of the private sector. I agree with coyote and others: keep pumping up the greens, because all you're going to do is solidify the support of those who won't vote ndp, but who couldn't stomach the stench of voting bc liberal if the entire party was dipped in lysol...I see jean (sybyl) binette is manifesting himself in his jean binette persona again, how's the lawsuit going jean, heh, heh, jesus, so amny personalities, AND ALL OF THEM UNDERDEVELOPED, heh, heh, heh, ho, ho, ho....

Thanks for the support man. I totally understand the social aspect that families are in with two parents working. My point was mostly directed towards the rich or upper-middle class who take their kids out of public school and transfer them to private school because they're unsatisfied with the public system. Obviously, I believe that these parents can afford to have one parent stay home if they can afford the $35,000 tuition mentioned above.

A mini-school system in the Department of National Defence schools Europe at Baden- Sollingen is perhaps an example for the Public vs Private school system argument. The French Immersion program 'creamed off' the brightest, and best of the school children into this program. It left the so-called 'unmotivated' and 'less able children' to the regular stream where a lower student teacher ratio would really have helped. The striking thing about this was the FI program had a student teacher ratio about half the regular English ratio. Thus the 'elite's' children were given the priviledge of fewer classmates, the most funding and the most motivated children. My class had 29 and the equivalent across the playground in the FI class had 18. The argument went something like this for the disparity - The Federal Government paid extra to facilitate this differential because of the Fed's bilingualism policy. Again the elitist element pulls the politcal strings for funding while the rest go begging. An intersting side-bar to this differential is the case of the Chicago Charter School experiment where an inner city school (mostly black with a baseball bat carrying principal) achieved spectacular academic gains and had the "rug" pulled out from under their funding by the wealthy elite taking over the school board and reducing funding to the school while raising the funding to their Private Schools. One of the 'new' board members made the statement something like this "Every inner city kid who achieves a college entrance means one less for our children." It is on record for anyone who cares to do the research. For anyone who cares Alex the name is Al not Steve.

Interesting discussion. After teaching Grade One at the public elementary school on the corner of Hastings and Victoria in the inner-city of Vancouver for the past two years not a lot surprises me anymore. The whole private vs. public school debate comes down to one thing in my opinion: public schools enroll everyone while private schools do not. That we fund private schools in any way disturbs me. They take public money and turn around and use it for advertising and lobbying. It is evident that there are people out there that think there are huge problems with our public education system and that it is the BCTF and the teachers who are to blame. Mr. Spector is one of those. Whenever there is any debate about public education in BC, he quickly shifts things to those evil union bosses in the BCTF and how they could care less about our kids. Oh ya ... they are all a bunch of NDP hacks to boot! If you want rhetoric you only have to look to him to supply it. In the last contract between the government and public school teachers that was actually signed by both, teachers actually gave up on any reasonable salary demands (they got 0-0-2) to get guarantees on class sizes and support for special needs. It was good for teachers and students. Listening to Mr. Spector, one would have to believe that teachers are in it for personal gain to the seclusion of everything else. The BC Liberals have now made it illegal for teachers to negotiate anything regarding the welfare of students. The only appropriate thing teachers should be negotiating, the Liberals argue, is salary and benefits. Not surprisingly, the underfunding of the system is getting worse. Look at teacher ratios in the private and public sector ... the gap gets larger every year. Whether or not more teachers and lower class sizes are actually more effective (the most current research suggests they both are), I think the chances of students being impacted by a meaningful adult are a lot greater. This is something quite necessary in regions with a lot of poverty. Some parting questions for Mr. Spector. If you are concerned about white middle-class children, are you not concerned about First Nations children? If it is the teachers that are at fault why hasn't the government included poverty as an at-risk indicator for all day kindergarten (the BCTF has asked for this for awhile now)? Why do teachers do that make Asian children successful and not non-Asians? Can you provide any reasearch that suggests that a longer school year would be more effective? (If you can, I'd like to know ... My mind is not completely made up on that one).

Your comparison between the Chicago inner city school, which represents a meritocracy losing out to a wealthy autocracy, and your experience on a military base school in Germany, where the motivated and bright meritocracy were rewarded with a more intellectually challenging program of study, are the exact antithesis of each other. Since when is French Immersion elitist? Most countries with public education require proficiency in more than one language. This is exactly what I mean by enforced egalitarianism going too far, when it is used as a means of mandating mediocrity. Wasn't there a satire by Kurt Vonnegut about this?

" Now cut that out - or I'll have to go and tell the principal on you." threatens Kit.

Tattle tail, tattle tail tit-, your tongue will be split. And when the cow begins to pee, you will have a nice cuppa tea.

I had to check out Le Tour de France, while I braced myself with a snifter. That bloody Lance Armstrong is incredible. He always seems to have that little bit extra in reserve for the final climb to the finish.

That's it for a couple days here. I'm doing a long cross-country bike ride with my daughter tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to very much, then I've got a couple days of stuff to do here in my "den", that I've been putting off, while I focussed on here. But I'm finally burnt out a tad, and in need of a short change.

It's been a pleasure folks. I enjoyed the chew the fat, tremendously. And the plan is, to catch you again, like I said, in a couple of days.

"Ale", you say. I always did like a good ale.

Cheers, coyote.

This debate doesn't seem to have touched on an important question: Are public or private schools better for what? If the schools' purpose is to train citizens in the use of democratic institutions through informed, critical thinking, then both public and private systems have largely failed; the low voter turnout and widespread public cynicism about politics are evidence of that failure. If the schools' purpose is to subsidize employers by providing well-trained, literate workers, then they've succeeded a bit more. But when this spring's BA grads entered grade 1 16 years ago, the USSR still existed and hardly anyone owned a computer. No one in the 1980s had any idea what kind of workplace students would enter in the 21st century, so we continued to teach as if our students were going to keep the books in lumber mills. Are we short-changing working-class kids, as Norman Spector suggests? With working-class jobs being outsourced to Asia, the kids will indeed be short-changed if their education doesn't help them get into whatever service jobs remain here. Meanwhile the skilled trades continue to be ignored, so the few plumbers and machinists of 2014 will be able to name their own price. If we persist in seeing education as simply a means to give "our" kids some competitive edge in a future cut-throat job market, then that is what the schools will try to provide. But I hope the schools will instead provide a common experience of apprentice citizenship for all children and young people.

The skilled trades have not only been ignored but the apprenticeship training has become a sham under the present government. There have been a number of construction workers who have posted on this site in the past saying the safety on job sites are seriously threatened by Shirley Bond's attempt to move apprentices through without adequate training in order to man jobs more quickly. There was also the whole scandal on the apprentice tests being manipulated to pass apprentices through before they were ready. Until we get rid of the present government, skilled labour will go the way of the tyrannosaurus rex. I'm not sure if I agree with your assumption, Mr. Killian that working class kids' only obvious choice for job employment is whatever service jobs are left, I'm sure that is how Mr. C. and his party sees them - as worker ants. I grew up in a working class household but my friends were the children of doctors and lawyers. I was always surprised when I went to their homes how few books there were and how little their parents read compared to mine. My parents had also traveled the world to many more exotic places (much more cheaply, no doubt) than them - my friends parents seemed to opt for places like Las Vegas and Miami. That could be one reason public school students out perform their counterpoints in private schools - they're just hungrier to make it and they know the meaning of struggle.

And why might one think that "skilled training" is on the decline in BC - why do "working class" youth not "go for it"? Today, we had BC Ferries outsourcing the building of needed Ferries overseas. 'Up yours' local BC labour - and a brazen anti-union swipe as well from Captain Hahn. This is the outcome of heirarchy, of "schools" of thought that invent and promote elitism, of "managers" and those who are "employees" (read: expendable, dismissable "human resource" fodder). What is an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) all about - working as an equal with peers?

We "couldn't do it" says BC Ferries exec's. What are the exec's paid? What do they do? We have mis-valued the cost of all reallabour in this heirarchical process (with respect, the real topic of this discussion Norman, though you seem to want to deflect away from this into other pettyfog report topics).

We farm work offshore to susidize a middle-class and upper lifestyle of comfort - where suits and shareholders push paper, "sign contracts" at "executive" levels, and doesn't pay local taxes if based offshore (eg. Accenture with BC Hydro) as a "job" (phew! that's work), and reap obscene salaries and returns. We have a flawed system unfair taxation, and a relative economic free for all where the idea of community is zero. Well, there's charity golf, where "wealth" plays at being socially generous, while living very comfortably, thank you. Good for the public image. Where, does anyone you think the equity for the middle class and (especially) higher "lifestyle" is going to come from? These are all squint and delay tactics. It comes from the landscape - the Earth, and the "sweat of others" for the grossly disproportionate comfort of the receiver. No brainer. And if the "locals" won't "give it up" to "their betters", it's offshore we go - let some others sweat on the cheap and have "their" environment pay - so long as "commenrce" maintain a feudal heirarchy in practice, and, as long as I eat and eat well - you can starve - it's just business. Or you can come around and serve my heirarchical position. Just as long as the vortex drains into my cup more than yours - its "great to be local".

I have to laugh at the arguments, by corporate "institutes", about "developing countries". Develping into what on who's tersm and "utlimate"control? These countries were usually "smashed" in the first place: Who and what (feudal) ideas created that? We're now trying to export old time corporate heirarchy under a poetic sounding new banner - not fair value trade, under this "global village" bs speak. You want peace? own equally, fairly - all the players - shoulder to shoulder. Rotating decisions, Being accountable. In equal control. It's called cooperation - not "sort a" cooperation.

The issue of many these "private schools" that lather on the heirarchical pre-prep beliefs. These is behaviour control to pre-frame the mental template of heirarchy - of status dirfferential - of money and controls differerentials, of "rightful" previldge for "excellence". It manufactures complicity in those beleifs - the outcomes are privileldge and comfort...and um...yea..reading, writing and speaking "really well", knowing your "manners", meeting "nice kids", playing "sports"..even learning Latin...

This is not about peer cooperation outside of the walls of the school. The majority of private schools manufacture competitors. It is still highly there, but a little less so, in the so-called public system. But it is still there. What manufacturers violence - are the reasons independent of systems of educational (and religious) beliefs and subsequent economic practices? I argue that they are. I suggest that we ask better questions within our reports concerned with education. And have them reviewed by peers.

mad fox your point is???????? There is never a good system in the education of our children that can't be subverted, perverted by the ruling elites. It is all about advantage and staying one step ahead of the 'riff-raff.' Charter schools, French Immersion, accelerated programs are very quickly taken over by the ever fearful elites and others when they feel that somehow the lesser folks might just happen to step ahead of their little ones. A child that has difficulty in French Immersion is NOT remediated but 'sent' back to the regular stream. Private and Charter schools operate the same way. Set up an innovative program and it will always be usurped by special interest elites who fear that it will somehow be a detriment to their children. The research is there but tends to be 'ignored' as sour grapes or Left-wing. Having been on the receiving end of diatribes from irate and humilitated parents bringing their 'failed' children back to the regular stream is not a pleasant experience for a teacher or their children. (And it is even worse when the 'performance bond' is lost.)

My last remark should correctly state: the ideas that manufacture confict are not independent of educational (and religious) beleifs, and subsequent economic practices. The schools set a huge mental template, and of course, in conjunction with a youth's familial reality and outside of school social context.

I don't know about that Burgess. We sent our daughter to french immersion not because we felt we are elite but because we wanted her to learn the other official language. The math and english we taught her ourselves. We also homeshcooled her for a couple of years for grades 3 and 4 before french immersion. Today she is an honor student in an arts and science cirriculum in New West. I think if you want your children to succeed you need to spend some time with them.

I can't believe you guys are still at it. I like "apprentice citizenship", Mr. Kilian. Implies leading by example. And let's hope all those tradespeople start taking on some apprentices as well. This past year I had a class of 17 boys, 6 girls, just works out that way sometimes. So my school engineer became my ally, a surrogate dad, and he would come in and do an in-service on screwdrivers or hammers or help us move heavy stuff safely. The guys love this connection to a positive male role-model. They're out there making patterns, nailing tacks into a board for an hour if I let them. (this is where your tax dollars are going: "go outside and nail tacks into that board until I call you in!") Still there is something about that intensity, that sense of purpose and teamwork that I observe when our E. comes to visit. the way the kids see it, he solves our problems, fixes stuff, we can always count on him. ... a sense of community, of lack of judgement on the part of the kids that he's a school engineer. a shared visceral memory from all that hammering. a real collective satisfaction about having figured out those Ikea stools together. When their moms bring a cake for their birthday, he always gets a piece.

Hello, Burgess. My point is that challenging motivated and bright students with programs like French Immersion will pay off for our society as these kids' brilliance and merit grows. That's not an unfair use of privelege. Taking away support from slower kids is not a good thing, and we have to guard against that. All the same, it doesn't have to be an either / or dichotomy, ie., either we forego French Immersion for the bright kids, or the slow kids and the ones who just couldn't be arsed will have their programs cut.

The situation with the Chicago schools isn't the same at all. There, some inner-city kids were suddenly showing brilliance and motivation, and they got slapped back down into their place by the unworthy, but wealthy suburban PTA crowd. That is an unfair use of privelege, but a classic example of how things work in the States. To make the slightest change in the Education Act there, parents have to petition for a plebascite to be voted on during the election because State Governors have become reactive not proactive in policy decisions. The article is included on the lengthy ballots which go on for pages during some elections, leading to confusion. Then, if the referenda pass, the Governor is obliged to make them law and implement them. If, however, these new laws require funding to implement, which they usually do, and the Governor is from a State like, say, Florida, which refuses to charge income tax no matter how grotesquely wealthy some of its snotballs are, then he must either raise sales taxes or take the money away from other programs: "Oh, you want a lunch program? Well, we're just going to have to take that out of new textbooks." THAT is what I'm dead set against. It punishes the bright and motivated and rewards the wealthy for no other reason than that they can afford to send their kids to unplundered private schools. I'm not convinced that's what we have in BC, yet. But I can see that unless funding is increased per child, it will go that way.

As for this business about keeping kids out of french immersion just so that they don't feel bad if it doesn't work out, we could apply that to other examples: why don't we just chain up those trim and healthy athletes into a stationary position and hook them up on IVs of mayo, so that the flabby and inactive crowd doesn't feel insecure? Why don't we plunk some murky coloured contact lenses into the eyes of the sharpsighted, so they won't catch things the rest of us miss? Why don't we barf on someone's flower bed, so we don't have to feel ashamed of the weeds and scrawny plants in ours? That way nobody ever feels insecure or has to get a grip on their envy. That's what I mean by enforced egalitarianism.

It's late. I've got to go to bed before I write one more long rambling paragraph because I'm too tired to get arsed about it. Goodnight and sweet dreams.

Oops, one more thing:

As a Canadian citizen, living in a bilingual country, I see French and English as a birthright, not a burden.

uhhh... actually I thought I *had* addressed the fundamental question of asking exactly what the purpose of education was... way, way back there... very nice to see that Mr. Kilian understands the importance of evaluating the foundation though; unlike say, Mr. Spector.Heck.. lets get "ready to ramble" and regurgitate a bit.... We keep being forcefed the view that "high tech" industry is the 'way of the future', but if the labours of the "knowledge worker" are more cheaply and efficiently to be found elsewhere (offshoring anyone?), why on earth would we choose to submit youngsters to the same horrors of job loss and insecurity we've experienced in the "blue collar" world? Unless... unless... we actually didn't have a choice. Unless *we* finally admitted that *we* served "the market", instead of "the market" serving us - which is what "markets" are supposed to do, right? It'll say as much right there in the business section of your local paper. Day after day. I believe that what the business world now seeks (offers 'good paying' jobs to) are "symbolic analysts". Number crunchers, risk assessors, engineers. You don't need English for these jobs. A lot of *jobs* aren't even *jobs* now. They're coded functions. That's great news for the country that graduates more engineers every year than any other - India. And it's bad news for those anyone not comfortable with highly abstract concepts. First business captures the "sweaty" labours through machinery and robotics, now the capture of analysis and computation begins. The whole process would give Frederick Taylor a stiffie - and he's dead.(LOL.. or on second thought, maybe not...) Is it not obvious enough that knowing "things" will no longer suffice to find a "good paying" job? "Thing" knowledge gets written into a chip, a robot or a line of code. Then it gets updated and duplicated as needed. We've mastered the process of duplication in the modern world. In light of this, creativity ought to have greater value now than ever before - if only until someone figures out how to slide that "feature" into the software. But for now, "creativity" certainly seems like a rare resource (and hence, of high value). Perhaps we could sell rent out (economists who play ball tell us workers are "rented", because "selling people" has nasty connotations) creative people to our friend "the market" while their value is high! Now where can we help our students be creative? Sitting in front of a computer screen or a televison set? In a classroom? In a corporately run classroom? At home? Disneyfuckingland? We need to take a step back and ask serious questions. Like "What is the purpose of education?". When the world changes in spite of, or because of what we've done to it, we'd best adapt by evaluating the core of our beliefs. Ask good questions. Otherwise we end up Spectorizing about how often blue sneakers "win" compared to green sneakers, or comparing gelato to ice cream. Wallowing in irrelevance. It's time for a gut check.

Ale (I'm speculating "Alie" (ph), as compared to Coyote's idea) - It really is the important human element that people remember within education, isn't it. My "mentors" if I can use that term, were always utterly unpretentious people, who took a sincere interest in another becoming more capable and in building esteem. These were people who could laugh. Some much about education, and in this discussion, is about "performance", as compared to personhood. The idea that it takes a community to raise a person certainly applies.

On the point of French immersion, I personaly believe it's good. I happen to speak another language and I do feel that being able to do that adds another lens in viewing situations and ideas. I do believe that having an opportunity to exprience another language can profoundly assist in the arts, as well as in inducing an empathy for other cultures that are not native to oneself.

In this country, I see that French education is one of our Country's greatest accomplishements, demonstrating that as a people we can extend our individuality through a shared capacity. I listen to students of various ages speaking easily and playfuly in French and I'm delighted to see it. The kids seem fresh and there's nothing affected about it, from where I look. Language, and the capacity of it is a diificult thing to commodify, but form a personality development perspective, it basically aids.

Fun really helps while learning anything. I've heard that a Winnipeg school has a "comedy improv" approach for those learning French. Students have fun, get a little (..happily..) "terrifed" in the theatresports-like game environment, laugh, and gain capacity amazingly quickly. I'm pretty sure that public and "private" étudiants can play the same game.. Sure beats a Dickensonian Thomas Gradgrind perfomance approach.

Young people who know how to laugh and collaborate with ease, would tend to be able to solve complex issues in school, and maybe afterward as well. Try finding that in a report.

Sorry, but I see Ale's comment just thinly disguising the elitist attitude that private schools create. The comment " a lack of judgment on the part of the kids that he's a school engineer" says it all, but we'll be nice to him anyway and even give him a piece of cake, just like the rest of "us", as if he was worthy of being one of "us." The bias towards those who work with their hands is immediately felt. How people word language is very revealing. Replace the words "school engineer" with "black", "native", "housemaid", "homeless", "poor" "waitress", "hispanic" and you have the same sweet prejudices and bias against minorities and the working class that are cleverly cloaked in that genteel kind of liberalism that reeks with an air of superiority .

Private schools may induce that, in many cases as you suggest. And lest we think believe that some BCTF public school teachers aren't elitist in any way (Cough). Seen the behaviour of public school thought modes first hand. And the some of the public school executives, whoa. I'm not of the belief that Ale practises an elitist attitude from other aspects of commentary, through the thread.

PS. The last on this issue for me. I have had two children go through the French Immersion Program. One successfully through High School and onto University. One to Grade five. Both are fluent in French and can converse in German if need be. What I object to is the limited spaces in the program, special Federal funding,and the screening of children who apply. Oral French can and has been be successfully taught in the regular school system using competent French speaking teachers. That is the way to ensure bilingualism in Canada. Canada would be truly bilingual now if the dollars had been used in K to 12 oral programs. The French Immersion program becomes 'elitist' by default. A good program screwed up by special interest groups and politicians - as usual.

I appreciate the energy you are all putting into helping me in my job of educating the children of our province. I invite you to volunteer some of your time and energy in our classrooms. I could use some of you to read to students. I could use others of you as role models of what life is like outside of schools. I could use all your energy in a positive way. Why do you have to get so moany and groany? I've been teaching for 13 years , and the best part of my day is seeing those kids smile when they learn something. And seeing them smile when they graduate. School's are public places. Turn off your computers and consider volunteering at your local highschool or elementar y school. Kids are worth it! You need to spend time with children if you care so much.

We MUST end "this culture of entitlement," of the upper crust. We simply can't afford it any more...

"Public School teacher", What makes you beleive people don't volunteer their time? Nice to see your very satisfied with the public school situation in BC. I guess you'd be very happy to give your name and your school, so that you can give those interested a tour, dispelling all that the other silly comments from public school teachers who (except maybe yourself) appear to have been "all groany"...and after the tour, those inclined, and that have the time can volunteer as well. Do we have your permission to write in this forum in the meantime?

Perhaps you chose to misunderstand me. I mean you no harm, and simply suggest you use your energy in a more positive way. I have many parent volunteers, and corporate ones as well. Their attitudes are positive. Also, I did not mention that I am satisfied, and am wondering what gave you that impression? There are happy teachers out there, who are having fun and making a difference. But is anyone ever satisfied? I am very pleased to read this article by Judith Ince, and wish publications like the Vancouver Sun would publish more articles that boost the reputation of the public school system.

Perhaps you chose to more thoughtfully articulate your perspective and more accurately select your language. Yes there are positive people in all walks of life - has that contribution in time and resources grown or diminished. Who has most benefitted in the current legislative and economic climate?

Are the issues, principaly, due to people not having "volunteered enough"? Might one ask, which contituencies have had the most supplemental time available to contribute in that manner, and why that may be?

There are other fundamental to education perspectives that have been thoughtfully touched upon in this thread which you may or may not have read - or perhaps found beside the point. I happen to find your switch off the computer comment rather unfortunate and presumtive for an educator, nor did you even enquire if the persons on this thread volunteered or gave time to assist in education. The answer, had that been inquired at that time, might've (pleasantly) surprised you if compared to what chose to suggest.

Hey Teacher... I must be on another planet or something. My wife was a PAC President. You can't volunteer anymore than that. It was a very thankless experience, mostly because of teachers and other professionals within the school system. It ended at the end of the year and we pulled our child out of the public system and schooled her ourselves. The last thing the faculty really wants is another parent sticking thier noses into the system in an effort to help out. And if you as a teacher haven't learned anything about our media in this city let me reiterate it one more time. The Vancouver Scum is not going to help you with your message unless the Fraser Institute deems it necessary.

The icing on the cake for a PAC president...You spend nine months fundraising for the kids. The teachers as a group are too cheap to buy any chocolate covered almonds to help buy some books for the library. Suddenly, it's teacher appreciation week and the Principal has a meeting with you and demands that the PAC buy his staff a bunch of flowers to show the teachers "we care".

Eddy: As a parent, I volunteered in my child's class this year. As a teacher, I had a parent visit to talk about his career. At my school parents volunteer in the library, as do members of the community who do not have young children anymore. It sounds like you had a bad experience at your school--kind of like I'm having a bad experience making any kind of a positive impact here today.

PST... you sort of nailed it on the head. There were many positive experiences with the PAC. My frustrations are a direct result of interacting with teachers and administrators. I made my criticisms public and the school and several members of the school board agreed that the concerns were valid. Whether the concerns have been acted upon are anyone's guess. It doesn't sound like your school is overwhelmed with volunteers either and the few that do are stuck in the library. Perhaps there are more disenchanted parents out there than you suspect. We've all heard the following from teachers at least once... "I'm not going to let some donut jockey from Tim Horton's tell me what to do". Saddly, that attitude comes from your staff room.

I'm glad to hear your daughter is now an honour student and doing well in her curriculum. Do you work at Tim Horton's? I'm sipping on an iced-cap right now. Great for a heat wave. I have no idea where you are coming from with the "we've all heard the following from teachers at least once" comment. What do you mean? I don't get it? My staff room? Have you been there? Does your daughter go to private school now? or is she doing well at a public school? Just curious.

PST...I got the Tim Horton's comment from the Vancouver Sun. They were quoting some teacher's rep who wanted was advocating some contraversial new policy. The staff room is a metaphor for what other workers call the locker room. It's a place where coleagues get together and reinvent thier day. I used to live with a couple of teachers. They had parties that other teachers attended. I am very familiar with the attitude. Many posters on this thread have hinted again and again about the elitist bullshit from the school system and your just throwing some more in my face by dismissing my experiences as too confusing for your superior mind to comprehend. GET IT!?

Oh, you've partied with teachers! You are OK then. Did they teach you the secret hand shake? (I do not read the Vancouver Sun anymore, as one too many pictures of Christy Clark were nauseating me.) Like it or not, BC has one of the best education systems in the world. And don't ask me to prove it as I'm tired and it is hot. Continue to be assertive, but tone-back the aggressiveness. I dare you to say something nice.

I'll say it again. This time I'll word it so that the teachers can understand. There are no shortage of teachers that sign up for the Friday ski afternoons. But try to get a teacher to buy a box of chocolates to help make that happen and the answer is no. BTW, my sister is a special needs assistant in the classroom. Would you like another unflattering opinion about teachers from a different perpective?

As someone who was briefly in teacher training in the early nineties, my classroom experience consisted of an enormous amount of very progressive sounding rhetoric; my practicum experience however included watching a teacher shake a slightly talkative native kid in the back of the class until his teeth ratttled. My erstwhile sponsor teacher also found it rather amusing to poke fun at the mentally challenged. I dropped out soon after. No, I am not saying all teachers are like this, but to quote roger waters of pink floyd, there still seems to be an awfull lot of "dark sarcasm in the hallway," ("...poetry, laddie?? look everyone, he think's he's a poet...") there are of course some good teachers in the public system, and even a few in the private system...

Here in Japan the establishment of more and more private schools is on the rise. I have worked in both the public and private education system in Japan and it is well known that the public schools are being mismanaged so that further privatization may take place. Public Boards of Education are quite corrupt with little public accountability. That many Japanese students are good at school is a debatable; compared to Canada, a high percentage of kids just drop out of school after junior high and never return (murahachibu). Those who succeed most often attend cram schools where they are just prepped for exams (i.e., not taught study skills or how to study independently). These same types of cram schools (buxiban ’†•¶) are also familiar to students from Taiwan and Hong Kong. I think in reading stats regarding Asian kids one ought to consider to what extent their results are improved by a tendency to use tutors and cram schools versus whether they attend a public or private school. Let me finally point out that the business of administering test is a very profitable business. ETS, which administers LSAT, TOEFL MCAT and the SAT among others, pulls in close to a billion dollars a year and the CEO's salary is around $500,000. In Japan, the Benesse conglomerate has expanded into test administration, not letting a profit making venture pass it by. As many Asian countries have shown, private schools are good for big business.

Eddy Haskel's comments on teachers being cheap are infuriating. How much money does the average school teacher "donate" to his/her classroom every year. I believe it is in the neighbourhood of $1000 or so. For me, I guess I am cheap since I only spent around $500 last year of my after tax money on my students. When the BCPSEA was confronted with this sad fact they never denied it. Teachers have been subsidizing our public education system for years this way. Even though I am bitter about this, I will continue to do it. Why? Because I take pride in the job I do and want to give the best possible education to my students. Next time you are in a classroom, ask the teacher what in it is her/his own personal property bought with her/his own money. I think it might surprise you Eddy. But what do I know ... Eddy Haskel seems to be the authority here on how cheap teachers are.

I'm not only saying that the teachers are cheap as a group. I'll also add that they are only concerned with themselves. How else could you possibly explain being bitter about a donation?

OK. Fair enough. So you believe that teachers, as a group, are cheap and only concerned for themselves. Thanks for explaining yourself. I am bitter because in order to properly do my job, I MUST spend my own money. It isn't a choice. When there are no more pencils or glue sticks and the school doesn't have the money and all your parents are living on welfare or composed of the working poor what choice do I have? I guess if I was only concerned with myself I would have the children use the remaining crayons in the room to do their writing. I'm waiting for the day that bank tellers buy hundreds of dollars worth of office supplies because their employer refuses to. Would they do it? I doubt it. Using Eddy's logic, I guess bank tellers must be cheap and not care about their clients. Too bad that people like Eddy Haskel always turn discussions about public education into a teacher bashing session.

No WAY I'm going to put my name out there now. It must be the teachers' fault, right? After all, they haven't fixed it! And why should they turn down the well-intentioned instructions of somebody's PAC-chair wife? Those bastards - what do they think they are... professionals? You know, just last month I heard a teacher complaining about the price of gas and looking askance at my SUV. Those cheap bastards.

Chris.. I realise the following is not pertinent to the discussion, but there it is again. It's as though you teachers believe the system is there for you and if the children can somehow get an education through your employment so much the better. I'm not saying it is your fault but spare us the whining. Most people spend a portion of thier income for the benefit of thier employer. Some get a running expense account but most people do not.

Eddy, what do you do for a living?

Is responding to someone's attacks on your chosen profession whining? Check out your posts again and tell me who the whining one is! LOL! I guess next time you post something that generalizes a group of people, they should just shut up and take it. They wouldn't want to be accused of whining and believing that the world revolved around them or anything. It doesn't really matter. You told me how you feel. Teachers are scum, eh? Just don't be a closet teacher hater. Make sure you tell the next teacher you meet face to face what you think of them. Tell all your close, personal friends that teachers are all cheap bastards that could care less for the children they teach. Do not confine your rants to anonymous internet threads. The teachers that have taught my children have been wonderful. Most people who have children in the public school system say the same thing (if the polling is to be believed). You have a different perspective. Good for you. Just don't keep it in.

I'm surprised anybody is taking Eddy Haskel seriously here. This guy has been a nit picker around the edges of this blog, whom nobody seriously talks to, for as long as I've been coming here. He just doesn't get the message.

I'm not a teacher, and teachers are as prone to shortcomings as any of the rest of us, including Eddy himself, but I do recognize somebody trying to sow the seeds of a kind of divisiveness when I see them. Eddy and Spector are two of a type here. Only Eddy has a kind of penis/vagina envy for teachers happening.

Let him twist in the wind.

"Shape Shifter" is the word I was looking for, to describe Eddy and his mentor, The Spector. He starts out like he might be about to be anything, even progressive, even takes a couple digs at the status quo, but invariably winds up on their side, advancing their basic analysis and solutions; "shape shifting" to throw potential critics off his scent-, which is the rotting leaves and meat odor of the grave, blowing right out of the "ancient" past.

Thank you for your explaination, coyote. I was sucked-right in to Eddy's flame war, and put on the defensive, as this was my first time on this page. I still think the article is great, but should perhaps avoid comments in the future.

PST Don't give up. There are always people who speak without thinking, and they often tend to ridicule thought when they hear it. I don't know why. Don't let it get you down. The best thing about this medium is that you get to say what you really think, and those who value that will hear you, and maybe even answer.

A great thing,don't you think? A chance to exchange views?

Indeed, PST, don't give up.

Each to their own opinion, but I am generally a fan of eddy's views...I believe the quality of teachers has generally gone up, but it only takes one or two bad ones, especially if you or your child is their victim, to set you against teachers in general. and while I would place teachers miles above, say, the bc liberals, -of course I would place a collector of guano at that status also- teachers, and the education ststem in general, are still one of the prime societal means, for inducing conformity, hierarchy and values, especially in the lessons imposed on innocent children as to what is valued and what is not, especially in the states, amd their public school system. The general lesson in american schools and ours mostly, is that "athletes," like football players are wonderful, and should be revered, while nonconformist artistically spirited kids, especially after Columbine, are of little value and really cannot be trusted, in fact isn't this reflective of socity's general values, where we can't even manage to cap the salary of hockey players, but artists and writers whether talented or not, are most welcome to starve to death in the street, because to paraphrase, dire straight's mark knophler, "...it ain't you or me, who decides who's gonna be, in the gallery..." and please don't tell me about the innovative drama club at YOUR school, because it only proves my point, that when the arts and artistic kids are supported, it's the exception, and not the rule...and I'm willing to bet your school football team, which values nothing more than the ability of someone big to knock someone small down, ever one of our CORE societal values which we teach again and again, in the classroom, and in the street, gets ten times the funding and support....

"I would place a collector of guano at that status also- teachers, and the education ststem in general, are still one of the prime societal means, for inducing conformity, hierarchy ..." wrote Lewis.

And you are surprised at that?

There is an underlying assumption in this view of "teachers", and there are rotten apples in every barrel in society, that they somehow "control" what passes through the education system-, more than does say the unionized factory worker control the pace, quantity and quality of metal ingots production coming off the assembly line. (And "education" is a glorified assembly line, about which we should not fool ourselves, whether it "should" be or not.) Even many school teachers fool themselves about the "degree" of their influence in these regards, is my observation.

Whereas, the old adage that, the ruling ideas of an age are defined by its ruling class, remains the overarching, still dominant reality within society and its systems-, and no less the school system that passes on its ideas and values to the next, and especially the next "working class/ consumer" generation.

Unionized factory workers are not without "some" moderating influences and inputs into the production process, but "contractual law" and language still says that the "right to manage" resides with "management", and still largely confines unions to inputs about narrowly defined "wages and working conditions". Indeed, it is this legal framework at back of even union vs ownership/ management "class relationships" that has been so problematic since the rise of neoconism (actually neo-liberal capitalism) in the early 80's. And no less is the same "largely" true for "working teachers", who are likewise confined by law, protecting ruling class values/ ideas and control of their systems, via legislated curriculi and teaching regimes. So generally here, from people like Eddy and yourself, Lewis, there is an "unreasonable" expectation of what teachers can and cannot do-, at least, not without preparedness to "defy the law(s)", for which "the principal" is the overseer. (And I'm not denying the existance of a certain conservative "collaborative element" amongst teachers, as there are even amongst any group of workers within capitalism, even unionized workers. "Illusions" exist and were reinforced, especially, during the post war prosperity period capitalism went through, into the late 70's. The ruling classes "ruling ideas" achieved a degree of legitimacy during that period, which even now after the exposure of their "practical failure" in the two decades plus since, remains problematic, and hampers a working class response even into the present.)

And it is fundamentally this heritage and still lingering reality of the dominance of ruling class ideas, backed up by law and the authority of the state, which unionized workers, which includes teachers, of course, no less than the "general populace", works in the background to hamper their coming adequately to grips with the New Reality of Neoconservative Capitalism. (It has effected and effects social democratic political movements like the NDP and The Greens, no less. Nay, even more, with their illusions of achieving an entirely peaceful "class peace" that have always underlay their political philosophies. Why can't we all just get along?)

No, I'm not surprised coyote, just perpetually disappointed. Generally I agree with your analysis, but teachers did make gains in more humanistic ideals during the sixties, before most my generation, and yours, the boomers, decided they'd really rather just have a new car instead. And, the selfishness of boomers in general -this is not a jab at you- generally makes me want to vomit. If only more of us had held on to those ideals, and I don't mean peace and love, although they really shouldn't be mocked, but just individuality and independence, idealism even. I also really believe that the boomers have betrayed the generations following them and that our selfishness, AS A GROUP, facilitates the buying in to neoconservative bullsh*t which it should be all too obvious by now to all but the gullible and the foolishly, supposedly selfish, is nothing but a collection of self-serving lies manufactured by the rich, and swallowed by even the upper middle class at its own peril. An accurate precis of neoconservativism is best stated in my opinion as "Everyone's stealing from you but the rich, and if we give the rich even more priveleges, and make them even less accountable, wealth will just trickle down over the rest of us..." Well, something's tricklin' down on us all right, but it sure as hell isn't wealth. In short, neoconservativism is an adolescent fantasy suitable only for simpletons and pimps, and combinations thereof, and really, shouldn't the great majotity of us have seen through it by now...? The trouble with the working class coyote, is that articulate thinkers like yourself notwithstanding, much of the working class does not seem to grasp it's outrageous betrayal, hopefully it won't take four more years of gordon filth for this to occur, ending the canwest media monopoly would also be a definite asset to this end, even if it takes years of litigation, one thing is for sure, selfishness won't save us. Although there are undoubtedly fine teachers, teachers in general should have more courage, if they don't, public school teachers are going to find themselves like teachers in the states, sitting with 20 year old textbooks earning about the same salaries as dog catchers...unions and their leadership also need to wake up in a hurry....FIGHT, and not those you should be fighting with...it's VERY definitely time to limit the powers of the wealthy, as they have at least started to do in europe, we should have had a general strike three years ago...from what I can tell charest in quebec, with an agenda similar to campbell's has been less successfull because have fought back harder, if they pulled this crap in france there'd be another revolution...why are we, in general, so GUTLESS??? And so gullible?

No, I'm not surprised coyote, just perpetually disappointed. Generally I agree with your analysis, but teachers did make gains in more humanistic ideals during the sixties, before most my generation, and yours, the boomers, decided they'd really rather just have a new car instead. And, the selfishness of boomers in general -this is not a jab at you- generally makes me want to vomit. If only more of us had held on to those ideals, and I don't mean peace and love, although they really shouldn't be mocked, but just individuality and independence, idealism even. I also really believe that the boomers have betrayed the generations following them and that our selfishness, AS A GROUP, facilitates the buying in to neoconservative bullsh*t which it should be all too obvious by now to all but the gullible and the foolishly, supposedly selfish, is nothing but a collection of self-serving lies manufactured by the rich, and swallowed by even the upper middle class at its own peril. An accurate precis of neoconservativism is best stated in my opinion as "Everyone's stealing from you but the rich, and if we give the rich even more priveleges, and make them even less accountable, wealth will just trickle down over the rest of us..." Well, something's tricklin' down on us all right, but it sure as hell isn't wealth. In short, neoconservativism is an adolescent fantasy suitable only for simpletons and pimps, and combinations thereof, and really, shouldn't the great majotity of us have seen through it by now...? The trouble with the working class coyote, is that articulate thinkers like yourself notwithstanding, much of the working class does not seem to grasp it's outrageous betrayal, hopefully it won't take four more years of gordon filth for this to occur, ending the canwest media monopoly would also be a definite asset to this end, even if it takes years of litigation, one thing is for sure, selfishness won't save us. Although there are undoubtedly fine teachers, teachers in general should have more courage, if they don't, public school teachers are going to find themselves like teachers in the states, sitting with 20 year old textbooks earning about the same salaries as dog catchers...unions and their leadership also need to wake up in a hurry....FIGHT, and not those you should be fighting with...it's VERY definitely time to limit the powers of the wealthy, as they have at least started to do in europe, we should have had a general strike three years ago...from what I can tell charest in quebec, with an agenda similar to campbell's has been less successfull because have fought back harder, if they pulled this crap in france there'd be another revolution...why are we, in general, so GUTLESS??? And so gullible?

"...public school teachers are going to find themselves like teachers in the states..." critiques Lewis. Which is true enough, and could be said for working people and society generally.

Except actually, I precede the boomers by some, ohhh, eight to ten years, depending on when you date the start of their time from. I was actually born a few years before the war, and towards the end of the Great Depression.

That said, I actually don't totally disagree with your assessment of the boomers and their preoccupation with self-interest and a particularly crass kind of materialism in capitalist society. Though one has to remember one important "mitigating" element in the life of the boomers, that in part explains them: most arrived and grew to adulthood in the period of the greatest period of prosperity in history, that of the post war European and world reconstruction phase, following the war, from which North America emerged unscathed, with its economic plant intact, and in a position to enrich itself, as it did, from the reconstruction.

And people, no one, not even the generation that came out of the boomer loins, is immune from the effects and conclusions of the particular times in which they live and are shaped. And amidst all that prosperity and "apparent" social progress, unaware as folks were that it had more to do with the competition with "communism" than anything arising out of the character or dynamics of capitalism itself, boomers growing up had no apparent reason to look their gift horse in the mouth. They simply naturally found it easier, mostly to ignore the struggles of their parents and grandparents in the 1930s, which the education system and media at that time assisted, as well as earlier capitalist history from the time of the industrial revolution and the fleeing of Europe, to conclude that their parent's "class struggles" had been but a blip on the social continuum and were now "passe" in any case.

Not only were individual boomers more or less innocently "corrupted" in this way by the apparent arrival of capitalism at a place of "never ending progress" , but so too was eventually that earlier generation which lead the struggles of the 1930s for trade unionism and working class rights, and which fought the Great War against fascism. After which they just wanted to live in peace, enjoy the good times that had always to there been denied them, make babies, and build families. (And probably a good thing they did too, or most of the present generation even, who are not doing so good a job at it themselves, would not even be here.)

In short, almost everyone concluded that the leopard of capitalism had indeed changed its spots afterall, and folks should just lean back and enjoy the good times, which indeed, after a time, did begin to look like they were never going to end.

Except in the late 70's and early 80's, they did, of course, with the rise of Thatcherism in Britain, and Reaganism in the U.S., and the collapse of the competing social system with capitalism, which had been called at least, "communism". Meanwhile, the boomers aren't getting any younger, and many of them, though not all by a long shot, had managed to prosper some, and had seniority/ were entrenched in good to relatively good and secure positions. And "everyone" since the rise of neocon capitalism, with its emphasis on renewed "lean and mean" , "order", a return to "entrepreneurial values"", "heirarchies" and "privilege", and along with all that and deunionization, the return of the economic wolf to the doors of working class homes, EVERYONE has had trouble getting their heads around precisely what has happened and how to respond to it. It's not just "boomers" out there having trouble with this one, but it is general and pervasive throughout all of society and its living generations, though some like yourself and Ed, since boomers, have bought into lashing about looking for a scapegoat, and with encouragement from the neocon right, have bought into blaming the easiest target, which most obviously "has to be", baby boomers.

Which is horseshit and divisive, and gets in the way of creating the kind of movement across generations, that is going to be needed, to turn the prevailing social, economic and political realities around. Besides, I'm not aware of, and there is certainly no great visibility of any movement of any great numbers from the generations that have followed on the heels of boomers either. And I pay attention to such matters.

Which said, still leaves a big problem which needs to be resolved, IF any sense is to be made out of current neocon capitalism, and "anything" of use is going to be done about it. At which point, it is clear to me that you are, nonetheless, right about one important thing: there needs to be a major change in the thinking of large numbers of people occur, at the level of the working class and their main class organizations, the trade union movement, and a major agitation and movement needs to occur amongst them, challenging the status quo in capitalist society. Which "almost" happened around the "Solidarity Movement" of 1983, and had it, we MIGHT not be here where we are today. But folks, frankly, were still not ready, or they would have demanded it and over-rode the diktats of the B.C. Fed leadership anyway. People can't continually blame leadership, when we along with they are responsible for our own actions as well, and who we let lead us where, and with what consequences.

Which still leaves the task, that first raised its head in 1983, having to be done. From which there is still a general shrinking and timidity, all along the battle line.

Which has to change across all the generations and throughout the "class" and its organizations, if we are to turn away from the "backward development" currently underway within capitalism. With my opinion being, that it will have to be the young, by and large, rising to the challenge and their responsibilities, who will have to lead it. Baby boomers, while I think many, if not most of them will be brought along, are just not young enough to get it up anymore, so to speak. :-) They need their complacency and hesitation shaken by their kids taking on what they have failed or cannot find the courage or initiative do. Finger pointing merely engenders a round circle of it, back and forth, with "no one" really doing anything.

A good retort, coyote, but I am not blaming boomers FOR neoliberalism, but rather for the uncritical way so many have swallowed its pernicious lies. The fact remains that there has NEVER been a public private partnership that is more efficient than public ownership, or that does anything but destroy good paying, economically vitalizing jobs in the community, and hand them as an outright gift to the wealthy. We can now go back to the eighties for the easily available record of the enormous damage done by p3s in new zealand and in britain. The facts are easy to access with only very minimal research beyond the revomitted up fraser institute lies on the pages of canwest newspapers, which continue daily to LIE about the benefits of privatization.

In every case, in every instance, in every country and locale, p3s have been an unmitigated disaster, creating a two tier medical system in britain further deteriorated by tony liar's "thirdway" corporate pimp government. In new zealand, neoliberals were thrown out on their ears after destroying one of the best social safety nets, and the most efficient publicly run government services in the world, records easily available, that boomers should be demanding canwest media pimps print every day. Instead, we get an almost deafening silence, as boomers sell out their kids, for a taxcut of less than $500 a year to upper income middleclass people for whom this additional income is nothing. Cancer patients in bc have already lost their homes thanks to having to pay for expensive drugs. Boomers seem blissfully unaware that gordon liar is destroying medicare and that private sector medical insurance has more holes in it than a swiss cheese. It's not what your doctor thinks you need; it's what the ceo of the company is wiling to pay for, and many people aree going to be amazed and dismayed about just how narrow their definition of "life threatening" is...In France water companies, as shown on cbc, just a few months ago, have, thanks to the rightwing chirac, and over the repeated objections of local governments being buying up local water utilities, and have, in EVERY case, after promising again and again not to, jacked up water rates outrageously -many of these corporations are now being sued by local governments...would that we had the same guts here in bc.

Finally, as very well documented in greg palast's excellent book, All the Democracy Money Can Buy, Palast being an american reporter employed by bbc newspapers, Enron still unpunished for its role in the looting of the California economy by price fixing, has been using the WTO and the world bank, as a fork to pry open the oyster of the argentine economy, followed by buying up crown corporations at fire sale prices -we could be next, the argentinian FORMER middle class has been banging pots and pans on the street for quite some time now and it hasn't done them much good...I repeat, IT'S TIME FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE BOOMERS TO GET THEIR HEADS OUT OF THEIR BUTTS, TO STOP STANDING BY WHILE THE WEAK AND THE VULNERABLE ARE ATTACKED, the wedding guest has been plucking at their arm for some time now, and his story's NOT pretty...WAKE UP! (thanks for your always intelligent reply coyote, and your paragraphing instructions on the I; Robot thread...)

This is in response to a comment from quite some time ago : Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, 7/16/2004 3:36:53 PM, writes: Good ol'boys. You would think that the NPA's Councillor Peter Ladner and Liberal MP Stephen Owen might be politically at odds. The fact is that in the recent federal elections Ladner backed Owen because both had attended the same Vancouver Island private school. I find it interesting to see that in spite of an "inferior" private school education both these men attained high political office. What we need is more rugby in our public schools. For your information, Peter Ladners children attend public school, so evidently, he did not find the private system up to snuff. And also, there is rugby at public schools... Maybe you never took enough interest in the public school cretins to realize this.

Actually Coyote You are not the now-it-all your supercillious attitude is intended to potray. You've told us all your opinion of what I'm all about. So let me explain it so that you can understand. If the teacher is that rare selfless individual we are constantly reminded exists... it is because he/she is a selfless individual period, not because he/she is a teacher. I guess your seven year old kid has never come home with a crayon drawing of a syringe so I guess you should have no complaints about what the teachers are up to.

Really good to see Tyee back, and all you folks, of course. I'm away for a couple of weeks, in all my supercilliosity :-), (All the pots are calling all the kettles black.), but it is with pleasure I shall look forward to discussing and crossing swords with all of you again. I'm a northern person. All this bloody tropical heat of the global warming world is too much for me. And where is my sweetie taking me? The warmest damned spot in Canada! Arghhhh! What a man won't do for love.

Having worked as a teacher in both the private and public school systems and also having worked in other fields in the past, I can say the following from experience. While there will always be a few useless and ill-suited human beings who mistakenly choose to go into teaching (few of them survive however), for the most part I have found my teacher colleagues to be genuinely decent and caring human beings. The same cannot be said for former colleagues when I worked in other fields. The self-serving jerk factor was much higher. Secondly, from a teacher who has had experience in both systems: Are teachers better qualified in either? No. The same quality of teachers can be found in both. The differences I noted in each system are the following: -I went from having a minimum of 1 and 1/2 hours of daily prep time in the private system to having a maximum 80 minutes per week in the public system. -In the private system I never had to deal with poor kids or with children with severe emotional, physical and behavioural issues. -I never had a class of over 18 students in the private system. My class size has ranged from 19 to 32 in the public. (Ask students which class size they prefer.) -In the private system, I never spent a single cent out of pocket for resources. In the public system I have spent on average between 1 to 4 thousand dollars of my own money per year on resources to help educate other people's children. -In the private system, I felt I wasn't treated like a professional and I found the atmosphere to be highly competitive and uncollegial as teachers were forever fearful that their one year contracts would not be renewed. Teachers would deliberately not pass on important information or help out a colleague with ideas or resources. In the public system, while far from perfect, I do feel like I am treated like more of a professional and there is a very high degree of collaboration and sharing amongst teachers. -There is a huge variance among private schools and how they operate. The public system is much more uniform. Neither system is perfect, and while I am a public school teacher, I do believe that private schools have a place, although I wish we weren't subsidising them and allowing them to be vastly unaccountable. As for Mr. Spector's assertion that I am doing a dismal job of helping the working class, I ask him to seek out international comparisons and discover that BC ranks in nearly every category in the top 3 worldwide. Surely, one working class, non Asian kid made it? I myself grew up "working class," a child of illiterate parents from Europe, not Asia, who did well in school despite going to a public school where there were few resources. Schools can only do so much, as can teachers. It is only when parents are involved and supportive of their child's education and working together with the school and teachers that a child's success is nearly always guaranteed. My parents placed a high value on the education they were never able to have. They expected me to succeed, and they expected me and my brothers to go on to university. They attended each and every teacher conference and never made excuses for problems at school which were of our own doing. They made it very clear that we were responsible for our own behaviour and learning. I urge Mr. Spector to ask his child's teacher if he can spend a few days shadowing her/him so that he has at least some understanding of what teachers do. My own siblings chronically complain that I am shirking my family responsibilities when I am forever working at home in the evening and each and every weekend on lesson planning, marking, planning field trips, calling parents, etc. They think something must be wrong. I only work 5 hours a day, right? So how come I regularly work 10 to 14 hours per day from September to the end of June? Even if I spread the numbers of hours worked over the whole year, I would still be working well in excess of a 40 hour work week. As teachers we are such an easy target because of the widespread lack of understanding of what we really do. It bothers me that we get less and less respect as student outcomes get better and better. I just hope we don't become the whipping boys for the government and the personification of evil as we have come to be in provinces like Ontario which perfected the art of teacher bashing under the Harris government. Ontario comedians were even doing routines blaming teachers for everything from cancer to El Nino. Believe me, I had nothing to do with cancer, but El Nino is a different story. A "working class" teacher who is proud to be a steelworker's daughter.

pst2:That is one of the best pieces I have read on this site.

Thanks lynn, It's far too easy to play the blame game and get sucked into the "cult of efficiency and accountability" as author and scholar Janice Gross Stein put it in her same-titled book. Educational accountability has a place, but who is the education system accountable to, and for what? As a teacher, I have made the choice to make the child my focus of accountability. I am primarily accountable for delivering an education to a child. Everything else is secondary, and I try to ignore the myriad of things thrown at me intended to steer me away from what I am truly accountable for. Educational accountability has taken some bizarre twists however, as in some U.S. districts, parents have now become part of the equation. Parent report cards and home visits are now in the works. Imagine school officials making an unannounced visit to your home to check on what role you play, if any, in supporting your child's learning and then providing you with a report card on your parenting skills? We'll all have to put away those empty beer bottles, replace People magazine for Science Weekly, stop listening to AC/DC and switch to Baroque. We better make damn sure our family is watching the Discovery Channel or playing instructional games when the inspectors drop by. One slip up can mean we will end up with a C- in parenting, and I know as a teacher that you all expect straight A's. Worse case scenario: Imagine the Fraser Institute publishing the results and printing your name along with the results?

And there it is again... another teacher suggesting that we grade the parents. Another teacher on this forumn asks me what I do for a living. That's a question that I am repeatedly asked around the schools, yet oddly nowhere else are people so nosey. And then they wonder why I hold them in contempt.

Thoughtful sounding post, public school teacher 2. I don't understand - which "officials" would "assess" parents - teachers or other education/government "administrators"? Sounds like public school teachers wouldn't have the spare "snoop" time to pull such a "maneuver". Eddy, I don't understand what you're trying to point out.

kit-I don't know who is supposed to make parent assessments. My guess is they'll send out administrators or perhaps train other parents. I don't get Eddy either. He just hates teachers. Is he related to Gordon?

eddy-after spending $4,000 on classroom resources for other people's kids, you are angry because I won't buy some PAC chocolates? Teachers subsidise the system in BC by hundreds of millions of dollars per year. I don't expect parents to thank me for it. I do it because I need the resources to deliver the curriculum effectively. I have been in schools where the PAC and school work wonderfully together and I have been in schools where there has been animosity between the two, usually due to personality conflicts. I have seen PACs hijacked by people with an eye on a political career too, but mostly I have seen a too small group of amazing hard working parents who bust their rear ends to make their child's school a better place. In my school, which is in an affluent area, the PAC struggles to get parents to join, mainly because the PAC president has no social skills and has turned off other parents. Parents who were unhappy just turned to teachers directly and together we organised events outside of the PAC umbrella. I'm sorry you had such an awful experience and that you are now a bitter teacher hater. Neither parents nor teachers should be subsidising the system in addition to paying taxes. The government should be adquately funding the needs of the schools and the kids. When I began teaching I was told that out of a class of 22 students, the parents of two would love me no matter what (the teacher lovers), the parents of another two would distrust me no matter what (the teacher haters), and the rest would reserve judgement until they saw the work I did with their children. I spend my time and energy on the group that reserves judgement, because I have no control over the emotions and judgements of the others. Their minds are set. The same person told me that parents will never know what you do until you tell them. I go out of my way to explain what I do to parents, I also keep a log of all the hours I work and receipts for resources I have purchased out of pocket. I make both freely available to parents to take a look at. Parents like that I tell them what I do. I have had no problems with parents. I have had amazing relationships with parents of students over the years. Many have become personal friends and many have gone out of their way to show their appreciation for what I do including writing letters of appreciation and recommendation. What role did you and your wife play in your negative experience? Were you faultless? Did you use your people skills effectively? There are always two sides to a story. I wonder what the other side would say about you and your wife? PACs and school committees are democratic processes. The wheels of democracry turn very slowly indeed. Change takes time. Democracy may be slow and creaky and those who take part in it are sometimes cranky, but it is the best system we've got and worth preserving. Instead of being bitter and angry, why don't you try to affect positive change without alienating people.

Eddie, I don't think pst2 is suggesting parents be graded. I think she is just giving an example of the bizarre lengths accountability can travel when a society demands accountability to the degree that it infringes on human rights, whether that be the rights of teachers, the rights of children or in the bizarre U.S. case above, the rights of parents. There is nothing wrong with accountability but when it crosses a certain line then don't expect that teachers will be the only targets, parents also, in the end, may be victims of the accountability police, subject to the same monitoring and grading of the role "they" play in their child's education. A sort of seal of approval from the Fraser Institute. A degrading experience for both teacher and parent, don't you think?

Watch very carefully who's doing the accounting in accountability.

Lynn.... I'll agree that no one is suggesting we grade the parents and that the idea was put forth to satire the fable institute. But the point I was trying to make was that teachers believe that they above reproach. That is why they always ask you within the first two minutes of meeting you about what you do for work. That way they can stereotype you and your kid immediately, instead of dealing with you like a person. And just look how they respond as proof of my stereotyping of my opinion of them. PSt2, please explain more about the 'shadow pac group' that works outside the regular pac that the rest of us are foisted into. You are only fueling my fire.

A fascinating series of entries here...Please, Eddy, try to avoid your egregious, "paint-roller" stereotyping...If we substituted "teachers" for Jews or Asians (Norm's favorite group), your rants would be treated with the disgust they deserve...I don't know what you do for a living, and could care less, but if I did know I wouldn't lump everyone in your line of work together as axe-grinders with very narrow frames of reference...That's just you! Boo-hoo, you had a bad experience with some teachers! Please accept that most teachers don't believe themselves above reproach. On the contrary, many are demoralized by the constant yammering of the teacher-haters (a very small, but vocal group) and believe that the public has a much lower opinion of them than is actually the case. (BC's teachers consistently get high approval ratings from those with whose children they actually work...) Mr. Spector has a visceral dislike of teachers...In the last few months of his VI gig I heard him 1)state that teachers are "overpaid and underworked" (even cursory research would show how wrong this concept is, as PST2 noted above), 2)that the BCTF is a "totalitarian, extreme left-wing organization" (laughable to anyone who has ever sat in a BCTF province-wide meeting), 3)suggest that the Education faculty at any university is invariably the weakest (I'll take Norm on at "Jeopardy" any time!) Since Mr. Spector thinks that we are lazy, stupid, evil Communists, I'm not inclined to give his rantings about our "dreadful" public school teachers much credence...Use some comparative facts, please, Norm, don't just parade your prejudices!

http://www.edwatch.org/