CFN – With recent teacher strikes in one area school board and contract signing by the other I was starting to formulate a theory that we really need to start paying teachers based on results.
Something I’m sure none of the three main parties would embrace as the mighty teacher unions impact voter results.
The Fraser Report just came out and ranked area schools for the 2011/12 year and also five year averages and many of our Cornwall schools finished horribly while some did much better.
Should our teachers not be graded or promoted/fired based on results? While parents and finances play a role surely the impact of education becomes more critical in cities like Cornwall.
Our best performer ranked on a 1-10 scale with 10 being best? This ranked 2,706 schools.
1) Ste. Anne’s at #142 with a score of 7.4 and 5 year average of 8.6
2) Viscount Aleander at #567 6.8 7.4
3) Rose des Vents #1173 7.3 6.4
4) Notre Dame #1173 6.6 6.4
5) Eamer’s Corners #1305 4.9 6.2
6) East Front #1528 6.8 5.8
7) Marie Tanguay #2188 6.3 4.5
8) St. Columban’s #2188 4.1 4.5
9) Immaculate Conception #2228 3.5 4.4
10) St. Peter’s ##2228 3.0 4.4
11) Sacred Heart #2378 3.4 3.9
12) Bishop Macdonell #2404 1.9 3.8
13) Gladstone #2645 4.3 1.9
14) Central #2645 3.0 1.9
15) Akwesahsne Mohawk #2667 N/A 1.5
So overall it looks like we are not getting value for our dollar from our local education system or we really do need to get the flouride out of our water.
We expect Mayor Kilger to suggest that the results have to do with the CFIB and faulty scoring, but then he himself never graduated high school.
What do you think Cornwall? Is this a performance issue or financial issue as Cornwall has a lower income per capita than say nearby Williamstown that did mighty well or even Brockville? Are we getting good value from our schools locally and should teacher salary be linked to student results? You can post your comments below.
Oh my, a couple of years ago East Front was 2nd after St. Anne’s…they were #250 of 2,700+ Schools. What is happening to make their average drop so low? Well regardless, I’m still a proud parent of a couple awesome East Front kids 🙂
One only has to look at the success of private schools in the State of Massachusetts to understand how the success of the youth is directly tied to the value and commitment that teachers bring to the table. Teachers paid on merit rather than simply being entitled to their entitlements is not only preferable it is necessary if we hope to survive in a competitive global economy. Just an observation.
Parents in the not to distant future may opt to support a private school system that offers value for money and equips their children properly with the tools to carve out a successful career in an ever changing and competitive environment.
Could this not be the results of the childrens parents?Teachers send quit a bit of school work home for the children to do or finish.I really don,t believe all parents have the time or knowledge to be teachers.Maybe parents should send the schoolboard a bill for doing the teachers job.
Much is related to the “perceived” income of parents and how much they push the teachers. Parents get caught in a “Keeping Up With The Latours” syndrome. In addition to the excessive debt they hold to keep the charade going, there is the need for more activities to be like Chad’s kids. Kirk’s son plays hockey at the “AA” level so mine must to. Scott’s kids are getting A’s at their school, what’s wrong with mine. So the soccer mom pushes the teachers. The teachers give out more homework to little Dante and Ally and. Some kids cut it and others don’t. The schools that send the stupid kids in another room do better on test day. Let the kids have some fun until Grade 8. That’s all.
{MODERATED} have fun until they
get get to to Grade
Oops.
Are you kidding me!!!! “Luckyred” Teachers send homework home so a child can work on a concept discussed in school. It is an oportunity for the student to practice a new skill. Also, have you considered that maybe the child isn’t focussed during the school day and doesn’t get some of the work done because they aren’t using their class time well? Or they have lot of homework because they didn’t do anything in class? Or there wasn’t any time left at the end of the day? Yes it has been years since some parents have been in school and they are rusty, but you can’t honestly stand there and expect that everyone knows everything, can you? That is why there are many resources out there that a student can access, textbooks, library, asking the teacher for guidance…. And as for “Wow” some kids require a quiet atmosphere to work. If it was your child that needed to be away from distraction wouldn’t you want to give your kid the opportunity to do the best they can on test day? And I don’t think it is fair for you to call any kid stupid. ESPECIALLY if they are not yours! Some kids also need to be sent in a quiet room so they don’t disrupt the rest of the class. No audience, no distraction.
All kids are good at something, weather it be art, or math or language.Think about it, are you good at every subject? Did you find everything easy in school. Probably not, and if you did, you truly are gifted. Luck you. School is about learning work ethic as well as subjects. Parents can help support that at home too… I don’t think that these tests “Test” all atributes of all the different learning styles a child can thrive in. They only test math and language right? What about athletics, arts, sciences? Those aren’t tested. It is pen and paper only. Mr. Oldham, I agree with you, more money is needed, but not for teacher salaries, but for resources needed in the classroom. We are a technological world, and unfortunately the need for funds to buy computers for every child is lacking. Education should not be for the elite only. Canada is a country that provides a good education for the children.
wow?
using the real names of children to make your point? that is pretty low.
aside from that. having had two children go through the public and catholic school systems here, one child with learning exceptionalities, i can say that there is good and bad within the school systems.
there is not enough money coming in to give the majority of our students a leg up on both the richer communities that abound in ontario and the smaller, tighter communities that are often better able to create success in their schools due to parental involvement and smaller class sizes.
i would also hesitate to condemn the teachers. i have seen first hand the dedication and time and money the majority ( not all ) of teachers in the cornwall community dedicate to their students, and even more so in the schools that perform the worst.
as well, the testing? it is worthless as far as i am concerned. sorry, i do not see the value in it. perhaps to a certain level, the information offers an insight into education, but when you get to the point where many of our students are? i fail to see where it has ever brought about positive change. i wish it did.
i do believe that parental influence does play a very important role. kids are showing up at school ill prepared, not well fed and not focused ( not enough sleep? turmoil at home? probably a thousand reasons). i saw this time and again. unfortunately, cornwall is a lower income city in many ways. this affects the students. it affects everyone.
blaming higher income parents? that makes no sense. no sense at all. it takes away from the discussion.
but no easy solutions. my kids came away well educated in this system, from schools that performed well and not so well over the years according to the testing. it was not always an easy path, especially with a child with an IEP. we gave much support of home and demanded much support of the schools. it took time and effort ( but no money because this is a public system ) on our part, but it did work.
the results are awful and demoralizing. the students in the city of cornwall are better than these results.
The kids in Cornwall will all be educated enough to work here at call centers……uh oh maybe not. Ok I won’t say it.
I am not aware of how teachers are evaluated, but if it is the same as nurses nowadays, then there is no method of evaluation. For example, nurses used to get yearly evaluations from “Head Nurses” who worked on the floor along side them. Now they call them nurse managers and work in an office. The only time a nurse is “corrected” verbally is when a family member complains or she/he gets reported by a coworker. This is true in most places as well as at CCH. The only way you can actually get rid of someone is through a long history of negative actions and a long process of fighting with the union.
Gee I had no idea that my child’s school scored so terribly low! I will have to follow up on how this and get more specifics.
LUCKYRED – A parents interest and participation in their child’s education is of extreme importance. How does an educational system succeed however when the students themselves know in advance that they cannot be held back simply because they choose not to do assignments? What message are we allowing our present educational system to portray to the world? In the final analysis are we doing our best for the future leaders and decision makers or are we by design setting them up for failure?
Personally I endorse a system that rewards and promotes excellence not mediocrity. Just an opinion.
Where are all the commentators a couple days ago that were calling out for a publicly run insurance system? Look at how well the publicly funded education system is running…
I am all for publicly funded education. Let us put effort behind fixing it.
The saddest state of affairs in Ontario education is the fact that we publicly fund a Catholic system. The savings from removing this plurality should be passed onto resources required by the students.
SMITH – The Catholic Separate School Board which is funded by an allocation (choice) of your tax dollars is in comparison to the Public School System a module to be emulated.
When the two founding nations of our great country sat down and decided that there was room for both it was also decided to recognize that religion and education were joined at the hip for one of the two parties concerned. This right is part of our history part of who we are as CANADIANS.
Although I was baptized as an Anglican(and speak primarily English ) I would fight side by side with a Catholic Canadian on any given day to defend the Separate School system. As I would hope any Canadian would fight to defend the right of freedom of expression.
So in conclusion there would be no surplus if we somehow eliminated the more sustainable system in favour of one for all. In fact, the gross inefficiency resulting in such a move would only further compound our current economic woes.
Savings can be found in so many other obvious areas that this is simply not the pot to stir.
Smith, do you mean French catholic system, English catholic system or both?
Funding for the Catholic system was guaranteed under the 1867 Constitution, it will be hard to get rid of.
It does account for about one third of the 24 Billion dollar education budget in Ontario though, and efficiencies must exist in that large amount I imagine.
Some people would like to see funding return to levels of 1867 or that system entirely paid for by the 23% who direct their money from property taxes only. That would be a can of worms that could lead to Francophone related agencies seeing a greatly reduced income then.
Education is a very important issue for many people especially parents. As a dad my kids knowledge is very important and it is even more important for my wife. We both willingly accept our personal responsibility to help our kids to do good in school but more importantly to do good for themselves.
Our school system offers a very disappointing performance level in relationship to our own expectations. So we invest our own time, energy and resources that we can allocate to offer learning opportunities over and above what our state educational system provides. Our kids are in the French Catholic School Board system and we do home schooling and we tap into other private edutainment services. My kids are now teaching me amazing things.
Now, as an active political representative, our political party’s very first platform plank release is education. It is that important to us. Our party Leader, Mr. Allen Small sent out a press release posted here: http://www.wireservice.ca/index.php?module=News&func=display&sid=9783
And tonight on the Brian Lilley’s SUN NEWS Show, Byline, Mr. Allen Small, our Leader of the Ontario Libertarian Party will discuss Education in Ontario. I offer an open invitation to all interested parents and concerned citizens to evaluate our political party offering regarding the education of our children. We understand that our offering is not perfect for everybody but it is an option for some parents.
We want the very best education for our children that we can achieve. We believe that the competitive free enterprise market system creates the best innovative solutions that will satisfy our expectations. If we are not happy, we will vote for a better choice.
Please, if you are not happy you about your children’s educational accomplishments; Do something about. It is our personal responsibility as parents to our children. We are free to transfer our responsibility to a third party but then, we must accept the third party’s expectation standards for our children. We must accept the consequences of our choices.
Mr. Oldham –
If we are to live in a progressive society, the status quo will not suffice.
How magnificent it must have been for these two founding nations you speak of to discover such a vacant landmass to form a nation on…
There were many nations here long before the two you speak of, and they too are CANADIANS. There are people that live here from all over the world, and they too are CANADIANS. There are people moving here everyday that are neither Anglican, nor Catholic, and they too will be CANADIANS.
I would hope any Canadian would fight for progress as they would fight to defend the right of Freedom of Expression which finally became a sound Constitutional legal right with the Constitution Act, 1982 – 115 years after our nation was formed. Prior to this there was the Implied Bill of Rights, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but we all are indebted to those who simply realized the Implied Bill of Rights of 1867 was more than just “part of history, part of who we are as CANADIANS.”
I put this simply to you, fund every religion to have their own school (for the excellent reasons you outlined for Catholic schools) or fund none.
How could there be any greater gross inefficiency than plurality?
My apologys to anyone i offended i just think a new teaching way is needed in our school systems.If the system is going to reley so heavenly on parents/ well many children will not succeed because many parents just don/t give a rats ass about their children.
SMITH- We certainly would like to think that we are a progressive society and on certain levels we have been. Change becomes a necessary component of progress for sure however not everything needs to be reinvented in order to move forward.
You are of course perfectly correct in saying that Canadians as a group are comprised of a multitude of racial, social and religious backgrounds, on that it can be said we agree. To also suggest that we can improve on previous methods, models, etc we can also be alined.
However as much as you might wish we can not rewrite history. Obviously there are those who would like to distance themselves from the fact that this nation, CANADA, has its roots in Christianity. This fact however was not my focus. Though in reality it is likely that the religious make up of Canada in another 100 years (or perhaps much less) will be a complete departure from those roots, but that is a mark of a progressive society, is it not?
My focus was to note that certain rights concerning education have existed for a lengthy period of time and cannot be terminated by simply waving some magical political wand.
As to the comment about funding other religions for the same reasons that the Catholic Schools received their funding, impossible. Other religions were not part of the equation and we can not rewrite history as I stated earlier. Now as we have progressed we realize completely that education unlocks our knowledge and understanding of all religions and hopefully tolerance.
PLURALITY ? The concept of more than one is what fuels competition which tends to bring out the best, it affords us choice
so I do not understand your reasoning behind “greater gross inefficiency”. Would you, with the same reasoning, suggest that we do away with two of the three main political parties thereby making our system more efficient? Would that fit your definition of being a progressive society?
It would certainly break the status quo.
LUCKYRED – I agree. Unfortunately poor parenting is a great problem facing this generation of youth. A new way of approaching education is likely required and possible the delivery system as well. We as society members may need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves is our pursuit of acquiring “things” more important than our children. Perhaps if we spent as much time dealing with our current realities as we do saving and planning our next purchases we just might create a richer future for our children to inherit.
Presently, I would like to see 2 easy changes. If a child does not hand in work in a timely fashion, they get a zero. Currently they just don’t get a mark and it does not affect the final grade.The parent should also be called.
The University of Ottawa allows some students to a take a pass or fail grade instead of the actual mark for a select number of courses. Of course this does not give employers accurate school marks and should be stopped.