Changes ahead

As faithful readers here will remember, I was laid off from my most-recent job at the Expositor in Brantford, Ont. in December after 28 months as that outlet's primary city hall reporter.
In January, I accepted an offer to work at the Brant News, a Metroland weekly newspaper based in Brantford-- the general manager and editor moved quickly to offer me a position within their organization that would begin with a maternity leave contract and then carry the potential for full-time, permanent employment within the chain. I was set to return to Brantford and covering city hall starting March 3.
On Feb. 21 however, I accepted another offer of employment with the Standard-Freeholder in Cornwall, Ont. Starting March 17, I will be the managing editor of this daily news organization, overseeing its newsroom and the digital and print content it produces.
It's another role taking me in a different direction than I'd anticipated over a decade ago when all I wanted to be was the best education reporter anywhere.
This topic is still a passion of mine, as is the sharing of clips and analysis of its issues and coverage elsewhere in the media. How I will manage this space is still somewhat unknown, but I hope to be able to continue to use it.

Changes

This space has, unfortunately, become what I increasingly referred to as my "oft-neglected" education blog over the past year.
There are no excuses other than neglect and a lack of drive for why this is only the fourth seventh post of the year to this space. I've not made the time for it and there was no push to do so professionally as I was focused mainly on municipal affairs.
As of a few days ago, I was laid off as a result of corporate downsizing within the chain of newspapers I've worked in since 2003.
The bonus? Theoretically, I may have more time to dedicate to this space now that I find myself between jobs. Of course, the length of that period of time is unpredictable.
If you're still out there, still waiting for something to read, stay tuned.

Now 'tumbling' what I've been reading

I've made a change to the setup around here to better recognize the differences in how I've used this space. I'm happy that as of now, instead of creating aggregation posts as I've increasingly done in the past year, those will now live on a Tumblr page at tumblr.educationreporter.ca.
I've fed the RSS feed of that page onto a panel right below my profile at right featuring the most recent five items. To go directly to the tumblr page, there is also a direct link above.
Why do this?
I've been finding in recent months the original idea of posting something here about every K-12 education web article I'd read was becoming increasingly difficult to do with other constraints on my time.
Facing a slew of open browser tabs every time I wanted to write about something really important or do original reporting of some kind was discouraging.
By aggregating those clips into a separate area, it's my hope this space here on the blog will open for more content posts-- opinion and analysis as well as original material.
Any feedback and thoughts on this new arrangement are encouraged!

Quick thought on GoogleAds

As longtime readers here would know, there's a GoogleAds sidebar on the right-hand side of this blog (scroll down a ways if this is currently the top post).
As those who know GoogleAds would know, the ad(s) displayed are generated by an algorithm based on the content that appears in this blog. During the election campaign in Ontario, the content of this blog may result in political ads being displayed in the GoogleAd space (I kept getting a PC Party one tonight).
Just like in a newspaper or broadcast, the appearance of these ads is in no way in and of itself an endorsement of any one particular political party or viewpoint. Should I choose to use this space to express my personal views during the Ontario election campaign (or at any other time), it will be stated from this space, not the one generated by the GoogleAds algorithm.

Rose and thorn for CBC's teachers

Four days of the National last week included mini-docs on four teachers as part of a back-to-school package put on by the CBC. Called "The Real Lives of Canadian Teachers," the CBC has posted its four parts online through The National's website.
First a rose. Sending out producers and crews to follow these four teachers earlier this year deserves some applause. As someone who routinely strives to see more K-12 coverage across all media outside of the usual back-to-school coverage, this was an investment of resources by the CBC that should be complimented.
In a 55-minutes-minus-commercials newscast, each piece grabbed a good 15-20 minutes of air time. Also rare and also to be commended.
Now the thorny bits, though context helps understand them.
This title is above all misleading. This was "The Real Lives of GTA High School Teachers." Given its resources, it's unlikely crews could have been dispatched to other classrooms outside of the GTA or Ontario. But it would have been great to show individuals in other provinces.
It also only showed high school teachers. Which neglects a whole segment of teachers who face their own challenges and rewarding moments but teach K-8. Could access have been an issue, given the younger ages of the students? Maybe, but not an insurmountable one.
Overall I'd still put this series in my recommended viewing pile.

Last post from Massey College / Upcoming hiatus

The view from my Massey College suite, in more verdant times this past fall.

This will be the last post I'll write from my perch at Massey College, as pictured above. The past few weeks has been a flurry of activity as we wrap the academic term and prepare for the last Canadian Journalism Fellowship activity, a two-week stint in Finland and Denmark (to which I'm adding a week split between London, U.K. and St. Petersburg). This past Monday the selection committee met to shortlist the applications received from Canadian journalists for the 2011-12 edition of the program. After the committee meeting its members were joined by various funders of the program (including the Fisher family, who funded my fellowship) and this year's fellows. We had an opportunity to speak to the assembled crowd for five minutes or so, reflecting on the past seven months, the courses we'd taken and the experience as a whole.
I will be forever indebted to this college-- the past seven months have been exactly the personal and professional refresher and readjuster that I was seeking when I applied for the program. I doubt any words I could say or type would ever truly explain this experience and the impact that it will have on my career in time. 
The seven months have just flown by and though very excited for the travel that lies ahead, I am moving out of the college before leaving for our European adventures. Will split my time between various locations upon returning to this continent and I'm due back at work on May 2, just in time to cast my vote and then cover the results as they come in that evening.
I am particularly delighted the fellows will be visiting an elementary school in Finland, so I can see first-hand what the school culture looks and feels like in that most-revered of countries (at least when it comes to their educational system). I'm going to be particularly curious to see what elements look and feel the same as some of the classrooms I've been fortunate enough to observe in this country.
Sadly for this space, it means an extended hiatus. So the issues that I've been touching on -- particularly with the grants scheduled imminently for release -- won't be updated in this space until at least April 24 if not beyond then and into early May.
Please come back after that date so we can continue the conversation.

Changes coming, slowly

In a day or two, this blog will switch addresses, to blog.educationreporter.ca. Or failing that (my techie skills could be better), www.educationreporter.ca.
The registration is still working its way through the internet's DNS universe, so the blog lives on here for the time being until that communication is completed.
After the URL switch, I will continue to use the Blogger platform for some time to come, so cosmetically the site won't change overnight. However, with my own registered domain I now have the flexibility to do a lot more with this site in the years to come.

Investing in coverage

Been raptly following the Peterborough Examiner's five-day "In the classroom" series this past week. The paper dedicated approximately a half-page a day plus video as reporter Elizabeth Bower shadowed King George Public School for the week. Unfortunately, the only part I can find on the Examiner's website is day one. That's disappointing for you, since there were even some video teasers on the printed pages for days two and beyond. I've searched every section of the website as well as using the search function and cannot find the other four parts on the website.
Regrettable.
Regardless, I commend the Examiner and Bower for this five-part series. The Examiner is not that large of a newsroom (it was about 20 people when I interned there 12 years ago and has only gotten smaller since then) so the decision to spring one reporter, with support from a photographer/videographer, for five full school days is a large commitment.
The articles are comparative ('back when I was in school...') but also explanatory in nature. We all tend to fall back on our own experiences when we were in school, so writing of this nature on an occasional time frame helps remind us of how the practices in schools change.
We all win when we have a better understanding of what happens in our classrooms and readers of the Examiner have that this week.

Oh, boys

It's our time to lead, a redesigned Globe and Mail has been telling us since Oct. 1, laying out eight themes where it's arguing Canada needs to be a leader. Week three's theme? Boys. Specifically, how Canada is failing its boys. Though the series is only two days in, I have some thoughts.
First, anyone writing, knowing, etc. about education and children's issues knows this concern isn't new. It's been around for years now, to the point there's a smorgasbord of data to validate how boys are doing less well in school and in life in their earliest years. I'm not trying to suggest the Globe is late to the party on this point, as even it admits this concern has some history to it.
The Time to Lead series appears to be fashioned on the newspaper (as an institution, not the tactile paper itself) as an active member of society, as an advocate pushing for improvement in the causes it chooses to support. This is also nothing new as a journalistic concept, but the Globe holds a prominence among the groups of Canadian society who are actually poised in positions to effect change. For a paper that claims to set the political agenda (I don't doubt this on certain levels), the Time to Lead series is a bold move. Will people (the Globe's people, really) care about these eight themes?
To bring it back to boys, will we care enough when shown the data? By pointing fingers to the five top reasons the Globe says boys are falling behind? By the live chats (some of which I wish I was able to sit in on in what's shaping up to be a busy week) with the lead reporter and various others?
It's drawn me in at any rate, to the point I'll be reading the rest of the week to see where the Globe takes this topic.

Building blocks stream

The province is hosting a two-day education summit here in Toronto on Monday and Tuesday of the coming week. More information on the event itself is available here, but organizers do intend to livestream all the keynote speakers. I hope to be able to embed the player on this site while the livestreams are running, which would then also provide the links for those to go back and view the video archive after the conference has ended.
All of this, of course, is dependent on whatever my schedule ends up being in the coming week-- If I'm not at the laptop to plug in the livestream then obviously my only option is to embed the archive once it's posted.
Given the roster of speakers (I'm most interested in U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan), I'll probably toss up a post or two early in the week as well.

Reflections on a week I'll not soon forget

What a week.
As I sit here at my home office desk, I'm still scrambling for the adequate words to express what I've seen and experienced since departing for the Netherlands on April 30 for a fast-paced nine-day agenda of events commemorating the liberations of that kingdom by Canadian and other allied forces in May 1945. I was privileged to attend this tour courtesy of EF Educational Tours with several other media from across Ontario. Amazed to be able not only to witness these events with my own eyes and ears, but also able to add to this perception seeing and living it through the eyes of Canadian students.
I've never been prouder to be Canadian.
Our Second World War soldiers -- those still with us to this day and those in the thousands whose final resting place I stood in this past week -- did the heavy lifting during an almost year-long campaign moving northwards and west along the Rhine River delta to push back German forces from the Netherlands. Capitulation came on May 5 in Wageningen, at a hotel that still stands to this day. I stood metres away from that hotel on May 5, watching as a thankful, grateful, exuberant nation acknowledged not only the surviving veterans, but thousands of Canadian students. Canadian flags were everywhere you turned. Canadians of all ages were being serenaded by Dutch singing our national anthem and high-fiving them in the crowds. Children rushed every Canadian student, hands outstretched in thanks and seeking the many flags, pins and mementos Canadians brought with them to share.
This exuberance was powerfully contrasted by moments of sheer sadness and remembrance. Of watching Canadian students in tears, sobbing as they realized the cost to not only the gravestone in front of them but the hundreds (or thousands, depending on the site) of others around them. A generation that has only experienced conflict through random newspaper headlines and is perhaps detached from current wars and Canadian deaths on the other side of the world was overwhelmed by crashing into a nation that will never forget the cost of its liberation from an oppressive regime. Had capitulation not come in May 1945 the number of Dutch people dying from starvation would have skyrocketed and threatened the nation's very existence.
This was an education these students will never forget, one they would never have gotten in a classroom or on Canadian soil. Big, huge kudos to the teachers who signed up their schools -- 84 across Canada -- for this tour.

I was particularly lucky to both follow a local school here in Woodstock as well as encounter numerous Canadian schools overseas whose teachers went far above and beyond when preparing their students for this experience. Schools who deviated off the mass itineraries to visit the graves of those whose names are forever emblazoned on commemorative plaques in the hallways of their schools back home. Schools whose students and teachers had and found personal connections, taking the time to stand in silent remembrance at the feet of those soldiers' final resting places.
When I attempt to contrast these experiences against hearing -- locally and elsewhere -- of school board administrators who attempted or outright succeeded in denying requests from schools to attend these events... it saddens me even more today than it did prior to departure. For example, not one school from Toronto was in attendance. Schools from entire provinces were held back from attending for fear the trip would have a negative academic impact on students.
Though this was the last large-scale event involving veterans of the Second World War -- they're growing older unlike those who remained behind -- it's now up to youth to pick up the torch of remembrance as the younger generations in the Netherlands have unequivocally done.
The students I met were well-prepared and had worked for almost a year to ensure they didn't threaten their academic standing while gathering the knowledge they'd need to squeeze every possible moment out of this commemorative trip.
Our schools should enable this, not unduly stand in the way.

A pox on edubabble

Though my own reporting this week locally, I had the opportunity to witness two different ways of tackling the difficult explanation of school-closure reviews and the various steps-- consideration, rationale, decision and outcome.
I won't name the specific boards, but two boards and two separate processes. One review just underway and one where trustees approved a whack of capital spending at the conclusion of a set of reviews.
For the first, I was smacking my forehead, listening to a superintendent try and explain why classes (split classes at that) of 10, or 12, or even seven students wasn't pedagogically as sound as larger groupings of students and staff. Out came the edubabble.
There was no initial attempt to put it in terms people can understand. I don't mean dumbing it down, because that's patronizing. I mean breaking it into plain-English chunks and also speaking to outcomes, not processes. The person in question saved herself later in the evening on a subsequent question when she told the grumbling crowd she didn't mean to suggest that small schools, small classes or rural produced students less capable of success.
She stated, more plainly, that it's clear the two most important parts of student success are the classroom teacher, supported by principal leadership-- regardless of class or school size. People understood that one.
Contrast that with example number two.
Two superintendents speaking to a combined five school construction/addition/reno projects worth $30 million that are a conclusion to two school-closure reviews. Very little edubabble.
Great anecdotes in plain English about how the kids at the school without a gym will no longer have to walk across a muddy field in sub-zero temperatures to use a nearby recreational facility that has a gym. Of how teachers will be able to team-teach in the same grade level and do joint lesson planning , evaluation and class exercises. Of how peer groups in the single-digit range will benefit from a wider circle of kids to socialize with.
Or the other superintendent who spoke of renos to the elementary general arts room to soundproof it so that the entire building doesn't have to experience the joys of intermediate grades picking up instruments for the first time.
Earlier in the review, the best thing done by the board was a tour of a new school with the same approximate proposed student size so parents on the review could see the difference. The other was a one-page sheet outlining the differences in program between a 400 student school and a 180 student school.
Improvements made possible because of school-closure processes, which the director of education tied in a neat little bow at the end-- explaining the reviews are very tough on those who participate but that, guided by a goal of improving the conditions under which children are learning, there's a nice payoff at the end.
I say banish edubabble.

A thought on teacher education and the job market

I got a response on my earlier post about faculties of education and how they're responding to changes in the labour market for teaching in Ontario, particularly southern Ontario. Sections of the e-mail, posted with permission and anonymised, are below.

Our son is currently teaching in the Arctic, in a town of 500, in Northern Quebec. After graduating from Althouse College (University of Western Ontario) three years ago, (a school requiring exceptional entry grades and, even, experience), he qualified for the Thames Valley board's supply teachers list, but after several months, was never called. The glowing report cards from the mentors he taught under were obviously false, but make for nice keepsakes, I suppose! The Katavik Board of Education, from Northern Quebec, contacted him in late November of that year. Their board had talked to graduating Althouse students the previous spring. They wondered if he would travel north for a month, to fill in for a teacher on sick leave. The idea of real teaching experience was enhanced by the thought of seeing the Arctic, so he said yes, and we scrambled to get him packed (food included as we didn't know what would be available up there) and off he went, to the tiny village of Tasiujaq (pop 200), Quebec. After a two-day journey on four different planes he arrived, and began teaching the very next day. The experience was unique, and he managed to survive until Christmas, when he was asked to return in January, to replace another 'sick' teacher. Two years later, with no openings in the Thames Valley Board, he is still up in the Arctic, in a slightly larger village, Kangiqsujuaq (pop 500) on a full-time basis. He has had to adapt the maths and science courses he teaches, in order to make them applicable to the Inuit students. Of course, that required much re-writing of texts, so lesson planning took up most of his first year. Adjustment has taken some time, but he has found the northern people very accepting, and he has taken part in several community events, including coaching some students for competition in the Inuit Games, recently held in Northern Alberta.
...
Going north (or west) might be something to consider before going abroad, but it still doesn't answer the question of why the colleges accept so many students, only to turn them loose with virtually no job prospects near their home base! We would love to have our son closer, and miss him a lot. On the other hand, it has been a life experience you really can't argue with. The downside of the story comes right back to the problem of 'teaching' experience required by the Thames Valley board. Will they see the teaching and life experiences he is getting in an Inuit community, relevant to teaching down here?

Though not a rule, I'm sure this experience is not unique. I can't speak for the board and their hiring practices, but have learned over the years this board does at times hire those with teaching experience outside the norm. There were also years where they hired a larger percentage of D'Youville College (Buffalo) grads as that college was doing more work on early language and literacy than Ontario faculties were. This wasn't reflected in the hiring stats for 2009-10, but boards likely have a better lay of the land on grads than their faculties some times do.
After all, after hiring, boards have only a few years to put teachers through the New Teacher Induction Program, where the hires get all kinds of additional experience in program, classroom management, etc. and the benefit of a teacher-mentor to shadow and learn from.

HIstory of changes

One of the challenges in media coverage is that we're so focused on the present, we tend to forget the past. We tend to stick to the changes people are upset about today, rather than trying to put them into some kind of historical context. Particularly when it comes to changes in schooling-- we tend to prefer to send our kids to schools that follow the same sort of practices and traditions we remember (those that we can remember) from our own days in school. Hence the difficulty in closing schools and in changing the structure of schools (ie: K-12 schools, 7-12 schools).
The Community Press has a nice, 'soft' article (as we call these in print) on the history and present circumstances of S.S. No. 5 Brickley Separate School, opened in 1855. The Northumberland County school is now in private ownership, and the article looks at what the owners might do with the structure along with some historical context. As a history buff (I minored, but could have double-majored, in history while taking my journalism degree), I eat this sort of stuff up.

People in the area have been wondering what's to become of the school, which closed in 1968, and the (Sean and Charity) Hannigans obligingly spoke about their acquisition. Archival records kept by the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board were also made available.
"We decided to buy the Brickley schoolhouse as it adjoins our property – our house and property surrounds the school," Charity replied in an e-mail to questions from this paper.
"At the present time we have/are tinkering away at a few things inside and out but with two smaller children, both working fulltime, and living in an older home that we enjoy updating and renovating, as well as taking the time and money to fix it up, is a factor that has prevented us in doing anything to it," Charity told The Community Press.
Both she and her husband are intrigued by the schoolhouse, its history and its architecture.
The Hannigans have have been kicking around several ideas about what to do with the schoolhouse but have not yet made a decision.
"We have had many ideas of our own and many from others, including some ideas such as an antique shop, tea room, music studio or living quarters," she explained.
For the Hannigans it seems to be a labour of love as they attempt to preserve a historic structure of significance to the community.
S.S. No. 5 Brickley Separate School, located at the junction of County Road 25 and the Eight Line, was built on land donated by John Brickley. It served an Irish immigrant community, typical of many that existed throughout the board's region.
In 1843 the Act for the Establishment of Separate Schools was passed. When Brickley opened in 1855, the log school had 50 pupils in attendance. Two dates – 1871 and 1873 – surfaced in the archival material as to when the structure that exists today was built.

The article also speaks to one of the few constants in education (and society at large): change. From the birth of separate (read: Catholic, in most parts of Ontario) schooling, to the end of one- and two-room schoolhouses in the 1960s, it's all referenced here.

Innovation at the LFPress

Twice in the last week, the London Free Press has held live online chats on education topics. A Feb. 1 chat was held with Thames Valley District School Board executive superintendent of operations services Karen Dalton regarding the city's high schools and how to navigate the choices from the perspective of a Grade 8 student.
A week later, Feb. 8 , the paper hosted TVDSB's Céline Bourbonnais-MacDonald and the London District Catholic School Board's Sharon Wright-Evans for another live chat. Both are the superintendents within each board currently responsible for the implementation of the full-day kindergarten program.
The livechats can be 'replayed' through the links above.
I don't offhand know how many participants were in the Feb. 1 chat, but Wright-Evans told me Monday evening there were over 70 following the Feb. 8 chat. I've sat in on both to see how they were run and examine potential use within either my own newsroom or even here on this blog.
Live chat isn't new, nor is the Free Press the first media to use it. For example, CBC.ca is a frequent user of the same software being used by lfpress.com. What's impressed me (which should be no surprise to those here) is the newspaper chose to do its first two live chats on education subjects -- choosing a high school and full-day kindergarten.
Topics important enough to launch a new way of interacting with readers at southwestern Ontario's largest-circulation daily newspaper.

Meeting of the minds at AgendaCamp

I've been particularly lax at writing anything here this week for a combination of reasons. However, I did want to share the experience of TVOntario's AgendaCamp London with you. A continuing stream of thoughts from the day and onwards is available by scanning the tweets posted with the hashtag set aside for the day. As promised, I was able to tweet one session related to education (I was scribing at the other), where the stream-of-consciousness tweets are also searchable.

Above is a Flickr feed of the photos tagged from the day. Beware if you click any of these social-media links after Feb. 28, you'll be getting the AgendaCamp Brockville stuff in there as well.
The session I scribed on education was proposed by Karen Aranha, a Glencoe parent and school council member-- she produced the vacant pupil-place analysis shared with Middlesex County council and the Community Schools Alliance many months ago. The wiki page effectively reflects our discussion from that panel. After another round of sessions, the education theme (also pulled from this session) was merged with a social-services one where we were asked to answer the question: What do the changing needs of London's educational and social services tell us about mid-sized Ontario cities?

The eventual question posed for the hour-long live broadcast was more focused on upper ed, with an examination of how mid-sized Ontario cities like London attract youth to their colleges and universities and what they might do to hold onto them after graduation.
I was exposed to some very interesting perspectives during the day -- from someone who didn't think children should be using computers until after the age of six, to a librarian who told everyone who said they thought libraries created good hubs she loved them.
By the end of the afternoon session, the group had settled on a decentralized hub-and-spoke system of community hubs located in libraries and schools. We figured the schools would be a good fit -- notwithstanding the momentum of Best Start, Pascal and ministry PPMs -- since within urban or settlement areas, there's usually always a school within walking distance. The libraries would extend that approach beyond early childhood and families into older families and other demographics within the population that need the one-stop approach.
Will it happen? A number of folks in the afternoon session were movers and shakers (perhaps) on staff within the city or a school board (Upper Grand, not one of the London-based boards).
It would be neat to see this sort of World Cafe / ChangeCamp model used more often. For example, wouldn't it be neat to see it used in an accommodation review committee? Messy, perhaps, but I'm sure the participants would feel way more engaged than they do now.

Dombrowsky for Wynne

I was honestly surprised to see the cabinet shuffle impact education when it was announced today. Kathleen Wynne (Don Valley West) moves from Education to Transportation, where the news release says she will, "help implement the government's MoveOntario 2020 public transit plan, improve service-delivery at GO Transit and work with municipalities to build and maintain the highways and bridges that are critical to our economic success."

Leona Dombrowsky (Prince Edward-Hastings) moves from Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to Education. Quoting the release, she, "leads our efforts to deliver full-day learning for four- and five-year olds, further increase test scores and graduation rates."
I've had the pleasure of speaking with both these women— there was a time when I was also an agriculture reporter and spoke with Dombrowsky fairly freqently when she was first appointed to the role to replace Steve Peters. She is feisty and can speak to both rural and urban issues— I imagine these are some of the reasons why she has been shuttled into Education.
Though Wynne was the education minister I've spoken to the least — for whatever reason, and in no way intentional, I spoke with Gerard Kennedy and Sandra Pupatello more often — I always found our interviews to be straightforward and to the point. I have had a wonderful relationship with her staffers.
I can't shake the feeling, however, that this is a demotion for Wynne and somewhat of a promotion for Dombrowsky. Education is the second-larges line item (after Health and Long-term Care) in the provincial budget and full-day learning is and will be the centrepiece of this government's mandate. MoveOntario 2020? Does anyone outside the GTA care?
Early Learning? It impacts every family in the province.
So, a goodbye with thanks to Wynne, the longest-serving Education Minister of the McGuinty government and a hello and welcome to Dombrowsky.

On being watched

I received a most intriguing e-mail a few days ago, as I was returning from holidays and getting prepped for a weekend shift at the newspaper. It comes from the University of Toronto / Ontario Studies in Education's Research Supporting Practice in Education department, which has setup a 'Facts in Education' project.
From the e-mail and web page:

Facts in Education aims to correct significant factual errors about education that appear in various news media sources across Canada, and to create wide awareness of the correct information. We are a non-partisan effort and are not affiliated with any particular position, opinion or organization.  We respect the right of any commentator to hold their own views and opinions.  We will not be taking issue with the expression of opinion.  Rather we are solely concerned with stories that are inconsistent with the available evidence and are therefore misleading to those who read, see or hear them.  For example, we sometimes see stories contending that nobody fails in schools any more.  This is completely inconsistent with the evidence, which clearly shows that a large number of students fail courses and fail to graduate in a timely way. 

...

These distinguished panellists will be working with our team in order to ensure that our response to factual errors contains the actual facts in education as supported by empirical evidence.  We will be distributing our response to the original media source of the story as well as to various other media outlets, and to educational stakeholders in Ontario.

The purpose of this project is not to critique any journalist or news outlet, but simply to ensure that people are aware of the real Facts in Education, facts which are backed by substantial research.  In this respect, we invite you to contact us if you have any questions or comments or if there is something we can do to support your coverage of educational issues in Canada.

The project's participants are a who's who of education in this country (or at least this province), with the RSPE headed by two-time Ontario deputy minister of education Ben Levin, who also held numerous high-level positions in Manitoba prior to coming to Ontario. Others involved include Avis Glaze, Charles Pascal, a few current and former ministry people and other OISE folks.

The project also has a blog, which I'll be putting up on the blogroll as soon as this is posted. So far, it has one post on an erroneous charter-school reference in a Winnipeg Free Press article from last month.

Kudos to those involved in this project, and I'll say in complete and utter self-interest I hope my reporting never makes the list.


Addendum
Moira MacDonald wrote about this Wednesday-- we were on the same wave length for the most part.

Reporting on report cards

So Tuesday we were bombarded by a smorgasbord of reportage on report cards.
As best as I can tell from my siftings, the Globe and Mail kicked things off on Tuesday, even including a link to the Ministry of Education memo that hasn't been posted elsewhere in its usual locations. While dialoguing with Kelly Pedro in London, she mentioned she had touched on report-card reform at the end of November— however I did note in a Dec. 23 tweet she was working on report cards again.
Throughout the day Tuesday I noticed report cards as the topic of an Ontario Today phone-in on CBC Radio One as well as a number of localized stories from various sister papers— St. Catharines' stands out most prominently.
It got to the point — and showed the power of certain media outlets — that Minister Kathleen Wynne issued a special statement on the matter Tuesday afternoon. From the statement:

The fall Progress Report Card will facilitate better communication among parents, teachers and students by assessing students early in the school year in a new format. It will evaluate students in the same areas as the report card but instead of assigning a grade or mark, it will indicate how a student is progressing — very well, well or with difficulty.

Those who might look at this as a victory for teachers and their federations should perhaps take a step back and reevaluate.
The change eliminates a grading system, be it letters or percentages, from the fall report card. It doesn't eliminate the actual report. Parents should still receiving something, in writing, from their child's teacher with commentary on the child's progress to-date in the class. While I've never written a classroom report card, I've completed a number of written evaluations over years (Johnny is a great floater... he needs to remember to keep his belly up and his head back when on his back, and so on) and have always found the ones requiring original thought to be more time consuming and hence more meaningful than a system of plugging in grades and choosing from a range of pre-selected commentary. Good teachers should always be able to, virtually on the spot, provide an up-to-date verbal progress report on their student, and be able to back their statement up with written notes from evaluations.
This reportage and reaction also shows, I believe, the ever-present range of parental involvement. For those parents who monitor the children's work at school, keep up-to-date with what's being assigned, attend parent-teacher or meet-the-teacher events at the school, etc., a fall progress report — with or without grades — won't tell them much they weren't already aware of. It's the detached parents, the ones that sit back and react to the news their children are struggling in school, who will see a change.
But even then, this doesn't strike me as something that earth-shattering. That parent can still read the progress report, get angry and take away the Nintendo (I guess a Wii now, as opposed to the predecessor Commodore 64 in my day) until the next report card.

Year in review

I did this on my other blog already, but wanted to put a little more time and thought into the one here, looking at the year and trying to pick out the significant issues that touched on K-12 education in Ontario. It's been an interesting year and one where, looking back, I'm happy to have started and kept up with blogging about. This venue has given me so many opportunities to delve into issues, some provincial in scope, some very local, that I never would have learned about or written about within the bounds of the job I'm paid to do within my newsroom.
So, here are a few significant events from the past year that stand out, in no particular order.

• Settling the latest round of four-year collective agreements with all employee groups. This year marked the first time all school-board employees settled agreements with their employers and brought their contracts into the same four-year cycle. It was a hugely instructive experience showing which unions could work within the provincial discussion table format and achieve success for their membership, and the few who dug in their heels and may some day feel the wrath of their members when they realize they've fallen behind their peers.
• Reports, reports, reports. There were a few that will forever change the face of education in this province -- some are broken out into individual items below -- and there are some still underway (curriculum, municipal partnership, education funding formula review) that are due in 2010-11.
• "Planning and possibilities: The report of the declining enrolment working group," lays out recommendations and a vision for how the province should both encourage the modernization of its schools while respecting a need for local decision-making within the acknowledgment the status quo cannot continue. The draft shared-use policy circulated this summer was in partial response to one of the first things Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said she would take on from this report.
• "Our best future: Early learning in Ontario," affectionately called simply the 'Pascal report.' This report, and the ensuing implementation of its recommendations -- starting with full-day kindergarten -- will reshape how the government delivers education and a myriad of other supports to families with young children in this province. Its ripple-effect will, whether you support the program or not, be felt for a long, long time. If I were to rank this list, this report and the ensuing developments would be at or very near the top.
  
• Bill 177: The Student Achievement and School Board Governance Act, passed and given royal assent in December of this year. The bill, combined with the regulations from 2006's Bill 78, is going to change how K-12 education is governed in Ontario, particularly for those trustees and boards who've not yet adapted to realize their role is one of corporate governance, not middling and meddling with individual issues. A hastily circulated and drafted set of provincial-interest regulations caused a kerfuffle in the summer, however the minister continues to say these regulations will be passed, but in a more consultative fashion. 
• The formation of the Community Schools Alliance, earlier this summer, provided an outlet for disillusioned, angry, mostly rural municipalities to vent over the school-closure process in place at school boards and the province's own guidelines. The group made headlines as it asked Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne to impose a 'smart' moratorium on school closures where the local municipality and community disputed the closure. She rightfully rejected the request. A subsequent letter-writing campaign seems to have fallen flat and I'm personally still waiting for the alliance to post a list of its member municipalities.
• ARCs, ARCs, ARCs: Dozens of these school-closure reviews -- the first round for many boards since new guidelines were adopted in 2006, the second for others -- completed their work this past calendar year, foisting recommendations on trustees across Ontario. Some of these committees came up with truly unique and inspired recommendations for the future of schooling in their communities. Too many dug in their heels and adopted a status-quo attitude or a belief everything that's open should stay open forever, just the way it is today or modernized. Revised guidelines were released in June, which many boards have now adopted as they launch the next round of reviews.
• Oliver Carroll, the Toronto District Catholic School Board trustees ousted after a successful court challenge under the provincial conflict of interest legislation. Ripple effects are still being felt across every other school board, as well as within the TDCSB with two more trustees now under the spotlight.
  
• The Bluewater District School Board: It deserves its own mention here, because if boards haven't been paying attention to this group of trustees this past year, it's at their own peril. The BDSB saw resignations, public complaints and the appointment of Mr. Fix-its in an attempt to quell concerns surrounding improper decision making -- some of which still haven't been resolved.
• Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Niagara District Secondary School. For a decision made in June 2008, its impact stretched into the fall of 2009 as a result of the vote taken over a year earlier. Enrolment remains stubbornly below the arbitrary 350-student level the school was to reach by Oct. 31 to remain open. The fight continues for those unwilling to let this one go, which includes a council determined to use any measure, no matter how legitimate, to cause the school board difficulty.

 As the year has gone on, this has become a place for a handful of people to regularly post their thoughts on my thoughts, and I thank you for dipping your toes into my sandbox and contributing to the discussion. I've received numerous e-mails, some of which have been exciting. Several posts have elicited e-mails with more information that may pop out in future posts as I read, digest and analyze the info. To give an idea of what's bringing people here, I also include my top-10 posts since I started tracking them in April-May. There are a few caveats by definition here as these are the specific URLs that have drawn traffic-- the bulk of you reading this are just reading it on the front page, were I can't track which post necessarily brought you here.

1. Bill 177 
2. EQAO and conflicts 
3. NOTL shenanigans (later updated)
4. The board, the OMB, the town... and the lawsuit? 
5. ETFO and EQAO 
6. The Community Schools Alliance 
7. Refocusing the sunshine 
8. Toronto ARC coverage ramps up 
9. Toronto ARCs it up, finally 
10. TorSun backs TDSB ARCs 

 As I write this, the blog has attracted over 6,000 visits -- which includes over 2,500 unique visitors -- and over 10,000 page views since I started publishing in March. It's on the radar for those who are interested in education in Ontario, be they trustees, parents, Ministry of Education folk or other journalists. Far better than I ever could have anticipated, so thanks.