Another great TED talk. Just 7 mins, and worth it.
“Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.”
Simply stated, but isn’t it true?
Truly,
Steve
God Forbid someone should go to an English school in Quebec.
Minister Diane De Courcy just issued a press release suggesting that exempting military families from Bill 14 is something akin to the unbelievable abuse of the law used by parents who pay THOUSANDS of dollars to go to a private school so that they can then have access to an English public school.
God Forbid.
God Forbid someone in Quebec should have the right to actually choose what language school their child goes to.
As I type this, I cannot fathom how we have let THIS much happen. Let alone the idea that this new minority government thinks that they should add to the despicable yet still pathetic abuse that is already perpetrated on the English community of Quebec. One of the founding peoples of this province.
This is not normal. This is not acceptable. In actuality, it runs counter to international law. Article TWO of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights expressly condemns discrimination based on language. ARTICLE TWO. You don’t have to read very much to see that THE WORLD doesn’t accept this.
What is it that these people do not understand?!?
As I said to a bilingual (French first language) friend yesterday, when asked to comment on how *should* French be protected, as we all want it to be in Quebec. I wrote to him:
Focus on the advantages of speaking French. Help people fall in love with the culture. Simply “be” the people and the place where others want to be. Encourage pride in the language and culture and dismiss any idea that it is too weak to survive without laws to protect it. Set an example that others want to emulate.
The example that Diane De Courcy and her gang of language thugs is nothing to emulate. Our province has become an international laughing stock. Look up “pastagate” on Google and you’ll see over TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND results. Yup, that’s what the world thinks when it thinks of Quebec right now.
This is pathetic. It is not good for Quebec. It is not good for the French language or our shared culture of Quebec. It serves nothing but to allow pathetic politicians to pull on the heartstrings of those too ignorant to know better. This is not how French is going to thrive in Quebec. This does not elicit pride in the language, the culture or the province. It elicits contempt.
It truly is pathetic, in every possible way.
Truly,
Steve
Filed under Uncategorized
It’s just not good enough.
From a press release from the CAQ.
See, this is just not good enough. Supporting even these anti-English changes in Bill 14 is discriminatory – again. And it does nothing to “protect” the French fact of Quebec. If your MNA is a CAQuiste, you need to let them know how you feel. ASAP.
«Nous sommes toutefois d’avis que les immigrants qui viennent s’installer chez nous doivent être appuyés lorsqu’ils doivent apprendre le français. Le gouvernement peut en faire plus pour les aider à maîtriser la langue officielle du Québec. Dans le même ordre d’idée, nous pensons qu’il est pertinent d’inscrire dans la Charte des droits et libertés le droit de vivre et de travailler en français. Nous sommes ouverts à ces propositions», a conclu la porte-parole de la Coalition.
Bill 14 has to be struck down in its entirety.
hdaneault-grou@assnat.qc.ca – deputy for Groulx (Rosemere, Lorraine, Ste Therese, Boisbriand)
dratthe-blai@assnat.qc.ca – deputy for Blainville
Truly,
Steve
Is Quebec’s education reform a failure?
This article in today’s La Presse reports on a study done by researchers at the University of Laval on the relative success or failure of our education reform.
And the report is not good.
En effet, une forte majorité d’enseignants ne croient pas que la réforme a permis aux élèves de mieux apprendre (69 %), de mieux réussir (72 %), d’être plus motivés (69 %), plus outillés (58 %), plus disciplinés (88 %) ou plus autonomes (69 %).
And for high school teachers in particular:
Les enseignants du secondaire sont particulièrement sévères envers la réforme, puisqu’ils sont en désaccord avec les affirmations précédentes dans une proportion qui dépasse souvent les 80 %. «Ce sont des données très fortes pour nous. La différence avec le secondaire est hyper marquée», souligne M. Falardeau.
Worse still, the fundamental idea of “integration” of those students in difficulties into the regular stream is reported to have a negative affect all around.
Les enseignants ne croient pas non plus que l’intégration des élèves en difficulté dans les classes régulières a été un succès. Au contraire, 75 % considèrent que cette intégration a fait fuir les élèves plus forts vers le réseau privé ou les programmes d’éducation internationale du réseau public (83 %), alors que 68 % estiment que cette intégration n’a pas permis aux élèves faibles de s’améliorer. Selon les profs interrogés, «l’intégration n’a aidé personne», résume M. Falardeau.
So what to do? When do we actually talk about reform, and it’s success or failure? At the school board level, there is nothing we can do but lobby for change. MELS decides.
I think we need to put together a new picture of what education could be like in Quebec. There are enough successful models around the world for us to draw from. The more difficult task will be in changing society’s valuation of education, and those who deliver it.
Truly,
Steve
Vocational education – an immense need.
It was a funny thing to read, this morning, on CBC’s website:
(Stephen Harper) He says that means starting at the basic education level: “There’s a general feeling there are too many kids getting BAs and not enough welders.”
Measures aimed at promoting apprenticeships will feature prominently in the budget, he says.
Vocational education often has a certain stigma to it. ”Well, he may not get into Cegep, but there’s always Voc Ed. Sorry.”
That just isn’t the case. Or it shouldn’t be the case. And it didn’t used to be this way. Over the last 30 years, the entire focus has been put on getting that Bachelor’s degree. ”High school alone just won’t cut it.” But what comes after high school? Not everyone gets into Cegep. Not everyone *wants* to get into Cegep. And not everyone *should* get into Cegep, and especially so when there is a real need for tradespeople. And not to burst anyone’s bubble, but the kid graduating with a BA in computer science? Well, that kid working as an undersea welder out in the Maritimes is likely making 4-5 times as much money, with more time off and benefits.
Other countries have sophisticated systems to bring bright young people into trades and professions, but we’ve never really figured it out.
And why haven’t we? Well, I would ay that the first step is to remove the stigma from the work path in high schools. Understand that vocational education is not where you go if you can’t succeed in school. It’s a path that you may choose that leads to a great future, and all the success in the word. Graduates of Vocational Education, even if they have not managed to pass Sec 4 history and maybe missed a credit in French or English – well, they are our success stories as well, and the MELS needs to recognize that.
Truly,
Steve
Filed under Uncategorized
These campaigns of misinformation must stop.
The CAQ put out yet another press release today, damning school boards in the province of Quebec.
CAQ spokesperson Nathalie Roy chastises the Minister of Education, Marie Malavoy, in the communiqué suggesting that the Minister is hiding behind school boards in order to affect a tax increase. Ms Roy claims that school boards “have not shown the decency to publish a scenario where taxes are raised”. Ms Malavoy suggests that these cuts can come from administrative services, but that would be our choice as school boards to make.
Words matter. Facts matter. And unfortunately, both Ms Roy and Ms Malavoy are the ones truly deceiving the Quebec taxpayers.
Our school board has yet to pass a resolution on where to assess the latest cuts, yes THE CUTS to the school board. So no, we have not yet published anything. Because a decision has not yet been reached. Should the school board be tossing about scenarios that could apply? That are likely to never see the light of day? Responsible governance dictates that we should not.
Let’s take a moment to look at the facts here. The issue at hand is the “reduction rate” applied to school taxes. In our school board, we have over 130 municipalities, each with their very own “reduction rate”. These rates range from as low as 8.83% (Village St Pierre) to as high as 49.71% (Labelle). The “reduction rate” was originally introduced by the government a number of years ago, to help defray the massive increases taxpayers were seeing as municipal evaluations skyrocketed. The actual formulae for the municipalities remain a mystery to me – it is said to be complex, and by the way, as an English school board, we have no decision making power anyway – this rate is in fact decided on by the Franco school boards. (Isn’t that a nice little bonus for us English boards?)
This monstrosity is just a minor piece in what is the single most bloated bureaucratic waste of a tax system this world could ever imagine.
Theoretically, our school board should be taxing at $0.36/$100 evaluation in order to meet the “taxation envelope” that the Ministry allocates to us.
The law does not allow us to tax more than $0.35/$100, so with a total municipal evaluation of $8.8 billion, to get to the $32 million “envelope”, we would need to tax at $.3636/$100 – we are not allowed more than $0.35/$100, so we have to tax at that top end and the Ministry makes up the $1 million dollar balance that we are unable to collect to meet that “envelope” of $32 million.
Now – back to the “reduction rate”. Ms. Malavoy has indicated that for the 2013/2014 year, 50% of the value of the reduction rate will be removed. That means the school board gets $3.5 million dollars less. Now – the Minister has said that we can tax that amount by reducing the reduction rates by that same 50%, or that we can “find them in administration”, as long as it doesn’t come from services that directly affect students and learning.
Some questions: Do you know what percentage of our school board’s budget is taken up by school board administration? Under 4%. Do you know what the average percentage is on the Franco side? Around 7%. Do you know what other social services allocate to their administrative costs? Some are said to be higher than 10%. And more. At under 4% in our school board, we simply have no where else to cut.
Most recently, parents committees in the province have started a petition on the Quebec National Assembly website, demanding that the province invest in education. The parents know that academic perseverance and success are crucial to the development of a healthy, committed and prosperous society; why doesn’t our Government reflect that in its investment in education?!
(Sign the petition yourself after clicking here.)
So – what do we do? What choices do we have? And when is it time to demand real leadership from both Ms. Malavoy and Ms. Roy? When is it time to stand up and say, “NO. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. We have no where else to cut, and it’s time we look at the bureaucracy behind all of this.”
I say that time is NOW.
Let’s talk about the number of bureaucrats employed by MELS. Let’s look at their functions, and the actual value they deliver to our students. Let’s examine how the bureaucracy created by MELS affects school board administration, our in-school administrators and our teachers. Let’s look at the tax system – does it make any sense to be taxing this way? Managing reduction rates, having duplications of taxation services throughout the province and then trying to balance it all out?
Why not a single line item on municipal taxes, the same for us all and collected by the municipal system already in place?
And while we are looking at tax rates, let’s finally address the absolute theft from English tax payers who are having to pay as much as 3, 4 or 5 times the school tax rate of their Franco neighbours, to get exactly the same level of funding for their English schools. This is outright financial discrimination against English taxpayers in Quebec – is there any justice at all in not addressing this right now?!
Ms. Roy – your focus is incorrect and your hubris has a rank smell to it. Ms. Malavoy – your attempts to download cuts that shouldn’t be made to school boards and hence increase taxes on the taxpayers are both transparent and destructive to the future of this province.
As a taxpayer, I demand that both of you focus on the real problems in front of us, and that you direct our tax dollars into the future of this province by funding our school boards adequately such that they can deliver the high quality education they are certain to deliver.
Truly,
Steve
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Filed under Blogging, Commentaries, Education
Tagged as bureaucracy, caq, education, malavoy, MELS, Quebec, roy, school tax, taxation