Current Forces Shaping Education in Canada: Challenges and Opportunities

1. Prospects for EducationJanuary 23, 2013 Forces and pressures on schools in Canada Forces and pressures on schools in Nova Scotia: Levin Report (April 2011) Government Report: Kids & Learning First (February 2012) Your place in understanding Kids & Learning First

2. 1) Forces and pressures on schoolsin Canada • Demographics: • Fewer families with school-age children • More and more dependence on public child-care • Changing structure of families • Increased diversity as Aboriginal population grows and immigration shifts (2/3 of immigrants from Asia, Africa, and South America) • Greater religious diversity • More than half of Canada’s population now resides west of Ontario

3. Canadian economic and labour-force changes • Pressure for schools to solve the economic challenges in difficult times • Youth unemployment and underemployment through McJobs • Replacing labor with technology egg. agriculture • Pressure on schools to teach job ready dispositions such as dependability and cooperation • Unpredictability of labor market forecasted needs • Regional variation in economies: Alberta to NS

4. Poverty • Family income as a strong predictor of school success • Lack of dominant culture capital • Expectations on schools to serve as anti-poverty programs and achieve success for all children

5. Technology • The ascendency of video • The expectations of computers and instant communications • Ubiquity of hand held smart devices • Challenges of teachers in keeping abreast of pedagogical possibilities of technology • How quickly technology investments become obsolete

6. Values and ideology • The place of individual versus collective rights in schools and the accommodation of group rights • Declining public faith in government, big business, churches, (institutions) • Less public confidence that major social problems can be solved by government • Challenges to big businesses and their elite • Eroded pubic trust in the quality of public schools

7. Reform agendas for Canadian schooling: Some trends • School improvement at the school level (e.g. school accreditation) • Inclusive education movement (special needs and race relations) • Private sector emphasis upon schooling for work and technological work readiness competencies • 21st century learning skills • Literacy and numeracy initiatives and testing • Reducing powers of school boards

8. 2) Levin Report: April 2011 Steps to Effective and Sustainable Public Education in Nova Scotia • Reducing Failure throughout the system • Improving daily teaching, learning and assessment practices • Allowing more things to count as learning • Building pubic support and engagement • Making better use of existing facilities and resources

9. Levin Report: Priorities • 1.Reducing Failure Throughout the System. A reasonable estimate would be that even excluding special education, about 10 percent of total system spending is devoted to remedying the effects of initial failure, when it would be cheaper and better to prevent failure in the first place. The idea of failure as necessary to maintain standards is deeply engrained in our thinking about education. However, a large amount of research shows clearly that failure tends to depress, not increase, future effort, whether in education or in other areas of life. • 2.Improving Daily Teaching, Learning and Assessment Practices. Working to improve daily teaching practices in line with evidence has great potential to yield better outcomes. There are more and more areas where we have good reliable evidence on effective practices. The task is to help people use those practices consistently • 3.Allowing More Things to ‘Count’ as Learning for Purposes of Earning School Credentials. Finding ways to encourage and recognize more forms of learning is both efficient and effective, and can be very motivating for students. Embracing some version of ‘any time learning’ has the potential to be efficient, effective, and highly motivating

10. Levin Report: Priorities (continued) • 4.Building Public Support and Engagement. One of the lessons of education reform in recent years is that school improvement can only happen when all partners in education—students, parents, staff, educators and governments—work together in a spirit of mutual respect and sincere effort. An honest and open process of communication, grounded on good access to information, will support improvement while it also creates more public support for the system. • 5.Making Better Use of Existing Facilities and Resources. All organizations should be involved in continuing efforts to increase productivity by replacing less effective practices with more effective ones. The vast bulk of money for education is spent on salaries so improvement depends on making better use of people or in being able to generate the same or better results with fewer people, or some combination thereof.

11. 3) Kids & Learning First: February 2012 • The plan is based on recommendations from Ben Levin • It also reflects the priorities of parents, teachers, students, school boards, employers, and community members • Four strategies • Put students first • Support effective teaching in every classroom • Prepare young people for good jobs, citizenship • Strengthen links between schools, parents, and the community

12. Rationale for Change • Student test results declining • below the national average in math and reading and no significant improvement • Spending more on fewer students didn’t work • $320 million was added to school board budgets between 2000 and 2010, yet enrolments dropped by almost 30,000 students • Preparing to do things differently • Levin Report states that experiences in Manitoba and Ontario can serve as examples

13. Put Students First: Objective 1 Help children before they begin school • Co-ordinate all government programs and services for pre-school children to improve support for young children and their families • Continue implementing the province’s autism spectrum disorder action plan • Support healthy living for young children and their families. The province is now developing a childhood obesity prevention strategy

14. Put Students First: Objective 2 Monitor progress closely, help earlier and in critical subjects and transition years • Expand iNSchool, the province’s student information system, to all schools. • Assess students in earlier grades, and remove duplication in school board and provincial testing • Expand Succeeding in Reading from grades primary and 1, into grades 2 and 3 • Review and improve grade 9, a critical transition year, so students stay interested in school and are better prepared for high school

15. Put Students First: Objective 3 Help students with special needs succeed • Gather better information on the progress of students with special needs to support greater achievement • Determine why the number of students on individual program plans (IPP) has doubled in the past 10 years • Determine why the student-to-teacher-assistant ratio varies so widely among regional school boards • Promote guidelines that help parents understand the role teacher assistants play in the classroom • Implement Well-Beings: the Nova Scotia School Mental Health Framework

16. Put Students First: Objective 4 Promote equity for students from diverse backgrounds • Strengthen partnerships with the Council on African Canadian Education, the Black Educators Association, Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey (MK), and the Council on Mi’kmaq Education • Continue implementing the province’s response to Reality Check, a review of programs and supports for students of African ancestry • Negotiate a new education agreement between the province and MK and provide better information through provincial assessments to help MK improve support for their students as they move between band and provincial schools • Increase awareness among entitled families of their childrens’ right to French first-language education

17. Put Students First: Objective 5 Protect the quality of education in rural communities • Triple the number of students (from 500 to 1500) who can take on-line courses through Nova Scotia’s virtual school • Protect isolated schools, while ensuring that school space is being used to provide the greatest educational benefits for students

18. Put Students First: Objective 6 Ensure resources are directed at students first • Develop a schedule for performance reviews of school boards to identify ways to improve efficiencies and ensure effective governance

19. Support Effective Teaching in Every Classroom: Rationale • Teachers are working without the benefit of provincial standards to guide their teaching, leaving them unclear about expectations and leading to inconsistencies from school to school • Teachers are sometimes expected to teach courses without having as much training, background, or experience in the subject as they would like • Teachers struggle to find time: time to teach everything that is required in the curriculum and to plan with other teachers on ways to improve student learning • Teachers want practical, accessible resources—and reasonable class sizes—so they can bring curriculum alive and make it meaningful to every student

20. Support Effective Teaching in Every Classroom: Objective 1 Develop provincial standards for quality teaching • Develop provincial teaching standards to define expectations for instructional quality in every classroom

21. Support Effective Teaching in Every Classroom: Objective 2 Ensure teachers have relevant background and experience • Improve the match between what teachers are asked to teach and their training, background, or experience • Ensure that training leading to teacher certification upgrades is based on the needs of the classroom—and that it is relevant, comprehensive, and high quality • Help create professional learning communities in every school, where teachers work together focused on student success • Continue the instructional leadership program for principals and vice-principals

22. Support Effective Teaching in Every Classroom: Objective 3 Enable teachers to spend more time teaching • Streamline administrative tasks, reduce paperwork, and allow teachers to spend the maximum amount of their work-day focused on students • Keep class sizes low • Examine the time students have for learning, particularly for math, literacy, and physical activity

23. Support Effective Teaching in Every Classroom: Objective 4 Provide the information and resources teachers need • Make iNSchool available to every teacher, along with support to learn to use it • Provide mobile technology centres to every elementary school to help students use technology to develop their literacy skills • Make more teacher resources available online • Provide more books, resources, and activities for students and curriculum guides that help teachers with what experts call “differentiated instruction” or “responsive teaching”

24. Prepare Young People for Good Jobs, Citizenship: Rationale • Over the past 20 years, Nova Scotia’s economic growth has been lower than in any other province in Canada • jobsHere is an aggressive plan to turn this around, so young people can stay and build a future for their families in our great communities • The work starts in our schools—preparing young people not just to work in those jobs but, with imagination and drive, to create them

25. Prepare Young People for Good Jobs, Citizenship: Objective 1 Keep every student interested, motivated • Review high school courses, based on student interest and enrolment, and how the courses contribute to the essential skills and knowledge today’s graduates need • Introduce a new personal development credit, enabling students to pursue individual passions and demonstrate skill development, leadership, and personal growth

26. Prepare Young People for Good Jobs, Citizenship: Objective 2 Link learning to the workplace • Introduce a new skilled trades course, Manufacturing Trades, linked to shipbuilding • Double the number of high schools offering skilled trades • Expand Options and Opportunities O2 and establish a Discovering Opportunities program in junior high • Market co-operative education to employers in communities where co-op opportunities are now more limited • Expand career development efforts in high schools and the Parents as Career Coaches program • Expand partnerships that help students with special needs transition out of high school into the work world and life in the community

27. Prepare Young People for Good Jobs, Citizenship: Objective 3 Strengthen skills that help students • Help more students communicate fluently in French to enhance their employability and contribute to the cultural diversity of the province • Strengthen students’ skills in information and communications technology • Continue to provide resources and support for teachers delivering arts education in classrooms

28. Strengthen Links between Schools, Parents, and the Community: Objective 1 Increase services for kids and families in schools • Bring more services for kids and families into schools by expanding SchoolsPlus • Act on the issue of cyberbullying in partnership with families, community partners, and students themselves. • Support and build on programs that help at-risk youth and promote respectful behavior in schools. e.g. “restorative” approach to managing conflicts, Lighthouses Program gives students after-school activities that support their social, physical, and educational development and Actions from the Minister’s response to Promoting Student Engagement

29. Strengthen Links between Schools, Parents, and the Community: Objective 2 Welcome parents and community members into our schools; give them meaningful roles • Establish a community-use-of-schools grants program that will strengthen schools as centres in their communities • Give parents and caregivers easier and immediate access to information about what and how their children are doing in school • Expand workshops that give parents the information they need, or a role they are seeking. For instance, Positive Parenting Workshops

30. Discussion • What are the dominant messages of the government response to the Levin Report? • What political and policy ideologies seem to be driving them? • Which objectives seem most controversial to you? Why? • Which are you most in favor of and why? • Which do you most oppose and why? • What are the implications of this policy document for your future as an educator in Nova Scotia?

31. Activity • Explore one of the ideas raised in Kids & Learning First in more depth. • Identify the implications, positive and negative, for your professional place in schools. • Identify the implications, positive and negative, for Nova Scotia society. • Why is the government proceeding with this recommendation? What professional-lay support or opposition might there be for it? Why?

32. January 28, 2013 • Law and Order: The Introduction • Janine Kerr, NSTU • Reading: Young, Chapter 4