Wiping The Slate Clean Won’t Solve School Testing Wars

Because of the teacher union opposition to annual standardized testing many parents have been persuaded to withhold their children from the Foundation Skills Assessments (FSAs) in British Columbia.  The Principals Association has now joined in to request dropping the annual FSA as it has been so undermined it “is no longer able to do what it was designed to do” – that is, rendered meaningless.

Some people aim to placate or conciliate and say we must move on, but I and others have said this would be giving in to bully behavior.  The Vancouver school board chairperson wants out of the dispute.  Below is my answer to those who seek to “move on”.

To Move On or Zero-Out is an Utter Cop-Out 

(by Tunya Audain 20110123, comment to blog Report Card by Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun Education Reporter on story “Jameel Aziz gets mixed reviews on anti-FSA statement 20110121 http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2011/01/21/jameel-aziz-gets-mixed-reviews-on-anti-fsa-statement.aspx)

Being the grandmother of four grandchildren in the BC education system I believe I have the credentials to be involved in this discussion.  I have said before that those who aim to be mediators or enablers in this FSA fight are just emboldening those who oppose standardized testing. We mustn’t submit to authoritarianism and to those with vested interests trumping the public interest.

Those who decry rhetoric are often the best exponents of rhetoric!  Why does Susan Lambert, president of BCTF, say the tests are “superficial”.  The 3R’s are never superficial to me!

We now have the chairperson of the Vancouver School Board saying VSB “wants out of the dispute.”  

I kept hearing all day Saturday on News 1130 that Patti Bacchus saw the fight as being between the Ministry, the teacher union and the principals. I heard this broadcast repeated over and over on my background radio.  Bacchus kept repeating, “It’s time to move on.”

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.  She was involved in the deed from a long way back.

See the News 1130 write-up here:  http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/173048–vancouver-school-board-wants-out-of-fsa-debate    What you won’t get is the vocal interview.

I will maintain, that if it wasn’t for the VSB efforts of over the past few years, we would not be in the position we are in now.  It was largely because of the FSA opponents within the VSB structure that the campaign to undermine the tests has been so successful. Vancouver’s success in achieving withdrawals is substantial. I don’t have the numbers, but it has been a model and inspiration for other opponents. Vancouver achieved a lot in getting that ball rolling.

I was at that pivotal meeting on Jan 7th, 2009 where the groundwork was laid and the push turned into shove. See the details here on Janet’s blog:

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2009/01/08/a-report-from-the-vancouver-fsa-meeting.aspx?CommentPosted=true

The meeting included Committee I and III members (Management Coordinating and Education & Student Services) totaling about 20 people around a table, chaired by Mike Lombardi, and 50 people in the audience.  Read the blog post referred to above, and all the comments.  The details are there.  

My comments said I felt the whole thing was pre-planned. A fait accompli.  The public meeting was staged for show.

From that meeting, my understanding was that a recommendation was to be prepared by a drafting committee proposing that DPAC produce a letter to parents to include the three Ministry options for withdrawal and that VSB would allow this to be distributed.  That this was a recommendation that would go before the next full regular board meeting, January 19th.

Imagine my consternation when I went to the January 19th board meeting to find the DPAC letter had already been produced (it was available for pickup with other papers) and that it had already been sent out to some schools.

In question period I asked why the approval of this letter did not come before the board as a whole and Patti Bacchus replied, with Roberts Rules of Order in her hand, and said that the Rules covered that.  I was dumbfounded.  

I still think this was a deceitful move, not going before the regular board for debate and discussion.

Furthermore, I think it was really a slick move by the committee members to have the DPAC be the ones to be seen publically assisting the parents with decision-making on this critical issue.  I see a lot of VSB people complicit in this initiative.  VESTA was a big player and had many members at that Jan 7 meeting as committee members.  (I think it’s a bargaining victory in Vancouver to have union members on all VSB committees.)

Certainly the BCTF article detailing why a “Parent Boycott” was required would have been read beforehand by committee members. “So, if a teacher boycott isn’t the answer, what is?

Simply put, we must strengthen and refine our existing efforts to undermine the tests and support a powerful parent boycott.”

http://bctf.ca/publications/NewsmagArticle.aspx?id=16804

Parents being used and manipulated again by the teacher union for their causes!

That was only two years ago. Much has been accomplished since in undermining FSAs and VSB should be credited for much of this present state of affairs. That meeting was an education for me.  I was rather naïve before, but VSB politicking at those meetings opened my eyes.

So please, people, don’t say, “Let’s forget all that.  Let’s move on.”  There’s some pretty atrocious politics involved. I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg in how our society values are being undermined by some very dedicated vested interests.

Every year the teacher union in British Columbia (Canada) mounts a militant protest against standardized testing in public schools.  This year the Principals/Vice-Principals Association has added their support.  Below is the essay I wrote showing that underlying the FSA (Foundation Skills Assessment) protest is the political ambition of the left-wing union to dominate education matters in BC as well as politics generally.  I show a history going back 40 years of the BCTF maneuvering itself into dominance.  

Toxic Political “School Wars” Harm Parents and Children

(by Tunya Audain published Jan 20, 2011 in the blog The Report Card of the Vancouver Sun)

For those people who see themselves as mediators or healers or therapists of some kind or other in this never-ending “School Wars” scenario — I wish they would see the harm they are causing. It’s like saying to a bully, “It’s OK, just don’t do it again.”  “No problem, let’s just get on with our lives.”

The bully won’t stop; in fact will be emboldened.  The victims will continue to suffer.

We really should not be using the idiom of an elephant in the room.  This is too mild! I think the image of the 900 pound gorilla is more fitting.  It seems to fit the BCTF, don’t you think?

Large and powerful that lives by its own set of rules.  A dominant player, an overbearing entity, an unbeatable presence always to be reckoned with whose experience, influence and skill threatens to defeat competitors with little effort.  

Add on top of that a political ideology, a left-wing Marxist agenda, tied to international solidarity movements with other teacher unions in the world, and you have an entity both powerful and committed to persevere in its political victories. Some say the BCTF should be considered a political party.

I’ve noted before that BC generally splits three ways politically: 25% committed left-wing socialist, 25% committed conservative/traditional and 50% uncommitted middle.

Parents and students no doubt split that way too.  Why then should parents and students be badgered by the BCTF and to be under their sway?  This is when the desire for real choices such as vouchers to choose non-BCTF schools comes to the fore.

BC has seen over 40 years of this unrelenting political agenda foisted on them.

The history is there. In BC this goes back to 1972 when we gained our first socialist government (NDP) and the teacher union established a foothold in the Ministry of Education and provincial decision-making in general.  This beachhead has not been relinquished since.

In 1975 the outgoing BCTF President, Jim MacFarlan, said to the Annual General Meeting about his presidency:

“During those four years some of my political opponents both within and without the Federation have called me a militant, a socialist, a Marxist, a radical. Well, although those terms were used by frightened people, I have never attempted to deny those allegations because they are all true.”  (March 27, 1975)

Some of those old teacher unionists from those days are still active, stirring the pot, never forgetting their political agendas.  They have gained positions as trustees on school boards, a number have high positions on staff at BCTF headquarters, while others keep trying to organize parents.

University professors and Deans of Education also get into using the BCTF as the vanguard in pushing for left-wing agendas through the public education system.  Their code word is “neoliberalism” as in “We need to stop neoliberalism in education.”

The best description of neoliberalism comes from a former Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Charles Ungerleider (1998-2001), now a sociology professor at UBC.  In a paper condemning the predominant slant of our media towards conservative/traditional values, he says

“•…Canadian media express predominantly neo-liberal values.  

 • The economic interests of individuals should not be fettered by considerations of social equity.  

 • Choice, as a manifestation of freedom, is a virtue in its own right and the means by which individuals are able to express approval or disapproval in the market.  

 • People are better served through private entrepreneurialism than by public regulation or provision of services.  

 • Productive efficiency is the primary – perhaps singular – criterion by which any public policy should be judged.” 

He goes on to say: “This list is not surprising. A substantial number of Canadians subscribe to neo-

liberal values”  and, he continues to explain how provincial governments and media cater to this value set.  They “extol the virtues of individualism, choice, competition, productive efficiency, and private enterprise.”   

See his essay: Government, Neo-liberal Media, and Education in Canada

http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE29-1/CJE29-1-ungerleider.pdf

If the parents of my grandchildren subscribe to those values: individualism, choice, competition, productive efficiency, and private enterprise, why should my grandchildren have neoMarxist values imposed on them?.

In the current FSA fight another professor has gotten into the fray, Donald Gutstein, communications, SFU.  The Nanaimo Teachers union is using his paper on debunking the neoliberal agenda in their moves to oppose the FSAs.  In his 28 page paper “Reframing Public Education” http://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Issues/FSA/Gutstein-ReframingPublicEducation.pdf Gutstein  references the work of a well-know Marxist, David Harvey who has been credited with helping to bring back social class and Marxist methods as serious methodological tools in the criticism of global capitalism. 

Nanaimo story is here http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=e7b01d7a-f55a-4e84-948d-680e772bfd33 

What I’m trying to show is that the BCTF is definitely heavily promoting its Marxist agenda and using neoMarxist literature to do so.  We should not be pussyfooting around and say BCTF is doing its job, helping teachers.  No, they’re also re recruiting people into their agendas and people should be able to say “No”.  

Obviously the Principal/ VP association has now been swayed to join the BCTF in its agenda.  And Stepan Vdovine a young progressive trustee is proud to point to his article where the ex-Dean of Education at SFU, Paul Shaker, is also on board. http://www.vdovine.ca/2010/12/does-education-advocacy-weaken-public-support-for-the-system/

So parents, be aware of the hidden agendas, and the hidden curriculum here in BC politics and education.  And don’t accept those words from people who say, “Let’s just get on with it”.  We need to know when to say “No” and when to retreat to better choices.

The Progressive Agenda Being Fulfilled  

(by Tunya Audain 100815, comment to Blog School for Thought (SQE) on topic “Saying it as it is” 100814 

http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/saying-it-as-it-is/ ) 

The deterioration of language skills is real and deliberate.  It is a pervasive trend with direct connections to teacher 

training where progressivism is the norm.  Canadian Deans of Education have signed onto an Accord to produce teachers 

to assume social and political roles, to contribute to social change and community transformation. 

I recently read an article http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/book_reviews/97169.html 

"John Dewey, Dumbing Down, and The Scandal of Dyslexia".  The author concludes that Dewey and his buddies, being 

socialists, “They were sick of individualism, the pioneer spirit, free enterprise, and people doing their own thing. John 

Dewey wanted you to be a happy member of a group. You didn’t need that much literacy or knowledge. Dewey actually 

saw these as impediments. He calls, especially in the early grades, for sharply curtailing the study of literature, history, 

math, science, geography and such, in order to make room for social activities, specifically, ‘cooking, sewing, manual 

training’”. 

“To advance his sociopolitical visions, Dewey was eager to dilute content and diminish learning.” 

All this is in line with what John Taylor Gatto has been saying in his “Dumbing Us Down. The Hidden Curriculum of 

Compulsory Schooling”.  Several times a winner of “Teacher of the Year Awards” in New York, when he quit teaching 

he said he no longer wished to “hurt kids to make a living.“ 

Today I found this guest column (from EducationNews) by a teacher also deploring poor English and grammar in this 

article “Grammar problems caused by ‘hyper-constructivism’”. http://betrayed-

whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2010/08/grammar-problems-caused-by-hyper.html  (from the blog, Betrayed*) 

Robert Archer faults “constructivism” which, unfortunately still exists in teacher training.  It’s a form of discovery-

learning and had Dewey as one of the historical figures influencing this development. (See Wikipedia for constructivism).  

This is what Archer said:  “Somehow, this grammar-is-imbedded movement is supposed to help students naturally take in 

what proper grammar is (i.e., grammar by osmosis). It’s very much a hyper-constructivist approach to education; the 

students are supposed to “discover” proper grammar on their own as they read good pieces. Then, somehow and some 

way, they are to emulate these proper mechanical structures in their own writing. And if the students don’t quite “take it 

all in,“ the teacher may take 2.5 minutes here and there to show them what a damn verb is.” 

Is all this deliberate, manufactured, dumbing-down? To create a class of poorly educated mass with another class of elitist 

rulers?  Sounds very Plato to me – philosopher kings!  Isn’t this what socialism is all about—We are all equal, but some 

are more equal than others? 

We need to find more essays and material about this deliberate capture of curriculum by left-wing progressives for their 

political purposes.  I found an excellent article on the hijacking of art education for the purpose of social justice, etc..  

Very, very perceptive and scary. http://www.aristos.org/aris-10/hijacking.htm   

Of course, science, math, literature are already seeing social justice themes but I haven’t seen any articles (good 

references) as persuasive as the above art article. 

Am I a conspiracy freak?  I don’t think so.  I see the progressive agenda being actualized everywhere.  Progressives are 

about a number of things, but their main thing is uniformity.  NO CHOICES.  That’s why they love government 

monopoly education.   

* Betrayed, the blog sounds like a great place to visit.  This is their write-up: 

Betrayed – Why Public Education Is Failing http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/ 

Betrayed is an online chat forum for parents, teachers and community members to offer their thoughts on what’s wrong 

with public education and how to make it work better for the students…Help teachers and parents take back the classroom 

from those who have stolen it.                      

Yet Another New Education Minister Tries To Tame The Beasts!

A new Minister of Education – the fifth in 9 years – has just been appointed (Oct 25/10) in British Columbia, Canada.

The field of education reform is rife with pitfalls – lurking dangers and ferocious adversaries. Any education reformer these days has their hands full.  This has never been better captured than in this cartoon by David Parkins of the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper in Canada.

Both Parkins and the author of the article “The new kid in school: Abbott readies for education challenges” are to be applauded for getting the cartoon and story so spot-on!  See story HERE  

Look at the cartoon – threatening jungle beasts, hooded eyes, no smiley faces, gritted gnashing teeth –  all facing a “Hi, glad to meet you.” sweet George Abbott, the new Education Minister. (Find 3 other sets of eyes – lurking in the background, scared and leery.) 

OOPS, what’s that slimy, gooey, slippery green stuff he’s just about to step in?

The story by Justine Hunter cautions that the new  “affable” Minister will have to be a skilled “mediator, tactful disciplinarian and ever-so-patient educator.”  She mentions that at least two of the “beasts” he will have to deal with are the “BC Teachers’ Federation [which] has warred with government of every stripe” and the school boards with their “insatiable” demands.

Mr. Abbott will need all the sympathy, support and encouragement we can provide as he deals with the education snake pit in BC.

(UPDATE:  A number of people close to education scenarios in BC have commented how apt and pertinent the cartoon is.  Someone did add that the only creatures missing in the cartoon are Hyenas!) 

If it wasn’t for the “perception” that the BC Teachers Union (BCTF) was dominating the BC College of Teachers (BCCT) we would not have the benefit being enjoyed now of scrutinizing our teacher unions, particularly in BC.

In America there have been tons of books blaming the teacher unions for public education failures for years:

- The Worm in the Apple: How the teacher unions are destroying American education (Brimelow)

- The Teacher Unions: How they sabotage educational reform and why (Lieberman)

- NEA (National Education Association): Trojan Horse in American Education (Blumenfeld)

- The War Against Hope: How teachers’ unions hurt children, hinder teachers and endanger public education (Paige)

- etc., etc.

We now see a third movie in the USA hitting the topic:  “Waiting for Superman” which will show in Vancouver very soon.  The earlier movies were “The Cartel," written and directed by Bob Bowdon, and "The Lottery," by director Madeleine Sackler.

It’s this third movie that might do the trick.  That is, be the cataclysmic event that will discharge the teacher unions from their parasitic dominance in public education.  One commentator likened one of the teacher union leaders to "something of a foaming satanic beast".

You may wonder about the title, “Waiting for Superman”.  Well, one of the heroes in the movie said that as a poor child, in a poor school, he prayed every night for Superman to save him.  Today he is a zealous leading light in educational reform.

Lest our average teachers feel they are being attacked unfairly, STOP !  This is not teacher-bashing !

This latest movie makes very clear the distinction:

"It's very, very important to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time," Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter says in the film. "Teachers are great, a national treasure. Teachers' unions are, generally speaking, a menace and an impediment to reform."

Thank the gods above and below for a chance to talk about these issues in BC.  Even after the Avison Report I hope we can keep on talking about where some of the faults lie in our education system.

(by Tunya Audain 100926, comment to The Report Card blog by Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun Education Reporter on post: “Update on Don Avison's review of BC College of Teachers” 100921)