Evening Star

I mostly just want to note that I still insist on essay answers! I think we might actually agree on the importance of self-teaching skills, the value of measurable goals that go beyond opinion, and the possibility that there's a broader cultural issue.

This is still pretty vague though. For example, is it necessary to study four Shakespeare plays in order to reach this level? That's still a big part of high school English, right? Is it necessary to have excellent grammar and spelling in order to be able to do this? And by what standard? etc.

Sounds about right as the Canadian political spectrum goes!

Discussion here: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=19580

I'll bite. What's wrong with the study of these disciplines? They mostly seem to be related to time-honoured fields of study like history, political science, sociology, philosophy, etc.

By the way, I'm just generally curious what you guys would actually like to see from our education system. Many people would like to see changes but people always have different ideas. Even just in the area of literacy, what standard of literacy would you like to see? Just that people are able to read what's on an Aspirin bottle? That people can write emails and send texts? That they can independently analyse Shakespeare? Joyce? That they can write a sonnet? An academic paper? A business report? That they can explain what the subjunctive case is and conjugate verbs off the tops of their heads? Should we bring back 19th-century prescriptive grammar? etc

OK. Thanks for the link. There seem to be a few different questions or issues in this discussion: i) Is Ontario's education system as effective as it could or should be? ii) Is Ontario's education system 'world-class'? iii) If the answers to questions i and/or ii are "no", is McGuinty or even 'the left' more generally to blame? iv) If the answers to questions i and/or ii are "no", is it the fault of teachers and/or their unions? Does this mean that they are overpaid? And we are all starting, I assume, with the understanding that any public education system is faced with the difficult task of taking every single child in the population, regardless of his or her background or baggage, and trying to make them learn a certain skill set, regardless of the student's own willingness to learn. This is perhaps a more delicate and nuanced task than e.g. mass producing cars. When considering question ii, it does seem reasonable to me to compare Ontario's performance with that of other jurisdictions in the world. As far as I know, that's what "world class" means. The CBC link seems to suggest, looking at Canada generally, that perhaps we can in fact answer "no" to questions i and ii. But does this mean that teachers and teachers' unions are to blame? As far as I understand it, high school teachers do not have the autonomy that professors have. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) They are hired to deliver a centrally determined curriculum and grade according to centrally determined standards, if I'm not mistaken? So even if an English teacher wanted to fail someone for writing with flawed grammar, if provincial education policy is that students should not be failed on those grounds, the teacher has little choice, right? And if the problem seems to be nationwide, and even to be widespread in the US, where unions are much less powerful, then perhaps the problem is not so much with individual teachers in our system. We need to look at systemic factors, which is what the CBC article does. Perhaps we could blame McGuinty for not proposing or implementing fundamental systemic changes but the problem does not seem to have originated with him or with his party. The CBC article reports that the problem is a longstanding one. If the biggest problem with illiteracy was with the middle-aged demographic in 2006, that demographic would have been in school in the 70s when the PCs still had a stranglehold on Ontario politics. And the country to which we were being compared, that seems to be doing much better than we are, was Sweden, which is a far more social democratic country with e.g. free university education, a country that seems to offer more public services. (By the way, my impression is that Sweden is also a big place for the study of what Bob considers 'nonsense disciplines'.) So the problem does not seem to be with the 'left'.

Rob Russo was the talking head iirc. I don't think he was speaking specifically about 1968: PET managed to hold together enough of a coalition until 1984, right?

Actually, I think I'd be interested to see a comparison between the French-language writing skills of Quebec's CEGEP graduates and the English-language skills of ON's high school graduates. Someone close to my family went to CEGEP and actually had to study grammar, drill verb conjugations, etc in his first language.

Don't agree that this is an axiom among the left.

Well, it's the "were better" part that I'm not sure about. So I guess that, like Bob, I would also benefit from some studies showing trends over time. Was someone who passed Gr 12 with a D in 1970 a better writer than someone who passed with a D this year? And if so, what factors were involved? Do such studies exist though? Seems like it might be hard to maintain a consistent methodology over that time period. In their absence, I do think it makes some kind of sense to look at other jurisdictions as a reference point.

I will acknowledge that the writing skills of many high school grads do, um, leave something to be desired. Is it better anywhere else though? (Maybe.)

Well, I have heard people make the case that this shift has happened in terms of ideology/policy, especially when it comes to economics, regardless of electoral success or popularity: that the Liberals have moved over to the sorts of free trading, pro-private-sector policies that the PCs embraced in the 80s and that the NDP has moved closer to the sorts of stances that the Liberals took in the 70s and 80s. (In fact, the NDP may have possibly shifted to the right of the old Liberals. It's not like the NDP is advocating something like the NEP). That sort of shift happened prior to Layton's death or Ignatieff's resignation though. I'll admit that I don't really understand in what sense Oleg is talking about a shift. I still think the Liberals may have a tough time regaining their status. I'll be fairly surprised if they regain many seats in Quebec, the Prairies, or Northern or rural Ontario, especially if they are led by a Trudeau. I could see them recapturing the GTA, Ottawa, or bits of Montreal perhaps. I'm not sure that's enough to sustain a serious contender at government.

This is not a left/right issue in my opinion. I'm fairly left-leaning. I encourage you to ask my students what my expectations are like when it comes to language. (Thanks for finding that, Smallc. I'd been combing through the whole 2011 report on the OECD site, which is much harder to navigate.)

(Mind you, ON universities on the other hand are in pretty dire straits. I'm thankful I'm not there anymore.)

This one's backed up by the OECD, right? You could do worse than Schwarzenegger tbh.

I think this story actually increased my respect for the CPC cabinet.

Fair point, yes. OK, that clarifies things, thanks. It's rare to hear someone say this openly.

Do you see any solution to this, Tim? Or do you just think that it's necessary to allow our wages to drop to levels that are competitive with those in Taiwan and Bangladesh?

If the federal NDP copes with the QC caucus, they would probably have no need to merge with the Liberals. What will they gain? Btw, NDP support in SK is totally concentrated in urban areas.

If you want more policies like these, though, you could always vote NDP, CPCFTW: http://ontariondp.com/en/horwath-announces-job-creation-tax-credit-to-create-20000-new-jobs-a-year-%E2%80%9Ccreate-a-job-get-a-tax-break%E2%80%9D

This is exactly what I don't get about this. The last polls I saw showed the NDP tied with the CPC with the Liberals trailing well behind. I don't really have any sense that anyone outside the city of Toronto is that excited about the Liberal Party.

Did you believe the Liberals during the last election campaign, cybercoma? Did you think that platform was congruent with their Commons voting record? Rob Silver openly admitted afterwards that they didn't even believe in those policies themselves.

Yeah, this is really far from a supply-side-style tax break. (I'm a little more favourably disposed towards it than you are, though.)

Don't follow at all. Mulcair was a QC Liberal, about as far from the Bloc as you can get, surely. He speaks English as a first language (or at least as well as if it were his first language). I never had the impression that he was especially alienating for English Canadians. For what it's worth, I am a non-QC dipper and think he would be fairly strong. He is a bit of a loose cannon, admittedly, and probably less of a 'people person' than Layton. Those factors lead me to wonder if Dewar might be better. What about Megan Leslie? I think she could do well. I do so far think Mulcair is the best choice to keep QC votes without alienating non-Quebecers.