On the latest report card “innovation”

March 5, 2017 | Author: C. Welch

There is a renewed push in BC to remove letter grades from report cards. The front line of this struggle is currently in Squamish. Here is my response to the local newspaper’s story on this issue.

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The push against letter grades is, of course, not new. It’s just the latest salvo from the Romantics who brought you, among other things, open-air classrooms in the 70’s and the Year 2000 initiative in the 90’s. And yes, neither of them lasted.

Two significant problems with anecdotal reporting are jargon and lack of context. We can already see the creeping edubabble from phrases like “growth mindset” and “fixed mindset”. These are not only highly ideological and loaded terms for teachers but also, frankly, the beginning of an impenetrable fog of specialist language that means little to the average parent. Depending on the report card format, parents might also gain little sense of how their children are doing versus other children or against fixed standards. Indeed, part of the philosophical (or, dare I say, political) nature of this bandwagon is the fear that letter grades might harm children. If you hear this argument, ask for the scientifically valid double-blind studies that support this belief. Don’t just accept that educators’ fears are “based on research”. In my experience as an educator, I have seen precious little evidence in this regard.

If I were a parent in Squamish, I would demand letter grades along with all other potential feedback. More is better, and those letter grades might just help you cut through the miasma of so-called innovation.

Posted in BC Politics, Education, Language | Leave a Comment

Reflections on BC’s proposed English 10-12 curriculum

February 11, 2017 | Author: C. Welch

As someone who has taught for 24 years in the BC public education system, I am somewhat bewildered by the new curriculum proposals for English 10 to 12.

First, the lack of a Communications stream is a serious mistake. I am glad that some of the language that initially justified the removal of Communications is not in the most recent draft. Frankly, the earlier language was insulting to those of us who work with Communications students. Generally speaking, these young people have significant challenges in writing, reading fluency and comprehension. A “focus on improving instruction” will not change the fact that these students need a great deal of support to successfully complete the less stringent demands of Communications, let alone mainstream English. If Communications 11 and 12 are not reinstated, many schools will simply create equivalents and do what has to be done. We’ll see solutions like stripped down “E” courses that “teach to” the new literacy test. Is that what the government wants? Probably not. In general, the distance between the BC English curriculum and reality has been significant for decades; a lack of Communications would split it wide open.

Second, the five Grade 10 two-credit courses are extremely difficult to schedule and organize. If the proposals don’t change, my department and administration have devised a plan to create a “combo” course – of Composition and Literature – that will look a lot like the current Grade 10 English course. Nevertheless, if the Ministry is serious about all five options, then the combo option won’t be very helpful. And the challenge of the five full-credit Grade 11 courses remains. In the end, a smorgasbord of options may have sounded exciting at the conceptualization stage, but anyone interested in timetabling knows how challenging it is to multiply course selection.

Third, the different types of English courses fill many English teachers with dread. For example, many feel uncomfortable with New Media as an English course, and we are worried that many students would choose it over more traditional options if we are compelled to offer everything. Where’s the training for teachers? Where are the resources? Will we be supplied with a fully-developed curriculum and resource guide, or documents full of platitudes and edu-jargon? Please don’t tell us that the new courses will be created on the backs of classroom teachers!

A few questions keep arising. The first is, “Which problem are we trying to solve?” Is it a lack of choice? Personally, I’ve never heard this issue raised by anyone. Neither have my colleagues. We can’t really understand the embrace of choice, since there is no research to suggest a choice of courses improves completion rates – the current reductionist obsession of our education system. The second major question is, “Why are English teachers at the cutting edge of curricular change?” We look to our colleagues in math and science with envy. All they have to do is move a few modular deck chairs. Social studies? They get rid of Social Studies 11 and enjoy their electives. So why are we on a crusade? Is that what most English teachers want?

Overall, I’d like the government to reconsider the English 10 to 12 curricula. We face so many other more important issues at the secondary level. A general lack of resources, no scope-and-sequence of skills, and a “wild west” of text choices all come to mind. A whole slew of new courses – courses we’d be building largely from scratch – is the last thing we need.

Posted in BC Politics, Education | 2 Comments

Some comments on the Supreme Court education decision

November 11, 2016 | Author: C. Welch

On Thursday, November 10, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a decision from the bench only 20 minutes after final arguments in the long standing dispute between the BC government and the BCTF. Here is my contribution to Vaughn Palmer’s first article on the teachers’ victory:

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Can you imagine if a new BC government unilaterally ripped up a long term communications contract with Telus, arguing that it could get a better deal with Bell and so it shouldn’t have to honour a contract signed by the previous government? There would be howls of outrage from Howe Street and Bay Street, and instantaneous court cases. And quite rightly, too: total chaos would ensue if a new government could arbitrarily end its contractual commitments.

But here we have seen BC’s government unilaterally ripping apart another contract, this time with a union, and the corporate elite and their supporters are, well, not too interested in the rule of law. The hypocrisy is incredible.

Thankfully, Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada has reinforced the rule of law and delivered a stunning indictment of both the BC Court of Appeal and the BC Liberals. The SCC has recognized the constitutional rights of unions in many recent court cases, but the conservative (and stacked) BC Court of Appeals apparently didn’t get the memo. The BC Liberals, in turn, are now learning that massive financial giveaways to corporations – reckless tax cuts that never did improve productivity or employment – should never have been paid for by BC’s children and the people who educate them.

The Liberals were quiet in the aftermath but I’m sure they’ll get their communications strategy figured out soon. Seriously, they have so many corporate media types working for them that it shouldn’t take too long. I look forward to the spin they provide on this debacle.

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See also:

 

Posted in BC Politics, Canadian Politics, Economic Issues, Education, Media | Leave a Comment

Choice and flexibility: some thoughts on the new curriculum

June 29, 2016 | Author: C. Welch

The latest drafts of the grades 10-12 English and social studies curricula and the recent announcement of BC’s new graduation requirements [Ed. note: This link has been updated.] confirm what many secondary teachers have feared: the continued (and perhaps accelerated) slide toward a consumer-oriented education system that offers little accountability.

Let’s start with the new curricula. Because I am a secondary humanities teacher, I’ll confine my remarks to English and social studies; from what I can see, these two disciplines appear to be at the bleeding edge of this general curricular shift. The central, recurring motif of the new English and social studies documents is choice. In the latest English draft, for example, we see choice as the key to student motivation:

Enabling students to be active participants in their learning is well-recognized as a powerful motivator. For this reason, choice is provided to students early in the Graduation years, as a testament to their capacity as young adults to make judicious selections from a variety of English Language Arts Options and to allow them a sense of agency in their own education. This is consistent with a strength-based rather than a deficit-based approach to education.

Leaving aside the horrifically loaded jargon of the final sentence, it’s clear that this is a system full of choosers. Choice is “powerful”, leads to “judicious selections” and provides “a sense of agency”.

Given this core value, both curriculum proposals have been adjusted to maximize student options. The latest English proposal offers a Core course and five different optional courses: Composition; Creative Writing; Focused Literary Studies; New Media; and Spoken Communication. According to the latest proposal, students entering Grade 10 will choose two of the five “Optionals” via two half-year (i.e. two credit) courses; this will equal the four credits that students currently receive for English 10. Students in Grades 11 and 12 will select one of the Optionals in a presumably more advanced four credit version, and take the four credit Core course, “which represents ‘essential learning’ in language arts, including reading and writing, speaking and listening, viewing and representing.”

The commitment to choice is even more pronounced in the latest social studies draft. First, the curriculum has been revised and condensed downward. Social Studies 9 and 10, ironically, are positively crammed with content, quite the opposite of what teachers were seeking. However, the solution is obvious: pick and choose your content to reflect thematic Big Ideas. Want to discuss “conflict” in the new Socials 9? Sample some of these topics:

  • Opium Wars
  • Boxer Rebellion
  • Boer War
  • wars of independence in Latin America
  • Armenian genocide
  • Chilcotin War
  • Fraser Canyon War
  • American Civil War
  • Franco-Prussian War of 1871
  • Russian Revolution
  • Crimean War
  • Russo-Japanese War
  • Chinese Rebellion of 1911
  • World War I

As we can see, these topics are not listed chronologically or even alphabetically, but that’s on purpose. Traditional historical thinking concepts like continuity and change, or cause and consequence, are largely supplanted by sampling, as if history is a potpourri of exotic ingredients mixed into a thematic soup.

Social Studies 11 will be eliminated. In its place, secondary students will choose a final course from a veritable smorgasbord of optional secondary titles. At the time of writing, there are a staggering 17 secondary options, with “more more courses in draft form”. Many of these courses are reboots of existing offerings (Law 12, History 12, etc.) but most of them look like 1st year university survey courses. Whether all of these could be realistically available even in the largest of schools is a matter of debate, though students moving between schools or taking online courses seems like a likely solution.

So we’ve established that choice is a foundational concept in the curriculum revisions and that the new drafts have responded in kind. Yet one question continues to come to mind: Is this faith in choice justified? Worryingly, only one piece of evidence (in the English draft document) is provided:

The aim of the ELA 10-12 curriculum structure is to maximize students’ chances of success by allowing them to choose the Optional courses that are most engaging for them and to achieve deeper learning. Because the curriculum has been redesigned to be less prescriptive and more flexible, there are increased opportunities for students to pursue their interests, aspirations, and passions and to benefit from more specialized areas of language arts study. Choice also includes encouraging increased opportunities for students to select the types of texts they will use, such as a variety of text types in the context of literature circles, particularly in the Options (e.g., Focused Literary Studies or New Media):

“Research has demonstrated that access to self-selected texts improves students’ reading performance… This is especially true for struggling readers….” (Krashen, 2011). From: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Every-Child,-Every-Day.aspx

After reading the article above, I’m a little perplexed. It refers to children (apparently of elementary age) who are choosing books within a classroom. But how does this apply to adolescents choosing courses for an entire year? I really don’t find this reference particularly convincing, and it seems like another example of progressive educators building an edifice without a solid research base. Speaking of research, I’m reminded of John Hattie’s work, in which he concludes that the positive effect of “student control over learning” is almost negligible.  One synthesis of Hattie’s research explains that the effect “of student choice and control over learning is somewhat higher on motivation outcomes than achievement outcomes, but neither have major consequences on learning and too many choices can be overwhelming.”

Perhaps the Ministry of Education will eventually buttress its curriculum with more evidence, but in the meantime it’s probably more fruitful to see this commitment to course-based choice as part of a larger commitment to neo-liberal education reform. Much of this is inspired by GELP, a corporate sponsored global education reform organization connected to BC’s Ministry of Education, and manifested in the current government’s BC Edplan. At its most ideological level, GELP aims to “to design public services that deliver different and better outcomes at a lower cost”. At its most benign level, the GELP approach is designed to “create better opportunities for parents to engage in their child’s learning with more flexibility and choice with respect to what, how, when and where their child learns”. Even here, though, the policy above is preceded by a chilling notion that “parents and students still have choice and opportunity to decide which school their child attends within the public and independent school systems”. Given BC’s current discussion about a two-tiered education system, it’s a little disconcerting to hear our current Minister of Education defend private school funding with similar language: “When we look at education in British Columbia, I would say we don’t fund private schools. We fund students. We fund opportunities for students and those opportunities are chosen by parents.” At this point, it sounds awfully similar to the logic of the voucher system.

Overall, we appear to be facing a curricular worldview in which students are viewed as consumers rather than citizens. Consumers choose their individual preferences rather than work together for a greater good. Teachers, in turn, are merchants of learning outcomes, controlled by the vicissitudes of supply and demand. And humanities courses, needless to say, become commodities that are valued according to consumer taste. In the fragmented (or, rather, “specialized”) market place we see above, there doesn’t seem to be much space for common cause or a common narrative. Neither is there much room for a teacher with high standards, not when one humanities course is fully equivalent to another course down the hallway with no essays or challenging assessments. I’m not saying choosing courses necessarily leads to vouchers and market-based schooling – after all, this is likely just another example of BC’s reductive obsession with lowering standards and improving the graduation rate – but surely there’s an affinity between course choice and a funding system that encourages parents to “decide which school their child attends”. And if we accept the former as “common sense” or “obvious”, then the latter becomes much easier to introduce.

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See also:

Posted in BC Politics, Education, Language, Modern Culture | 5 Comments

Is a teacher’s knowledge tacit or just uncomfortable?

May 9, 2016 | Author: C. Welch

The following is a response to a post by Carl Hendrick, an educator who writes about education theory and practice.

…………………

I enjoyed another thought-provoking and thoughtful post, Carl!

In terms of tacit knowledge, however, I don’t believe that most of what we know is tacit. I think, in fact, that much of what we learn as teachers is actually quite coherent and articulable. The problem is that few people in power want to hear what we have to say. As a teacher of 23 years, I feel quite ignored, and whenever I or other veteran teachers speak up about teaching practice and learning, our leadership gets quite uncomfortable. I once led an after-school collaboration group on direct instruction. People higher up the food chain were almost apoplectic, and they let me know about it. I was Satan’s seed.

When it comes down to it, what I have to say is not “innovative”. I refuse to accept the paradigm of constant change and innovation, particularly since it’s usually a variation of Romanticism. My pedagogy is based upon the refinement and deepening of good teaching practice, and much of that practice, in my opinion, has remained stable for centuries. And that is what I offer to new teachers if they’re willing to listen.

Of course, this is not what the “movers and shakers” want to hear (or offer) as they ascend the hierarchy. Refinement of existing teaching practice doesn’t get anyone out of the classroom and into the school board office. It’s definitely not sexy, and it definitely cannot be packaged within the realm of “constant change and innovation”. It also doesn’t give the careerists power over the rest of us; indeed, a pedagogy that values refinement reverses the locus of control and places knowledge and its power squarely back in the hands of front line practitioners.

Posted in Education, Experiences, Language | Leave a Comment

The Politics of Curriculum

September 1, 2015 | Author: C. Welch

Tonight a parent on social media asked if teachers were concerned about the BCTF’s collaboration with the government regarding BC’s new curriculum. Here’s my response:

As a secondary teacher, I can tell you that many, many teachers disagree fundamentally with the direction of this new curriculum. We don’t feel there has been much substantive input, and the feedback we have given certainly isn’t reflected in what is now being published. To me (and to many other teachers on the BCTF discussion forum), the process has appeared very obscure and it looks like teacher consultation was controlled by the BCTF, PSA leadership and a relatively small group of teachers with a very particular philosophy.

By the way, there is a substantial amount of research that supports direct instruction and a careful, scaffolded approach to mastery learning. This seems to be ignored whenever popularizers like Sir Ken assure the masses that the research clearly supports his Rousseauian values. For your own edification, please take a look at some of the research I’ve collected that favours a more traditional, whole-class, and teacher-centered approach to pedagogy. Believe me, progressivist assumptions are not a slam dunk:

http://lexiconic.net/pedagogy/index.html

At another level, people should indeed be wary of teachers taking the blame if this “innovation” goes the way of Year 2000. To believe at any point that the government would ever properly fund this change is, frankly, unbelievable. I’ve been teaching in the BC public school system for 22 years. When has a government ever properly funded new curricula? As a result, isn’t it a bit disingenuous to be surprised at the current lack of government support?

Well, it’s too late now. The fix is in, and we will own this if there is a backlash from the public.

Posted in BC Politics, Education | Leave a Comment

Notes and commentary on Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation (Part 1)

August 8, 2015 | Author: C. Welch

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We all have those books – the ones we know are good for us but have remained on the bookshelf for years (or decades). Thankfully, Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is now one of those books that I can return to my bookshelf with the satisfaction that I’ve finally read one of the masterpieces  of economic history. The following is not an exhaustive summary of Polanyi’s text, but it does represent what I take to be the most salient and resonant points of his elegant argument.

 

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The Double Movement

Polanyi’s book surveys the history of the Western economy, roughly from the last 500 years. He is particularly concerned with the hegemonic concept of the “self-regulating economy”, which he defines as

an economic system controlled, regulated, and directed by market prices; order in the production and distribution of goods is entrusted to this self-regulating mechanism. An economy of this kind derives from the expectation that human beings behave in such a way as to achieve maximum money gains. (71)

His central thesis is that the idea of a self-regulating economy is “a stark Utopia” (3). In the long run, a self-regulating economy is not sustainable. It demands a complete reorganization of society that society cannot allow. In the pivotal 19th century, for example, the remnants of a feudal society were transformed into a capitalist system. Yet as workers and politicians discovered, an all-encompassing free-market system

could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness. (3)

As a result, an inevitable social reaction comes to life. In this “double movement”, society must take “measures to protect itself” (ibid) and strives to ensure the transformation is never complete. Polanyi explains that this tension and resistance – predicated on the need for human beings to be more than mere economic pawns in a free market system – explains much of the conflict of modern history, including the rise of fascism and the two world wars.

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The Essential Connection Between Politics & Economics

Another key point in Polanyi’s book is his insistence that economics can never truly be separated from the rest of society, despite the attempts mentioned above. Indeed, much of The Great Transformation explains that economic behaviour has historically been embedded and subordinated to the political and cultural institutions of all known human societies:

[A]ll economic systems known to us up to the end of feudalism in Western Europe were organized either on the principle of reciprocity or redistribution, or householding, or some combination of the three. These principles were institutionalized with the help of a social organization which, inter alia, made use of the patterns of symmetry, centricity, and autarchy. In this framework, the orderly production and distribution of goods was secured through a great variety of individual motives disciplined by general principles of behavior. Among these motives gain was not prominent. Custom and law, magic and religion cooperated in inducing the individual to comply with rules of behavior which, eventually, ensured his functioning in the economic system. (57)

This does not mean that market behaviour is unknown to pre-modern societies; it’s just that such behaviour is minimal or tangential.

No society could, naturally, live for any length of time unless it possessed an economy of some sort; but previously to our time no economy has ever existed that, even in principle, was controlled by markets. In spite of the chorus of academic incantations so persistent in the nineteenth century, gain and profit made on exchange never before played an important part in human economy. Though the institution of the market was fairly common since the later Stone Age, its role was no more than incidental to economic life. (45)

However, a full-blown market economy cannot easily be embedded within more traditional forms of society. A market economy is almost an all-or-nothing proposition, and demands a reversal of the its typical subordination to political and cultural institutions:

The market pattern, on the other hand, being related to a peculiar motive of its own, the motive of truck or barter, is capable of creating a specific institution, namely, the market. Ultimately, that is why the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society: it means no less than the running of society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system. The vital importance of the economic factor to the existence of society precludes any other result. For once the economic system is organized in separate institutions, based on specific motives and conferring a special status, society must be shaped in such a manner as to allow that system to function according to its own laws. This is the meaning of the familiar assertion that a market economy can function only in a market society. (60)

So where has market behaviour – selling for profit, haggling, trading, etc. – actually come from? Certainly not from any inherent genetic propensity, according to Polanyi. He offers a more historical and geographical argument, one where the development of markets and trade is exogenous. As populations grew, contact inevitably brought different peoples together with different goods :

Markets are not institutions functioning mainly within an economy, but without. They are meeting place of long-distance trade… The orthodox teaching started from the individual’s propensity to barter; deduced from it the necessity of local markets, as well as of division of labor; and inferred, finally, the necessity of trade, eventually of foreign trade, including even long distance trade. In the light of our present knowledge we should almost reverse the sequence of the argument: the true starting point is long distance trade, a result of the geographical location of goods, and of the “division of labor” given by location. Long-distance trade often engenders markets, an institution which involves acts of barter, and, if money is used, of buying and selling, thus, eventually, but by no means necessarily, offering to some individuals an occasion to indulge in their propensity for bargaining and haggling. (61-62)

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The Centrality of Politics to Capitalism

Adding to the necessary connection between politics and economics is Polanyi’s analysis of the rise and continuation of modern liberal capitalism. Here we see why a market society is so destructive: labor and land are not created to be sold as commodities; they are not harvested resources or manufactured items that can be purchased, traded and disposed of. Yet, land and labor need to be transformed into commodities to allow a market economy to function. The same can be said of money. Paper or coin or a metal needs to become a commodity in order for its function as currency to be realized.

The crucial point is this: labor, land, and money are essential elements of industry; they also must be organized in markets; in fact, these markets form an absolutely vital part of the economic system. But labor, land, and money are obviously not commodities; the postulate that anything that is bought and sold must have been produced for sale is emphatically untrue in regard to them. In other words, according to the empirical definition of a commodity they are not commodities. Labor is only another name for a human activity which goes with life itself, which in its turn is not produced for sale but for entirely different reasons, nor can that activity be detached from the rest of life, be stored or mobilized; land is only another name for nature, which is not produced by man; actual money, finally, is merely a token of purchasing power which, as a rule, is not produced at all, but comes into being through the mechanism of banking or state finance. None of them is produced for sale. The commodity description of labor, land, and money is entirely fictitious. Nevertheless, it is with the help of this fiction that the actual markets for labor, land, and money are organized… (75-76)

This process of transformation demonstrates not only the violence of the last 500 years but also the intrinsic role of government within the capitalist system itself.

There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton manufactures—the leading free trade industry—were created by the help of protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire itself was enforced by the state. The [eighteen] thirties and forties saw not only an outburst of legislation repealing restrictive regulations, but also an enormous increase in the administrative functions of the state, which was now being endowed with a central bureaucracy able to fulfil the tasks set by the adherents of liberalism. To the typical utilitarian, economic liberalism was a social project which should be put into effect for the greatest happiness of the greatest number; laissez-faire was not a method to achieve a thing, it was the thing to be achieved. (145)

And again,

Economic history reveals that the emergence of national markets was in no way the result of the gradual and spontaneous emancipation of the economic sphere from governmental control. On the contrary, the market has been the outcome of a conscious and often violent intervention on the part of government which imposed the market organization on society for noneconomic ends. (258)

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I’ll post Part 2 tomorrow.

Posted in Books, Critical Theory, Economic Issues, Global Issues, In A Philosophical Mood | 1 Comment

Finding Alternative Media

July 3, 2015 | Author: C. Welch

What exactly is the “mainstream media” (aka MSM)? According to that paragon of media sensibility, Keith Baldrey, the MSM is the mass information apparatus that upholds standards and supports democracy. It apparently does not include bloggers and “citizen journalists”, who are part of an emerging trend called “alternative media”:

Less credulous minds see things differently. In “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream”, Noam Chomsky argues that mainstream media is defined by the corporate interests which financially underwrite the vast majority of Western media organizations.  This ownership ensures that “[p]eople who have independent ideas or who think the wrong kind of thoughts are cut out”. Chomsky argues that direct, day-to-day control of news and entertainment by capitalist censors is beside the point (though it sometimes is); what matters are the systemic restraints that ensure mainstream media organizations instinctively remain – in the long run – within the narratives of the corporate worldview. For example, the careful, hierarchal selection and promotion of employees  – from news reporters to general editors and producers – helps guarantee that “the product of the media, what appears, what doesn’t appear, the way it is slanted, will reflect the interest of the buyers and sellers, the institutions, and the power systems that are around them. If that wouldn’t happen, it would be kind of a miracle.” As a result, the “standards” of the mainstream media pitch democracy as a contest between one elite group and another, chosen by a passive audience that normally sticks to the sidelines. Democracy, in other words, is highly attenuated and ritualistic, and is profoundly hindered by a corporate media that reflexively elides any challenges to the status quo. In British Columbia in particular, and Canada in general, it’s difficult to see much beyond the corporate ownership of our media.  There is no non-corporate, non-profit “large tent” print news service in sight. And while the publicly-owned CBC has some relevance on the radio and Internet, its impact on television – aside from hockey – is negligible. Moreover, its reputed left wing bias is increasingly suspect. That leaves us with an overwhelming degree of corporate ownership over our mass media, particularly in terms of television, radio and print news:

As Ross Howard, a journalism instructor from Langara College, laments, “My God, we have the most narrowly-controlled print media, probably among western democracies. And we’re getting dangerously close to risking the loss of the independent watch-dogging role by journalists.”

So what can we do if we are interested in “independent ideas” or “the wrong kind of thoughts”? Luckily, despite the mainstream voices that still dominate news aggregators and social media, the rise of the Internet and alternative media provides a plethora of  “fringe” voices, and provides Canadians with a more complete understanding of their world. True, these voices are usually small, disparate and hard to find, but what else can we turn to in a country without a single progressive daily newspaper, or with many cities offering two daily newspapers, both owned and editorially controlled by the same corporation?

The following is an annotated list of alternative media sources that I regularly peruse. Indeed, since I no longer subscribe to The Vancouver Sun, The Province or The Globe and Mail, these alternative sources are essential to my understanding of the world. I hope the list offers some new ideas and inspires you to think outside the claustrophobic Canadian media box.

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National News:

Canadaland
Jesse Brown made his name by breaking the Jian Ghomeshi story, albeit via the Toronto Star. Nevertheless, the notoriety gained from this story helped him establish Canadaland as the go-to site for Canadian media analysis. Brown is an engaging interviewer and raconteur, and his ability to excite the very thin skin of mainstream journalists is very commendable. Despite his central Canadian sensibilities and a quaint belief that the CBC still matters, I look forward to his weekly podcasts (which are available on podcast apps in all smartphone OS’s). I always learn something new about Canada’s media and political landscape, and I would make his podcast show my number one recommendation for a new alternative media experience.

Rabble.Ca
In the past I found its stories to be uneven and loaded with boilerplate socialist rants, but in the last few months I’ve enjoyed many of Rabble’s stories, including this cogent account of the Laura Robinson saga.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
If you want a progressive alternative to the many right wing think tanks so beloved by Canada’s MSM, the CCPA is a good bet. Its articles are occasionally obscure or very local in nature, but the CCPA does a good job of analyzing Canadian politics with credible empirical (i.e. StatsCan) data. The same cannot be said for the Fraser Institute.

iPolitics
I’ve just started to read this site. Though it’s sometimes an aggregator of other news sites, and some of its best content is hidden behind a paywall, iPolitics offers a wide range of interesting stories from Ottawa. I wouldn’t call it progressive, but I think iPolitics aspires to a “big-tent” reputation. Fair enough.

 

BC News:

The Tyee
Perhaps Canada’s greatest alternative media success story, The Tyee offers a broad range of stories on British Columbia issues. Like many of the other sites, I find certain stories unappealing, but the writing and level of detail are consistent enough that I support it with an annual contribution.  The Tyee’s in-depth coverage of BC education issues is laudable, and I’m happy to see the return of Will McMartin and his analysis of economic policy.

The Georgia Straight
The Straight’s editor, Charlie Smith, demonstrates a healthy disdain for BC’s corporate commentators (especially the aforementioned Keith Baldrey) and provides some good articles on Vancouver and BC politics. Just watch out for the sex advice columns.

The Common Sense Canadian
This site’s best-known commentator is Rafe Mair, and it features stories from both sides of the spectrum. Its (non-corporate) conservative contributors have written some excellent pieces on BC’s not-so-hidden debt problem. Also look for its analysis of environmental and energy policies.

Northern Insights
Norm Farrell’s blog proves just how unfair Baldrey’s dismissal of bloggers actually is. Farrell’s work on BC’s oil and gas revenues has been splendid, and contrasts favourably with BC’s status quo commentators like Baldrey, Michael Smyth, Vaughn Palmer and (most pointedly) Tom Fletcher.

  • Farrell’s site is a mess, I’ll grant you, but he’s apparently upgrading his website in the near future. Scroll down to the archives to find what you want.

BobMackin.Ca
The master of the FOI request, Bob Mackin has stirred up quite a few hornet nests in the last few years. Given the BC government’s atrocious record of deleting emails and hiding information, Mackin plays a vital role in keeping the government’s feet to the fire. If only the corporate media in BC worked as hard as Mackin does.

The Hongcouver
This is a recent discovery via Canadaland. It’s basically a blog written by a Vancouver-based employee of the South China Morning Post, Ian Young. He appears to have a high degree of freedom; the SCMP, after all, wants to sell copy and advertising to people in Asia, not Vancouver. Young’s insightful and provocative pieces on the Vancouver real estate market (like this) would likely never be posted in a PostMedia paper.

 

International News:

Vice News
Vice News is the news division of Vice Media, and offers an eclectic and fascinating mixture of global news stories. Vice News features a large reporting staff who go places and cover stories that are often ignored by other international media companies. In many ways, it’s what CNN should have become. Vice is so adept at creating interesting content that Canadian media giant Rogers has signed a contract with Vice to create original content for Rogers’ mobile, Internet and TV holdings.

Alternet
I pick and choose my stories carefully on this site, but it refreshes frequently and there’s always something of interest. Consider it Vice News Light.

McClatchey News
McClatchey News was one of the few American news groups to consistently oppose the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Its website always has engaging articles on US and international topics.

Mother Jones
It’s been around forever, or so it seems, and it’s a standard bearer for American progressive journalism and opinion. I subscribe to the print edition, which I find superior, but the website certainly wins for its sheer volume of stories.

The Nation
Very similar to Mother Jones; always reliable though a little predictable.

The New York Review of Books
Probably my favourite print magazine of all time, the NYRB offers a number of beautifully written free articles every month on its website. I subscribed to the magazine for years, but gave up after I moved back into the classroom. I simply didn’t have time to read all the stories! [Unfortunately, it seems very difficult to purchase individual editions of the NYRB in Canada. Chapters Bookstore no longer seems to carry it.]

Greg Palast
I’m not sure I believe everything this guy writes, but I do enjoy his bravado and gonzo style of journalism. He talked about voter suppression in the US long before it became fashionable.

Gwynne Dyer
Despite Dyer’s unnerving fondness for predicting the future, and a frustrating distaste for supporting evidence, I enjoy his far-ranging examination of the world. Rarely does he accept the “accepted wisdom”.

The Guardian
The Guardian’s fearlessness regarding Rupert Murdoch and Edward Snowden has made it an essential site for British, US and European news. If Canada had a daily newspaper like this, I’d subscribe to it in a matter of nano-seconds.

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Do you have any suggestions? Are there other alternative media options you would recommend? I’d love to hear from you.

Posted in American Politics, BC Politics, Canadian Politics, Global Issues, Media, Modern Culture, The Good, Bad, & Stupid | 3 Comments

The Basic #BCEd Statistics

May 3, 2015 | Author: C. Welch

The debate over public education in British Columbia is often a heated struggle of ideologies and partisan beliefs. Thankfully, Statistics Canada has published some helpful data in a publication called “Summary Elementary and Secondary School Indicators for Canada, the Provinces and Territories, 2006/2007 to 2010/2011”. [Unfortunately, no newer comparative evidence exists, but the publication is due to be updated next year.] The evidence therein provides the basis for an informed discussion about education policy and funding, and a means by which the competing claims of the provincial government and supporters of public education may be judged. I’ve often referred to the data in piecemeal fashion, but I thought it would be helpful to compile some of the key charts in one post.

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1. Overall operating expenditure for public education as of 2011 is $988 less in British Columbia than the Canadian average, and significantly below BC’s neighbouring provinces.

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2. After the 2006 contract, it became clear the settlement would not be fully funded. The key evidence for this conclusion is the change in the student-educator ratio. Despite other provinces facing the same demographic and economic challenges, only BC’s SER climbed after 2006. By 2011, BC had the worst SER in the country.

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(For a fairly definitive look at the effects of class size, this recent meta-data study doesn’t mince words:  “All else being equal, increasing class sizes will harm student outcomes.”)

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3. Are BC public educators paid too much compared to other provinces? It’s difficult to make this comparison, because each province has its own pay scale and criteria. But according to Statistics Canada,  the average educator pay per student metric demonstrates that BC teachers are not overpaid. Between 2006/2007 and 2010/2011, per student “remuneration” increased the least in BC, and by 2011 was the lowest in Canada.

payperstudentchange1

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(Given that BC public school teachers faced a three year wage freeze after 2011, it’s hard to believe anything has changed with regard to pay per student.)

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4. The BC Liberal government often proclaims that student outcomes are excellent. Aside from dubious improvements to the graduation rate (which is fairly easy to manipulate) the BC government often points to the high PISA scores achieved by BC students. While technically true compared to other jurisdictions, these scores have rested on the laurels of previous governments and actually declined during the BC Liberal era. Moreover, PISA scores are the result of many factors, and may not be particularly representative of educational effectiveness, but even if we take them at face value it’s hard to see why they allow the BC Liberals to justify under-funding.

mathreadingpisaBC1

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Have I cherry-picked the data? Well, it’s difficult to be neutral about such an important topic, but please let me know if there is any other data you think is crucial for the debate.

Posted in BC Politics, Canadian Politics, Economic Issues, Education | Leave a Comment

Reforming BC’s Scholarship Program?

March 21, 2015 | Author: C. Welch

The BC government recently stopped accepting online submissions to its review of the BC scholarship program, but I had a chance to reply before it closed. The rationale for the review was well stocked with the 21st century jargon that Ministry of Education apparatchiks so adore:

British Columbia has one of the best education systems in the world. But it’s a world that is changing rapidly, and we owe it to our students to keep pace. This review of the Ministry of Education’s scholarships and awards is an opportunity to ensure they align with the new directions in education transformation as outlined in the BC Education Plan. The plan’s vision is to create a more flexible and dynamic education system where students are more engaged and better prepared for life’s journey.

I decided to ignore the change-for-the-sake-of change ideology inherent in this statement, and its typically gratuitous use of “transformation”. Instead, being the team player that I am, I thought I would play along and offer a brief critique of the provincial scholarship program.

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The dollar amounts for provincial scholarships are, frankly, a pathetic joke. A $1000 for a top academic student? That’s chump change. The amount hasn’t changed in decades and doesn’t come close to addressing the crushing burden of university. If the government is going to starve the post-secondary system and embrace user-pay costs on behalf of failed corporate tax cuts, the least it can do is raise its support for British Columbia’s brightest students. To be honest, many academic students don’t even worry about the provincial scholarships. Instead, they find an after-school job. They’ll make more money that way. If they earn a provincial scholarship, so be it, but it makes almost no difference in the larger scheme of things. Indeed, my school district doesn’t even make an effort to promote the provincial scholarship program. What’s the point?

And then there are the community scholarships, a pool of money that, in my district at least, offers much more money to students than provincial scholarships. Every year, huge amounts of local scholarship money based on community service go unused or are under-utilized; community service students, whose volunteering can be very mercenary, often don’t survive past the first semester of post-secondary education. To be blunt, they aren’t academically strong enough to hack university.

The painful reality is that many academic students are already very jaded. They live in a province where academic performance is treated as unimportant. Many are angry about all the fuss that’s being paid to vocational students, for example. Then, on top of that, they can’t afford to go to university. Finally, the scholarship money they need is either insultingly small or not even geared to them.

Given the loaded language of your survey, nothing will likely change.

Posted in BC Politics, Education | Leave a Comment