Tatiana - Ch. 10 - Transforming Canadas Education System
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Wotherspoon
The Politics of Educational Reform
• Modern education systems
– offer legitimacy to particular views of the world – Correspond to dominant patterns of activity and belief, serving in the process to undermine or ignore alternatives
• social and economic rewards, such as prestige and wealth, provide an incentive
• Conceptions of equality of opportunity emphasize the need for fairness in social organization. • Based on an assumption that individual differences = unequal distributions of social rewards and outcomes without which society would not be able to function effectively and efficiently
ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱChapter 10 Transforming Canada’s Education System:
The Impact on Educational Inequalities, Opportunities, and Benefits
“…formal education contributes to social inequalities of class, gender, and race...”
• - annual educational expenditures in Canada have increased steadily since WWII • - strongest growth at the post-secondary level
• - …continuing high levels of fiscal support for education have opened opportunities for greater segments of the population to benefit from participation in educational programs • - educational expansion and massive investment in education programs have made it increasingly possible for more people to attain both longer exposure to and higher levels of formal education
Larry Kuehn - former president of the B.C. Teachers‘ Federation.
• The environment in which public schools operate has changed substantially over the past fifteen years… With the attack on public spending and the focus on eliminating deficits, education has taken a big hit. Expenditures on schools have been reduced across the country • Many more young people are finding themselves in the contingent workforce, being told they have to accept part-time work, low wages, uncertain hours, lack of career expectations, over qualification for jobs, and constant job changes. • Rather than facing up to the real sources of these problems in the economy, critics are quick to place blame on the schools, claiming that we face a training deficit rather than a job deficit. Business groups -- and sometimes labour as well -- call for more "applied" courses, for more focus on employment skills
Illiteracy?
• 1987 national newspaper survey: more than 1 in 5 Canadians lacked necessary skills in reading, writing or computing to the extent that their ability to perform everyday work tasks was impaired
Dimensions of Educational Expansion
in Canada
• - Educational conflict and contradictions lead to the massive expansion of the education sector within the welfare state.
• But…social problem has been transformed into an economic matter that “cost” business a lot in accidents, errors, lost productivity, and extra training. • So… Individuals and schools were blamed for their failure to produce a literate population. • While… illiteracy was in fact the product of a complex set of economic and social relationships beneficial to groups such as employers of low-cost, poorly qualified labour power.
Debates on the future of education • proponents of a conservative view that schools are failing to teach the fundamental knowledge and skills required in a core area of academic subjects • parents and employers demand that schooling be made more directly responsive to labour-force requirements
Literacy rate fails to budge 2003 Research (StatCan)
• The literacy rate among Canadian adults has remained virtually unchanged during the past nine years • average literacy score for Canadians had not changed significantly during the nine-year period since the last major survey was conducted in 1994 • some 15% of Canadians, about one out of every 7, scored in level one, the lowest performance level. This was down slightly from 17% in 1994 • well over 3 million Canadians aged 16 to 65, have problems dealing with printed materials and most likely identify themselves as people who have difficulty reading • Skills in literacy are important because, in all participating countries, the study found a significant wage return for higher skill levels
Liberal Perspective – view of education that addresses the rights and opportunities of individuals
• - Meritocracy – portraying formal education as a vehicle for nurturing the talents and capacities of each individual in harmony with his or her ability to contribute productively to social development
Reality
• Education systems are not and cannot be an effective panacea for social and labour-market problems
• Two contradictory dynamics:
– 1.- liberal democracies’ stress on greater equality of opportunity and participation in economic and political life for all members of society – 2.- fundamental conflict and structured inequality upon which a capitalist economy is based
• School boards have fallen out of favour in this new environment. Most provinces have reduced the number of elected boards, using cost-savings as a justification. • …the expanded role of business in the schools. With cuts to spending, schools are more vulnerable to accepting corporate sponsorships, using teaching materials created by companies with big bucks to produce glitzy units, and especially to welcoming "gifts" of technology. Corporate logos and exclusive supply contracts are becoming an everyday experience in some schools.
The Politics of Educational Reform
• Modern education systems
– offer legitimacy to particular views of the world – Correspond to dominant patterns of activity and belief, serving in the process to undermine or ignore alternatives
• social and economic rewards, such as prestige and wealth, provide an incentive
• Conceptions of equality of opportunity emphasize the need for fairness in social organization. • Based on an assumption that individual differences = unequal distributions of social rewards and outcomes without which society would not be able to function effectively and efficiently
ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱChapter 10 Transforming Canada’s Education System:
The Impact on Educational Inequalities, Opportunities, and Benefits
“…formal education contributes to social inequalities of class, gender, and race...”
• - annual educational expenditures in Canada have increased steadily since WWII • - strongest growth at the post-secondary level
• - …continuing high levels of fiscal support for education have opened opportunities for greater segments of the population to benefit from participation in educational programs • - educational expansion and massive investment in education programs have made it increasingly possible for more people to attain both longer exposure to and higher levels of formal education
Larry Kuehn - former president of the B.C. Teachers‘ Federation.
• The environment in which public schools operate has changed substantially over the past fifteen years… With the attack on public spending and the focus on eliminating deficits, education has taken a big hit. Expenditures on schools have been reduced across the country • Many more young people are finding themselves in the contingent workforce, being told they have to accept part-time work, low wages, uncertain hours, lack of career expectations, over qualification for jobs, and constant job changes. • Rather than facing up to the real sources of these problems in the economy, critics are quick to place blame on the schools, claiming that we face a training deficit rather than a job deficit. Business groups -- and sometimes labour as well -- call for more "applied" courses, for more focus on employment skills
Illiteracy?
• 1987 national newspaper survey: more than 1 in 5 Canadians lacked necessary skills in reading, writing or computing to the extent that their ability to perform everyday work tasks was impaired
Dimensions of Educational Expansion
in Canada
• - Educational conflict and contradictions lead to the massive expansion of the education sector within the welfare state.
• But…social problem has been transformed into an economic matter that “cost” business a lot in accidents, errors, lost productivity, and extra training. • So… Individuals and schools were blamed for their failure to produce a literate population. • While… illiteracy was in fact the product of a complex set of economic and social relationships beneficial to groups such as employers of low-cost, poorly qualified labour power.
Debates on the future of education • proponents of a conservative view that schools are failing to teach the fundamental knowledge and skills required in a core area of academic subjects • parents and employers demand that schooling be made more directly responsive to labour-force requirements
Literacy rate fails to budge 2003 Research (StatCan)
• The literacy rate among Canadian adults has remained virtually unchanged during the past nine years • average literacy score for Canadians had not changed significantly during the nine-year period since the last major survey was conducted in 1994 • some 15% of Canadians, about one out of every 7, scored in level one, the lowest performance level. This was down slightly from 17% in 1994 • well over 3 million Canadians aged 16 to 65, have problems dealing with printed materials and most likely identify themselves as people who have difficulty reading • Skills in literacy are important because, in all participating countries, the study found a significant wage return for higher skill levels
Liberal Perspective – view of education that addresses the rights and opportunities of individuals
• - Meritocracy – portraying formal education as a vehicle for nurturing the talents and capacities of each individual in harmony with his or her ability to contribute productively to social development
Reality
• Education systems are not and cannot be an effective panacea for social and labour-market problems
• Two contradictory dynamics:
– 1.- liberal democracies’ stress on greater equality of opportunity and participation in economic and political life for all members of society – 2.- fundamental conflict and structured inequality upon which a capitalist economy is based
• School boards have fallen out of favour in this new environment. Most provinces have reduced the number of elected boards, using cost-savings as a justification. • …the expanded role of business in the schools. With cuts to spending, schools are more vulnerable to accepting corporate sponsorships, using teaching materials created by companies with big bucks to produce glitzy units, and especially to welcoming "gifts" of technology. Corporate logos and exclusive supply contracts are becoming an everyday experience in some schools.