Paul W. Bennett - The State of the System

THE STATE OF THE SYSTEM

The State of the System

A Reality Check on Canadas Schools

PAUL W. BENNETT

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal & Kingston London Chicago

McGill-Queens University Press 2020

ISBN 978-0-2280-0083-9 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-2280-0084-6 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-2280-0226-0 (e PDF )
ISBN 978-0-2280-0227-7 (e PUB )

Legal deposit third quarter 2020
Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free
(100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The state of the system: a reality check on Canadas schools / Paul W. Bennett.

Names: Bennett, Paul W., 1949 author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200238701 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200238868 | ISBN 9780228000846 (paper) | ISBN 9780228000839 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228002260 (e PDF ) | ISBN 9780228002277 (e PUB )

Subjects: LCSH : Public schoolsCanadaEvaluation. | LCSH : EducationCanadaEvaluation.

Classification: LCC LA 412 . B 42 2020 | DDC 371.010971dc23

This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript.

To Dianne and our children and to all those
committed to meaningful education reform

Contents

Figures and Tables

FIGURES

0.1 German Sociologist Max Weber, 1918. Library of Congress 6

0.2 Ministry of Education and the Masses. Citizen Tom,
www.citizentom.com 8

1.1 Fortress Education: Insiders and Outsiders in Education 14

1.2 Doug Ford Populism in Action, Tillsonburg, Ontario, May 2018. Doug Ford / Ford Nation, Twitter, 25 May 2018 25

2.1 A Consolidation College Exhibit Poster, 1936. Provincial Archives of Alberta, Photo Collection, A 7065 29

2.2 Creation of Quebec Ministry of Education: Paul Gerin-Lajoie. VirtualMuseum.ca , www.larevolutiontranquille.ca/en/the-creation-of-the-ministry-of-education.php 37

3.1 Andrew Nikiforuk, Toronto Globe and Mail Education Columnist. Private Photo Collection 51

3.2 Announcement of Ontario Royal Commission on Learning, 1993. Toronto Star Syndicate, Toronto Public Library Collection, Ron Bull, tspa_0040064f 57

4.1 Early School Consolidators. Antigonish Heritage Museum 71

6.1 Catholic High School Funding Protest, Windsor, 1971. Toronto Star Syndicate / Dick Darrell Photo / Toronto Public Library Collection No. tspa_0042330f 98

7.1 Montreal Protest against Bill 21, 2019. Graham Hughes, The Canadian Press 128

8.1 Rudolf Fleschs Why Johnny Cant Read (1955). Book Cover / Harper Publishers 139

8.2 Constructivism in the Math Classroom (Weapons of Math Destruction). Weapons of Math Destruction.com / Oak Norton 143

8.3 Jumbled and Overcrowded Curriculum: Ontario Curriculum Integration, 2014. Ontario Ministry of Education 148

9.1 Annie Kidder and Ontario Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, 2017. People for Education 153

9.2 The OECD Five Domains. OECD 157

10.1 Lynden Dorval and No Zeros Policy. Edmonton Journal , a division of Postmedia Network Inc. 175

10.2 Student Preparedness for the Next Stage, Nova Scotia, 2014. Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development 182

11.1 Yarker Rural School Protest. Jeff Green / Frontenac News 195

11.2 School Bags on Bridge, River John, NS , 2015. Sheree Fitch Photos 199

11.3 School Bags on Bridge, River John, NS , 2015. Sheree Fitch Photos 199

12.1 School Board Accountability. Weapons of Math Destruction / Oak Norton 203

12.2 Vancouver School Board Crisis. Georgia Straight 207

12.3 Save Island Schools. Randy Chiasson, Georgetown, PEI

13.1 Conventional Education Decision-Making. Excerpted from Sociology of Education , Toronto: Pearson, 2013, p. 98 228

13.2 Flip the System. From Flip the System , New York: Routledge, 2016, p. 6 233

TABLES

1.1 Public Satisfaction with the School System and Teachers Performance, 19802017 21

5.1 Student Transportation Expenditures, School Boards of Nova Scotia, 200914 85

5.2 Student Population Changes and Students Bused, Nova Scotia, 200914 85

7.1 School Choices in Public Education, 201415 113

10.1 High School Graduation Rates by Province, 2015 171

10.2 Grade Inflation: Average Alberta Grades, 2009 to 2016 177

12.1 Acclamation Disease, Nova Scotia School Board Elections, October 2016 216

Acknowledgments

School reform is in my blood and its been a passion of mine ever since I entered the teaching profession. Over the decades, my wide-ranging educational career has provided unparalleled opportunities to study, teach, and write in three different provinces: Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. First as a student, then as a history teacher, department chair, academic director, and school head, I came to know Canadian schools from the inside. Taking up educational causes, serving as an elected school trustee, and advocating for democratic reforms all opened my eyes to the tantalizing prospects for re-engineering the System. Years in the making, this book represents a distillation of lessons learned and a prescription for repurposing the Canadian K 12 system.

The organizational factor looms large not only in the shaping of history, society, and systems, but in my perspective on the System. Contemporary power structures, bureaucratic change, organizational theory, and reforming the social order were vitally important topics first introduced to me by the late York University historian Robert D. Cuff (19412001), a brilliant Princeton-trained scholar, truly fine teacher, and quintessential family man. As an education policy researcher, the American Enterprise Institutes Frederick Hess, author of The Same Thing Over and Over (2010) and the Cage-Busting Leadership series, sets a high standard which has sharpened my intellectual focus, clarified my thinking, and challenged many of my previous assumptions. Coming at education from a radically different perspective, Canadas best-known academic publisher on the Left, Errol Sharpe, is owed a debt of gratitude. It was a pleasure working closely with Errol to thrash out and refine my emerging synthesis, field-tested in my 2011 book, Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities: The Contested Schoolhouse in Maritime Canada, 18502010 .

Many academic mentors, fellow educators, and policy researchers have shaped my thinking and provided inspiration along the way. My dear friend, the late Desmond P. Morton, was always a constant inspiration by sheer example, even when he was chiding another of my most influential York University mentors, Jack Granatstein. As a doctoral student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (198491), Alison Prentice drew me out of my comfort zone with total immersion in womens studies, while Harold Troper delighted in testing my mettle and exposing me to the depth, mysteries, and richness of race and ethnic studies. While on the editorial board of The History and Social Science Teacher (198692), the late Geoffrey Milburn of Althouse College, Western University, sharpened my wit, and kept me abreast of broader trends in history teaching. Fellow Canadian education historian Paul Axelrod and I share much in common, including the distinction of working closely at York University with the late John T. Saywell, whom I admired from his marvelous Canadian history textbooks. No high school teacher had a bigger influence on my life and teaching than Donald Bogle, an outstanding Ontario history and social science teacher. When Dean Axelrod invited me back in 2010 to the Canadian History of Education Association ( CHEA/ACHE ), I came to appreciate even more the marked influence of R.D. (Bob) Gidney, Peter Sexias, Ruth Sandwell, Amy Von Heyking, Bruce Curtis, and, more recently, Ted Christou, of Queens Universitys Faculty of Education.