Reform? Ha!

Straight from the horse's mouth:

"Out of a commitment to putting Teaching and Learning at the forefront of the Ministry of Education's mission, Minister Dame Jennifer Smith announced more education reform on Friday

Dame Jennifer reassigned Mrs. Wendy McDonnell, former Commissioner of Education. Mrs. McDonnell will no longer focus on day to day operations. She will now lead the transformation of the Bermuda Public School System"

Are you as underwhelmed as I am?

One day there will be meaningful education reform





I hope.

Edumacation 2

Expanding on the theme of education, new research discovers something most people already know.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11646978

'Pushy parents' help children make the grade at school

Parents who push their children to work hard at school have a bigger impact on their child's academic success than their teachers, research suggests.

The effort a parent puts into ensuring their child buckles down to schoolwork has a greater impact than that put in by the child or the school, it says.

Researchers at Leicester and Leeds universities found parents put less effort in the more children they had.

They looked at how much they read to a child and attended school meetings.
And also at teachers' perceptions of their involvement.

The academics used data from the National Child Development Study for pupils born in 1958.
And to judge how much was down to parental influences and how much was down to pupils being self-starting individuals, the researchers also studied the children's attitudes, such as whether, at the age of 16, they thought school was a waste of time.

Family backgroundSchools were assessed on how they tried to involve parents, what disciplinary methods they used and and whether 16-year-olds were offered careers advice.
The findings suggest that there is something of a perfect circle. Parents encourage their children to make more of an effort, and then when their child tries harder, the parents put in even more effort.

The background of a family affects the schools' effort, the study found.

Professor Gianni De Fraja, head of economics at Leicester University, said: "The main channel through which parental socio-economic background affects achievement is via effort.
"Parents from a more advantaged environment exert more effort, and this influences positively the educational attainment of their children.

"The parents' background also increases the school's effort, which increases the school achievement. Why schools work harder where parents are from a more privileged background we do not know. It might be because middle class parents are more vocal in demanding that the school works hard."

The researchers found children were more likely to put more effort into their schooling if their parents showed that commitment too.

Professor De Fraja added: "We found that children work harder whose parents put more effort into their education."

Big families The report says parents put less effort into their children's education the more offspring they have.

"There is a trade-off between quantity and quality of children: a child's number of siblings influences negatively the effort exerted by that child's parents toward that child's education," it says.

The researchers suggest policies aimed at improving parental effort - such as parenting classes - might help to boost children's achievements.
The research is published in the latest issue of Review of Economics and Statistics.

I've thrown out a few of my ideas about how to overhaul the public education system but, the question now becomes, how are we to increase the involvement of parent's in their child's education?

On this one I must admit that I am stumped. How does one change the culture of parenting in Bermuda? My first thought is through education but, if success in education is dependent on the culture of parenting changing how is that possible? I really have no idea.

Maybe Ms. Cox our new Premier and her new Education minister will know the answer but, I won't hold my breath on that one.

I've run out of wishful thinking when it comes to Education.

Edumacation

Tonight is a big night for Bermuda. We are about to discover at last who is to follow the illustrious Dr. Brown as Premier of Bermuda. What better night than tonight then to discuss Education, one of the most important issues as Bermuda goes forward. perhaps our new Premier will be more inclined to take discussion in the community on board than the outgoing one and actually arrive at a satisfactory solution or perhaps we're in for more of the same. Who knows?

Either way, here's my wish list for reform:

Firstly, employ the best teachers available, Bermudian or Non-Bermudian. Education is not the place to play immigration politics.

Secondly, introduce British GCSE (or IGCSE), A Level and BTEC external examinations for all students.

Thirdly, ensure that any student who is unable to pass an end of year exam in both Math and English every year is made to repeat the year and provided with extra support so they won't fail it twice.

Fourthly, stream students beginning at GCSE level into 3 groups: Top, Middle and Bottom. Call the streams what you like but, make it happen whether it be internal to schools or a situation where each level is at a different school. Ensure that the ability to move between the streams exists for students that show an improvement (or decline).

Fifthly, consider offering vouchers to parents who wish to send their children to private/boarding schools for an amount equal to the spending per student within the public education system (with the rest of any costs to be funded by the parent).

Sixthly, eventually remove all Government involvement in education beyond paying for it.

Seventhly, ensure that all students public or private participate in a Critical Thinking and a Citizenship class. The first to teach rudimentary logic, the construction of arguments, the difference between fact and assertion, the ability to infer information and identify assumptions behind a text etc. and the second to teach the political system in Bermuda and other major countries in the world as well as to discuss alternatives that have been suggested/tried in the past.

Those are the things that I would like to see as part of any meaningful reform of Bermuda's education system.

If wanting that kind of reform isn't Wishful Thinking (given the PLP's past record) I really don't know what is.

The Five Year Plan

All flashbacks to the Soviet Russia segment of my GCSE History aside Elvin James' announcement that we can expect the Government education plan for the next five years in March is very good news.

After two major reports and years of passing the blame it looks like we're finally moving forward in education. The adoption of the Cambridge curriculum this year is a promising step and I'm hopeful we'll hear of a number of other initiatives when the full plan is announced. As for raising the school leaving age that's a completely different story. All it will do is prove the old adage: "You can lead a horse to water but, you can't make it drink". The proposal has it's heart in the right place but, it's going to take a lot more than just legislating it in order for it to actually make a difference.

Of course there is only so much that the government can do to fix the public education system. The Hopkins report was quite clear in it's criticisms and since then the government has moved forward on a number of its suggestions. The recent Mincy report's issues however are a little big harder to deal with. Of course it does offer some suggested initiatives that could help but, in the end those particular problems are societal and there's little hope of them being solved without a lot of community input. Given Bermuda's record when it comes to wide spread community involvement I'm going to let the cynic in me rule for now but, I live in hope that I'll soon be proved wrong.

Obviously since the plan hasn't been released yet it's impossible to comment on the proposals but, all the seem even this news is good news. At this point what needs to be done should be reasonably clear, while we may not know how to fix the whole problem we can at least fix part of it. Given the past record on education it's easy to dismiss the plan before it's even been announced but, perhaps since I'm in a good I'll permit myself a little bit of,

Wishful Thinking