Margaret Atwood to Join Prison Farm March
Closing the prison farms is “dumb as a stump and stupid as a box of hair and also a sack of hammers, and those who thought it up have their lights on but nobody home, and aren’t playing with a full deck.” See Atwood’s entire speech from the wildly successful rally and march in Newsworthy Notes at right.
People Deserve Better
World leaders are meeting in Toronto and will make decisions that will affect the future of our economies, our standards of living and our environment. We already know that some of their decisions will be disastrous for many people. On Saturday, June 26 there will be a rally in Toronto to send a message to the leaders of the G8/G20 countries. We want them to know that there are issues that have to be handled better - issues like the global economic crisis, poverty and climate change.
There will be free transportation to Toronto on that day so anyone who wants to participate will be able to. Call the Kingston and District Labour Council at 613-548-4952 to reserve spaces. For more information about the rally, click here.
BOTTOM LINE TARGETS WOMEN
Government budgets are not the easiest to understand, but we should know how they will affect us. The Sexual Assault Crisis Centre and Kingston Interval House are holding a public meeting explaining the impact that the federal budget will have on Canadian women’s march toward equality. All are welcome.
DRUG COMPANIES MAD, FLEXING THEIR MUSCLES
The provincial government and the prescription drug industry are facing off. Premier McGuinty is determined to tackle the soaring costs of generic drugs, which cost more in Ontario than other in other provinces. In response, big chains like Shoppers Drug Mart are unleashing a “capital strike” by reducing hours and upping dispensing fees. They have taken out full page ads in major newspapers.
The government actually deserves our support in this fight. Drug costs are one of the main pressures on our negotiated health benefit plan. Check out the Ontario Federation of Labour’s call on unions to stand up for fair drug costs at www.ofl.ca
HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHERE TO LIVE?
The right wing Fraser Institute ranks schools every year after the Ministry publicizes the EQAO results. They have an user-friendly website where you can compare up to five schools to each other to decide all kinds of things. So we chose schools where the average family income was over $100,000 and schools where it was less than $40,000. As luck would have it, there are only two of the first and three of the second in Kingston.
Click on Newsworthy Notes at right for the full lowdown.
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TEST SCORES: WEAPONS AGAINST TEACHERS, SCHOOLS AND THE RIGHT TO HAVE A UNION
Central Falls High School in Rhode Island has been classified by the state Department of Education as a chronically under-performing school for seven years. The most recent information on the school:
808 — Number of students
74 — Number of teachers
96% — Students in poverty
47.7% — Graduation rate
55% — Proficient in reading
7% — Proficient in math
This school is not doing well - reading is suffering, math skills almost non-existent. Less than half the students graduate and nearly all of them are impoverished. The Superintendent came up with two ways to fix this. One was asking teachers to work a longer school day, attend after-school training and set aside two weeks in the summer for professional development. Since the teachers were not keen on doing this for free, she went to her plan B, which is to fire everyone.
We should learn from the educational misadventures of our neighbours to the south. After years of insisting that test scores were the best way to measure students, they then measured teachers and schools by the same results. This has led to firings and school closures, but the government hopes that the culmination of this exercise is to rid the system of teacher unions and boost the number of charter and voucher schools.
Meanwhile, the real disaster is the 96% of students living in poverty and that remains unaddressed.
WHY SARAH PALIN IS BAD FOR WOMEN
We all asked ourselves why the Republicans would put someone like Palin as the nominee for Vice President. Even now, many of us don’t understand the decision. But if you consider that sexism is not only alive and well but carefully nurtured, then it all begins to make sense. And not in a good way. Read the whole article here. Or click on “Answers to Burning Questions” at right for a longer excerpt.
WALMART BUYS HAITI A COFFEE
Walmart, the world’s largest corporation, has announced that it has generously donated $600,000 to the Haiti relief effort
For most of the world, that’s a lot of money, but to Walmart and the Walton family, it’s walking-around cash.
Walmart sold more than $401,244,000,000 in merchandise in 2009 and made at least $13.6 billion in profits. So the $600,000 that the Walmart corporation donated to the devastated Haitians represents roughly 0.004 per cent of its income for 2009.
By comparison, to the average Canadian who took home les than $35,000 last year, that’s the cost of a large Tim Horton’s coffee.
For the average Walmart worker, whose gross income is around $19,000, it’s about 75 cents, which is about the cost of … well, nothing.
WalmartWorkersCanada/UFCW/CALM
Students Short-Changed by Government’s Focus on Test Scores
Teachers have raised concerns that the provincial government’s push for improved provincial test scores is making it difficult for them to provide a balanced program for elementary students.
According to an Environics Research Group survey of Ontario elementary school teachers, 77 percent of teachers feel that the range of topics taught to students is being narrowed because of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) testing program.
“Teachers feel their students are being denied a well-rounded education because of the government’s focus on test scores. It has created a skewed emphasis on literacy and numeracy to the detriment of other subjects,” explains Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) president Sam Hammond.
“The government has recently underlined, for example, the importance of arts and physical education, but the intense focus on literacy and numeracy means there is just not enough time for these other subjects,” said Hammond.
The majority of teachers surveyed also think that EQAO testing has either made no difference to the quality of elementary education in Ontario, or even made it worse. A large majority think EQAO testing should be phased out.
“Other jurisdictions with a history of large-scale assessments are reducing or cancelling their testing programs. It’s time for Ontario to review its student assessment regime,” Hammond said.
The Environics survey was conducted in early November, 2009, among a sample of 1,010 Ontario elementary teachers who are ETFO members. The margin of error for a sample of this size is considered to be plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
LDSB’s 5 YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN - ETFO’S RESPONSE
Let’s start by stating the obvious. Teachers do not equate student success with good EQAO scores. The old adage that everything that counts can’t be measured and everything that can be measured doesn’t necessarily count is never more true than in an elementary classroom. In the LDSB’s strategic plan there is, of course, a lot of emphasis put on increasing “student success”. But the Board offers no resources and few strategies for doing this. Full Day Learning and more Arts and Technology in grades 7 and 8 are mentioned but the bulk of the document focuses on further training of teachers in the fine art of assessment.
Many more inservices are coming and the strategic plan warns that attendance and involvement at PD sessions will be monitored. The euphemistic “Wellness Programme” (in which teachers do not use sick days) is back on the table to ensure that attendance rates meet or exceed the provincial averages. This phrase - “meet or exceed the provincial averages” - is central because it captures the essence of the strategic plan. Our board will do whatever the Ministry tells it to do. We are aiming for the provincial average in days of work missed, number of students suspended and percentage of students who attain levels 3 and 4 on the standardized tests.
All in all, the Strategic Plan is a disappointment.
To read our entire response, click on Newsworthy Notes to the right.
NEW YORK CITY NIGHTMARE:
TEST SCORES TO DETERMINE WHETHER SCHOOLS ARE VIABLE, WHETHER TEACHERS KEEP THEIR JOBS AND WHAT TEACHER PAY WILL BE
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Wednesday that New York City public schools would immediately begin to use student test scores as a factor in deciding which teachers earn tenure, a proposal that has been bitterly opposed by the teachers’ union and criticized as putting too much weight on standardized exams. While many of the changes he is seeking could be accomplished at the negotiating table, the Mayor has indicated that he would turn to the state legislature to take up much of the fight.
He wants layoffs based on test scores instead of seniority and teachers evaluated with data-driven systems. This is not a concept that is completely foreign to us in Ontario and teachers need to address the provincial government’s love affair with EQAO scores.
Click here to read the whole sorry article.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MONTREAL MASSACRE:
CONSERVATIVES MARKING IT BY LEGALIZING UNREGISTERED GUNS
Marc Lépine, who murdered 14 women in Montreal 20 years ago used a Ruger Mini-14, the kind of gun normally used by hunters to kill gophers, groundhogs and rabbits. It’s a comfortable gun, lightweight with little recoil, and it’s semi-automatic, which means it fires without complications every time you pull the trigger (especially effective with a larger magazine of 20 bullets). It’s very accurate to begin with, but in a classroom, experts say, you couldn’t miss if you tried. And Lépine, a hater of all women, especially police officers and prominent successful women, did not.
After the Montreal Massacre, the federal government set up a gun registry.
The registry requires only this: If you buy or own a gun — and this includes rifles used by farmers and hunters, firing range enthusiasts, etc. — it must be registered. It won’t be confiscated, but law enforcement officials will know you have it.
There’s no reason to be ashamed of owning a rifle if you live rurally and make rural excursions, and no reason to object to registering your gun the same way you register your car, house, boat, dog and cat. You often register major purchases in case they turn out to be faulty. The city inspects your house to make sure it’s reliably built, your life insurer knows your health status, your home insurer prowls around, and doctors regularly probe your cavities and press your tender areas for signs of cancer.
The Conservatives hate the registry. But hate is a feeling. Here are the facts. The RCMP website states that there are 7.5 million licensed guns in Canada. Police agencies find the registry extremely useful, given that any time an officer goes out on a call, she or he is hypothetically in danger. In 2009, police made an average 10,800 calls a day to find out registry information.
The Long Gun Registry is a programme we need. The money has been long spent to set it up; let’s not spend any more to dismantle it.
For the entire article by Heather Mallick click here.
LESSON PLANS FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
(BROUGHT TO YOU BY ETFO)
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child established a foundation upon which countries should base treatment of children. Countries that signed on to this convention agreed that states should consider first and foremost the best interests of children - a change from the notion that parents “owned” their children. The right to life, freedom from abuse and exploitation, the right to be raised by parents, the end of capital punishment for children and the right to privacy are some of the tenets of the convention.
As of 2008, 193 countries have signed on, including every member of the United Nations except Somalia and the United States. (Hmmmmm.)
ETFO has developed three excellent sets of lesson plans linked to the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. There are lesson plans for the Primary, Junior, and Intermediate divisions. Click on the link below to access excellent curriculum for your students.
Intermediate - http://www.etfo.ca/Resources/ForTeachers/Documents/Rights%20of%20the%20
Child%20-%20Intermediate%20Lesson%20Plans.pdf
TWENTY YEARS IS TOO LONG!
Government attention to violence against women is long overdue. A law and order agenda is not the answer. To be truly safe at home, at work and in our communities, women need economic and social security. We need support for women’s services and equality. Now is the time for action.
20 Days/20 Ways to End Violence Against Women
Send a postcard a day to the Prime Minister to remind him that for 20 years women have been waiting for action. Each year, women across the country commemorate the fourteen young women who were killed on December 5, 1989, at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and all the other women who have died as a result of male violence. Nancy Grew, ETFO Limestone’s Chair of the Status of Women committee, has postcards that will be in your school soon. Sign them. Send them.
So here we are once again - demanding an end to Violence Against Women. Twenty years after the Montreal Massacre we continue to rage, mourn and work for change. To mark this anniversary of misogeny in Montreal and ongoing violence against girls and women across the country, the Canadian Labour Council has organized a national postcard campaign directed to the Prime Minister. Let’s show him the power of “that left-wing group called women” and our allies. And may our pen be mightier than the sword.
STRESSFUL TIMES
If the pressure is getting to you, remember our Employee’s Assistance Programme. They are a 24 hour service, confidential and free. Call them at 613-549-5561. The number in the last ETFOINFO is not correct - this one is.
LABOUR DAY
Limestone teachers joined the Labour Day March and the picnic afterwards in the park. The Kingston and District Labour Council has celebrated labour day for over a century and this year we were pleased to have the support of city councillors Bill Glover, Joyce McLeod-Kane, Rob Hutcheson, Steve Garrison and Vicki Schmolka. Smokey Thomas, the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union addressed the crowd at McBurney Park and Emily Fennell entertained us after the speeches were done. The labour council works very closely with the United Way and donations were collected at the event. Plan on coming next year.
People for Education have Some Suggestions to Improve Public Schools
Last year, schools and parents raised almost $600 million through fundraising and corporate and charitable donations, while over half of Ontario schools charged for art courses at the secondary level. The Ministry’s emphasis on literacy and numeracy is squeezing out the arts and disadvantaging children in poor neighbourhoods. People for Education have released a report in which they outline numerous areas that need attention in the public school system. Read the whole article by clicking on Newsworthy Notes at the right.
The Easiest Way to Protest
It has been dubbed “slacktivism”, but with teachers so busy, it actually makes a bit of sense. There is no need to go to a demonstration, get on a phone tree or write a nasty letter to the editor. All you have to do is click, and sign your name.
The Ministry of Education’s new website has a feature that allows parents to check whether a specific school population is poor or rich, well educated, in need of special education and primarily English speaking. If you feel this is reprehensible, go to People for Education’s website and sign their open letter to Minister of Education, Kathleen Wynne. Just click HERE.
ETFO Advisories
Members are advised not to evaluate or report on the classroom practices of other members.
Members are advised not to participate in any EQAO marking exercise of Primary, Junior or Grade 9 Assessment of Mathematics or the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test.
To read the entire text of the advisories, see Local News at right.