Grad rates jump for Toronto Somali students thanks to programs geared to help

2015/10/14 Leave a comment

Despite the earlier controversy by some in the Somali-Canadian community, appears that this kind of targeted program can work:

The plan runs the gamut: Nudging Somali-speaking teens into taking leadership roles at school; ensuring their culture and faith are part of their courses; training their teachers; reaching out to their parents.

And over an eight-year period, those efforts have paid off: 80 per cent of Somali teens now earn high school diplomas, a jump of 27 percentage points between 2005 and 2013.

While the community still struggles in the school system — results on the Grade 10 literacy test and standardized math tests continue to lag, as well as the number of credits teens earn in Grades 9 and 10 — the increase in graduates means the plan has almost closed the gap with the Toronto District School Board’s overall rate of 83 per cent.

“When we have such a high-level of buy-in from students and the community, inevitably we trend toward improvement,” said Jim Spyropoulos, executive superintendent in charge of equity and inclusive schools. He predicts Somali youth will soon surpass the board-wide graduation rate.

He attributes the boost to programs funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Education that help schools in at-risk urban neighbourhoods, as well as board initiatives geared toward providing social, emotional and academic support specifically for Somali students, plus training to help educators create a classroom that reflects the diversity of the city.

Improved grad rates were being achieved even before a task force to help Somali teens — vehemently opposed by a vocal group in the community — was set up.

Spyropoulos said the task force’s 2014 recommendations, which include mentoring and university planning, were built on the previous initiatives.

“The kids were telling us what’s working,” and those initiatives were included in the task force plan, he said.

The community has changed over the years, he added. Twenty years ago, many of the Somali teens in Toronto schools were recent arrivals from a war-torn country. Today, they’re mainly Canadian-born kids who face different stressors — including trail-blazing for the next generation.

“Eighty per cent of them are now born in Canada,” added Spyropoulos. “We need to be effectively plugged into the community as to what are the realities of today, coping with second-generation stresses.”

Part of the focus will be on post-secondary education, which the board is tracking, because “these kids are pioneers… when they go (on to post-secondary), they change the world for generations after” who will then be more likely to go to college or university.

Among Somali teens who graduated in 2005, 24 per cent were accepted into an Ontario university and 13 per cent to college. Among the 2013 group, 41 per cent went to university, and 20 per cent to college. The university enrolment rate is lower than that of the board as a whole, which is 50 per cent.

Source: Grad rates jump for Somali students thanks to programs geared to help | Toronto Star

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Ontario sex-ed protest ‘unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,’ principal says

2015/10/03 Leave a comment

On the front-lines, the principal of Thorncliffe Park, who comes across well in his efforts to reach out to parents (about 200 students out of 1,400 are not showing up – 14 percent):

He doesn’t want to be there, but Jeff Crane is on the front lines of a province wide debate over the sex education component of Ontario’s new health and physical education curriculum.

Crane is the principal of Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park Public School.

Crane should have 1,400 students at the elementary school every weekday. Instead, he’s averaging about 1,200 as parents keep kids home over opposition to the sex education component of the curriculum, which was updated this year for the first time since 1998.

Crane, exasperated by the protests, told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning on Thursday he wants to see the students back in school.

“It’s been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced or ever thought I would experience in a school in Toronto,” Crane told host Matt Galloway. “I’ve spent the past several weeks trying to convince parents to come to school. I never thought we would be doing that in the city of Toronto.”

A group of parents is planning a one-day protest today that if successful, would keep more kids away from classes.

Crane said since the protests began at the start of the school year, he has been busy meeting with small groups of parents, trying to assure them that sex education forms a “tiny component” just “a few lessons” of the overall health and physical education curriculum.

Most of the parents opposed to the curriculum have roots in countries outside Canada. Many feel the curriculum — which teaches students the correct names of sex organs in Grade 1, discusses same-sex relationships by Grade 3, and outlines the perils of sexting in Grade 7 — is  “too much too soon.”

The Wynne government has said the upgraded curriculum is needed to keep children safe in light of changes in technology since the late 1990s, including the advent of social media and the widespread use of smartphones.

But Crane said other parents, a minority among those protesting, have told him their opposition stems from the belief the curriculum is part of a “homosexual indoctrination of Ontario” led by Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“It’s become more about that than about the curriculum,” he said. “These protesters are unreasonable. I can’t reach them.”

As the protest has continued, Crane said parents are holding teaching sessions in groups at a park near the school and in a local community centre using “books from Costco.”

“They aren’t being taught properly,” he said.

Crane said he has had to chase protesters handing out misleading information away from his school. Last month, the words “shame on you” were spray painted on a school building.

So Crane continues his work to “dispel myths” about the curriculum and ensure the school is a welcoming place for all students.

He said his goal is to convince parents that his school “is a place that you can still trust.”

Source: Ontario sex-ed protest ‘unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,’ principal says – Toronto – CBC News

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Black teachers still face racism on the job in Ontario

2015/05/30 Leave a comment

Interesting study. According the National Household Survey data, black teachers form XX percent in Ontario schools:

Many black teachers across Ontario still face racism on the job, according to a new  study of educators, half of whom said they believe being black has hurt their chance of promotion. Some told of hearing the ‘N’ word used in the staff room and being mistaken for a trespasser.

“I had a supply teacher tell me I am not allowed to park my car in staff parking,” said one of the 148 black educators across 12 Ontario school boards surveyed for a report to be released Friday. “The ‘N’ word was used in casual conversation in our staff room,” said another. “I was introduced as ‘home girl’ to a student teacher.”

The 63-page report, The Voices of Ontario Black Educators, prepared for the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators (ONABSE), calls for Ontario to enact tough employment equity legislation, provide training against anti-black bias, set targets for promoting teachers of colour and cluster black teachers in particular in schools where there are high numbers of black students.

“We’re disappointed, but not surprised at the findings — racism is still deeply ingrained in society,” said Warren Salmon, interim president of ONABSE, which commissioned the report because of concerns expressed by its members.

Of the black teachers, principals and vice-principals surveyed, one-third said they believe they have been passed over for advancement because they are black. Some 27 per cent said racial discrimination by colleagues affects their day-to-day work life and 51 per cent said they believe anti-black bias at their school board affects who gets promoted.

Equity consultant Tana Turner of Turner Consultants conducted the survey, and called for school boards to “set equity goals and timetables — not just have an employment equity office which merely measures the numbers of employees …

“If the government wants to close the gap in racial diversity between students and those at the front of the classroom,” she said, “legislation and other government interventions may be needed.”

Black teachers still face racism on the job in Ontario | Toronto Star.

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Message for Ontario’s sex ed naysayers: Ignorance is far from bliss

2015/05/08 4 Comments

Commentary by Aparita Bhandari  on the need for sex education and a reminder of some of the culture behind opposition to sex-ed:

I was around seven years old when I was told I was impure. It was at a family get-together in India that involved a religious ceremony. My mother had her period at the time, and had been segregated to a cold, dark room. I had no idea what was wrong with her, only that I never wanted to have what she had. I was impure by association. I was told I needed to take a purifying bath if I wanted to sit with my cousins. Eager to please, I splashed cold water on my shivering body. But I couldn’t wash away the sense of shame.

As a teenager in New Delhi, I hated taking public transit. Men would press their erections into my backside or try to cop a feel as I squeezed my way off the bus. But I did not know how to talk about it to my mother or anyone else. What words could I use? So I kept quiet, and avoided using public transit.

But it’s hard to stay quiet now when many parents in Ontario are removing their children from classrooms to protest the revised sex ed curriculum introduced by Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government. They cite cultural concerns and family values but, as far as I’m concerned, a culture of shame and silence is more dangerous. And given the possibility that many of these parents aren’t going to talk to their kids about sex, it’s even more important that their children receive sex education that’s well researched and takes into account the access young people have to sexual information (and misinformation) today and includes topics such as sexual consent.

Since I attended a public school in Australia from Grades 5 to 8, I happened to learn about menstruation, puberty and my developing body through a mixture of books, sex ed classes and educational films that I caught on TV. But I never learned about sex from an authorized source. Back in New Delhi, there were exactly two pages devoted to reproduction in my Grade 9 biology class, which our Science teacher more or less skipped over. The main take-away was that we should know how to draw anatomical diagrams of male and female sex organs for our annual school examination. Any practical education came from romance novels and whispered conversations with friends.

I never had “the talk” with my parents, but I was repeatedly told by the women in my family that I had to watch what I wore, how I acted. I was warned, “Rape bhi ho sakta hai (You can get raped).” Nobody even told me what rape was, although Bollywood movies at the time had frequent scenes that suggested men sexually assaulting women.

Message for Ontario’s sex ed naysayers: Ignorance is far from bliss – The Globe and Mail.

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Uncomfortable Conversations: Talking About Race In The Classroom

2015/04/28 Leave a comment

Good interview with Richard Milner of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Rac(e)ing to Class: Confronting Poverty and Race in Schools and Classrooms:

So how can teachers incorporate those outside realities into curriculum? You mention a case study in the book that involves a robbery that happened right around the corner from a middle school. When you talked to teachers at that school, what did you recommend?

I was doing a professional development session with the teachers, and I just posed a question. I said, “I’m wondering why you guys didn’t mention the robbery in the classroom,” and the educators in the room just got offended.

There was a guy who sat in the back and said, “I teach math and science, what does a robbery have to do with my teaching math and science?”

So I gave some examples: You could talk about the relationship between well-lit communities and those that aren’t. You could count the number of streetlights in a particular vicinity. You could pull up Google Maps and have the students guesstimate the amount of time it would take the police to drive from the police precinct to the robbery scene at different rates of speed. You could have the students look at the relationship between gun shop access and crime.

There are all these mathematical ways of engaging the incident and being responsive to the things that the students are concerned about. But it takes the teachers’ willingness to delve into, to be creative, and to be consistent with and align with the things that they’re supposed to be teaching. I would never tell a teacher to teach anything that they are not supposed to teach. Teachers can make lessons relevant and accessible to students and still align with and be consistent with the Common Core standards and so forth.

In the book you give examples from your classroom visits — but you don’t always offer solutions or answers. Why? Is that intentional?

So this work is contextual. With the cases, I really want teachers to read them to reflect about their own practices, to problematize them, to call me out and say “I disagree with this.”

Just because it’s complex and we don’t know for sure what’s going on doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be interrogating and trying to figure it out. And that’s where I think we really fall short.

We see that particular groups of students, like black and brown male students, are constantly being suspended and expelled from school, and we’ve got to stop it. We’ve got to recognize what’s going on, and we’ve got to address it. So with each case, it invites readers to strategize about what they would do in a particular situation.

Uncomfortable Conversations: Talking About Race In The Classroom : NPR Ed : NPR.

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See Priya Cook: Gender Bias Pervades Textbooks Worldwide : Goats and Soda : NPR

2015/04/21 Leave a comment

Not terribly surprising that textbooks in many countries reflect cultures and biases:

“If aliens beamed onto Earth and read our school textbooks, they wouldn’t have a clue about what women contribute to our society,” says Rae Blumberg, a sociologist at the University of Virginia.

Blumberg has spent years looking at textbooks from all over the world. In almost every country she has studied, women are either completely written out of texts — or they’re portrayed in stereotypical, often subservient roles.

Take for instance, a history and geography book for third graders used in West Bengal, India. The book doesn’t show or mention any career women. It only depicts women cooking for men, serving men or caring for children.

An English language textbook used throughout Kenya looks similar. Children read about women and girls in the domestic realm: “My mother’s cooking pot has a lid,” and “Jane should plait the doll’s hair herself.” But children read about how men and boys take action: “Mr. Momanyi drives the bus,” and “His idea is an interesting one.”

“What we see is that the boys are being described as daring and brave and kind and intelligent,” Blumberg says. “And they’re doing things. They’re taking action. The girls are essentially nonentities.”

…”It seems like a small thing,” she says. “But a bunch of studies show that when girls don’t see themselves in textbooks, they’re less likely to envision themselves doing great things.”

In an Israeli study, for instance, first graders who used readers that portray men and women as equals tended to think that most careers and activities were appropriate for both girls and boys. In contrast, students who used textbooks that portray gender stereotypes tended to believe and accept the stereotypes.

…Some countries have made efforts to fix gender biases in school books, she says. “In Sweden these days, if you see a children’s book with a picture of someone cooking or cleaning, it’s more likely to be a boy,” Blumberg says.

When in high school some 30 years ago, a bunch of us wrote a study on how girls and women were portrayed in high school texts along with other examples of sexism (Is Anybody Out There Listening? a Study of Sexism in a Sceondary School, published in 1976 by the Ontario Status of Women Council).

If memory serves me correctly, the science textbooks were particularly egregious, as was the fact that the girls’ gym was far smaller than the boys’ gym.

See Priya Cook: Gender Bias Pervades Textbooks Worldwide : Goats and Soda : NPR.

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Statscan explains why private school students perform better

2015/04/02 Leave a comment

Not terribly surprising that socio-economic status and education-levels account for most of better performance of private schools but substantiated by the data:

The Statscan report, released Tuesday, says the reason for the higher performance of private school students is their socio-economic status, which includes a higher family income and higher-educated parents.

The study followed more than 7,142 students starting at the age of 15, looking at their scores on standardized tests and their completed educational qualifications by the age of 23.

“No differences in outcomes were attributable to school resources and practices,” the report concludes.

Marc Frenette, one of the two researchers who conducted the study, said the school resources analyzed include student-to-teacher ratio, computer resources available, teacher qualifications and number of teachers available to tutor students.

The study did not look at classroom-based factors, including teaching style, classroom lessons or extracurricular activities offered to students, Mr. Frenette said. It also did not consider the curriculum the schools teach.

Schools from Atlantic Canada were excluded because of a low number of private high schools in those provinces, Mr. Frenette said.

The higher socio-economic status of private school students and their peers accounts for half of the difference in the average score of standardized tests between private and public school students and “two-thirds of the difference in university graduation rates” between the two groups of students, according to the report.

Jim Power, principal of Upper Canada College, an all-boys private school in Toronto, said the selection process that private schools undertake means that their students are more motivated.

“Private schools, by definition, are selective. We’re fortunate. We take one out of three students who apply,” Mr. Power said.

Statscan explains why private school students perform better – The Globe and Mail.

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Quebec infringed on religious freedom by forcing Catholic school to teach secular course: Supreme Court

2015/03/21 Leave a comment

On the recent Supreme Court ruling:

Loyola told the Supreme Court it wasn’t challenging the constitutionality of any legislation. But it was invoking a regulatory provision that allows private schools to teach their own version of a course where their program is equivalent, the school said in its factum. However, Quebec’s Education Department doesn’t consider Loyola’s substitute course an equivalent one. One reason is that the approach recommended by the ERC course is non-denominational, while Loyola’s version aims to transmit the Catholic faith, the Quebec government argues.

Loyola has said it would teach all the same content at the ERC course Loyola’s former principal Paul Donovan told the Montreal Gazette on Wednesday.

“We just didn’t want to have to suppress or hold back the Catholic nature of the school,” Donovan said.

Private religious schools in Quebec can teach their own faiths, but separately from the ERC course.

It’s the second time the Supreme Court has weighed in on the course taught in Quebec’s schools since the 2008-2009 school year. A Drummondville couple, who are Catholics, had argued that refusing to exempt their sons from the compulsory course violated their freedom of conscience and religion. But in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court dismissed their appeal in 2012. The couple hadn’t proved that the ERC course interfered with their ability to pass their own faith onto their children, the decision said.

Quebec infringed on religious freedom by forcing Catholic school to teach secular course: Supreme Court.

Graeme Hamilton’s commentary on the fears of religious fundamentalism in Quebec:

Listening to politicians, it can feel as if Quebec is under assault from religious fundamentalists. The opposition Parti Québécois wants an observer to report annually to the National Assembly on “manifestations of religious fundamentalism.” The Liberal government has a working group to combat radicalism. The Coalition Avenir Québec proposes banning preaching that runs counter to Quebec values.

But those same legislators have no quarrel with a secular fundamentalism that has taken root in the province at the expense of religious rights. On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada sent a message to Quebec that its state-sanctioned secularism can go too far.

In a ruling affirming the right of Montreal’s Loyola High School, a private Catholic boys school, to teach its own version of a provincially mandated course on ethics and religion, the court offered a timely reminder to politicians.

“The pursuit of secular values means respecting the right to hold and manifest different religious beliefs,” Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for the majority. “A secular state respects religious differences, it does not seek to extinguish them.”

The pursuit of secular values means respecting the right to hold and manifest different religious beliefs

The ruling specifically applies to a small number of private religious schools in Quebec, but it resonates more widely at a time when governments contend with questions involving religious rights. Recently in Quebec, mosques have run up against obstacles over fears of religious extremism, and a Muslim woman was told she could not appear before a Quebec Court wearing her hijab. The federal government has taken a stand against the face-covering niqab, saying women cannot wear the garments during citizenship ceremonies.

Interference with a religious group’s beliefs or practices is justified only if they “conflict with or harm overriding public interests,” Justice Abella wrote.

… In a partially concurring opinion that argued for less restriction on Loyola, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Michael Moldaver wrote that it is enough for Loyola teachers to treat other religious viewpoints with respect; it does not have to treat them as equally legitimate.

“Indeed, presenting fundamentally incompatible religious doctrines as equally legitimate and equally credible could imply that both are equally false,” they wrote. “Surely this cannot be a perspective that a religious school can be compelled to adopt.”

John Zucchi, whose son was a student at Loyola when the ERC program was introduced and who was a plaintiff in the initial court case, said Thursday’s ruling provides crucial guidance. “This is helping the country to come to what I would call a sane form of secularism,” he said. “We don’t need to shut down one voice in the name of diversity and pluralism, but rather diversity and pluralism mean that all perspectives can be heard and be out in the public square.”

Graeme Hamilton: A secular fundamentalism has taken root in Quebec

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Germany reverses ban on headscarves for Muslim teachers

2015/03/14 Leave a comment

Progress even if some dissent:

The court in Karlsruhe, ruling on a case brought by a Muslim woman blocked from a teaching job because of her headscarf, said religious symbols could only be banned when they posed “not just an abstract but a concrete risk of disruption in schools.”

“This is a good day for religious freedom,” said Volker Beck, a lawmaker from the opposition Greens.

He argued that headgear worn by devout Muslim, Jewish and Christian women and men was less of a threat to German society than “opponents of diversity” such as the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), neo-Nazis and extremist Muslim Salafists.

Christine Lueders, head of the federal anti-discrimination agency, hailed the ruling for “reinforcing religious freedom in Germany.” With education administered by Germany’s 16 states, she called on local authorities to review the relevant rules.

But the German Teachers’ Assocation (DL) called the ruling “problematic,” saying it undermined the principle of political and religious “neutrality” in schools and public services.

“We fear this ruling could lead to disruption in certain schools if, for example, non-Muslim parents do not agree with their children being taught by teachers in headscarves,” said Josef Kraus, president of the teachers’ body.

Germany reverses ban on headscarves for Muslim teachers – The Globe and Mail.

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Newcomer Parents Face Challenges Navigating School System – New Canadian Media – NCM

2015/03/13 Leave a comment

On some of the integration issues faced by parents helping their kids succeed in the school system:

Luz Bascuñan, the first Latin American woman to be elected as a trustee at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), shared her views on Spanish student dropout rates in the 2009 publication “Four in Ten Spanish-Speaking Youth and Early School Leaving in Toronto.” In it, Bascuñan reduced the problem to four factors: the hiring system, the status of Spanish language in Toronto’s schools, the school curriculum and the lack of formal structures for parent and community involvement.

Today, she says the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998 also negatively impacted the education system, and she calls things like Ontario regulation 612/00, which installed parent involvement committees “a very generic way” to address parents not getting involved.

“Involving parents in their children’s education, which is key to educational success, cannot be done only because there’s a regulation,” Bascuñan says. “It’s necessary to develop a number of different initiatives. Back in the day, before the amalgamation, we had funding enough to make monthly meetings with parents, when we had trained child care workers to take care of the kids while the parents were there, we had interpreters for all the different languages, and we had dinner for everyone, solving the biggest problems parents use as an excuse for not going.”

The problems for Guido and Rossy’s daughter got worse with pressure from the school, with calls and letters telling them how behind their daughter was. “Some teachers suggested maybe our daughter had listening or speech problems, or having some family issues at home,” Guido shares.

“I think parents that came from other countries are really concerned of their kids’ education. In fact, a better education was one of the main reasons why they immigrated here in the first place.” – Esther Contreras, Peel District School Board teacher

“As soon as the problems arose we started helping her every night after school until today,” Guido continues. “They’re nice at schools, very polite, but I think they try to evade being blamed for any problem that my daughter had. It’s true, at my house we try to only speak Spanish, but she speaks English too… she could talk in both languages with no problem. Even so, once a teacher told me to put her in ESL classes. And every time you asked for help they give you a long list of websites instead of talking to you any longer. We took her to all the doctors they sent us, and when we realized she didn’t have any medical problem, her teachers changed the nature of the issue over and over.”

Given that some communities appear to have greater challenges then others, there may be some internal community dynamics at play as well, that need to be factored into account in developing community-specific approaches as appears to be the case in Toronto.

Newcomer Parents Face Challenges Navigating School System – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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