Assessments should reflect ‘socio-economic factors’
Jennifer Moreau, Burnaby Now
Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2008Burnaby school trustees are calling on Education Minister Shirley Bond to reflect socio-economic status in foundation skills assessment tests – provincewide reading, writing and math tests for grades 4 and 7.
See also, The Report Card, by Janet Steffenhagen (my source for this story).
Dear Fellow Parents, Guardians and UBC/UEL Residents,
We are facing a crisis in our schools and need your continued support. Our local schools need to be rebuilt and expanded!We need you to e-mail the VSB school trustees and provincial government to let them know action is needed NOW. Let them know that students, parents, guardians, and area residents have waited too many years for the same school facilities that exist in Vancouver. We all pay through our taxes for public schools. Our children have a right to publicly funded schools.
A critical decision on the future of our schools will be made June 19, and the decision-makers need to hear from as many of us as possible before that date. They need to be reminded that hundreds of families in the UBC/UEL
area are affected and concerned, and that we insist on fair treatment.Go to our webpage http://www.rebuilduhill.ca and send your message in one easy step.
Adlai Fisher, UBC business faculty member and Queen Elizabeth Annex parent activist, is the subject of persistent rumours around a potential run for school board. Bright, energetic, passionate, and totally commited to excellent education for his children, Adlai has been a driving force in the QEA campaign these past several months. Suggestions have been made that Clarence Hansen, newly nominated as an NPA candidate and current VSB school board chair, has approached Adlai. Whether any of this are true remains to be seen. Adlai would be a good candidate for the NPA. While I have disagreed with his approach during the recent educational facilities review I think that he would make an excellent trustee.
Questions about the impact of differential wealth and access to political power very often appear in everyday political debates. Typically, many people will either reduce, deflect, or deny the impact and implications of socio-economic differences. This is often the case in particular struggles where a particular advantaged group might accept that at an abstract or societal level socio-economic factors have a bearing, but not in terms of their specific situation.
Clyde Hertzman’s work at UBC’s Human Early Learning Partnership provides some clear evidence of the impact of differentials in wealth and also points the way toward effective solutions. Key among them is that areas that do not have adequate social support should be attended to and in other wares, where higher wealth provides adequate resources to begin with , are not as critical to attend to.
Society’s influence on child development would not necessitate it becoming a public issue if its influence were random across the population, or uniformly beneficial. But, in Canadian society, as in most of the wealthy countries of the world, society’s influence on child development is neither random nor uniformly beneficial. In Canada, inequalities in child development emerge in a systematic fashion over the first five years of life, according to well-recognized factors: family income, parental education, parenting style, neighbourhood safety and cohesion, neighbourhood socioeconomic differences, and access to quality child care and developmental opportunities. By age 5 a ‘gradient’ in early child development emerges, such that, as one goes from the families with the lowest to highest incomes; least to most parental education; and least to most nurturing and interactive parenting style, the average quality of early child experiences increases. This pattern is known as a gradient because it does not have a threshold. In other words, it is not just a question of poor children getting a ‘bad deal’ and the rest of our children ‘being in the same boat.’ Threats to healthy child development are found across the entire socioeconomic spectrum, though at increasing intensity as one goes from top to bottom. Thus, a concern for a good start in life is one that should unite families from all walks of life, and not separate the poor from the non-poor.
Read full report: Download file
West Side parents change VSB plans
Teresa Sheward, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2008To the editor
Re: “Stall in facilities review raises hopes of parents,” June 6.
I write to clarify some misconceptions in this article, due to relying on the admittedly “speculation and rumour”-based opinions of Charles Menzies.
Menzies fears that “there may be a special solution for the West Side” but not for all the schools that “don’t have well-connected, politically active parents, who have the wealth and the internal connections to keep their schools.” Implying that wealth and internal connections are what created conditions for the postponement and change of VSB plans is not only offensive and inaccurate, it is surprising, given his alleged understanding of the issues.
I have had a lot of critical comments thrown my way over the past few months on this topic. However, I have to say that this is one of the nicest comments; that is, to have an “alleged understanding.” It might almost be a compliment. If my understanding is alleged it allows that I might not in fact really understand what is going on. This should allow me to plead ignorance. What do you think? At any rate is is always delightful to hear a well trained lawyer talk about not having resources or political connections and making it clearly an assertion as opposed to merely alleging the fact. 🙂
Young trustee won’t run again locally
School board trustee Stepan Vdovine will not be running for the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows board of education in November’s election, but might be on a Vision Vancouver slate of candidates for the Vancouver school board.
He said although he feels for the district because of the upcoming challenges – because of declining numbers, some schools in the district might have to be closed – he feels there are a number of strong candidates running for the board of education in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
ELEANOR GREGORY RESIGNS FROM NPA TO JOIN VISION, ROBERTSON CAMPAIGN
VANCOUVER – Vancouver School Trustee Eleanor Gregory has resigned her membership in the NPA and joined Vision Vancouver. Gregory says she is committed to helping Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver in the upcoming election.
“While I have already endorsed Robertson for Mayor, I have decided to actively support his candidacy and felt it best that I severe ties with the NPA. Gregor represents a unique opportunity for our city and my priority is to do what I can you assist his campaign.”
Gregory says that the time is right for her to leave the NPA.
“The NPA is clearly in turmoil and I don’t need to be involved.”
Stall in facilities review raises hopes of parents
School plans up in the air
Naoibh O’Connor, Vancouver Courier
Published: Friday, June 06, 2008
A last-minute postponement of a school board committee meeting Wednesday, which was supposed to reveal final recommendations for the first phase of the district’s educational facilities review, has some parents hopeful a solution is being brokered that will provide for new schools near UBC, while possibly avoiding the selling of Queen Elizabeth annex land.
The facilities review had suggested shutting down Queen Elizabeth annex–a kindergarten to Grade 3 school–and selling the property to raise money to renovate the National Research Council building at UBC as a high school. University Hill secondary would then be turned into an elementary school. New schools are desperately needed around the university to handle a population explosion of school-age children due to development. But the controversial proposals sparked much debate and pitted different parent interests against each other.
[read rest of story here.]
The following comment is from an exasperated parent who is tired of waiting for action on the school front at UBC/UEL in Vancouver. They have asked that this be posted anonymously.
Let me express my absolute appall at having seen our VSB Trustees all these years being complicit in allowing, maintaining and exacerbating the current blatantly regressive wealth transfer from one of the poorest census regions in our city towards the incredibly privileged and wealthy families east of Blanca St.
It is hard to believe that VSB Trustees that call themselves “progressive”, that think of themselves as defending the disenfranchised and less privileged, and that claim they’re working for all children in the district, can at the very same time allow this shameful regressive wealth transfer.
Allow me to document my claims with official and publicly available statistics (all 2006 census data from Statistics Canada).
The median income in the UBC/UEL area in 2005 for couple households with children in the different regions targeted by the EFR was:
– UBC/UEL: $49,388
– Dunbar: $134,852 (16th to 29th, Pacific Spirit to Blenheim)
– West Point Grey (West) $142,354 (8th to 16th, Blanca to Discovery)
– West Point Grey (East): $151,097 (8th to 16th, Discovery to Alma)
– West Point Grey (North): $156,205 (North of 8th, UEL to Alma St)
However:
– *our families* are the ones paying out of our own after-tax income to ship over 200 kids miles away from home every day;
– *our working parents* are the ones taking time from work to travel considerable distances to bring our kids to their out-of-catchment schools;
– it is *our community* and *our children* the ones paying the social cost of having our children detached from our neighbours and neighbourhoods;
– It is *our lucky kids* that can stay in our local school the ones who have to attend classes with over 30 kids (constantly reaching the maximum allowed by the District) in elementary school, and have to fight for room in the lunchroom, bathroom, gym and the rest of the severely overcrowded facilities.
And we do this so that:
– a few children of some of the most wealthy families in town don’t have to walk about 8 extra blocks (!!) to attend their local schools; and
– these few children can have class sizes well below the district average.
The hardship that you, your fellow trustees, and the VSB, have imposed (and seem willing to continue imposing) on our poor and under-privileged families and their children is beyond “unfair”. For many years now, the school board and its trustees have (by action or inaction) been making the poor subsidize the privileged. In one of the wealthiest cities on Earth. In Canada. In 2008.
It is high time you put an end to it.
As the EFR plan documents, all this could start to change if the few in-catchment students attending the satellite QEA are absorbed by QE and JQ. We all know that most of the other students filling QEA, QE and JQ are coming from UBC/UEL. There’s more than plenty of room in the catchment schools to accommodate the in-catchment children east of Blanca Street. These schools will still operate in ideal conditions and
well under capacity. However this will also make the life of hundreds of poor and under-privileged families and children much much easier.
Personally, I don’t like this plan any more or less than selling the VSB Broadway building, say. But you, your fellow trustees and the VSB have, for the last 5 years, failed to give us any option. All things considered, we’ll take the EFR plan.
Our children can’t afford to wait any longer. I hope that on June 19 our trustees finally find the courage to give our under-privileged children the schools they need and deserve.
This article was printed June 4th. The cancellation of the meeting by the VSB obviously occurred to late to change the copy as the Courier was on the newsstands before the notice of the meeting cancellation was sent out.
Dunbar area schools under district microscope
Naoibh O’Connor, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, June 04, 2008
A final report flowing from Vancouver School Board’s educational facilities review of the Dunbar area will be released at a committee meeting today, June 4.
The first phase of a citywide study examining the learning environments of clusters of schools, their financial stability and need for seismic mitigation, centres on Dunbar schools. It includes a controversial proposal to shut down Queen Elizabeth annex–a kindergarten to Grade 3 school–and sell the property to raise money to renovate the National Research Council building at UBC as a high school. University Hill secondary would then be turned into an elementary school. New schools are desperately needed around the university to handle a population explosion of school-age children sparked by residential development.