Rouge Forum 2014 – The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom [Program]
THE ROUGE FORUM CONFERENCE 2014
The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom
JUNE 5-7, 2014
Denver, Colorado
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Program
All sessions at MSUD, Auraria Campus, Downtown Denver, West Classroom Building. Map:http://goo.gl/hvIWiH
THURSDAY JUNE 5
Conference dinner, location TBA
FRIDAY JUNE 6
8:00-8:30am
Outside West Classroom (WC) 164
Registration/Coffee
8:30-9:00am
WC 155
Opening Session
Chair: C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University)
9:00-10:00am
WC 155
Plenary Session
Chair: E. Wayne Ross (University of British Columbia)
Featured Speaker:
Hacking Away at Pearson and the Education-Foundation-Industrial Complex
Alan J. Singer (Hofstra University)
10:00 – 10:15am
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
10:15 – 11:30am
Breakout Sessions 1
Breakout 1A – Children and the Social Justice Conversation
WC 259 Presenters:
- Secret City Secret Scourge, Nancye McCrary (St. Catherine College)
- Imagining Ourselves in Children’s Literature: Power Dynamics and Epistemologies amid the Pages and in the Classroom, Mia Sosa-Provencio, University of New Mexico
Breakout 1B – Panel: Engaging Foucault: Rethinking Our Questions
WC 261
Panelists: David Gabbard, Angela Crawford, Marilena “Lenny” Martello, Kelli Kinkela, Sarah Ritter, Mike Boyer, Jennie Moyett, Gregory Martinez, YuWen Chen (Boise State University)
Breakout 1C – Panel: Mapping Knowledge Wealth and Resources in Diverse School Communities
WC 257
Panelists: Kelli Woodrow, Todd Bell, Melanie Bruce, Cathi Brents, Shana Mondaragon (Regis University)
11:30am-1:00pm
LUNCH
1:00 – 2:15 pm
WC 155
Plenary Session
Chair: Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)
Keynote / Adam Renner Memorial Lecture
Saving The Future
David Barsamian (Alternative Radio)
2:15 – 3:00pm
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
3:00 – 4:15pm
Breakout Session 2
Breakout 2A – Creating Counter-narratives to Mainstream
WC 259
Presenters:
- The Neoliberal Agenda for Public Education: An Obituary, John Elmore (West Chester University)
- Push It Real Good: Challenging Dominant Discourses on Race in Teacher Education, Madhavi Tandon & Kara M. Viesca (University of Colorado, Denver)
Breakout 2B – Dialogue Session
WC 261
Presenter:
- Changing minds: Teachers’ Perspectives Towards Issues of Diversity and Power, Kelli Woodrow (Regis University) & Victoria Caruana (Regis University)
Breakout 2C – Panel: Angels for AP Excellence: Increasing Students of Color Enrollment and Success in AP Classes
WC 257
Panelists: Kate Greeley, Amanda West, Nathan Merenstein, Niesha Smith, Joey Halik, Ray Pryor, Janae Brown, Rheadawn Chiles, Christine Miller (Denver Public Schools)
4:15 – 4:30pm
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
4:30 – 5:45pm
Plenary Session: Performance & Discussion
WC155
Celebrating Pete Seeger
Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)
[End of Day 1. Dinner location TBA]
SATURDAY JUNE 7
8:00-8:30am
Outside WC 164
Registration/Coffee
8:30-10:00am
Openning Plenary Session
WC 155
Chair: Greg Queen (Detroit, MI)
Featured Speaker:
Why it is Possible and Imperative to Teach Revolution—and How!
Rich Gibson (San Diego State University)
10:00 – 10:15am
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break
10:15 – 11:30am
Breakout Session 3
Breakout 3A – Models of Resistance and Activism
WC 164
Presenters:
- Art, Alienation, and Resistance in the Classroom, Chris Steele (Regis University)
- Faculty Unites with Student Activists to Redesign Education Policy, C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University)
Breakout 3B – Responding to Educational Exclusion
WC 259
Presenters:
- Praxis: The Exclusion of Native American Teachers, Richard M. Jones & Terry Albers (Oglala Lakota CollegRe)
- Increasing Options for the Equality of Returning Veterans in the Classroom, Ashley O’Connor (University of Denver)
Breakout 3C – Virtual and For-Profit Higher Education: Implications of Critical Education
WC 257
Presenters:
- Destabilizing Post-secondary Education for Profit, Yvette Powe
- Keeping the Techne in the Classroom: What Marcuse Can Tell Us About MOOCs and the Status of Higher Education, Tyler Suggs (University of Vermont)
Breakout 3D – Voices (Panel)
WC 143
Chair: Lauren Johnston (St. Catharine College)
Panelists: Nancye McCrary, Casey Baryla, Rebecca Just, Rebekah Sams, Amanda Conrad (St. Catharine College)
11:30am-1:00pm
LUNCH
1:00 – 2:15 pm
Breakout Session 4
Breakout 4A – Critical and Revolutionary Pedagogy
WC 259
Presenters:
- Coming to Critical Pedagogy: A Marxist Autobiography in the History of Higher Education, Curry Stephenson Malott (West Chester University)
- What Then Must We Do?. Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)
Breakout 4B Counter-narratives and Critical Consciousness
WC 261
Presenters:
- Teaching Counter-Narratives: Indigenous Peoples, History, and Critical Consciousness, Glenabah Martinez (University of New Mexico)
Breakout 4C Transformative Social Studies Teaching and Learning
WC 257
Chair: E. Wayne Ross
Panelists: Abraham DeLeon (University of Texas, San Antonio), Four Arrows (Fielding Graduate University), C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University), Curry Stephenson Malott (West Chester University), Greg Queen (Teacher, Detroit, MI), E. Wayne Ross (University of British Columbia), Doug Selwyn (SUNY Plattsburgh)
2:15 – 3:00pm
WC 164
Coffee/tea Break
3:00 – 4:15pm
Breakout Session 5
Breakout 5A – Planning Lessons to Combat Capitalism
WC 259
Presenters:
- Class as the Organizing Principle of History Education, Greg Queen (Teacher, Detroit, MI)
- What Does Lesson Planning Have to do with Capitalism?, Kathryn Young (Metropolitan State University of Denver)
Breakout 5B Social Justice vs. The Psychosis of Success
WC 261
Presenters:
- The Psychosis of Success, Mike Sliwa
- Narrow Focus Classroom Affection, Heightened Social Injustice, Perception of Nigerian Educators, Aladegbola Adebusayo
Breakout 5C Public Memory and Revolutionary Pedagogy
WC 257
Presenters:
- Hip-Hop as Revolutionary Pedagogy, Brad J. Porfilio (Lewis University)
- Distance Makes the Heart Grow Stronger: The Legacy of 9/11, Martin Haber
4:15 – 4:30pm
WC 164
Coffee/tea Break
4:30 – 5:45pm
Plenary Session: Performance & Discussion
WC 155
Chair: Gina Stiens
Sex, Death and Other Deviations from the Common Core
William R. Boyer
Sunday JUNE 8
9:30am – 11:30am
WC 155
Conference Debriefing & Reflections
Steering Committee brunch (location TBA)
[Anyone interested in participating in the RF Steering Committee is invited to attend this meeting]
Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture at Rouge Forum 2014
Rouge Forum 2014 runs from June 5-7 at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Check out the details here.
Every year the Rouge Forum honors the life and work of Adam Renner (August 18, 1970 – December 19, 2010) by inviting a critical scholar, educator, or activist to deliver the Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture.
Adam was a teacher, scholar, musician, revolutionary activist, martial artist, and lover of life. His courage took remarkable forms, from being willing to sacrifice to help others, to always learning, and altering his views, on the path to discover what is true in order to make the world a little better. What could be a more powerful legacy?
He received his BA in Mathematics from Thomas More College. While teaching mathematics at Seton High School in Cincinnati, OH, he completed his MEd at Northern Kentucky University. In 2002, Adam received his PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and subsequently worked as a professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY.
His scholarship focused on service learning, social difference, social justice, and pedagogy and he published in numerous journals including Educational Studies, EcoJustice Review, High School Journal, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Rethinking Schools and more. (Many of Adam’s publications are available to read here.)
Along with his life partner, Gina Stiens, he created a service partnership with schools and social service organizations in Jamaica and taught an ongoing course, “Education for Liberation or Domination: A Critical Encounter in Jamaica.” He was a key leader and organizer in the Rouge Forum serving as Community Coordinator and as editor of the Rouge Forum News.
In the fall of 2010, Adam left his professorship at Bellarmine University and returned to the school classroom, as a math teacher at June Jordan School for Social Equity in San Francisco.
In an article for Substance News, published just weeks before he died, Adam wrote,
“For me and my K-12 classroom, for instance, I have been searching for the intersection of liberation, curriculum, and student experience (comprised of individual traumas, structural oppression, nine years of mis-schooling, varying levels of confidence and skill, etc.). How can I shape the revolutionary subjects necessary to help tip the inflexion point toward the necessary qualitative changes?
“When we teach math, social studies, language arts, and science, can we credibly do so in a way that is separate from the growing militarization of our schools and society, gang and drug infestations in our communities, rampant unemployment, a school to prisons pipeline, the assurance of our students’ ignorance through standardization and a teach-to-the-test mafia-like pressure on teachers?
“So, if we shouldn’t teach our classes that way, can we organize in such a way that militates against such explorations?”
Theses are powerful questions that challenge us to embodied the interaction of critical, ethical theory and determined practice, just as Adam did everyday of his life.
Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Memorial Lecturers
2011
Peter McLaren, Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences, UCLA, world renowned critical pedagogue and author of over 40 books, including Life in Schools and Revolutionizing Pedagogy.
2012
Susan Ohanian, public school teacher, author, and winner of the National Council of Teachers’ of English “George Orwell Award,” for her outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.
2013
Patrick Shannon, Professor of Language and Literacy at Penn State University, former primary grade teacher and author of over 16 books, including Reading Wide Awake and Reading Against Democracy.
2014
David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio and author of Occupy The Economy: Challenging Capitalism and Targeting Iran. He is best known for his interview books with Noam Chomsky, including What We Say Goes.
Dark Days for Our Universities
Cross-posted from Workplace Blog
[Recent events at Capilano University and University of Saskatchewan have raised serious concerns about the health of the academic culture of post-secondary institutions in Canada. Crawford Kilian, who taught at Capilano College from its founding in 1968 until it became a university in 2008, wrote the following analysis of Canadian academic culture for The Tyee, where he is a contributing editor. The Institute for Critical Education Studies at UBC is pleased to reprint the article here, with the author’s permission.]
Dark Days for Our Universities
Dr. Buckingham’s censure only confirms the long, tragic decline of Canadian academic culture
Crawford Kilian
(Originally published in TheTyee.ca, May 19, 2014)
On May 13 I attended a meeting of the Board of Governors of Capilano University, which has had a very bad year.
Last spring the board agreed to cut several programs altogether. This caused considerable anger and bitterness, especially since the recommendations for the cuts had been made by a handful of administrators without consulting the university senate.
Recently, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the board’s failure to consult with the senate was a breach of the University Act. This upset the board members, who may yet appeal the decision.
Adding to the angst was the disappearance of a satirical sculpture of Cap’s president, Kris Bulcroft, which had been created and displayed on campus by George Rammell, an instructor in the now-dead studio arts program. Thanks to media coverage, the sculpture has now been seen across the country, and by far more people.
Board Chair Jane Shackell (who was my student back in 1979) stated at the meeting that she had personally ordered the removal of the sculpture because it was a form of harassment of a university employee, the president. Rather than follow the university’s policy on harassment complaints (and Bulcroft had apparently not complained), Shackell seemed to see herself as a one-person HR committee concerned with the president alone.
At the end of the meeting another retired instructor made an angry protest about the board’s actions. Like the judge in a Hollywood court drama, my former student tried to gavel him down.
I didn’t feel angry at her; I felt pity. It was painfully clear that she and her board and administration are running on fumes.
The mounting crisis
I look at this incident not as a unique outrage, but as just another example of the intellectual and moral crisis gripping Canadian post-secondary education. The old scientific principle of mediocrity applies here: very few things are unique. If it’s happening in North Vancouver, it’s probably happening everywhere.
And it certainly seems to be. On the strength of one short video clip, Tom Flanagan last year became an unperson to the University of Calgary, where he’d taught honourably for decades. He was already scheduled to retire, but the president issued a news release that made it look as if he was getting the bum’s rush.
More recently, Dr. Robert Buckingham publicly criticized a restructuring plan at the University of Saskatchewan, where he was dean of the School of Public Health.
In a 30-second interview with the university provost, he was fired and escorted off campus.
A day later the university president admitted firing him had been a “blunder” and offered to reinstate him as a tenured professor, but not as a dean. It remains to be seen whether he’ll accept.
The problem runs deeper than the occasional noisy prof or thin-skinned administrator. It’s systemic, developed over decades. As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives noted last November, the University of Manitoba faculty very nearly went on strike until the president’s office agreed to a collective agreement ensuring professors’ right to speak freely, even if it meant criticizing the university.
Universities ‘open for business’
At about the same time, the Canadian Association of University Teachers published a report, Open for Business. CAUT warned about corporate and government deals with universities that would ditch basic research for more immediately convenient purposes.
“Unfortunately,” the report said, “attempts by industry and government to direct scholarly inquiry and teaching have multiplied in the past two decades…. For industry, there is a diminished willingness to undertake fundamental research at its own expense and in its own labs — preferring to tap the talent within the university at a fraction of the cost.
“For politicians, there is a desire to please industry, an often inadequate understanding of how knowledge is advanced, and a short time horizon (the next election). The result is a propensity to direct universities ‘to get on with’ producing the knowledge that benefits industry and therefore, ostensibly, the economy.”
This is not a sudden development. The expansion of North America’s post-secondary system began soon after the Second World War and really got going after Sputnik, when the Soviets seemed to be producing more and better graduates than the West was. That expansion helped to fuel decades of economic growth (and helped put the Soviets in history’s ashcan).
Throughout that period, academic freedom was in constant peril. In the Cold War, U. S. professors were expected to sign loyalty oaths. In 1969-70 Simon Fraser University went through a political upheaval in which eight faculty members were dismissed and SFU’s first president resigned.
A Faustian bargain
What is different now is that Canadian post-secondary must depend more and more on less and less government support. Postwar expansion has become a Faustian bargain for administrators: to create and maintain their bureaucracies and programs, post-secondary schools must do as they’re paid to do. If public money dwindles, it must be found in higher student fees, in corporate funding, in recruiting foreign kids desperate for a Canadian degree.
So it’s no surprise that Dr. Buckingham was sacked for criticizing a budget-cutting plan to rescue an ailing School of Medicine by putting it into Buckingham’s thriving School of Public Health.
And it’s no surprise that Capilano University had shortfalls right from its announcement in 2008. It had to become a university to attract more foreign students than it could as a mere college, but at the last minute the Gordon Campbell Liberals reneged on their promise to give it university-level funding.
For six years, then, Cap’s board and administration have known they were running on fumes. They are in the same predicament as B.C. school boards, who must do the government’s dirty work and take the blame for program and teacher cuts.
In 40 years of teaching at Cap, I rarely attended board meetings, and never did a board member visit my classes. I don’t know the members of this current board, apart from a couple of faculty representatives, but I’ve served as a North Vancouver school trustee. As an education journalist I’ve talked to a lot of university and college administrators, not to mention school trustees. I know how they think.
Managing the decline
For any school or university board, underfunding creates a terrible predicament: protest too loudly and you’ll be replaced by a provincial hireling who’ll cut without regard for the school’s long-term survival. If you have any love for the institution, you can only try to do damage control. But when your teachers or professors protest, as they have every right to, that annoys and embarrasses the government. It will punish you for not imposing the “silence of the deans” on them.
University presidents and senior administrators make six-figure salaries and enjoy high prestige. They are supposed to be both scholars and managers. Their boards are supposed to be notable achievers as well, though their achievements have often been in the service of the governing party. Their education has served them well, and now they can serve education.
But a Darwinian selection process has made them servants of politics instead, detached from the true principles of education. When they realize that their job is not to serve education but to make the government look good, they panic. Everything they learned in school about critical thinking and reasoned argument vanishes.
In reward for previous achievements and political support, the B.C. government appointed Cap’s board members to run the school without giving them the money to run it well, or even adequately. And whatever their previous achievements, they have lacked the imagination and creativity — the education — to do anything but make matters worse. Faced with an angry faculty and a humiliating court judgment, they have drawn ridicule upon themselves and the university.
They can’t extricate themselves and they have no arguments left to offer — only the frantic banging of a gavel that can’t drown out the voice of an angry retired prof exercising his right to speak freely. [Tyee]
Convicted felon and former U Louisville ed school dean Robert Felner to be released from federal prison today
Cross-posted from Workplace Blog:
Robert Felner, former dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville and convicted felon, is schedule to be released from federal prison today.
Felner was sentenced to 63 months in prison for his role in defrauding the U of L and the University of Rhode Island of $2.3 million of US Department of Education funds earmarked for No Child Left Behind Act research.
The U of L reported suspected fraud to federal officials and, in June 2008, on Felner’s last day of work at U of L, federal officers conducted simultaneous raids on the U of L College of Education and Human Development and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where Felner had accepted the presidency and was in the process of moving. The investigation involved the US Secret Service, US Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service.
In January 2010, Felner pleaded guilty to nine Federal charges, including income tax evasion.
For a refresher course on the felonious Felner see PageOneKentucky.com’ summary of events. For a full course of Felner on PageOneKentucky click here. (Shout out to Jake at PageOneKentucky for excellent investigative reporting on Felner and the U of L.)
For Workplace Blog coverage of Felner click here.
Here is a Louisville Courier-Journal profile of Felner: Robert Felner profile: Arrogant, outrageous, abusive and duplicitous.
A couple of footnotes to the Felner Story:
(1) Los Angeles school superintendent, John Deasy, has had his academic credentials called into question. Deasy was given a PhD by the University of Louisville after he was enrolled for four months and received a total of nine credits. Deasy’s doctoral advisor was Robert Felner. Deasy had previously awarded $375,000 in consulting contracts to Felner, while Deasy was Superintendent of Santa Monica schools.
(2) U of L has been making double retirement payouts to administrators in exchange for their silence.
And last month U of L made a $346,000.00 settlement with Angela Kosawha:
Current U of L President James Ramsey and Provost Shirley Willihnganz are the same campus officials who hired Robert Felner, and defended him when he was initially charged with defrauding the university.
No, don’t call me “Cassandra” (she had the curse of never being believed). Everyone knew my prophesy would be fulfilled!
On Tuesday May 6, 2014, the “Amazing E. Wayne”—renowned mystic, soothsayer, prophet, knower of things about BC politics—wrote the following about BC Minister of Education Peter Fassbender’s announcement of an investigation into the bizarre story of Rick Davis, the BC Ministry of Education official who commissioned a $16,000 report on Finnish teacher education from a 19-year-old high school graduate he met when she as deejaying at a wedding:
I’m doubtful we’ll get any real insights into this bizarre episode, at least in the short term, because Education Minister Peter Fassbender indicated that the investigation would focus on contract “procedures” rather than substance of the decision making process.
As predicted the Fassbender investigation found that everything is hunky-dory in the Ministry. Read all about it here.
Fassbender’s, technical investigation into procedures of doling out single-source contracts, misses the larger point, which is the misguided judgment of education ministry staff in this case, particularly Rick Davis. Opting to CYA politically reinforces the point I have been hammering on since this imbroglio came to light last September, that is, the BC Ministry of Education actions demonstrate a profound lack of respect for the teaching profession, teacher education, and educational research in general.
Time to find another outrage, but one last bit on the BC Education Ministry’s teacher education research agenda
The news cycle for the “BC Ministry of Education official commissions a $16,000 education report from a 19-year-old high school graduate he met at a wedding” got extended one more day, catching the attention of folks at the centre of the universe.
Today’s National Post ran a story by Tristin Hopper, “B.C.’s ‘superintendent of achievement’ under fire for commissioning $16K education report from 19-year-old he met at wedding.” Hopper’s piece is a good overview of the imbroglio. And, if you haven’t read Vyas’ final report, Hopper offers an accurate analysis of it and adds commentary from Jonathan Dyck, a teacher at B.C.’s Langley Education Centre, and yours truly.
The National Post article caught the attention of the folks at CBC Radio and as a result I did a short interview with Carol Off on “As It Happens” this afternoon. You can listen to a podcast of the show here, my bits start just after the 15:00 mark, but you should listen to the entire show because there are some wonderful clips, stories, and quotes from and about Farley Mowat throughout; and they close this episode with Ronnie Hawkin’s “Mary Lou”.
Page Four: BC Ministry of Education to investigate teacher ed research debacle
[Updated]
The British Columbia Minister of Education has announced an investigation into the research contracts that funded a teenager’s “study” of teacher education programs at the University of Victoria and University of Helsinki.
This story has been floating around since last fall, but the Ministry has had nothing to say about these sole-source research contracts until the Canadian Taxpayers Federation of BC obtained and published the final report. A story by Times Colonist reporter Amy Smart about the research contracts and the student’s report, was also a big nudge (see below).
[Following the initial story about the government funded teen researcher by Tracy Sherlock in the Vancouver Sun last September, I’ve written about the situation on WTBHNN and Janet Steffenhagen has covered it on her blog for the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils. But it was Jordan Bateman and the CTF‘s FOI activity that finally forced the Ministry to acknowledge there is at least the appearance of problem here.]
CBC News Vancouver ran the story this evening, watch their report here:
I’m doubtful we’ll get any real insights into this bizarre episode, at least in the short term, because Education Minister Peter Fassbender indicated that the investigation would focus on contract “procedures” rather than substance of the decision making process. Rick Davis, the Ministry’s “superintendent of achievement,” is the official who gave the contracts to Anjali Vyas, who at the time was a recent high school grad and deejay, she is now an undergraduate student at UBC.
Here’s Fassbender’s full interview with CBC News:
Can there be a rational explanation for funding a high school grad to travel to Finland to study teacher education? I’m interested to know what it was Rick Davis and the BC Ministry of Education were expecting? Did they really believe that funding a 10 month “study” of teacher education conducted by a recent high school grad would produce insights into the professional preparation of teachers?
The Victoria Times-Colonist reports:
Education Minister Peter Fassbender says he is investigating how $16,000 in public funds were paid to a teenage researcher on the already well-researched topic of Finnish teacher education.
Stelly’s Secondary School graduate Anjaly Vyas travelled to Finland in 2013 to interview students about teacher education. She also interviewed students at the University of Victoria and wrote a 14-page report of her findings.
Superintendent of achievement Rick Davis signed two contracts for her work — one in 2012 for $8,000 and another in 2013 for “up to $8,000.” In documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation through a freedom of information request, he said Vyas offered “student eyes” on teacher education.
“I think this young lady, of course, was passionate about education and I really celebrate her enthusiasm. But this isn’t really about her, it’s about our procedures,” Fassbender said Tuesday.
“I’ve spoken with the deputy and we’re reviewing our procedures on contracts like this.”
Fassbender said the contracts are concerning, but also called the awarding process “open and transparent,” since all ministry contracts are posted monthly.
Sole-source contracts under a certain threshold can be awarded without contest, but they are traditionally signed off by the deputy minister, he said.
“The current deputy was not the one who signed this particular contract, that’s why we’re reviewing it,” Fassbender said.
“If there are procedures we need to change, we will definitely look at that.”
James Gorman was deputy education minister from 2008 to October 2013, when Rob Wood replaced him.
Earlier in the day Amy Smart reported the story in The Province newspaper: B.C. blasted for paying teen $1,122 per page for report on teacher education in Finland, to which Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and I contributed commentary.
The CTF filed the Freedom of Information requests that produced 115 pages of background documents and the Vyas report.
Bateman called the contracts “dubious.”
“There’s a difference between gleaning student input and spending $16,000 to send a 19-year-old to Finland on very flimsy pretenses,” he said.
The ministry didn’t get much for its money, Bateman said. At 14 pages, the “thin” student paper released Monday essentially cost taxpayers $1,122.81 per page.
The first $8,000 contract was signed in 2012, while a second one for “up to $8,000” was signed in 2013.
Bateman filed a freedom of information request after reading a story in the Vancouver Sun celebrating Vyas’s achievements. In the story, she said she met Davis when she was DJ-ing at a wedding.
“There’s something weird about the story that just didn’t sit right,” Bateman said. “They hit it off and then she ends up with this $8,000 contract to go to Finland and study, frankly, the most-studied educational system in the world.”
Davis met Vyas “coincidentally” at her teacher Gord Ritchie’s wedding, the ministry said. But Ritchie had already alerted Davis to Vyas’s research interests and they later arranged a formal meeting.
I told Smart that while Vyas seemed “very bright and motivated,” the project was an insult to education professionals.
“At the most basic level, I think giving a sole-source contract to a teenager to study UVic’s teacher education program and to travel to Finland, shows that the ministry doesn’t really take teacher education seriously.”
“I wonder if the Health Ministry would send a teenager to Finland to study their professional medical preparation.”
Vyas apparently didn’t respond to reporters’ requests for interviews, but she submitted a video statement to CBC News Vancouver defending her project.
I agree with Minister Fassbender that Vyas and her work should not be the primary focus here. As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m not interested in picking apart the report or making judgments about her work. That’s really beside the point.
What is at issue is the agenda of the Ministry.
Why create a situation any thoughtful person could easily predict had the potential to blow up in the faces of everyone involved?
Rick Davis and the Ministry are responsible for putting Vyas in an awkward position. Vyas shouldn’t be a scapegoat. And, Davis and the Ministry should be held accountable, not just for the money spent, but the process and product of government decision-making as well as their frivolous approach to teacher education.
When is Davis going to step up and offer a defence of his actions?
The one thing he could really learn from Vyas is having the courage to defend his own work. Would that be worth $16,000.00?
Page Three: Move along, there’s nothing to see here. Or, how seriously does the BC Ministry of Education take research on teacher education?
Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation of British Columbia, has been exploring the question of why the BC Ministry of Education would finance a teenager to conduct research on teacher education in Finland. Through Freedom of Information requests the CFA collected and published 115 pages of communications among Rick Davis, Anjali Vyas, the high school grad who was funded to travel to Finland and write a report on teacher education, and other Ministry employees.
These documents raise a number of questions about how the Ministry, and particularly “superintendent of achievement” Rick Davis makes decisions about doling out single source research contracts. These documents also represent events in ways that are inconsistency with the initial media reports about genesis of this project. (Read my previous posts on the subject here, here, and here.
One thing that has been missing is Vyas’ final report to the Ministry. Bateman posted the report on the CTF website today.
Read the report if you like.
Or not, because as you might expect given the circumstances, there are no insights to be found in the report. Not even the “through a student’s eyes” perspective that Davis said was the point of the project. Instead, the report is a collection of general statements, with little or no data to illustrate or support the claims made. For example, there is exactly one quote from interviews conducted in Finland to go with one quote from a UVic student. There are a few references to and quotes from published works, but no reference list. But I’m not really interested in picking apart the report or judging the author.
Rather, my question is what was Rick Davis and the BC Ministry of Education expecting? Did Davis really believe that funding a 10 month “study” of teacher education conducted by a high school grad would produce insights into the professional preparation of teachers?
I’m at a loss to understand the rationale behind this debacle. Ignorance? Disrespect? A combo platter, with arrogance on the side?
If it’s the first—that is, if the person in the role of “superintendent of achievement” for the province really did believe this was a good use of public funds and could produce useful insights into teacher education—then I respectfully suggest he shouldn’t have that job.
There’s no arguing that Davis and the BC Ministry of Education have, by their actions in this case, illustrated a profound disrespect for teacher education and educational research in general. Perhaps merely an extension of the BC Liberals ongoing disrespect for professional educators.
Mapping the Rouge Forum from 1998-2014
Join us in June 5-7, 2014 in Denver, CO on the campus of Metropolitan State University of Denver for Rouge Forum 2014.
Rouge Forum meetings and conferences
The Rouge Forum holds meetings on a regular basis at both local and national levels. The national conferences have been held on a more or less annual basis; all meetings are action-oriented and the national conferences usually include workshops for teachers and students; panel discussions; community-building and cultural events; as well as academic presentations. Many prominent voices for democracy and critical pedagogy have participated in Rouge Forum meetings.
- Detroit, MI (June 1998) International Social Studies Conference of the Rouge Forum
- Detroit, MI (January 1999) International Social Studies Conference of the Rouge Forum
- Rochester, NY (February 1999) Developing Democratic Citizens: Teaching Social Education K-16 (with Whole Schooling Consortium)
- Detroit, MI (June 1999) Whole Schooling Consortium and The Rouge Forum Summer Institute
- Albany, NY (June 2000) Standardized Testing in K-12 Schooling: Tool of Reform or Tool of Tyranny? (with Whole Schooling Consortium)
- Detroit, MI (June 2000) International Education Summit for a Democratic Society (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
- Chicago, IL (June 2001) Freedom to Teach, Freedom to Learn: Critical Literacy for Caring Democratic Classrooms (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
- Bethesda, MD (July 2002) Restoring the Passion: Thriving in a Standards Environment (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
- Louisville, KY (June 2003) Rouge Forum Summer Institute on Education and Society
- Detroit, MI (November 2003) Lessons of War Teach-in for a Democratic Society
- Sryacuse, NY (June 2004) Rouge Forum Summer Institute on Education and Society
- Detroit, MI (March 2007) Their Wars Left Behind: Education for Action
- Louisville, KY (March 2008) Education: Reform or Revolution?
- Ypsilanti, MI (May 2009) Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads
- Williams Bay, WI (August 2010) Education in the Public Interest
- Chicago (Romeoville) IL (May 20-22, 2011) Education and the State: A Critical Antidote to the Commercialized, Racist, and Militaristic Order
- Vancouver, BC, Canada (April 13, 2012) The Rouge Forum at the American Educational Research Association
- Oxford, OH (June 22-24, 2012) Occupy Education! Class Conscious Pedagogies for Social Change
- Detroit, MI, (May 16-19, 2013) Winning the Class Struggle Against Corporate Education Reform
- Denver, CO (June 5-7, 2014) The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom