Success resources for children and youth

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

It won’t surprise anyone that, having spent my career in academia, I love books. Even my friends who share my love of books find it surprising that I read three of the four volumes of the Robert Caro biography of Lyndon Johnson on my smartphone.

My introduction to libraries began before I went to elementary school. My mother and my sister would take me to a very large public library almost every Saturday when family chores had been completed. There was an area in the children’s section that was enclosed with an oak railing. The librarian would gather interested children there at different times of the day and read to them. One of the things I liked best about the public library was that I had my own card and could borrow as many as six books at a time.

The library in my elementary school was three storage rooms situated at the ends of three floors of our school, rather than one large repository for books like the public library. Groups of students from each class had a regularly scheduled library time each week. Each week our appointed group would go the library to peruse the books that were lined up along the side and rear walls and select one or more to read.  At the end of library period, students would take their books to two kids, called library monitors, who sat at a table and checked them out by stamping the due date on a slip of lined paper glued inside the back cover of each book. Being a library monitor was a privilege! Library monitors were rewarded with extra time to explore the books that lined the shelves.

The Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) is a huge institution serving a diverse population of more than 4 million in a region with more than 13 million people. Its size affords it economies of scale that are not likely evident in small public libraries. LAPL offers an impressive suite of services under the banner of student success: free, one-to-one online tutoring for K-12 and adults; workshops to help student prepare for post-secondary applications; and a wide variety of e-media resources. Every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) receives a student success card granting them access, borrowing privileges, access to tutors, and “no fines – ever.” 

Most families do not have the resources or the ability to provide tutoring and homework assistance for their children. Yes, there are some very useful e-resources available on the Internet. But even the best of the resources available on the Internet are not aligned with the curriculum as organized in the region. The LAPL’s focus on students in the LAUSD attempts to ensure such alignment.

Something organized along similar lines at the provincial level would be a welcome addition to what school boards try to provide, achieving economies of scale impossible for libraries serving small or medium size populations.

Given the social and technological changes of the past century, it is doubtful that children and youth will have the same affinity for books that I did. They are afforded rich opportunities that I could not have imagined as a child. LAPL’s student success initiative with its curated collection of resources is helping to forge a connection with children and youth in a media saturated, digital environment in which today’s student live.   

 Best wishes for the holiday season and new year. This blog will resume January 11, 2023.

Maximizing the impact of diversity training

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Diversity training is receiving attention as a means of helping people and organizations recognize and respond to implicit and explicit biases, prejudice, and discrimination. It is a positive sign that we are willing to acknowledge and try to overcome our biases and take concrete action to address prejudice and discrimination. Diversity training – called by a variety of names including anti-racism training, multicultural training, etc. – can contribute to improvement in inter-group and inter-personal relations but is no panacea.  

Diversity training is extremely varied. There are crucial differences in approach, methodology, intended audiences, and the outcomes sought. The contexts in which training occurs are varied. The variations have an impact on one another and upon the outcomes achieved, suggesting that there are many factors to consider before implementation.  

Among the differences in approach are two that illustrate the complexity. One approach includes training that is identity-blind, the other is identity-conscious. The former includes training of at least three types: assimilative, colour-blind, and meritocratic.  The identity-conscious approach includes approaches rooted in multiculturalism, anti-racism, anti-oppression, variations that put identity at the centre of the training. The impact on inter-group relations of each of these approaches differs depending upon the intended outcome:  reduced prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping, and increased support for diversity policies. In general, the identity-conscious approach is related to high quality intergroup relations. The effects of identity-blind approaches differ in their impact on the same outcomes.[1]  

The global purpose of diversity training is to improve relations with and treatment of a specific ‘outgroup.’ The membership of the outgroups that are the focus for improved relations can differ dramatically along such dimensions as gender, language, skin colour, religion, age, disability, etc. Such dimensions can intersect to produce differences in privilege and discrimination. Factors such as education, social status, economic position, etc. compound the complexity and make identifying the relevant outgroup attributes essential for the design of the training.  

Training design must carefully consider the complex relationship among many elements: context, participants, activities, anticipated outcomes, etc. Context incorporates several different dimensions: setting (organizational, educational); whether the training is integrated into a larger initiative or is a stand-alone approach, and whether attendance is voluntary or mandatory. Participant categories distinguish among children, adolescents, college students, adults, and among the latter different occupational groups.  

There are many considerations affecting the design of training. Is the training identity-conscious or blind? If the former, does it focus specifically on one group, a collective (medical personnel, criminal justice, teachers, etc.) or does it include everyone in a particular institutional context.  

The nature of the training can differ significantly. Some training focuses on encouraging participants to consider the perspectives of members of the outgroup. This often entails imagining how members of the outgroup think or feel or learning how that outgroup has been marginalized and the consequences of the marginalization. Another type of training focuses on performing tasks that are thought to reduce inter-group tension or discomfort. Promoting equal status contact between participants and members of the outgroup by working together on a project or task regarded as important. A third type of training focuses explicitly on exposing participants to examples of individuals that contradict the participants’ stereotypes of the outgroup.  

Another common training involves an appeal to the overarching values held by participants (fairness, respectful treatment, cooperation, etc.) and showing how discrimination or other forms of mistreatment are contrary to the professed shared values. Some training is designed to equip participants with the knowledge and technical skill needed to overcome obstacles such as discrimination in hiring or favoring one group of children at the expense of another. Training often combines some or all these techniques as well as others.[2] A distinction is sometimes made between training that seeks to change behaviour (new human resource practices, for example) or changes that seek to change attitudes (increased empathy or liking, for example).  

There are many other factors that must be considered in the design of diversity training. Frequency and duration of training are two very important considerations. The qualifications of the trainer(s) are another.  

Diversity training works. It produces an effect size of between d= .38 and d= .50 depending upon many of the factors mentioned above and others. To put an effect size of d= .50 in perspective, the probability that a participant in the training group would have less prejudice, fewer implicit biases, or superior skill in interacting with outgroup members, etc. would be about 63% when compared with a similar individual who had not participated in the training. If participants in the training group and their peers who did not participate in the training took a test, about 70% of the participants in the training group would have scores above the mean score of the non-participants.[3]  

If training is a well-planned part of a larger effort to make the organization or the setting a more hospitable environment to difference, there is a greater likelihood that the desired outcomes will be achieved. 

---

[1] Leslie, L. M., Bono, J. E., Kim, Y. (S.), & Beaver, G. R. (2020). On melting pots and salad bowls: A meta-analysis of the effects of identity-blind and identity-conscious diversity ideologies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(5), 453–471. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000446

[2] Bezrukova, K., Spell, C. S., Perry, J. L. & Jehn, K. A. (2016). A Meta-Analytical Integration of Over 40 Years of Research on Diversity Training Evaluation. Psychological Bulletin, 142(11), pp. 1227-1274. doi:10.1037/bul0000067

[3] Magnusson, K. (2022). Interpreting Cohen's d effect size: An interactive visualization (Version 2.5.2) [Web App]. R Psychologist. https://rpsychologist.com/cohend/

The slow path to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

It is no consolation to those who experience racism, exclusion, and inequities today that since the Second World War Canada has pursued an erratic path to increasing social justice. It is nonetheless important to recognize the changes that have occurred and understand the factors that have led to those changes.  

While there were, no doubt, pre-war antecedents, the effort to unite Canadians of different ethno-linguistic backgrounds for the purpose of pursuing WWII was significant. For without sufficient harmony, Canada’s contribution to the Allied victory would not have occurred. The War made clear that no group was exempt from the possibility of state generated genocide and gave rise to such legislation as Ontario’s Racial Discrimination Act (1944), Saskatchewan’s Bill of Rights Act (1947), and the Ontario Human Rights code (1962).  

Greater equality and inclusion were evident in the changed relationships between French and English Canada. Among the changes were simultaneous translation in Parliamentary proceedings (1959), the issuance of Government of Canada cheques in French (1962), the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-1969), and the Official Languages Act (1969).  

Immigration reform during the period 1967-1978 was tacit acknowledgement of Canada’s explicitly racist treatment of non-European origin immigrants first by exclusion and later by means of rules stacked against non-whites. In the late 1940s the franchise was extended to persons of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian ancestry. Canadians did not achieve universal franchise until 1960 when "treaty Indians" and Inuit were permitted to vote.  

In 1971, Canada formally proclaimed a state policy of "multiculturalism within a bilingual framework." In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was added to Canada's constitution. The addition significantly strengthened democratic citizenship and social cohesion by declaring that the Charter “shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians and enshrining minority language educational rights.    

My UBC colleague, Jason Ellis, traces the changes in educational equity in Canada that were concurrent with the ones I mentioned above. He calls attention to two post-war periods. He calls the period between 1950-1970 “getting everyone to the schoolhouse door.” During that period public education was expanded to include unserved or under-served groups. The  unserved included Indigenous children in the separate federal “Indian” day and residential schools and children with IQs lower than 50 who were legally excluded from schools. The under-served includes rural children, Black children in segregated schools in Ontario and Nova Scotia, children in institutions, and others.  

The second period (roughly 1970 to the present) Ellis describes as “making the schoolhouse welcoming to all.” During this period curricula were broadened to be respectful of and welcoming to difference. Notable changes include tolerating additional instructional languages (a form of multiculturalism), gender-sensitive curricula, the ending of Christian opening exercises and Christian religious instruction.  

Don’t get me wrong, the development of social justice in Canada has not been an inexorable, progressive march. Anything but. Examining the changes that have occurred may help us understand the factors that help to contribute to improved equity, inclusion, and diversity.  

Beginning during the Second World War policy makers recognized that apparent differences among groups would weaken the social fabric. In response, they promulgated legislation and regulation that required people to behave in conformity with the norms expressed. Furthermore, although it took painfully long, policy makers came to recognize that reconciliation among groups required formal acknowledgement of the harms inflected and admission for responsibility for those harms.  

Furthering equity, diversity, and inclusion in education requires that we examine whether the legal and regulatory framework affecting education is consistent with those values. For example, would these values be enhanced with provincial codes of conduct for trustees, staff, and students specifying their obligations to avoid harassment and discrimination on prohibited grounds? How might practices be brought into line with those values? For example, should there be a common investigatory protocol for complaints of discrimination and harassment, and a database of cases in which harassment and discrimination were proven?

District leadership for learning

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

 [permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

A reader of my blog about principal leadership and teacher practices asked me to address district leadership for learning. This is my reply to the request.

Although it is one of the best supported principles in education,[1] it is ironic that learning cooperatively with one’s peers is too rarely practiced or supported when it comes to teacher professional learning. Like students, teachers should work and learn together for their benefit and for the benefit of students.  

District leaders should establish the expectation and create the conditions that make such cooperation possible. District leaders can, and should, make explicit at the time of hiring that teachers are expected to work and learn together. The assignment of teaching responsibilities should consider the complementarities among the knowledge and skills that staff members possess. District leaders should require that District-supported professional learning be aligned with district and provincial goals.  

District leaders should also carefully consider the teaching responsibilities assigned to school-based administrators. Administrators who have onerous teaching responsibilities will spend what little remains of their time attending to the administrative issues that arise and not have time to devote to the primary role of supporting teachers to improve student learning and wellbeing. Administrators who are required to teach cannot lead learning. Assigning teaching responsibilities to vice-principals, a common practice in some jurisdictions, denies them the opportunity to learn to lead.    

In addition to articulating the expectation that principals should be leading the collaborative learning among staff members, district staff should expect them to spend time in classrooms observing the instructional process and providing feedback about what they have observed. Principals and vice-principals should be able to draw upon their knowledge and experience to support teachers in the same way that a coach supports an athlete to improve her performance. Skilled administrators engage in dialogue with individuals and groups of teachers, encouraging them to reflect upon and improve their practice.  

Expecting principals and vice principals to provide instructional leadership, organize and convene opportunities for teachers to collaborate to improve their performance and student outcomes, and align professional learning with district and provincial goals is a significant change. To ensure that principals and vice-principals can meet these expectations, the preparation, recruitment, and selection of school-based administrators must change to make these responsibilities the focus of the work of principals and vie-principals. Doing so would honor the original meaning of principal as principal teacher.   

It is essential that districts have clearly articulated expectations about student improvement against which student performance is regularly monitored.  Principals and vice-principals play an important part in leading the staff in monitoring performance and modifying teaching practices when progress does not meet expectations.  

Leadership for learning is not a ‘nice to have.’ It is an essential ingredient if one wants to have systemic and continuous improvement. While it is possible in the short run to take incremental steps to improve teaching practices, teaching practices will not improve – and student performances will not improve - without conscious, persistent, and system-wide effort and support. 

---

[1] Johnson, D.W.  and R.T. Johnson (2009) An Educational Psychology Success Story: Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning. Educational Researcher 38:5, 365-379. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X09339057

Principal leadership and teacher practices

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

A reader of last week’s blog about conditions for improving student achievement asked, “What specifically can school principals do to encourage collaboration in aid of improved student achievement?” I said there is a suite of practices that principals should apply to encourage staff to take collective responsibility for the achievement and well-being of all students. “What are they?” he asked. This blog is informed by our exchange about leadership for learning.  

De-personalize teaching. It is difficult to assume collective responsibility for the welfare of all students if we talk about students as “your students” or “my students” or “that teacher’s students.” It may not sound revolutionary but changing our nomenclature can influence how we think about students. Possessing students (mine, yours, ours) has always struck me as problematic. Being proprietary about students implies that their behaviour and achievements reflect upon me alone rather than on the collective responsible for their education and socialization.  

Changing how we regard students can help de-personalize teaching. By de-personalize, I mean creating a concerned professional detachment about what and how we teach like the kind of clinical detachment that physicians have toward their work. The practices they employ are not unique to them as individuals; they possess a shared professional knowledge. I’ve not ever heard a physician say, “that’s my approach to X” but I have heard that often from teachers (“my program”). I am not suggesting that teachers do not care about their practice, but they should recognize and apply the body of knowledge shared among professionals with similar responsibilities.    

Sharing professional knowledge and experience would reduce the isolation among teachers that reinforces the impression that teachers are on their own and causes some to leave the profession. A collaborative professional culture would benefit students and help combat the professional alienation that some teachers experience.  

De-privatize teaching. Make it possible for teachers to see one another in action. For a brief period during their teacher education student-teachers observe their mentors. But, for most of the remainder of their careers, teachers do not see one another teach.  

I recently had a minor surgical procedure. The surgeon was assisted by a physician in family practice who made the surgical incision and the excision of the tissue.  I asked the surgeon about the arrangement. She explained that the family practice physician had been assisting her surgeries every Friday morning for more than a year. “She wants to get a better understanding of the surgeries and their impact so that she can better support the patients she cares for.”  

The early morning surgical schedule made it possible for the family practice physician to assist without too great an impact on her schedule. In elementary schools, however, scheduling makes it all but impossible for teachers to see one another in the classroom. Observations are possible at the secondary level because teachers have periods during the day or week when they can do their preparation while their colleagues teach. Despite the opportunity to see a colleague teach, few – almost none – do. Principals at the elementary level can facilitate observation by assuming responsibility for the observer’s class. The same could be done at the secondary level, and encouragement by the principal might go a long way to encouraging the practice.  

Encourage team teaching. Teachers at the same or adjacent grade levels or in the same subject areas can combine their classes and teach together.  

Provide instructional leadership. Instructional leadership can take many different forms. Principals should meet with individual teachers to discuss their goals and the challenges they face. Principals can arrange for and lead discussions about best, research- and evidence-informed practices. Principals can articulate expectations about the prioritization of foundational subject-matter knowledge and about the efficient use of time.  

Monitor student performance. At regular intervals throughout the school year, principals should lead teachers in the review of student results. In addition to an examination of the performance of the entire student population, staff should be scrutinizing the data about how sub-groups of students are performing. I have been in schools where – in areas not open to the public – the staff had posted memos and informal reports about the progress of students who found school particularly challenging. In those schools, successes were shared and celebrated by everyone along with responsibility for the students who found school or some part of it difficult.  

When I have described these practices to some principals, they have asked, “Where do these principals find the time?” I tell them that they have prioritized these actions and try assiduously not to allow the less important matters that arise from preventing them from addressing the important and enduring issues. Those who have made time for mentoring staff and monitoring student achievement have found their work more satisfying and are proud of creating a climate in which the staff feels they are working together for the benefit of the students they serve.

Minimum Conditions for Improving Student Achievement

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

From time to time, one hears about extraordinary individual improvement. The victim of an accident who through enormous effort overcomes near life-threatening damage to lead a life unimpeded by the injuries she sustained. The athlete who by dint of training and hard work becomes a medal-winner.   

They make for nice stories: Individuals overcoming significant obstacles to their success. But they are not complete stories. What one rarely hears about are the support from people who made such successes possible. The first responders who extricated the accident victim in time to save her life, the nursing and surgical staff who repaired the damage, the occupational therapist who carefully calibrated an exercise regimen and coached the patient.  

Behind each story of individual success there is a cadre of people removing obstacles, coaching, mentoring, encouraging, using their ingenuity and talents to improve performance so that success can be achieved. It takes a village to raise more than children.  

The key ingredient in improving performance and achieving success in most – if not all – human contexts is teamwork. Improvement and success are difficult to achieve on one’s own. Not only must individuals do their jobs well, but they must also be conscious of the contributions that others make to the overall effort. There must be a sense of shared, collective responsibility.  

Improving student school performance is more difficult than rehabilitating an accident victim or helping an athlete excel. It is more like improving a team of athletes. Schools are collections of students. Teachers can cope with a classroom of students. Some extraordinary teachers can close their classroom doors and improve the performance of all students in their care. Notice my explicit use of the word extraordinary.  

Yes, there are remarkable teachers who on their own help students make remarkable gains in achievement. Those gains probably won’t be sustained over time. Most empirical literature indicates that improvement attenuates over time in the absence of collective, sustained effort.  

There is much talk about school staff members taking collective responsibility for student achievement. One hears of teachers meeting to review data, plan improvement, share techniques, monitor results, and, when obstacles are encountered, adjust their practice.  However, as a participant in education for 50 years, it happens less frequently than one would infer from the literature and is rarely sustained beyond a couple of years – at best.  

The obstacles to successful student improvement are many. Individual teachers must be sufficiently comfortable to talk about their practice and receive suggestions from their peers. They must be willing to meet with their peers on a regular basis and consider evidence about student improvement beyond the information they collect by means of classroom assessments. They must be willing to interpret the data and dig in behind the data to try to understand the challenges students face. They must be willing to expose their practice to one another and be accountable for the results they have achieved.  

Oh, yes, there is another very important ingredient: leadership. For student improvement to occur at the school level there must be leadership. And, if whole systems are going to improve, there must be district leadership. Schools must have leaders who can bring together the disparate individual teachers and support staff to take collective responsibility, interpret data, create an improvement plan, share techniques, monitor results, and, when obstacles are encountered, adjust both individual and collective practice.   

I have described what I believe are the minimum conditions for improving student achievement. The literature and my experience tell me that many, perhaps most, are not present in schools or school districts. Until those conditions are met, one is unlikely to see much sustained improvement in student achievement.

Hard truths: choice and equity are incompatible

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

 School boards try to navigate between two fundamentally incompatible values: choice and equity. The former has been well established in the field of education. “Programs of choice” and “schools of choice” are common in the education vocabulary. And, even where the terms are not used, the practices to which they refer are treasured.  

In some places, ‘choice in education’ is enshrined in legislation. The province of Alberta makes provision for charter schools, for example. British Columbia’s School Act makes provision to enrol students living outside the boundaries of their local school and for students who live outside of the boundaries of a school district.  

Equity in education is less well established, dating most visibly to the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that over-turned the doctrine that separate facilities were permissible if they were equal. The Court’s decision said that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal.  

Maliciously inclined school boards sought ways to avoid integrating schools and programs. Even well-intentioned school boards have tried to accommodate what the Court recognized are essentially incompatible values. The student composition of programs and schools of choice tends to favour students from advantaged backgrounds. They immediately benefit from what is offered. The advantages they possess as off-spring of advantaged families are perpetuated when their participation in such programs or schools is recognized by selective post-secondary institutions.  

Canada has its own history of [in]equity. My colleague, Jason Ellis addresses equity in the history of education policy course he teaches at UBC. In his examination of equity in Canadian education his divides the postwar period into two. In the first, “getting everyone to the schoolhouse door,” (roughly 1950-1970) he addresses the extension of public education to unserved or under-served groups. Among the unserved Ellis includes Indigenous children in the separate federal “Indian” day and residential schools and children with IQs lower than 50 who were legally excluded from schools. Ellis includes rural children, Black children in segregated schools in Ontario and Nova Scotia, children in institutions, and others among the under-served.  

In the second period (roughly 1970 to the present) that he describes as “making the schoolhouse welcoming to all,” Ellis addresses broadening curricula to make it more respectful of, and welcoming, of difference. Notable among the changes are tolerating additional instructional languages (a form of multiculturalism), gender-sensitive curricula, the ending of Christian opening exercises and Christian religious instruction, etc.  

Contemporary post-secondary education remains economically layered. High school students from advantaged families are over-represented among the student bodies of selective institutions and high school students from less advantaged backgrounds are over-represented in institutions that are not selective. The effect is to reproduce the advantages of advantaged students.  

Many school boards try to moderate the differential impact that schools and programs of choice confer by using mechanisms such as random selection among applicants. Such mechanisms are merely hopeful gestures because advantaged families are over-represented in the pool of applicants from which names are drawn. Advantaged families can afford the transportation to and from the schools/programs and any additional fees that enrollment may require. Less advantaged families disproportionately rely on older siblings to ensure younger ones get to and from school safely.    

Inequities resulting from choice lead school boards to eliminate a program or school of choice or to change the selection criteria. When that happens, they are subjected to pressure from families with disproportionate political and economic capital. Talk about rocks and hard places.  

It would be easy to demonize the advantaged parents for wanting to maximize the benefits that participation in schools and programs of choice confer. I don’t think that gets anyone anywhere. What parent does not want what they perceive to be the ‘best’ for their children?  

Persuading parents to see beyond the horizon of their children’s interest for the common good would be challenging. It would likely require broader social recognition of the inherent conflict between choice and equity. I think it is worth striving for such recognition. The significant fraying of social cohesion is one consequence of favoring choice over equity. I worry that we are approaching the point where the social fabric will shred completely.  

I am encouraged when school boards recognize that choice and equity are incompatible values and make efforts to lessen the impact of choice and increase equity. But social equity will require changes beyond those under the control of school boards.  

In the meantime, I think there is something that school systems might implement that will mitigate the effects of choice and increase equity. But it will be challenging. I suggest that schooling be divided into two parts through the end of grade 10. All students should be immersed in language, mathematics, science, and social studies for seventy per cent of the school week. The remaining 30 per cent should be allocated for elective studies in areas such as art, music, athletics, and second-­language studies.  

I’d label this universal education program through grade 10 the foundation program. We should make every effort to ensure that students have successfully completed the foundation program successfully.  

By the time they are eligible for grade 11, students should possess the foundation for choosing a program of specialized study in areas such as language and literature; trades and technologies; social and behavioural science; mathematics and science; fine and performing arts; and business. There should be no prerequisites for enrolling in a program of specialized study except successful completion of the foundation studies program through grade ten. Specialized study programs might include more than two years of study, as is the case with Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEP) in Quebec. Students who successfully complete a specialized study program would be awarded a certificate.  

If implemented well, my proposal would accomplish two important objectives. One is ensuring that all students meet the same standards to the completion of grade ten. The other, is that it provides a common social and educational experience that might contribute to greater social cohesion.  

My proposal does not completely address the incompatibility of choice and equity. But I think it would make a modest contribution to equity and social cohesion.

Another Step Toward Reconciliation

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

First Nations language and culture programs have been added to British Columbia’s External Credentials Program (ECP). Courses and programs beyond the formal BC curriculum may be approved for credit toward graduation. To earn credit the courses and programs must meet or exceed the depth, breadth, and rigor of the Ministry authorized grade ten, eleven, and twelve courses required for graduation. For example, students who are athletes, coaches, or officials may earn credit if they meet the many conditions set out in policy. The same is true for students pursuing their interest in music by completing Conservatory of Music programs.  

The ECP gives formal recognition to the valuable learning that occurs outside of school. Such recognition helps – I hope – to inspire a lifelong desire to learn. Students engaged in programs designed to develop students’ knowledge of traditional medicine and food preparation, land-based learning, artistic development, language proficiency, and cultural practices may seek credit for the knowledge they acquire by the ECP.  

Schools in British Columbia and elsewhere in North America are deeply steeped in the knowledge and traditions that settlers brought with them. Formal recognition of First Nations language and culture programs makes it clear that the dominant ways of knowing and being are not the only ways.  ECP recognition is a complement to the recently mandated Indigenous-focused graduation requirement, another small step toward reconciliation. Four of the 80 credits required to earn the British Columbia Certificate of Graduation must include an Indigenous-focused course from the list provincially approved courses or Board approved, locally developed courses.  

There has been some (seemingly minor) opposition to the Indigenous-focused graduation requirement. There is a petition to the BC Ministry of Education opposing the Indigenous studies graduation requirement which at the time that I am writing this blog has 14 signatures. The basis of its opposition is the specious argument that “the more you force students to learn a particular subject, the more they hate it” and that by making the course mandatory it will intensify “hatred towards the indigenous community.”  

Another signatory to the petition questions how the addition of Indigenous-focused course work will benefit students. He writes “we need to stop using the school system to push political agendas” but paradoxically claims “that all the wrong doings towards Indigenous peoples in Canada’s dark colonial (very recent) past should definitely be truthfully and honestly recognized.” Both the petitioner and the signatory misunderstand one of the key purposes of becoming educated: expanding our horizons beyond the narrow confines of our own knowledge and experience.  

Both the ECP and the Indigenously focused graduation requirement are respectful of ways of being and knowing that are unfamiliar to most of us. Exposure to First Nations ways of knowing and being may help those of us who are unfamiliar with them acquire a deeper appreciation of and respect for First Nations and in the process take a small step toward reconciliation.

School Board Legacies: Symbol or Substance?

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

Newly elected school boards have the opportunity to consider their legacies, but determining a board’s legacy is no easy task.

The motivations of individual candidates and the values that underpin them are what distinguishes one candidate from another. Forging a common legacy often means subordinating one’s individual values to the values of the collective. Some trustees believe that, if they subordinate their values, they will betray the voters who elected them. However, on a board whose members have disparate values, some subordination is necessary or nothing of value will be accomplished.

It is also challenging for a board to decide what specific difference it wants to make in addition to its responsibilities under the school or education act and accompanying regulations that are the board’s primary obligations. Such responsibilities typically include improving student achievement, well-being, and outcomes, and making decisions in the best interest of the district.

Three school trustees in San Francisco were removed from office by the electorate in part, though it is difficult to tell exactly, because they had focused on changing the names of schools when the district was trying to figure out how to reopen schools safely during COVID. Some of the citizenry saw the focus on school name change - instead of far more urgent matters - as an attempt to establish the virtuousness of the trustees by calling attention to the flawed behaviour of those after whom the schools were named.

It is difficult to make a judgment from this vantage point. There was certainly a symbolic dimension to the issue, but, as I have written in another blog, there is potentially an educational dimension to changing school names as well. While the distinction between symbol and substance can sometimes be murky, it seemed to most of the recall voters that the priorities of the trustees removed from office were misplaced or mistimed given the challenge of getting students back in school.

School boards sometimes neglect to ask whether they have the authority to do what they propose. A board in Canada accepted and passed a motion “to support lowering the voting age.” School boards do not have the authority to make decisions about requirements of that kind. Considered more broadly, that motion was a form of advocacy, though not one that was very effective. Because the motion was not accompanied by any advocacy plan, I would put that motion in the symbolic category. The lack of plan and follow up persuades me that the purpose of the motion was to signal the trustees’ virtue to their constituents.

I don’t think virtue signaling is sufficient for most constituents. They want those whom they support to produce substantive accomplishments, tangible improvements in student achievement and well-being, prudent stewardship of the district’s resources, etc. While it is difficult to reach agreement about what a board’s legacy might be, it is worth the effort because it helps to prioritize what – among the many things a board might do - what the board should do. 

Forging a common legacy is easiest when trustees can see beyond their own interests to the interests of the institution for which they are stewards.

Open enrolment is bait and switch

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Open enrolment treats education as a consumer good and students and their parents as customers rather than as a public good established for the benefit of society. But, even in the context of consumerism, open enrollment lures parents to believe that their offspring are getting a better education when, in fact, that’s uncertain.    

Parents whose children attend schools outside of the district in which they are resident are disfranchised. They lose the right to vote for the governors of the district in which they reside. Out-of-district choice is a trade off in which parents exchange their political capital for the placement of their children in schools beyond the boundary of the community in which they reside.  

Open enrolment policies are often touted as mechanisms to improve education. According to this point-of-view, low-performing schools will seek improvement to prevent parents from transferring their children to other schools. Parents will “vote with their feet.”  

The evidence on this point is thin. Charter schools, “schools of choice,” perform about as well as the schools from which their clientele are recruited despite their less than universal acceptance of students. This is not surprising considering their selectivity and the complexity of influences on student achievement.  

There are many factors that affect student achievement, including ones associated with the characteristics of the school as well as ones associated with the students. Researchers use sophisticated statistical analyses to identify the impact that different combinations of factors produce for students at different knowledge levels. When parents choose schools, they are doing so on – I want to be generous here – on inadequate information.  

Open enrollment is to my mind primarily symbolic for the individual parent, satisfying the parent’s consumer preference. The substantive impact on learning of choosing an out of boundary school or district would be difficult for anyone to discern in advance. A school’s past performance would be a poor indicator of the school’s impact on children given variations in performance over time.    

Open enrolment is a way of shifting the responsibility of producing better outcomes from schools and school boards to the individual parent. Open enrolment creates the illusion of having autonomy and, having chosen, relies on the tendency to bring our perceptions into line with our beliefs or behaviour.  

Because open enrolment treats education as a consumer good, the logic of the marketplace applies. When I purchase a car whose performance does not meet my expectations, I have made a bad choice. If the school a parent has chosen does not meet the parent’s expectations, the parent has made a poor choice.  

Open enrolment disfranchises parents and reduces the obligation of local schools and school districts to be accountable to produce better outcomes.  

Building affordable housing to address teacher shortages

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Canadian provinces and territories report persistent teacher shortages in certain areas of specialization, including French first language, French immersion, special education, and technology studies. Shortages in some specializations are more prevalent in rural and remote areas. Urban school districts say that housing costs are a deterrent to recruiting teachers.  

Jefferson Union High School District is in Daly City, California, a community adjacent to San Francisco. Housing costs in San Francisco and adjacent Bay area communities are high and a deterrent to teacher recruitment. Jefferson Union High School District responded by building affordable housing for 122 of its teachers.  

Providing affordable housing to teachers is not a new phenomenon. Affordable housing is difficult to find in many small, remote communities. In response, school districts provide housing (called “teacherages” in British Columbia). For example, the Vancouver Island West School District 84 in Gold River, BC provides teacherages in two communities Zeballos and Kyuquot on Vancouver Island. Universities often provide housing for faculty and students, often at below-market rents, and financial assistance with home ownership than is otherwise available in the marketplace.  

Housing and rental prices in urban areas are unaffordable to many because of the value of the land. There are numerous instances in Vancouver of families selling their homes for $3.5 million or, even $5 million to buyers who tear down the home to build a new one.  

Urban school districts are among the larger landholders in many urban areas. If they, like Jefferson Union High School District, used some of their land to build affordable teacher housing, they might better address teacher and staff shortages.  

I know your thinking, “where will the Board get the money to build the housing?” The answer will vary from district to district. Some districts have under-used schools where the cost-per-student exceeds the cost in schools with larger student populations. Many – dare I say most – school districts have programs of choice they have not evaluated for their merit. The same is true for more costly programs in core areas; could the outcomes they produce be achieved with a less costly alternative?  

Cost of construction in Canada’s urban areas ranges from $200-$400 per square foot. Imagine an urban district that would find $5million in savings. At – let’s take the higher cost - $400 per square foot, the district could build 12,500 square feet of housing. Assuming a three-bedroom unit size of 1000 square feet, the district could build 12 units. If the saving came from closing under used schools, the savings would be recurring, meaning that the district could build 12 units each year for as many years as the savings continue to occur.[1]  

In the communities in and around where I live, the starting salary of a beginning teacher is around $60 thousand. Vancouver two-bedroom rents are around $3000/month. If the school district were to provide housing at the rent-geared-to-income percentage of 30%, the teacher earning $60,000 would be paying about $1700 per month. The school district would recoup $240,000/year in rental income for its 12 units.  

Some school trustees are probably saying, “Oh, we couldn’t close small, under-used schools, eliminate programs of choice or programs no longer producing the outcomes for which they were designed, or substitute lower cost programming for more expensive programming.” My response to them is that making difficult policy decisions is precisely why we have school boards. Selecting among competing policy alternatives the one or ones in the best interest of the district is the Board’s responsibility.  

Providing affordable housing for teachers will not solve the teacher shortage, but it would be an inducement for teachers with specializations that are desperately needed. 

---

[1] Of course, there are other potential uses for any savings and alternative ways of using the savings to finance construction if the Board pursues that alternative.

School Board Governance

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

No board member at Ford Motor Co. would call the production or sales manager. So, why do school trustees persist in calling the district principal for special education, the manager of human resources, or the assistant superintendent for learning services? They should know better, but they do it anyway.  

Like most corporations, Ford operates in terms of governance principles expressed in writing. Consider this statement from Ford:

The Board is elected by and responsible to the shareholders. Ford's business is conducted by its employees, managers, and officers, under the direction of the chief executive officer (the “CEO”) and the oversight of the Board, to enhance the long-term value of the Company for its shareholders.

Substituting citizens for shareholders, the school board for Ford or the company, and superintendent for the chief executive officer, the statement would read like this:

The Board is elected by and responsible to the citizens. The school board’s business is conducted by its employees, managers, and officers, under the direction of the superintendent and the oversight of the Board, to enhance the long-term value of the school board for its citizens.

Notice that the business of the organization is conducted by its employees under the direction of the superintendent with oversight provided by the Board. Consider what are included among the overall responsibilities of the Ford Board of Directors:

• reviewing, monitoring, and approving fundamental financial and business strategies and major actions.
• reviewing and discussing reports from management on the performance. 
• assessing major risks and reviewing and approving strategies for addressing such risks.
• ensure processes are in place for maintaining the integrity and reputation 

By the time they get to this point, some blog readers will say, “school boards are different; they aren’t corporations. So, the principles of governance that apply to Ford do not apply to school boards.” At the risk of alienating some of them, those readers are wrong.  

According to the legislation governing them, school boards are corporations. The school act in British Columbia is typical of what the legislation says about the matter. Section 65 reads:

The trustees elected or appointed under this Act for each school district and their successors in office constitute a board of education for the district and are continued as a corporation under the name of "The Board of Education of School District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)", or as the case may be.

Some readers will respond, “but school districts don’t produce cars like Ford.” That is true, of course. School boards are responsible for producing something much more complex and certainly more important than automobiles: citizens. Moreover, the raw material with which schools must work (developing human beings) is much more variable than the material used to manufacture an automobile, and the developing human beings are subject to many powerful influences.  

I often wonder whether trustees disregard legislation, protocols, and ethics because trustees do not appreciate the complexity of the work and believe they can interpose their ideas for the judgment of the professionals.  

There are no specific qualifications for holding office as school trustee apart from age, citizenship, and residency requirements. The assumption is that any reasonable person will possess the ability to carry out the fundamental legal obligations of being a school trustee. Exercising diligence in making decisions about goals and policy and in overseeing the work of the superintendent (duty of care) are two. Another is making decisions in the best interest of the school district without regard to one’s personal interests (duty of loyalty).  

When school trustees persist in calling the district principal for special education, the manager of human resources, or the assistant superintendent for learning services it is an almost certain sign that they do not understand their responsibilities as trustees or as members of the governing board of the school district.

Teachers should embrace the teachable moment

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

The York Region District School Board (YRSDB) in Ontario apparently advised administrators to tell staff to avoid initiating discussions about the Queen’s death because doing so may engender strong, negative emotional reactions. In today’s parlance, such a discussion could be “triggering.” Strong emotional reactions are real. But the fact that students may have such a reaction should not be a deterrent to addressing issues that might engender those reactions if the classroom is an emotionally supportive environment and the topic is treated in an intellectually honest way.  

I am willing to give the YRDSB credit for recognizing the potential sensitivity of the issue, but I think it is discrediting to teacher professionalism to think the board needs to alert educators to the fact that some students might need support when the issue arose. In my experience, teachers are typically alert to students’ needs for emotional support.  

The Queen’s death is what educators call a teachable moment, an opportunity to get students to think deeply about an issue that has gained prominence for one reason or another. As a former social studies teacher, I would use the Queen’s death to have students consider whether, in 2022, there is a role for the monarchy OR whether the death of a relatively popular Queen and the elevation of her son as King would accelerate the efforts of those countries seeking to shed the monarchy OR whether (and how) the monarchy has changed over the centuries. If I were teaching world history, I would ask the students how China’s Belt and Road Initiative is like or different from colonialism as practiced by European nations.  

There are many issues to which students might have a negative emotional reaction. If teachers were to avoid mention of any topic or issue to which students might react negatively, teachers could not discuss slavery, genocide, climate change, nuclear power, genetically modified foods, cloning, guaranteed annual income, Canadian foreign policy, the novels of Gabrielle Roy or Margaret Atwood, the poetry of Earl Birney or F.R. Scott . . . . or pretty much anything else of value.  

If the classroom is an emotionally supportive environment (and it must be), teachers must be free to explore topics and issues in an intellectually honest manner. Avoiding or ignoring teachable moments deprives students of the opportunity to question, weigh evidence, critically analyze media, understand differing historical perspectives, and examine and defend positions they hold.

Could teacher losses in the US be a gain for Canada?

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

School shootings, curriculum restrictions, book bans during a pandemic have teachers in the United States stressed. American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is quoted in an AFT press release as saying, “Whether it was mask wars, culture wars, the war on truth, or the devastation in Uvalde, members sacrificed and struggled and carried their schools and their students through the most difficult days of their lives.” According to a study by Hart Research Associates for the AFT, 15% of the PK-12 teachers surveyed in June 2022 said they will definitely leave teaching in the next year or two, and another 23% said they probably would leave.  

The Hart Study, “Under Siege: The Outlook of AFT Members,” found that about 90% of the survey respondents believe that “schools have become too politicized, following a year of political attacks on teachers waged by politicians stoking culture wars and banning books for personal gain.”  Politicization of education comes on top of dissatisfaction with other working conditions and compensation.  

I know it sounds predatory, but could Canada benefit from recruiting alienated teachers from the United States?  

Most Canadian provinces and territories suffer persistent shortages of teachers in specialty areas: mathematics, physics, special education, French immersion, French first language, etc. The shortages are especially acute in rural and remote communities.  

Shortages are often filled by people working on a temporary letter of permission, a time-limited permit issued to persons who do not fully meet the requirements for certification. Some shortages are filled by certificated teachers whose preparation is not a complete match with the requirement of the position.  

Individuals who have the educational background and experience to fill labour market needs can immigrate to Canada through the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). Would-be applicants should check each province or territory of interest to determine whether their occupational specialization is eligible. Applicants must select and apply to the province or territory to which they would like to immigrate. If deemed eligible, the jurisdiction must nominate qualified applicants who seek to reside in the province or territory. If approved, the applicant must apply for permanent residence.  

There is no doubt some hurdles will need to be crossed before teachers in speciality areas would be added to the list of nominee-eligible candidates, including credential assessments and criminal background checks. Data from the 2018 TALIS study, indicate that, if anything, the level of educational attainment of teachers in the United States exceeds the attainment of Canadian (Alberta)[1] teachers. Among teachers in Alberta, 84% hold a bachelor’s degree and 14% hold master’s degrees. In the United States 43% hold bachelor’s degrees and 53% hold master’s degrees.  

It would be a win-win if Canada could attract qualified persons to teach in areas of persistent shortage who wished to escape the negative conditions that are making teaching stressful in the United States.

---

[1] In 2018, Alberta was the only Canadian jurisdiction to take part in the TALIS - The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey.