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.