Advocacy – Part 1

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

The 2022-2026 Good Governance Guide, produced by the not-for-profit Ontario Education Services Corporation, is a practical, if lengthy, guide to the work of governing and managing Ontario’s four publicly funded education systems: English Public, English Catholic, French Public and French Catholic.

The guide speaks to the many responsibilities of boards of education. Although focused on Ontario, there is much of value for publicly funded education systems across Canada. However, there is one topic that I wish the Guide had addressed more thoroughly: advocacy. Advocacy is something too often misunderstood and poorly executed by school boards – especially advocacy with senior levels of government.

Advocacy with provincial governments is typically handled poorly by most school boards. Many – I am tempted to say most – advocacy efforts that school boards make with provincial governments are unsuccessful or worse because the school boards fail to appreciate that they are in an asymmetrical relationship to provincial governments. Provincial governments have the power to create school boards, make legislation or regulation affecting school boards, and fund school boards.

Although it should be obvious, it is worth pointing out that it is imprudent and unlikely to be successful for school boards to threaten provincial governments. Some school boards believe that they can or are put in a position where they feel it is necessary for them to “take on the government” to satisfy some constituency. Boards that have tried to threaten provincial governments are simply ignored or sometimes dissolved.

School boards that have been dismissed because they threatened provincial governments believing that “standing up” to the government was making an important point for the citizens/students fail to consider two things. First, most citizens do not know what school boards do (or should do and often do not) or care about school boards. Very few citizens can name the trustees on the school boards that serve them. Second, “standing up to government” is a pyrrhic victory because, having been removed from office, the board no longer exercises its powers.

School board trustees are typically elected by the smallest voter turnouts of any elected officials.  In the 1950s and 1960s public education ranked among the highest priorities of the electorate because of the post-war baby boom. Most families had children in schools and the population could be mobilized to support increases in school funding. Social conditions are different today. Today, parents with school aged children are a relatively small percentage of the electorate; many of the most affluent and influential citizens enroll their children in private schools.

If threatening senior government doesn’t work, what does? Clear, logical, and well evidenced arguments have the greatest potential, but constructing the argument is only part of an effective advocacy campaign. Effective advocacy depends upon a series of coordinated actions designed to achieve the intended outcome. In next week’s blog, I explore the components of such campaigns.

Race and anti-racism, socialization, indoctrination, and education

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

 I recently talked with racialized high school students about how schools should respond to racism, an issue that affects them deeply, personally, and frequently. To a person, each student said educate students about racism and the corrosive and hurtful consequences of racism for those immediately involved and for the community. When I inquired about punishment, they acknowledged that punishment might come into play if the individual repeatedly perpetrated acts motivated by racial animus, but they saw education as the primary response.  

The students’ appreciation for the power of education prompted me to wonder if the educations system was sufficiently sophisticated to distinguish among three easily confused processes - socialization, indoctrination, and education. All three processes can affect how people acquire knowledge, beliefs, and values, but only socialization and education have a legitimate place in schools.  

It is through the process of socialization that we learn the norms, values, and customs of our society. We acquire an understanding of society’s expectations by observing the behaviour of those around us and making inferences about how we should behave to function within that society. Socialization begins in childhood and continues throughout an individual's life. Children learn how to behave and follow social norms by observing and imitating the behavior of their parents, peers, and other members of their community. Socialization is generally a gradual process that occurs naturally.  

Indoctrination is the process of inculcating beliefs or ideologies without questioning or critically examining them, often with the intention of shaping the person’s attitudes, values, and behaviors according to a particular political or social agenda. Indoctrination occurs among adherents of religious organizations, political parties, and during military training.  Indoctrination is often intentional and may involve coercion or manipulation by someone in a position of authority who seeks to promote specific beliefs or values.  

Education is an intentional process of equipping people with the knowledge they need to function in specific contexts. It differs from indoctrination because when done appropriately, education encourages a critical examination of the knowledge one is being asked to acquire.  

The issues of race and racism provide an excellent example of how socialization, indoctrination, and education can impact individuals' beliefs and attitudes.  

Socialization, the process by which one learns the norms, values, and customs of their culture or society, can include learning about racial and ethnic identities, and the beliefs and attitudes associated with those identities. Children often learn about race through their interactions with their parents, peers, and other members of their community. Through this informal process, they may learn to assign individuals to groups based on skin colour and to attribute certain characteristics and values to those groups.  

Indoctrination is the conscious promotion of a specific set of beliefs or values. When racist ideologies are actively promoted and people are encouraged to accept these beliefs without questioning or critically examining them, they are being indoctrinated. A conscious effort to inculcate an unquestioning and uncritical anti-racist perspective is indoctrination even though the intention may be to promote a society in which bias, prejudice, and hatred have no place.  

Education encourages critical thinking and provides individuals with the tools to evaluate and analyze what they are being asked to acquire from multiple perspectives. That includes thinking critically about the norms to which they have been socialized.  

Effective education on race and racism provides individuals with an understanding of the history and cultural context of race relations, as well as the scientific evidence that supports the idea of human genetic diversity. Education should encourage individuals to critically evaluate what they are being asked to learn in order to develop an understanding of the complexities of the issue.  

Socialization, indoctrination, and education all affect an individuals' beliefs and attitudes related to race and racism. While socialization involves the natural process of learning about racial and ethnic identities, indoctrination involves promoting a specific set of beliefs without encouraging critical thinking. Education, on the other hand, provides individuals with the knowledge they need to understand race and racism and encourages them to think critically and analytically about race and racism.  

The racialized students with whom I discussed responses to racism placed great trust in schools to educate students about the perniciousness and impact of racism. They placed little or no value on coercion or punishment as a response to racism, recognizing that coercion and punishment might have a fleeting impact on behaviour, but would not equip students to understand the reasons why racism is corrosive and harmful.

Help students to ask chatbots good questions

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

The development of large language models like ChatGPT and their use in education and other fields are occurring so rapidly that it is difficult to keep track. Teachers play an important role in showing students how to use them well.

Teaching students to formulate prompts to obtain useful and accurate responses will serve the students well in using large language models or making inquiries of other sources. My advice to students would be to:

• use simple language that is phrased clearly to avoid ambiguities or irrelevances. 
• include relevant background information to contextualize the question.
• be specific, narrow the question or prompt.
• phrase the prompt as a direct question.
• break complex topics into smaller, manageable parts.
• determine the desired format or structure of the response.
• limit the length of the response.
• avoid biasing the response.
• use examples or scenarios to focus the response.

I’d want them to know that prompts or questions can be designed to gather specific types of information or insights:

Descriptive questions seek detailed information or descriptions of situations, events, or concepts. Example: "Describe the main features and functions of a smartphone?"

Classification questions seek to categorize, sort, or classify things based on their attributes, properties, or relationships. Example: "What are the main categories of programming languages, and what are their distinguishing characteristics?"

Inferential questions require drawing conclusions, making inferences, or deducing information based on available data or premises. Example: "Given increasing global temperature trends, what can we infer about the potential impacts of climate change on sea levels?"

Comparative questions focus on comparing different entities, situations, or ideas to highlight similarities and differences. Example: "What are the similarities and differences between solar and wind energy in terms of efficiency, cost, and environmental impact?"

Evaluative questions seek opinions, judgments, or assessments about a subject, often involving criteria or standards. Example: "In your opinion, what are the most desirable attributes of a student body president, and why?"  

Hypothetical questions explore potential scenarios, situations, or outcomes to encourage creative thinking and problem-solving. Example: "If you could develop a new technology to address a major global issue, what would it be, and how would it work?"

Causal questions seek to identify causes, effects, or relationships between different factors or events. Example: "What are the primary causes of deforestation, and how does it impact biodiversity?"

Problem-solving questions seek solutions, strategies, or advice for addressing specific issues or challenges. Example: "Are there steps that this school could take to reduce online bullying?"

Reflective questions encourage introspection, self-awareness, and personal growth by examining one's thoughts, feelings, or experiences. Example: "What have you learned from a past failure, and how has it influenced your approach to similar situations in the future?"

By teaching students how to form good prompts, understand the different purposes of questions, and craft well-formed prompts or queries, teachers can help students sharpen their inquiry skills and use sources such as large language models like ChatGPT productively and meaningfully.

All about the money

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Springtime brings sunshine, flowers, and complaints about the allocation models used to disburse money to school boards. The common and inevitable complaint is that there is never enough money to do everything that a school board wants to do for its students. But once provincial and territorial governments have allocated the funds, there will be no additional funds forthcoming (at least until the next budget cycle).  

Knowing that, some will complain that the formulas used to calculate the amounts apportioned to various functions need adjusting. But, when the total allocation is static, a change to a formula to the benefit of some boards will in this zero-sum case disadvantage other boards. Inevitably someone will call for a review of the current funding model.  

The latitude for revision of the models used to allocate funds to school boards is limited to four basic methods. Per-pupil funding is perhaps the most common method of allocating funds to school boards. In this model, each school board receives a set amount of funding for each student enrolled in the district. Needs-based funding allocates funds based on the needs of their students. Foundation funding allocates a set amount to cover the basic costs of education, including such things as salaries for teachers and administrators, textbooks, and supplies. Categorical grants allocate funding for specific programs or initiatives such as language and cultural programming.  

The combination of funding methods provides a balance of stable base funding and focused support for specific needs and priorities, allowing for adjustments to reflect the differences in student populations among school districts. The methods determine the allocation of funding to districts, but, barring restrictions imposed by government, school boards can spend the funds as they choose. The principal factor limiting board discretion is the fact that in public education most of the costs are labour related, leaving comparatively little room for discretionary funding.   

The number of needs-based and categorical funding categories tends to increase over time, engendering increasingly complex formulas and reporting requirements. There comes a point at which it is prudent to review the funding allocation system to see if it can be simplified. Simplification can reduce administrative burden and increase understanding, but it won’t increase funding. So, when someone calls for a review of the funding allocation model currently in use, it is naïve to expect that it will result in increased funding.  

To justify a funding increase, it is necessary to demonstrate that existing resources are not sufficient to meet real costs or to demonstrate how improvements in student achievement and well-being can be achieved by providing additional funding. Demonstrating that costs have increased relative to revenues is relatively easy to do. Demonstrating that additional funding will materially improve student achievement and well-being is more challenging because school boards are not accustomed to evaluating program effectiveness. Program evaluations rarely emanate from the desire of a school board to know what is working and what is not.