Charles Ungerleider

I have been intimately involved with public schools for most of my life. I’ve been a student, teacher, parent, parent representative to a local school board, professor in a faculty of education responsible for the preparation of teachers, associate dean for teacher education, school trustee, deputy minister of education for British Columbia, director of research for the Canadian Council on Learning, and managing partner at Directions Evidence and Policy Research Group. Each position has provided me with a different vantage point from which to view the considerable strengths of our public schools, their weaknesses, and their serious shortcomings.

More that fifteen years ago, I wrote Failing Our Kids: How We Are Ruining Our Public Schools in which I argued that Canadians are guilty of malign neglect of public schooling. What I meant by that was Canadians make impossible demands upon our public schools, strangle them financially, seek trivial changes for the sake of ideology, and avoid making more necessary changes for lack of fortitude. We make simplistic comparisons of one public school with another, diminish their accomplishments, or just plain overlook them.

Although there have been some changes since the book was written, not much is different (Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose). 

I remain a staunch supporter of public schools. They are arguably society’s most important institution, And, given the centrifugal forces driving us apart, public schools are increasingly important to our democratic values and our social cohesion. I think we can no longer tolerate malign neglect of public schools.

While the world may not need another commentator, I am writing this blog in the hope that the essays will challenge readers to consider thoughtfully and to debate the many issues affecting public schools.

I am making the blog widely available, encouraging anyone who wishes to circulate it by any means (newsletters, e-mail, etc.) to do so with my permission if authorship is acknowledged. There will be no sponsorship of any kind. The blog will represent my thinking alone and may include previously posted or published material.