What should school board candidates know?

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

About mid-July, a journalist called to seek guidance for an article about what candidates should understand about the responsibilities of school boards. Based upon my 40+ years working in education, I said that most candidates simply don’t understand Board responsibilities.  

That lack of understanding includes such matters as the fact that school boards are legal corporations of which trustees are directors (no stock options). While there are important differences between school boards and private sector corporations, there are common responsibilities fundamental to being a director (trustee).  

Like private sector corporations, school trustees must comply with the legislation and regulations that apply to them and to act in the best interest of the corporation. Trustees fulfill their duty of loyalty to the school district by acting honestly and faithfully in its best interest.  This means putting the interest of the corporation ahead of the trustees’ own interests or the interests of the trustees’ constituents.  

Trustees run into difficulty when they fail to exercise the care, diligence, and skills that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in similar circumstances. Common breaches of this duty of care include failing to prepare for the deliberations and decisions in which the Board must engage, failing to disclose conflicts of interest, and disclosing to others confidential corporate information.  

Many candidates do not know that, if elected, they will have no individual authority. Only the school board has authority exercised primarily through the decisions it makes in formal, public meetings by majority vote. Candidates who succeed electorally and become trustees will inevitably have different points of view. They may express those viewpoints during deliberations prior to a formal board decision. But, once the Board makes its decision, all trustees are obligated to support the decision of the majority – even if that was not their preferred position. Grousing about the decision after it is made besmirches the reputation of the Board which trustees have an obligation to uphold.  

Candidates who base their understanding of the responsibilities of office from observing how school boards behave will have a distorted understanding. Too many Boards spend too little time addressing the most important of their responsibilities. There are fundamentally two that are central. One is fostering successful student acquisition of learning outcomes and their well-being. The second is reporting the results that student have achieved, and evaluating educational programs, services and supports that are intended to lead to valued student outcomes.  

Everything else is derivative of the Board’s fundamental responsibilities, but not trivial. Recruiting a superintendent and entrusting to the superintendent the day-to-day management of the school district is key. Effective stewardship of resources is another. Having and abiding by a code of conduct governing the Board’s behaviour and the behaviour of individual trustees is crucial because ‘bad behaviour’ impedes addressing the Board’s core responsibilities.  

Candidates should commit to staying within the guardrails of governance if they are elected. Knowing and abiding with provincial legislation, regulation, and ministerial orders are obligatory. The same is true of the Board’s framework of policies and procedures. Trusting the professional knowledge and judgement of the Superintendent, recognizing and staying out of the superintendent’s business, and holding the Superintendent accountable through annual performance evaluations are essential. Boards must demand rigorous evaluation of student results and report those results to the public to continue to encourage public confidence in the education system they support.  

Prior to every election cycle I am optimistic that those taking office will be assiduous in carrying out these fundamental responsibilities. I hope my optimism is confirmed this year. 

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

School board elections will be held in many municipalities across the country this fall. So, it is not surprising that I am beginning to receive candidate statements in my snail-mail box and my e-mail inbox.  

A theme running through some candidate statements is “revitalizing the public’s voice in school board decisions” or “supporting democracy and citizen involvement.” Those would be admirable goals given the historically low citizen turnout for school board elections. But candidates are not really seeking greater involvement of the citizenry with its schools but rather giving greater expression to the voices of interest or stakeholder groups. Some candidates are more explicit about their intentions, “. . . help make our district a place where families are heard, and educators are supported.”  

Many of the trustees seek office to do what is properly the work of the school superintendent. A school superintendent is responsible for implementing the goals articulated by the board and ensuring compliance with the school act and other applicable legislation. Many candidates want to dictate how the superintendent carries out the goals set by the board, or they imply that interest groups will be empowered to determine how goals and policies are implemented.  

Many candidates are activists – as I was when I ran for a school board. They are members of school or district parent advisory committees, organizations that advocate on behalf of students with special needs, former teachers and former school and district administrators, former members of the executives of teacher unions and other employee groups. There is nothing wrong with having been an advocate. However, when elected, the candidate who is an activist must transition to being a trustee that serves on a board responsible for all students.  

Trustees must engage with one another to determine a set of collective goals and priorities. When candidates come from different value perspectives it is doubtful that all goals and priorities of individual trustees can become board goals and priorities. That is, unless trustees say to one another, “I’ll support what you want, if you support what I want.” When that happens, boards wind up with long lists of goals and no priorities. Priorities must be established so that the superintendent can allocate scarce resources (and resources are always scarce).  

Boards with long lists of goals inevitably become dissatisfied with their superintendents because those superintendents cannot achieve the goals without knowing the board’s priorities. Trustees that have not developed a district-wide perspective continue to press for the goal or goals for which they advocate. When they perceive that those goals are not being pursued or pursued as quickly as they would like, they often try to bypass the superintendent and engage the district leader in whose domain the goal resides.  

This makes a bad situation worse. Boards work with and through their only employee, the superintendent. Boards, not individual trustees, can give the superintendent direction. Individual trustees have no authority. When they bypass the superintendent and engage staff, they are communicating lack of confidence in the superintendent and putting the staff in a very awkward position. Staff report to the superintendent and their performance is judged by the superintendent. Chaos and conflict are the inevitable outcomes of trustees who are trying to give direction to staff.  

Dysfunctional school boards are composed of trustees who cannot work together. Dysfunction places an unreasonable burden on the superintendent who is responsible for district operations. Superintendents often try to “manage the board” while they manage the school district. Managing a dysfunctional board is impossible and takes time from managing the district. District operations sometimes suffer, though I am often impressed by the efforts of superintendents whose boards are dysfunctional. If they are aware of the dysfunction, governments will often dismiss the board and appoint someone to act as the board on an interim basis.  

Board dysfunction begins with trustees who do not understand their roles and who are unable to see past their personal goals to fashion goals and priorities for the school district. When that happens, education suffers.  Students benefit when trustees agree on a small number of achievable goals and entrust the superintendent to work with his or her staff to accomplish them.

Celebrating School

 

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

The approach of school opening fills most parents with mixed emotions. They prize the time they have been able to connect with their children, but they welcome the return to school. We should, too.

School opening should be the cause for celebration for society because it is one of the few common, collective social experiences we have. As such, it is a counterforce to an increasingly fragmented social experience. Connections via social media are still connections though the nature and content of the interactions among people are limited. Online gaming, for example, is a social experience among people who might not otherwise see one another face-to-face, but the experience itself is constrained by technology and the content.

School closures during COVID-19 made us acutely aware of the isolation and loneliness that many experienced. COVID-19 also heightened appreciation of teachers.

Both loneliness and social isolation are linked to negative cognitive and health outcomes for individuals. School mitigates them for the individual. But schools do much more.

What one learns in school is quite different from what one learns at home. Home-schooled children may develop the capacity to read and reason. Home schooled children are often not exposed to the social, linguistic, economic, and cultural diversity characteristic of most schools. 

Schools help us to learn that our experiences are like the experiences of many others. They expose students to norms of behaviour that are necessary to regulate social interaction in groups larger than the family. In school we learn to care for, and associate with, people outside one’s kinship group.  

Schools are environments with achievement standards that are universally applied to all similarly situated students save the few whose performance is impeded by physical, emotional, or cognitive limitations not under their control. 

It is in school that students also learn the difference between the position (teacher) and the person occupying the position (Ms Singh, Mr. Frederickson, etc.).  

In a conversation with a business acquaintance about these capacities that schools develop she said, “you mean the value-added component of schooling.” I said I was reluctant to use that term because it implied that these capacities added value to the formal curriculum. From my perspective these capacities and the capacities developed by the formal curriculum are central to what schools contribute to the development of the individual. It is through the development of these capacities (and others) in the individual that what we call society is maintained.  

The dramatic increase in access to information that the internet has made possible has not diminished the importance of schools to society. It is precisely the opposite. The pervasiveness of largely unmediated content, the ability to transmit that content without critical reflection, and the fragmentation that social media and the internet make possible heightens the importance of institutions that help bind us to one another.  

Schools are, for most, a unifying force in a society that is increasingly fragmented and socially isolated. We should celebrate the contribution that they make to our society.

Don’t run against the board

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permissions to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

Little good is accomplished when candidates seeking the office of school trustee attack the board upon which they hope to sit (“running against the board”). It contributes to a loss of public confidence in the school district. If the behaviour persists after the candidate becomes a trustee, such behaviour may lead to the dismissal of the board by the province (or state) and the appointment of official trustees. Where school boards are permitted to borrow, it can lead to bond-rating agencies down-grading the board’s credit rating.

Some candidates have difficulty distinguishing between the demands of politics and the responsibilities of governance. And some who know the differences still choose to ignore them. When that happens, it calls into disrepute the boards to which they aspire.

All who hope to be elected to public office will hold two positions. One is a politician; the other is the office they will occupy if they are elected. The audiences are different. Politicians appeal to those who share the politician’s values or who can be persuaded to share the politician’s values. Office holders have a duty to all citizens. That’s why politicians in democratic countries thank their constituents and pledge to serve everyone, including those who voted for the politician’s opponent.

Many candidates seeking election to school board see themselves as politicians first and, having gained office sometimes find it difficult to make the transition from that position (politician) to one of trustee (governor). Difficult as making and maintaining that transition is, it must be made by those who take the oath of office as trustee. Failing to make the transition engenders trouble for the school districts, the interest of which they pledge to serve.

Those who continue to act primarily as politicians – appealing to and acting on behalf of their perceived constituencies – rather than as governors responsible to all citizens - often fail to consider the best interests of the districts they govern or define the ‘best interests’ of the district as synonymous with the interests of their perceived constituencies.

Serving as a school board trustee isn’t easy. Trustees are typically elected by individuals who are either unfamiliar with governance or indifferent to it, placing their own, immediate interests above those of the citizenry. Trustees are subjected to the inquiries, complaints and demands of parental constituents who are largely concerned about the welfare of their offspring and unconcerned about good governance.

Parents will ask a trustee whether s/he knows what is happening in “my school.” Trustees are reluctant to inform the inquirer that s/he is not the person to whom inquiries about a particular school should be directed for fear of alienating the inquirer. Educating constituents about the responsibilities of trustees and the fact that individual trustees have no authority (decisions are made by the board as a whole) is a related challenge that most trustees are reluctant to face head-on.

There is some irony in the reluctance of school trustees to educate citizens about school board governance and to persuade them that governing in the best interest of the district is ultimately beneficial for everyone. And there is more than a bit of selfishness when they put their own interest above the interest of the district.

This is the last blogpost for the current school year. 

I hope your summer is all you wish it to be. 

See you in September!

What happened to early health screening?

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

When I began kindergarten more than 70 years ago, children were screened annually for impediments to their vision. I recall lining up with my classmates while each student was expected to toe a line and designate with our fingers what symbols were visible to us on the Snellen chart. We would point three fingers at the ceiling to indicate what looked like a W, to the right to indicate an E, or to the left to indicate a symbol that looked like an ꓱ facing the wrong way. Vision screening was universal and conducted annually. As we mastered the alphabet, the symbols on the chart were replaced by letters.    

The test was administered by the nurse who worked in the school and to whom we would be sent if we were injured or ill (or feigned a stomach-ache to be able to go home and watch the World Series). The nurse would attend to our wounds, make us comfortable, or arrange for us to be picked up by a caregiver… or returned to class if she detected our deception. She also ensured that our immunizations were current and, during the polio epidemic, helped administer the vaccine.  

Over time, school nurses diminished in number. Instead of a fulltime nurse in schools, nurses became itinerant, serving several schools in a week. In many – perhaps most - places, there are no longer school nurses. Some of the functions performed by the school nurse became the responsibility of school administrative assistants. Administrative assistants collect proof of immunization, care for minor wounds, arrange for caregivers to pick up children who are ill, and less subtly detect test avoidance.  

According to data from the 2016 census, approximately 13.5% of Canadian children exhibited at least one activity limitation. They had difficulty seeing (2.6%); hearing (0.9%); learning, remembering, or concentrating (7.9%); with mobility, flexibility, or dexterity (0.9%); or manifested emotional, psychological, mental health problems (4.0%); or long-term health problems (4.0%).  

Some children had multiple activity limitations. Three quarters (75.8%) of children for whom mobility, flexibility, or dexterity was difficult and 70.7% of children with emotional, psychological, or mental health conditions had multiple limitations. Fewer (40.7%) of the children who had difficulty seeing and about half (52.1%) of children who had difficulty learning, remembering, or concentrating had multiple limitations.  

It is true that many children with activity limitations will have them detected outside of school. Some children with limitations will not.  

Our recognition of limitations has evolved from ones that are primarily physical to ones that include factors or obstacles in the social and educational environment that should be overcome to ensure the full benefit of schooling. The work underway in many places to eliminate racism and discrimination in the school environment is one example. Anti-bullying strategies are another.  

Universal, annual, health screening is gone, but the need for screening remains because access to a regular family physician in Canada is declining. The decline is greatest among families most in need.  

Identifying and eliminating or mitigating activity limitations are important to ensure that students benefit from their school experience. So, too, is screening children each year for potential reading limitations - arguably the greatest obstacle to school success. Addressing limitations early in a child’s school career should reduce the burden that the limitations impose upon the child, parents, teachers, and school system.

Colonization of the mind

 

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

 I received an email about using the term settler institutions in my blogs. The writer asked how that term applied. The question indicated to me that the term and what colonization means in the context of education are not universally understood.  

In my reply I mentioned that, although they have changed since their introduction, almost all institutions that we have are the products of colonization, the name we give to the use of state power to take control of a geographic region and the people who inhabit that region.  

Prior to colonization, the Indigenous people who lived on the land we now occupy had their own languages, culture, and institutions. Those institutions were forcibly replaced by institutions that Europeans brought with them when they established dominion over the land they had forcibly occupied. The European settlers assumed the right of ownership, absolute use of the land and control of its inhabitants.  

By imposing their language, culture, and institutions upon Indigenous inhabitants, settler societies impose ways of knowing and thinking on them. The effect of such actions is a reshaping of thinking of the original inhabitants and their successors. If the process of replacing Indigenous ways of knowing and thinking with those of the settler societies occurs, it is no longer necessary to forcibly impose control; people will do that on their own.  

This is exactly what forcible removal of the original inhabitants from their land, removal of children from their parents, and institutionalizing the children and imposing settler languages and cultures sought to do. I would, were I Indigenous, think twice about sending my children or grandchildren to schools established by settlers. I would also want control of the education of my children or grandchildren to be vested in a government for and operated by my people. I would want schools in which my language and culture were taught and where my ways of knowing and thinking were the foundation of the curriculum.  

To many people public schooling appears to be a generous gift. It is not. I am not referring here to the fact that public schools are paid from tax dollars. I say that public schooling is not an open-handed gift because there is more than an exchange of tax dollars. Whether they are conscious of it or not, when someone sends their offspring to school, they are allowing the school to transform how those offspring will think and what they will know.  

Our settler society is coming to terms with the damage inflicted upon Indigenous people in the past and the present. Gradual changes are occurring to make settler institutions less hostile and more welcoming environments for Indigenous children and youth. Provision is being made for the teaching of some Indigenous languages and incorporating ways of knowing and thinking that are more common among Indigenous people.  

Those changes will gradually alter colonial institutions, making them less colonial. But they will not eliminate the fact that schools are colonial institutions. They have been created and are operated by the dominant society.  

While the colonial nature of schools in Canada is being softened, Canada continues to practice a form of colonialism elsewhere in the world. Canada is not forcibly imposing a way of life on those in other countries. The process is more subtle. Many jurisdictions in Canada operate or license the operation of schools in other countries. Those schools often adhere to Canadian curricula and employ Canadian teachers.  

Students who attend those schools do so at the behest of their parents. But make no mistake, whether they or their parents are conscious of it, the minds of those students are being colonized.

Restorative practice in education

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Those who regularly read this blog will know that I am very concerned about children and youth either missing from school or chronically absent. Over-represented among the missing and absent are children and youth from groups that are marginalized.  

There are many out-of-school factors that contribute to chronic absenteeism or to school avoidance: family factors (income, housing, and food insecurity, health challenges and mental illness, etc.); student factors (lack of prior school success, poor social skills, lack of self-control, etc.). But there are factors over which schools have control that also contribute to absenteeism and school avoidance (disciplinary climate, limited challenge, or inadequate remediation, etc.).  

Schools, school boards, and provincial ministries of education are changing policies and practices that contribute to the problem. Out-of-school suspensions for students who are chronically absent or late (yes, some suspend students for being absent or late) are being eliminated. Many are rethinking penalties for tardiness because it contributes to a punishment-oriented climate. Systems that removed students from the class list because they missed many classes are rethinking that practice because it absolves the teacher and the school from responsibility for reaching out to the student and the student’s family.  

Many schools have the goal of creating a safe, welcoming, and caring school environment, and devote conscious, persistent effort to creating those conditions. It is widely recognized that when those conditions are not present it is difficult to achieve the other goals of schooling.  

Schools are increasingly adopting “restorative practices” to change the school climate to nurture healthy relationships, create learning environments that are just and equitable, reduce conflict, and repair harm.[1] The term restorative practice includes a wide range of procedures based upon the premise that schools are communities where the behaviour of one person has consequences for others in the community. What I call talking circles, meetings of students and staff that are not impeded by physical barriers such as desks, are designed to encourage trust-building and shared values through personal stories or experiences, feelings, and ideas.  

Restorative practice applies to all members of the community, administration, staff, students, and students’ families. Creating a context in which care for one another is prized and practiced is an important component of restorative practice. Social and emotional learning are others.  

Fairness is a key value in restorative practice. Members of the community must feel that they are respected and that their feelings and ideas matter. An important dimension is that the community’s rules are clear to everyone and applied in a manner that is perceived by everyone to be fair.  

Everyone benefits when schools are safe, welcoming, and caring environments – especially children and youth who come from marginalized groups. But the creation of such environments simply doesn’t happen on its own. Restorative practice takes consistent and constant whole-school effort, progress monitoring, the willingness to change practices, and the engagement of everyone, including students and parents. 

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[1] Evans, K. and D. Vaandering (2016) The Little Book of Restorative Justice in Education: Fostering Responsibility, Healing, and Hope in Schools. Simon and Schuster.

The sky is [is not] falling

 

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

What people want always exceeds the available resources. That’s true in all aspects of life. There isn’t enough truth, justice, equity, or education to meet the demand – even in affluent societies. That’s why we have boards of school trustees. It is the responsibility of boards of school trustees to decide what the district can support among things that people want.  

I wrote last year about the gloomy outlook for school board budgets. The COVID fiscal recovery and an aging population make it unlikely that the school board budgets available will make it easier to provide for the many things people want from their schools. In that blog I said that school boards with sound strategic plans have an advantage in making such decisions. Strategic plans provide a framework for determining the priorities that a board has for its budget.  

The boards with strategic plans that included an assessment of risks, such as changes in funding, are in a better position than boards that have not assessed what could go wrong in pursuing their strategic plans. And in a much better place than boards without strategic plans.  

Boards that evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of their programs are in an even better position to manage and deploy the resources at their disposal. Knowing whether programs achieve the outcomes called for in the strategic plan (effectiveness) is pivotally important. It is also important to know whether effective programs are having maximum effect per dollars spent (efficiency).  

Very few boards are attentive to effectiveness and efficiency. The ones that are realize that school districts are a business with a unique mission. The concepts of effectiveness, efficiency, and economy (acquiring needed resources at the lowest cost with due regard for effectiveness) apply to school districts as they do to any business. The complexity of the educational business makes evaluation more challenging than even the most complex multi-national corporate entities, but an important – though too often overlooked – activity.  

Strategic plans and program evaluation afford advantages to boards that have and use them. They can determine the cost-per-student of effective programs of choice, schools, and different approaches to instruction. Few boards calculate such costs regularly, some calculate cost-per-student episodically, and many do not calculate them at all.   

If you have read this far, I am guessing you can figure out which school boards think the sky is falling and which boards can manage with the resources available to them.

What is the role of a school board trustee?

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

There were several interesting articles in the January 2022 issue of the Canadian Journal for Educational Administration and Policy (CJEAP) including ones devoted to racial justice, the incorporation of Indigenous content in curricula, and public school funding. But the one that prompted this blog was about public expectations of school boards.  

I was struck by an apparent contradiction between the first sentence in the article and one of the key findings of the study. The article’s abstract begins with the assertion that “School board trustees play an important role in the education of children throughout Ontario.” I take a slightly more nuanced position: school board trustees can play an important role in the education of children.  

At the core of the study was the open-ended question: “What do you see as the role of a school board trustee?” More than 2500 Ontarians over the age of 18 responded to an online survey in which parents with school age children were over-represented. The most frequent response to the question was “don’t know/unsure.” The second most frequent response was a cluster of random thoughts that the authors coded as “irrelevant.” And the third most frequent responses were a set of seemingly random comments that the authors classified as “other.” When the most frequently occurring responses were combined with those that indicated that trustees have “no role,” they accounted for more than one-third of the respondents to the survey. The remaining two-thirds focused on administrative and educational oversight, and advocacy. One of the general conclusions the authors drew was: “. . . it is clear that about a third of the respondents do not have a clear concept of what trustees do.”  

Later in the paper, the authors draw two inferences from their data that are a bit of a stretch. One is that the role of school trustee is not relevant to many Ontarians because many do not appear to understand the role. And the second is that the lack of understanding is evidence of why provincial governments have considered abolishing school boards and, thus, the position of trustee.  

I’d argue that lack of public understanding of the position of trustee (even of the magnitude revealed in this study) does not mean that trustees cannot play an important role in the education of children. Provincial governments have contemplated and even attempted to abolish school boards not because a large segment of the public lacks understanding but because school trustees and boards do not have substantial constituencies that will oppose abolition.  

Whether there is a future for school trustees and the school boards upon which they serve depends upon how well trustees adhere to their main responsibilities. The most important responsibility of school boards is the recruitment and employment of a superintendent (director of education, chief superintendent). The only employee the board itself hires and the school district’s principal educational leader, the superintendent, is responsible for ensuring that the board’s goals and objectives are met.  

The second most important responsibility is the board’s annual evaluation of the superintendent.  Because s/he is responsible for the achievement of the board’s goals and objectives, the performance of the school district is synonymous with the performance of the superintendent.  

Improving student outcomes and ensuring compliance with the board’s obligations should be the focus of the superintendent’s annual appraisal. Key to a board’s effectiveness are the metrics it develops for the assessment of student progress, well-being, and equity. Effective boards collect data regularly, often annually, and chart the trends in performance over time.  

In the absence of evidence that its one employee, the superintendent (director), is improving educational outcomes and equity, school trustees cannot claim that they play an important role in the education of children – a role they should make better known.

Under-representation of Indigenous employees in the education system

 

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

Last school year, I asked whether institutional racism might be one of the reasons that the teaching force does not reflect the demographic variety in the population? I quoted the response of an Indigenous defence lawyer and prosecutor who believes that having more Indigenous lawyers will not lead to better justice or outcomes for Indigenous offenders and victims. He wrote:

To get through that education, you have to allow yourself to be colonized. You have to become one of them. And once you become one of them, then you’re outside of your own community. If you believe in that system, then you’re put outside. You’re going to struggle to connect again.[1]

It is nonetheless the case that Indigenous individuals who have seen the subtle and not so subtle racism in the system are willing to work within that system. The teacher preparation programs in all Canadian faculties of education are open to Indigenous applicants, and many are specifically designed for Indigenous learners. Indigenous enrollment has grown, though not as much as one would have hoped.

Professional preparation is a prerequisite to employment in education, but employment is not certain. Collective agreements are among the challenges that Indigenous people face in getting hired. Most union contracts have provisions that require employers to hire the most senior qualified applicant for a position.

Few, if any, doubt that Indigenous people are underrepresented in education in all employment positions. That recognition on the part of the employer and the employees’ union is what has given rise to agreements to submit joint applications to Human Rights Tribunals for the creation of special programs designed to recruit Indigenous employees. Sometimes such agreements include provisions to provide layoff protection to Indigenous employees who, in a system of strict seniority, might be the first to be laid off.

In British Columbia, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation has signed a memorandum of understanding with the BC Public School Employers’ Association to encourage local school boards and local teachers’ unions to enter into such agreements regarding Indigenous recruitment. Those who administer human rights codes in a particular jurisdiction will determine whether prior approval of a special program is necessary to implement such a program and avoid claims of discrimination. In BC, prior approval is not required, and formally approved programs cannot be considered discriminatory during the period the approved program is in place.

Over time about half of the 60 school boards in BC and their local unions have requested special program status from the BC Human Rights Tribunal. Some school boards (School District 23 in Vernon, for example) have obtained approval to give Indigenous applicants hiring preference for all its positions. In others, the specifications are more narrowly defined. School district 50 (Haida Gwaii) has approval to give preference to new staff of Haida or other Indigenous ancestry who have “demonstrated knowledge and experience of Haida culture.” In Richmond (School District 38), approval was granted to give preference for hiring and layoff protection to persons of Indigenous ancestry in teaching and other professional positions.

There is clearly a need for Indigenous personnel in all positions in school districts. However, in reviewing special program approvals, I notice that not all districts have sought approval and that the approvals sought are a bit of a patchwork. I am doubtful that any public school board in BC or elsewhere in Canada has proportional parity between its Indigenous staff and the composition of its student or community population.

It is encouraging that Indigenous individuals who have experienced or know about the systemic racism in education are willing to seek employment in the system. And it is also encouraging that many employers and employees recognize the underrepresentation of Indigenous people in the system and are willing to agree to do something about the situation.

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[1] Johnson, H. (2019) Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada, McClelland & Stewart.

What’s in a school’s name?

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

As every parent knows, names are important. It is also true when applied to schools.

Some school boards are renaming schools that were named after people who, by today’s moral standards, did things society no longer finds acceptable (slave owning, support for residential schooling, for example). The attention this has received recently prompts several questions for me.

Is renaming a school consistent with the educational mission of public schooling?

The sensitivities and considerations that apply today may not have been considered at the time that a school was named. However, because schooling is dedicated to the education of the next generation of citizens, schools and the boards that govern them have an obligation to model careful and deliberate thought about the names given to its schools. This includes the names applied in the past that may not conform to the sensitivities and moral considerations that apply today.

Consider a school named after a politician who was instrumental in defending the rights of French-speakers at the time of Confederation but was also an architect of the residential school system. Residential schools were government and church run schools established to eliminate parental involvement in the intellectual, cultural, linguistic, and spiritual development of Indigenous children - a value that is in direct opposition to the values which we hold today.

I do not think renaming the school alone would meaningfully address the harms caused by residential schooling and would not fulfill a school board’s broader educational responsibility. In the spirit of reconciliation as expressed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), we might use the renaming process to raise awareness of residential schooling and its long-standing effects on Indigenous people.

I think that, for instance, a school board should engage and consult with leadership of the First Nation(s) on whose territory the school board is situated. The purpose of the consultation would be to seek the advice of the First Nation(s) about whether the name of the school in question should remain or be removed from the school. In either instance a plaque explaining the politician’s role as an architect of the residential school system in Canada should be placed prominently on the school and a companion lesson or lessons about the politician’s role developed for use in that school as a way of educating students about residential schooling and its impact. 

What behaviour merits reconsideration?

Determining what behaviour merits consideration for school renaming is challenging because good people can do bad things and vice versa. Perhaps the politician who was the architect of the residential school system was also a defender of the rights of French-speakers at the time of confederation. His behaviour should be used to educate students and the public about residential schooling because the horrors and impact of residential schooling were so abhorrent.

Consider a school named for a politician considered a hero for preventing his country's invasion by another country intent on exterminating Jews. He was also a winner of the Noble Prize for literature.  And he was a racist and eugenicist as well.  Should his name be removed from the school? Who should make such a decision? Does his objectionable behaviour over-ride his positive behaviour? What standard should apply in making the decision? Do we not make such judgments every day?

Expunging names from school buildings is fleeting. It does not absolve the education system of its enduring responsibility to educate about, and carefully consider, the complexities of making historical and moral judgments.  

Right to Read

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) recently released the results of its inquiry into human rights issues affecting students with disabilities titled Right to Read. The report begins with a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Moore v. British Columbia, in which the Court held that Jeffrey Moore, a student with dyslexia, was entitled to supports that he required to learn to read.  

The Court’s decision in Moore held that the Province of British Columbia, in asserting that the purpose of education is to ensure that “all learners . . . develop their individual potential and . . . acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy, democratic and pluralistic society and a prosperous and sustainable economy,” acknowledged that children are entitled to an education necessary to make such a contribution, including the right to read.  

The focus of the OHRC report is upon the lack of attention to “word-level reading and the associated early reading skills that are a foundation for good reading comprehension.” It asserts that, in failing to heed the accumulated, multi-disciplinary evidence about effective reading instruction, Ontario is systematically failing the students for whom it is responsible. The failure has an especially profound impact on children from marginalized or human rights code protected groups.  

The OHRC report takes a comprehensive view of language arts instruction. It argues in favour of robust, evidence-based phonics programs but only as one essential part of a broader language arts program that includes “story telling, book reading, drama, and text analysis” as well as “evidence-based direct, explicit instruction for spelling and writing.”  

Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s Minister of Education said the province will change its curriculum to align with “scientific, evidence-based approaches that emphasize direct, explicit and systematic instruction.” It is encouraging to see education policy and practice reflect the accumulated evidence. But I worry that, in the highly politicized environment in which we all seem to live, that there will be reflexive opposition to Lecce’s statement and resistance to the changes that will be introduced. I hope my worries are unfounded. It would be refreshing to find that, having considered the OHRC’s report and the underlying evidence, educators would see the merit in what is being recommended.  

I am hopeful that change comes without further resort to human rights inquiries, cases, and the litigation that often ensues. I am optimistic that people can place evidence above ideology.  

The report brings much needed attention to students affected by dyslexia. The kind of professional support teachers will need to help learn how to best assist these students' learning is not going to be a casual, one-day training session.  It's going to take a lot of on-going practice and constructive feedback from skilled teachers.  

I also hope that Minister Lecce realizes that significant resources will be required to support teachers who need assistance in making the changes necessary to bring their practice in line with the evidence. One of the resources at the Minister’s disposal are the many teachers who have used evidence-based phonics programs and direct, explicit instruction as part of their language arts programs.

Indigenously focused course requirement long overdue

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

Among the stated purposes of public (state supported) school systems is the development of educated citizens who possess the disposition to active citizenship. It is worth contemplating what it means to be an educated citizen or to be disposed to active citizenship.  

You cannot exercise your obligations and rights as citizens if you do not know what those rights and obligations are. The behaviour and claims of members of the trucker convey clearly demonstrated that they failed to grasp both. The rights and responsibilities citizens enjoy are part of the social contract between citizens and their nation. However, knowing rights and responsibilities is not sufficient to being considered an educated citizen. It is important to know how the Canadian social contract came to be and how it has evolved.  

Educated citizens understand how and why the rights and responsibilities of their citizenship developed and evolved. I have lamented in several blogs the absence of the subject of Citizenship from British Columbia’s curriculum and the neglect of that subject generally.  

The Government of British Columbia announced that, beginning in 2023-2024, the education program of students in British Columbia must include coursework with an Indigenous focus. I hope that I am not being overly optimistic that this requirement is recognition that educated citizens cannot be ignorant of the factors that have shaped the development of one’s nation.   

Canadians who are ignorant of those factors would not know or understand why they enjoy language or mobility rights or the right to equality before the law and the equal protection and benefit of the law. They would not know that the rights and freedoms granted to Aboriginal people of Canada by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 cannot be revoked or diminished by the Charter of Rights. Nor would they know that the Charter requires that it be interpreted in a manner consistent with “the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.”   

The Honourable Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Education, acknowledged that the requirement that students’ education programs must include an Indigenously focused course beginning in 2023-2024 addressed one of the knowledge gaps in the British Columbia curriculum. In essence, the Minister understands that citizens who do not understand the experiences, cultures, histories, and knowledges of Indigenous people are less well educated than those who do because those experiences, cultures, histories, and knowledges are part of the history of all Canadians.  

I will be disappointed if the requirement for the inclusion of an Indigenously focused course is challenged in the way that efforts to give an honest account of the part that slavery played, and racism continues to play, in the United States is being challenged. That challenge will eventually fail because students in the United States seek the truth about their history.  

Canadian students also seek the truth about the history and development of Canada.  

I am optimistic that the BC requirement will be embraced as a first step in a much-needed social studies curriculum revision because citizens who are knowledgeable in values, histories, cultures, rights, and responsibilities that distinguish Canadians from the citizens of other countries are better equipped to participate in effective, active citizenship.

I hope your Spring break provides the rest and relaxation you deserve. This blog will resume on March 30th. 

Who needs school?

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce is granted if authorship is acknowledged]

I’ve thought about this question often. A new year’s resolution prompted me to ask the question again. I had resolved to organize the zillions of photographs I’ve taken since I first acquired a digital camera. I needed a free, desk-top program with artificial intelligence capability. I did not want to use a cloud-based system where commercial providers use my photographs to train their algorithms and add to their repository of my personal information. I found what I was looking for. I found written and video material to learn how the software worked. There was a user group (they are called communities these days) where I could post questions and receive help in the form of crowd-sourced replies.

The experience reminded me of the many times I use the internet to access information and develop skills. I’ve had many successes and one monumental failure. My culinary abilities, such as they are, were honed with recipes from the internet. A couple of weeks ago, I learned how to replace a water filter. I cannot recall the last time I was unable to find something I wanted to know or be able to do. If information is freely available online, who needs school anyway?” 

There are some parents who are determined to eviscerate or at least control the substance of schooling and its important contribution to critical thought. In the US they are pursuing legislation to ban materials and teaching of topics that might cause psychological discomfort to students. The term “psychological discomfort” is code for anything with which the parents disagree.  

If passed, legislation such as the bill to which I referred above would make teaching about sexual orientation / gender-identity, racism, or any other contested topic perilous for teachers, schools, and school systems. If such legislation were to pass in British Columbia, the curriculum would require revisions to remove such competencies as “make reasoned ethical judgments about actions in the past and present, and assess appropriate ways to remember and respond.”  

Students cannot learn to make reasoned ethical judgments from the internet. It is too easy to find dogma and ideology -- the enemies of reasoned judgment – on the internet. If dogma and ideology replace reasoned judgment, school becomes unnecessary because one of the purposes of schooling is to acquire the values that make us human (empathy, compassion, etc.) and enable us to distinguish right from wrong.  

Schooling tries to cultivate the ideas that other people are no more or less important than we are and that our claims will be considered impartially along with the claims of others. This process often causes disequilibrium and discomfort when applied to non-trivial issues. For example:  

·        How could pious people who advocate for the rights of people enslave other human beings?

·        Are there justifiable reasons for permitting children to be taken from the parents and denied the opportunity to speak their own language?

·        Does my freedom allow me to behave in ways that cause harm to others?

·        Are there circumstances that justify taking the lives of others?

·        Was the trucker blockade in Ottawa an urgent, temporary, and critical situation that seriously endangered the health and safety of Canadians or that seriously threatened the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada?

·        How should a society balance the rights of individuals with the needs of the collective?

These are the kind of questions likely to cause discomfort. Ensuing discussion might include: “Would you change places with: the person who was enslaved? the child removed from her family? the person who was harmed? the person whose life was taken?” Other discomforting questions include: “How are you defining [freedom or some other key term]?”  “What is your evidence for that claim?” “Is what you just said consistent with what you said earlier?”  

If we do not want our children and grandchildren to learn what is required to make ethical judgments, we can leave their education to the internet. To put it another way, if we are content to live in a world governed by dogma and ideology, schooling as we know it is unnecessary. Discomfort is an inevitable by-product of the school’s effort to expose children and youth to an environment that is larger, more complex, less cohesive, and more diverse than their families.  

Trucker convoy reveals ignorance of government

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

In his comments about the Ottawa trucker convoy, Kurt Phillips of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network described some of the protesters as “. . . people who really don’t understand how government works.” There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence in support of Phillips’ claim. 

One of the first examples was the purpose of the convoy. Many in the convoy said they were going to Ottawa to protest COVID mandates, most of which were set by provincial health authorities. Fair enough, there is a vaccine mandate imposed upon commercial truckers entering the US (imposed by the US) and returning to Canada (imposed by Canadian authorities). But most COVID health restrictions are provincial restrictions according to the (Canadian) Constitution Act.

Another example in support of Phillips’ assertion were the numerous references to the US Bill of Rights and the right of free speech it confers. Although it is difficult to imagine that commercial truckers are geographically challenged, Ottawa is in Canada.

Canadians have fundamental freedoms under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – conscience and religion, peaceful assembly, association – and “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” But many of the protestors appeared unaware that Section 1 of the Charter limits those freedoms: 

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Phillips’ assertion about the protesters as “. . . people who really don’t understand how government works” might be true of Canadians more generally. In an earlier blog I lamented the conspicuous absence of the concept democracy in BC’s provincial curriculum. The Phillips’ comment prompted me to examine the three BC documents - “Big Ideas,” “Curricular Competencies,” and “Content” - that guide teachers responsible for social studies from grades Kindergarten to Grade 10.

Grade 2 Big Ideas reveals a fundamental flaw in the thinking of those who created them. One of the Grade Two Big Ideas is that “individuals have rights and responsibilities as global citizens” (Grade 2). Citizenship describes a relationship between an individual and the state. It is in that social contract that rights and responsibilities are defined.

“Global citizenship” may be an aspiration among those writing the curriculum. But until there is world citizenship and the existing nation states cede their jurisdiction to some yet to be defined global body, I am grateful for citizenship in Canada and the rights and obligations that I have.

The authors of the provincial curriculum should have noticed their global citizenship mistake when they crafted one of the Big Ideas for grade six. The tip off is their statement that “systems of government vary in their respect for human rights and freedoms.” The inconsistency between the grade two and grade six big ideas should have caused them to reflect.

A closer look at the curricular competencies and the content suggestions – yes, suggestions – does not inspire confidence that Canadian students living in British Columbia will understand how their government works.

I do not want to blame the education system for protesters’ ignorance of government. Most do not live in British Columbia and only a few who do were young enough to have gone to school in BC since the curriculum change. But the ignorance of the truckers and their fellow travelers signals that this significant knowledge gap has been with us for some time and is likely not confined to British Columbia.