OUR LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD(S) ARE FAILING US

Today's Waterloo Region Record has an Opinion piece by Luisa D"Amato titled "Trustees could learn something from Fraser study". This refers to the Fraser Institute's annual rankings of schools across Ontario based upon province wide standardized tests. These annual rankings of both our Catholic schools and our public schools are routinely ignored and or dismissed by our local boards. This according to Luisa is a tremendous waste of very valuable information. Afterall the province decided to have these standardized tests for a reason and that is that our schools are charged with the duty of educating our children. Certainly just as the children are tested and the results used to help the lower scoring students, similarily there is an opportunity for lowering rankinf=g schools to improve if they are willing to learn from those who are doing well. What Luisa finds unfortunate is that our school boards don't even want to open the conversation. In fact Luisa states "I'd want officials to stop posturing and start asking serious questions." There are huge differences between schools and simply family income and or children entering school without an English speaking background do not explain these differences. In fact one reason some schools are so sucessful can be due to their leadership, ie. their principal. I've indicated my opinion in the past that a good principal with a solid core of good teachers can be sucessful in spite of politics, posturing and gamesmanship at the school board level.