EDUBABBLE FROM THE WATERLOO REGION DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD

Unsurprisingly to me our top educaters are failing the grade. According to an article in the Waterloo Region Record yesterday titled "Youngest students falling behind"; Region of Waterloo elementary school students are scoring below the Ontario average in reading, writing and math. This despite an annual budget for the WRDSB somewhere in the vicinity of $400 million. The reason I'm not surprised is that I've seen some of their senior personnel up close and personal. My opinion of them was that they care far less about students' achievemnt and far more about maintaining the status quo which includes perks, priveleges, status and money. And they are succeeding in exactly what their priorities are.

This staus quo includes a happy bunch of well paid front line teachers who are not likely to rock the boat internally and even less likely externally in the public eye. In other words keep your front lines smiling hence minimizing whistleblowers and leaks. One last interesting point from this article. "Separating results by school board, local Catholic students currently outperform public students across the board, yet still fall below the Ontario average in four of six areas.". Indeed our WRDSB are masters of puffery and self congratulation. Too bad they weren't better at teaching children the three R's.