EDUCATION BUREAUCRAT (EDUCRAT) ESPOUSES ON POOR MATH RESULTS

Well this is actually kind of precious. Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this article by a Wayne Erdman who appears to have been a career educater and teacher of mathematics. The title of the article is "There are many reasons for poor math results". Interesting but especially so as two of those reasons leap out to me as being institutionalized and bureaucratic reasons. Firstly "The vast majority of elementary teachers have liberal arts degrees, with very few, if any, math specialists on a school's staff.". Gee you'd almost think that many teachers aren't so much the best and brightest as much as they are the weakest and or laziest. Secondly "...Grade 9 applied math is assigned to non-specialist teachers for various reasons, such as to save the young phys-ed teacher's job...". Ahh are we now getting into union contract language? Contract language of course negotiated and agreed to by the School Boards. You'd almost think that the welfare of their students really isn't their first priority. Or maybe it's their first priority after School Board staff, teachers and other unionized staff. What a system. And yet we wonder why some of our kids finish high school and even university with mediocre at best, english or math skills.