YET ONCE AGAIN LOCAL EDUCRATS/BUREAUCRATS TAKE A BLAST

The question is, is anyone listening? Are these pompous, arrogant and self-serving educrats receiving the contempt and disrespect they've been begging for, for decades? Or on the other hand is it possible that those that I knew back in the 90s have all retired leaving a mess for the next generation of management to clean up? Somehow I'd be shocked if there had been any real, substantive change putting students first, rather than teachers' unions and the School Boards themselves.

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story by Luisa D'Amato titled "Our students' mediocre test scores should be top priority for trustees". Clearly she doesn't believe that that currently is the case. The history of underachievement locally really is shameful with but a few schools and exceptions. Long ago I learned that school achievement can be improved but it's necessarily due to a combination of an excellent Principal AND excellent teachers. Even then this sucess sometimes is despite the eforts of the local school boards.

Luisa advises us of a particular teacher and his adherence to phonics. The Society for Quality Education (SQE) has a weekly newsletter which has long indicated the major changes needed in order to improve students learning. Phonics for English and memorization of the math basics combined with repitition are but a start. Seems this is all just too much for our local boards.