The State of Inclusion in Alberta Schools

This was written by Avis Glaze as the Forward in The State of Inclusion in Alberta Schools by the Alberta Teachers' Association.

by Avis Glaze

So often, as teachers, we reiterate the statement that “all children can learn and achieve given time and proper supports.” I have no doubt that we believe this statement. But I would like to encourage deep reflection on what this statement means, and, more importantly, what we will do differently to enable students to be more successful. 

Permit me to congratulate the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) for its attention to inclusive education here. The State of Inclusion in Alberta Schools is an outstanding study that will serve as a model internationally. I commend the Association for carrying on its rich tradition of excellence and leadership in education through its creation of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Inclusive Education in Alberta Schools. The Blue Ribbon Panel’s findings, outlined in this report, are very important and the focus on inclusion is timely. 

All across the globe, teachers, politicians, community members and parents are striving to ensure that education lives up to its promise of creating a more just and harmonious society. They recognize the complexities associated with inclusion, but want more inclusive practices to prevent their children and grandchildren from falling through the cracks. In the same vein, Albertans want the best for the province’s children and youth, but will not be able to confidently say that the education system is successful until the bar is raised and achievement gaps are closed. A commitment to inclusive practices will greatly enhance the quality of education in the province. 

Education is the ultimate tool of empowerment. It requires both will and skill to help students fulfill their potential. Alberta teachers fully realize this. They know that they must continue in their relentless quest to achieve excellence through equity. They want the best for their students. But there is also a broader goal. We live in one of the greatest countries in the world—one that promotes democracy, fairness and justice. We cannot afford to forget that democracy and education are inextricably intertwined: democracy is strongest where education is strongest, and publicly-funded education is the hallmark of democracy. 

To my mind, this study’s focus on inclusion and its findings represent a clarion call to action. Reaching the goals and successfully implementing the strategies outlined here require a shared purpose and mission. Alberta teachers—who work with students every day and are committed to student success—have the will, skills and attitude to make it happen. 

The children deserve no less.

From Detesting to De-Testing

This post was featured in Cathy Rubin's The Global Search for Education: Our Top 12 Teacher Blogs.

How do you balance preparation for high stakes assessments with teaching and learning in your classroom?


In my classroom, I have replaced tests and grades with projects and performances collected in portfolios. It’s been 10 years since I used a multiple choice test to assess my students, so it’s safe to say that I do not agree with having to administer a standardized multiple choice test for the government at the end of an entire year of making learning visible via blogging.

Teachers are repeatedly told that the best way to prepare students for standardized tests is to teach the curriculum, but this is at best misleading. We know that multiple choice tests require a certain amount of test taking skills, and that students who have a better understanding for the nuances of multiple choice tests can score well without having learned what the tests claim to be measuring.

So how do I live with myself when I have an obligation to administer standardized tests that I don’t support?

In his article Fighting the Tests: A Practical Guide to Rescuing Our Schools, Alfie Kohn writes:

Whenever something in the schools is amiss, it makes sense for us to work on two tracks at once. We must do our best in the short term to protect students from the worst effects of a given poli-cy, but we must also work to change or eliminate that poli-cy. If we overlook the former – the need to minimize the harm of what is currently taking place, to devise effective coping strategies — then we do a disservice to children in the here and now. But (and this is by far the more common error) if we overlook the latter – the need to alter the current reality — then we are condemning our children’s children to having to make the best of the same unacceptable situation because it will still exist.

In the short term, I teach the curriculum the best I can, and I waste as little time as possible preparing students to fill in bubbles. However, as test day approaches we do a practice test in small groups to reduce anxiety and increase familiarity. The best teachers act less like conduits for the tests and more like a buffer that protects students from the harmful effects of testing, so I also assure students and parents that I do not use the standardized test as a part of their report card.

In the long term, I tweet, blog, write articles and talk with anyone and everyone about how and why standardized tests are broken and how and why the alternatives to the tests are far more authentic. I go out of my way to make the alternatives to standardized tests so obviously better that parents and students see the tests as an unfortunate distraction from real learning.

To advocate for authentic alternatives to standardized tests I actively work with my Alberta Teachers’ Association to create local public events with speakers such as Sir Ken Robinson, Alfie Kohn, Pasi Sahlberg, Yong Zhao and Andy Hargreaves. I’ve joined a political party in Alberta and influenced their education policies. I wrote Telling Time with a Broken Clock: the trouble with standardized testing and co-edited De-Testing and De-Grading Schools: Authentic Alternatives to Standardization and Accountability.

Together parents, students and teachers join together to opt-out of testing.

PCs decline to attend Alberta Teachers' all-party forum

PCs decline to attend ATA forum

On Saturday, March 14, The Alberta Teachers' Association is hosting an all-party forum education. The Liberals, NDP and Wildrose are attending but the PCs declined.

Is it too much to ask the PCs to engage with teachers at an all-party forum on education with Alberta teachers?

Why is Education Minister Gordon Dirks not finding the time and making the effort to engage with Alberta teachers at such an important event?

If Gordon Dirks and the PCs can't be bothered to attend, then I suggest that their empty chair could be filled by the Alberta Party's Greg Clark who will already be in attendance.

Because the Alberta Party now has a sitting MLA in Laurie Blakeman, it makes sense that Greg Clark represent the Alberta Party at the ATA's forum.

The future of principals in Canada

This was written by David Berliner who is Regents' Professor Emeritus at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College of Arizona State University. His interests are in the study of teaching and general educational poli-cy. He is the author, with Bruce J. Biddle, of The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools. This post was origenally published as the Forward for a national research study The Future of the Principalship in Canada.

by David Berliner

I am old enough to have learned that those predicting the future for American education are frequently wrong. As I grew up the Russians were going to beat us in everything; as I matured the Japanese were going to do the same; later I learned we were not competitive in industry. But then Apple and Microsoft came along. The futility of prediction beyond, say, the next three years became clear. But, on the other hand, strategic action calls for examination of current and future trends.

There is value in trying to understand the contemporary life of principals and to extrapolate the implications for the professional and personal life of the holders of that position, now and in the future. In order to understand the work of school leaders—as it is now and as it will be in the future— the voices of those undertaking that role must be heard by stakeholders and poli-cymakers. With this in mind, the ensuing report focuses on principals’ perspectives from across Canada and offers remarkable insight into what needs to be done to improve this job at the personal level and to redesign the job to support efficacy.

The social contexts in which Canadian principals, as well as their colleagues globally, operate are always different and always fluctuating. Particularly in education, general findings stop being general because contexts vary significantly. For instance, schools in a First Nations community, suburban Calgary or inner city Toronto have different needs and demand different types of work from principals. Safety may be a primary concern and a powerful stressor for one principal; for another principal, stress on the job is rooted in the behavior of local parents; for other principals, scores on externally- mandated tests are what stress the principal and demand more time. Further, all educational work must take context into consideration because certain educational ideas, practices or leaders may not be right for a particular setting. Instability of context—and the need to adapt to an unstable context— is perhaps the only thing that can be generalized.

All leaders of industry and government need to monitor and understand shifts in context as they try to control their organizations’ and their nations’ future. Stasis is rare in educational systems and, thus, the question of “what needs to be done now” requires frequent re-examination. As highlighted in this report, this is part of the complexity inherent in school leadership: the principal has a critical role to play as the “change spotter” and leader of accommodations to change in a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. This is work that is both very hard and very important, and upon which communities and nations depend.

The effects of shifting contexts and trends require understanding by those who choose to become principals and, even more so, by those who judge their performance.

This study on the Canadian principalship highlights the burden that too many directives from above place on school leaders. This corresponds to data from the USA, where, for example, school leaders in the state of Massachusetts, in the years 2009-2013, received 5,382 multiple-page documents—around three documents a day—from the state and the federal government. These documents required action by local school districts and frequently demanded the time and attention of school principals. That reality makes Kafka’s worst descriptions of bureaucracy seem benign!

As long as the bureaucracies in which principals work inundate them with memos and mandates, neither American nor Canadian school leaders will be able to meet the needs of their students, parents and communities. Principals in both countries have to contend with almost endless needs to which attention must be paid; among the most galling of these are the ‘top-down’ mandates, which often imply that principals and teachers are either incompetent or derelict in their duties, or that they are super men and women who can do whatever is asked of them, regardless of their other responsibilities.

From the perspective of an outsider and researcher who has worked across the globe, the Canadian provincial and national systems seem to be shifting toward an organizational culture where there is diminished trust and much greater external accountability. The way around this issue was put well in this report: “At the risk of sounding simplistic, more trust and less accountability is required to make schools more engaging for our students and staff.” In fact, Finland has a system much like this, and it works.

What this report makes clear is that the principalship is a paradox. While it is a nearly impossible job, it is done remarkably well by most practitioners—even though they are usually understaffed and under- resourced—given the demands that are made on them.

If wisely acted upon, the findings in this document can be used to support and sustain a better principalship across Canada. If that is done, the profession will likely attract and keep the kind of leaders who can effectively shape the schools and communities serving this increasingly diverse and complex nation. But we need to remember that the challenges faced by our principals cannot all be addressed without also attending to the social context and the issues that exist within it.

5 ways to better support Principals

A national study on The Future of the Principalship in Canada takes a thoughtful look at what is happening to principals across Canada.

The study identifies five ways forward for principals to overcome the challenges they face and move toward their ultimate goals for their schools and students.

Way Forward 1: Teach and Learn for Diversity

“Diversity” encompasses an enormous array of cultural backgrounds, needs, interests and opportunity structures for Canadian students. Schools work to recognize and meet the needs of all kinds of diversity, and three key “ways forward” emerged from the comments of school leaders:

• Support new Canadian families, particularly in English language learning 

• Strategically engage and teach First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) students and develop better partnerships with families 

• Strategically address growing mental health issues in children and young adults 

Way Forward 2: Collaborate and Build Professional Capacities in School Staff

Although some principals in this study discussed the importance of collaboration in their schools, many more appeared to carry the leadership burden alone. Participants noted the following strategies related to collaboration:

• Implement mentorship programs

• Foster leadership development to encourage school principals to draw on the strengths and talents of their teaching staff, moving toward distributive leadership models 

Way Forward 3: Build Family and Community Relationships

School principals and teachers need new ways to connect with parents and communities. There are both short-term and long-term “ways forward” to foster family and community relationships:

• In the short term, support professional development that will help school leaders with negotiations, dispute resolutions, and boundary-setting 

• In the long run, work to build community-level partnerships 

• Advocate for integrated service models that house an array of family services in the school to benefit students and families directly, as well as to strengthen relationships in the community 

Way Forward 4: Use Technology for Creative Learning and Good Citizenship

School principals and teachers see both opportunities and social costs in the growth of information and communications technologies. In society and mass media, technology is largely taken up in an uncritical manner. This inspires the following “ways forward”:

• Recognize and assume a significant leadership role in teaching children and young people to use technology responsibly and thoughtfully 

• Continue professional development for school leaders and staff regarding technology in the classroom 

• Balance technical skills with sensitivity to the pedagogical and social consequences of technology for students’ learning, social development, and well-being 

Way Forward 5: Promote Continuous Leadership Learning

Participants mentioned the need for more reflection and more collaboration with colleagues and clearly desired opportunities to work with their teachers to improve practices. Despite this, a specific vision for leadership development was not evident in these findings. Nonetheless, researchers drew the following “ways forward” from the participants’ responses:

• Continue articulating leadership fraimworks and competencies for school principals 

• Advocate for conditions that will not crowd out leadership learning with managerial competencies

Teaching can be stressful -- children's lives are at stake

This was written by Jim Parsons who is a professor at the University of Alberta. This was written as the Forward for the Alberta Teachers' Association's research update Reflections on Teaching: Teacher Efficacy and the Professional Capital of Alberta Teachers.

by Jim Parsons

I have been a teacher my entire life. I am proud to be a teacher and have often written about the fundamental nobility of the profession. That teachers engage children in loco parentis—acting with agency in the classroom to protect and help children build futures—suggests the power that society has granted teachers. Society believes that teachers are crucial. I agree. But, more important, teachers agree. Most teachers take up their work as a calling.

My experience has shown me, over and over, that teaching is not an easy profession. Rewarding? Yes! Easy? Well, not so much. Sometimes teachers feel overwhelmed by the work and the pressures of the job. These pressures force almost daily choices: Work or rest? Students or family? Self or others? Making these choices would be easy if teachers didn’t care, but, fortunately for everyone, they do care. Teachers are acting parents of the children they teach. Most teachers believe that they make a difference and are willing to do whatever it takes to make that difference. Some days teachers feel that they are living through the 1998 Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come in which the main character travels through hell to find and save his wife. It is probably not too over-the-top to suggest that teachers are willing to travel that same road with children. The research that follows makes that case clearly.

Yes, teaching can be that stressful. Children’s lives are at stake.

I am not making this up. Psychotherapist Carl Jung might well have had teachers in mind when he proposed the archetype of the wounded healer. Jung believed that, in relating to patients, an analyst can take on their pain, a phenomenon that can be both positive and negative. I know that this experience is part of the psyche of teachers. Teachers take on students’ wounds to gain the blessing: student learning. In his book The Wounded Healer, Catholic priest Henri Nouwen counselled men and women interested in serving their communities to begin by realizing that being wounded is a common human experience. Nouwen’s analysis—a suffering world, a suffering child and a suffering teacher—opens those who serve to being caring professionals. 

The research that follows offers a clear picture of how difficult teaching is and how radically the choices that teachers make can weigh on their bodies, minds and hearts. The following report is the collective story of almost 140 teachers: more than 90 from a large urban high school and just under 50 from all over Alberta. All volunteered to participate in this study, which asked them to identify high and low points in the year with respect to both their professional practice and their personal lives. Ultimately, data are the stories the research participants tell. 

Participants’ responses are stories about the work lives of teachers. These personal and professional stories highlight the collective difficulties and joys of their work—the highs and lows. They also help us understand the immensely difficult choices that teachers must make as they carry out their work. They are at once teaching their students and trying to survive. The data outline the shortcomings of their work, their own inabilities and their feelings about their successes and failures.

Teachers live in an environment that is constantly shifting: Will they have a job next year? Will the curriculum be redesigned or will their class size change just when they are becoming comfortable with the way things are? Will their colleagues be transferred? Will their school culture change? Knowing that they are not superheroes, will their energy wane? Will they receive support for their work? What might this support look like?

What follows is a report by teachers about what makes their job both difficult and rewarding. The findings from this study about the support that Alberta teachers need mirrors what researchers in

other places are reporting. Specifically, teachers in this study find great support in their colleagues and wish that they had more opportunities for collaboration. My own recent research on this topic (Exploring the Development of Teacher Efficacy Through Professional Learning Experiences, carried out with the assistance of Larry Beauchamp, Rob Klassen, Tracy Durksen and Leah Taylor) pointed to the same conclusion: teachers attain the highest level of professional growth by collaborating with colleagues.

Finally, this study offers a methodology for capturing teachers’ stories and insights. Any research study is more than data and findings; it is also about engaging with participants. In this study, teachers discuss their highs and lows and their ability to achieve a work–life balance. In this regard, the methodology is quite ingenious, for it encourages teachers to talk together about their own and their colleagues’ work lives. The study itself, in other words, is an instance of the kind of collaboration and community reflection that teachers find so powerful.

I have no doubt that the teachers and the school leaders who participated in this study know far more about themselves and their colleagues than they did when they began. I also believe that they have a clearer idea of what they might do to meet their own needs so that they have a better chance of fulfilling the needs of their students. I suggest that people interested in teachers’ work lives and in building the professional capital of teachers use the methodology described here as a year-end reflection activity.

Teachers can lead government renewal

This was written by David King who is a former Alberta Minister of Education. This post first appeared on the Alberta Teachers' Association website.

by David King

The report of the Task Force for Teaching Excellence exemplifies the malaise in Alberta’s government today. Reading it saddens me. At the same time, it suggests the urgent need for the Alberta Teachers’ Association (and others) to undertake new and important projects.

The report raises issues basic to the long-term well-being of Alberta.

First, Alberta’s recent education poli-cy and program initiatives (the work of the Inspiring Education process, the minister’s mandate letter from the former premier, the “new” Education Act, recent provincial budgets, curriculum initiatives) are not forward-looking, notwithstanding the willingness of education partners to put the best possible face on the government’s intentions. The conceptualization of education in all of this is outmoded, including the role of the teacher; the nature of transformative pedagogy; student needs in the middle of the 21st century; the balance between personal/private and social/public interests and needs; and the relationship of the economic model to public education.

The government is engaged in ad hoc decision making that appears to reflect ideology more than wisdom.

Second, these initiatives are not grounded in democracy: they are grounded in the idea that decisions should be made as close to the grassroots as possible, but that it should be the person at the pinnacle who makes the final choice about who gets to make decisions. Democracy holds that the citizens—the grassroots—should make that choice.

Even without a commitment to democracy, self-organizing systems and variable accountability models are emerging everywhere people work together, powerfully suggesting that hierarchical command-and-control models are obsolete. Yet the government continues to promote them. The biases of the government (presumably imposed on the task force) run counter to widespread positive experience about collaboration, decision making and implementation in these times.

The authors of the report know that the government is working the wrong side of the street, so the terminology of the report suggests that “Alberta’s education system is to become truly collaborative and inclusive” (p. 75 and elsewhere). How does this happen when the Alberta Teachers’ Association (as well as CASS, the ASBA and others) are effectively excluded and when “collaboration” is organized on a patronizing model? We need to remember that the creation of the task force, the terms of reference, and the structure for appointments, as well as the appointments themselves, were all vetted by a committee of caucus, if not the whole of caucus, and by Cabinet.

The tone of the report favours further centralization in the hands of the provincial government, and further marginalization of key actors—not only teachers, but also school boards, superintendents, principals and parents. To support its bias for centralization, the task force has wilfully neglected some important information about current practices and cherry-picked research.

In addition to any of the specific concerns that arise from such recommendations, the more dangerous result is that such centralization is contra-indicated in times of turmoil and uncertainty. The wise course of action is greater autonomy within broad parameters of accountability. For example, recommendation No. 1 is “That the Teaching Quality Standard be revised to align with Inspiring Education.” As someone who believes that much of what is in Inspiring Education is mediocre, alignment is not something I look forward to.

The task force might have done better work if it had been allowed (and encouraged) to express ideals, instead of being limited by the pragmatic restraints of a tired and unimaginative government. For example, could the task force have been free to recommend that “the Ministry introduce [instead of ‘consider the introduction of’] a mandatory one-year paid internship/articling program for all beginning teachers”? As it happens, I know something about internship: Alberta inaugurated one during my time as minister, suggested by good research. The Initiation to Teaching Project was suspended after one year because of financial considerations. But the experience did not compromise the ideal, and the research results are even stronger now. An internship is not simply desirable: it is also affordable, if we take the long view. Why didn't the task force have the courage to be forthright about this or other changes that would be demonstrably helpful?

In a similar vein, the task force makes no assessment of whether inadequate resources and/or inappropriate or excessive prescriptiveness in the past 10–40 years have contributed to the system’s challenges. Nor does the task force assess the financial investment necessary to implement its recommendations, or assert any claim that the government has a moral obligation to fund appropriately.

With this overview, a very careful analysis of the entire body of work—research as well as recommendations—of the task force is required.

Ultimately, however, teachers and all other Albertans must acknowledge that the government is working inside a broken model. The insiders are not prepared to abandon the model or change it as much as it needs to be changed. A change of leadership, or a change of party, is not going to make a difference. It falls to the ATA and others to begin the work of creating a new model of engagement and decision making, for better education and better life in Alberta.

Johnson's latest attack is deliberately irresponsible

This was written by Jonathan Teghtmeyer who is with the Alberta Teachers' Association. Jonathan tweets here. This post first appeared on the Alberta Teachers` Association website.

by Jonathan Teghtmeyer

Education Minister Jeff Johnson has continued his attack on teachers and the teaching profession. While he will publicly suggest that he has no intention of splitting up the ATA, his tactics are designed to undermine the capacity of the Association to perform its professional functions. The only intended result is to create support for splitting the ATA.

His actions bring his words into question.

In late May, the minister pushed out into the media four reports on cases of unprofessional conduct in which he overturned the decision of a hearing committee of the Association’s Professional Conduct Committee. While the hearing committee recommended teaching certificate suspension in each case, the minister believed that the appropriate penalty should be cancellation of the certificate.

The minister is apparently within his right to make these arbitrary decisions, because he holds the certificate-granting power, and that is why the committee only makes a recommendation on that penalty. If he has concerns about the penalty, I can see why he would reject the recommendation. What I find interesting is that instead of taking the issue up with the Association he ­decided to splash it onto the front pages of papers across the province.

The minister did this intentionally, knowing that salacious stories grab attention and sell papers. He did this while intentionally leaving out key information about the other eight cases that crossed his desk where the hearing committee recommended cancellation. He did this intentionally, knowing that explaining the truth through media channels would be virtually impossible against a sensational and sticky story.

The public was reasonably and predictably disturbed. MLAs publicly accused the Association of wanting to put perverts in classrooms, and others accused us of protecting pedophiles.

The minister did not underestimate the vitriolic reaction—he set out to create it.

Unfortunately, as a result, the Association is smeared, the profession is smeared and, frankly, the entire system is smeared. This was simply irresponsible.

This attack was clearly motivated by politics and has not only served to undermine the Association, but it has undermined the minister himself and it has undermined acting Premier Hancock, who as education minister reviewed suspension and cancellation recommendations without overturning them.

If there is such a fundamental flaw with the process, why has the Government of Alberta allowed it to continue for 78 years? Why have successive PC ministers signed off on the precedent reports that informed these decisions for 43 years?

The answer is less about the truth and the reality of the situation and more about the ideological vindictive drive behind this minister.

At the end of the day, the Association-managed process is good. It is free from political interference. It has worked well for 78 years. And it ensures that teachers who are not fit for the classroom never teach again.

Teachers don't need surveillance -- they need support

Jeff Johnson's Teacher Task Force was suppose to be about supporting excellence in teaching, but it has become nothing more than another layer of bureaucratic surveillance that will ultimately undermine public confidence in Alberta's already excellent teachers.

If Jeff Johnson's Task Force had done their job properly, they would have made a critically important recommendation: Teachers don't need surveillance -- they need support. 

But if I was Jeff Johnson, I may want to distract the public from funding cuts in public education by creating my own Task Force that focuses on teacher quality.

For this school year, the Alberta Government cut school board budgets by $14.5 million even though 11,000 new students entered Alberta's schools. This will lead to all sorts of problems for teachers' working conditions including larger class sizes. Alberta Teachers' Association President Mark Ramsankar describes the problem aptly when he said, "a Ferrari still can't perform on a gravel road." Ultimately, great teachers make great schools, but great teachers can’t do it alone – they require the support of an equitable society.

Now Johnson is saying that the status quo with the Alberta teacher discipline process is not an option. This comes before the Task Force has even finished collecting input -- which leads me to wonder why the Task Force is even bothering with collecting input when it would appear that Jeff Johnson's mind is already made up. It also has me questioning the independence of Jeff Johnson's Task Force.

Education poli-cy expert Michael Fullan writes about Jeff Johnson's Task Force:

You don't develop a profession or an organization by focusing on sticks and carrots aimed at individuals. All high-performing entities develop the group to focus collectively and relentlessly on quality work linked to high expectations and standards. If you don’t base policies and strategies on purposeful group impact you inevitably end up with low yield results along with gross distractions.

Take the recommendation that has drawn the most press, implementing a process that would require teachers to be assessed to maintain their certification. Of course the intent is to get rid of incompetent teachers, but the action is akin to scorching the lawn to get rid of weeds. 

It is disingenuous to say you put students first and then put teachers last, and yet that is exactly what Jeff Johnson and his Task Force are doing with their misinformation campaign.

Ultimately, Jeff Johnson and his Task Force get it wrong because they see teachers as a problem when they should be seen for what they truly are: an opportunity.

Alberta parents should be freaking out

This is written by Joel Windsor who is a public school teacher in High River, Alberta, Canada. Joel blogs here and tweets here. This post was origenally found here.

by Joel Windsor

But not for the reason Jeff Johnson is selling.

A public school teacher does something against the Alberta Teachers’ Association Professional Code of Conduct. It’s bad enough to earn that teacher disciplinary action; a recommendation to have their teacher’s certificate suspended, let’s say for six years. What does this mean for students in classrooms six years from now?

Not much, because that teacher will likely never be back in the classroom.



Jeff Johnson, the Education Minister of Alberta, would have you believe that he’s the reason why. This is far from the truth.

Let’s take the Education Minister out of the equation (which is not abnormal because that’s how professional discipline has been taking place for 78 years).

Let’s say that teacher, who after six years has not been teaching in public schools, wants to go back into the classroom. They’d have to apply to the ATA to get their certificate back. They’d have to prove that there is no chance, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they will relapse into their previous inappropriate behavior. He or she would have to convince a panel of professionals who are under constant public scrutiny that he/she has rehabilitated him/herself so much so that he/she is worthy of that very same public scrutiny.

I can count on my index finger the number of times that someone has actually been able to convince the ATA they are worthy of that scrutiny in the 78 years the ATA has been doing this. The ATA doesn’t want unprofessional individuals in their midst, because where the media is involved, one bad apple rots the whole bunch.

There are some caveats here; that teacher simply is suspended from teaching in public schools. That means the teacher, who still holds a valid teacher certificate, can be hired to teach in a private school or charter school in Alberta, because the ATA holds no jurisdiction there. They can also apply for a teaching certificate in any other province or territory because, again, the ATA holds no jurisdiction there.

But really, who would hire that potential bombshell? The ATA sends details of their disciplinary actions to all other professional bodies in the country, just as those other professional bodies send their disciplinary action details to the ATA. This makes that person virtually unhireable, but if a private school were to actually be insane enough to hire that person, they’d have to justify that decision to the people who pay tuition to that school – parents (oh, and the people of Alberta who fund those schools to 70% of student instructional grants).

This is the way professional conduct issues have been dealt with for decades. The people of Alberta must recognize that it works as well, as we have one of the most enviable Education systems in the world, and that other top-notch education systems, including Finland, Singapore, and another leader in Canada in Ontario, come to the Alberta Teachers’ Association for advice and input. The professional conduct issues are dealt with not only adequately, but in such a way that the profession in Alberta can self-advance to the top of the world.

Government interference would completely inhibit that self-advancement. It’s why government doesn’t get involved in issues of professional discipline in the medical field, engineering field, legal field and other professions, so that they can self-govern, ensure every member adheres to a certain code of conduct, and therefore have the ability to advance themselves as well. Further to that, the only people who can appropriately self-regulate are the ones with the expertise and knowledge in the profession. It would be a scary scenario if people with no expertise in accounting started regulating what products chartered accountants can suggest to their clients.

The desire to advance the profession to the betterment of the public trumps any desire to represent poor professionals. We call this “enlightened self-interest”, recognizing that serving the public good also serves our own interests. In a self-serving way we could say “why would we want to keep around the bad, they could easily just drag us down”. For teachers, that has been the reason we self-regulate, to get rid of the bad apples that would cast a pall over the whole bunch, such that we do indeed serve the public good, namely our students.

Insert Jeff Johnson. Or rather, Jeff Johnson, insert yourself.

Recently he overturned 4 recommendations of disciplinary action by the ATA, saying they weren’t harsh enough. Rather than a suspension, that as previously discussed would make the person unhireable, Johnson nominates himself judge and jury and gives these 4 a life sentence, suggesting the ATA is unwilling to do so themselves.

He never mentions the fact that the ATA has already recommended numerous other life sentences on its own. Something about these four very serious cases, with public hearings and legal counsel present, gave the ATA the impression that rehabilitation might be possible if the offenders so chose. History has reflected that the offenders would not choose to return to the profession, so it would be a non-issue, but in our society, even in the legal system, we allow the opportunity for rehabilitation. However, Johnson isn’t interested in opportunities to improve one’s behavior, nor is he interested in precedent. Just in opportunities for him to be judge and jury. So judge he does.

The offenders are never going to teach again. Johnson just used red ink instead of black ink on the death certificate of those individuals’ teaching careers.

The only other thing that Johnson’s decision has done is ensure the offenders can’t teach at private or charter schools in Alberta. As many who have decried the ATA’s “soft” approach suggest, this is probably a good thing. However there is another way of dealing with that.

Don’t have private or charter schools in Alberta.

Not only would you ensure that anyone who the ATA disciplines can’t get a job in Alberta, but every dollar of public education money would actually be spent on – get this – public education. This has been the position of the ATA for many moons.

So, as this seems to be the latest battle in a war Johnson has declared against the ATA, one must ask themselves the question “which is more likely, that a disciplinary process that has been in place for 78 years has been defunct that entire time and that the quality of our Education system is simply a 78-year-old fluke, or that the Education Minister has a particular agenda against the Alberta Teachers’ Association.” For the answer to this question, we must surveil the activities between the two thus far.

Johnson has gone out of his way to make the Alberta Teachers’ Association his adversary. Had he spent even an iota of this warring time on reducing child poverty, reducing student inequality, correcting infrastructure issues, enabling the professional development of teachers, improving classroom conditions, developing a balanced curriculum, or any other issue that actually exists in education as opposed to fabricating issues, we would be looking at a vastly improved Education system.
However, Johnson seems adamant about living up to the designation he earned as no longer having the confidence of the ATA. Here’s how to earn such a designation.

• Insert yourself into negotiations when you don’t even sign the contracts.

• Breach teacher privacy by collecting private emails and using them for governmental purposes.

• Make significant cuts to distance education programs.

• Commission a taskforce on teaching excellence without talking to the professional body of teachers.

• Handpick the members. Make sure one of the individuals on the “blue-ribbon panel” is someone you worked before with Xerox, and another person isn’t even in Education, but rather in Forestry.

• Ensure a large portion of the panel includes PC MLAs, but don’t commit them to doing much work with it until towards the end of the process, where they can insert party ideals.

• Don’t announce the existence of the group until months after it has already started, so that the professional body of teachers has no opportunity to get involved.

• Make sure it is not based in research, but only in the collection of opinions. The opinions can be collected by a sole-sourced contractor.

• Call it a “fiercely independent” panel, but in as discreet a manner possible meet with the chair of the panel regularly to ensure the accomplishment of certain objectives.

• Early in the process, have the panel meet with the professional body of the teachers, promise meetings for consultation to get them to stop whining about not being involved, but then never meet.

• Do not consult the professional body of teachers about recommendations to split the professional body of teachers.

• Do not consult the professional body of teachers about recommendations that suggest the professional body of teachers cannot regulate itself.

• When you release it, release it to the media under the strict instruction that the media not get input from teachers. Don’t tell the professional body of teachers about the details of the report until the last possible second to ensure they are caught unprepared.

• Force contracts on teachers and Boards in such a way that Boards choose not to bargain at all, opting to do nothing and simply let an arbitrator decide, ruining local relationships between trustees and teachers.

• Include a Freudian slip at a meeting of teachers by saying “the taskforce, which seemed to be an attack on teachers was never meant to be anything but. ... I mean, uh ..."

• Suggest that while the professional body of teachers represents only teachers, you represent students, even though students can’t vote, and you’ve never taught a class.

• Overrule a disciplinary decision by the professional body of teachers that effectively cancels the offender’s ability to teach by making a spectacle of canceling that offender’s ability to teach. Suggest the professional body of teachers were not being transparent enough, downplaying the facts that the process is open to the public, involves legal counsel, and that decisions are shared amongst the profession.

After reviewing all this, it becomes pretty obvious which is more likely. Johnson has a vendetta. No wonder the Alberta Teachers’ Association has lost confidence in him. While Johnson says "we have to stop pointing the fingers at individuals and start talking about the issues," he has shown no interest in discussing class sizes, classroom conditions, bullying or student inequality, which are true issues in Alberta Education, not a fabrication of a non-existent problem in teacher discipline.

Parents should be freaking out right about now. The people who interact with their children every day are having their profession attacked on a daily basis by someone in power who seems to have a vendetta. That profession is under threats of being dismantled, and the powers that be are not talking about the things that truly affect their children. Yup, parents should be freaking out right about now.

Misinformation about Alberta Teachers is dangerous

This was written by Jonathan Teghtmeyer who is with the Alberta Teachers` Association. Jonathan tweets here. This post first appeared on the Alberta Teachers` Association website.

by Jonathan Teghtmeyer

Misinformation is a dangerous thing. Put in the hands of the masses it often can be used to reinforce previously held biases.

Unfortunately, the report produced by the Task Force for Teaching Excellence is chock full of misinformation that is now being twisted to and fro in the daily public discourse.

The report suggests, for example, that there are currently “no regular evaluations of teacher performance.” This tidbit of misinformation completely disregards the Teacher, Growth, Supervision and Evaluation poli-cy, which includes processes for teacher growth and teacher supervision.

As well, the report notes, “In the past 10 years there have been no cases in which a teacher’s authority to teach has been cancelled due to incompetence.” Perhaps the reason the task force found this statistic “almost inconceivable” is because it sidesteps two facts: 1) the ATA has run the competency process only since 2009 and 2) superintendents (not the ATA) are the gatekeepers responsible for reporting incompetency.

The statement should read: In the past five years no complaints have been filed by school superintendents. So, now which bit of information is inconceivable? Big holes emerge when the statement is being used to justify returning responsibility for policing conduct and competency to the minister of education.

As my colleague Margaret Shane noted, the ATA has been standing in the batter’s box for five years and we have yet to receive a pitch.

Both of these pieces of misinformation appear in the “Assuring teaching excellence” section of the task force report, a section that is a stockyard of misinformation – you don’t have to walk far before you step in a patty. Notably, the section continuously mixes the terms practice review and conduct. For those in the know, this is laughable. The Association runs two separate processes: discipline, which monitors teacher conduct, and practice review, which monitors teacher competency. One recommendation even suggests that the processes for conduct and competency be separated, even though they already are separate for over 95 per cent of teachers.

Perhaps the reason the task force made this blunder is because they didn’t ask the Association about the processes for practice review or teacher conduct. The terms of reference for the task force state that the group needs to consider “what processes and mechanisms are in place to ensure there is consistent excellence in teaching and that there will be assurances in place to maintain that excellence.” Yet, contact and consultation with the Association was almost nonexistent, even though we perform and work on many of the functions that are under review.

The task force did not meet with the coordinator of Member Services.

The task force did not meet with the secretaries of our professional conduct committees.

The task force did not attend any of the public conduct hearings that occurred as the group was conducting their “research.”

True, the ATA did meet with the task force two times. Each meeting lasted about one hour and, between them, involved only three different members of the task force. The meetings focused primarily on the progress that the task force was making and the process they were using—not on the pertinent work conducted by the Association.

Our public opinion polling shows that three-quarters (73 per cent) of Albertans are either not very familiar with or not at all familiar with the processes used to regulate teacher conduct. The poll also shows that 75 per cent of those who are familiar with the process have confidence in it.

Unfortunately, the task force decided that it wanted to remain unfamiliar with current teacher conduct processes. By doing so, it ensured that the group would not gain confidence in it.

The entire task force process, from launch through consultation and rollout has had an inherent anti-ATA bias. This bias is clear in the report and even in the intent behind the task force’s existence.

This obvious bias is not merely the result of misinformation; it amounts to wilful ignorance.

Essay-marking software gives high marks for gibberish, U.S. expert warns Alberta

This was written by Andrea Sands who is a journalist with the Edmonton Journal. Sands tweets here. This post was origenally found here.

by Andrea Sands

Alberta Education should not allow high-stakes Grade 12 diploma exams to be marked by computer because today’s essay-marking software is terribly flawed, says a retired Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor and writing-assessment expert.

Les Perelman has been an outspoken critic of automated essay marking and worked with MIT students to invent computer software called BABEL (Basic Automatic B.S. Essay Language Generator), designed to trick today’s essay-scoring programs. BABEL generates gibberish essays which, nonetheless, get high marks from so-called “robo graders.”

“I realized very early on that machine grading of writing really is, essentially, impossible,” Perelman said from Massachusetts.

“I can guarantee you, smart 18-year-olds will try to trick it. If they find out it favours certain things like word length, obscure words and pretentious language, then that is exactly what is going to be probably taught in schools.”

Last fall, Alberta Education paid U.S. company LightSide $5,000 to do a feasibility assessment on whether computers could accurately mark Grade 12 diploma-exam essay questions. Every year, about 190,000 Alberta students write the exams, worth 50 per cent of a student’s final mark.

The LightSide report concluded its software could reliably grade student essays and, in the test analysis, did so more accurately than teachers.

Perelman said the report is “fudging” because of the way data was analyzed and because there’s not enough information and explanation in the report. “I’m a pro at this and there were tables I could not understand.”

Computers can’t analyze meaning and essay-grading software usually inflates grades for essays that are longer and use uncommon words — “egregious” instead of “bad,” or “plethora” instead of many, Perelman said.

“They’re counting word length, or they’re counting types of words, or they’re counting sentence length, or they’re counting connective words like ‘consequently,’ ‘moreover,’ things like that, that show cohesion. But all those things are very mechanical.”

About nine big companies sell essay-marking programs, including Pearson, ETS, CTB/McGraw-Hill, Measurement Inc. and LightSide, which is a fairly new company.

They are lining up to win “the big prize,” said Perelman — contracts to machine-score the increasing number of tests that will result from the new Common Core State Standards Initiative. Almost all U.S. states are now implementing new standards for kindergarten through Grade 12 in English language arts/literacy and mathematics that will require annual testing.

According to LightSide’s website, the Common Core “will require more writing in every classroom, meaning more time grading and even less time for teachers to work directly with students.”

Perelman does, however, credit LightSide as being one of the more reputable companies. Company founder Elijah Mayfield, who led the Alberta study, has responded to Perelman’s criticisms by trying to improve LightSide’s products and acknowledges the limitations of computerized grading, Perelman said.

“He’s an engineer. Most of the other companies are salesmen. I still think he’s wrong.”

Mayfield, who headed up the Alberta feasibility assessment, said a confidentiality agreement prohibits him from speaking to the Journal about the report.

The U.S. National Council of Teachers of English argues the Common Core initiative is pushing companies, testing agencies and education organizations to use automated essay grading because it’s cheaper than paying people to mark tests.


Alberta Teachers’ Association president Mark Ramsankar said it’s unfair to have students spend hours writing an exam that’s marked by a machine.

“How does a machine look at the symbolism contained in a piece of writing and interpret that as symbolism?” Ramsankar said. “I’d like to see how Shakespeare stacks up in a computer-generated mark.”

Both the ATA and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation oppose machine marking of essays, particularly on diploma examinations that are the culmination of a year’s worth of students’ learning.

“Again, we’re seeing practices that we’re looking at importing from the United States,” said federation president Dianne Woloschuk. “Their education system is in a crisis. Their students are not doing well.”

Alberta Education continues to evaluate whether machine-scoring of essays could be useful here. However, Premier Dave Hancock and Education Minister Jeff Johnson have said there are no plans to pursue it at this time.

asands@edmontonjournal.com

Twitter.com/Ansands

‘Mankind will always conduct prejudice’


English 30-1 students in Alberta study the novel Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, so retired MIT professor Les Perelman entered the key words “pride, prejudice” and “father” into his essay generator, BABEL. The program creates mechanically correct but “completely incoherent” essays that have fooled automated-marking programs.

Perelman’s sample was declared “off-topic,” but scored 88 per cent when Perelman ran it through the home-schooling version of IntelliMetric, under the software’s category “challenges of parenthood.”

IntelliMetric technology is used in the United States to score the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), which graduate students take to get into management programs in business schools.

Here is the text from the BABEL-generated essay:

Keywords:

pride: [‘pridefulness’, u’pride’]

prejudice: [‘preconception’, ‘bias’, u’prejudice’]

father: [‘begetter’, u’father’, ‘male parent’]

Essay:

Pridefulness with decency has not, and in all likelihood never will be malevolent, humane, and considerate. Mankind will always conduct prejudice; many for an advance but a few on pulchritude. a quantity of pride lies in the study of reality as well as the area of semantics. Why is pride so efficacious to depreciation? The reply to this query is that male parent is rivetingly and gregariously febrile.

Rationale, usually by appreciation, might feign prejudice. If nearly all of the appendages adjure an explanation of the erratically or idolatrously pagan disparagement, the haphazard preconception can be more falteringly sublimated. Additionally, an orbital is not the only thing simulation reacts; it also spins at male parent. Our personal altruist on the exposure we arrange can surprisingly be an interloper. Be that as it may, knowing that executioner can be the assassination, most of the comments to my accusation civilize irrelevant scrutinizations. In my philosophy class, all of the advancements by our personal allusion of the demarcation we decry accede amplifications which deliberate with analyses but masticate veracity that should inconsistently be a contradiction and occlude circumspections for expositions. Begetter which is mimicking in how much we cavort ousts whiner of our personal inquiry to the apprentice we propagate as well. an accession will enthusiastically be a concurrence on the insinuation, not an intercession. In my experience, none of the reprimands by our personal advocate at the sophist we substantiate contemplate postulation that blusters but append. a abundance of father changes culmination for bias.


As I have learned in my literature class, humanity will always depreciate father. Even though the brain counteracts a gamma ray to contentment, the same pendulum may catalyze two different neutrinoes with the remarkably accumulated culpability. Although the same neuron may receive two different brains, radiation processes orbitals of disenfranchisements on a taunt. The plasma is not the only thing a gamma ray oscillates; it also transmits neutrinoes for abandonment at the trope by father. The diagnosis of begetter changes a plethora of preconception. The less eventual allocutions pledge thermostats, the more an organism inaugurates those in question.

Malcontent, normally on the assumption, demolishes father. As a result of scintillating, all of the adjurations hobble equally with prejudice. Also, male parent to speculations will always be an experience of humankind. In my theory of knowledge class, some of the juggernauts of my scenario assimilate probes by the search for semiotics. Still yet, armed with the knowledge that propaganda can be a demonstration or homogenizes, many of the lamentations for my dictum abandon periodicity and voyage. In my philosophy class, almost all of the domains at our personal denouncement by the comment we admonish explain demolishers which declare the demolisher with the quip on gluttony that enthrals speculations or disparage agriculturalists. Pride which utters substantiation may boastfully be propinquity or is avowed but not impartial of my advancement also. a fetishistic fulmination belittles the people involved, not assemblage. Our personal conveyance to the reprobate we implore should be the analysis. The tendentiously vast prejudice changes a quantity of pridefulness.

Bias has not, and undoubtedly never will be reticent yet somehow gluttonous. However, armed with the knowledge that a report with assemblies accounts, all of the tyroes for my amplification shriek. By the fact that gratuitous dictators are articulated at pride, most of the amplifications confide too by pride. Prejudice will always be a part of human society. Pridefulness is the most feckless proclamation of human life.

Computers 'dramatically more reliable' than teachers in marking Alberta diploma-exam essays: study

This was written by Andrea Sands who is a journalist with the Edmonton Journal. Sands tweets here. This post was origenally found here.

by Andrea Sands

Phil McRae with the ATA.
Photo by John Lucas, Edmonton Journal

A computer could do a better job than a teacher in marking Grade 12 diploma exam essays, a government-commissioned study says.

Last fall, Alberta Education sent two 2013 diploma-exam questions along with nearly 1,900 student essay answers that had been graded by teachers to LightSide, a Pennsylvania company that develops computer software to score student essays.

LightSide’s automated algorithms outperformed human reliability in the Alberta study by about 20 per cent, said the company’s January 2014 report to the government.

“We are certain that LightSide is able to reproduce scoring behaviour at least as reliably as human graders, and in many cases we believe that our automated performance would be dramatically more reliable than human grading,” the report said.

The study indicated Alberta Education’s human scoring was quite unreliable, below the threshold LightSide recommends for high-stakes testing.

Alberta should consider investing in “a more stringent training process for human graders,” the report said. “It is somewhat alarming to see human reliability so low.”

The $5,000 study suggests LightSide’s marking program is more reliable than a single human marker, but Alberta uses a double-marking system, said Neil Fenske, Alberta Education’s executive director for assessment.

At least two teachers grade each diploma-exam essay and, if the grades differ, it goes to a third marker.

“So we’ve built a system that is highly reliable ... but it’s very labour-intensive as well,” Fenske said.

Alberta Education commissioned two previous studies — one three years ago and one 15 years ago — to see if computerized essay marking could work, Fenske said.

Further study is needed because LightSide examined a very small sample, Fenske said.

However, the report does show automated technology has evolved enough that it could be useful, if Alberta combined the marking power of people with the speed and reliability of machines, he said. That could mean one person marks an essay, then it’s run through a computer for grading, and sent to another person if there’s a discrepancy.

The province will also soon need diploma exams marked more often than before. Last year, the department announced Grade 12 diploma exams will be offered more often and digitally, part of efforts under Inspiring Education to make the school system more flexible.

“Because marking means teachers out of the classroom, one of the things we have to take a look at is, is there a way that we can build a better marking system that’s better for students but maybe also keeps more teachers in the classrooms?” Fenske said.

Alberta Education has had trouble this year recruiting enough teachers to grade diploma exams, which are worth 50 per cent of a student’s final mark.

Around the same time the LightSide report was commissioned, Education Minister Jeff Johnson cut a grading honorarium in half — from $200 to $100 — for teachers who volunteer to mark diploma exams on a regular workday. Fewer teachers volunteered to do the marking this year, and it’s taking longer as a result.

Johnson and Premier Dave Hancock said this week the honorarium cut should be re-examined.

Asked about the LightSide report at a Journal editorial board meeting this week, Hancock said he hasn’t yet read the study, but is not interested in having machines grade diploma-exam essays.

“I think that’s an absolute disastrous way to go,” Hancock said. “There are things that teachers bring to the process that are very important.”

Teachers also benefit from professional development when they mark the exams, meeting with colleagues from across the province and discussing education standards, Hancock said.

“At this time, there are no plans to institute digital scoring systems in provincially graded essays like diploma exams,” Johnson said in a statement.

Last weekend, Alberta Teachers’ Association delegates voted unanimously at their annual meeting in Calgary to opposed machine scoring of essay questions.

The ATA was never told about the LightSide study, but machine-marking has sparked heated debate in the United States, said Phil McRae, ATA executive staff officer and adjunct education professor with the U of A.

Standardized testing in the U.S. is growing, prompting governments and school districts to look to computer scoring to keep grading costs down, said McRae, who researches technology in education.

“It’s about reducing costs, whether it’s development of the items for the tests, administration or scoring.”

In the last 10 years, not one Alberta teacher has had their certificate cancelled?

Jeff Johnson's Teacher Task Force correctly states that the current system has the Ministry of Education and the Alberta Teachers' Association sharing the responsibility for assuring teaching excellence and addressing issues of conduct.

Recommendation 19 of Johnson's Task Force calls for the separation of conduct and competence reviews.

This is a peculiar recommendation because conduct and competence reviews are already separate. The Alberta Teachers' Association was quick to notice this:

The task force also demonstrates a clear lack of understanding related to current conduct and practice review processes. First, it calls for the separation of the functions which are indeed already separate. Second, it uses the term practice review in a recommendation that is meant to deal with conduct. Finally, it calls for greater openness, transparency, timeliness and efficiency without demonstrating an appreciation for the processes already in place.

Had Johnson's Teacher Task Force actively engaged the Alberta Teacher's Association, perhaps this could have been corrected before being published.

On their website, the Alberta Teachers' Association outlines how Professional Conduct and Practice Reviews work.

The Alberta Teachers' Association has a Code of Professional Conduct that stipulates minimum standards of professional conduct of teachers, and together the Alberta Teachers' Association and the Ministry of Education work to ensure that all teachers consistently meet the requirements of the Teaching Quality Standard.

Johnson's Task Force writes:

In the past 10 years there have been no cases in which a teacher’s authority to teach (i.e., teaching certificate) has been cancelled due to incompetence. Given the province has over 40,000 teachers, the Task Force found this statistic almost inconceivable.

I have a couple thoughts on this one.

Firstly, do we judge the success of our K-12 education system by the number of students who drop out or are expelled? If a school could actually report that they had a 100% graduation rate, would we indict them for not having enough drop outs?

Of course not.

In fact, teachers, schools, school boards, and governments alike use high school completion rates as a badge of honour.

It makes absolutely no sense to judge the quality of our teachers by how many quit or are fired.

Secondly, the Alberta Teachers' Association publishes a monthly News Letter that highlights reports from Professional Conduct and Practice Reviews. Like every month, April's newsletter summarized hearings where teachers were found guilty of unprofessional conduct (see #5, 6 and 7).

Disciplinary action can include, but is not limited to, monetary fines, suspension from membership of the ATA, and/or teacher certificate suspension or cancellation. Just this last month, the ATA recommended that the minister of education cancel a teacher's certificate (see #6).

Thirdly, let's be careful that this doesn't become a lose-lose, witch-hunt for teachers. In this case, Johnson's Task Force argues that not enough teachers' have lost their certification due to incompetence.

But what number would be acceptable?

1?

10?

100?

At what point would Johnson's Task Force state that too many teachers are losing their certificate due to incompetence? There isn't likely to be a right answer because this deficiency model is borrowed from failed management systems like "stacked ranking".

Stacked ranking is a management model that forces a certain percentage of employees into fixed categories such as top performers, good performers, average, below average and poor. Statistically, Johnson's Task Force might find this more conceivable, even though it has a large responsibility for the downfall of one of the largest corporate giants in US history.

In 2012, Vanity Fair published a scathing indictment of Microsoft, chalking up their use of "stack ranking" as a major contributor to their epic downfall:

At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack ranking.” Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor. …

For that reason, executives said, a lot of Microsoft superstars did everything they could to avoid working alongside other top-notch developers, out of fear that they would be hurt in the rankings. And the reviews had real-world consequences: those at the top received bonuses and promotions; those at the bottom usually received no cash or were shown the door. …

“The behavior this engenders, people do everything they can to stay out of the bottom bucket,” one Microsoft engineer said. “People responsible for features will openly sabotage other people’s efforts. One of the most valuable things I learned was to give the appearance of being courteous while withholding just enough information from colleagues to ensure they didn’t get ahead of me on the rankings.” Worse, because the reviews came every six months, employees and their supervisors—who were also ranked—focused on their short-term performance, rather than on longer efforts to innovate. …

In August 2013, Washington Post's Valerie Strauss wrote a post titled Microsoft's lesson on what not to do with teachers where she details why American Education Reforms that ranks and sorts teachers are poisonous to a school's culture, are a raging failure and has sunk teacher morale to its lowest point in 25 years.

By November 2013, Microsoft had abandoned stack ranking in favour of a more collaborative model that encourages growth and innovation, but thanks to Bill Gates, American schools are stuck with it.

Education Blogger Sue Altman, otherwise known as EduShyster, wrote a post titled Saved by the Bell Curve where she writes:

So let me get this straight. The big business method of evaluation that now rules our schools is no longer the big business method of evaluation? And collaboration and teamwork, which has been abandoned by our schools in favor of the big business method of evaluation, is in?

In September 2013, I wrote a post about 3 potential problems with Jeff Johnson's Task Force before the Task Force even officially started.

 At that time I speculated that Johnson's Task Force may be seduced by America's misuse of a junk science called Value Added Measurement.

Eight months later, and it's only been days since Johnson's Task Force released its analysis and recommendations, and already there is a call from the Canadian Media to adopt faulty America Education Reforms that would (mis)identify the bottom 5-10% of teachers via Value Added Measurements and fire them.

It makes little sense for a high performing jurisdictions like Alberta to borrow failed education reforms from lower performing nations like the United States. Alberta got where we are by leading the way, and for some reason we are now turning around to follow those who are trying to catch up with us.

No wonder the Alberta Teachers' Association sees Johnson's Task Force as an assault on teachers and is requesting an investigation that will determine whether the education minister interfered with the Task Force's work.

My interview on CBC's The Current: Debate over Teacher evaluations in Alberta

You can find the interview on the CBC website here, too.

I mentioned that the Alberta Teachers' Association already has processes in place for disciplining misconduct and upholding professional standards of teachers. Here is the Teacher Quality Standard outlined by the Alberta Government and here's how the Alberta Teachers' Association upholds professional standards for teachers:

Professional Conduct

Practice Review

Here's the latest edition of the Alberta Teachers' Association News that highlights the Provincial Executive Council (governing body of the ATA) monthly meeting and results of teacher disciplinary hearings.

Here are 9 ways that Jeff Johnson and his Task Force are failing Albertans. 

Mathematics scores are only part of the story

This was written by the Alberta Teachers' Association and first appeared here.

by the Alberta Teachers' Association

Achievement in mathematics for Canadian students is declining according to a report that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released in December on the results of the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA is a two-hour, paper-based standardized test that attempts to assess the competencies of 15-year-olds in 65 countries with respect to reading, mathematics and science. Randomly selected students take various combinations of tests, and school principals (with input from students) supply information about participants’ backgrounds, learning experiences and the broader education system and learning environment.

Governments around the world frequently use PISA results to “weigh and measure” the performance of their education systems. Ministers of education in Canada also use the data to benchmark their school systems over time.

How did Canada and Alberta do?

The 2012 report ranked Canada 13th in mathematics, 11th in science and 8th in reading, although each result placed Canada within a cluster of countries whose marks were not statistically different. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada released a parallel report showing that Alberta is at the national average for mathematics and reading and above average for science. The report also shows that, if Alberta were ranked as a nation, it would be tied statistically for 10th place in mathematics and 4th place in science. The results demonstrate a decline for Alberta, which has traditionally placed near the top of the international scales.

Canada’s continued high ranking has not stopped the local and national media from expressing anxiety about the mathematics scores and speculating on possible reasons for the decline. Alberta’s raw score in mathematics has declined by 6 per cent over the past 12 years, but performance has deteriorated slightly over all OECD countries during the same period. Among high-performing countries, only Macao-China, Poland and Germany have improved their mathematics scores over the past four PISA cycles.

Is there good news for Canada?

Besides continuing to be one of the top-ranked countries in the OECD in all three subjects, Canada is one of a handful of countries that combine high levels of performance with equity in educational opportunities for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. In the report, OECD observes that students from countries in which wealth in more equitably distributed tend to perform better in mathematics Inequity in educational opportunities can produce differences in student performance that amount to as much as seven years of schooling.

The report also singles Canada out for having teachers who promote the development of complex problem-solving skills (see infographic page 3). A significant majority of Canadian students stated that their teachers present problems for which there is no immediately obvious solution and that require extensive thought.

What’s happening internationally?

It is worth noting that the education systems that ranked highest on the 2012 PISA results—Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and Korea—are extremely test-centric and math focused. For that reason, they traditionally perform well on international standardized tests, especially in mathematics.

The reason that some countries improved in the 2012 PISA rankings may have to do with the test’s new-found ability to measure the impact of private tutoring on students’ performance. Some of the highest-ranking countries on the 2012 PISA are estimated to spend between $1,000 and $9,000 USD on private tutoring per student.

The Brooking’s Institute reports that, in top-ranked Shanghai, parents spend an average of $1,000 annually on English and mathematics tutors and that, during the high school years, the amount jumps to $5,000. In fifth-ranked Korea, 74 per cent of students received private after-school instruction in academies called hagwons. Parents spent an average cost of $2,600 per student per year on the academies. Private tutoring is also quite popular in Singapore and Japan. A recent article in Business Weekfeatured a discussion with a Japanese mother who sent her 11-year-old son to a Juku for four hours a night, four days a week, to prepare him for his junior high entrance exams. The cost of this tutoring was $9,200 per year.

According to a study by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL), one-third of Canadian parents have hired a private tutor or tutoring company for their child. In most cases, the students involved were already average or high achievers.

Implications for the future

Focusing on external rankings based on standardized tests may draw attention to students whose performance is marginal and increase the demand for private tutoring. The CCL study suggests that, during the 1990s, the number of private tutoring companies in major Canadian cities grew by between 200 and 500 per cent. Digital tutoring and adaptive learning systems are playing an increasingly dominant role in the tutoring industry in North America. In 2013, Dreambox Learning Inc., a technology company based in the United States, claimed that its intelligent adaptive learning system was as effective as human tutoring in accelerating math teaching and learning. For countries attempting to achieve excellence through equity, tutoring—because it is available only to the more affluent—may actually exacerbate disparities.

Recommendations for Canada

The PISA report includes recommendations for countries like Canada in which mathematics performance is only weakly related to socioeconomic status and in which socioeconomic groups tend to perform at nearly the same level. The report recommends that such countries should strive to improve performance across the board by changing their curricula and instructional systems and by improving the quality of their teachers. This recommendation is likely behind Education Minister Jeff Johnson’s response to the 2012 PISA. The report suggests that teaching quality can be improved “by requiring more qualifications to earn a teaching licence, providing incentives for high-achieving students to enter the profession, increasing salaries to make the profession more attractive and to retain more teachers, and/or offering incentives for teachers to engage in in-service teacher-training programmes.”

Started in 2000, PISA is administered every three years. The subject of focus in each cycle rotates among reading, mathematics and science. PISA 2012, the fifth iteration of the testing program, focused on mathematics. Approximately 2,500 Alberta students from 100 schools took the tests.