#C21Can and the "skills" debate

This is a very good response from Tobey Steeves to a post on the C21 website by John Kershaw, the President of C21 Canada - a corporate financed education reform lobby group.

The original blog post that Tobey is critiquing is here: http://www.c21canada.org/2013/03/26/canadas-skills-gap-and-the-federal-budget/

Dear @C21Can, saw your post on 21CL + "skills gap" in Canada. Having researched teachers' work and 21CL policy in BC for my MA thesis (https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/43675), I am somewhat disheartened to see similar themes popping up in this post. Specifically, in my study of 21CL policy I found an agenda that hollowed out the role of the teacher, and re-constructed teachers' work as an instrumental relay for "workplace skills". I took great care to demonstrate how these re-constructions of teachers' work contribute to a democratic deficit in education policy, and are likely to exacerbate teacher stress and burnout, increase in-school conflicts, and encourage coercive relationships among policy actors (i.e., students, parents, teachers, admin). On this basis, I must encourage a critical eye be applied to any and all pronouncements from C21 Canada, and this post strikes me as a meaningful example of why it's vital for anyone with an interest in public education in Canada to stand in opposition to this Canadianized version of the '21st-century learning' policy agenda.

First and foremost, it's important to foreground the fact that C21 Canada represents /elite/ interests, not the interests of educators across Canada. By that I mean to emphasize that C21 Canada - like it's sister groups elsewhere - is backed by tech corporations and edupreneurs. For instance, C21 Canada's board members include executives from IBM, SMART Technologies, Microsoft and Dell. This enthusiasm for 21CL among tech corporations is significant. "All freebies from the computer industry should be regarded as you would a free sample from your friendly neighborhood crack dealer." As well, C21 Canada's partners - who likely pay a hefty sum for the 'privilege' of being such - includes Pearson, the largest edu-corp in the world. Let there be no ambiguity: C21 Canada has a corporate agenda.

But, in case there was any lingering doubt, this post by Mr. Kershaw should lay the matter to rest. By drawing on a few of the claims and assertions in Mr. Kershaw's post, I will now endeavour to highlight the distance between C21 Canada's agenda and a democratic vision of public schooling in Canada.

/"C21 Canada applauds the federal budget’s focus on skills development. Our organization has consistently stated that highly skilled people are the economic and social drivers of the knowledge and digital age and more and more Canadians are recognizing this to be the new reality."/

First, the attention to "skills" is an immediate red flag. As I have noted in a previous comment on this site (http://www.c21canada.org/2013/01/23/changing-perspectives/#comment-284), the emphasis on "skills" masks a reduction and impoverishment of education. To re-iterate, Pring (2004) understands this economic skills agenda as relying on “the bewitchment of the intelligence by a misuse of language.” Pring critiques the vocationalistic skills strategy by suggesting that a skilled philosopher is not necessarily a good philosopher. A skilled philosopher, for instance, may be quite adept at the mechanics of philosophical argumentation without actually having “anything philosophically interesting to say.” This critique holds for lawyers, authors, musicians, and other professions. Therefore, Pring suggests that “to focus on skills traps us into a limited language which transforms and impoverishes the educational enterprise.” In other words, there may be noble hopes animating the push for skills and embedded in policies, but they may actually “impoverish the educational enterprise.”

So I am immediately sensitive to the fact that C21 Canada's emphasis on "skills" may be relying on a "bewitchment of the intelligence" and contributing to an "impoverishment of the educational enterprise." Notwithstanding, an emphasis on "skills" - "impoverished" though it may be - is just one problematic feature of the very first paragraph in Mr. Kershaw's post.

/"C21 Canada will not debate the wisdom of the solutions to the current skills gap proposed in the budget; we just welcome the priority on education and human capital."/

Among the many analytically potent details in this assertion is the construction of people as "human capital". This is a very particular discursive production of what it means to be an agent with agency. Specifically, it's an invocation of 'homo economicus' - a neoliberalized vision of the social. This discursive marker illustrates that C21 Canada has adopted an economistic view of agents, and connects C21 Canada's agenda with a broader frame of research into the catastrophic impacts of neoliberal policies throughout the world. In short, this single discursive marker demonstrates that C21 Canada has an agenda that is guided by commodification and profit, and is 100% contrary with a social justice agenda.

/"However, we offer a word of caution. While the federal government’s focus on skills is welcomed, any trend going forward to limiting the national debate on closing the skills gap to the post secondary sector is a mistake."/

Again, there is a discursive allegiance with 'management talk' and neoliberalism - this time via the invocation of a "higher education sector". Mr. Kershaw constructs an imaginary monolithic composite of post secondary institutions as though they were a some homogeneous pie ready and waiting to be understood, sliced up, and exploited.

But, more importantly, what I'd like to highlight is the absurdity of this narrative of a "skills gap". It's so vacuous as to be offensive, and I think Mr. Kershaw's legitimation of the narrative powerfully illustrates the pro-corporate and anti-democratic agenda of C21 Canada.

First, it is helpful to consider what % of Canadians are unemployed? According to Stats Canada - which, interestingly enough, is getting ravaged by neoliberal policies - Canada's employment rate sits at around 62% (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/lfss01a-eng.htm). Would corporate Canada like to see 100% participation? Why or why not? What would a higher employment rate do to wages? Corporate profits? What relationship can be drawn between corporate profits and hiring practices? As profits rise - which they currently are - do corporations have a tendency to raise wages? What I mean to illustrate here is that there are political and structural incentives for Corporate Canada to have an interest in maintaining profits - not jobs or the interests of workers.

There are people with PhDs unemployed and/or driving taxis. There are folks with two MAs working as janitors. There are folks with professional credentials who work at fast food restaurants. There are more unemployed recent college graduates than at any time since the Great Depression. There is no skills gap. There is a capitalistic agenda to keep profits high. And that doesn't necessarily include the interests of workers or the public. More importantly, this corporate agenda is inconsistent with a democratic vision of schooling and teachers' work - which would emphasize the needs of the commons and the public, not the desires of the wealthy elite.

/"At long last Canada’s economic leaders are recognizing Canada’s K-12 systems as an essential element of Canada’s economic competitiveness."/

Another prime example of neoliberalism as normal and ideal: Idolizing “economic leaders” and normalizing states as competitors. This naturalization of economic values and competition is one of the key indices of both neoliberal and managerialist ideologies. It induces dis-trust among agents by encouraging them to negotiate the social as a game of accumulation, and creates the myth that there's some grande 'competition' to be won - or lost.

Beyond this point, I think it worth adding that folks with a clue do not emphasize competition as a guiding feature of social action. This is particularly true with regard to public education, where an inevitable outcome of competition is that kids lose. In so doing, the democratic purpose of teachers' work becomes subjugated beneath competition and an imposed set of de-humanizing corporatist values.

/"What needs to be done? As first steps, Provinces and Territories must infuse 21st century competencies into their targeted learning outcomes and invest in technology enabled learning systems."/

Oddly enough, Mr. Kershaw, I find strong warrant for offering an alternative injunction: What needs to be done? As first steps, defenders of public education and the commons must organize to resist the corporate drive for reforming schooling Canada.

Beyond this very substantive divergence, the above assertion is remarkable for its invocations of "invest[ment] in technology" and "learning systems".

In the first place, the emphasis on technology is suggestive of 'techno-positivism':

"The technopositivist ideology is defined as a ‘compulsive enthusiasm’ about e-learning ... that is being created, propagated and channelled repeatedly by the people who are set to gain without giving the educators the time and opportunity to explore the dangers and rewards of e-learning on teaching and learning." - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00910.x/abstract

We should also remember that "[A]fter 2 years of total and unlimited access to technology by carefully selected students whose parents had chosen the program and whose teachers enjoyed unlimited amounts of technical and instructional support, small class sizes, and half of each day to devote to preparation, the best that Apple could say about the achievement scores of ... students was that they had not declined." - Robertson (http://mathed.byu.edu/kleatham/Classes/Winter2008/MthEd608/RobertsonTowardATheoryOfNegativity.pdf)

Second, the emphasis on "learning systems" is another example of what I analyze in my MA thesis as "learnification" - a reconceptualization of everything there is to know and say about education and teachers' work within discourses of 'learners' and 'learning'. As noted by Gert Biesta, discourses of learnification help instrumentalize and de-humanize relationships in schools, and contribute to a "democratic deficit in education policy". On this basis alone, I see warrant for educationists across Canada to mount opposition to C21 Canada's agenda.

It is worth contrasting this emphasis on "invest[ment] in technology" and "learning systems" with investment in educational /resources/ (e.g., teachers, books, tech) and /specialists/ (e.g., librarians, counsellors, special ed). How many teachers have been laid off in Canada over the last 10 years? How many more or less learning specialists are there in Canada's schools, 2012 vs. 2000? What is the current level of job satisfaction among teachers in Canada? What % of new teachers in Canada are still teaching after 5 years? What % of teachers thought about a career change last year? How does that % contrast with teachers' attitudes in 2000? 1990? 1970?

I suspect that if we asked tech corporations what they would like, they might say things like "invest[ment] in technology" and "learning systems". Nevertheless, I would contend that if we asked teachers what they would help them teach better and get better educational outcomes, they might say things like "We need more educational resourcing!" and "We need more access to specialists!" One path offers a vehicle for normalizing the values of corporations, the other holds the potential of democratization and social justice. They aren not commensurable values or agendas.

Although there were many other analytically salient features within Mr. Kershaw's post, I think I have adequately foregrounded the corporate values lurking within C21 Canada's agenda and justified resistance to - not enthusiasm for - C21 Canada's "urgent call" to "modernize Canada's education systems."

#c21summit13 - More 21st century learning inc.

If you were following the tweets last week at #c21summit13 you might have been disturbed to see both who and what was touted as necessary change for Canada's public education system.

The keynote was none other than Paul Martin - a billionaire (or maybe almost billionaire, with his private ownership of Canada Steamship Lines). Martin had the audacity to wade in on the education debate with no apology for his disastrous record in office in the 1990's. It was Martin's cuts to social transfers that began the steady decline of funding to provinces and then to school boards that has continued unabated since. So how disingenuous for him to state (as tweeted out): "Do not accept the premise that education should be cut to meet a deficit - it is counter productive." That is exactly what he did (http://t.co/YYWCVDlo).

Among others who apparently should weigh in on how to transform teaching and learning in Canada were the Vice Presidents of ScotiaBank and TD Financial Group, and members of Action Canada - a Harper inspired training ground for future "leaders" backed with federal dollars - a sort of modern day, neo-liberal equivalent of Katimavik. I was approached by one of their members, Ben Paylor, a graduate student in experimental medicine. Smart I'm sure, but hardly a recognized academic expert in anything to do with teaching, learning or even a field like child psychology.

The C21 agenda is the same as that of many of the international groups touting "21st Century Learning" - a thinly veneered cover for corporate influence.

I've written more extensively on this subject in an article entitled: 21st Century Learning Inc. which has just been published in the winter edition of Our Schools, Our Selves. Please have a read here: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/ourschools-ourselves/our-schoolsour-selves-winter-2013

Corporate advertising in public schools

I noticed in the news this week that a debate is taking place in Alberta over the consideration of selling naming rights to companies for school facilities and classrooms. The administration at the Calgary Board claims the funds are necessary to create classrooms that provide hands-on learning in technology education. (http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/428011/trustee-wants-corporate-sponsorship-in-cbe-schools-put-to-public-survey/) Thankfully, the NDP education critic, David Eggan, has opposed this measure - so someone is speaking up to keep corporate ads out of schools.

Advertising in schools is extremely problematic on a number of levels. First, schools are public spaces that should serve the public interest, not corporate interests. Additionally, allowing advertising in schools can pervert a school's primary function - teaching and learning. Choices should always be made based on pedagogy, but when free materials or free equipment is offered, school administrators feel pressured, particularly when budgets are slim.

Already, schools are full of advertising - on score boards in gymnasiums, on the Coke machines in the hallways, in the resources provided free of change to teachers (such as materials on loans and credit from VISA and videos on puberty from KOTEX). But children and teenagers are such a lucrative market that corporations and businesses want more.



Here in BC a crafty entrepreneur has developed "Chatter High". It is a web site where teens answer quiz questions about companies and non-profit institutions and can use points to win prizes. To find the answer, they use a "hint" which tells them how to go to the company web site. So a student might spend ten or twenty minutes searching web sites to find the answers to get the points to win the prizes. Chatter High sells the rights to be on their service to local Victoria businesses. If you go into the Victoria airport, you will see giant billboards advertising to local businesses how they can purchase this service (see photos above). In the schools, daily announcements invite teens to sign on to Chatter High so they don't miss out on the prizes. I signed up for Chatter High, wondering if I would see Camosun College and UVic, but on my first visit the only educational institute was Sprott Shaw College, and the prizes were for local spas. Hardly the kind of thorough and useful information a student might want or need as part of their career development education. In essence, this profit making service is filtering what information is being marketed to students using school property and resources including the announcement system and the computer labs. They are making a business of selling access to students in schools. In an interview with the Saanich News, school Principal Judy Harrison had this to say to defend the use of this commercial product at Spectrum Community School: 'Harrison justifies the inclusion of businesses on the site, most which have no clear connection to education, since they’re merely providing incentives for students, such as gift certificates for gas or ferry travel.“I guess we’re all enticed by prizes,” Harrison said. “The (most) time was spent on answering the questions, so that’s where it was consistent.”' (http://www.saanichnews.com/news/159574585.html)

Across North America under funded school systems are facing increasing pressure to use advertising and charity to make up budget shortfalls. But these come with a very serious cost. In Seattle, when the Board proposed selling ads in schools, parents reacted strongly:

At a community meeting on the issue, one parent said, "Schools should be all about teaching students to make their own choices, not coercing them to buy things they don't need. Schools should not be selling my child as a consumer to corporations." 
 
Another said, "We need less materialism in this country, not more. To 'teach' children that they 'need' unnecessary commercial products is morally wrong. That this is done on commercial television is bad enough. But to do it in a public school is reprehensible." 

(http://www.ibiblio.org/commercialfree/commercialism.html)

Technology in a 21st Century Learning Inc world

Not surprisingly, technology is almost always identified as a component of 21st Century Learning. But this isn't simply adding new technology to aid in the delivery of curriculum or to allow new teaching methods. It is not a matter of adding a few computer labs or replacing textbooks with eBooks.  In the 21st Century Learning model technology defines the learning methods. It is absolutely backwards - rather than pedagogy defining if and what technologies are used, instead, it is technology driving the choices for learning. As such, it is fundamentally different than the type of technology integration we've seen in the past. It is also, ironically, antithetical to a student-centred or personalized approach because the technology is driving decisions, not student needs.

Whole books have been written on the degree to which technology should or shouldn't be in our schools, but we can consider just a few statistics to get a sense of where 21st Century Learning advocates would like to take us. A paper by CISCO provides a helpful chart documenting what media consumption Dutch teenagers do during an average day (http://www.cisco.com/web/about/citizenship/socio-economic/docs/GlobalEdWP.pdf)



The question CISCO asks is, “How can traditional modes of classroom instruction engage and inspire students when life outside the classroom has changed so dramatically? In 2007, teens in the United States spent 40 percent of their media time on cell phones, the Internet, and games, up from 16 percent in 1998. For many learners, class is the only time in their day  when they completely ‘disconnect.’” Rather than question how much is too much technology, this technology company wonders how we can increase the screen time of teenagers by filling in the one relatively screen free time - school. Meanwhile the Canadian Pediatric Society recommends a two hour screen time limit for children. Significant social issues related to screen time include obesity, mental health and even changing brain chemistry for younger children.

To sell more IT products, the 21st Century Learning advocates create a need for those products. No longer should schools spend their resource and IT budgets only on textbooks and computer labs. Anytime, anywhere, collaborative, integrated, blended learning requires a massive infusion of new IT products.

Considering just one corporate player, Pearson, we see the objectives identified in this report written by Donald Gutstein for the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation:

“According to investment research firm Sanford Bernstein & Co., Pearson is pursuing three  growth strategies. First, the company is investing in content and technology to increase its  market share of the education industry. Second, the company is restructuring away from the FT  Group and reinvesting the proceeds into the high-growth areas of emerging markets (Brazil,  India, China, South Africa) and consumer—rather than publicly—financed education. The third  strategy is new, and Bernstein predicts it will ‘revolutionize how education is delivered to  students around the world, starting with the United States.’ It is an ambitious attempt to  further commercialize education by claiming its products and services will raise student and  teacher performance while at the same time cutting spending. If successful, Bernstein argues,  ‘it would make every teacher and school student in the United States a potential customer’ by  ‘personalizing education in U.S. schools through technology and best practices.’” (http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Issues/Privatization/PearsonGutsteinReport.pdf)

Pearson appears to have the US government firmly in its corner with the launch of the ‘Digital Promise’ announced in 2011. Digital Promise, “will work with leading researchers, entrepreneurs, and schools to identify and spur breakthrough learning technologies that deliver the best results for students, parents, and teachers.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/16/21st-century-learning-digital-promise)

Without doubt there is a place for technology in schools and classrooms. It is also likely that new technological developments can provide useful tools to enhance learning. Online and blended models certainly have a place to address issues such as geographic distance and schooling in small communities with few children.

What is troubling is that rather than a broad discussion about the potential new uses of technology along with the potential risks and pitfalls, the dialogue is one-sided and misleading.

The myth of personalization

Much of the hype of 21st Century Learning centres around “personalization”. Academics such as the UK’s Ken Robinson lament that existing forms of schooling are restrictive and standardized - deadening children’s innate sense of curiosity. At the opening keynote of a recent education conference (ISTE 2012), he said:

“Humanity is essentially based on the principle of diversity. We are hugely different in our talents, our passions, our interests, our motivations, and our aspirations. The irony is, our education systems are predicated on compliance and conformity, not on creativity and diversity. I believe there are opportunities now, with new technologies as well--not only, but including new technologies-- to personalize education for every student in the system. Sometimes I hear people say, 'Well you can't personalize for everybody. We can't afford that.' But I say we can't afford not to.”

Personalization has a long history in the education field and encompasses a wide range of ideas including mastery learning, self-paced learning, and learning through multiple intelligences. It may involve student choice, student pacing, and even student selected learning objectives. However the term has been appropriated, particularly in the UK, to be more closely affiliated with computer mediated personalized learning. This causes considerable confusion in the 21st Century Learning world, as educators would likely provide a very different definition than technology companies.

The term was identified by David Miliband, then Minister of State for School Standards, in a well known speech in 2004 about UK education reform. The idea was further defined by British academic David Hargreaves who coined the nine gateways to personalized learning. But as the Alberta Teachers’ Association points out: “The close association of personalized learning and new technologies has been a central strand since the inception of the idea, and is part of the all-embracing creed of technocrats looking to enter system level educational reform. Of note is that David Hargreaves was a former chair of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, which was the UK government’s main partner in the strategic development and delivery of its information and communications technology (ICT) and e-learning strategy.”

What does technology facilitated personalization look like? It is perhaps better described using the term adaptive learning, as it typically consists of a computer program which offers adapted learning pathways based on the student’s test outcomes. Students begin with a test or assessment and the computer then develops a pathway of lessons and future tests according to the student’s current abilities. More sophisticated models will also include different potential outcomes that the student may want to pursue. Nevertheless, to describe this as “personalized” is a misnomer. In any computer learning system, there are a fixed set of outcomes the program can teach, and there are a fixed set of potential pathways a student can traverse.

There are more sophisticated versions that incorporate questions and answers with peers, online discussion groups and other features designed to mimic an in-school experience.  Nevertheless, true personalization begins with the person, not with the tool.

The myth of personalization is used to make the 21st Century Learning model attractive to parents and children. What could be better than a school system designed to accommodate every child’s unique needs? Yet that level of personalization would take many resources and would not necessarily involve any technology. It would require smaller classes, more teachers and a greater range of educational programs in all schools. Adaptive technologies are not personalized learning. Adaptive and online education systems are used to scale instruction to large numbers of children, and although they may provide multiple pathways, they are by their preprogrammed nature restricted in scope.

Corporate ethics? A tale of two choices...

It is a disturbing juxtaposition: in the same week that Facebook refused to remove hundreds of bullying comments about teenager Amanda Todd, who recently took her own life, another Internet company, ServerBeach, shut down, with almost no notice, 1.4 million blogs of teachers and students due to a copyright infringement issue.

The Amanda Todd situation is tragic. A young woman took her life at least in part due to cyber-bullying. Even after her death, harassing comments and pictures continued to appear on Facebook. Those who reported these violations which were not removed received a message:

Thanks for your recent report of a potential violation on Facebook. After reviewing your report, we were not able to confirm that the specific page you reported violates Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

The reality is that the online harassment continues, and Facebook is failing to take action that could potentially prevent further harm to Amanda's family and other teens impacted by this cyber-bullying. (see: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/investigations/facebook-speaks-out-about-amanda-todd-amid-post-mortem-bullying)

In contrast, when Pearson discovered that a blog entry contained a few paragraphs (a set of 20 test questions) of a book published in 1974, the disabling of copyrighted content was swift and comprehensive. The blog owner had failed to pay Pearson the $120 licensing fee for using the content. Even though the content was removed from that blog, there was a "cached" version somewhere on the server (but it could not actually be viewed by anyone). Within 12 hours of receiving an automated warning message, edublogs.org was disabled by the hosting company ServerBeach, in response to complaints from Pearson. This had the effect of taking 1.4 million blogs offline - blogs mostly used by students and teachers during the school day. (see: http://wpmu.org/serverbeach-takes-1-45-million-edublogs-offline-just-12-hours-after-sending-through-a-lame-dmca-notice/)

I don't believe corporations have any place in our schools, and this is a perfect case in point. Corporations have one primary interest - their own profits. When human interests compete, the playing field is not even. When corporations say they want to help students or help schools, we need to remember that they want that only so long as it is profitable for them. When interests collide, corporations will choose profits over people most of the time.

Origins of the #bcedplan - Updated

Note: This blog entry was picked up by Tyee writer Katie Hyslop, who did an excellent story available here: http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/10/05/BC-Education-Plan/

It is easy to think that we are immune here in Canada from the influence of the global "education reformers" who claim to want to improve schooling. What they really want is to reduce government expenditures, reduce public service delivery, reduce the levels of service publicly funded, and at the same time create a massive opportunity for private providers in the long sought after K-12 "market".

In fact, BC is a case study in how these ideas have been purposely propagated as part of a global strategy.

Take a look at GELP, otherwise knows as the Global Education Leaders' Program. If you are familiar with ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council - a right wing organization that is propagating reactionary legislation through all the US states), GELP will look frighteningly familiar. It is a global group of "leaders" with a vision - transform public services so they do less with less, with private partners. Kind of like Charter schools or vouchers. Except with the appearance of making things better. More 21st century.

GELP describes themselves: "GELP is a community of system leaders, policy-makers and thought-leaders collaborating to transform education at local, national and international levels, to equip every learner with the knowledge and skills to thrive in the 21st century."

They acknowledge their "partners": Promethean, a "global education company that supports teaching and learning through integrated technology and training."; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Cicso Systems Inc; the Ellen Koshlan Family Fund; and Innovation Unit, a "not-for-profit social enterprise which supports innovation in public services."

One of GELP's "Jurisdictions" is none other than BC. There is a proud link to the bcedplan video here: http://gelponline.org/gelp-community/jurisdictions/british-columbia. And a little more digging finds a GELP case study report on, yes, you guessed it, the bcedplan. You can find the whole thing here (http://gelponline.org/resources/transforming-education-case-study-british-columbia), but interestingly, the report identifies the origins of the plan:"At an international conference held in Vancouver in 2009, a team from the Ministry connected with Valerie Hannon, a director of Innovation Unit and a consultant in the Global Education Leaders’ Program (GELP). Her presentation, ‘Only Connect’, struck a chord with the BC Ministry and under the leadership of Gordon Campbell, then Premier in the Province, a series of high level meetings took place which resulted in a radical vision for transforming education in British Columbia."

So what is Hannon's view of a "radical vision"? Some insight can be found in a paper she co-authored for Cisco Systems. In "Developing an Innovation Ecosystem for Education", the radical vision is described clearly: "how to design public services that deliver different and better outcomes at a lower cost." (page 7)  This is done through "radical efficiencies", such as "a reduction in the number of interventions made by professionals", "decommissioning of space", "looking to alternative providers", and having "users of services frequently assume a more active role in their delivery, which serves to enhance the benefits of the service for these and other users and to reduce the costs of provision".

And how will the bceplan do less for less with this radical vision? Well, just one example is special education - perhaps one of the most expensive areas of our current school system. This process began back in 2002 with the elimination of targeted funding for most students with special needs. It has progressed through the decade with the elimination of class composition rules (placing a limit on the number of students with special needs in any one class to ensure integration not segregation, as well as adequate teacher time) and the loss of over 700 special education teachers.

But here is how GELP's case study describes the "next wave of reform": "Decategorisation of special needs education. In the words of Rod Allen, there will be 'no labels and no medical model. In a 21st century personalised world, I’ll tell you what a special education looks like if you can tell me what a ‘normal’ education is.'”

It is not surprising that Gordon Campbell was struck with Valerie Hannon's ideas. The past decade has been all about the same type of "savings" she describes. As the BC Education Coalition pointed out back in 2010, these "savings" took place even before the Ministry was in love with Hannon's ideas:

Between 2000/01 and 2009/10, the Education Ministry reports that BC has seen a net loss of 148 schools ("decommisioning of space")

Net loss since 2001-02 of public school teachers: 9% ("reduction in the number of interventions made by professionals")

Students with Special Needs: grad rates for most districts have declined in recent years, some by double digits (perhaps a consequence of an unrealistic expectation that "users of services" will be able to "assume a more active role in their delivery" because we apparently no longer need "labels" or a "medical model" for students with disabilities)

(Note: I wrote a related blog post a year ago...different company, same message: http://www.staffroomconfidential.com/2011/10/transformation-agenda-for-bc-education.html)

Pearson-alized learning: Guest commentary on #bcedplan

Today's guest post is from David Komljenovic, Kamloops teacher

After researching more about the origins of the BC Education plan and the proliferation of the 21st century learning mantra, I am more convinced that our message could be "BC Public Education is not for sale".

From the information to follow, there is evidence that corporations and primarily one has benefitted from the underfunding and undermining of public education. My sense is that when government attempts to create crisis in education, corporations give the appearance that they need to come and pick up the pieces. Difficult to do in BC which ranks as one of the best in the world. But the BC Ed plan may be the equivalent to the premise of Snobelen's infamous speech on "manufacturing crisis" in Ontario's public education system.

Pearson Education is the largest corporation in the education market (not that there should be a market in public education - but...). With the recent move to provide districts and charter schools in the US with personalized learning options, consider their creep into Canada and BC.

First, consider what Pearson is doing in the field of Personalized Learning (http://www.pearsoned.com/pearson-and-knewton-partner-to-advance-next-generation-of-digital-education/). In the attached article, the company Knewton joined up with Pearson to provide a diagnosis tool for students proficiency (enter Standardized Testing). If you wondered how standardized testing fits with the BC Education Plan, consider the market for standardized tests and how corporations will say that they are just using them as a toold to diagnose learner need so that their program can be personalized. The program is also a product that can be provided by Pearson or Knewton or perhaps another corporation.

Second, Pearson is involved in taking over the international assessments (PISA) that consistently rank Finland, Canada, and South Korea at the top - more egalitarian and/or cooperative systems compared to the rest of the jurisdictions. (http://www.pearson.com/media-1/announcements/?i=1485). What will corporate control of the assessments mean - haven't put my mind to that question but it is a concern.

Then consider that Pearson has taken over BCeSIS. Again, a manufactured crisis - as if BCeSIS was even necessary. It was forced upon districts who spent countless funds and ended up being a failure. Here comes Pearson to the rescue to take over the program to replace it with BCeSIS. Consider this article from the Vancouver Sun: http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2010/11/17/bcesis-and-pearson-education-better-for-teachers/ .  Enter Bill 3 - the attempt by government to eliminate privacy protections that were in place before (https://www.privacyassociation.org/publications/2011_10_21_opinion_bc_bill_could_threaten_privacy/) . The government will have a greater ability to collect information on individual citizens and share the information with other agencies (Homeland Security in the US is a concern - so it providing the information to corporations like Pearson which will have access to the software system with just about all of a student's information anyways).  

In terms of Personalized Learning in BC (which is the BC Education Plan), Pearson has already met with various districts to help provide services. Consider this article: http://www.pearsonschoolcanada.ca/index.cfm?locator=PSZqH7.

The icing on the top for government, they can say all of this necessitates them gutting our collective rights and have us worry about that while they are accelerating the sale of public education. But the real agenda, in my mind, is having corporations come in and provide (and control) funding where the government (and really the people of BC) should be stepping in.

Educational philosopher John Dewey stated "Democracy must be born anew in each generation, and education is its midwife". Media control in Canada is a concern in that few corporations control a fair bit of information, but education is all about thought. Personalized learning as a marketed program that is provided by one or two major corporations will provide one or two versions of thought - which is why the fight for professionalism is more important now than ever before.  

So while teachers have been told we cannot wear buttons or place materials on bulletin boards to express thought, a major corporation will soon have unlimited access to children for what reason other than to exploit (consider the premise in the film "The Corporation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(film).

Pearson's drive to control the world's educational needs cannot help but undermine what public education is meant to serve - which is a diversity of thought without control of any one opinion.