This past week I had the opportunity to join Radio One’s On The Coast host, Stephen Quinn, and fellow panelists Ann Whiteaker, past president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils; Jerry Li, Grade 11 student from Surrey, and Peter Cowley, Senior Vice-President of Operations and Director of School Performance Studies at the Fraser Institute, in looking at the state of public education in BC. The forum, which was hosted at Vancouver Technical Secondary School in Vancouver, used the tagline “Is BC’s Public Education System Broken?” Unfortunate, because while I do appreciate the question makes good media sense, it is not a productive starting place for a conversation about what we need to do to improve upon one of the world’s top public education systems.
I would have liked more of a chance to explore the system we want, to have engaged on how to keep it moving forward, and to discuss what a greater focus on the pedagogy and practice that will be required for schooling in our future world would look like. However, the forum did highlight the passion of those who work and participate in the public education system in British Columbia. Hopefully, there will be more public input and conversations soon (and more listening to the voices of young people!) focussing on the learning our kids need and the education system this will require.
The forum podcast is available here (the forum was held in hours two and three, though there is a good interview with the Ministry of Education’s Superintendent of Achievement, Rod Allen, in hour one). There were also active, and good conversations on Twitter, which one can still find by searching #otcforum. Several thoughtful reflections on the event have also been received, including this one from Jenny Arntzen.
Finally, on this topic, in advance of the session, each of the four panelists was tasked with the homework of putting together two minutes of material describing the greatest strengths and weaknesses of British Columbia’s public education system. The notes I prepared for the conversation are below:
The greatest strength in BC is our consistent, high levels of achievement; we do really well for most kids – from graduation rates to international assessments – we are one of the top performing jurisdictions in the world. Educators from around the globe flock to BC to learn our secrets, and international students, for example, see our schools as highly desirable.
We have an incredibly diverse clientele, far more diverse now than even 10 years ago; we have been challenged by funding, yet our achievement levels have continued to improve.
And at its core, this is all about outstanding teachers and administrators – highly-skilled, dedicated, passionate teachers investigating new ways – embracing technology, and giving so much to the life of the school from athletics to the arts. There is nothing more important than the connection teachers make to students and we get that right. There is a total commitment to doing the right thing for every student – it is very impressive.
The system is not broken.
Ironically, this strength is also a weakness. It is hard to transform a system that is highly successful – why change when we are doing well? We have to come to grips with the understanding that while it may be reassuring for our kids’ schooling to look a lot like our schooling looked like, this will not prepare our kids for the world that we are in and they are entering.
We need to transform the system to a new place – more of just the same is not going to make us better; we need to connect and network the brilliant pockets of innovations blossoming around the province.
We need to address the increasing relevance and engagement gap for kids – particularly as students move to high school – kids tell us their engagement is waning.
We need to ensure the system is reflective of the world we live in with an increased focus on skills and competencies, real world learning and less content focussed.
We need to better figure out how to meet the needs of students that don’t see university as their first option after Grade 12.
To be very clear, we are in this transformation from a position of huge strength – becoming a better version of us.
Hopefully, this is the first of many opportunities this year to move conversations about public education in BC to the mainstream.
cultureofyes.ca 
I was following the comments on Twitter during the forum. It’s always interesting to hear the backchat. As a former teacher, I appreciated your comments about the strengths of our BC system, and I agree we need to break out of the industrial model and take a creative and open-minded look at how to meet students’ needs. Discouraging how the Fraser Institute just confirms my worst fears every time a representative opens his mouth.
Thanks for the kind words about the forum. I was following your thinking on Twitter and agree – we need to find ways to have discussions about the emerging new model for education, but do so in a way that recognizes our strengths – we don’t have to manufacture a crisis in our system to look to do things differently. And yes, Peter Cowley clearly has a very different view – but I have found over the last decade plus of listening to him, particularly in relation to the Fraser Institute Report Card on Schools his views have helped me better refine my views – albeit usually they are very different from his.
I was bemused by CBC’s framing of the question. I expect better of them, and S Quinn is a good broadcaster, so presumably he wasn’t responsible for the theme of the forum.
Glad you were there to speak for public education.
The Fraser Institute guy was a real piece of work. BTW have you heard of “Republic of Noise” by Senechal? I’d be curious to know your response to her general ideas. I think there’s a NYT review if you’re looking for a summary, it’s pretty counter cultural and confronts a number of current educational trends.
Regards.
Hi Spencer – yes the question made for good radio I guess . . . felt more like an American question. This of course is one of my concerns, that with all the focus on failing schools and standardization in the United States we assume because of proximity we have the same challenges in BC and Canada. I think there is greater separation between our two systems but education in North America often gets painted with the same brush. Thanks for the kind words about the conversation.
I had not heard of Republic of Noise, but since your comment have done a little bit of research on it – an interesting approach, and yes, it runs counter to some of the current “group think” mentality in education. I would believe that most in education would agree that one of the goals is deep reflection – how we get there with students is another issue. I will do some more reading, thanks for the prompt.
Spencer Capier! Imagine running into you here! Interesting topic. I think it is fair to say that your (Chris’) perspective on the system being “not broken” is aided by context. West Van no doubt has challenges but is indeed a high performing district with high functioning constituents. You yourself are a very positive person who skips over cynicism as quickly as possible and focuses on encouragement and team-building, from what I can gather. But there are districts with significant challenges, endless cycles of dissatisfaction between teachers and admin, crowded schools (immediately following school closures), problems articulating even the most basic of technology plans (or any plans), misspent funds, erosion of capacity for formal ProD, dead-end programs, confusion over attendance (or cyberbullying, or DPA, or governance, or dress code, or mobile technology), pretense of input, lack of review, embarrassing communications, blocked apps & platforms & networks, fettered leadership, disconnect between what the ministry suggests and what actually takes place, and conflicting agendas & strategies re students support, achievement, favorable learning conditions, etc. In short, some of us experience a broken system on a regular basis. These tensions, however, are usually intermittent and can be very creative and fertile grounds for change — great opportunities for leaders willing to take on the vacuum, if one is able to get past the cynicism anyways. Still, our “factory system” provides lots of good times, plenty of success and sources of pride, multiple ways to help students in need, pockets of innovation, great connections between students and educators, thoughtful caring places for students to learn, an explosion of informal ProD (some would thank Twitter for that), and lots of well-meaning attempts to fix things that are broken from trustees, parents, teachers, admin, and others. Ironically, many of the broken aspects I’ve witnessed come and go over the last 18 years sit outside of the current attempts to improve the system. Ironic because the underlying issues are often assumed to be linked to the factory model and not the culture that exists in schools and districts. Ironic because the BCEd plan has lots to say about teaching & learning but very little to say about oversight and accountability outside of the classroom. I won’t attempt a solution to school culture malaise here (although I did aim a school culture assessment tool at staff meetings last year), but I will say that the elements of brokenness in our system need to be owned by all the stakeholders, even parents, and that the paths to improvement are not as difficult or political as many would suggest. Personally, I can’t complain too much. I’ve got some great classes this year, lots of projects lined up that I hope will engage both student identity and lofty outcomes, and a local PLN of sorts made up of challenging, creative (crusty, cynical, caustic, comical) colleagues that are committed to mutual accountability and awesome ProD. We’ve created a healthy ecosystem within the larger landscape, resilient and responsive to the ups and downs.