hi I'm Cheryle Jackson I'm joined by Michael fallen he's the special adviser
on education to ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty
and Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky his newest book is called
all systems go the change imperative for whole system
reform welcome thank you okay what is whole system reform what are we talking
about
we're talking about to at the whole system
a hundred percent of the school's and Terry oh that's forty nine hundred
100 percent in the district 72 districts
so it's the it's the school and the community is the district it's the
province
all interacting focus in order to make improvement in education
the whole system whereas we sometimes call it all systems go
get the whole system going felt a little Thunderbirds yeah
little action emotion it's very macro then right you're talking about
is this top-down is that no its not describe it
as not macro actually we came at weaver we've arrived at
in the opposite direction we started in August from the school the community
and that's okay we've got some innovative schools here and there but
they're not adding up
so then we start to work on district-wide reform York Region and
several other so we start to see that then we said well it's not going to go
all the way at the
if the province other state isn't involve the government and then when
Dalton McGuinty was elected in 2003
he said I want to do you can use all sesame foreign language but he said
I want to transform that system the public education system
so this work there the to be successful has to be very
thoroughly grounded and each and every school which it is
and so we really have it it's all parts being
equally implicated all three levels
a being equally implicated and showing up
as the new results the new teaching and the new outcomes
for students at the at the school level what is the goal
the goal is to improved the
achievement our students we call it raised the bar close the gap
so this is the moral purpose sometimes we call it and
raise the bar close the gap is on for example literacy
numeracy a engagement and lifelong learning so
if we take literacy just because thats everybody can understand that
we are talking about a increasing the proficiency
as we have done in the last seven years more and more students
so that they can read critical think understand express themselves
the show up in the standards that show up in the assessment
but then they shop in life lifelong learning we know that students who
are more literate earlier let's say by grade 3
I are likely more likely to graduate like University other post-secondary
students that don't get it right by a jade are destined for
problem so we've tried to make sure that we intervene early
cracked as much about as possible but the overall result is that have citizens
who can participate and not only and
Terry about in Canada and globally as articulate
responsible citizen source of the changes you have to make
to ensure that happens you have to have
improve teaching in the classroom
improved in terms of the the pedagogical are teaching practices that get the
better results
you have to have that you serve data
a are you know how and and personalization it's called you have to
know how each student is doing if you've got twenty five children
how each and every one of them doing and those are doing so well by name
what do we do with that problem so weird we're tying together
this better different focused on the individual
with knowledge about where that individual yes and where they need help
with the particular teaching that actually get the results
and then I love that is caused by good leadership good teaching
good literacy coaches good principles that are helping to
orchestrator what are some other barriers to this kind of change
and well there are too many actually the the
the historical barrier is is getting people to
i guess its trust and respect would be one way of putting it because
their love teacher sometimes we've said about teachers
behind the classroom door are sociologist said the privatization
teaching so teaching as a profession is growing up as
I'm teacher in this is a class in this is my domain
in order for this whole system reform to work you have to open the classroom door
metaphorically
and teachers have to see each other teaching be helped improve on that so
that's a bit scary at the beginning of
if that's not a practice so our practice a
collaboration has change the culture of the school
towards greater working together and the biggest barrier was
reducing the fear factor that teachers would have about doing that
so they would be blamed if they to write something they were allowed to take some
risks is that what you're talking about that's right we have
for example you take the word accountability which is all over that
all systems in the world
we have deliberately I'm talking about the premier the minister
myself as adviser all others have said we're going to go light
on judgment we want transparency and openness
we want accountability but we're not going to go around blaming
teachers otherwise they'll close the door again it's unfair to blame the many
ways if you haven't had a chance to help develop itself
we've said go light on judgment go heavy on capacity building
magnetar that might not have members here from all over the world
how different our systems around the world really well this is part of the
international comparison
mmm we have Andreas Schleicher who's ahead a boy CDs
assessment about comparing countries and we know that can it is doing quite well
in tears doing quite well in the top five
in the world others like united states have slipped to
20 so we we are where about interaction
and if you take the countries that are here that are doing well Finland
Singapore
those are those are countries that the practices that we're using an Ontario
are very similar in those two countries so we're getting some
confirmation that we're all on the right track as we can all see the results
Australia's just a little bit earlier in that process so that's a
another question and the United States where the Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan
and he US is really complex because it's got fifteen thousand districts and
fifty states and all kinds a other problems and and
three decades have poor performance so they got a huge uphill battle
but we want him here
partly because he said we wanna learn from material that's what he said in a
speech
but also because we're quite a few of us are working to help fill the education
system and
and US its video better education systems make better neighbors if I could
put it that way so
this is an international phenomenon and this particular conferences about
people learning from each other where that the evidence
is very up the open an explicit the evidence of the results
in the evidence how to get there now a constant debate here
in ontario has been are standardized testing we've heard some love it here at
the conference were talking about the EQAO here
Ontario I which we %um measure
yeah out now there are some education reformers who think it's the worst thing
that could ever happen to education that we've lost the trial
yeah in that what are your thoughts on that well you can if you do Iran
that is if you have heavy-handed testing that just hammers the teachers
clearly you can you lose the teacher as well as the student
but if you if you look at the data that
we CD presented about successful practices
everyone up those are using data on student learning
mainly as a strategy for improvement and that's how we use it
so so we've we have we have established that practice
up doing that and is not all that onerous if you look at the elementary
level in let's say let's just take
Junior Kindergarten to Grade A as ten years we do testing
grade 3 and grade 602 up ten years are the
ICQ a offshore but elementary teachers have asked for a moratorium for two
years they don't like it
yeah with they don't like it but itself first I'm take its not that burns many
ways to attend but that's not the main point the main point is a valuable
and and we we don't
we use it to as I said not as
accountability only but mainly to
pinpoint what needs improvement and if you don't have data on all the children
and i was just about doing something about that you can't get anywhere sure
but I get their different ways to do that as well. Finland as a random
cast for instance which what I think he said they test 10 percent of the kids
yeah they but that's their accountability measure that's not their
improvement
strategy right so they a thailand is one other
room you know rare countries that don't have so there's good in that testing and
I suppose you could say there's no testing
and and are we know that
we've redeployed the user BQ all data
when we started it was used just as a annual check person for people
we've redeployed as part of our strategy for improvement
and the results have gone up so the people that are asking for a moratorium
have that and my you have not actually like that
how it plays itself out as an improvement strategy
and and and thats that's really it with a central park has accountability
to the public can be taken care by the sampling
but even that's not as convincing to the public as full assessment
the public more so I think there's no there's no appetite in the public to
reduce test
and our our view is as long as testing is not misused
to for negative purposes are comparing schools that shouldn't be compared like
which we're not doing
as long as it's used as a primarily as a lever for
investing in capacity improvement then it has a place in so
we're not gonna take it away for strategic reasons we're not gonna take
it away for
for let's say public reasons because the public monthssydney
these days it should be more transparent I'll
it why should parents care about whole system reform such a big
concept we have an actual their kids well I don't think that should
in one way that I don't think they should care about it
well so the we'll we are using all system reform
in order to increase the share number of children who benefit
so that in that that and so this is why doesn't connect so much to the
individual parents
although I would say so we have twenty thousand more graduates from high school
that we have before the strategies
that's a lot of kids and a lot of parents so they shouldn't necessarily
but they should notice as to whether their school is good
and the better the infrastructure the better the individual school we know
a lot of the school's in there this strategy have moved up
from being having up certain proportion of students that are doing well
to to very few that are doing well so that's an improvement that the parents
in that community can notice right away and then if they step back sometimes and
think about
I think I think probably parents are satisfied to know
that Canada Ontario was number for and and satisfied not to
know that US which is number twenty or Waiting for Superman which was released
at the
Film Festival earlier this week which portrayed all the real problems there
they're quite happy to be in Canada when they say that and so in
and that general sense I think they get satisfaction about
but their most satisfaction is the individual student and an individual
school
is greatly their chances are greatly enhance that the whole system is
focusing on
overall improvement all right let's talk about the kids in the classroom for a
minute how does
something as big as whole system reform actually affect them in their class
everyday learning it doesn't you know in a
in the way that child would say ok trace the causes
but remember a whole system reform is to improve each and every classroom
so that's where the benefit is every classroom gets improved
that's that's our agenda and we've seen sheer numbers of them
improve schools the same so they
thereon I guess I'll say they're not conscious of the benefit
because they're not thinking whole system term but they because their
experience is better than it would have been if the system wasn't working on
this
that they benefit without knowing but they do benefit
what are your hopes for the future what would you like to see happen in Ontario
like to see us do two things one is keep going on but we call raise the bar close
the gap so
if you look at immigrants English language learners special education
students Aboriginal students
boys and literacy I love those subgroups that we know are we helping to close the
gap to move them up
I'd like us to keep doing that and and the second thing is
to get more innovative around literacy and numeracy there's a big debate in
this conference about
well literacy numeracy can be narrow what about the arts what about
citizenship
what about you know drama music and so forth
and that is the whole child emphasis that I see is moving more
toward so the next phase is to make it more
rounded a more thorough the borehole child we sought in the Singapore case
very well
but they progress to it that and start their they got the building blocks and
then when they got really solid
they've gone for this most creative extension I think that's the future for
us
okay we'll talk about that that next time right well to have that we have the
data
results to show okay okay fabulous thank you thanks very much a
I've been speaking with Michael Pollan