"School shopping" in Ontario based on income and ethnicity

Hey Tommy

SSC obviously doesn't get it.  This thing I am typing on is a machine.  A new fangled machine, but little different than a typewriter.  If SSC is a doctor his entire worklife is surrounded by - wait for it - machines.  We are all slaves to a machine of some kind, the only difference is the complexity.

There are shitty schools in the best of areas, and great schools in the shittiest of areas.  Good schools have almost nothing to do with their location.  The type of parents who take their kids to the 'best' schools are probably the least qualified to even understand what a good school is.  The best of schools teach kids to think for themselvs, the worst of schools are teaching them to be cogs in the wheel.  You will never convince me that has anything to do with soci-economic or demographic determinism.

 

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

Even so, I would imagine that there would be certain schools that you wouldn't send them to in a million years.

And I have no intention of sacrificing my son's education to make some stand against polarization.

What has happened to my son's school has happened in less than one generation and largely because of the publication of EQAO scores.  Without major education policy change, one generation from now my son's elementary school may look a whole lot more like that inner city high school you describe.  At our school's last School Safety Committee, our police chief  informed us that the two elementary schools have staggered start and dismissal times in order to reduce the incidence of altercations between students at the two schools. Nothing new, I guess, in my childhood the divsion was based on religion but now the Separate school is more middle class than Catholic.

We are writing off children at the age of 4.  My eldest son figured out at the age of seven that he was considered lesser than his counterparts at the separate school.  We're talking about kids that are for the most part caucasians of European extraction and who have relatives attending the other school.

I have no intention of sacrificing my sons' education either.  I value teaching them about compassion, social responsibility and social justice as much as I do teaching them the three Rs (and Latin & ancient Greek, their latest passions).  I just don't want a future where I have to visit them in gated communities surrounded by walls topped with broken glass.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

SSC obviously doesn't get it.  This thing I am typing on is a machine.  A new fangled machine, but little different than a typewriter.  If SSC is a doctor his entire worklife is surrounded by - wait for it - machines.  We are all slaves to a machine of some kind, the only difference is the complexity.

Yes, I'm surrounded by machines. But those machines were thought up, designed and built by someone with critical thinking and evaluative skills; the ability to recognize a need for said machine, to figure out how it would work, etc. And then when I, the doctor, use a machine - say an MRI...I then need to use the analytical skills that I've developed to actually evaluate the information that the machine gave me, determine what this means for the aptient, determine the best course of treatment based on a variety of factors (severity, patient's age, any comorbidities or other medical conditions). Once that treatment is delivered, I need to be able to evaluate its success, make adjsutments if anything isn't as it should be, etc.

remind wrote:

 Just as farmers are socially devalued, when indeed without farmers,  those who do not provide their own food, would all die.

Are farmers socially devalued? Maybe it's jsut where I am, but I and everyone I know have the utmost respect for farmers. Farmers are actually often among the best educated and knowledgeable members of society, not to mention among the hardest working.

Rexdale_Punjabi wrote:

and you realize that doesn't make you better then a avg worker right? this superiority complex u got I can't understand it cuz str8 up I can take a kid from the hood and he could proly learn ur job faster than you can with less training. Aint tryna insult you but the realness of it is that you just got a change to move up u were just luccy you aint special and you aint better then any1 else.

never said I was better than anyone else based on what I do. I was pointing out that the economy today is a lot different than it was even 20 years ago. Our industrialized economy is disappearing and the opportunities for unskilled workers are shrinking like crazy. My mom grew up in hamilton, Ontario. When she graduated high school, lots of students in her class took a job at one of the steel mills. All you needed back then was a high school education. And you had a good, decent-paying job that would allow you to buy a home, support a family, etc. and then retire on a nice pension. Well, today, thousands of workers at those plants are losing their jobs. And jobs that were once filled by high school graduates are being filled by people with engineering degrees. The economy today is absed on knowledge that comes from education.

I went to Harbord Collegiate in Toronto in the 50s, which at the time served a very working class and lower middle class area.  It had an excellent reputation at the time, and lots of people went on to become doctors, lawyers, teachers and academics - and many of these people of course moved north to places like Forest Hill (the Montreal equivalent would have been Baron Byng high school).  I later transferred to Oakwood Collegiate, which (then) had a good reputation as well.  It seems to me that the quality of education in working class and poorer areas has declined greatly, and the gap between richer and poorer schools has increased greatly.  Perhaps there was more optimism about the future then, though of course schools were more adequately funded than they are today.

The problem is the choice between A and B is rarely as stark as you are drawing it SSC.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

Rexdale_Punjabi wrote:

lol the fights n 50% thing sounds like NACI mos def lol but on a dif tip. Yo SSC do you wonder why kids act like that? Do u think of the environment? by the time you 12 or 13 you got cops trying to put a record on you you got bare shit ur kids aint gotta put up with. And we all human so how the fucc you gonna look down on ppl who don't make it when yall couldn't get through 1/2 the obstacles and ye the thinking is yo.

 

No one is disputing that there are root social causes that contribute to many of the problems in our schools. And no one is saying that these issues don't need to be addressed. I'm saying that, in the meantime, I'm gonna do what's best for my son...even if that can arm someone to accsue me of contributing to "social fragmentation."

Rexdale_punajbi, if you had kids and had the option of sending to school A where there was no violence or behavioural problems, where kids got good grades and msot went on to university or school B where there were fights all the time, drug problems, there was a massive dropout rate, disruptions in class were constant and most never went on to university, which would you choose?

B cuz most likeley that be us. Id b like yo see this school right here muthafucca? these ur ppl if I see ur ass slaccin ima beat ur ass down. You gonna make something of urself, you gonna help ur friends make something, and you gonna make sure you good at running n never get caught by the coppaz. Don't get involved in the hood tingz cuz then they got you we gonna make something n we gonna take bacc what ours str8 upp. Instill the flame of revolution nigga

 

edit- And what caissa said this city is segregated enuff so that the dif is here ill give an example of my area. West Humber it got a football team but if u from the wrong blocc ull get popped. NACI next to fiends no teams n closer to the station. (then agen they built the station in the heart of the hood). Carr is catholic, got bare brainers, good ball team, but it built like a prison. Johnson is farther lots of ppl go to it n it catholic. That the choices. They all hood schools so take what u will it comes down to in a guys POV 3 things.  girls, money, n ur boiz.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

I tend to think that we all over value our contributions and value in society, and undervalue the other person's contributions.   Were everyone as dillegent a worker or professional as they thought they were,  my gosh, what a utopia we'd be living in!

Not to get too far off track-- and I will endeavor to bring it back to the topic-- I think rich or poor, Doctor or factory worker,  miner or farmer,  we in this country have a far too utilitarian view of education. 

If larnin' something don't make ya money, than what in tarnation is it good for?

Both proponents and detractors from school shopping seem to be undervaluing the real point of education.

 

 

that another topic. The "school system" will never teach you anything that would empower the ppl. That up to u to learn we gotta get that done. Str8 up listen to the ogz they tell you stay in school but dont ever forget where u come from. You need a fuccin peice of paper to prove to some corporate muthafucca who pissed off cuz he can't get laid that you qualified it messed up but u gotta live in it till you get enuff power to change it

 

edit- exactly bookish and till this recession happen (idk even know now lol) it was like this. Doctor or other "smart job" go to uni after high school. Work for free for awhile ull b 35-40 till you start cakin. "Stupid" Job in the trades. Get outa high school u gettin 20-25 for learning ur job and getting expierience. 3-4 years later u get even more ur still in ur 20z. By the time ur 30 you can team up w/ ppl start a business n you basically retired. What really "smarter".

[/quote]

B cuz most likeley that be us. Id b like yo see this school right here muthafucca? these ur ppl if I see ur ass slaccin ima beat ur ass down. You gonna make something of urself, you gonna help ur friends make something, and you gonna make sure you good at running n never get caught by the coppaz. Don't get involved in the hood tingz cuz then they got you we gonna make something n we gonna take bacc what ours str8 upp. Instill the flame of revolution nigga

 [/quote]

I will suggest that when you become a parent, your attitude will change. Also, I'm not a moderator but could we perhaps not use the "n-word"?

Caissa wrote:

I'm still waiting for your education programme Rexdale Punjabi. How would you from your POV as a student change the sytem to make it more meaningful?

1. The real history (yall know what I mean)

2. No cops

3. Stop criminalizing us

4. teach us relevant shit it doesnt matter if I know wtf a atom looks like

5. don't segregate gym class lol :P

6.Stop lieing to us ties in w/ # 1.

7. Stop thinking we lie about teachers bein assholes n we stupider cuz we "young"

8. Stop giving pointless "busy" work

9. Not every muthafucca learns from a textbook do shit relevant to what ur learning about

10. More trips so you can actually see what you learning about

ill think of more as they come but you can see a comon theme among a lot of em

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

Quote:

B cuz most likeley that be us. Id b like yo see this school right here muthafucca? these ur ppl if I see ur ass slaccin ima beat ur ass down. You gonna make something of urself, you gonna help ur friends make something, and you gonna make sure you good at running n never get caught by the coppaz. Don't get involved in the hood tingz cuz then they got you we gonna make something n we gonna take bacc what ours str8 upp. Instill the flame of revolution nigga

 

I will suggest that when you become a parent, your attitude will change. Also, I'm not a moderator but could we perhaps not use the "n-word"?

No it won't I aint like you str8 up most likely id send em to the school closest to where they live. if that the hood let it be the hood if it aint they still gettin the same talk. Str8 up. Hmm, so you ok with a classist society and another poster described it perfect but somehow a blacc man sayin nigga offends you? get out of here wit ur bullshit bro

 

See SSC what u cant understand is there stuff outside of life besides the matieralistic stuff like what car you drive, where you live etc.

I live in the hood she like my motha/ single mothas, corna brothas tryna get bread n butta/

but we got community, fuccin unity/ sticc togeher till we get hit with the toolie c/ ther shit bigger then the green, yall like fiends/

dont care who get hit wit the beams/ Ull abandon ur team, the schemes that yall had since sixteen/but, no matter how good it seems/

these dreams, this cream, runs out like a dry stream/ then u hear the screams/ ya old niggas comin bacc wit the 16z/

str8 up aint no fear of death keepin ppl loyal it just how would u look at urself if u did that shit. But it seems ppl who always want the matierials also got a insane fear of death. N don't judge my skill as a mc with what I just wrote off the top tryna get a message across.

 

edit-to Bookish -  Any1 who isnt A straight White Middle or Upper Class Male is devalued. Rural ppl only exist on jokes n minorites only exist on the 6 o clocc news to general society str8 up. Till a white girl dies then we get raided ...

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

remind wrote:

Here is a heads up. All people shit the same way, even the Queen and the Pope..

That's from the big toe like me right?

On the broader point you are totally correct.  We are a society that devalues those who work with their hands in any way that suggests manual labour.  You can see it everywhere, and our education system is just a reflection of that broader disdain.  There seems to be this thought that if you do manual labour it must be because there is nothing between your ears.  My life experience has often suggested it is the other way around, but I suppose I shouldn't base my prejudices on people who work in government call in centres.

Well, I always find that comment to be a social leveller, ;)  it is constantly surprising to me, how many people  think that others are more rarified and special, than themselves. Achieved of course through evil and wrong societal conditioning, where people just want to perceive themselves as better than, when of course they are not in anyway shape or form. They just have poor self esteem or egos beyond what is healthy.

If there is complete societal collapse, let's say, who do you think would survive it? Those who work with their hands and/or have "street smarts", or those who have lived lives of privilege and in gated communities and parasite off of the work of others, thinking they are better than?

Singing to the choir with you, I know, but seriously other people need to stop and think about what bull shit, their own sense of superiority is.

 

 

Stockholm wrote:

Its common knowledge that school performance on standardized tests is almost perfectly correlated to the average household income of the zone the school draws from. Why do people even need to look at these statistics about the demographic makeup of each school - all you need to do is look at what census tract the school is in, go to the Statscan website and see what the average income is in that census tract.

Not quite perfectly; there still is a considerable variation even after controlling for those factors. This information is already available to the professionals, so it's hard to see why it would be a bad thing for parents to learn that the school their kids are going to is doing well or poorly, even after controlling for the obvious things. Maybe some schools do poorly because parents don't realise that they could be doing better.

As to 'going to the school in your comunity', people choose their comunities. And school quality is a factor in making that decision.

RevolutionPlease wrote:

I don't usually hear objections to woman using the word bitch around here. 

 

i don't mind if women use that word, nor do I mind if gay people use 'queer'. A) because I think people within a group can use words that others can't and B) because there's a sense of 'reclaiming' the word in question and trying to use it as something positive.

However, even if someone is Punjabi, that is not the group at whom the "n-word" is directed (blacks of African descent) and I don't feel as if they have "permission" to use it in the same way. I'm not even particularly comfortable with black people using the word because I think that unlike words like "bitch" or "queer" the "n-word" is inherently degrading and can't really be used in a positive context. I think it would be pretty rare to find successful, respectable people using it. I doubt President Obama shows up at cabinet meetings and greets Eric Holder with the term.

:rolleyes: at the irony and sense of privilege encompassed in that.

It doesn't matter what MOST people think. Especially when we are talking about minorities and their self-expression. Thats the point and you aren't getting it.

IMD, this is coming from SSC, who recently was defending his use of derogatory Yiddish terms.  :rolleyes:  indeed.  The hypocrisy drips on. 

I tried. If you think you and Rexdale are living the same reality then please feel free to speak in a manner which is comfortable to you. I was under the impression that you were already doing so while telling Rexdale he had no right to do the same.

remind wrote:

white people parasites

Wow. Just wow.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

remind wrote:

white people parasites

Wow. Just wow.

 

Ya, that remind is a pretty sharp cookie.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

It's Me D wrote:

It doesn't matter what MOST people think. Especially when we are talking about minorities and their self-expression. Thats the point and you aren't getting it.

being a minority doesn't give one carte-blanche to say whatever they want without judgment. further, if you're not from the minority in question, it's a bit rich to be able to claim some sort of immunity using an offensive word directed at another group. I'm a minority (Jewish) as is my wife (Jewish AND Persian) so would you ahve no problem if we went around using the n-word?

Yes, that's all we need, then the First Nations people can start calling Jews the 'K' word etc.  Real helpful, from the guy who blames unionized teachers for bad educational practices, praises the joy of two-tiered health care, and still bemoans the US bussing act, which enabled thousands of African American kids the opportunity to escape the tragically underfunding ghetto schools that their white overlords* had locked them into.  Given the positions that you've shamelessly outlined in this discussion, I find it impossible to believe that anything could make you blush.

*ed to add: make that 'parasitic white overlords'

These were not the goals of the government ordered program.  I don't believe that they found that the previously segregated kids performed in a demonstratively worse fashion.  The goals were to break the educationally segregated stranglehold white parents had on the system, much to the chagrin of racist white folk who were unable to subsequently flee to whiter climes or private schools.  However, as you so deftly point out, where there is a will to escape diverse schools and a wallet, narrow minded and fearful parents will have their way, bleating about how it's 'for the children!'

Lmaooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Actually Stephen the thread was about publishing the demographic data and economic background of the student population.  Not which schools are better or worse.  As has pointed out time and again, that data serves no educational predictive purpose.  It only plays on prejudices and fears.  It has no place in a modern society.

Nor does many of the proponent comments demonstrate even the slightest understanding of how school boundary lines work in Ontario's education system.

In other words it was pointless, yet potentially divisive data, and it is a good thing to see the back of it.