"Similarly, teacher quality is not a concern; if it was, salaries would be much better."
So much this. By Canadian standards, American salaries for school teachers are very low, and have been so as long as I can remember. (And Canadian jurisdictions don't really pay enough for the type of skill level really necessary to be effective.)
To Nick's notes about the educational bureaucracy, it might be worth noting that OISE and the permanent civil servants in the Ministry faculty are undoubtedly on the left part of the (Canadian) political spectrum, but the changes imposed by the Ministry of Education from 1990 to the present have been minimal and mainly driven by funding constraints. (If a change driven "internally", like an emphasis on teamwork, is cheaper, it may take off. If it is significantly more expensive, it's unlikely to.)
(The big expensive educational expansion in the last couple of decades in Ontario was the provision of all-day Kindergarten for Junior Kindergarten, which was mainly aimed at socialization rather than education as such. It was a pet project of McGuinty's.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-01-05 01:51 am (UTC)So much this. By Canadian standards, American salaries for school teachers are very low, and have been so as long as I can remember. (And Canadian jurisdictions don't really pay enough for the type of skill level really necessary to be effective.)
To Nick's notes about the educational bureaucracy, it might be worth noting that OISE and the permanent civil servants in the Ministry faculty are undoubtedly on the left part of the (Canadian) political spectrum, but the changes imposed by the Ministry of Education from 1990 to the present have been minimal and mainly driven by funding constraints. (If a change driven "internally", like an emphasis on teamwork, is cheaper, it may take off. If it is significantly more expensive, it's unlikely to.)
(The big expensive educational expansion in the last couple of decades in Ontario was the provision of all-day Kindergarten for Junior Kindergarten, which was mainly aimed at socialization rather than education as such. It was a pet project of McGuinty's.)