The trustees for School District 51 (SD51) are sincere, conscientious, intelligent and have always attempted to do as much as possible with the funds provided to SD51 by the Ministry of Education.
Because of that, I would hope that they would be somewhat rankled by the amount of money being spent by the ministry on the latest round of community consultation, this time on requirements for graduation.
SD51 Board Chair Teresa Rezansoff has stated in a column in the Sept. 26 issue of the Grand Forks Gazette that the ministry has decided to significantly change its approach for revising the graduation requirements. “Instead of the Ministry of Education consulting on a draft plan, they are going out with a set of five questions. From the (public) responses to those questions they will develop proposed directions for graduation,” she said.
Rezansoff states that the province has been divided into six regions with an educational leader appointed “to organize multiple consultation sessions in each region in September and October” and that “over a dozen partner groups have been invited to provincial planning meetings in August and November.”
Here are the five questions:
- What do you think are the core or essential things that all students should know, understand and be able to do by the time they leave secondary school?
- Beyond the core, how could pathways for choice or exploration be provided?
- Research is underway with a focus on these five, cross-curricular competencies: Communication, critical thinking, creative thinking and innovation, personal responsibility and well-being, social responsibility. How do you think students could demonstrate these competencies?
- How could student learning be communicated to students, parents/guardians/ post secondary institutions /employers?
- How would you devise an awards program to recognize student success in a personalized learning environment?
Does anyone really believe that the public’s response to those quite weighty questions will provide some new and groundbreaking insight into graduation requirements? Insight that the ministry’s own consultants and education advisors could not have come up with on their own?
How many will even take the time to answer in the detailed manner that they require?
Rezansoff states that after the answers to the questions have been analyzed, the new “proposed directions for graduation will be back out for feedback in December.”
In other words, the ministry will thank those who participated for their valuable contribution and put out a draft proposal for graduation requirements for consultation just as they have always done.
We elect legislators to conduct the business of the state. They then hire experts to help them.
The idea that after all the time and money, they are now going to poll Joe the plumber or Jim the curmudgeon to determine what students have to do before they can graduate from high school is ludicrous.
This process is, I am afraid, just window dressing, and sadly, the politicians know it.
– Jim Holtz is columnist for the Grand Forks Gazette WEEKENDER and former reporter for the Grand Forks Gazette
