How Can Student Achievement be Increased?

Why?

The Ontario government has introduced a number of top-down measures, such as limits on class size, protected classroom funding, a longer school year, and standardized report cards, which it fondly believes will improve student achievement.

Many educators, however, resent the government's 'interference,' and they are subverting the intent of the new measures. The extra instructional days, for example, are being used in some cases to view movies such as Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me or visit Canada's Wonderland. Much of the money targeted for textbooks is being spent on salaries instead. And so it goes.

The experience in other jurisdictions, like New Brunswick, where similar initiatives were tried, was that topdown measures have little effect on test scores. Not surprisingly, it appears that there is not much point in trying to force people to do things differently; instead, the trick is to make them wish to change - by adjusting the incentive structure.

The attitudes and beliefs that underpin Ontario's public education system are deeply entrenched. An entire culture of complacency and resistance to change will have to be overcome - a very difficult feat. The only way that a group's mindset can be transformed in a short time is for something world-shattering to come along that profoundly alters their orientation.

The necessary catalyst is choice: choice of schools for parents, choice of schools for staff. School choice is a bottom-up pressure that will galvanize educators into focusing on using better methods and materials in order to get better results. For if they don't do this, they risk losing their jobs.