Education Matters Online
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Rory Leishman’s recent ill-informed musings about class size (Smaller classes don’t reflect better education; LFP September 9) reveal more about his right-wing biases than they do about the realities of education and the needs of our society.

His main target seems to be teacher unions, with his rather bizarre implication that they are being self-serving in fighting for smaller class sizes. He goes so far as to assert that “hiring thousands of new teachers ... is more likely to debase than improve the quality of education in public schools”. Yikes!

 His claim that small class sizes make no difference beyond grade 2 may have some truth if one only considers those academically inclined students who learn well by direct instruction in large classes. However, public school systems teach all students, including the many who will not sit and listen to a teacher or do rote learning for 70 minutes at a time. In fact, all students will benefit from smaller class contexts where group work, presentations and other more engaged, interactive learning activities help spur involvement, creativity and more active, integrated education.

Perhaps the right-wing sources he selectively quotes - such as Mark Holmes,  the C. D. Howe Institute and the Organization for Quality Education - in fact want to produce more compliant graduates, children from privileged backgrounds who will comfortably take their entitled place in the narrow, stratified society so favoured by that crowd. Is it so threatening for them to have working-class children and non-academic learners also benefit themselves and our society with a quality education?

I suggest Mr. Leishman stop begging the question with bland assertions that public schools are “generally mediocre” and that parents who “prefer to pay [will] obtain a superior education for their children”. I wonder if he sees public schools as being mediocre because they are for all students, of all backgrounds, social classes, learning styles and ability, and do not cater exclusively to his self-perceived elites. Is the real agenda to keep public money out of education, to make sure that the entitled stay entitled, and that the rest of us don’t get uppity ideas about our proper station in life?

He also touches on “comparative tests” (code for standardized testing to ensure a narrow, controlled curriculum) and charges that the government wants to “stifle competition” (code for restricting spending to the privileged and entitled). I agree that more resources should go to professional development opportunities (one of Mike Harris’s first cuts to public education), but not as a replacement for smaller classes (ie more teachers and educational workers to better serve our students’ many needs).

Properly funded and focussed public education is one of Canada’s greatest strengths, a defining feature of what make our country as tolerant, democratic and economically strong as it is. We can not afford to abandon it to appease right wing political parties and elitist ideologues like Rory  Leishman.
 

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