Monday, April 13, 2015

Ontario has destreamed Grade 9 at least once before

An article on the front page of today's Toronto Star says that an advocacy group is calling for an end to streaming in Ontario high schools, by which they mean having "academic" and "applied" versions of each class.  This surprised me, because neither the article nor the report (PDF) makes any mention of the fact that Ontario has destreamed Grade 9 (as this advocacy group is recommending) at least once before. 

I know, I was there.

My Grade 9 classes were all destreamed when I started high school in 1994.  It was a fairly new development at the time.  Mine might have even been the very first destreamed year - in any case, it was definitely being talked about like it was new and unprecedented when I was in middle school.

Surely there's data on student outcomes from this time.  There are probably even teachers around who taught in Ontario high schools before, during and after the early-90s destreaming.  It seems like this would all be highly relevant in lobbying and making decisions about whether Ontario schools should be streamed.

I want to make it very clear that I am not arguing or hinting for or against streaming. I have no strong feelings about my own destreamed experience, and I readily acknowledge that, as a student who thrives in any academic environment regardless of whether or not it challenges me, my own experience is irrelevant to any goals they might be trying to achieve with either streaming or destreaming.

I'm simply saying that Ontario-specific data and experience exists.  It would be remiss of them not to use it.

4 comments:

Lorraine said...

I take it in Ontario streaming=tracking.

Seems I learn something new about Ontario education terminology every day.

grade 9 = 9th grade, right?

college = community college?

I'm opposed in principle to tracking, or at least insist that every student have the opportunity to "jump tracks" (or streams?) at any time.

Applied knowledge is an oxymoron. It's know-how, not knowledge (know-why). Know-how is absolutely necessary in the world and frankly probably more important than knowledge, but is there some iron law of pedagoguery to the effect that one person can't have both? Sure, it probably takes 10 years or more to double major in chemistry and chemical engineering, but why is that? Purely artificial (bureaucratic) reasons, I can guarantee you, such as because "Thermodynamics for Science Majors" is a prerequisite for some course and "Thermodynamics for pre-Engineering" isn't accepted as a substitute. So the hapless double major ends up re-taking subjects they already know and blowing the curve for everyone else. Not than more than a tiny few can afford such a well-rounded curriculum.

Canada is one of the two or so best countries for higher education. Or so sez David Brin.

impudent strumpet said...

I don't know what "tracking" is. In streaming, there are "academic" and "applied" courses for the major subjects (but not all subjects - there was only one music, drama, phys. ed., etc.). Academic is en route to university. Applied isn't.

(When you apply to university, I believe they look at your marks in your Grade 12 academic courses, and certain programs have specific courses as prerequisites. If you don't have the required courses or enough courses at the academic level, you don't meet the criteria for university applications.)

Destreaming, which I had in Grade 9, is where there's just one level of course for each subject in each grade. So under streaming, there were two Grade 9 English courses: ENG 1A1 and ENG 1G1. (A = Academic, G = General, because that's what they called them in my day.) Then when they destreamed, there was just one Grade 9 English course: ENG 1W1.

I don't know anything about the content of the general/applied courses because I never had any reason not to take the academic version.

laura k said...

It seems to me this happens with some frequency. We hear that some change is taking place, and it's said to be novel - completely new. We know it's not new, because we've seen it before, we've lived it, but no one seems to discuss that earlier incident or attempt.

Of course I can't think of an example right now... but I know I've experienced that frustration.

Is the new attempt substantially different, so the old data doesn't apply? We don't know, because no one mentions it.

Maybe it's a "journalism wanted" thing?

impudent strumpet said...

Exactly! I can't even tell if this advocacy group is unaware of the previous destreaming, or is just disregarding it. (Both of which would be detrimental to their credibility - the return to streaming would have occurred under the Harris government, so they could discredit it on that basis alone.)

And I can't tell if the report who wrote the article is unaware of the previous destreaming or simply chose not to address it. I can't find enough about her credentials to tell if she would have been aware of what was going on in high school in the mid-90s.

When I looked up the Minister of Education to figure out if she needed an email about this, I found out she was a school trustee in that era. So at least it will pass through someone who knows the history before any policy is made.