Unschooled children

I want my grandson to attend university. I taught in one for 30
years. Now that my grandson is in junior high school I have been
interested in his preparation, particularly in mathematics and English.
He is an A student with an occasional B. Early in grade 7 he received a
B on a math test, because he was a bit slow in factoring (63=7x3x3). He
had not learned his times tables well enough so that products came
immediately to his mind (63=7×9). This is a specific example of a
widespread deficiency in our school program; little or no attention is
paid to the development of skills.

An example from English: because phonetics are not taught, my
grandson had difficulty reading aloud new text, because he had been
taught to “read past” a word he did not know and infer its content from
the context of the text.

Last year I began to be concerned that in his school the curriculum
which is necessary for university preparation was not being completed.
This year, grade 8, the math text being used was written by a committee
of Nova Scotia teachers and administrators; it is published by a
national publishing house. There are 10 chapters, each with four
sections—one section per week, I thought. At the end of September, my
grandson’s class was still in the first section of the first chapter.
Clearly, they were not going to cover the curriculum.

I believe in the common good. I am happy to pay taxes for the
provision of services which are best provided by public institutions
such as schools. In 2008, my personal provincial income taxes were
about $13,000. I have decided that the school system is not providing
the services which are essential for my grandson to have a successful
first year at university. And I have concluded that the only thing that
can be done to immediately remedy this situation is to enroll my
grandson in a private school. I doubt that a rebate from the province,
to compensate for services not provided, is possible.

My grandson’s transition to the private school is going well. In
grade 8 mathematics they are using the same text used in the public
schools. On the first of October they were in section one of chapter
two: one section per week, as I thought it should be.

I hope that a reader of The Coast will be a candidate for election
to the school board, on a platform which proposes major changes to the
administration of our provincial schools. After all, the administrators
are responsible for the deplorable state of education here. We are
preparing our students for low-paying, dead-end jobs. One solution
might be to remove principals from the teacher’s union and make them
responsible to demonstrate, publicly, the accomplishments achieved by
their schools. I now know of one private school which can demonstrate
that 97 percent of its graduates are admitted to university.
—Name withheld by request, Halifax

This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.