On Wednesday this week, the Ministry of Education’s annual inspection of the Mentor high school programme took place and as usual, we were told we were providing top-notch education for our students. Once the official “inspection” phase of the visit was completed, though, we took the opportunity to talk about the recent “2013 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario” (specifically Section 3.06 on Private Schools) to express some of the concerns we share with the Auditor General. Take a look at it yourself; it is just 22 pages and every parent involved in private school education should be interested in what it has to say.

Our main concern is with the supervision and inspection of private schools in general (and Mr. Philbrook thought he would never let me say that he wanted MORE government in our school!). There are over 1000 private schools in our province (400 of them registered to grant high school credits) but the equivalent of only 8 full-time staff members to deal with the regulation, inspection and data collection of these schools. In the past 5 years alone, the number of private high schools has increased by 25%. Mentor College and TEAM School agree with the Auditor General that the “Ministry provides very little oversight to ensure that private school students are receiving satisfactory instruction” and that the inspectors do “not have sufficient time” to investigate the 100 private high schools which require extra investigation because of complaints from the public, from school boards and from other private schools of over-inflated grades and inadequate course hours.

We are not “anti-inspection”; we welcome the opportunity to showcase our high school students’ work and the professionals who teach them. The more meticulous the inspector, the better! I am just sitting here and wondering if this day with Mentor College could have been better spent:

– revoking the accreditation of the 60% of private high schools who have yet to even submit the required information from two years ago (the 2011/12 school year)

– investigating potential “diploma fraud” for the 80 schools who were issued 3800 blank Ontario Secondary School Diplomas more than their submitted enrollment figures

– asking why 2/3 of all private school credits in Ontario are Grade 12 courses and then asking the Ontario universities if they would like to know the school where Grade 12 grades were issued

– investigating the private schools where the students are scoring as low as a 19% pass rate on provincially-standardized Grade 10 Literacy test yet requesting Ontario scholar certificates (for 80% overall averages) for all of their students

Many of the items in the Auditor General’s report will surprise you. Please feel free to ask if you would like anything clarified as far as our school is concerned and don’t hesitate to express your concerns (if you are concerned, as we are, that all private schools are affected by the poor reputation of some) to your local MPP or the Ministry of Education itself.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

I imagine that every one of us can remember from our very earliest years in school the following statement from a math teacher:

“The answer is important but you also need need to show your work.”

As a student, I felt the reasoning behind “showing your work” was so I could still get partial marks if I had the wrong answer due to a computation error. I am sure that we have students at our schools who feel the same way but there are probably just as many who have said “I got the right answer; that should be all that matters”.

As a preparatory school for post-secondary education, we want to ensure that our students are ready for what lies ahead so the Mentor HS mathematics department head Mr. Sulpizi asked his alma mater (University of Toronto) what they expected of a first-year mathematics student. The associate chair of the department wrote back and said that “entry-level students are often under the misconception that getting the correct answer to a problem is quite enough, while proper justification of the answer is undervalued.” He went on to explain that university math students will find that the “proper presentation of mathematical arguments is important” and that for math majors, this “fluency in mathematical language is crucial”. In other words, the other 5000 first-year math students at U of T (this is the associate chair’s figure!) are just as capable of finding the correct answer but understanding the theory behind it what sets students apart from each other.

So if your child is learning how to add two-digit numbers, starting long division, being introduced to BEDMAS or plotting advanced functions, your school is emphasizing that how they get to the answer is just as important as the result itself. It is critical because that is what the next level of education is recommending. After that, I wonder if the theory relates to the practical or “real world”. Hit “reply” and let me know what you find in your line of work. Is the process as important or more important than the final answer or everything based on results?

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

One of my colleagues is working on a master of education (M. Ed) degree and told me that this week’s assignment was about the implementation and enforcement of school policies. Whether it is students, parents or teachers, the researchers in the assignment say that the most popular complaint comes from policies that are not consistent in their application. The assignment asked, “Is it better if every situation is black or white?” As a school, we strive to be as close to “black and white” as is practical.

If we are talking about our “rule of 10” (10 minutes times the grade of the student) for homework, then every Grade 2 student should be getting 20 minutes of homework every Monday to Thursday night. Does that formula work every night? No, that wouldn’t be practical, but the students know they need to set aside that time, the parents know that there won’t be an hour one night and nothing the next night and the teachers know that their principal is checking for consistency within that grade level as well.

Once they hit the intermediate grades, students get more tangible lessons from this consistency. If the student requires assistance and goes to extra help at one of the regular, posted times, their comprehension of the subject will no doubt improve. If they forget their gym clothes, their participation in gym class will be limited. If they don’t complete their homework, the teacher has a specific consequence that is applied.

In high school, the rules become even more important. If an assignment is 2 days late, the student handbook (in black and white, ironically) states the consequence. Being late for class means a detention the following day. This is, of course, also the age where students like to “debate” the rules and we have learned over the years from our alumni that they appreciated (albeit later in life) that we showed them this consistency during high school. As one alumnus (now a successful restauranteur) told me, “my employees can be late with or without a reason three times; after that, they are not my employees”.

Of course, all decisions are not black and white. If a situation develops that does not fit the usual guidelines as posted in the student handbook, we can allow for shades of grey. It is just easier when there is a starting point from which the grey can be shaded.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School