The Cedar Lounge Revolution

An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí… where exactly? August 18, 2009

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.
trackback

It’s funny being off line for four days or so as I was last week. Firstly one turns to newspapers, as in printed newspapers. And then there is the television news. But the latter is difficult to synchronise with when one is busy and days are time tabled and the former requires at least some space to check through in a consistent way. So… I missed a fair old bit of the international news as I focused on what the Irish Times likes to term ‘opinion’.

And there were some doozies last week. No doubt about that. In part because the economic free fall appears to be slowing, perhaps even stopping completely with ‘good’ news not merely from the United States, but Europe as well. And… what’s this, an increase in retail sales in the last two months. Although, the Irish Times, never keen to allow the good news to seem too good was at pains to point out that with prices falling the governments headaches as regards tax receipts was merely starting. Hmmmm… yes, well, a deflationary policy within a recessionary economy will have that sort of an effect.

But… what was most frustrating for me was to read material and be unable to check it for facts. For example (and this is only one of a number) what of Orna Mulcahy’s piece entitled ‘Long-term benefits of shorter school breaks’. You might expect a carefully considered analysis of the topic, but if so you’d come away – as I did – unfulfilled. For this was the sort of phoned in stuff that predominates the pages of the Irish Times at the moment. And… while it is indeed what we laughably term ‘summer’ on this island that’s hardly an excuse for shoddy examination of an area – particularly when the rationale of the piece is to argue for a shorter… er…summer.

So, while you might think that it started well… with a question that might be amenable to some answer…

How can Ireland claim to have a world-class education system if it has one of the shortest academic years?

The depressing reality was that even the most cursory consideration demonstrated that there was no way… no way on earth… Mulcahy was going to seriously engage with the area.

WE’RE ALL done with the holidays in this household. We’ve been away and had cousins to stay. We’ve sent the children to camp and to Irish college, and welcomed them back with gala barbecues.

We’ve been to the beach, seen Harry Potter and gone shopping for new shoes and pencil cases. The books are covered and in the bag. Now, surely is it not time for them to be back at school? You would think so but no. There’s still almost a fortnight left before term starts officially in the week of September 1st. The older two have been off since the end of May.

And… beyond this charming insight into chez Mulcahy and the domestic tranquility therein… what though of those unable to afford ‘camp’ and “Irish college’… or indeed the gala barbecues? Or what of those not quite so fortunate in running their lives in such a way that the rest of the world must conform with their expectations?

It may be that their first week back is shorter than normal as teachers ease themselves into the job. Some reorientation may be necessary for those who’ve enjoyed a full three-month break as information will have been erased. I’m not knocking teachers. After a fortnight away from my own desk, I need retraining.

Well, that presumably is the usage of the term ‘I’m not knocking teachers’ in the rather less usual way where it means ‘I’m knocking teachers’.

But the slow start-up to the academic year is baffling, as is the fairly rapid wind-down, with the odd hiatus in between.

Parents can expect gaps in the week for curriculum familiarisation days, staff training, swine flu preparation workshops, and so on until the mid-term break in October and after that, sure it’s nearly Christmas.

Yeah, I used to make similar jokes about places I worked in. In at nine. Break at 11. Soon it is lunch. It’s easy stuff. But… joke or not, perhaps she’d prefer there was no swine flu preparation? Or perhaps teachers shouldn’t continue training through their careers and so on…

My generation grew up being told that Ireland has an education system second to none, but how can that be when children spend so few days in school? We have one of the shortest academic years in the world, with one of the longest summer holidays, designed back in the 1920s to suit an agricultural economy and not given much thought since. The school year is a mere 183 days at primary level compared to an average of 195 for Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development countries and more than 200 for east Asian countries.

It’s even shorter at post-primary level, with schools obliged to open for just 167 days in the year.

According to a recent report in the Economist magazine, long summer holidays and short academic terms are making the children of the West lazy and forgetful. It claims that over the summer break the average child forgets a month’s worth of tuition in many subjects and almost three times that in maths.

No wonder so many of them fall down in higher maths.

No doubt. There’s a problem though. And it’s one of actually quite basic math, or at least an ability to read statistical data.

Actually though – my mistake – there are many problems. Can you guess what they might be? Well, let me give you a clue. First there are facts. Secondly there is interpretation based on facts.

For although the year is ‘short’ the hours are long. We are, and I have an OECD report downloadable here to back this up, in the higher ranks of OECD countries when it comes to teaching hours. Ahead of Germany, Portugal, France, Denmark (by a country mile), Italy Finland, etc… Indeed in terms of the EU we’re out there almost in front…. Which might provide some answer to her original question.

But, so keen on ploughing forward into her pit of despond she continues…

American academics have come up with a handy term for the phenomenon, “summer learning loss”. Barack Obama is concerned, as well he might be with two young children going through the system. He has asked school administrators to rethink the school day, in other words, to make it longer.

Sure… That makes sense. No, hold on. Actually it doesn’t, not least since ‘making the school day longer’ isn’t the problem she was raising in the first place. Indeed it was quite a different one of Summer holidays being too long.

And if she thinks making school days longer is a good thing perhaps she should look at research that shows…

BOLDUAN: But more time is no silver bullet for reform. Miami- Dade County schools in Florida used an extended day program for three years, but dropped it because they didn’t see improvement in test scores. Critics say it disrupts family life and is expensive. The Miami-Dade program cost more than $100 million.

MARTA PEREZ, MIAMI DADE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD: The teachers were fatigued at the end of the day the students were fatigued and unmotivated.

And if we actually bother to look up ‘Summer Learning Loss’ we see something interesting. Something very interesting indeed. For those students from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds fare worse than their middle class peers. Indeed the summer gap is actually good (particularly in terms of reading skills) for those students from middle class homes.

But again, read the literature and you’ll find that the answer, if we can describe it as such, to ‘summer learning loss’ isn’t increasing the ‘school day… in other words making it longer’, but reducing the length of school holidays.

There’s a further problem, though, to that. Because… the US models tend to distribute much the same number of days across the year. And the way they square the circle is by having instead of a long summer vacation four three week breaks distributed throughout the year. I’m not sure how that’s much of an improvement if the issue is keeping the youngsters in school. And there’s a body of thought which suggests that one then exchanges a single bloc of ‘learning loss’ with a number of shorter blocs distributed throughout the year. No gain.

And if one hopes that that is where the problems end let me direct you to this report by US think tank Education Sector which lays out some other structural problems about doing away with Summer vacations including increased costs of use and upkeep of buildings to as the report states:

Also, entire industries—transportation, child care, food service—have been designed to align with current school schedules. Tourism and camping industries vigorously oppose school-time reform proposals, predicting financial losses if summer vacation is reduced.
Resort and restaurant owners worry that more school in summer will mean fewer young people to hire for their businesses. And states and districts that rely on summer tourism for revenue are also wary of shorter summers.

Ironically in the US, unlike our beloved isle:

The strongest opposition to extending school into the summer or throughout the year comes from middle-class and affluent parents who see no real benefit for their own children for giving up the vacation schedule they have come to expect.

That’s mad stuff, isn’t it? Like, assertions – undigested, ill thought through assertions have ramifications… Didn’t see that one coming.

But it gets worse. For Mulcahy, caught up in this maelstrom of Irish middle class enthusiasm, it can only be but a short hop to outright catastrophe.

Meanwhile, management consultancy McKinsey is arguing that the poor performance of American schoolchildren will have a more devastating long-term effect on the US economy than the recession. Before long, the brain jobs will follow the brawn jobs. Parents, it warns, will see their children’s jobs taken by the Chinese.

Yeah, but presumably, from what the literature tells us it won’t be middle class school children.

Frankly, I’m terrified.

She shouldn’t be. Remember, it’s not the middle classes that are hardest hit by this.

With a Leaving and a Junior Cert candidate in the house, the issue is sharply in focus. I’m prepared to do what I can. There’ll be plenty of oily fish on the menu and a good angle poise lamp in each of their bedrooms. If I have to, I’ll read King Lear , but I’d feel happier if they were facing into a longer school year with not quite so many random gaps and half-days.

And if she’s going to treat the subject glibly, I make no apology for the tone of my thoughts on her treatment.

That’s not to be, judging by the 09/10 timetable slipped in between the book list and the fees demand. It runs to two pages, and there are at least three Mondays marked “no classes for junior or senior school”. Why? Call me cynical but it smacks of a nice long weekend for all concerned. “Could be any number of reasons,” a teacher friend tells me. “In-house training. Then we had a ‘dignity in the workplace’ day once and then there are report conferences where we get together to do the reports.”

Hmmm… which yet again is a different issue from Summer holidays. Although ‘fees demand’? That the majority of us should be so favoured with the situation for our off-spring (although knowing what I know about the attitude of the fee-charging sector, and not just from those Oireachtas committees, I’m not so sure it’s money well spent or wisely invested).

He’s all for change and wouldn’t mind adopting a more European school year model, with just six weeks holidays in the summer, but says he won’t go on the record in case a colleague slashes his tyres in the car park.

Oh please. Yeah. Those tyre-slashing teaches. Quite the on-going danger they are. Really, when we hit this level of anecdote surely it’s time to go back to the blueprints and start again.

Teachers will tell you the Irish school day is longer and more intense than the European model, and that children are exhausted by March or April, especially if they sign up for extra study periods (at a cost of over €100 per term in some cases).

Erm… and not just teachers. That pesky OECD – eh?

Parents who can afford it will extend the academic year further by enrolling children in expensive preparation and revision courses, run by private colleges like the Institute of Education, where next week, some of the country’s best teachers will be available for a “get ready for the Leaving Cert” week of tuition.

It’s a lucrative nixer, and what else have they to be doing at this stage of the summer?

Which is an argument of such breath taking… well, you know what I’m thinking… that it’s hard to believe she’d make it. How many teachers out of the total teaching population of teachers do such ‘nixers’ (and worth pointing out that those who do – and I’m no fan at all of such institutions – are acting entirely within current employment legislation – if there’s a problem she could lobby to have the certificate mills shut down, but somehow I think we’d see a perfect example of middle class hissy fit ensue if y’know, something concrete was done to take away the ‘rights’ of parents)? How many places are available for them? And again, if this sort of anecdotal stuff is the best she can do, perhaps we’re in worse trouble than we generally think we are.

As for the topic at hand?

There’s no doubt about it. The issues as regards class are serious and should be a source of – at least – further investigation by leftists. Whether the apocalyptic outcomes she paints are correct is hard to gauge. Educational structures are fairly varied across the OECD but there’s little evidence at the national level that somehow Irish (or indeed US) children are significantly impacted by ‘summer learning loss’. But look, I’m no expert on this and it’s up to people to read the literature and come to their own conclusions.

I can see a valid argument for a reworking of the school year with, say, a two month break over the Summer. I’ve always felt that a three month break is simply too long and not merely for school children but also for teachers (and I believe the same is true of third level too).

But the counter argument on that level is whether the sort of measures Mulcahy pushes around lightly on her conceptual plate are the solution is a different matter entirely. Not least in a context where we have an educational infrastructure that is in many many cases notional if not indeed entirely aspirational (and for those who want proof I can only recommend a visit to the grandly termed ‘computer labs’ of the average VEC or a perusal of the school building programme). Little point in pouring school children into rickety and under funded and under resourced schools. But that sort of fundamental stuff isn’t what the IT does these days – or at least not in its ‘opinion’ pieces.

Thing is, and given the above, broadly speaking we have some reasonably good educational outcomes (and, by the by, for a much more sensible article on our current situation Karlin Lillington – who has to be one of the more reliable IT columnists – has some thoughts that should be required reading for all those who continue to cry ‘doom’), often achieved against the odds.

But… I see little evidence in the figures that there are insufficient teaching hours and any such reworking would presumably see those teaching hours stretched out over a longer time period with a consequent shortening of the school day/and or increase in days off elsewhere. Is that what Mulcahy wants? She doesn’t say. Somehow, I suspect, we’ll never know.

And for those who say this is just a light Summer piece in the IT, well, my belief is that on a subject like this where we see actual class issues writ large across a number of axes then it requires something a little bit more weighty than a ‘light’ Summer piece, and something with a tone that rises significantly above the glib. Twenty minutes or so is what it took me to hunt down some considered opinion on the area. Something that offers a more balanced view of positives and negatives. And I’m not paid to do this sort of thing.