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Education

Kings Hockey receives multiple ACAC awards

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Red Deer, March 16, 2018 – The Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) is pleased to announce Trevor Keeper of the Red Deer College Kings has been selected as the 2017-18 ACAC Men’s Hockey Coach of the Year. Two of his players have also been recognized for their outstanding achievements this season. Tanner Butler and Tyler Berkholtz have been named to the ACAC Men’s Hockey First All-Conference team.

Keeper, an instructor in RDC’s Kinesiology & Sport Studies department, has been the Head Coach of the RDC Kings since their return to ACAC competition in 2013-14 and has steadily built up the Kings Hockey program. This season, the Kings had 17 returning players and next season that number could jump to 21. Keeper led the RDC Kings to a 19-7-2-0 record this season and had his team near the top of the league in several categories. Along with 40 points and a third place finish in the regular season standings, the Kings had the second best penalty kill (90.5%) in the eight team league. Both their offensive output and goals against average ranked third in ACAC Men’s Hockey. This year, Keeper guided the Kings to the semi-finals.

“Trevor has been able to build a team which is very successful academically and athletically. Winning this award is representative of his five-year vision for Kings Hockey,” says Diane St-Denis, RDC Athletic Director. “It takes time to build a program, and being able to recruit and retain the student-athletes in ACAC Men’s Hockey is a big part of that.”

A pair of Keeper’s recruits, Tanner Butler and Tyler Berkholtz, have both made a positive impact with the Kings and were chosen as 2017-18 All-Conference selections.

Butler, the captain of the Kings, had an incredible season on the blueline. The fourth-year student- athlete contributed at both ends of the ice and recorded 12 goals and 21 assists while taking care of his defensive responsibilities. The smooth skating defenceman led by example all-season and was an integral member on the Kings’ special teams. The Kinesiology & Sport Studies student from Souris, Manitoba scored six power play goals and was a key player on the penalty kill. The former player for the Dauphin Kings added one game winning goal.

“I think that Tanner is the best two-way defenceman in the league. He led the d-men in scoring and finished fourth in league scoring. He is so good defensively, penalty killing and one-one-one,” says Keeper. “I think he is the ACAC version of a Nick Lidstrom type of defenceman. He is a quiet leader but he says the right things, and is very respected in the dressing room.”

Berkholtz was another important member of the RDC Kings this past season. The fifth-year student- athlete consistently brought a strong work ethic every game and was one of the heart-and-soul players wearing the crown. This year, the Management Certificate student from Penticton accumulated 16 goals and 22 assists which placed him second in league scoring. The assistant captain had five power play goals and two game winning goals while playing in all situations.

“Tyler has gotten better every year over the four years that he has been here,” says Keeper. “He is a competitor, never quits and always wants to win. He’s a mature player and he was a great leader for us.”

The awards were announced Friday, March 16 at the opening game of the ACAC Men’s Hockey finals.

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Education

Higher spending on K-12 education does not result in better student outcomes

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From the Fraser Institute

By Derek J. Allison

Higher levels of per-student spending do not achieve higher student scores on standardized tests, either internationally or among the provinces, finds a new report published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“Just spending more on K-12 education does not lead to better student outcomes,” said Derek J. Allison, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of School Spending and Performance in Canada and Other High-Income Countries.

The study compares provincial per-student spending on K-12 education in 2018 (the last year of comparable data) to other high-income countries in the OECD and to performance on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

It finds that higher per-student spending levels are not associated with stronger academic achievement. In fact, in 2018, 10 countries—or one third—of the high income OECD countries included in the analysis spent more per student than Canada but achieved significantly lower PISA scores.

Similarly, among the provinces, Saskatchewan was the highest per-student spender among the provinces but ranked 8th out of 10 on PISA scores. Manitoba was the second-highest per-student spender and recorded the lowest PISA scores nationwide. Conversely, British Columbia was the lowest spender per student in Canada and achieved the fourth-highest PISA scores.

“The evidence is clear—simply spending more on established K-12 schools without finding new and better ways to help kids learn will not improve student outcomes,” Allison said.

Provincial per-student spending (2018) compared to core PISA score

Province                                          Spending                  Core PISA score

Saskatchewan                                Highest spender      8th
Manitoba                                         2nd                             Lowest PISA score
Alberta                                             3rd                              Highest PISA score
Nova Scotia                                     4th                              5th
Ontario                                             5th                              3rd
New Brunswick                               6th                             9th
Quebec                                              7th                             2nd
P.E.I.                                                 8th                             7th
Newfoundland and Labrador      9th                             6th
British Columbia                            Lowest spender      4th

Click here to see the full report

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COVID-19

Learning loss piles up alongside snow while ‘e-learning’ collects dust

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From the Fraser Institute

By Alex Whalen and Paige MacPherson

During COVID school closures, students in the province missed at least 125 days of school between March 2020 and February 2022, more than any other province (except Ontario), generating a significant learning loss from which students have not caught up.

In a world increasingly connected by technology, and given the Nova Scotia government recently spent tens of millions of dollars enabling at-home learning, one might think that students would seamlessly shift to online learning during the recent snowstorms to avoid losing crucial instructional time. Unfortunately, that’s not happening.

During COVID school closures, the Nova Scotia and federal governments spent at least $31.5 million dollars on “virtual school” and other technological upgrades so students could, according to the provincial government, “succeed, even in an at-home learning environment.”

Unfortunately, the electronic learning infrastructure—which includes Chromebooks, laptops and iPads for students and teachers, and additional support and new teachers for Nova Scotia Virtual School—is collecting dust in a corner while Nova Scotia kids are falling further behind.

This isn’t some blip in an otherwise strong record of instructional time for Nova Scotia students. During COVID school closures, students in the province missed at least 125 days of school between March 2020 and February 2022, more than any other province (except Ontario), generating a significant learning loss from which students have not caught up.

Indeed, according to the latest results (2022) from the Programme for International Assessment (PISA), the gold standard of testing worldwide, Nova Scotia 15-year-olds trail the Canadian average in reading by 18 points and trail the Canadian average in math by 27 points. For context, PISA characterizes a 20-point drop as one year of lost learning.

Moreover, between 2003 and 2022, Nova Scotia student performance in reading dropped by 24 points—more than one year of learning loss—and dropped by 45 points in math. In other words, in math, 15-year-old Nova Scotia students today are more than two years behind where Nova Scotia 15-year-olds were in 2003.

These troubling trends underscore the need to put the existing e-learning infrastructure to work. During a recent two-week period, students in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education school district missed seven days of school due to snow. And some students missed an additional five days due to weather and power outages. That’s nearly three weeks. While more instructional time is not a silver bullet for student success—and with power outages, e-learning is not a perfect solution—it could still make a big difference.

According to international research, missed classroom time causes learning loss and impacts children for life, reducing their life-long earnings. Nova Scotia education researcher Paul Bennett found that lost classroom time due to inclement weather compounds absenteeism and sets back student achievement and social progress.

The Houston government should ensure that Nova Scotian students have access to teacher-directed e-learning when schools are closed and, like other jurisdictions in Canada and the United States, abandon the practise of simply cancelling school due to inclement weather. It’s simply common sense. The snow may pile up, but there’s no good reason why learning loss must pile up with it. Parents are right to demand access to the e-learning they’ve already paid for through their tax dollars.

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