Education
Local Student Honoured With Prestigious Award!
By Sheldon Spackman
A Grade 12 student at Lindsay Thurber High School in Red Deer has been honoured with a prestigious award. Sheldon Steinhauer is this year’s recipient of the Indigenous Shining Student Award.
The annual award from the Alberta School Boards Association recognizes First Nations, Métis and Inuit students who are shining examples in their communities. Three other students were also honoured as finalists.
Steinhauer is described as dedicated and passionate about the arts and showing significant talents and creativity in music, drawing and theatre arts. He says he is “honoured to be recognized in this way and very proud of what he’s been able to accomplish through hard work.”
In a release, Lisa Freisen, choir teacher at Lindsay Thurber, says “Sheldon is grounded by his Cree heritage and is focused on his emotional, spiritual, mental and physical well being. Choir, art and drama are his creative outlets. We are so proud that Sheldon plans to pursue the performing arts when he finishes school. I know it will be a lifetime commitment for him.”
Vice Principal Brian Plastow says “Sheldon has truly been one of the most impressive students I have met, He is thriving at Lindsay Thurber, excelling in the arts and demonstrating high academic achievement. Sheldon is so deserving of this recognition. He is an inspiring student demonstrating resiliency, leadership and the full potential of youth today.”
Red Deer Public School District officials say Steinhauer will now be sponsored to attend a youth conference on leadership, and be recognized by the school at an upcoming event.
A record number of students – 60 from across Alberta – were nominated this year.
Education
Higher spending on K-12 education does not result in better student outcomes
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
COVID-19
Learning loss piles up alongside snow while ‘e-learning’ collects dust
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.
Authors:
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