Ontario to revise Grade 9 math curriculum
Nearly three-quarters of students failed to meet provincial standards; minister blames 'system' for poor results
Canadian Press, November 25, 2004
Ontario is revising its Grade 9 applied math curriculum after nearly three-quarters of students failed to
meet provincial standards, the education minister said today as he blamed the system for dismal results.
Gerard Kennedy said there'
s “no justification” for about 37,000 applied math students to fail and said the
program will change by the next school year.
“This is not a true reflection of the potential that these students have,” Kennedy said of the roughly 50,000 teens in the stream.
“There is a revision being discussed now. We believe it is possible to deliver substantially the content of the course in a way that will allow students of different abilities to succeed.”
Kennedy denied that the Liberal plan would “dumb down” the tough four-year curriculum brought in five years ago under the previous Conservative government when it phased out Grade 13.
“More students will learn more math under the program we have,” he said. “We' re bringing the curriculum to the right level that students can do and that students can do still at a degree of difficulty.”
The province's Education Quality and Accountability Office reported today that only 26 per cent of Grade 9 students in the applied stream performed at the provincial standard, but that was still five per cent better than last year. About 37 per cent were close to the standard.
Overall, Grade 9 students slightly improved on standardized math tests, administered to more than 150,000 students in the applied and academic streams last winter and spring.
Sixty-eight per cent of those in the academic stream performed at or above the standard — up two per cent over last year, the agency said.
Students in both streams showed difficulty identifying the important elements of problems and understanding their relationships to each other, the agency said. Students also struggled to provide correct answers supported with evidence.
Kennedy said that some struggling students can turn to alternate math courses developed by various school boards that would count as credit for Grade 9 and 10, allowing students to continue on to Grade 11.
The group appears to be particularly vulnerable to being left behind; much of the province' s staggering 30 per cent dropout rate has been traced to the inability of Grade 9 and 10 students to secure the required credits.
Parent group People for Education complained that the Liberal government has not done enough to address a difficult curriculum that has caused kids to founder for years. When introduced in 2000, only 13 per cent of students in the applied math stream made the grade.
Spokeswoman Annie Kidder said the Liberals promised last year to help students, but did nothing.
“We' ve known so clearly that there' s a problem here, for so many years,” said Kidder, calling for immediate help through free tutoring.
“We are failing students here in a very big way.”
The EQAO said students who speak English as a second language and those with special needs fared poorer than others, but also showed improvement over last year.
There were no significant gaps in performance between boys and girls.
The testing office singled out two schools for making major improvements in their test results: College Heights Secondary School in Guelph and St. Michael High School in Kemptville.
Why boys are in trouble
Boys have been painted as the bad guys in the push to encourage girls to succeed, leaving many young men feeling confused and alienated, wondering what they did wrong
The Associated Press
January 5, 1999
According to psychologist and author William Pollack, 'sports are the one arena in which many of society's traditional strictures about masculinity are often loosened, allowing boys to experience parts of themselves they rarely experience elsewhere.'
When Harvard Medical School psychologist William Pollack administered a test to a group of 150 teenaged boys a few years ago, the results were shocking.
The Boy Crisis Book
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It
Authors- Waren Farrell PhD and John Gray PhD
What is the boy crisis?
It's a crisis of education. Worldwide, boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic proficiency in reading, math, and science.
It's a crisis of mental health. ADHD is on the rise. And as boys become young men, their suicide rates go from equal to girls to six times that of young women.
It's a crisis of fathering. Boys are growing up with less-involved fathers and are more likely to drop out of school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up in prison.
It's a crisis of purpose. Boys' old sense of purpose-being a warrior, a leader, or a sole breadwinner-are fading. Many bright boys are experiencing a "purpose void," feeling alienated, withdrawn, and addicted to immediate gratification.
So, what is The Boy Crisis? A comprehensive blueprint for what parents, teachers, and policymakers can do to help our sons become happier, healthier men, and fathers and leaders worthy of our respect. Read More ..
Health Canada Publication
The Invisible Boy: Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens
"... the existence of a double standard in the care and treatment of male victims, and the invisibility and normalization of violence and abuse toward boys and young men in our society.
Despite the fact that over 300 books and articles on male victims have been published in the last 25 to 30 years, boys and teen males remain on the periphery of the discourse on child abuse.
Few workshops about males can be found at most child abuse conferences and there are no specialized training programs for clinicians. Male-centred assessment is all but non-existent and treatment programs are rare. If we are talking about adult males, the problem is even greater. A sad example of this was witnessed recently in Toronto. After a broadcast of The Boys of St. Vincent, a film about the abuse of boys in a church-run orphanage, the Kids' Help Phone received over 1,000 calls from distraught adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is tragic in a way no words can capture that these men had no place to turn to other than a children's crisis line."
American Psychological Association
Dating Violence Statistics in the United States
Nearly one in 10 girls and one in 20 boys say they have been raped or experienced some other form of abusive violence on a date, according to a study released Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.
The mean T-shirt: From the Stupid Factory
Todd Goldman says his popular boy-bashing T-shirts are simply funny.
So why are retailers having second thoughts? Read More ..
Why boys are in trouble
Boys have been painted as the bad guys in the push to encourage girls to succeed, leaving many young men feeling confused and alienated, wondering what they did wrong
The Associated Press
According to psychologist and author William Pollack, 'sports are the one arena in which many of society's traditional strictures about masculinity are often loosened, allowing boys to experience parts of themselves they rarely experience elsewhere.'
When Harvard Medical School psychologist William Pollack administered a test to a group of 150 teenaged boys a few years ago, the results were shocking.