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Good Intentions of De-Streaming High School Is Paving A Hellish Road For Students

 

The Ontario Ministry of Education is hoping to address the inequality issue within its secondary schools by treating everyone the same. The result has been that everyone is suffering.   

Rather than continuing to let parents and students decide what level or stream (academic, applied, workplace) they wanted to take their mandatory Grade 9 courses, now students must take these courses all at the same level, regardless of ability. 

This approach relies heavily on the elementary schools preparing students to have success in high school. But for far too many students under this new de-streamed system - it doesn’t.  The reasons for this are varied and not necessarily the fault of the changes to an elementary education system that has moved away from failing students and deemphasized grades. I am not here to debate the merits of that decision, but the idea of holding students back and not allowing them to progress with their peers is now viewed as being excessively punitive. Students with learning disabilities are given additional support, but the main intervention has been to allow teachers to modify curriculum expectations to allow for students to be assessed at their own level of progress. This meant that many students who received a modified curriculum were recommended not to take courses at the academic level in grade 9, since they would receive no modifications in secondary school as per ministry policy. 

Now with de-streaming, no recommendations are given since Grade 9 students will take all their courses at the same level. So a student with dyslexia or other learning challenges that has been passed along in elementary school, now hits a brick wall in their first year of high school. They must take all their classes, including Math and English at an expected level of knowledge they are unprepared for and at a pace of learning few have ever experienced. Not surprisingly, most of these students are unsuccessful and through no fault of their own, get to feel the pain of academic failure for the first time.  These students are then punished by having to take the course over again in summer school, where strangely enough many now get their passing credit with a course delivery model that crams months worth of lessons into weeks. Taxpayers aren't the only ones questioning a system that can have teacher fail students so there are more summer teaching jobs available in this credit earning shell game.

Obviously, it doesn’t have to be this way. But before offering some solutions, it is worth examining why the Ministry of Education got rid of streaming in the first place. The argument is that streaming is considered discriminatory due to its disproportionately negative effects on racialized and at risk students.  Too many were recommended to take the applied stream and that reduced the number of these students choosing post secondary destinations. Most jurisdictions in Canada have already got rid of streaming and Ontario was playing catch up. In fact, some advocates want streaming removed in Grade 10 as well. But before that can be even considered,  we must fix the problems that de-streaming just in Grade 9 has created. 

Obviously, teaching a class where students enter with a wide range of skill sets and abilities is challenging. To address these issues schools have unofficially grouped classes based on ability. For example, french immersion students have similar course choices and accordingly many of their non - french classes are timetabled together.  This allows schools and teachers to continue like before and meet the students where they are. Of course other schools will just mask the issue by lowering the bar and continue to pass kids along.

I wouldn’t recommend any of these adaptive strategies, but I don’t want a return to streaming in Grade 9 either. Having elementary teachers provide that recommendation to parents and students carried too much weight and it was still too early for that call to be made. Plus the fact, the differences between elementary and secondary education are stark. As stated before, the option to modify curriculum that is available at the elementary level can cloud a true assessment. You also have to ask why an elementary teacher is deciding if a student will have success at a high school when they are not teaching there themselves. 

So yes, I am fine with de-streaming in Grade 9, but certainly not the way we’re currently doing it. For starters we need to remove modifications to the curriculum in elementary school. I am not advocating holding students back, but greater supports and after school interventions can’t be left to high school. The system is great at diagnosing problems students are facing early in their education, but is woeful about actually doing something about it. This needs to change so that students can reach their potential when the streaming decision is to be made. 

In the meantime, if the elementary system doesn’t change, then we can’t in good conscience continue failing students in grade 9 who have no choice on level and who have been ill prepared for the challenge. This is by no means suggesting ...

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