Dawson City Citizen's Forum

Very interesting article in Whitehorse Star on 3 Feb.

Just 40% First Nation youth successfully graduate from highschool!!!

Please don't make this post an opportunity to slaughter RSS and/or staff, or parents. I don't think it's the people that at fault for the failures in our schools; there's something fundamental in the education system that is failing our youth. Something that is unable to captivate the imaginations, motivations, and interests in the minds of the students

We have teachers, parents, and community working to a greater or lesser extent to help our young acquire the skills they need to help them make the most of their lives. Maybe it's the content, the strategy, the approach to 'educating' that is failing our young. Maybe the answers lay less in trying to 'mold' our young, but rather trying to set them free... free from the burden of all the social constructs, media, and cultural pressures that subversively pressure youth to be something other than their true, pure, (read: divinity-infused) selves. Perhaps what our education system needs is less focus on 'regurgitation' of knowledge, and more development of self-awareness (and therefore 'otherness/community/global' awareness) as well as free expression of this 'self' in our educating process.

I understand these are complex issues, without simple answers. Still - worth talking about. Here's the article:

http://whitehorsestar.com/archive/story/education-branch-needs-change-fraser/

"“We found that the department is not acting to address critical gaps in student performance,“ Fraser said during a noon-hour briefing. “. . . According to Statistics Canada, the Yukon had the third lowest five-year graduation rate in Canada for the period ended 2005-06."

"According to the department’s own achievement targets, it’s meeting its goals in just six of 20 subjects, says the audit."

"The 2007 annual report by the department, for instance, indicated that 92 per cent of all students successfully graduated, including 89 per cent of first nation students.

Fraser noted, however, when you include all the factors, including high school drop-outs, the success rate for all students falls to 65 per cent and 40 per cent for first nation students."


"Fraser found the method of reporting graduation success rates is misleading, and doesn’t accurately reflect the true picture."

The department essentially removes high school drop-outs or students who switch to individual education programs, which do not require standardized testing, from its graduation equation, she points out."

> Very interesting article in Whitehorse Star on 3 Feb.
------------------------

Much as I hate to run down journalists, this is one of those cases where it would be best to read the actual AG report rather than the reportage. It's daunting, but the discussion would benefit from the full document. Reporters tend to deal with education reports as if they were sports scores, and they really aren't.

The whole report can be found here:
http://www.education.gov.yk.ca/pdf/auditor_general_report_yukon_education.pdf

Bear in mind that the dept. has no tracking mechanism for following students who leave the Yukon before graduating. Our emigration from Dawson is substantial. One class dropped from over twenty to about 6 between grade 8 and grade 12. The dept. could track those who went to Whitehorse, but not those who left the Yukon. I suspect privacy considerations would stop the receiving schools from releasing that information later on.

Then there's the issue of students who are held back and don't graduate with the group they began with. That doesn't mean they never do graduate, but it seems that grad. rate stats don't allow for that.

To my mind, because there are so many factors that can mess this up, it makes sense to determine actual graduation rates from the number of students who are in grade 12 in a given year and are carrying enough credits (from grades 10 to 12) to graduate. Comparing the actual to the potential is an exercise I'm not at all sure we have the data to accomplish.

On the other hand, I find many items in the AG's report that I spent most of my teaching career complaining about so it's certainly not all negative in terms of stimulating improvement.

Here's another article from todays Whitehorse Star regarding Chief Taylor's opinion on the education matter. As a parent I have to say I agree with the Chief's comments 100%.


Chief lauds Education department report
The Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation is pleased with Auditor General Sheila Fraser's report
By Whitehorse Star on February 10, 2009

The Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation is pleased with Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s report on the Yukon education system and hopes it will lead to positive changes for first nations students.

“The education audit confirms the concerns we’ve had for years,“Chief Eddie Taylor said in a statement.

“First nation students have lagged behind their non-first nation counterparts in academic achievement and graduation rates for a long time.

“The Auditor General’s report is a wakeup call for everyone that we need to deal with the situation.“

The report, released last week, also identifies the high percentage of developmental students at Yukon College as another issue to be addressed.

“(The) Yukon government receives money on our behalf to educate our youth in public schools,“ said Taylor.

“It doesn’t seem right that we should pay for our students to “upgrade” an education we’ve already paid for.“

Taylor recently met with Education Minister Patrick Rouble to discuss his concerns.

The chief said he’s looking forward to ongoing communication with the education minister on how his department plans to correct the issues raised in the Auditor General’s report.

“We need identified targets from the Yukon government and a real plan for improving education for our first nation kids,“ said Taylor.

“The education they’re receiving now puts them at a severe disadvantage when pursuing further education and job opportunities.“

> Here's another article from todays Whitehorse Star regarding Chief Taylor's
> opinion on the education matter. As a parent I have to say I agree with the
> Chief's comments 100%.
++++++++++++++++++++++

Here's a thought: stoll down the foyer hallway at the school and take a look at the grad photos posted there. You won't find a lack of first nation students among them. Many of those faces are now working in responsible positions in our town and elsewhere. Many are now parents.

> > Here's another article from todays Whitehorse Star regarding Chief
> Taylor's
> > opinion on the education matter. As a parent I have to say I agree with
> the
> > Chief's comments 100%.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Here's a thought: stoll down the foyer hallway at the school and take a
> look at the grad photos posted there. You won't find a lack of first
> nation students among them. Many of those faces are now working in
> responsible positions in our town and elsewhere. Many are now parents.


Nobody said that ALL first nation students fail to graduate high school. However the ratio of first nation and non first nation graduates is substantially different. I have been to the school many times and have in fact seen all of the grad photos posted, congratulations to all of them for toughing out 13 years of school! I'm sure it was not easy.

Please don't try to turn the blind eye to the First Nations youth in Dawson that have not graduated high school. I can name many off the top of my head and I'm sure you can as well.

I myself am a First Nation parent and feel I work in a responsible position in Dawson. But after I graduated high school I still had to do upgrading before moving onto post secondary school. So I'm not really sure the point you're trying to get across by telling me to take a stroll down the foyer at the school, I'm willing to bet that the majority of the students posted on the Grad Wall have had to complete some sort of upgrading before moving onto post secondary school.

It is my opinion that the quality of education our children are receiving now is not as good as it was not too long ago when my brother went to university without needing any upgrading (after gradutating here in Dawson). My child needed upgrading in both english and math before taking university courses successfully. What changed???

> It is my opinion that the quality of education our children are receiving
> now is not as good as it was not too long ago when my brother went to
> university without needing any upgrading (after gradutating here in
> Dawson). My child needed upgrading in both english and math before taking
> university courses successfully. What changed???


I agree, I should have re-worded my opinion and said the majority of 'recent' graduates require upgrading before moving onto post secondary education.

> So I'm not really sure
> the point you're trying to get across by telling me to take a stroll down
> the foyer at the school, I'm willing to bet that the majority of the
> students posted on the Grad Wall have had to complete some sort of
> upgrading before moving onto post secondary school.


++++++++++++++++++++

My point was simply that RSS does graduate its share of first nation students. To read the news report, one would think it did not. That's not fair to them, or to you, if you are a first nation person and graduated here.

As for whether or not RSS alumni have had to take upgrading, it's likely that some have. The majority? I doubt that, but there's no way to find out. A lack of data of that type is one of the failings of the AG's report, even though much of its commentary is relevant.

Graduation does not guarantee readiness for further training, or even acceptance into a program. Low marks are an almost certain guarantee that upgrading will be needed, but they aren't the only reason. Upgrading isn't a bad thing. It often comes at a time in a peoples' lives when they are motivated to give it their best effort. I know that was the case in my own life, way back when.

> Bear in mind that the dept. has no tracking mechanism for following
> students who leave the Yukon before graduating. Our emigration from Dawson
> is substantial. One class dropped from over twenty to about 6 between grade
> 8 and grade 12. The dept. could track those who went to Whitehorse, but not
> those who left the Yukon. I suspect privacy considerations would stop the
> receiving schools from releasing that information later on.

Hmmmm. Also bear in mind that there are reasons for that mass exodus, and that the reasons do not reflect well on the Yukon's education system. These 'emigrants' (I would call them refugees) from Yukon schools do shed some light on the statistics though, suggesting that the system has decayed to such an embarassing state that people would prefer to leave than even try to graduate from a Yukon school.

The main difference that I noticed between Yukon and BC schools is that in the Yukon the focus seems to be on providing basic eduaction to the lowest common denominator, wheras BC seemed to encourage the pursuit of excellence. This can be seen in the Yukon by the extremely high allocation of resources (staff, classroom space, equipment) to remedial learning, "special needs" students, and regular dumb kids, at the expense of more academically motivated students. Many of these marginal students will likely grow up to be a burden on the social safety net for the rest of their lives. How much education do you need to fill in a welfare application form?

> My point was simply that RSS does graduate its share of first nation
> students. To read the news report, one would think it did not. That's not
> fair to them, or to you, if you are a first nation person and graduated
> here.
>
> As for whether or not RSS alumni have had to take upgrading, it's likely
> that some have. The majority? I doubt that, but there's no way to find
> out. A lack of data of that type is one of the failings of the AG's
> report, even though much of its commentary is relevant.
>
> Graduation does not guarantee readiness for further training, or even
> acceptance into a program. Low marks are an almost certain guarantee that
> upgrading will be needed, but they aren't the only reason. Upgrading isn't
> a bad thing. It often comes at a time in a peoples' lives when they are
> motivated to give it their best effort. I know that was the case in my own
> life, way back when.

I noticed how you didn't make a comment about all the first nation kids the education system is failing. I wouldn't be surprised if the education report is correct in saying that only 40% of First Nation students graduate high school, I know when I was in high school I can think of 5 first nation kids in my class that didn't graduate Grade 12 and all of them are still living in Dawson today.

> I noticed how you didn't make a comment about all the first nation kids
> the education system is failing.

+++++++++++

Actually, that's where I started. I kept my comments to this community. I do know that the problem is far worse in other places, but I don't know the circumstances in those schools. Not all native students graduate. Not all non-natives do either. But not all of them fail to graduate, either.

I would never say that there isn't room for improvement, and I have already said that there are many good points in the AG's report. There aren't any simple answers to the problems in education, and I do think the manner in which the AG stated the graduation stats is misleading. It's not a deliberate error, any more than the way RSS has kept track is. There are many ways of looking at and interpreting stats and they usually don't correlate very well. Depending on where you start and what algorithms you use, you get different results.

Whenever a student fails to graduate from high school, native or non-native, it is a tragedy, and a failure that is made up of personal, institutional and familial factors. The cases I am aware of were also very individual in their causes. I can't think of one single change that would have altered all of the outcomes.

We do much better than when I went to high school. Of my own Nova Scotia Kindergarten class of about 25 there were 15 left in grade 11, of which 7 went on to the regional high school in the county seat for grade 12. Of those, I know of 2 who went on to immediate further education. I wasn't one of them that year. While I had graduated, I took an extra year of some grade 12 courses (especially Algebra) to raise my marks sufficiently for college entrance. It was time well spent.