[Tricks]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Our High-school graduation rate in those days was just 68% compared to today's 83%.

To be fair, that's because they pass everyone. As long as you show up, you graduate at this point. That doesn't mean a better education.

[BeaverFever]

Tricks Tricks:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Our High-school graduation rate in those days was just 68% compared to today's 83%.

To be fair, that's because they pass everyone. As long as you show up, you graduate at this point. That doesn't mean a better education.

That's not true at all. In fact Ontario schools are among the best:

$1:

Ontario school system ranks among best in world, report says
Ontario's education system emerges as a model, and an example of prudent pedagogical spending, in a report prepared by the consulting firm McKinsey and Co., which will release its findings on Monday.

http://theglobeandmail.com/news/nationa ... icle567927

[Jabberwalker]

Tricks Tricks:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Our High-school graduation rate in those days was just 68% compared to today's 83%.

To be fair, that's because they pass everyone. As long as you show up, you graduate at this point. That doesn't mean a better education.

I have high school age kids and they seem to be tackling appropriately difficult material. That was not true for the Generation Xers and those who followed up until the end of the last century. They were cheated by an education system ruled by the trendy teaching theory du jour. I remember remarking to a young, trendy teacher back then about the young illiterates that were looking for employment without any tangible skills and she said "but they are so well socialized!" She believed it, too. Telling every kid that he/she is a superstar may pass for "well socialized" if you think that People Magazine is a source of hard news and information.

Anyway, I suppose that the "well socialized" Gen-Xers got along better on the buses that they ended up riding for two decades or so.

[ShepherdsDog]

Funny. I'm one of the MTV gen, graduating in '84. We at least had streaming, rather than this all inclusive BS. In elementary school there were modified,regular and enriched programs and once you got to high school we had Academic(00), Regular(01), Do you want fries with that?(04) and Specialized (05) programs, which were essentially university level courses taught in Grade 12. Math 305 was Calculus. Chemistry 305 was Organic Chemistry. I was also lucky to attend a school that offered vocational programs as well.

[Jabberwalker]

Specialized (05) programs, which were essentially university level courses taught in Grade 12.

We had University level Science courses in grades 10 ans 11 in our school ... PSSC Physics, BSCS Biology and Chem Study as the advanced courses were called . The PSSC Physics was two years ahead of our math, thought and our Physics teacher had to give us snippets of Calculus to get us through. We had no Grade 12 but there are two years of CEGEP ... a sort of community college in Quebec, instead.

(I was in PSSC Physics class when Henderson scored "the goal". Everyone with a transistor radio and earphones stood up and cheered!)

Anyway, the class two years ahead of me produced an astronaut, so maybe it WAS rocket science.

[andyt]

bootlegga bootlegga:

andyt andyt:

Too late. The time to fix your debt would have been while things were booming - pay more taxes, pay as you go for government spending, and put money in the heritage fund. Show a little self-restraint instead of acting like children in a candy store.

Ontario didn't have that option, they got kicked in the nuts by the high oil prices that did so well for Alberta, and the resulting high dollar. As well as a "federal" government that was totally focused on oil.

Yeah Alberta screwed up not saving more than a few pennies in the last 25 years, but I'd argue Ontario manufacturers unwillingness to re-invest in R&D, productivity and training was a bigger factor in Ontario's decline.

Doubt that would have overcome the pull for cheap labor in China, but no doubt it would have helped. The difference is that with Alberta it was up to the government and the people who voted for it to practice some self-discipline. In Ontario, what you describe lays at the feet of the private sector. Governments, both provincial and federal have tried to get industry to re-invest by cutting taxes. Instead, industry is content to just sit on a big pile of money. Had Ontario indeed somehow forced the private sector to reinvest, the same people now blaming Ontario would have been howling about socialism.

[ShepherdsDog]

Only difference is that the price of oil will go up again and so will Alberta's revenues. Manufacturing is gone for good in Ontario.

[Jabberwalker]

There are types that survive and thrive but they are not the traditional "mass production" type of manufacturing that most of you will think of. There has to be a heavy "custom" element to it and a lot of "intelligence" or engineering going into each custom run. The Chinese can't come close to competing with "smart manufacturing" done close to time sensitive markets. They have to do low skill things in very large numbers.

[ShepherdsDog]

They'll adjust...unfortunately. Taiwan went from producing cheap consumer shit to become a center for hi tech

[Jabberwalker]

Their industrial machinery is excellent, now, and it is right up there with Japanese, Korean, German products.

[BeaverFever]

I graduated in 96 and they still had Basic,General,Advanced and Enriched programs. Advanced was for average kids bound for post secondary, usually University. Enriched was for "gifted" kids (and some who were not so gifted but could still get straight A grades). Basic and General programs were only available in certain schools although every school offered one or 2 math or science courses at the General level. As far as I know it's still like this... Or at least it varies from one schoo/board to another.

I'm not really sure it makes much of a difference though. Even where there's no streaming, smart kids work off different material and at a different pace so I think the complaints are overstated.

[OnTheIce]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Tricks Tricks:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Our High-school graduation rate in those days was just 68% compared to today's 83%.

To be fair, that's because they pass everyone. As long as you show up, you graduate at this point. That doesn't mean a better education.

That's not true at all. In fact Ontario schools are among the best:

$1:

Ontario school system ranks among best in world, report says
Ontario's education system emerges as a model, and an example of prudent pedagogical spending, in a report prepared by the consulting firm McKinsey and Co., which will release its findings on Monday.

http://theglobeandmail.com/news/nationa ... icle567927

Comparing Ontario schools against 20 others from around the World hardly makes them the best.

The best of that very tiny sample size, yes.

Tell that to kids in Ontario sitting in run-down and mold-infested schools about how 'great' their school is.

[OnTheIce]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

- Or the fact that Harris deal prohibits the Province from building any other roads or highways that could conceivably compete with the 407? Sorry citizens, we know that growing traffic problems mean you need a new highway badly, and we would build you one. but that would complete with ETR Corp. You'll have to pay them to drive on their highway - their profits are what's really important, not the public interest.

Irrelevant.

There isn't room to put another road to compete with the 407 or 401 anyways.

[smorgdonkey]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Well that's nice and all but we're talking about a govt in Ontario that's been the party in power for the last 13 years. Based on the Wynned Bag's campaign of "reducing the deficit" and "significant rate relief" on hydro, it appears the Ontario voter lacks even the most fundamental math skills, or a memory that's capable of recalling anything beyond last week.

Perhaps they are HORRIFIED by the alternatives.

Thanos Thanos:

There will never be a time in this country when liberals won't play the region vs region game for their own political benefit.

Conservatives never play that game...pardon me while I gather my eyeballs since they just rolled out of my head and across the floor. #cultureofdefeat, #transferpayments, #lazyeasterners

bootlegga bootlegga:

If a party could figure that out, they'd probably be in office for life like the PCs are in Alberta.

and pretty much 90% based upon "that damn National Energy Program" and successive generations echoing the same anti-non-moron blabber.

bootlegga bootlegga:

so instead they creamed off the profits and kept our productivity and R&D way behind the US.

That's way off...perhaps the most productive GM plant was in Canada and it went to the US for politics, not productivity.