Page Content
Personal touch gets the grade
Last August, a team of retired teachers and guidance counsellors with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) worked the phones to convince more than 860 students to return to school and finish their studies. And this June, 300 of those students will graduate. “We were reaching out and saying, basically, ‘We miss you, come back,’” Christopher Usih told the Globe and Mail, May 31. Usih, the TDSB’s superintendent of student success, added, “We’re quite pleased with the result.” The initiative, which cost about $12,000, is funded by provincial funding earmarked for student re-engagement. Usih said that based on 300 students graduating, the cost per student is about $40. The TDSB’s personal touch greatly influenced the success rate, said Bruce Ferguson, University of Toronto professor and expert on why students drop out. “It makes the kids believe they’re worthwhile—that’s why it works,” Ferguson said.
Students’ middles ranked
In their bid to fight rising obesity rates among children and youth, schools in the United Kingdom are now posting students’ body mass index on report cards. Recent figures for the UK show that almost 25 per cent of children are obese. One politician, quoted in an article published in the May 28 Globe and Mail, stated that “In the last decade British children have got fatter faster than anywhere else in Western Europe. We are at risk of an epidemic of vascular diseases as a result.”
Public-sector foe survives recall
In 2011, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker introduced the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill. As reported in the May 8 ATA News, the bill is intended “to address a projected $3.6 billion deficit. Among other things, the bill sought to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public-sector employees, excluding police and firefighters; base their wage increases on the consumer price index; and increase employees’ contributions to their health insurance and pension plans.” In response, union members collected 1 million signatures to recall Walker. On June 5, Walker beat back the recall challenge. In his victory speech, he said: “Tonight we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions.”
