The march for progress continues:
Ontario parents of 4- and 5-year-olds should be able to leave their children at school from 7:30 in the morning to 6 p.m. as part of sweeping changes bringing daycare and kindergarten under one roof, the Star has learned.
A long-awaited report by Charles Pascal on full-day learning, to be released tomorrow, calls for a massive shakeup in children’s services that would see the Ministry of Education take full responsibility for learning from birth to young adulthood, sources say.
For families, it would mark the beginning of the so-called “seamless day,” where parents drop off and pick up their children in one location; kids then spend the day in one building, their school, instead of being ferried back and forth between class and child care. Research has shown that especially for younger children, the fewer transitions, the better.
How perfectly ghastly. This isn’t about what’s best for the kids. It’s about what’s more convenient to adults. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
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Andrea adds: Probably has a whole lot to do with what’s beneficial for the Ministry of Education, too. Declining demographics means they have fewer students–schools are closing. How better to expand than to get themselves into the costly and time-consuming daycare business?
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Rebecca says: “A long-awaited report by Charles Pascal on full-day learning, …” Oh for heaven’s sake. Support or oppose this notion (and I think it’s dreadful) can we at least please acknowledge that it’s day-long daycare, and nothing to do with education? If we talk like Orwell’s characters, the terrorists have won.
by 
Sounds somewhat soviet to me. The earlier children can be indoctrinated into the “liberal” mindset the better. My five year old currently attends a two and a half hour JK program which I think is a silly waste of taxpayer money, but which my husband thinks is somehow beneficial. Were they to bring in an all day kindergarten program, she would no longer attend kindergarten, period. Also, my older children have gone through early grades with almost no text books, yet we have money for daycare in schools? My oldest child is in grade 9 and I have yet to see what in my day was called a Reader, ie. a book with different stories, poems, etc. that helped a child develop reading comprehension skills. There are so many areas of our public education system that need fixing, all day kindergarten is surely not one of them.
This is a huge step in the state taking over the raising of children ever more and more. Something to be opposed for sure.
We have those here in the U.S. They’re school age child care programs. I ran managed one for about 10 years (now I stay home with my own kids). Most open between 6:30 and 7 a.m. The kids then go to school and come back afterwards (the program is located in the school). Around here parents pay for it (the state does not) and the state regulates them like a regular day care center. The state does not regulate curriculum as of yet and parents can pick a program that has a curriculum that they’re happy with. Parents can just send their kids in the morning, just in the afternoon, or the more popular option of both. In general they all close around 6. The good thing is that they are more affordable then traditional day care, they are centered around school age kids (pre- k to 8th), and they are a solution to having 6 year olds become latch key kids. Theoretically you pick a school age program that has a philosophy and curriculum that you agree with. Some of the biggest problems with what these programs do is that your child spends more time in the average day with the school then they do with the parent. Your child is more likely to do things like homework in these programs and many offer care on days when there is no school (as long as it’s monday through friday). It does create a situation where the school/ program has more influence then the parent at times (and parents are not only not alarmed by this many of my parents were happy because it was less for them to deal with). The problem is that this is an opportunity to indoctrinate your children. It’s an opportunity for the state (or a complete stranger) to undermine your parenting. The kids and their parents expect you to fill a roll in their lives that a parent normally does. Not something I was ever comfortable with. My greatest fear is that those programs will become completely state funded, with mandatory participation, and state controlled curriculum. It’s becoming hard enough to keep my kids from being indoctrinated without the government trying to cut off my ability to parent my children in kindergarten. We have to be able to look past the convenience and how nice it sounds to have a place to send your kids for free and see it for what it is. It is an opportunity for the government to take your kids from you. The saddest part is that most people will never see it coming. Government control is not the answer for most things much less everything. A lot of these government sponsored social programs are not what they seem.
“…a massive shakeup in children’s services that would see the Ministry of Education take full responsibility for learning from birth to young adulthood…”
Orwell got everything right except the year…
Liberal ideology is perpetuated by indoctrinating other people’s children.
A friend of mine refers to daycares as Lilliputian gulags.
I am 70 years old -began teaching in 1958 (grade 1)-studied child psych in 1962 (U of T) when we were required to learn the theories of Dr ? Blatz, who frowned upon early learning as it was too traumatic for young children-raised 3 children (stay at home mom)= did not pressure my children-all are very successful adults-I divorced, returned to teaching and was expected to follow “Hall-Dennis Report’ which advocated allowing children to learn by play and “discover” for themselves skills of reading, M ath etc- dropped out of teaching-fast forward years later to new Ontario curriculum, which had extremely high expectations of children re their ability to absorb huge amounts of information; had to deal with “edu-speak”- wording used by experts in education which reduced simple concepts to incomprehensible jargon-now we have Dr. Charles Pascal and his birth to young adult schooling- I scratch my head in puzzlement-what has happened to society? are parents unable to teach children anything of value on their own? I would not want to be a child or parent today.