ieality reports ORTH VANCOUVER School District 44 need not shield pupils in Grades 4 to 6 trom letter grade realities. They can take it. Most parents around 3.C. will have loudly ‘applauded Victoria’s Sept. 12 announcement reintreducing structured report cards with istter grades for students in Grades 4 to 12. After years of struggling through anecdotal report cards that affixed no clear measurable standard to a student’s progress or lack there- of, parents should now be receiving a propress report they can clearly understand and com- pare not only to the standard by which they were measured when they were in school, but so the standard by which their children’s +ounterparts are being measured. Letter grade report cards, however, are not just for parents. They are also for students, ~~ho will be able to see clearly where they are succeeding and where they are not, and will be able to compare their progress with that of their fellow students. Competition plays a key role in progressing through school and, more importantly, the real world beyond, which is what our school system should be preparing our children for. District 44, however, will attempt to avert Grade 4 to 6 student eyes from such realities by communicating their letter grades to their parents in some undetermined means other than report cards. Revealing letter grades to children in the Grade 4 to 6 age group “was considered devel- opmentaily unhealthy.” Reality could be considered developmental- ly unhealthy at any age. But children, as much as parents, need to know where they stand or they will never be able to move ahead. don’t consul the peop AN OPEN letter to the Ministers of Finance and Human Resources: By John Robson Contributing Writer GENTLEMEN: Each of you has bravely and commendably promised long overdue, major over- hauls of the programs and policies under your responsibility. If there is any assistance we can render, we would be delighted to do so. But there is a piece of advice that, unsolicited, I wish to extend to you — particularly to Mr. Axworthy: for God’s sake, don’t consult the people! it cannot be done and should not be done. As Mr. Martin is already realiz- ing, having gone through the exer- cise, it is a mistake. He has been quoted to the effect tbat the reason previous consulta- tions failed is that the government did not go back to the people it con- sulted to tell them why it was rejecting their suggestions. If that is your intention, Mr. Mariin, I have a couple of ideas about what you could tell people. One is “Your idea was stupid” and another is “Your idea was self- ish.” However, J also do not need to tell you it was not their impression that, in making their presentations, they would in the end receive a polite and plausible refutation of their views. They thought they were going to influence your actions. They won’t, for two reasons, One is that you would not have accepted ministerial responsibility if you didn’t already have a pretty clear idea what you wanted to do. Nor would you have been elected, if enough of the people did not wish you to attempt to implement your ideas. But it is the other reason that is the really serious one — the one that accounts for the failure of pre- vious governments’ consultations, the one that doomed Mr. Martin’s and will doom yours, too, Mr. Axworthy. It is this: There are nearly 30 million Canadians. If each provided you iC! with one minute’s worth of their views, it would take 30 million minutes, or 500,000 hours for you to hear their opinions. Round that down to 480,000 hours and it becomes 20,000 days or 54.7 years, If you decide to narrow it to one Canadian in 10, we are down to five and a half years. One in 100, and it's six and a half months, 24 hours a day. Bring your workday down to, say, 12 hours, and we're looking at over a year, just to listen. Cut your work week down to six days and we're at 15 months. Quite apart from the fact that pruning the populace down by 99% without distorting the distribution of views is an impossible task, the likelihood that your remaining 300,000 Canadians will present a coherent program to you is mini- mal. You will have to pick and choose those elements of what you have heard that you think make sense, and assemble them into a coherent whole. ; And obviously — no criticism implied — your selections will be based largely on the beliefs and information that, over a lifetime of public activity and interest in public affairs, you have assembled, and which you presented to the Canadian people for their approval ~— which you received in last October's election. . The problem with the previous government was not that it failed to consult the people, but that it failed to provide enough principled lead- ership, that it attempted with mixed success to drift with the tide of pop- ular opinion instead of saying: “We believe in this; stand with us or tear it down.” It consulted too much, and gained the appearance of being . unprincipled and poll-driven. Gentlemen, you have principles, whether or not one agrees with all of them. You have carefully consid- ered ideas for reform. And you have a mandate. Get it done — and ask us in three to four years whether we like it! Dr. John Robson is a former policy analyst with the Fraser institute, a right-wing economic think-tank based in Vancouver. He currently works in Ottawa with the federal Reform party. NOEL WRIGHT ON VACATION Boug Foot Comptroller Peter Speck Publisher $85-2131 (101) tae 9 THE VONCE OF NONTH AND WEST VANCOUVER are BDAY= TRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver B.C. 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