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Math? Back to school
Last week's front-page headline about Ontario's declining math scores means that another school year is upon us (Curriculum Overhaul Urged As Ontario's Elementary Math Scores Fall Flat, Aug. 31). All the usual suspects – low test scores, weak teaching, wooly thinking – were in the lineup; it was ever thus.
Only when teachers stop treating mathematics as a means to getting ahead, getting a job and getting on will the situation improve. Arthur C. Clarke put it perfectly: "Here's to pure mathematics: May it never be of any use to anybody."
Adam de Pencier, principal, Blyth Academy Yorkville, Toronto
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The foundation for developing math and science must begin in the elementary grades. Teachers in these grades are usually responsible for the teaching of all subjects, but many have had no exposure to math and science at the university level. Worse than that, many have avoided these subjects starting in high school and, I suspect, this aversion is passed on to their pupils.
Any elementary grade teacher should be required to have credits in a university math course and a science course.
These could be courses of a general nature, designed to meet these requirements, which should deter aspiring teachers who have no facility for math or science from the elementary division. These students could well go on to be excellent specialist high school teachers in the humanities or social sciences, but they should not be teaching the elementary grades.
Ontario is not alone with its concern over math performance.
Concern in England led to the 2008 Williams Report: Independent Review of Math Teaching in Early Years Settings and Primary Schools. It noted that only some 2- to 4-per-cent of primary teacher trainees "had any background in science, technology, engineering or math."
Among the Williams report's proposals is the introduction of an advanced level, high-school math requirement for primary/junior teacher trainees. Let's do something equivalent in Ontario.
Malcolm Stott, Kingston
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Flooded with risk
We now know that the explosions at a chemical plant near Houston were due to the failure of refrigeration systems in a truck which was storing volatile chemicals that ignited as they warmed (Police Rescue Thousands Stranded In Texas, Sept. 1).
Earlier, you reported that Harvey marks the third 500-year flood to hit Houston in the past three years (The Unintended Consequences of Subsidized Flood Insurance, Report on Business, Aug. 30).
Did this chemical company undertake disaster-scenario planning or related risk-management analyses in anticipation of these sorts of catastrophic events?
Or, are these companies content to rely on the insurance industry (again) to "cover" these losses as the costs of doing business?
Chris Gates, Warkworth, Ont.
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Waiting. And waiting
The way many patients are often shunted aside, left waiting on gurneys in hospital emergency department hallways, is indeed "disgraceful and inhumane" (Quebec's Tough Stance On Wait Times Is Long Overdue, Aug. 30).
It seems that our politicians and public policy makers don't much care that comparatively, among 28 industrialized countries, we get so little bang for the buck – spending near the front of the pack and with results trailing at the back. Treating the health "system" as sacrosanct seems far more important than treating patients.
It's worth recalling that 15 years ago, Canadian leaders had access for health-policy decisions to two detailed reports outlining how the health system could and should evolve: one by the Roy Romanow commission, the other led by Senator Michael Kirby.
The recommendations from both had much overlap, but also diverged. Mr. Kirby recommended, for example, that government regulate health-care prices, but pay both public and private providers for delivery. The decision-makers of the day sided with Romanow. After 15 years of this model, additional vast sums of money have disappeared into a system which has brought few notable improvements in care.
Maybe the time has come to admit the Romanow model may never work, so why not go back to that other excellent 2002 report by Mr. Kirby, and mine it for some new directions?
Adrian de Hoog, Ottawa
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We agree that greater accountability is required of hospital administrators in addressing the problem of prolonged ER wait times. However, the suggested cut-off period – 24 hours for a patient to remain in the emergency department on a stretcher – is too long and far from our suggested interval of just eight hours.
A crowded ER is a function of the inability to transfer admitted patients from the ER to the wards. The longer patients wait, the longer they are forced to endure unacceptable suffering, to say nothing of the associated risks of delayed treatment, medical complications, death and increased costs to the health-care system.
We know that when hospital administrations are pushed, they can find the required beds for emergency patients.
In the past, frustrated emergency physicians have called fire marshals, treated patients in adjacent coffee shops (and called the TV cameras), and declared the emergency department a disaster zone.
On each and every occasion, hospital administrations have magically found beds that an hour previously hadn't existed.
In England, if a hospital administrator fails to meet target wait times for the ER, they are fired. Direct administrative accountability for crowded ERs is long overdue in this country. Quebec needs to be congratulated for this bold initiative.
Alan Drummond, MD, co-chair, Public Affairs, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
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Their fair share
Re Unless Ottawa Can Win Over Ordinary Citizens, Tax Changes Will Make Few Friends (Sept. 1): I'm hoping that Campbell Clark is wrong in his prediction that Finance Minister Bill Morneau's proposed tax changes likely will make "motivated enemies, but no friends."
The proposed changes would address some of the grievances that were raised by the Occupy protests of 2011, and have been simmering ever since the financial meltdown of 2008. It's true – the rich are still getting richer.
Those targeted by the legislation happen to be the savviest business people in the country. They have the ways and means to mount a formidable offensive to protect their interests, so, yes, to get its message across, the federal government must mount its own campaign to ensure that Canadians understand what this is all about.
It needs to be done in such a way though, that the one-person corporations are not presented as "the enemy." They've been doing nothing illegal and they do make huge contributions to the Canadian economy. They just need to pay their fair share of taxes.
Kaarina Talvila, Vancouver