Conducting Research. Expanding Knowledge. Fostering Understanding. (CTF)

Sound research is too often missing when changes are advocated for education policy and teaching practice. The global push for education reforms too often starts with preconceived solutions.

Private involvement in education is a multibillion-dollar business. Major corporations eye education (and all public services) as new turf for profits. In the United States, major foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have embedded themselves in the department of education, where they push for reforms based on competition and standardized test outcomes. They promote a worldwide strategy for education reform based on narrow capitalistic values like “competition is good” and “let the market decide.”

Their ideology embraces “rugged individualism” and “freedom of choice” and an ever-narrowing curriculum focus. It promotes the idea that teacher performance should be assessed on the basis of student results on high-stakes testing, and it seeks to undermine the influence of teacher organizations.

So where does research fit? 

Research is a major focus of the work of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. Our calls for policy change and our advocacy are based on solid data provided by research.

Teachers believe research is key to improving professional learning and, in turn, improving education. Current Canadian preservice and in-service programs offer teachers ongoing advances in such areas as brain-based learning, student learning styles, literacy for special needs students, numeracy, media, and digital literacy.

CTF member organizations partner with provincial ministries of education, school boards, and faculties of education to provide professional learning. To keep teacher education in Canada at the cutting edge, CTF believes teacher education programs should be sited at research universities.

The CTF working group on quality teaching, established in 2009, collects and analyzes research from across the country. Expect to read more about this working group and its findings. The many studies, reports, and documents that CTF collects and analyzes are posted on the CTF private members’ site, available to ETFO and to all CTF member organizations. CTF conducts its own research. Last summer, many ETFO members responded to our online poll on professional learning. Respondents outlined the extent to which they access professional learning on their own. Their responses also provided evidence of the significant role that teacher organizations play in providing professional learning.

CTF also funds research. In the summer of 2010, we launched the CCT/CTF Research Awards Program, which is expected to provide grants of over $10,000 annually to research projects that support public education in Canada.1  CTF believes that strong research and consistent advocacy will help to foster an education system based democracy and social justice – education that benefits society as a whole and not just the bottom line for multinational corporations.

Note
_{1 The program originated from a $200,000 donation from the Canadian College of Teachers when it ceased operations. This forms the base of the income-generating pool of funds}