The OECD, the Integration Network, the World Bank and the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) at UBC.
2001 OECD Paper
Published by the leading daycare lobby organization, Childcare Resource and Research Unit, run by Martha Friendly in Toronto:
January 2001. Lenira Haddad. Childcare Resource and Research Unit – research study: “An Integrated Approach to Early Childhood Education and Care: A Preliminary Study” (download full PDF here)
You can also find it via CRRUs website by clicking on this link.
The OECD paper sets out the agenda of bringing together education and child care. This “integration” of school and daycare is described as the basis for transition to a “new order” of greater state intervention in the family.
The goal is to overcome the “ideology of the family.”
“This includes deep changes in societies in general and in the family’s structure in particular…a review of the family-state relationship regarding the responsibility for the care and education of children.“
November 2005 Symposium in Toronto
“The Unhurried Day: Learning and Caring Seamlessly” (broken link)
This event established the OECD’s “Integration” in Canada
“The purpose of the symposium was to generate a discussion in Canada about the policy changes that would be needed to bring about integration of early learning and child care for kindergarten age children.”
“The OECD Report suggested that reconciling the differences between kindergarten and child care was a prerequisite to achieving a coherent system of early education and care [universal daycare] in care within integrated departments”
“Achieving integration of kindergarten and child care services in Canada will require a major paradigm shift for all involved. …each province and territory will need to devise its own strategies.”
Symposium report (broken link)
Integration Network website (broken link)
World Bank
World Bank representative and RBC VP Charles Coffey attended the symposium and “set the stage for the symposium by emphasizing the ‘value-added’ work of the Integration Network Project. He urged symposium participants to ‘push the envelope’ on the dialogue about integrating early learning and care systems for young children. Charley also emphasized the importance of early learning and child care for all Canadians—business included.”
Charles Coffey’s 2005 speech to World Bank on the “business imperative” of “early childhood development”
- Video (broken link)
- September 28, 2005. Charlie Coffey. RBC – transcription: Find speech text here
Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) at UBC
HELP aggressively pushes all-day schooling jointly with the BC government which funds HELP.
HELP Director Hillel Goelman is a leader in the “consultation.” In this Sept 2007 Vancouver Sun article (broken link) he pushes and describes in detail the daycare/early schooling vision—months before the BC government even announces the consultation. (The title of the article, “A Modest Proposal,” refers to Johnathan Swifts’s famous 1729 essay in which he satirically proposed eating Irish babies to reduce starvation and poverty.)
HELP: Conflict of interest? The fox directing, advising, evaluating, and counting the chickens
HELP also advises on and evaluates programs it launched, all at tax-payers’ expense: “Strong Start” programs for ages 0-5 in “underutilized” schools get the “integration” agenda started (broken link) (see page 2). HELP runs the advisory council and the evaluation.
HELP’s top three staff, UBC’s Hertzman, Goelman, Kershaw, are the only three “academics” on the pro-daycare Provincial Child Care Council advising the government on policy (broken link).
Feb 2007 HELP/BC Government paper, “A Bold Vision: Documenting the Pivotal Role of Schools in Early Child Development” (broken link)
HELP: Violation of Privacy and informed consent rights?
HELP is also conducting a massive data collection project on all BC children (broken link)
“This research…links person-specific population-based, longitudinal health data from BC’s Linked Health Database, and provincial student level achievement data from Edudata Canada. These “administrative” databases will enable research…from conception to high school leaving, for all children in British Columbia… researchers are working…to identify and create additional data sets that will enhance the current stock of trajectories data, including mental health data; child, youth and family health data from community surveys; child injury data; physiologic (stress) data; etc.“
kidsfirstcanada.org 