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rfmcdonaldSpacing Toronto's John Lorinc argues that the Toronto District School Board needs drastic reforms to be capable of meeting its challenges.
If Premier Kathleen Wynne truly had the courage of the convictions that made her a great education advocate a decade ago, she’d ditch the measured calls for an investigation into the TDSB’s outrageous problems (here, here and here) and instead appoint a tough, veteran supervisor to thoroughly clean house at 5050 Yonge Street before letting the new trustees anywhere near the place.
[. . .]
Recent data from the Toronto District School Board echo these stark differentials; from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 6, fully 48% of black children and 56% of Middle Eastern children lived in families with incomes of less than $30,000 a year, compared to only 9% of white children.16 Similarly, 36% of white children in Grades 7-12 had parents in professional or senior management positions, compared to only 12% of black children.
It also outlines the corrosive and ultimately cyclical relationship between poverty and education, with the former contributing to problems with the latter, e.g., low readiness-to-learn indicators for pre-school-age children. These children, according to the report, are (not surprisingly) less likely to be involved with extracurricular activities than their counterparts from more affluent households. And on and on.
TDSB officials won’t be surprised by these findings; indeed, the board produced a lot of the research that went into the report. But for reasons that defy comprehension, this same organization has become consumed with inane sideshows — stupid little money-making adventures, like the sports bubble at Central Tech or the One-Stop electronic billboards in some schools — as well as seriously smelly executive decisions, namely the Confucius Institute deal with the Chinese government.
[. . .]
It took a team of investigative reporters to unearth all this muck. A well-governed institution would have the checks in place to defuse these kinds of ticking grenades before they turn up as sensational scandal pieces in the media.
