Good Riddance to the Former Ontario Education Minister

Stephen Lecce was the quintessential woke conservative

Image from Press Progress

By Igor Stravinsky (Teacher, commentator)

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has shuffled his cabinet and one of the major changes is that Stephen Lecce has been moved from his role as Minister of Education. He had served in the role for 5 years.

In a recent series of Tweets (or X posts if you like), Lecce summarised his tenure in glowing terms. He seems to think he’s done great things. There is a long list of his supposed accomplishments. But if you look a little deeper, you will see that none of them actually add up to a hill of beans on the ground, where kids are suffering: 

• Chronic staff shortages (both teachers and support workers) have resulted in class cancellations and the use of unqualified supply teachers (essentially babysitters)

• Academic standards have dropped drastically

• Schools have become unruly, violent, and unsafe 

I won’t bore you will an analysis of all of his claims, but here are three of his them along with my comments:

“Standing up for higher standards and better quality educators. We abolished the regressive Liberal hiring policy that enabled seniority to triumph over qualification, and finally restored a meritocracy in hiring so that the best educator is in front of your child in the classroom”.

What he’s referring to is Regulation 274, which was adopted to prevent nepotism and cronyism in teacher hiring (previously a rampant practice). The regulation required that for permanent teaching positions, boards had to interview (not necessarily hire) the four qualified teachers who were highest in seniority (most experienced) on the supply teachers’ list prior to interviewing other candidates. It was imperfect, to be sure, but it would be pretty hard to argue the wild west that we have now is better. With woke activists pulling the strings at the school boards, hiring is now often based on identities (race, ethnicity, LGBTQ etc. status) and ideology. 

“We de-streamed the entire Grade 9 curriculum to level the playing field for all kids, while elevating standards across the board”.

De-streaming has been a (totally predictable) disaster. Putting kids of drastically different levels of skill, knowledge, academic ability all in the same large classes has resulted in everyone losing. The brightest kids get a dumbed down curriculum. The average kids don’t get enough attention from the teacher who is fighting a losing battle trying to teach concepts which are totally out of reach to the low functioning kids. 

De-streaming was one of the (many) demands made by the woke activists pulling Lecce’s strings. You see, the wokesters, who think our whole society is poisoned by systemic racism, didn’t like the fact that a disproportionately high number of black and indigenous kids had ended up in the lower streams (applied and vocational levels). They simply could not accept the fact that a disproportionate number of these kids were actually functioning at a lower academic level and imagined that racist teachers were “streaming” these kids into the lower-level classes. 

This refusal to accept reality is hurting the lower functioning kids (a disproportionately high number of whom are black and indigenous, don’t forget) the most, as they are way out of their depth in what is essentially an academic level curriculum. You can only dumb down algebra and geometry so much! We will never find out the real reason so many black and indigenous kids are struggling in school as long as the government continues to let activists run the system based on the false premise that it is all down to systemic racism. 

“We've put parents back in the driver's seat of their child's education with the passage of Bill 98 — The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. Repatriating power back to the people of Ontario by unifying and elevating standards of accountability and transparency on Ontario school boards. It also forces upon school boards the legally binding requirement to refocus on reading, writing and math.” 

This may sound good on paper, but on the ground, kids are bombarded with ideologically based activism on a daily basis as anyone who follows @ChanLPfa knows only too well. Students must stand at attention for so-called “land acknowledgement” statements, which lionise Indigenous people and, by extension, denigrate others. These statements are often rife with misrepresentations, omissions, and flat out lies as I have written before.

Teachers who indoctrinate kids into Critical Theory (which holds that people are privileged or oppressed based on their race/identity regardless of their individual circumstances) and gender ideology (the belief that your sex is not based on biology) receive accolades, while those who encourage kids to question these views are reprimanded. 

All of this has left people confused: With the Conservatives in power in Ontario, one might reasonably have expected that the public education system would be run in a manner that is, well, conservative. That is to say it would

• Be cost effective

• Focus on academic excellence through traditional, tried and true learning topics and pedagogy (literacy, mathematics, and science)

• Prioritise school safety and orderly and respectful behaviour using a coherent and consistently applied system of progressive discipline, including providing alternative learning spaces for kids who, through no fault of their own, are unable to control their own behaviour

• Value traditional worldviews while considering more progressive ideas

• Protect children from exploitation, neglect, and abuse

• Promote Canadian history and acknowledge Canada’s leading role in promoting democracy, human rights, free speech, and individual rights and freedoms in the world while addressing and learning from instances where we failed as a society to live up to these principles

What is Lecce’s record in these areas? 

Costs

It is expensive to run a public education system. Most people accept that education is of critical importance and that all kids deserve a good education. Overall, as you can see, inflation-adjusted per-capita student funding of public education has declined:

While holding the line or even decreasing public education expenditures might seem to be something to be proud of, from a conservative point of view, Lecce never missed an opportunity to claim that his government was spending more than ever before on it. This claim was based on the total expenditures (not accounting for the increased number of students) or the raw, non inflation-adjusted amounts. In other words, while decreasing the real amount being spent, he was bragging about doing the opposite. 

The Ford government has consistently presented itself as centrist or even centre-left, and not just in education. This may seem odd considering they are a Conservative government, but makes perfect sense from a purely political standpoint. In order to maintain his popularity and ensure re-election, he needs to pander to centre-left voters because he can count on right wing voters. They of the right may not be too thrilled with Ford allowing woke activists a seat at the table when making his policy decisions, but what are those voters going to do? They know that the Liberals and especially the NDP would only move things much more in that direction.

You might find the crass nature of this political posturing offensive, but the bottom line is that Lecce has indeed been holding the line on educational spending. But the more important question is whether we taxpayers are getting a good value for our money. Is that money being well spent, and are kids getting a good quality education? Should we in fact spend more? If so, on what? How would that improve the system?

Academic Excellence

For a conservative, the pursuit of academic excellence in school is paramount. However, out of political expediency, Lecce allowed left-wing community activists to take over the school boards. The best example of this is the Peel District School Board, which Lecce took over and directly managed for several years. Under his trusteeship, the board went full woke (and is now going full broke as teachers retire early and resign in unprecedented numbers). 

To be fair, these activists have taken over virtually all Canadian institutions over the past few years, and standing up to them would have proved very politically costly. Governments of all stripes are of course motivated by the objective of winning and keeping power, and act essentially as weathervanes who will deviate from their originally stated electoral platforms whenever necessary. The federal Liberals used to be a centre-right party!

Nevertheless, for the conservative voters, the path Lecce has chosen to take has been disheartening to say the least. The left-wing activists have succeeded in dumbing down learning in schools and drastically lowering academic expectations in the interest of “equity”, or more equal education outcomes for identity-based groups of students. As explained above, this means less learning for everyone, but Lecce did not seem to care. 

School Tone and Safety

You would think that a Conservative government would ensure that parents and kids could be confident that the schools are free of crime and violence and that behavioural expectations would align with what is expected in workplaces (where these kids are all headed). This would require plenty of positive reinforcement along with a clear and consistently applied system of progressive discipline right up to expulsions for habitual offenders. Habitual and chronic violent offenders who do not respond to discipline simply do not belong in a traditional school. Yes, they still deserve and need an education, but they need to be placed into an alternative learning environment where they cannot terrorise other kids and disrupt their learning. 

Under Lecce, it has become the wild west. The woke activists don’t like discipline of any kind, because it inevitably gets doled out to kids from some identity groups more than others (what are the odds that it would be perfectly equal?). Thus, discipline is viewed as “oppressive”. Faced with the prospect of disciplining kids of some identity groups and not others in order to maintain an identity-based balance- an unfair, ludicrous and unworkable strategy- the boards have instead simply stopped handing out much discipline at all. The kids see that and act accordingly. 

Traditional Worldviews

Most Canadians are tolerant people who want to accept others and include different worldviews, but still subscribe to traditional values such as

• The nuclear family

• Regulated market economies

• Law and order

• Individual civil rights and liberties

• Democracy

• Justice based on fairness, people’s dignity, and our common humanity

You would expect a Conservative government to protect those things, but no- they have handed over control of the education system to activists who

• Want to “queer” society, meaning convince kids that being heterosexual and aspiring to build a nuclear family is not “normal”

• Promote socialism; even communism

• Encourage anarchy (“disband the police”) rather than engaging in rational discourse and democratic means of achieving change

• Believe in identity group-based rights and privileges 

• Hold that justice is defined as revenge taken by members of “traditionally marginalised” groups against individuals belonging to mainstream societal groups

These are the values kids are often being taught.

Child exploitation, neglect, and abuse 

The fact that schools are ineffective in preventing kids from being bullied and psychologically tormented by other kids and even teachers is nothing new. Kids who were victims of such treatment in years past survived and went on to thrive in spite of it because of the strong family support they could count on. But under Lecce this has been taken to a new level. 

We now have teachers and administrators lying to kids about biological reality, brainwashing them into gender ideology, and, with the support of the school board, withholding the truth about what they are doing from parents. This is absolutely appalling. The administrators and teachers doing this are using kids as tools to promote their ideology meanwhile excluding the parents, whom they know love the kids and will push back. That any government, especially a conservative one, would allow this to happen is unforgivable.

National Pride

When people hear the word “pride” these days, they mostly bristle. This was not generally the reaction years ago when gay rights organisations applied the word to their cause. Gay people had been made to feel ashamed of their sexual orientation for generations and adopting the mantra “pride” was their way of countering that and taking their rightful place as equal citizens in our country. Good on them!

But today, “pride” has taken on a whole different meaning. Flying one of the new pride flags means you support the 2SLGBT++ (etc. it keeps getting longer, sorry I can’t keep up) activist position on child gender transition along with a list of social reforms shared by other activist groups like Black Lives Matter. These are positions with which most Canadians do not agree. 

Meanwhile, the idea that you should be proud to be Canadian has fallen out of favour. It has become something our leading politicians can’t stop falling all over themselves apologising for. Kids see this and feelings of national pride have all but evaporated among the young.

This comes as a huge shock to many new immigrants who come here to escape the conditions in their country of origin, including wars, famines, disease, poverty, and authoritarian regimes who can come and knock on your door any night. 

Canada has been listed as one of the best countries in which to live consistently for decades by the United Nations and other international organisations precisely because of the list of traditional values listed above which were, until recently, protected here. 

The big lies of systemic racism and Indigenous genocide go completely unchallenged in schools. Lecce knows this and never did anything about it. 

Under Lecce’s watch, the public education system in Ontario has seen drastically lowered academic standards, expectations, and achievement, a massive spike in disrespectful, unruly, illegal, and violent behaviour, and the abandonment of the traditional principles which made Canada one of the greatest countries in the world, of all time, in which to live. Our kids, and in fact our whole society, deserve much better. 

Good riddance Stephen Lecce!

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read the 8-part series “Reconciliation Education.”

BREAKING NEWS:

1. A new long-form essay by Dr. M - Fulcrum and Pivot: The New Left Remaking of Toronto School Policy

2. James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!

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