TDSB Trustees- you have a responsibility

How can the blind lead the way?

By N. Invictus (an anonymous Canadian teacher)

Let’s call things what they are. Let’s try to be honest for a change—enough of this pretentious attempt at listening to people’s voices. At least, let’s not fool ourselves or insult the people’s intelligence. 

Many very clearly remember the TDSB’s 2017 attempt to wipe out its Specialized Programs that were serving the students who had either potential and aptitude in specific areas such as arts, maths, and sciences or had studied and worked hard to prepare themselves to have the competency and prerequisite to continue their educational path in these said areas. The people spoke and their resistance made TDSB back down on their plan to eradicate the pursuit of excellence in the name of trendy ideological terminologies. At the same time, the real agenda of getting rid of one the best things TDSB had, one of its strengths, was still very much alive and its fire was glazing under the ashes of their failed attempt. All they needed was to find another way to turn that glaze into flames and burn down what had evolved through many years with the hardship and dedication of its passionate and devoted educators and had served many Torontonians from all walks of life, while claiming the moral ground at the same time! And in 2022, our elected officials who were supposed to represent all the students did just that! 

To backtrack, these Specialized Programs were designed and executed to provide educational opportunities that would adequately address the different needs of different groups of students within the publicly funded education in order to ensure all needs are met, and determination, discipline, and commitment are rewarded without imposing the need to diverge to private institutions. In other words, TDSB was inclusive, respected the diverse needs of its students, and provided all with equal opportunities to apply to these programs. If a family could not afford the application fee, it would be waived. If a student was not able to attend the particular date of the entrance examination, an alternative day was already prearranged. A former principal of one of the specialized programs recalls that …“we had tests on a different day if the student couldn't write on a Saturday. And I went to a church and sat with a student whose father was the minister so he could write on a day that worked for the family.” However, the Chair of TDSB ( Rachel Chernos Lin) seemed to be either unaware of these facts or was flat-out lying when in her interview with Steven Paikin on the TVO’s Agenda that was aired on May 9 she used the issues of application fees and entrance/audition dates being on Saturdays- which in many cases were held on a Friday PD day- as barriers for applying to these programs. During this, she also claimed that students from low-income families could not attend the Saturday auditions/ entrance examination because they were working to help with their family’s income. 

Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and accept that some schools had their entrance auditions/ examinations only on Saturdays, then this would have been better for families who would normally accompany their minor child to participate in these events as they did not have to take time off from their work! On the other hand, her claim, that students under the age of 14 work for a living, is not plausible as Ontario’s legal age of working is 14, and to my knowledge, most children in grade 8 who would have been applicants for these programs, would be below the legal age of working in this province. If the Chair has any knowledge of any minors who are required to work illegally I recommend that she informs the Children’s Aid Society. This begs many questions, including a very simple one, why is she the chair? And how come the rest of the trustees are going along with this? Unless we accept the proposition that this change was never about anything but a disguised financial issue. This change was based on the attempt to gradually get rid of these programs. After all the Specialized aspects of them have already been replaced by Interest, whatever that really means and who defines Interest? 

It is an oversight to think that schools are all about serving the students, even though there is truth in this too. The education system has a far greater role than satisfying the immediate desires, whims of its students, and catering to their likes or dislikes that invariably change as they grow. Nor is it a parent's job to do so either, I hope that the parental responsibility does not require an explanation! 

Our schools should educate and train our students to become the best they can become in order to shoulder the burden of responsibility of running our society. Our schools should find the best, most talented, and most conscientious students and educate/train them to become the best in their field so they can best serve this country. Yet the TDSB trustees abdicated their duty by kowtowing to identity politics and reducing the students' role to the value of their skin colour, immutable differences, and historical events out of the individuals' control meanwhile implicitly discriminating against some other minority ethnic backgrounds such as the hardworking Canadian-Asian communities. Ironically, the board is in contradiction with its own mad ideology. 

Our children’s future, our future, is in the hands of the trustees who seem to be willfully blind to the implication of their decisions. How can the blind lead the way? 

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Thanks for reading. For more on analysis concerning TDSB Trustees read, The Race Essentialism of Ultra Woke Ontario Schools

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