Legislation introduced by the Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives aims to refocus schools on literacy and math, but critics wonder if this will do enough to dial back woke ideologies..“We are taking action to refocus Ontario’s education system on what really matters: strengthening reading, writing and math skills,” said Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education, in a background document on the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act tabled April 17..“Our proposed legislation would centre the education system on preparing students to succeed in life and work, putting more highly qualified educators in the classroom while ensuring parents have the information they need.”.The legislation empowers Leece as Minister of Education to set priorities in areas of school achievement and requires school boards to update parents on progress. The legislation also authorizes the minister to deploy personnel to support school boards when needed..Dave Haskell, an outspoken opponent of critical race theory and associate professor of media and culture at Wilfred Laurier University, finds the new legislation too cautious..“Sadly, this act is what we would expect from a government that refuses to combat, head on, radical, harmful ideologies in our province’s schools. Our public education system, under Premier Ford and Education Minister Lecce, has devolved into an unrecognizable hellscape and this act studiously says almost nothing about that lurch into the abyss,” Haskell told the Western Standard..“We now literally have school boards running racially segregated events —dances, career days, tutoring sessions — that white students are not permitted to attend. We have drag queens being hired by board administrators to give pep talks to the student body. We have teachers telling kindergarten kids that boys and girls don’t exist in reality. We have principals expelling students because they won’t renounce their moral convictions and agree to let biological males use female washrooms.”.The education ministry said it wants to “establish a leading system of student safety and educator oversight, furthering measures to expedite disciplinary decisions for educators convicted of a criminal offence” and expand “therapy counselling for student victims of sexual abuse” by working with the Ontario College of Teachers.A teacher raised controversy for wearing large prosthetic breasts to school, an action defended as gender expression by the Durham school board. Perhaps in response, the new bill calls for “strengthening the requirement for school boards to have a code of conduct for boards of trustees, creating a neutral dispute resolution process and authority to standardize and mandate training requirements for school board leadership.”.Haskell believes facilitating a greater choice in education, perhaps through school vouchers, would better empower parents to choose the best schools..“Ontario Conservatives…have to know that most school board administrators and all the teachers’ unions are their ideological enemies. The board admin and union bosses are, in many ways, the advance guard for the political left as they shape public school students in their image. Given that reality, it seems insane to me that Ford and his team make no move to try to provide an alternative to the monopoly that is our school system. The extent to which Ford and his team keep upholding the educational status quo is the extent to which they increasingly make themselves unelectable,” Haskell said..“Ford’s team needs to start moving educational funding out of the boards and into the pockets of parents. Conservative parents have come to hate the public system — because it has shown it hates their kids. Therefore, they’d relish a chance to move to some place that puts math ahead of Marx. Ford should realize that kids educated outside the public system might have a chance of voting conservative some day.” .Action4Canada, a citizen action group that has representatives in Ottawa, Niagara, Toronto, Durham, Peel, and Sault St Marie, had cautious optimism for the announcement..The group presented legal notices of liability to Leece and many school board trustees for any harms caused by its sex ed or sexually graphic books in the schools. Founder Tanya Gaw said she won’t be satisfied until the province announces “the complete eradication of the Wynne Sex Ed, the controversial books and LGBTQ political propaganda lining the hallways of our schools.”.The legislation also aims to modernize teacher training, decrease times to process applications to certify teachers, and expedite more classroom space to match demand. The province announced 2,000 more front-line educators would be hired, supported by a $693 million bump in base grants.
