The State of Education

It's no wonder that people choose to home-school:

A Waterloo Regional District School Board (WRDSB) teacher was cut off and cancelled partway through her speech to trustees Monday night for expressing concern about some highly sexualized books available in elementary school libraries.

Board chairman Scott Piatkowski cautioned and then stopped Carolyn Burjoski barely four minutes into her talk when she raised the age appropriateness of two books that include highly sexual references to homosexuality and transsexuality.

Piatkowksi told Burjoski that what she was saying violates the discriminatory provisions of gender expression and gender identity under the Ontario Human Rights Code and ruled that she be stopped.

Burjoski, a teacher for 20 years, had referred to a book called Rick by Alex Gino in which a young boy talks to his friend about loving “naked girls.” The young boy is confused and thinks he’s asexual.

She also discussed The Other Boy by M.G. Hennessey in which a doctor informs a teen about to transition from female to male with hormone blockers and testosterone that he may end up infertile. In the book, the young girl thinks that’s “cool.”

** 

The Ontario government is trying to fight a court ruling that found its mandatory math test for new teachers is unconstitutional.

Ontario’s Divisional Court last month struck down the math proficiency test as infringing equality provisions in the charter because it found the test had a disproportionate impact on racialized teachers.

The court said there were significant disparities in success rates of standardized testing based on race.

But the government is now suggesting that the court made legal errors in that decision, including using too low of a threshold to determine discrimination, given that the test was only administered once — for the first time last year.

The ruling is also a “clear departure” from the charter principle that a “high degree of deference is owed to government in addressing complex social issues with many potential solutions,” government lawyers wrote in a notice of motion seeking leave to have the Court of Appeal for Ontario hear the case. ...

The Divisional Court noted that racialized teachers are under-represented in Ontario schools.

“Racialized students benefit from being taught by racialized teachers,” the court said in its ruling.

“The deleterious effects of the (math proficiency test) on racialized teacher candidates who have been disproportionately unsuccessful on the test outweigh its benefits.”

 

Racism of lowered expectations AND laziness.

 

Don't be surprised that parents are electing to home-school their children or find alternative forms of education.

Look at the above and tell me what our tax dollars are for.