Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Peel Board Taken Over

Education is typically one of the top issues in any election (and if ads are any indication, there's one brewing). Recently, though, it has taken a back seat to the environment (which is fine by me - the environment ought to be a priority).

But it seems that education has almost disappeared off the radar. Not so much good.

News comes today, however, that government-appointed overseer Norbert Hartmann has stripped the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board of its authority and he (along with Queen's Park) is taking over. There had been some tough talk under the old provincial regime that Boards were going to be required to balance their books, but this is the first example I can think of where a Board has actually been taken over - and these are the Liberals we're talking about, not the facist Harris/Eves-led Conservatives. Something's definitely wrong.

Who's to blame? I don't know, but I do know that this can NOT be good for teachers, some of whom are friends of mine.

What happened to our education system? Has it always been this messed up? I kinda think something happened sometime after I graduated from highschool (early nineties is all I'm gonna say). Within a couple of years there were security cameras everywhere and my old highschool had suddenly become known as a "tough" school. From what I hear (and can tell from my two university stints) writing skills dropped off the map and students were generally more difficult.

Is this just one of those examples where the older generation thinks the younger generation is more screwed up or is it actually the case? And if education really is slipping, what's to blame and how can we fix it?

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