Special Education cannot be cut – Judge
. School discriminated against boy by cutting special-needs program: top court A landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision has put schools on strict notice that they cannot evade their responsibility to accommodate children with special needs. Waving aside the financial woes of a North Vancouver school board, the court concluded on Tuesday that it had […]
McGuinty austerity policies: huge impact on kids
Current provincial austerity policies are having both an immediate and a lasting impact on working class kids who are forced to take on part time work to help their families cover monthly costs. (Reports suggest that the vast majority of high school students work in part time jobs.) After years of cuts Ontario has the […]
“A Trojan horse for school closings” says Globe report
In Saturday’s Globe and Mail Kate Hammer reports that TDSB’s “K-12 Strategy” consultations are essentially “a Trojan horse for school closings” . Here is her report: As a father of two young children, there are a lot of things Corby Fine would change about Toronto’s public schools. He thinks that technology is too important to allow some schools to have tablets […]
Public education by numbers
$2billion: the amount McGuinty’s Bill 115 extracts from Ontario’s public education budget over 2-3 years. $2billion: the amount Ontario would generate per year if we simply restored the corporate tax rate to 14%; the 2009 level. ________________________________________________________________________ Sources: Ontario Ministry of Finance, Ontario Budget 2012, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Dear Minister Broten
I am writing to you today as a parent of a child in Ontario’s public school system. Specifically, my child attends Public School in Toronto. Over the past weeks since school began, I have been shocked and disheartened to see first hand the impact of the cuts you have made to our prized education system. […]
Students aren’t high on the priority list
“Governing is about priorities. Students can’t help but notice they aren’t high on the list.” David Suzuki June 2012 The Campaign for Public Education has closely examined Ontario’s Bill 115 and is, frankly, appalled with this legislation that will extract more than $2 billion from education funding. It was not done to expand or […]
Teachers, education workers take McGuinty to court
Launching Charter challenge to defend democratic rights of Ontarians. The Ontario government is being taken to court by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and [CUPE, OSSTF] because of legislation they say violates the fundamental rights of working people in Ontario. Today ETFO filed a court challenge against the Ontario government’s Bill 115 on […]
Democracy postponed: Rally Wed 530pm Queens Park
Wedding postponed…but so is our democracy! In place of a wedding, guests are invited to attend a rally this Wednesday, October 17th 2012 at 5:30pm at Queen’s Park against the shutting down of the legislature and the profoundly undemocratic manner in which austerity is being imposed on Ontarians. The corporate elite of Canada regrets […]
wartime-style powers
The Ontario government is selling its new public restraint bill as a simple, two-year wage freeze. A close reading shows the proposed law is much, much broader. Unveiled on Wednesday by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, it would give the provincial cabinet wartime-style powers over public sector compensation for at least six years. If approved by the […]
Education “too important to arbitrarily overhaul just to save a buck.”
.Kayla Smith, a Grade 12 student at Bramalea Secondary School [seen here addressing Saturday’s rally], isn’t happy about losing her extra-curricular activities but she feels protesting the provincial government’s new legislation, Bill 115: Putting Students First Act, is more important. Smith was at the forefront of a demonstration by Bramalea students on the lawn of Queen’s Park on […]