VUONG: Supervision needed for TDSB to refocus on education

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The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is under financial investigation, but last week’s vote has made it clear that it’s not just their financial mismanagement and $58-million deficit that needs to be scrutinized.

Just last week, on May 21, the TDSB voted to accelerate the timeline for the creation of an anti-Palestinian racism (APR) strategy. Like the recent news of the City of Toronto moving forward with a “Black-mandated” shelter for only homeless Black people and staffed by only Black employees, this is the latest in an alarming trend of increasing institutionalized segregation.

Instead of focusing on students’ shared Canadian identity and what unites them, the TDSB is further balkanizing the student body where they are being divided by what makes them different. How does greater division by emphasizing differences create a more inclusive classroom and learning environment? What message are they sending to students of other communities?

Moreover, now is not the time to be taking on new matters, requiring new resources with money that the TDSB doesn’t have, when the school board has been failing to fulfill its core mandate of educating our children and youth.

One need only look at the school board’s EQAO and Grade 10 literacy test results to see how our next generation is paying the price for the TDSB’s activism agenda. Take their grade 3 EQAO results. Their students perform worse than the provincial standard in every tested area of reading, writing, and mathematics. Their Grade 6 students fare slightly better; they exceed the province in mathematics but are worse in reading and writing.

The high school figures are the most alarming. In Grade 9, while the TDSB does marginally better in the EQAO’s mathematics assessment, the fact is only a little over half of their students (56.4%) met the provincial standard. Put another way, almost half are failing.

But, if you drill down further into the TDSB’s own published analysis of individual school performance for 2021-22 (the most recent EQAO Grade 9 mathematics data available), the results will show you the true price of activism at the expense of education:

— At 30 of the TDSB’s 73 high schools, less than half of the students passed.

— At 16 of the 73 schools, only one third or less of the students passed.

— At 8 of the 73 schools, only one fifth or less of the students passed.

— At one school, alarmingly, only 6% passed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the schools struggling to pass are represented by trustees who have been distracted with their own political activism instead of fulfilling their responsibility of advancing student achievement.

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Trustee Alexis Dawson (Davenport and Spadina-Fort York), who claimed credit for championing the APR motion alongside her colleague Debbie King (Parkdale-High Park), as well as TDSB Chair Neethan Shan (Scarborough Centre) all represent schools where the majority of students are failing to meet the provincial standard:

— David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute, 19% pass rate, Trustee Neethan Shan.

— Oakwood Collegiate Institute, 44%, Trustee Alexis Dawson.

— Runnymede Collegiate Institute, 30%, Trustee Debbie King.

— Wexford Collegiate School of the Arts, 42%, Trustee Neethan Shan.

— Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute, 20%, Trustee Neethan Shan.

What’s abundantly clear is that the TDSB has lost its way — student success has taken a backseat to ideology and grievance politics. The institution has become too focused on activism at the expense of education, and the school board’s test results show us how students are already paying the price.

They need a reset. This is why Ontario’s education minister must place the TDSB under supervision.

Our children and youth need education, not indoctrination, and far too many of the school board’s trustees and administration have shown us that this change will not happen organically. The minister must act.

Our next generation cannot afford to wait for the TDSB to get their act together.

— Kevin Vuong is a proud Torontonian, entrepreneur, and military reserve officer. He was previously the Member of Parliament for Toronto’s Spadina-Fort York community, and is the father of a beautiful little girl who will reach school age in the next few years.