Twenty years ago, the Fraser Institute published a book called Facts, Not Fear with the goal of correcting the alleged misinformation schoolchildren were being exposed to in environmental science programs. The right-wing think tank was concerned that school science textbooks were often drawn from scientific literature (of all places), which…
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Back in 1995 when I was competing my MA at the University of Guelph, I was interested in looking more closely at the commercialization of public education. Maude Barlow gave me a name: George Martell. I phoned him from my tiny apartment on Glasgow Ave. We exchanged ideas, and I…
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On March 15, 2019, the Ontario Conservative government announced drastic, harmful changes to public education. These changes include a funding cut of 20%, significantly increasing class sizes for high school students, and four compulsory online credits out of a total of the 30 required for graduation. Previous cuts have already…
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Suggestions by the Ontario government that class size caps be lifted for primary students, or that full day kindergarten not be guaranteed beyond the 2019-20 school year (further complicated by the education minister’s announcement that full day learning, however would be guaranteed) have arguably been the predominant focus of the…
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On February 5, Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Lisa MacLeod, held a press conference with her Parliamentary Secretary, Amy Fee, to announce sweeping changes to the Ontario Autism Program. I sat glued to my screen at my office and then following the announcement, closed my door and cried….
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This past November, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association’s VP of sustainability tweeted an invitation to the CPIA’s annual Plasticurious video contest in which teens (ages 14-18) compete for the opportunity to win up to $1,000, “educate themselves and their peers about how plastics power their life,” and have fun learning…
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The dangers of corporate monopolies in our communications have been recently revealed through exposés of social media corporations like Google and Facebook. Almost unnoticed, though, has been a similar analysis of the way in which these same corporate monopolies have been colonizing and privatizing public education under the guise of…
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We spent five weeks on the picket line–100 hours–during the longest strike in the 50 year history of Ontario community colleges. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. For many educators, the calling to teach is strong. It…
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There’s no place like home Home is where the heart is… or so the saying goes. And I can honestly say that no matter how it is depicted in the media, Detroit is a home that I will always come back to. But Detroit is steeped in a legacy of…
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As instruments for advancing democratic values, Canada’s public schools have an ambiguous legacy. Over the years, many exclusionary and colonialist policies have been challenged, and this shift in cultural values has inspired policies to help make public schools in Canada more diverse and accessible. It is less apparent, however, that…
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