POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Portables are not an answer, especially for young children
in kindergarten.
What is well known in public education circles is that
Toronto has long held on to an inordinate number of tiny, poor-quality
neighborhood schools.
What a well-functioning Board would do is to build a series
of larger, well-equipped schools and close all of the tiny ones.
The underlying economies have changed hugely from 80 years
ago, but Toronto's pathetic Board doesn't seem to understand.
For the most part today, when you want hardware, you go to a
big box store loaded with everything you can imagine, not a narrow little place
that likely won't have what you need half the time.
And the economic forces are no different for schools.
An old neighborhood school of maybe 200 students can only
offer a mediocre education today, the costs per capita being too great to be
able to offer a rich program.
In a larger school, serving a larger area, you can have
music, art, a library, and some specialist teachers in subjects like math.
Right now, TDSB is offering an utterly inferior education to
many young people, one not competitive with world standards, owing just to this
economy of scale factor, not to mention poor standards and unprepared teachers.
If there were any management at TDSB, I wouldn't have to
point this obvious fact out.
But there isn't any: just a not-especially-bright
ex-football player, a bunch of timid ex-teacher superintendents, and a
political Board whose only aim is getting re-elected and making no waves.
Our kids are being robbed in the elementary grades especially
when all the foundations are laid for future success.
