POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Chris Spence has always been pretty much an empty public
relations machine.
His record in his previous job showed no worthy academic
achievement.
He actually established a reputation for running around the
city, with a photographer constantly in tow, doing photo-ops with big grins and
arms around groups of boys.
Those were his only grins because he also had a reputation
of avoiding eye contact with staff, displaying a contact-avoidance type of
personality.
There was also talk about his quiet spending of rather large
amounts for projects which appeared of little educational value.
So it was surprising at first when Toronto hired him.
But then the Toronto Board has a national reputation for
being dysfunctional, so, on second thought, the appointment seemed somehow
fitting.
Of course, he was appointed as a symbol for black children
failing in the school system, but symbols do not change serious situations like
that.
Hard work and intelligence and management skills are what is
called for, but the School Board deals only in appearances and slogans and
politics, never in the roll-up-your-sleeves kind of work for change of any
kind.
Now we have the clearest possible case of plagiarism
screaming at us.
The plagiarism is especially embarrassing because it was so
completely avoidable.
I'm confident there are staff at the Board who can write, or
at least research and sketch out, speeches and pop essays, a common practice in
all large organizations.
But Mr. Spence insisted on doing things himself for a forum
almost guaranteed to reveal his plagiarism.
What can you say?
And a campaign against plagiarism, rightly, has become a
major one in our schools.
I cannot see how the TDSB, if it has any integrity
remaining, can fail to ask for his resignation.
After all, if being a football-player director is about
symbolism for some students, what are we to say of a public-plagiarist director
as a symbol for all students?
And, as I write this, I hear on CBC Radio that researchers
now scouring his past writings have said there are indications of other
plagiarism.
In the end, the most important lesson in this is how totally
inept our school boards are in having charge of children's education. They are
a force only for mediocrity and should be abolished.
[Note: Chris Spence resigned later the same day.]
