Education

Back in June, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) announced it planned to transfer beloved principal Barry Sketchley out of Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, which he founded 33 years ago.

This was unusual because Sketchley had already announced he would retire next year. All the TDSB had to do was to let Sketchley serve his final year at Rosedale Heights, but instead, it decided to forcibly transfer him. Not surprisingly, parents and students mobilized against this transfer. Students walked out of classes in protest while parents lobbied TDSB trustees in an attempt to persuade them to reverse the transfer. Unfortunately, all this fell on deaf ears.

Kids These Days Dep’t: You may have seen a study making the rounds in recent days decrying the corrupting grasp of Andrew Tate on today’s male youth, titled “‘Trying to talk white male teenagers off the alt-right ledge’ and other impacts of masculinist influencers on teachers.” It gives the impression that roving junior Vikings have taken over classrooms, backing their female counterparts into a corner as they try to learn. It’s a distinctly racial problem and a distinctly male problem, one that teachers are fighting to no avail.

America’s largest teaching union is a case study in the capture of education by extreme progressive activists

The breakdown in relations between the US’s top teacher’s union, the National Education Association (NEA), and the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights group focused on tackling anti-Semitism, reflects a deeper and dangerous takeover of education by determined activists. Besides the usual financial demands, education is increasingly seen as a means to achieve progressive, even radical “social justice”, which of course means boycotting anything connected to Israel.

The NEA is clearly taking political sides, claiming that it is pledging “to defend democracy against Trump’s embrace of fascism”. The union is also adamant in defending undocumented immigrants, opposing parental rights, and pledging to back mass demonstrations against the administration. This approach is seen by boosters as “social justice unionism”, adding political stances to the usual economic ones.

I have little regard for the ADL or the teachers and their unions. Both are extremist left wing entities that embrace DEI/CRT.

The province has seized control of four school boards, including Toronto public and Catholic, accusing them of financial mismanagement — an unprecedented crackdown that drew both criticism but also praise from trustees who’ve been stripped of their powers.

With the Dufferin-Peel Catholic board “at the brink of bankruptcy” and unlikely to make payroll later this summer, Education Minister Paul Calandra said he is also sending a supervisor there, as well as to Ottawa’s public board.

Last week, Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra introduced a bill that would give him sweeping powers to intervene when a school board has, in his words, “lost its way.” One key change would require school boards to get approval from the minister before renaming an existing school—a move that follows the Toronto District School Board’s decision earlier this year to rename three schools named after historical Canadian figures.

The main goal of the bill, called Bill 33 or the “Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025,” is to expand government oversight of school boards and allow faster intervention when concerns arise, particularly around financial mismanagement.

Education Minister Paul Calandra will tighten control over Ontario’s school boards, have the power to rein in locally elected trustees and return community police officers to classrooms in sweeping new legislation critics dub a massive “power grab.”

Triggered in part by an outcry over a $45,000 art-shopping trip to Italy by Brantford-area Catholic trustees, Calandra said the proposed bill allows him to more quickly investigate or take over supervision of school boards that have “gone off the rails, either financially or on other matters that are important to students, parents and teachers.”

This may prove one of the few “Conservative” things Ford has done and of course the left is up in arms as this legislation threatens their access to the public teat. That automatically qualifies it as “Trumpian”.

Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra has introduced legislation expanding the minister’s authority over school boards, citing concerns about boards misusing public funds, shifting focus away from student achievement, and turning schools into “a political battle zone.”

Bill 33, called the “Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025,” would allow the minister to step in more quickly when there are concerns over a school board’s practices. Measures include directing an investigation or putting a school board under supervision, Calandra said at a May 29 press conference.

The minister said the province has seen school boards “wasting” resources on issues that divert focus from academic achievement, including what he described as “endless discussions” about changing school names. He cited one school board that spent more than $100,000 renaming three schools while dealing with potential teacher layoffs.