Michael Zwaagstra: Ford Government Must Make Bold Changes in Education

When treating sick patients, should doctors take bold action, or should they take a wait and see approach?
The answer is: it depends.
If the illness is minor, then prescribing chicken soup and bedrest makes sense. However, if the patient has a rapidly growing cancerous tumour, more drastic action such as surgery is probably required.
Given these serious problems in Ontario schools, it’s disappointing that Ford’s government has chosen to tinker around the edges rather than take bold action. No matter what the crisis is, the Ontario government has failed to take the necessary steps to address them.
Unfortunately, rather than appoint a true outsider to conduct the investigation, Dunlop picked an assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Education that was responsible for the ministry’s equity secretariat. There’s nothing in his background suggesting he will take a broad independent view of how to reform the province’s ailing education system.
If Dunlop was serious about making sure that the TDSB never allows such disgraceful behaviour on a field trip again, she would have appointed a fully independent person to conduct this investigation. By choosing an insider, Dunlop made it easy for the insular ministry and school board officials to close ranks and protect their own once again.
Setting clearer standards and measuring results regularly with provincial standardized tests is also an important accountability mechanism—both for the province and for parents and their children. The province must know how schools are doing so it can target supports to underperforming schools while parents need this information so they can make an informed decision about where to send their children.
It’s often said that insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. When it comes to education, the Ford government has done the same thing repeatedly for far too long. It’s time for something different.