Dear Editor,
Although I agree with the points raised in your recent editorial about the province’s recent changes to school board governance (“More bureaucracy, less accountability,” April 22nd), I believe that there are some aspects of the piece that warrant comments.
First, the editorial notes that the changes were the result of “alleged and proven mismanagement” in eight school boards in the province. It bears mentioning that one of the boards taken over was the Ottawa District School Board, apparently because it ran a deficit (largely because of inadequate provincial funding). Even so, the most recent budget that they passed balanced the books. This meant nothing to Mr. Ford and his education minister, who took it over anyway. It also bears mentioning that the province found issues with only eight of the 76 boards in Ontario and have now decided to paint all of them with the same heavy-handed brush. In my view, this is a completely unreasonable response and will only have negative consequences for the provincial education system.
Second, I was surprised that the editorial made no comments on the titles of the new bureaucrats, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Education Officer. These titles are corporate ones, and to my mind further commodify an increasingly corporate education system. I don’t know about anyone else, but I do not consider our children to be commodities, even if the current provincial administration considers them as such, judging by their recent decisions.
Sincerely,
Kerry Badgley
