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Education

School board trustees should embrace genuine diversity and avoid unnecessary legal fights

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From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

Too many Canadian school boards are getting sidetracked by unnecessary legal battles rather than focusing on educating students.

Case in point, Carolyn Burjoski, a former teacher in the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB), recently won a decisive legal victory when Justice James Ramsay rejected WRDSB’s attempt to quash Burjoski’s defamation lawsuit and awarded her $30,000 in legal fees.

Burjoski had sued her former employer because the board chair publicly accused her of transphobic behaviour for raising concerns during a board meeting about the sexualized content in a number of school library books. His public attacks on Burjoski exposed the school board to a defamation lawsuit.

In his decision, Justice Ramsay found that the WRDSB chair “acted with malice or at least a reckless disregard for the truth.” Furthermore, Ramsay explained, nothing Burjoski said during the meeting could reasonably be described as transphobic. Given these facts, it comes as little surprise that the judge ruled decisively in Burjoski’s favour.

Things could have been handled much better by the board. Had the trustees stayed focused on education, they likely would not have gotten sidetracked by Burjoski’s comments. They could have simply thanked Burjoski for her input then gotten back to work on education policy. Instead, the board chair picked a fight with one of his own teachers and led his fellow trustees into a losing legal battle. No one can seriously think this was in the best interest of students, particularly since school taxes were spent on legal fees rather than classroom resources.

Sadly, WRDSB is far from the only school board where trustees are distracted by non-educational issues. In Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Board, trustee Francine Champagne was suspended three times in one year for making controversial social media posts and failing to submit paperwork. The board even filed a legal application to have Champagne removed from office for allegedly violating the Public Schools Act. However, Champagne resigned before the court case began, which was fortunate for the board, since it no doubt saved them considerable money in legal fees.

Parents and other taxpayers don’t elect school trustees just so their hard-earned tax dollars can be squandered on legal fees. Getting into unnecessary legal fights is a bad idea for any school board.

Fortunately, it’s not difficult for school boards to stay out of court. Refrain from defaming employees who make presentations at public meetings, stay focused on educational basics, and allow for diversity of thought on controversial issues. A board that does these things will save money in legal fees, and have a better learning environment for students.

Besides, there are real issues to be addressed in public education. For example, data from the Programme for Student Assessment (PISA) shows that academic achievement is on the decline across Canada, particularly in reading and math. If students don’t learn these fundamental skills in school, not much else that happens there will matter. Improving classroom instruction should be a top priority for every school board.

Trustees would also be wise to crack down on the growing incidents of violence in many schools. Empowering teachers and principals to remove persistently disruptive students from the classroom is essential. Teachers must know that their employers have their backs when dealing with tough situations. Safe and orderly classrooms are a prerequisite to student learning.

And when controversial issues do come up during board meetings, trustees should take a measured approach and acknowledge that Canadians (including many of their own employees) hold a variety of views on topics such as how much gender and sexuality content should be in library books accessible to children. There’s no need to force everyone into the same mold.

If trustees are serious about promoting diversity, they must remember that this includes diversity of thought, not just diversity of appearance. Genuine diversity means that everyone, students and teachers alike, are free to express different opinions without fear of negative repercussions.

Education suffers when school trustees lose sight of their primary mission. The lessons learned by WRDSB and other embattled school boards should be a clear sign to trustees across Canada—stay focused on educating students.

Education

Why Don’t Men Go To University Any More?

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The Audit

 

David Clinton

What will that mean for universities…and for 21st century work?

A while back, I mentioned the strange case of the disappearing university male. In that context I wondered how the educational establishment – in whose eyes a university degree is a primary success metric – are addressing the 58% (female) to 42% (male) disparity blocking male success. But I didn’t get around to asking why it’s happening.

However, here’s a fascinating recent post from American writer Celeste Davis that dives deep, deep down the rabbit hole. The article first references a handful of more mainstream theories seeking to explain the gap, including:

  • High tuition costs (which, I guess, just don’t bother women?)
  • Boys having weaker academic skills
  • Boys being exposed to negative messaging in early grades
  • Politically left-friendly campuses that attract more women
  • More high-paying career alternatives for men

Davis agrees that those are probably all contributing factors. But she turns her attention to what she feels is the big driver: male flight. Perhaps, goes the argument, young men just don’t see themselves thriving in career fields that appear to be dominated by women. The more women enrolled in last year’s university cohort, the more of this year’s men decide to check out of university altogether.

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Or, as Davis puts it:

“For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied. One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition!”

According to Statistics Canada, overall male enrollment as a proportion of total university populations has dropped by 4.4 percent since 1992. Canada might not be experiencing the same painful overall drops in university enrollments they’re seeing south of the border, but we may not be too far behind.

All this seems to be true of universities in general, but the impact might be more visible in specific programs. In fact, the biggest changes have impacted a handful of university program categories:

  • Personal, protective and transportation services – which include law enforcement and fire fighting. Male participation dropped from 85 percent of enrollment in 1992 to just 43 percent in 2021.
  • Agriculture, natural resources, and conservation, which saw a decline from 55 percent to 38 percent.
  • Physical and life sciences and technologies saw male enrollment drop from 49 percent to 24 percent.
  • Social and behavioural sciences and law enrollment fell from 38 percent to 29 percent.

Celeste’s theory is that, rather than external forces driving declines in male participation, it’s the entry of more and more women into academic programs that lies behind the changes.

I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that the solution to the problem is to impose enrollment quotas to limit entry for women. Quotas are evil.

In fact, I’m not 100 percent convinced that this is a problem that even needs solving. That’s partly because I don’t buy the line that university is always the most reliable route to social and economic success. It’s also because I don’t see a down side to relaxing and allowing market forces to work things out for us.

One thing that is worth our attention is the damage these trends might cause the higher education industry over the long term. Upwards of three percent of Canada’s GDP can probably be attributed to the higher education sector. And Canadian universities employ more than 343,000 people – around one of every 80 employed Canadians. You and I may or may not have a direct connection to higher education, but its decline would definitely leave a mark.

It’s worth noting that, for all the chaos those trends might spark within the higher education industry, they appear to be having a surprisingly minor impact on the actual workforce.  Employment data from Statistics Canada shows us that the proportion of male workers changed by less than three percentage points between 1987 and 2023 in all but a few of the 18 job categories tracked. The exceptions included:

  • Public administration, where the percentage of workers who were male fell from 61 percent in 1987 to 48 percent in 2023.
  • Educational services, which saw the number of male teachers and administrators fall ten points from a representation of 42 percent to 32 percent.
  • Male participation in the finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing industries actually rose from 41 percent to 47 percent.

But the exceptions were far less interesting than the fields where there was no significant change. Compare the four percent drop in agricultural employment to the 30 percent by which enrollment in agriculture, natural resources and conservation programs fell.

Similarly, the 25 percent drop in male participation in science and technology programs doesn’t seem to play out in the real world: male employment in professional, scientific and technical services is effectively unchanged since 1987.

Those enrollment vs employment designations aren’t perfectly aligned, of course. And employment data does have a far longer built-in lag than university attendance. But the gaping disparity does suggest there are a lot of women signing up for courses but not following up by getting related jobs.

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Education

Saskatchewan school board defends policy to allow boys in girls’ change rooms despite parents’ protests

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The rural Saskatchewan school district’s director of education said ‘it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities’ to allow biological boys to use the same locker room as girls who feel uncomfortable about the situation.

Despite an outcry from concerned parents, a Canadian school board told them it supports allowing gender-confused boys access to girls’ change rooms.

Last week, LifeSiteNews reported about Balgonie Elementary School in rural Saskatchewan where a female seventh grader told her parents she was not comfortable sharing changing rooms for gym class with gender-confused biological males.

Despite the outcry, the Prairie Valley School Division (PVSD) in a recent email sent to parents claimed that the school division’s inclusivity policy trumps the rights of girls from being victimized by gender-confused boys.

“One important part of creating these safe and welcoming spaces is ensuring our schools operate in a way that respects the human rights, dignity and privacy expectations of all students and their families,” PVSD director of education Gord Husband wrote in an email to parents.

Husband said the school division’s policies and procedures are “carefully aligned with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.”

“We operate according to these documents not only because it is our legal obligation, but also because it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities,” he added.

Husband’s email did not mention the issue at Balgonie Elementary directly but instead claimed it was a “human rights” issue and asked all parents to support “all students.”

The father of the girl, who remains anonymous, said that after his daughter raised the issue of the biological males using the girls’ locker room, saying she “felt uncomfortable,” she was told, “she can change in a different room by herself.”

The issue drew the attention of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. He said that his first “order of business” should he be re-elected to lead the province will be to ban gender-confused boys from accessing girls’ change rooms in public schools.

One of the concerned parents noted that learning this fact is “insane.”

“Wow, that’s insane, Sask NDP candidate from the NDP party, but not surprised that someone from that party would do that to a child. The NDP is really pushing that agenda and it’s so disturbing,” said the parent, as reported by the Western Standard.

Saskatchewan’s provincial election will be held October 28.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, LGBT indoctrination targeting kids has been on the rise in Canada and worldwide, leading to Canadians fighting back in protest.

Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported that a leading female gender ideology activist, who also worked as a school counselor, has been charged with grievous sexual offenses involving a minor.

Provinces such as Alberta, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan have in recent months proposed legislation that would strengthen parental rights.

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