Letters to the Editor

The system is broken

April 24, 2026   ·   0 Comments

First, let me say that I often disagree with Premier Ford’s policies. However, I applaud much of the current progress being made in elementary and secondary schools. I taught high school for over 20 years in the Peel Board and served briefly as a supply teacher in Upper Grand. I can speak for many colleagues when I say the system is broken. It is simply not delivering quality education to our young people and the wider society that pays for it.

There are many reasons for this. I will touch on the few which this government has rightly identified as areas where change is desperately needed. First is the role of trustees. Theoretically, they should be an important voice for local democracy. However, they rarely perform this function. Many trustees are not educators, so they lack a clear understanding of the challenges teachers and students face. Instead, trustees become the servants of the board’s senior administrators, doing their bidding.

This is where the real problem lies. While most administrators work hard and mean well, they are not qualified to run such large organizations. Superintendents and principals are essentially classroom teachers, so their skill set is quite narrow. Providing leadership to help schools confront the challenges facing society as a whole is not something they are equipped to do. Prioritizing and allocating resources as efficiently as possible is obviously something they fail to address. Put simply, they are not professional managers. The education minister’s decision to place experienced CEOs on boards is a good step toward correcting this.

The second problem is student truancy. It is at epidemic proportions. When a student attends only 40-50 per cent of their classes, it makes it impossible for teachers to assess their demonstrated understanding of the material. Sure, kids get sick, and this should not be held against them. But when a child misses half the classes and is typically seen wandering the school halls, this becomes a much bigger issue. You can’t learn if you are habitually late and absent from class.

According to a recent Toronto Star article, the biggest violators of skipping class are grade 12 students. The truth is that many students skip class when they have a test. They want to write it the next day after discovering what is on the test from their classmates. School administrators force teachers to give the test to truant students, regardless of the reason for the absence. It becomes unmanageable for teachers and unfair to the students who show up on test day.

Over the past several years, administrators have told teachers that exams are an outdated method of student evaluation. Unfortunately, the universities, colleges and trade professionals did not get the memo. Aspiring doctors, electricians, mechanics and a host of others need to write professional accreditation exams.

Again, we are failing students when we remove exams from secondary schools. When I taught in British Columbia, grade 12 students had to write a province-wide exam in all their courses. The mark they earned on this exam accounted for 40 per cent of their final evaluation, which was sent to universities and colleges. This would be a good step for Ontario to take.

The last point is that schools can be violent places. When I taught in Brampton and Mississauga, fights and assaults were commonplace. While it may not be quite that bad in Dufferin yet, schools are often unhealthy places for young people.

Violence in schools is an area where the government must do more. Additional funds for violence prevention programs would be useful. Having police in schools is necessary, especially in high-risk schools. Smaller class sizes, especially for kids with special needs, can allow vulnerable children to feel more secure.

In short, having students attend class on time and focus on their work will go a long way to making the learning environment a far more positive one. Young people who attend school and consistently disrupt the learning environment for others should be offered an alternative learning space outside the school. That is, until they change their ways. Some might think this is a harsh approach. You wouldn’t say that if it were your child facing constant bullying or threats of violence.

The issues facing education are real. The greatest one is the growing penetration of AI into our world. AI threatens to be the biggest challenge to our workplaces since the Industrial Revolution. At the very least, we can prepare our young people for it.

Mark Hauck

Orangeville

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