ETFO Presents to Federal Standing Committee on Reducing Poverty

On Tuesday this week, ETFO Vice-President Barbara Burkett presented to the Standing Committee studying the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada. 

According to ETFO, the first priority in any government strategy to reduce poverty should be to eliminate child poverty so that student learning and achievement are not affected.  Children living in poverty are prevented from reaching their true academic potential increasing the likelihood that they will remain poor when they grow up, and perpetuating a cycle of poverty in society.

Burkett listed four ways the federal government can help to reduce poverty and thereby improve educational outcomes:

1. implement a living wage across Canada to ensure that families have the essentials for their children’s schooling,
2. expand eligibility for Employment Insurance,
3. implement a national childcare program, and
4. improve coordination between the federal and provincial levels of government to address Aboriginal poverty. 

The presentation ended with an overview of ETFO's 'Education and Poverty' project which began two years ago with financial support from the Ministry of Education. The goal of this ongoing project is to help teachers understand the impact of poverty in the classroom and to develop strategies to address some of these issues.

Related Documents

• ETFO Presentation to the Federal Standing Committee on Reducing Poverty in Canada
• ETFO Media Release

Government Refuses to Lose the School Information Finder

In Vol. 3 No. 22 of this newsletter we reported on a new Ministry website, the School Information Finder, that was released without consultation with the Education Partnership Table--the government's own consultative body of stakeholders.

When it was released, the site included a tool that allowed users to compare EQAO and demographic data of three schools at a time. The site’s data provide information about the school’s EQAO results as well as students’ socioeconomic, ethnic and racial background, and the number of new immigrants. In a Toronto Star article this week, one Toronto educator referred to the website as "...an appalling way for families to shop for schools that have 'people like us'."

At an April 6 meeting of the Education Partnership Table an unprecedented coalition of groups representing teachers, principals, superintendents, trustees, school boards, faculties of education, and parents urged the government to remove the website because of the negative impact it would have on public education. Minister Wynne refused, but did promise to disable the tool allowing school comparisons and to remove data for schools with fewer than 50 pupils to protect the privacy of individual students. The Minister also promised to hold a meeting to “discuss what other information could be added to the site” to address stakeholder concerns.

After the Partnership Table meeting, a number of organizations represented there followed up with letters again requesting that the site be removed. On June 2, the members of the Education Partnership Table delivered a joint letter [dead link removed 17 Jan 2012] to the Premier, the Minister, and all other MPPs reiterating the request that the offending website be dismantled. As reported in the Toronto Star, the government has refused to heed the call.  The stakeholders are still waiting for Minister Wynne to call the meeting promised on April 6.

Today NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese called a news conference to keep pressure on the government to remove the site. A number of education representatives and community organizations participated, including ETFO President David Clegg. Mr. Marchese has been a vocal critic of the government on this issue over the past few weeks in Question Period.  

Members who want to voice their displeasure with this piece of the government's accountability agenda are encouraged to sign the People for Education petition.

RELATED DOCUMENT

• ETFO Media Release, June 5: Public Education is Collateral Damage in 'School Information Finder'

• Visit www.etfo.ca to register now for Summer Academy 2009! There are more than 80 dynamic PD curriculum courses being offered this July and August. Full course descriptions, dates, and locations are available online.  Come prepared to get practical resources and strategies that you can use immediately in your classrooms this fall. These courses promise to refresh, motivate, and inspire you for the year ahead.  Courses are filling up quickly. Sign up now for this invigorating professional learning experience!
  
   
• Join ETFO at Toronto Pride 2009. We are looking for volunteers to host the Pride Booth during Toronto Pride on Sunday, June 28th, 2009. Also, anyone interested in marching in the Pride Parade behind the ETFO Pride Banner can contact Jim Giles (jgiles@etfo.org) or Elizabeth Strater(estrater2@etfo.org) at the ETFO provincial office for more information.
  
  

• Join Oxfam Canada for the first North American Trailwalker challenge, July 24–26. Oxfam Trailwalker is the world’s greatest and toughest team challenge and it is making its North American debut in Ontario! The challenge is to hike 100km in 48 hours as a team of 4. Each team must start together, stick together and finish together. For more information, visit http://www.oxfamtrailwalker.ca. Oxfam Canada would like to see a team (or more) of teachers take up the challenge.
  
  

• Download some free media literacy lessons for Intermediate students. On June 2, Equal Voice in partnership with Media Awareness Network (MNet) launched bilingual lessons for students in Grades 7-12 that explore media representation of gender in politics. A key component of the project is identifying and sensitizing young women to gender bias in media. All lessons are linked to provincial curriculum expectations and can be downloaded from: http://www.equalvoice.ca/experiences/kits.htm.
  

• Teaching with Wit and Wisdom: An Institute for K -12 by Barbara Coloroso, July 13 - 15, Ryerson University.  For more information, please see the flyer/registration form [dead link removed 17 Jan 2012].