Ontario's Failed Identity-Driven and Social Justice School System

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said Tuesday that the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario’s recent vote to develop resources addressing so-called Anti-Palestinian Racism is divisive and risks deepening an already serious problem of antisemitism in Ontario schools.

CIJA pointed to a federal report commissioned by Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism that surveyed Jewish families and documented 781 antisemitic incidents in Ontario K-12 schools.

The report is based on a survey of 599 Jewish parents and finds that Jewish students are experiencing a wide range of hostility, including bullying, exclusion, and incidents involving staff.

Josh Landau, CIJA’s director of government relations for Ontario, said the federation’s motion “promoting the concept of Anti-Palestinian Racism” risks conflating political debate about Israel with racism and could label basic expressions of Jewish identity or support for Israel as discriminatory.

He urged that any framework implemented in schools must align with the Ontario Human Rights Code. “Any efforts to introduce and implement a concept that fails to align with existing human rights legislation, particularly the Ontario Human Rights Code, must be firmly rejected,” Landau said in CIJA’s statement.

The J*CA, International Jewish News

CIJA’s Josh Landau says definitions tied to Anti-Palestinian Racism risk labeling ordinary expressions of Jewish identity as discriminatory while a federal survey found 781 antisemitic incidents reported in Ontario K-12 schools. (Photo: Social Media.)

 

In Ontario the primary education system has adapted itself over a period of several decades to Marxist theories, seeping over into the elementary school system from Canadian universities that have given themselves over to the stern delights of dabbling in Critical Race Theory and DEI. The focus is so intense on the sanctimony of righteousness in overturning Western 'colonialism' and celebrating the nobility of 'marginalized' Indigenous populations, people of colour, diverse gender expressions, and upright Palestinianism that there is no energy left for the actual practise of the old standards of education. 

 

The passion of instilling in pupils the honourable rejection of white imperialistic views on everything from language to history, geography, science and mathematics in favour of the social justice of elevating minorities, their heritage and customs and values on a pedestal of worship and emulation leaves no room and no time for investing in world history, nature studies, reading, writing and formulating original thought -- all a waste of time that can be better spent castigating the dominating culture of the West over the authentic culture of native peoples the world over.

 

In Ontario, 40 percent of Canada's school-age population amounts to two million school-aged students. Since 2018, dramatic pedagogical outcomes have illuminated just how educationally ruinous to the future of Canada's adult population the situation bodes. Students' knowledge in math, science and reading have faced a steep decline, while "epistemic injustice" calling out for "decolonization" is paramount, the postmodern theory of knowledge acquisition. Standardized provincial tests indicate that six-grade students meet provincial math standards by a mere 50 percent.

 

Awards were distributed in August by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario honouring social-justice advocacy. Improvement in outcomes of the learning experience through the educational system received no tribute. Identity group education speaks of the learning experience in the 21st Century in Ontario and fairly well throughout Canada. At the general meeting of the ETFO the development of teacher resources to address 'anti-Palestinian racism' passed with 71 percent support. 

 

The 2000 Ontario Conservative government passed the Safe Schools Act, including a "zero-tolerance" policy with respect to violence in the classroom. With its passage, there was an increase in suspensions and expulsions and oddly enough ill behaviour disproportionately attributed to 'racialized' students was remarkably reduced. Seven years later, a Liberal government in Ontario brought in the "Progressive Discipline and School Safety Bill", a total misnomer. Principals' resort to expulsion became neutered by Progressive Discipline, while discourse such as "root causes", "restorative justice", "Positive discipline" and "redirection" became bywords for solving unacceptable student behaviour.

 

Where previously it was unheard of for teaching staff to experience physical abuse from students, by 2017 54 percent had experienced that sobering effect in their professional lives. School violence was characterized in a 2021 academic report as an "epidemic" that struck close to 90 percent of Ontario teachers experiencing some form of physical violence in 2018/19. Physical restraint of violent students assaulting their peers is off limits to teachers; they may, however, impose their bodies between the assaulter and the assaulted.

 

Complaints are recognized as impediments to ongoing successful careers. At this time, the School Resource Officer program was still in place, where law-enforcement officers remained stationed at problem schools across Toronto as a safety check on serious levels of violence. Surveyed students, parents and staff members expressed appreciation for the presence of law enforcement on site, for police who counselled at-risk students and were proven to be positive role models for young males. 

 

Yet because many Black and Indigenous students expressed discomfort with the presence of police, the Toronto District School Board saw fit, viewing the issue through an "equity lens", to opt for discontinuing the program. Since the thin blue line disappeared, three lethal school shootings occurred in Toronto. For politicians who could and should intervene, action is all too often seen as a political risk until such time as polls inform them that education reform is an imperative to save the future from its destined ruination should such reform not eventuate. 

 

Hundreds of pro-Palestine activisits, carrying the flags of Palestine and Lebanon, march in Toronto, Canada, on October 20, 2024.  Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

 

This week, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) passed a resolution to create a resource on “Anti-Palestinian Racism” (APR) for every teacher in the province. This dangerous political framework has been used to brand core expressions of Jewish identity, including connection to Israel, as racism.

The promulgation of APR within Ontario’s schools risks the further politicization of our classrooms, making Jewish students and teachers feel that they must hide their heritage, culture, and history to be accepted. Further, it treats Jewish concerns about bias as attempts to “deny” someone else’s narrative, creating hostility by pitting two marginalized groups against each other.

Ontario’s curriculum exists to give every student a balanced, fact-based education, not to advance divisive political agendas. The Ministry of Education must step in now and make it clear that APR and other politicized doctrines have no place in our schools.

Jewish students have the same right as every other child to feel safe, to express their identity openly, and to learn in an environment that does not marginalize them. That right cannot be ignored to appease an extremist agenda.

B'nai Brith Canada