Soldiers with guns, in our schools, in our city... should we make this up?

I am grateful to Bob Tarantino for directing me to John Lorinc's feature, "Deadly Lesson" in this month's Toronto Life.

It points out the central problem with some Toronto schools - that political considerations have led to some of Toronto's schools being largely uncontrolled and that students with serious behavioural problems are being left in those environments with foreseeable consequences to their peers. Shuffling problems from place to place didn't work for paedophile priests and it doesn't work for disturbed and criminal teenagers either. To be in control of a school you must know who is on the premises and be able to quickly eject interlopers. It's not enough to have conduct standards - they have to be taken seriously, enforced and action taken when they are breached.

I can't help but think that the "progressive educators" who refuse to admit that leadership and security are the cornerstones of winning back our troubled campuses should be brought face to face with someone who will give them Trudeau's October Crisis routine. Kathleen Wynne sure as hell won't do it.

Unfortunately the union backed lobby groups mostly ensure human lettuces get elected as trustees, who only want to see problems kept quiet enough for their run for Councillor or MPP to come up. Teachers who try and stem the tide are undercut by their fellow educators, their supervisors and those elected to run the school system. Is it any wonder that the public school system is so ill-regarded, and that so many non-Catholics choose Catholic schools because of a perception of better discipline?

As for Bob's suggestion that proposed separate schools for violent students be patrolled by ninjas, I am waiting for Jack Layton to propose returning our troops from Afghanistan to provide security, given that he was a city councillor when Mel Lastman got them to shovel our snow.

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