From Cork to Toronto

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 camp...

St. Mary's Academy, a Catholic school in Champlain, NY, is currently teaching 33 Quebec schoolchildren out of 102 total enrolment because their parents, many of them francophones, are unhappy with the amount of English taught in Quebec schools. The US school, with fees one-third of Quebec private schools, is even cheaper these days with the strong dollar. Much like the Mennonites recently forced to leave Quebec or have their schools closed, these parents might have legal action taken against them by the Quebec authorities who regulate education for more strictly than the Ontario system which permits private schools and home schooling to operate with less regulation. The upside for the American school? the cross-border students from Quebec have also brought advantages to St. Mary's, the principal said. With so many young francophones, some of the American schoolchildren are learning French.