Thursday 6 October 2011

Unbelievable!

Today, the Toronto Star has learned that the head of the disciplinary panel of the Ontario College of Teachers has resigned after it was discovered he is the co-author of a book called "The Sexteens and the Fake Goddess".
This revelation comes on the heels of a earlier story by the Toronto Star about the same disciplinary panel covering up or keeping secret serious teacher violations of the College of Teachers’ Code of Behaviour. The Toronto Star reports that it is common practice in the public system that problem teachers are moved around from school to school. What is even more disconcerting is that all the teachers know of this and refer to as “passing the trash” but parents are kept in the dark while their children get “the trash”.
Can the College of Teachers (and the Public School System) be trusted any longer to keep perverts and pedophiles out of Ontario classrooms when the head of their own disciplinary panel is himself is only under review since the Toronto Star brought it to the public’s attention. What if the Toronto Star had not done this story? Your child could be next!   
  

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Vote Against Kids

We are about to go to the election polls in Ontario and we have been subjected to a very confusing TV and radio campaign called "Vote Against Kids". This campaign has been created and funded by ETFO  - The Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario. The Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario has been spending untold amounts of money featuring different children doing something stupid and the ads end with the tag line, ‘On October 6th, vote against kids. My problem, (and everyone else to whom I talk) is that their message does not make any sense. It is incomprehensible. 

Although they don't say it in the ads, the teachers' unions are against Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives (according to the ETFO they are not kid friendly). I, on the other hand, would submit to you that the teachers' unions don't like Tim Hudak and the PC's because they will not be as friendly towards the teachers' unions as Dalton and the Liberals have been in the past. The teachers don't want to lose their nutrition break day, their daily planning periods, their PD days, their $80,000 salaries, their cost of living indexing, their two free sick days a month which are carried forward and accummulate each year; their pension; their extra health /dental benefits; their complete isolation from the recessions the rest of us have endured.

The very fact that the teachers are spending so much money to keep the status quo compels me to ask... "How did these teachers get so rich?" and "Maybe what's good for the teachers may not be so good for the rest of us?". Isn't a "vote against kids" really a vote for teachers. So, if we vote the way the ETFO wants us to, will we not be telling our kids' teachers that campaigning against kids and for themselves is OK? Don't your child's teachers and their unions have enough power and wealth already?