As someone who has been researching and monitoring the downgrading, standardization and privatization of public education since the early 90s, I’m caught between being heartsick at the lives upended, the kids being sold out, the staff being mistreated /1 thestar.com/news/gta/2020/…
...bullied, and kept in a constant state of uncertainty, the parents and families living with anxiety and the ongoing sense of betrayal..... and my utter fury and frustration at how bloody predictable, deliberate and calculating this has been on the part of the MOE /2
‘Never let a crisis go to waste’ is directly out of the privatization playbook. Snobelen arrogantly announced it on video in the early 90s but even back then he was cribbing from other jurisdictions. /3
I hear so often that these guys don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t buy it for a minute. When it comes to public services like education, they know *exactly* what they’re doing. COVID didn’t interrupt their plans—it accelerated them. /4
The only thing it changed is their podium performance for the media—where ‘be smart, folks, and stay off the beaches’ was somehow more positively received than yelling at journalists or parents of kids with autism (remember that ‘hands in the public trough’ moment?) /5
Waiting around for the feds to pick up the tab, re-announcements of money they may or may not have actually provided, and the utter lack of planning ahead forcing all of us to deal with a Ministry-created underfunded and unacceptable September isn’t fooling anyone. /6
‘We have big plans for education. Big plans’ gloated that Conservative staffer I met on a train back from Toronto before the lockdown. He wasn’t kidding. Make no mistake. NONE of this is accidental. They’re just using #COVID19 as cover. /end #canlab #noted #onpoli
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