It is a complicated concept. I thought about it but had no great answer on how to do that. You could have someone like Wynnebag that writes a blank cheque and a poison pill to prevent future government tampering but now you are relying on unelected people who want to protect their fifedom and may not give a crap about the students. Or you could have someone that whacks the school budgets and puts a poison pill in to prevent future tampering and the schools are unable to provide education to the level we expect. As politics controls the purse strings, they are destined to be forever linked.
Is it just the parents?? I keep hearing the radio spots about how the teachers are protecting education and the kids. Listening to the ad for what it is, you would think they are the only one's responsible to safe guard the kids...I can see how this might wip up some parents, and have a negitive impact against Ford. It's just agenda setting garbage.
They really should have presented a united front with the gov for a change, instead of this political nonsense, meant to divide people.
BTW - an example of this agenda. I know a teacher friend, she signed off Facebook years ago. BUT suddenly a month ago she signed back on. And all her posts are about how bad it is going back to work, not ready, post with miss information about class sizes, distancing etc etc etc.. Nothing about how she or others are protecting kids, or offer suggestions on HOW to do this better, nothing nadda zip.
If the task was for the education system and the public to come up with better ways to deal with the problems, it's looking like a fail.
Parents don't just want their kids educated, they want the built in baby sitter service even more, so they can go to work or whatever. There is the real problem. They also don't want to resort to private schools because they are too expensive when they are already paying to support the school system through taxes, such is life, the public school system has not changed much, it just got bigger and more complicated.
... and I think the job is or will be taking a toll on his health.
If the task was for the education system and the public to come up with better ways to deal with the problems, it's looking like a fail.
Parents don't just want their kids educated, they want the built in baby sitter service even more, so they can go to work or whatever. There is the real problem. They also don't want to resort to private schools because they are too expensive when they are already paying to support the school system through taxes, such is life, the public school system has not changed much, it just got bigger and more complicated.
... and I think the job is or will be taking a toll on his health.
Well that is part of it. I have couple for friends who can, luckily both can work from home, but are still interested in sending their kids to school. The main reason is for socializing with other kids. They said it's been hard on the kids to be away from friends etc.. They both have younger kids, and play time with kids is important at these ages.
Is it just the parents?? I keep hearing the radio spots about how the teachers are protecting education and the kids. Listening to the ad for what it is, you would think they are the only one's responsible to safe guard the kids...I can see how this might wip up some parents, and have a negitive impact against Ford. It's just agenda setting garbage.
Trigger warning for those inclined to get offended.
For some reason the teachers in Ontario think parents are on their side and they keep trying to convince them with the condescending radio and tv adds that they care about their kids. Almost ALL parents ive talked to see through it and have had a gut full of the teachers whining and demanding more and more money and wanting to do less and less work. Especially considering they are not getting their moneys worth already. With the amount teachers are paid here and the funding put into education compared to the rest of the world youd expect Ontario students to be topping ALL the worlds math/science/reading education rankings, but they dont.
One board or another seems to always be on strike.
But to answer the question, I don't thing Ford is done at all. As mentioned, it's all uncharted territory and you can't criticize decisions made when you've never been through it yourself and the future ramifications are all unknown, regardless of the choice made.
My opinion of Ford has actually improved. He's much more rationale, logical, and intelligent than I'd originally thought.
Managing the province is a complicated matter in the best of times, I think he's doing a pretty good job.
As for schools, I'm going to lay the blame where it belongs -- with teacher's unions and school boards. Neither has proven to be agile or resilient, something we should expect from any organization that has most of their staff on or neat the Sunshine mark.
The province provides guidance and funding, the school boards are responsible for planning and delivery. School boards are connected with their area public health, their workforce, and their student body -- they are responsible for safe and timely opening and day to day operations. They have had months to plan, judging by the bumbling going on now I'm guessing they sat by their pools all summer then scrambled when the province told them the school's were going to open.
Here's a bit of a read from York Region, their boards seem to have their plan together:
If you follow pollsters, you'll see Ford has a stronger position today than at the last election - leading every demographic except millennials by a whopping margin. The next few months are going to be trying as schools, businesses and the economy start coming back to life.
One interesting observation: the demographic groups that are least likely to support the PCs are most likely to contract and distribute COVID.
"I don't like you because you are preventing me from living my best life" Barf. Whenever anyone says that I just want to punch them. Way more often than not, it comes from people that have had the world handed to them on a silver platter. Take away the handouts and their "best life" would be "do you want fries with that" but as hospitality is in the crapper, it will be JT's perpetual CERB. I still think the vast majority of government handouts should come with a rock solid clock. You have until the clock runs out to figure out how to support yourself.
Unions are going to union. I only see them criticising, I don't see them coming up with viable solutions, some of the inherent constraints being "here's how many teachers we have, here's how much classroom space we have, here's how much money we have, here's how much day-care space we have given that many parents rely on school also being day-care". Doug Ford has expressed his desire to listen quite a few times. That doesn't mean everyone is going to agree with the outcome. It is absolutely impossible to please everyone in a situation like this.
I also don't see either the Liberals or NDP (in Ontario) coming up with viable solutions.
I think, under the circumstances, that Doug Ford has done okay taking into account the impossibility of pleasing everyone and the nonexistence of known, perfect, magic solutions that don't have down-sides.
When it comes to education and teachers haters are gonna hate....
For Ford, the actual question that was asked, it will come down to how Ontario does vs the other provinces with regards to COVID and schools. If we have a mess and they are all great well he will pay the price politically. If all the country has the same issues more of less, there will not be much of a price to pay if any. If we do better than the rest of Canada, he gets a huge win.
Odds are, looking at what is going on across the country with school reopenings, we will be in the same boat (or they ours) as the rest of Canada so it will have little impact on him politically.
Poll sources: Campaign Research, Angus, Innovative research. Go find any poll, they show the same results regarding age support for Ford. Covid demographic sources: Read the daily updates in just about every jurisdiction. Just about every new article will tell you COVID is spreading more in the under 40 crowd, largely due to personal protection practices.
Unions are going to union. I only see them criticising, I don't see them coming up with viable solutions, some of the inherent constraints being "here's how many teachers we have, here's how much classroom space we have, here's how much money we have, here's how much day-care space we have given that many parents rely on school also being day-care". Doug Ford has expressed his desire to listen quite a few times. That doesn't mean everyone is going to agree with the outcome. It is absolutely impossible to please everyone in a situation like this.
I also don't see either the Liberals or NDP (in Ontario) coming up with viable solutions.
I think, under the circumstances, that Doug Ford has done okay taking into account the impossibility of pleasing everyone and the nonexistence of known, perfect, magic solutions that don't have down-sides.
Unions are trying to capitalize on the situation - plain and simple. Lets unionize Sr Care homes, Children's Daycare and then reduce class sizes to 15 by adding 200,000 more teachers to the provinces payroll.
According to the latest radio ads, DF is listening to them, but not listening enough. $2 extra billion for teachers needs to be $18 extra billion.
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