I recently read a column by Moira MacDonald in The Toronto Sun about how officials at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) are waxing lyrical about providing kids from disadvantaged homes cash incentives to read books. MacDonald also mentioned that the TDSB is considering giving parents cash to attend workshops and get a library card as well.
My immediate reaction was: what an offensive idea! Make poor kids feel worse about their lives by labeling them disadvantaged or stupid. This is not only offensive it’s magical thinking at its worst. The whole idea made me think of the theme song from the Wizard of Oz and wonder who the wizards might be behind the screen at the TDSB who think they can get results by bribing kids who are “disadvantaged,” whatever that is supposed to mean. Poverty itself—or making do on less—shouldn’t have anything to do with whether kids want to learn or parents value education.
Whether or not you think cash incentives might work, what are the powers that be at the TDSB thinking when they are so deep in the financial hole? For details, check out a MacDonald column dated May 28, 2010 but updated recently. Reading this column, it becomes clear that TDSB decision-makers really are living in a fantasy land. Here are the facts:
This year the TDSB had a deficit of $42 million dollars. To deal with some of that deficit, they transferred $30 million from major repair projects, thus adding to their $2.8 billion deferred maintenance plan. They then increased this year’s budget by $600 million, in spite of the fact that student enrollment had dropped by 13.4 percent. I repeat, the TDSB trustees budgeted hundreds of millions of dollars more — and hired more teachers – even though enrollment was dropping like a stone, they already had a huge deficit and repairs to infrastructure would have to be delayed again.
Look, I am not unsympathetic. I grew up poor, as did many of my friends and relatives. But, we didn’t need to be given cash by the school system to bribe us to do well in life. We did whatever we had to do to get ahead. No, this whole issue is simply about political correctness and the wizards at the TDSB pulling levers in a futile attempt to change social and cultural attitudes by bribing kids and their parents with cash — cash the TDSB does not have.
In other words, the TDSB does not have access to a yellow brick road. However, what they do have access to are parents. Why, then, don’t they look at models for getting parents involved in their child’s school — and I’m talking about real parental engagement — something that research shows works well. See, for example, this source, as well this one. And, while they are doing that, they could stop deficit spending and get back on track to closing, replacing and repairing their schools.
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