Juno News - Making math teachers know basic math is racist, according to Ontario Court

00:00:00.000 Making math teachers pass a basic grade nine math test is racist, according to the Ontario

00:00:05.580 Divisional Court. This is judicial activism and the woke ideology at its worst. I'm Candice

00:00:10.900 Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into

00:00:19.560 the Candice Malcolm Show. Welcome to the program. Today I want to talk about a decision that came

00:00:24.060 down over the Christmas break. We had already finished our recordings for the Christmas show,

00:00:28.340 so I wasn't able to cover it when it came out, but I want to talk about it today because it's one of

00:00:32.680 those decisions that is just so absurd and so frustrating and it just really shows how far

00:00:37.840 down the woke rabbit hole we as a country have gone. So of course I am talking about this decision

00:00:43.760 that came down from the Ontario Divisional Court. It found that forcing teachers, teachers who are

00:00:49.760 going to be teaching math to students in Ontario schools, asking them to pass a basic math exam

00:00:55.620 is racist. So we're going to get through all the details here. Now let's just go through some

00:01:00.080 background of what it is that I'm talking about. So the math proficiency test. Back in 2019,

00:01:06.100 Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, and his Education Minister, Stephen Lecce, and so they were alarmed by

00:01:12.220 the dismal math scores in the province of Ontario. So this is coming from the Hub. This is how they

00:01:17.820 described it. In 2019, alarmed by falling student math scores, the Ford government introduced legislation

00:01:23.600 to require teachers to pass a mathematics proficiency test, MPT. It is emphatically not

00:01:29.680 a difficult test. It consists of 75 multiple choice questions assessing basic math skills taught in grades

00:01:35.720 three to nine. In other words, skills which any Ontario student is required to master to graduate,

00:01:40.840 as well as mathematics pedagogy. So the test was designed as a two-hour test, but in this case for

00:01:47.000 the teachers, they were allowed to have three hours to complete it. Those who do not pass this test in

00:01:51.900 the first attempt are allowed unlimited numbers of retakes. Okay. So a score of 70%, which is a low B,

00:01:58.980 is required in order to pass this test. Unsurprisingly, over 85% of all test takers were

00:02:05.560 able to pass it. So again, this was according to our friends over at the Hub. So again, a basic test,

00:02:11.740 the kind of math that you would learn in grade three to grade nine. And so all of the Ontario government

00:02:17.380 was asking was that teachers learn basic math in case they are going to teach. It would be required

00:02:23.520 for all teachers who are teaching elementary school and in high school in Ontario, secondary school.

00:02:29.220 And again, this is perfectly reasonable because in Ontario, any teacher in the school could be

00:02:34.320 required to teach math. It's not like university where a professor is set with their sort of

00:02:40.180 background and their skills and they teach in their field. In high school, in Ontario, or in elementary

00:02:46.140 school as well, any teacher could be asked to sub in and to become a math teacher. So again, this is

00:02:51.820 pretty basic stuff here. We have an issue in Ontario where math scores are falling. Frankly,

00:02:56.660 we have this issue all over Canada where our math scores are not where they were. They're not as good

00:03:01.780 as they were 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. And so the government wanted to address this

00:03:07.560 situation. And it's also worth noting that this is a common feature in many of our allied countries,

00:03:12.800 many other countries that are also trying to address the math standards. So the government of

00:03:17.680 Ontario noted that these types of proficiency tests are used in other jurisdictions, including

00:03:22.420 the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, all of which required a standard math test for educators.

00:03:29.180 So it's not unreasonable to ask math teachers to know math. It's not unreasonable to ask all teachers

00:03:35.160 to have basic math proficiency when the goal here and what we are trying to do is make sure that

00:03:40.560 students have better outcomes, that students are properly prepared for the world in front

00:03:45.500 of them. And I mean, just think about the changing economy. Just think about how prevalent the use

00:03:50.420 of computers are, how high in demand skills are for anyone who knows how to code, knows how to program,

00:03:57.040 anything involving computers. If we want to set students in Canada and Ontario up for success in

00:04:02.640 the world, they need to know math. And in order for them to know math, the teachers who are teaching them

00:04:06.940 need to know math. I mean, this is all just so obvious. It's so ridiculous that it's hard to wrap

00:04:12.360 your head around how we ended up with this position where we have a court determining that

00:04:16.960 this was racist. So again, just to address the declining math scores in Canada. This is over in

00:04:22.920 the CBC. It says Ontario elementary students' math scores declining. The Education Quality and

00:04:28.300 Accountability Office was over in the CBC back in 2019. Fewer than half of grade six students,

00:04:33.880 48% met the provincial math standard during the previous school year, down from 61% in 2009. So

00:04:41.420 less than half of the students in grade six can pass a basic math exam. For grade three students,

00:04:46.680 it's 58% that met the standard. That's down from 70% back in 2009, 2010. The Education Quality and

00:04:53.460 Accountability Office said that grade nine results are relatively consistent, but there is a persistent gap

00:04:58.320 between students in the applied and academic courses. 44% and 84% of them met the standard

00:05:04.600 respectively. So again, not good. Not good. We are not doing what we should in terms of preparing

00:05:11.340 students for the future, for their future, for the future economy. This is over in the Fraser Institute.

00:05:18.200 They did a report that showed that the results between 2003 and 2018 show a steady decline in Canada's

00:05:24.060 math scores, whereas Canada had the fifth highest math score among 37 countries participating back in

00:05:28.820 2003. It occupied 12th place among 78 participating jurisdictions in the most recent 2018 assessment,

00:05:36.120 noting that Canada places 12th among the 78 countries in math scores for a program called the

00:05:42.680 Program for International Student Assessment. You can see in the map there that Canada is now ranked 12th.

00:05:48.840 So again, we have good intentions. We have the Ford government assessing a problem, saying we need to

00:05:53.600 improve math skills. Here's one way that we can do it. We can make sure that everyone who is teaching

00:05:57.820 math is able to pass their own math test. Again, super, super reasonable. Okay, so the province started

00:06:04.620 administering these tests last May, and what we saw happen was that there were disparities in terms of

00:06:10.940 the success rate. So this is why it ended up in the court. This is why the teachers, this was the

00:06:15.940 justification anyway. The teacher unions didn't like it. They didn't like more, a higher burden on their

00:06:20.740 own teachers. And so they fought against this. And this was the evidence that they used as to why

00:06:25.020 taking these tests was wrong. And this is what the court heard. The court heard that there were

00:06:29.520 demographic disparities in the success rates. Canadians who identify as indigenous and black

00:06:34.660 had a success rate 20% lower than white candidates. And there was also a disparity between

00:06:39.880 French-speaking and English-speaking test takers. So it said that the francophone candidates had a lower

00:06:45.560 success rate than anglophone test takers. Of the non-white candidates writing the test in French,

00:06:49.960 55% were successful compared to 84% of the white candidates writing in French, the court heard.

00:06:55.760 Those whose first language was neither French nor English had a lower success rate, an even lower

00:07:00.940 success rate. Okay. So, so because basically this is a problem. This is where we are in Canada,

00:07:05.960 where every single thing, every single policy, every single initiative, every single law,

00:07:10.640 instead of just looking at whether this is a good law, whether it makes sense, whether it will help,

00:07:15.900 everything is looked at through the lens of race. We are in, we are in this moment where we are all

00:07:20.520 obsessed with race. The country is obsessed with race. Divisive identity politics has seeped into

00:07:25.040 every aspect of our society. And because of that, we can't just look at a policy and say,

00:07:29.860 hey, this is great. Let's all work together to try to improve mass scores, to try to make sure that

00:07:33.860 Canada stays competitive and that these students have a fighting chance in the economy in the future.

00:07:38.280 Instead, it all goes back to race. It all goes back to division. It all goes back to identity

00:07:42.120 politics. And here we see how they, how they've broken it apart and assessed how there are different

00:07:47.640 outcomes. There are different outcomes for different people. And therefore it doesn't matter what the

00:07:51.540 intentions are. It doesn't matter what the outcomes are. It doesn't matter how good this initiative is

00:07:55.380 for students in the province of Ontario and how good it can be for our future economy. All that matters

00:08:01.080 is that we have identified this one area where we can reasonably say that this is a racist law.

00:08:07.140 And therefore the entire thing should be shut out. So that, so the unions fought against it,

00:08:11.560 they got it to court. And here we have Ontario court declares that the math proficiency test

00:08:17.020 is unconstitutional because it is racist. So the MPT, the math proficiency test has been declared

00:08:23.680 unconstitutional on December 17th, 2021 by an Ontario divisional court due to concerns about it being

00:08:30.180 racially biased. According to the Ontario Teachers Federation, the court found that the tests had an

00:08:35.660 adverse impact on entry to the teaching profession for racialized teacher candidates and other

00:08:41.380 reasonable alternatives should have been implemented. Racialized students benefit from 1.00

00:08:45.640 being taught by racialized teachers, the court decision stated. So, so basically what the court

00:08:50.040 decision here found was that there was a disproportionate impact on what they call a protected

00:08:55.420 group. And so because of that, the entire rule, the entire law, the entire initiative that the

00:09:00.500 Ford government had to try to teach math teachers, math gets thrown out, gets thrown out. And so again,

00:09:05.720 what we're seeing here is the woke ideology seeping into another institution. So just like

00:09:11.020 how the woke left, they changed the meaning of the term racism. Racism used to have a very specific

00:09:16.620 meaning. It used to, everyone knows what a racist was and being called a racist was one of the worst

00:09:22.020 insults that you could be called. But slowly over the last several years, you have seen that they have

00:09:27.020 changed the meaning of the term racism. It no longer means what it used to mean. And now it just means

00:09:31.940 any kind of power imbalance. And you have people on the left throwing the word around, calling everyone

00:09:36.820 and everything a racist. You're a racist and a bigot if you don't adhere to the latest woke trend and the

00:09:43.420 left ideology. If you're not completely adherent to these trends and this ideology, they will call you a

00:09:48.440 racist and they will call you a bigot. Well, it is similar with these laws, with this woke ideology

00:09:53.400 seeping into these institutions, the idea of disparate impact. It's also called adverse impact,

00:09:59.040 but it's judicial theory that was developed in the United States. It allows challenges to

00:10:03.240 employment and educational practices that are non-discriminatory on their face, but have a

00:10:07.820 disproportionately negative effect on members of a legally protected group. And so again, this isn't

00:10:14.060 about having equal treatment. This isn't about equality of opportunity. This isn't about treating

00:10:18.840 everybody in a society the same, which used to be the goal of the civil rights movement. It used to

00:10:24.020 be the idea behind the sort of crusaders towards living in this peaceful, anti-racist society.

00:10:29.300 But that's no longer the goal. The goal is no longer quality of opportunity, quality of under the law,

00:10:34.780 the new standard now, according to the woke left and according to this ideology, is equality of

00:10:40.360 outcome. The outcome has to be the same. Otherwise, the rule is racist, the law is racist. So

00:10:45.580 this, in a nutshell, is what we're seeing here. It's just like critical race theory that we're

00:10:50.580 seeing in school. It's the exact same trend. It's the exact same idea. It doesn't matter about your

00:10:54.840 intent. It doesn't matter about whether or not the rule or the law is discriminatory. All that

00:10:59.680 matters is the outcome. And again, I had Samuel say, who's a wonderful thinker on critical race theory

00:11:05.420 on my show a few times over Christmas, and he articulated this so well that the outcome that

00:11:11.220 they're looking for quality of outcome is Marxism. It's the exact same thing that the communists used

00:11:15.700 to fight for. They've now wrapped it up in this whole sort of anti-racist, critical race theory,

00:11:21.300 race-obsessed lens. But what they're fighting for and what they're looking for is exactly the same

00:11:26.060 thing as what the Marxists and the communists were fighting for. And this is where we are as a society

00:11:32.380 where race is just seeped into every aspect of our society. And so not surprisingly here, folks,

00:11:38.340 the teachers unions are celebrating. We saw this over in the Ottawa Citizen. It says, the headline

00:11:43.860 here says, teachers candidates win a huge victory over the province's mandatory math test for

00:11:49.800 educators. So not surprising here that teachers unions are doing a victory lap and celebrating

00:11:55.120 because they don't want to learn math. They don't want to learn math. So they're celebrating and they

00:11:59.760 say this is a huge victory. So the OTF applauds the efforts of the Ontario Teachers Candidates Council

00:12:05.740 for pursuing this successful legal challenge. There is no research to suggest that a standardized

00:12:11.060 test would improve student outcomes or enhance teachers' pedagogy. Ontario has some of the best

00:12:17.040 educated teachers in the world and this decision reinforces their professionalism, said the OTF

00:12:21.880 president Chris Cowley. So again, they are celebrating the fact that they no longer have to show that

00:12:27.120 they're competent at math. They're just stating that they have some of the best educated teachers in

00:12:31.020 the world. And look, I'm not doubting this. I'm not doubting that there are some brilliant,

00:12:35.340 dedicated, well-educated, wonderful, wonderful teachers in the Ontario public school system.

00:12:40.480 I'm just saying that on the surface here, looking at a teacher's union, celebrating the fact that

00:12:46.220 teachers no longer have to pass a math test is just patently absurd. It truly shows where the Ontario

00:12:53.460 Teachers Federation, where these unions focuses, because it's not on the students. It's not on ensuring

00:12:58.580 that students have better math scores. When you look at this, when you look at the way they're

00:13:02.740 celebrating this, what it shows is that they're happy, that their lives are easier, that they don't

00:13:07.620 have to do this onerous test, and they've just found some trendy new justification that a court in

00:13:14.840 Ontario went along with. Not surprising here. There is quite a bit of criticism, duly so, a lot of

00:13:20.980 criticism on this decision. So Maxime Bernier coming out in strong terms, calling this a decision by

00:13:27.080 moronic woke judges. Bernier slams a decision to drop basic math tests for new Ontario teachers,

00:13:32.840 so the People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier did not mince words after the Ontario

00:13:37.640 Divisional Court ruled the province's math proficiency test for teachers was unconstitutional.

00:13:42.600 If you think courts will save us from crazy politicians, think again. Moronic woke judges in

00:13:47.960 Ontario rule that a basic math test for new teachers has to go because it discriminates against

00:13:53.080 racialized teacher candidates. Bernier tweeted on Friday. That is, I couldn't have said it better

00:13:59.080 myself. Writing in the National Post, Randall Denley also has some strong words for this. He says that

00:14:05.160 Ontario math test ruling is where we end up when race becomes more important than competence. He

00:14:10.440 writes that race trumps knowledge when it comes to training new teachers and Ontario court has

00:14:14.600 determined it's a decision that defies common sense and places teachers rights ahead of students' needs.

00:14:20.520 The Ontario math test decision is where we end up when race becomes more important than demonstrated

00:14:26.120 competence. Not only does it undermine merit, it's insulting to non-white people. In effect, 1.00

00:14:31.160 the judges are saying that racialized people, even those with a university education, don't have

00:14:36.760 the intellectual capacity to pass a math test some victory. He wrote that is really well put and an

00:14:43.240 excellent point as well. This is really condescending to so-called racialized teachers. Black and 0.91

00:14:49.160 indigenous teachers were told that they don't have the competence and the capability to pass a math

00:14:53.960 test. Look, if that's true, perhaps we have a different problem and we should focus more on

00:14:58.600 providing the aid and assistance to those types of teachers so that they are able to pass a math

00:15:03.160 test. Why don't we address the problem here? Instead, this is just like, throw it out for everyone

00:15:08.120 and it's a big victory. Very good point by Randall Denley over in the National Post that this is

00:15:13.000 incredibly condescending and insulting to non-white people. Ezra Levant over at The Rebel had a pretty

00:15:19.320 hilarious take as well. This is from The Rebel website. He writes this about the court decision. He says,

00:15:25.320 it reads like it's from The Onion or The Babylon Bee or some other satire site,

00:15:29.640 but this is real people. This isn't some woke student paper in some gender studies class in college.

00:15:34.840 This is what happens when woke students graduate, become woke lawyers, and then become woke judges.

00:15:40.120 This is real. It apparently is fine under the Charter of Rights to force people to take an

00:15:44.200 injection or lose their job, lose their ability to go on airplanes or trains or go to a restaurant.

00:15:48.760 That's all fine by the Charter, but making math teachers know math, that's discrimination.

00:15:53.880 Ezra always has a very funny way of putting these things. Excellent points there. So what's next?

00:15:58.680 Will the Ontario government challenge the court's decision? Well, the Ministry of Education

00:16:03.400 referred a request for comment from the newspaper from The Ottawa Citizen to the Office of the Attorney

00:16:08.280 General. They're currently reviewing the decision. So don't expect much from the Ford government here.

00:16:13.320 I mean, the initiative was a good idea, but what we've seen over and over again from the Ford

00:16:18.280 government is just this total unwillingness to fight against the teachers unions. They cave over

00:16:23.640 and over and over again. This divisive race-obsessed woke ideology is seeping into every aspect of our

00:16:29.720 lives. It continues to seep into every aspect of our lives, and the woke left continues to push that.

00:16:34.680 So rather than putting race at the front of every conversation as the left and as the woke crowd

00:16:41.080 insists that we do, we should stop. Instead, we should focus on the things that matter about a person,

00:16:46.200 their character, their competency, their effort, and their abilities. Making math teachers know math is not

00:16:52.200 racist. It's common sense. It's about finding competent, qualified people to teach the next generation of Canadians.

00:16:59.720 The fact that teachers unions are celebrating this shows that they don't care about students. The judge

00:17:05.000 who made this decision, the three judges who made this decision, don't care about the students. They

00:17:09.400 only care about their own fashionable ideology and making teachers' lives easier. And as for the Ford

00:17:15.240 government, when are they going to stand up to the unions? This week, we also saw the Ford government

00:17:20.200 cave to the teachers unions, who demanded that once again schools be closed. So here we are in lockdown

00:17:25.480 once again with our kids staying at home. This despite the fact that COVID overwhelmingly does not

00:17:31.320 harm children. But what does harm children is making them stay at home. That has a severe effect

00:17:37.400 on children. It will continue to have an impact on this generation for their entire lives. Teachers'

00:17:43.160 unions and their woke allies in the Ford government and on the judicial bench are failing our children

00:17:48.840 and failing our country. I'm Kenis Welcome, and this is The Kenis Welcome Show.

Juno News - January 05, 2022

Making math teachers know basic math is racist, according to Ontario Court

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