Juno News - January 05, 2022


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


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

188.94502

Word Count

3,416

Sentence Count

211

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

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
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,
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
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.