The Candice Malcolm Show - January 05, 2022


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


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

190.7453

Word Count

3,409

Sentence Count

209

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Ontario has ruled that making math teachers pass a basic grade 9 test is racist. According to the Ontario Divisional Court. This is judicial activism and woke ideology at its worst. In this episode, Candice talks about why this is a ridiculous ruling and why it is not racist at all.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Making math teachers pass a basic grade nine math test is racist, according to the Ontario
00:00:05.620 Divisional Court. This is judicial activism and the woke ideology at its worst. I'm Candice
00:00:10.940 Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into
00:00:19.600 the Candice Malcolm Show. Welcome to the program. Today I want to talk about a decision that came
00:00:24.100 down over the Christmas break. We had already finished our recordings for the Christmas show,
00:00:28.380 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
00:00:32.720 those decisions that is just so absurd and so frustrating and it just really shows how far
00:00:37.900 down the woke rabbit hole we as a country have gone. So of course I am talking about this decision
00:00:43.800 that came down from the Ontario Divisional Court. It found that forcing teachers, teachers who are
00:00:49.800 going to be teaching math to students in Ontario schools, asking them to pass a basic math exam
00:00:55.660 is racist. So we're going to get through all the details here. Now let's just go through some
00:01:00.120 background of what it is that I'm talking about. So the math proficiency test. Back in 2019, Doug Ford,
00:01:06.700 the premier of Ontario, and his education minister, Stephen Lecce, and so they were alarmed by the dismal
00:01:12.920 math scores in the province of Ontario. So this is coming from the hub. This is how they described it.
00:01:18.880 In 2019, alarmed by falling student math scores, the Ford government introduced legislation to require
00:01:24.440 teachers to pass a mathematics proficiency test, MPT. It is emphatically not a difficult test. It
00:01:30.940 consists of 75 multiple choice questions, assessing basic math skills taught in grades three to nine.
00:01:36.800 In other words, skills which any Ontario student is required to master to graduate, as well as
00:01:41.720 mathematics pedagogy. So the test was designed as a two hour test, but in this case for the teachers,
00:01:47.480 they were allowed to have three hours to complete it. Those who do not pass this test on the first
00:01:52.240 attempt are allowed unlimited numbers of retakes. Okay. So a score of 70%, which is a low B is
00:01:59.260 required in order to pass this test. Unsurprisingly, over 85% of all test takers were able to pass it.
00:02:07.100 So again, this was according to our friends over at the hub. So again, a basic test, the kind of math
00:02:12.500 that you would learn in grade three to grade nine. And so all of the Ontario government was asking was
00:02:18.680 that teachers learn basic math in case they are going to teach. It would be required for all teachers
00:02:24.160 who are teaching elementary school and in high school in Ontario, secondary school. And again,
00:02:29.640 this is perfectly reasonable because in Ontario, any teacher in the school could be required to teach
00:02:35.620 math. It's not like university where a professor is set with their sort of background and their
00:02:41.620 skills and they teach in their field. In high school in Ontario or in elementary school as well,
00:02:46.780 any teacher could be asked to sub in and to become a math teacher. So again, this is pretty basic stuff
00:02:53.120 here. We have an issue in Ontario where math scores are falling. Frankly, we have this issue all over
00:02:58.300 Canada where our math scores are not where they were. They're not as good as they were 10 years ago,
00:03:03.640 15 years ago, 20 years ago. And so the government wanted to address this situation. And it's also worth
00:03:09.300 noting that this is a common feature in many of our allied countries, many other countries that are
00:03:14.160 also trying to address the math standards. So the government of Ontario noted that these types of
00:03:19.820 proficiency tests are used in other jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan,
00:03:24.880 all of which required a standard math test for educators. So it's not unreasonable to ask math
00:03:32.080 teachers to know math. It's not unreasonable to ask all teachers to have basic math proficiency when the
00:03:38.060 goal here and what we are trying to do is make sure that students have better outcomes, that students are
00:03:43.660 properly prepared for the world in front of them. And I mean, just think about the changing economy.
00:03:48.200 Just think about how prevalent the use of computers are, how high in demand skills are for anyone who
00:03:54.760 knows how to code, knows how to program anything involving computers. If we want to set students in
00:04:00.580 Canada and Ontario up for success in the world, they need to know math. And in order for them to know
00:04:05.440 math, the teachers who are teaching them need to know math. I mean, this is all just so obvious.
00:04:08.860 It's so ridiculous that it's hard to wrap your head around how we ended up with this position
00:04:14.880 where we have a court determining that this was racist. So again, just to address the declining
00:04:19.400 math scores in Canada, this is over in the CBC. It says, Ontario elementary students' math scores
00:04:26.480 declining. The Education Quality and Accountability Office, this was over in the CBC back in 2019.
00:04:32.140 Fewer than half of grade six students, 48%, met the provincial math standard during the previous school
00:04:38.480 year, down from 61% in 2009. So less than half of the students in grade six can pass a basic math
00:04:45.080 exam. For grade three students, it's 58% that met the standard. That's down from 70% back in 2009,
00:04:51.400 2010. The Education Quality and Accountability Office said that grade nine results are relatively
00:04:56.340 consistent, but there is a persistent gap between students in the applied and academic courses.
00:05:01.200 44% and 84% of them met the standard respectively. So again, not good, not good. We are
00:05:08.440 not doing what we should in terms of preparing students for the future, for their future,
00:05:14.700 for the future economy. This is over in the Fraser Institute. They did a report that showed that the
00:05:19.540 results between 2003 and 2018 show a steady decline in Canada's math scores, whereas Canada had the fifth
00:05:26.020 highest math score among 37 countries participating back in 2003. It occupied 12th place among 78 participating
00:05:32.440 jurisdictions in the most recent 2018 assessment, noting that Canada places 12th among the 78 countries
00:05:40.300 in math scores for a program called the Program for International Student Assessment. You can see in the
00:05:46.040 math there that Canada is now ranked 12th. So again, we have good intentions. We have the Ford government
00:05:51.880 assessing a problem saying we need to improve math skills. Here's one way that we can do it. We can make
00:05:56.140 sure that everyone who is teaching math is able to pass their own math test. Again, super, super reasonable.
00:06:03.320 Okay, so the province started administering these tests last May, and what we saw happen was that there were
00:06:09.520 disparities in terms of the success rate. So this is why it ended up in the court. This is why the teachers, this
00:06:15.720 was the justification anyway. The teachers unions didn't like it. They didn't like more, a higher burden on their
00:06:20.780 own teachers. And so they fought against this. And this was the evidence that they used as to why
00:06:25.060 taking these tests was wrong. And this is what the court heard. The court heard that there were
00:06:29.560 demographic disparities in the success rates. Canadians who identify as indigenous and black
00:06:34.680 had a success rate 20% lower than white candidates. And there was also a disparity between
00:06:39.920 French-speaking and English-speaking test takers. So it said that the francophone candidates had a lower
00:06:45.600 success rate than anglophone test takers. Of the non-white candidates writing the test in French,
00:06:50.000 55% were successful compared to 84% of the white candidates writing in French, the court heard.
00:06:56.140 Those whose first language was neither French nor English had a lower success rate, an even lower
00:07:00.980 success rate. Okay, so because, basically this is a problem, this is where we are in Canada,
00:07:06.240 where every single thing, every single policy, every single initiative, every single law,
00:07:11.640 instead of just looking at whether this is a good law, whether it makes sense, whether it will help,
00:07:15.940 everything is looked at through the lens of race. We are in this moment where
00:07:19.980 we are all obsessed with race. The country is obsessed with race. Divisive identity politics
00:07:24.040 has seeped into every aspect of our society. And because of that, we can't just look at a policy
00:07:29.060 and say, hey, this is great. Let's all work together to try to improve mass scores, to try to make sure
00:07:33.720 that Canada stays competitive and that these students have a fighting chance in the economy
00:07:37.500 in the future. Instead, it all goes back to race. It all goes back to division. It all goes back to
00:07:41.920 identity politics. And here we see how they've broken it apart and assessed how there are different
00:07:47.680 outcomes. There are different outcomes for different people. And therefore, it doesn't matter what the
00:07:51.580 intentions are. It doesn't matter what the outcomes are. It doesn't matter how good this initiative is
00:07:55.420 for students in the province of Ontario and how good it can be for our future economy. All that matters
00:08:01.120 is that we have identified this one area where we can reasonably say that this is a racist law and
00:08:07.560 therefore the entire thing should be shut out. So the unions fought against it. They got it to court.
00:08:12.400 And here we have Ontario court declares that the math proficiency test is unconstitutional because
00:08:19.080 it is racist. So the MPT, the math proficiency test has been declared unconstitutional on December 17th,
00:08:26.380 2021 by an Ontario divisional court due to concerns about it being racially biased. According to the
00:08:32.400 Ontario Teachers Federation, the court found that the test had an adverse impact on entry to the teaching
00:08:38.320 profession for racialized teacher candidates and other reasonable alternatives should have been
00:08:43.240 implemented. Racialized students benefit from being taught by racialized teachers, the court decision
00:08:48.020 stated. So basically what the court decision here found was that there was a disproportionate impact
00:08:54.040 on what they call a protected group. And so because of that, the entire rule, the entire law,
00:08:59.260 the entire initiative that the Ford government had to try to teach math teachers math gets thrown out,
00:09:03.940 gets thrown out. And so again, what we're seeing here is the woke ideology seeping into another
00:09:09.620 institution. So just like how the woke left, they changed the meaning of the term racism. Racism used
00:09:15.420 to have a very specific meaning. It used to, everyone knows what a racist was and being called a racist
00:09:20.860 was one of the worst insults that you could be called. But slowly over the last several years,
00:09:25.820 you have seen that they have changed the meaning of the term racism. It no longer means what it used to
00:09:30.640 mean. And now it just means any kind of power imbalance. And you have people on the left throwing
00:09:35.360 the word around, calling everyone and everything a racist. You're a racist and a bigot if you don't
00:09:40.360 adhere to the latest woke trend and the left ideology. If you're not completely adherent to these trends
00:09:46.820 and this ideology, they will call you a racist and they will call you a bigot. Well, it is similar with
00:09:51.360 these laws, with this woke ideology seeping into these institutions, the idea of disparate impact.
00:09:57.420 It's also called adverse impact, but it's judicial theory that was developed in the United States.
00:10:01.860 It allows challenges to employment and educational practices that are non-discriminatory on their face,
00:10:07.160 but have a disproportionately negative effect on members of a legally protected group. And so again,
00:10:13.680 this isn't about having equal treatment. This isn't about equality of opportunity. This isn't about
00:10:18.500 treating everybody in a society the same, which used to be the goal of the civil rights movement. It used to
00:10:24.060 be the idea behind the sort of crusaders towards living in this peaceful anti-racist society.
00:10:29.360 But that's no longer the goal. The goal is no longer quality of opportunity, quality of under the law,
00:10:34.800 that the new standard now, according to the woke left and according to this ideology,
00:10:39.240 is equality of outcome. The outcome has to be the same. Otherwise, the rule is racist, the law is racist.
00:10:45.500 So this in a nutshell is what we're seeing here. It's just like critical race theory that we're seeing
00:10:50.900 in school. It's the exact same trend. It's the exact same idea. It doesn't matter about your
00:10:54.880 intent. It doesn't matter about whether or not the rule or the law is discriminatory. All that
00:10:59.720 matters is the outcome. And again, I had Samuel say, who's a wonderful thinker on critical race theory
00:11:05.460 on my show a few times over Christmas, and he articulated this so well that the outcome that
00:11:11.280 they're looking for, quality of outcome, is Marxism. It's the exact same thing that the communists
00:11:15.480 used to fight for. They've now wrapped it up in this whole sort of anti-racist, critical race theory,
00:11:21.340 race-obsessed lens. But what they're fighting for and what they're looking for is exactly the same
00:11:26.100 thing as what the Marxists and the communists were fighting for. And this is where we are as a
00:11:32.080 society where race is just seeped into every aspect of our society. And so not surprisingly here,
00:11:38.100 folks, the teachers' unions are celebrating. We saw this over in the Ottawa Citizen. It says,
00:11:43.460 the headline here says, teachers' candidates win a huge victory over the province's mandatory math
00:11:49.200 test for educators. So not surprising here that teachers' unions are doing a victory lap and
00:11:54.540 celebrating because they don't want to learn math. They don't want to learn math. So they're
00:11:59.120 celebrating and they say it's a huge victory. So the OTF applauds the efforts of the Ontario
00:12:04.220 Teachers' Candidates Council for pursuing this successful legal challenge. There is no research to
00:12:10.100 suggest that a standardized test would improve student outcomes or enhance teachers' pedagogy.
00:12:15.600 Ontario has some of the best educated teachers in the world, and this decision reinforces their
00:12:20.360 professionalism, said the OTF president, Chris Cowley. So again, they are celebrating the fact that
00:12:25.380 they no longer have to show that they're competent at math. They're just stating that they have some of
00:12:29.920 the best educated teachers in the world. And look, I'm not doubting this. I'm not doubting that there are
00:12:34.460 some brilliant, dedicated, well-educated, wonderful, wonderful teachers in the Ontario public school
00:12:40.120 system. I'm just saying that on the surface here, looking at a teachers' union celebrating the fact
00:12:45.900 that teachers no longer have to pass a math test is just patently absurd. It truly shows where the
00:12:53.000 Ontario Teachers' Federation, where these unions focuses, because it's not on the students. It's not
00:12:57.960 on ensuring that students have better math scores. When you look at this, when you look at the way
00:13:02.600 they're celebrating this, what it shows is that they're happy that their lives are easier, that
00:13:07.400 they don't have to do this onerous test, and they've just found some trendy new justification
00:13:12.720 that a court in Ontario went along with. Not surprising here. There is quite a bit of criticism,
00:13:19.240 duly so, a lot of criticism on this decision. So Maxime Bernier coming out in strong terms,
00:13:25.420 calling this a decision by moronic woke judges. Bernier slams a decision to drop basic math tests
00:13:31.640 for new Ontario teachers to the People's Party of Canada leader, Maxime Bernier, did not mince words
00:13:36.340 after the Ontario Divisional Court ruled the province's math proficiency test for teachers
00:13:41.100 was unconstitutional. If you think courts will save us from crazy politicians, think again.
00:13:46.800 Moronic woke judges in Ontario rule that a basic math test for new teachers has to go because it
00:13:52.160 discriminates against racialized teacher candidates. Bernier tweeted on Friday, that is,
00:13:57.500 I couldn't have said it better myself. Writing in the National Post, Randall Denley also has some
00:14:03.480 strong words for this. He says that Ontario math test ruling is where we end up when race becomes more
00:14:08.880 important than competence. He writes that race trumps knowledge when it comes to training new teachers
00:14:13.700 an Ontario court has determined. It's a decision that defies common sense and places teachers' rights
00:14:19.000 ahead of students' needs. The Ontario math test decision is where we end up when race becomes more
00:14:24.720 important than demonstrated competence. Not only does it undermine merit, it's insulting to non-white
00:14:30.040 people. In effect, the judges are saying that racialized people, even those with a university
00:14:35.240 education, don't have the intellectual capacity to pass a math test. Some victory, he wrote. That is
00:14:41.560 really well put and an excellent point as well. This is really, really condescending to so-called
00:14:47.820 racialized teachers. Black and Indigenous teachers were told that they don't have the competence and the
00:14:52.340 capability to pass a math test. Look, if that's true, perhaps we have a different problem and we should
00:14:57.300 focus more on providing the aid and assistance to those types of teachers so that they are able to pass
00:15:03.060 math tests. Why don't we address the problem here? Instead, this is just like throw it out for everyone and
00:15:08.420 it's a big victory. Very good point by Randall Denley over in the National Post that this is incredibly
00:15:13.580 condescending and insulting to non-white people. Ezra Levant over at the Rebel had a pretty hilarious take as
00:15:20.500 well. This is from the Rebel website. He writes this about the court decision. He says,
00:15:24.960 it reads like it's from the Onion or the Babylon Bee or some other satire site, but this is real,
00:15:30.580 people. This isn't some woke student paper in some gender studies class in college. This is what
00:15:35.420 happens when woke students graduate, become woke lawyers, and then become woke judges. This is real.
00:15:41.180 It apparently is fine under the Charter of Rights to force people to take an injection or lose their job,
00:15:45.780 lose their ability to go on airplanes or trains or go to a restaurant. That's all fine by the
00:15:49.860 Charter. But making math teachers know math, that's discrimination. Ezra always has a very funny
00:15:55.140 way of putting these things. Excellent points there. So what's next? Will the Ontario government
00:15:59.800 challenge the court's decision? Well, the Ministry of Education referred a request for comment from the
00:16:05.260 newspaper, from the Ottawa Citizen, to the Office of the Attorney General. They're currently reviewing
00:16:09.700 the decision. So don't expect much from the Ford government here. I mean, the initiative was a good
00:16:15.060 idea, but what we've seen over and over again from the Ford government is just this total unwillingness
00:16:21.040 to fight against the teachers' unions. They cave over and over and over again. This divisive, race-obsessed,
00:16:27.160 woke ideology is seeping into every aspect of our lives. It continues to seep into every aspect of our
00:16:32.340 lives, and the woke left continues to push that. So rather than putting race at the front of every
00:16:37.740 conversation, as the left and as the woke crowd insist that we do, we should stop. Instead, we should focus on
00:16:44.700 the things that matter about a person, their character, their competency, their effort, and their
00:16:49.180 abilities. Making math teachers know math is not racist. It's common sense. It's about finding
00:16:55.180 competent, qualified people to teach the next generation of Canadians. The fact that teachers'
00:17:00.880 unions are celebrating this shows that they don't care about students. The judge who made this decision,
00:17:06.240 the three judges who made this decision, don't care about the students. They only care about their own
00:17:10.720 fashionable ideology and making teachers' lives easier. And as for the Ford government, when are
00:17:16.560 they going to stand up to the unions? This week, we also saw the Ford government cave to the teachers'
00:17:21.360 unions, who demanded that once again, schools be closed. So here we are in lockdown once again with
00:17:26.280 our kids staying at home. This despite the fact that COVID overwhelmingly does not harm children.
00:17:32.480 But what does harm children is making them stay at home. That has a severe effect on children. It will
00:17:38.640 continue to have an impact on this generation for their entire lives. Teachers' unions and their woke
00:17:44.520 allies in the Ford government and on the judicial bench are failing our children and failing our
00:17:49.700 country. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.