Sunday, November 30, 2014

Exclusive documents show sex-ed consultation lacking

Kathleen Wynn and OISE consultant
TORONTO - Ontario’s sex-ed curriculum consultation provides no information to parents on the curriculum.

Parents taking the survey are strongly encouraged not to consult with other parents when filling out the survey. And the survey is being managed by Liberal-connected Pollara Research.

The sex-ed consultation package of documents was obtained by Sun News Network from a concerned whistleblowing parent and a school principal who wish to remain anonymous over fears of reprisals against them.

The package includes the survey, a “backgrounder,” some frequently asked questions and answers, and a guidance letter to principals on the process to follow to undertake the consultation.

The parent whistleblower expressed extreme frustration that the package contains no detailed curriculum information or examples and that parental input is being severely limited.  (more...)


Care home owner 'supplied boys for Westminster paedophile parties'

John Allen, 73, was convicted last week at Mold Crown
Court of 33 sex offences against children in his care
A predatory paedophile who built up an established network of care homes has been accused of supplying boys for Westminster sex parties.

John Allen, 73, was convicted last week at Mold Crown Court of 33 sex offences against children in his care.

The court heard how he ran an oppressive regime where he deprived children who spoke out against the abuse of food and water.

He has now been named by a former council leader as being suspected of supplying boys to other paedophiles, including those allegedly held for prominent politicians at Dolphin Square in central London.

Dennis Parry, a former leader of Clwyd county council, told the Sunday Times: 'My information was that not only was he an abuser, he was a supplier.

'There was movement between Holland and this country, and Dolphin Square was part of the set-up.'  (more...)

Ontario's sex survey out of sight


TORONTO -- Parents have been unable to properly respond to the new sex-ed curriculum because they haven't seen it, PC MPP Monte McNaughton says.

While efforts to survey parents were supposed to have wrapped up Friday, the questions contained no information on the actual curriculum, he said.

"Clearly, the Wynne Liberals aren't respecting parents," he said. "To the millions of parents out there, this look likes a government running a covert operation, trying to hide something that was very controversial in 2010."

The Ontario government, under former premier Dalton McGuinty and then education minister Kathleen Wynne, introduced a new sex education curriculum in 2010 that drew strong reactions from some groups.  (more...)


Some TDSB trustees would welcome breaking up board

If size matters with school boards, some Toronto District School Board trustees say they welcome a move to break Canada’s largest school board into more manageable, even natural chunks.

“Having 22 trustees makes coming to any consensus hard,” said Scarborough trustee Jerry Chadwick, who said two smaller boards might see less acrimony at the board tables.

“The shrinking pains would be terrible, but in the end I think it would be less onerous. Frankly I know very little about schools in Etobicoke yet as a trustee of the TDSB I represent all schools.”

Since the megaboard was created in 1998 through the merger of six local, highly different school boards, infighting has been relentless.  (more...)


On social media:

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Hidden camera investigation exposes faith-healing sex offender

Claude Provencher
In a tiny village called St. Mathieu D’Harricana in northwestern Quebec, there’s an isolated home with a large statue of the Virgin Mary in the front yard; a symbol of true religious belief.

Living inside is an intense man with penetrating eyes and a deep conviction in his own powers.

“I am the best, but I am painful. My hands are like that. It’s a power from God. I'm able to heal backs, I'm able to heal cancer, hearts, lungs, everything.”

These are the kind of astounding claims made by 58 year-old faith healer Claude Provencher.

Trina Breault was suffering with debilitating chronic pain when she was first referred to Provencher.

By the time she walked into his treatment room, she had tried back surgery, been on thirty-three different medications, and had consulted doctors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, and chiropractors, but without any relief.

“I was 41 at the time and I had three children and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life on pain medication. I couldn’t,” recalled Breault.

Once an active, independent mom, she needed a wheelchair to go shopping and required the help of her eldest daughter with bathing. Eventually Trina lost her job and then lost all hope of ever getting better. So when her sister-in-law told her about a special man with a direct channel to God, Trina was ready to try anything.  (more...)


ExaroNews: Buckingham Palace Linked to 'Paedophile Ring'

Is this how we should picture 007?


Meanwhile, one MP takes umbrage:

Ryan Patrick Nolan, former teacher, sentenced for sex crimes

A former teacher with the Halifax Regional School Board was sentenced Friday for sex offences involving two boys he tutored who were both under 16.

Ryan Patrick Nolan, 33, was sentenced to nine months of house arrest, followed by three months of curfew and then a year of probation for sexual assault and exposing himself.

The sentence was a joint recommendation of the Crown and the defence.

Nolan must also submit a DNA sample and will be added to the National Sex Offender Registry for life. He's also prohibited from working or volunteering in a position of trust with anyone under 16 for the next 10 years.

Nolan previously pleaded guilty to the charges. Both cases involve young boys under 16 who Nolan tutored at his apartment after school hours while he worked as a substitute teacher between 2008 and 2011.

He also coached the boys hockey team at Bedford Junior High School and did some coaching for the Bedford and District Minor Hockey Association.

The father of one of the victims called the sentence a joke.  (more...)


Barack Obama: A Companion of Fools


It seems that Barack Obama has a propensity to surround himself with some questionable friends. So, instead of trying in vain to slow the rising oceans and heal the planet, it might do the president some good to spend time in the Bible, contemplating verses like Proverbs 13:20, which says “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Take for example one foolish companion the president walks with: the prominent gay rights activist Terrence P. Bean, 66, who has been indicted for allegedly sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.  At a 2009 Human Rights Campaign dinner, Mr. Obama called the alleged child molester a “great friend and supporter.”

As a matter of fact, Obama’s “great friend” Terrence has frequented the White House at least six times in the past couple of years. An ardent and influential supporter of many prominent Democrats, in addition to visiting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Bean has also been a guest of the president on Air Force One flying around at $181K an hour.  (more...)


It goes way back:

Sam says:


Now, print coverage: Levin to go directly to trial on chid-porn charges

Ben Levin's mugshot. (Toronto Police handout)
TORONTO - Former Ontario deputy education minister Ben Levin will be going to trial to defend himself against child pornography charges.

“Yes,” his lawyer Clayton Ruby said Thursday when asked if he requested that the case go directly to trial at this week’s preliminary hearing.

Levin, he indicated, will fight the allegations and plead not guilty.

“He pleaded not guilty to all counts and will be tried in Provincial Court,” said Ruby. “Dates to be set (Friday) morning.”

The 62-year-old Levin is a University of Toronto professor and was photographed on a float at the Pride Parade with Premier Kathleen Wynne and federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau prior to his July 2013 arrest.  (more...)


Way to go, Joe. Here's more online from BlogWrath:


And, more on the tube:


And, keeping score at Subway to Damascus:

Friday, November 28, 2014

Senses Recovered: Pro-abortion women’s health network shuts down


A year after Stephen Harper’s Conservative government defunded a pro-abortion women’s health network, the organization is shutting down because it was unable to secure alternate funding.

The Canadian Women’s Health Network was one of six organizations funded for 18 years largely by the federal Women’s Health Contributions Program, established by the Liberals under Jean Chretien, to provide the public with information and research on women’s health.

However, the feminist organization was also a public advocate for legal abortion, such that its demise was lamented by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. "Very sad. The Canadian Women's Health Network has become another victim of King Harper's cuts to anything that might help women,” the group wrote on Facebook November 26.

The CWHN’s board announced the closure on November 14. “The CWHN has not been able to secure sustainable funds to replace the federal funding that was withdrawn in 2013. The CWHN office is closed and the remaining staff members are being laid off,” states a message on its webpage.  (more...)


Now, if only the Church would cease funding feminist make-work projects.


LifeSited: Co-founder of gay activist group HRC charged with sex abuse of 15-year-old boy

A co-founder of the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has been arrested and charged with sex crimes in the alleged abuse of a 15-year old boy.

Terrence "Terry" Bean, 66, and his 25-year old ex-boyfriend Kiah Lawson, were arrested last week in Lane County, Oregon for alleged abuse of the unnamed minor. Police charged Bean with two felony charges of third-degree sodomy and one count of third-degree sex abuse.

Founded in 1980, HRC is possibly the most prominent gay activist organization in the world. It promotes same-sex “marriage,” advocates for gay Boy Scout leaders, and promotes “LGBT inclusive" school curriculum from the earliest years.  (more...)


When no-one else will step up, you can always count of LifeSiteNews.

Who Is Benjamin Levin? Ontario premier’s former adviser opts for speedy trial on child sex charges

Former Deputy Minister of Education Dr. Benjamin Levin (L), who was arrested
in 2013 for making child pornography, attends Toronto Pride in 2013 with Liberal
leader Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne,
and former Liberal leader Bob Rae.
Benjamin Levin was the very model of a modern senior bureaucrat, a deputy minister, unpaid advisor to Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne during her “transition” period, winner of awards, author of books -- until all that came crashing down when Toronto police raided his Toronto home last summer, seized his computer and charged him with making and distributing child pornography, counseling to commit an indictable offence, and arranging to commit a sexual offence against a child under 16.

On parole since then, the Manitoba-born educationalist was supposed to begin his preliminary hearing this week but his celebrity lawyer Clayton Ruby surprised the court and the Crown by waiving the hearing (by which a judge hears only the Crown’s evidence to see if it justifies proceeding to trial) and requesting an immediate trial. The court reconvenes today to set a trial date.

At the hearing this week, he pled not guilty to the charges.  (more...)


Stepford Students Goose-Step to Totalitarianism


Have you met the Stepford students? They’re everywhere. On campuses across the land. Sitting stony-eyed in lecture halls or surreptitiously policing beer-fuelled banter in the uni bar. They look like students, dress like students, smell like students. But their student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform. To the untrained eye, they seem like your average book-devouring, ideas-discussing, H&M-adorned youth, but anyone who’s spent more than five minutes in their company will know that these students are far more interested in shutting debate down than opening it up.

I was attacked by a swarm of Stepford students this week.  (more...)


On social media:



Why I will be cancelling my BMO MasterCard

It has become public that Simon Fish, Executive Vice-President of the Bank of Montreal, on March 26, 2014, wrote a letter to the Law Society of Upper Canada. The letter had nothing to do with banking. BMO was doing corporate activism in the name of “diversity and inclusivity.” It seems that political correctness has now become the major goal for the bank.

Fish requests for the Law Society to “deny accreditation of any legal education programs, recognized for admission to the bar in Ontario that are discriminatory.” In Fish’s view, Trinity Western University’s graduates should not have the right to practice law in Ontario and the rest of the country.

Why is Fish doing this on behalf of BMO? Because BMO like other corporations have bought fully the idea of political correctness.  (more...)


On social media:


End the Media Blackout on Gay Rapists

Terry Bean, with friends
Rape is a hideous crime.

Besides the physical and emotional violence inflicted, depriving the victim of their basic human dignity is unconscionable.  The charge of rape itself is worthy of our full attention; and if proven, the crime should demand the harshest punishment we can muster.  But thanks to a corrupt media, that’s just not the way things work in America these days.

For instance, while decades old rape accusations against a black TV star named Bill are given front page headlines, more credible rape allegations against a Southern white President of the United States named Bill are ignored and the victims are savaged in the press.

Liberal politics, not people, matter to our evil media.

That’s precisely why they rush to their cameras, microphones and keyboards when news breaks about a pedophile Catholic priest having his way with altar boys.  Not because they care about the altar boys, but because they want to discredit the Catholic Church.  If you doubt that fact, ask yourself why you haven’t heard much from the Mainstream Media about the recent arrest of 66 year-old Terrence Bean, charged with raping a 15-year old boy.  (more...)


Related:

On social media:

MSM Reports on Benjamin Levin! U of T prof to proceed straight to trial on child porn charges

University of Toronto professor and former deputy minister of education
Benjamin Levin is proceeding directly to trial on seven charges including
possession and distribution of child pornography.
University of Toronto professor and former deputy minister of education Benjamin Levin is proceeding directly to trial on seven charges including possession and distribution of child pornography.

Levin was scheduled for a three-day preliminary hearing beginning Wednesday where the Crown would have presented its evidence supporting the child exploitation charges.

Instead, Levin elected to proceed directly to trial before a provincial court judge, according to a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Levin was released on $100,000 bail last year. He has ceased all teaching and research duties as a tenured professor with the U of T Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

He was charged in July 2013 after a multi-jurisdictional police investigation spanning New Zealand, England and London, Ont.

A date for the trial is expected to be set Friday.

Source:


Trustee Sam Tweets on Liberal Sex Ed Curriculum






Thursday, November 27, 2014

'Secret' TDSB payment actually an out-of-court settlement for unpaid catering invoices

Toronto District School Board director Donna Quan has been on the hot seat with
some trustees over what they termed a "secret" payout - which was actually
the result of an out-of-coury settlement of a longstanding issue.
A $200,000 payment the director of the Toronto District School Board authorized — for which she has been criticized by some trustees, who called it undocumented and secretive — was an out-of-court settlement negotiated by the board’s lawyer with a catering company after several years of unpaid invoices.

A confidential package of documents given to trustees during a private session Wednesday night provided details of the settlement that some trustees had been seeking, including invoices and copies of emails from superintendents and principals verifying that snacks, breakfasts or lunches were provided by Neo City Café for at-risk kids enrolled in summer programs.

Copies of those documents and invoices were obtained by the Star.

In a recent email to board chair Mari Rutka, included in the package, director of education Donna Quan asks her to “please let me know when you’re available for a conversation on this matter, as it would be important to the TDSB organization to correct asap the erroneous statements about the ‘mysterious’ and ‘undocumented’ payment.”

Mari Rutka didn't wish to comment for privacy reasons.  (more...)


On social media:

TDSB: Dysfunctional is an understatement​

We have no idea what’s going on at Toronto District School Board — and that’s a big problem.

The trouble-plagued board, the largest in the country, lurches from one scandal to another.

There are criminal charges against one former trustee. A previous director of education was forced to quit over plagiarism allegations and its present director is under fire for a lack of transparency over her employment contract.

Parents, students and taxpayers are left in the dark.

Education Minister Liz Sandals has appointed an education expert to probe the shenanigans.

Sandals called the board, “dysfunctional,” this week. That’s an understatement.  (more...)


On social media:


Saw This Coming: Full-day kindergarten forces teachers into 'crowd control' role


The union representing Toronto elementary school teachers has given the rollout of full-day kindergarten in Ontario a failing grade.

Introduced in 2010, the full-day kindergarten program has been implemented gradually in schools across the province. The goal was to make the program available to 265,000 four- and five-year-olds in around 3,600 schools at the start of the 2014-15 school year.

However, John Smith, the president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, says the union has been "inundated" with calls from teachers complaining about classroom conditions.

The issue isn't the program, which Smith says teachers support, but he's concerned that because of classrooms sizes they can't focus on teaching the curriculum, and have been handcuffed into "crowd control" roles.  (more...)


Rare Find: MSM Story on Terry Bean Indictment for Child Rape

Charged: Terry Bean, a prominent gay rights activist who raised $500,000 for Obama, has been
charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy with his boyfriend in a hotel last year
A high profile gay rights activist and Democrat fundraiser has been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy with his boyfriend.

Terry Bean, 66, co-founded two of the biggest national campaign groups and raised more than $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election bid.

He was arrested at his home in southwest Portland on Wednesday and indicted with two counts of third-degree sodomy and one count of third-degree sex abuse.

Bean's lawyers insist he is the victim of an 'extortion ring', which they claim involves several men 'known to law enforcement'.  (more...)


Memo to Ontario Liberals: Your Sex Education Curriculum Blows



UK: Did PM's adviser try to stop MP linking Brittan to claims of child sex abuse?

Former Solicitor General Sir Edward Garnier
One of David Cameron’s former legal advisers was accused yesterday of trying to discourage a Labour MP from naming Lord Brittan over child abuse allegations.

Simon Danczuk, the campaigning Rochdale MP, claimed Sir Edward Garnier spoke to him before he was due to give evidence to a committee of MPs this summer.

Mr Danczuk said Sir Edward – who was Solicitor General from 2010 to 2012 – said that ‘challenging Lord Brittan on child abuse would not be a wise move’.

The MP made the claims in a Commons debate under Parliamentary privilege, meaning he cannot be sued for libel or face other legal action over what he said.

The debate, about the progress of the Government’s overarching inquiry into the handling of child sex abuse allegations by public bodies, also heard from Tory MP Zac Goldsmith who repeated claims that a former Cabinet minister was photographed with a naked boy in the sauna of a guesthouse at the centre of historic child sex abuse allegations.  (more...)


Further revelations:

Leak: Bank of Montreal now requiring business partners to conform to its pro-gay ‘diversity’ standards


The Bank of Montreal, Canada’s fourth largest bank, has begun a process of requiring the businesses with which it works to conform to its pro-homosexual “diversity” standards.

In an October 9th email to its legal suppliers, leaked by the Institute for Canadian Values, the Bank of Montreal (BMO) wrote that to show its “commitment to diversity and inclusion” it will no longer do business with law firms whose diversity standards are “not compatible” with the bank’s.

However, the bank indicated that law firms were only the first among many groups it does business with to face the sanctions, stating: “The bank is starting with legal suppliers and going from there.”

“BMO requires the law firms with whom we do business to disclose the diversity statistics of their associates, partners and management committee as part of our External Counsel Selection Program,” the communication from the head office states.

“If there [sic] standards are not compatible with the bank, they will be dropped,” the letter adds.

BMO states in the letter that it is the first Canadian bank to have such a supplier hiring policy in place, saying it is “at the forefront of a new frontier in which we not only expect higher standards of diversity and inclusion from ourselves, but our suppliers as well.”  (more...)


Petition:


Trustee Sam Flies Out of the Cuckoo's Nest





TDSB hold tense, at times awkward, final meeting of term

Trustee Sam Sotiropulous
The Toronto public school board gathered for its final meeting of the term Wednesday night and while some official business was handled, the night was overshadowed by ongoing scandals and personal infighting between trustees.

Polemic trustee Sam Sotiropulous gave perhaps the night's most controversial statement as he used his final few minutes with the board to joke about a tell-all book he's "currently writing" about the internal dysfunction that has come to define the past several years at the board.

"God made idiots. That was for practice," he said. "Then he made school boards."

About half of the other trustees refused to clap for Sotiropulous, while one even turned his back to the Ward 20 Scarborough-Agincourt trustee in protest.  (more...)


On social media:

‘Near misses’ show surviving school violence is pure luck

TDSB director of education Donna Quan says there is "room for improvement"
in the way the board reports, analyzes and acts upon school violence.
TDSB data, requested by the Star, shows that guns, shots, knives and stabbings account for one in five serious incidents.

Two former classmates at a northwest Toronto high school confronted each other in a stairwell. One was stabbed in the stomach. The other one walked away.

A student in a Junction-area high school brought his handgun to class for the day, a discovery police made after arriving with a warrant for his arrest.

Masked intruders ran into a west Toronto school library where they punched and kicked a student before outrunning teachers.

And in central Etobicoke, a fight broke out between a boy and a group of girls at the plaza across from the high school. The girls attacked adults who tried to stop the melee. When the boy’s friends arrived from a different school, they jumped on a student on the school’s sports field, stabbing him three times in the back. The phys-ed teacher chased them down, holding one until police arrived.

These are a few of the serious incidents that rocked Toronto high schools last year. Taken from a report compiled for the Toronto Star by the Toronto District School Board, the 1,100 incidents over a four year-period provide a snapshot (these are not all of the cases) of the hidden side of high school life.  (more...)


On social media:


Outgoing TDSB chair welcomes provincial probe into structure of board

Mari Rutka, the outgoing chair of the Toronto District School Board says she’s
encouraged that a provincial probe will fix the problems plaguing the institution.
The outgoing chair of the Toronto District School Board says she’s encouraged that a provincial probe will fix the problems plaguing the institution.

Mari Rutka, who lost her seat in the recent municipal elections, met with Education Minister Liz Sandals on Wednesday, after she asked the province to intervene. She is one of five trustees who wrote to Ms. Sandals this month, expressing concerns about the schism between the board’s top-ranking staffer and elected officials.

The government appointed education consultant Margaret Wilson on Tuesday to examine operational issues at Canada’s largest board, including director of education Donna Quan’s refusal to release her employment contract to trustees and whether Ms. Quan’s compensation complies with Ontario’s wage-freeze legislation.  (more...)


Dump our trustees, dissolve our school boards

Education Minister Liz Sandals, left, acknowledged this week that the dysfunction
and disorder at the TDSB are clearly structural problems. That’s why she sent in
trouble-shooter Margaret Wilson, right, to restructure the board
Queen’s Park is stepping in to investigate why yet another dysfunctional school board in Toronto has failed yet another test.

Now it’s time to take the next step — by stamping out school trustees once and for all.

Next step (not quite yet, but one of these years): Eliminate our outdated school boards,...

That’s a lot of history to clean up.

But the perennial tale of trustees at war with themselves, and their staff, offers us a teachable moment. If we don’t learn the lessons of history, and take account of present-day mistakes, we will be condemned to repeat even more costly blunders in future.

Trustees seem congenitally unable to play well with others — not just now, not just in the Toronto District School Board, but across the province. Little wonder voters routinely ignore them on election day, while school staff disobey them every other day.  (more...)


On social media:


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Blogwrath: Ben Levin’s Child Porn Trial Begins amidst Dead Silence

Before I started attending trials and hearings earlier this year, I never knew that there were so many courthouses in Toronto. This morning I had the chance of visiting a new one, way up north at 1000 Finch Avenue West. It was the place where a hearing concerning Benjamin Rubin Levin, a.k.a. Ben Levin was about to be held.

Ben Levin with the Liberal Royalty in 2013
You may remember that last year, shortly after he appeared in the picture above with Justin Trudeau, Kathleen Wynne, and Bob Rae at the annual homosexual parade, Levin was arrested. Shockingly, he was charged with possessing and producing child pornography.

What made the case even more shocking was the status of the accused. Levin was a high official of the Ontario Liberal Party with strong connections to its leadership. He was a Deputy Minister of Education in McGuinty’s government. When Kathleen Wynne took over, he became a member of her “transition team.” Even worse impression made the fact that he was a professor of education at OISE (University of Toronto).

After waiting for over a year, the case finally started moving through the courts.  (more...)


Faith Goldy Elaborates on Today's Benjamin Levin Court Action on The Arena


A former advisor to Kathleen Wynne, Ben Levin pleaded not guilty to seven charges related to child pornography today in Toronto.

On social media:

Faith Goldy Delivers Her Report on the Benjamin Levin Trial on Sun News Network


Background on the international investigation that netted Levin:

Eye on a Crazy Planet: Blogging on the Benjamin Levin Hearing from the Courthouse

Levin's defense lawyer, Clayton Ruby
Today was the opening day of what is scheduled to be a three-day preliminary hearing for Ben Levin who was charged with multiple counts of possession, distribution and creation of child pornography, as well as conspiring to commit sexual assault.

Levin is the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education professor who had been Kathleen Wynne's hand-chosen Deputy Minister while she was Minister of Education in the McGuinty government. It was during Wynne's time as Education Minister that Levin shepherded the formation of a public school curriculum that stirred up so much outrage due to it's sexualized content aimed at very young children that Dalton McGuinty withdrew it.

Now that Wynne is Premier, she is set to reintroduce a new sex-ed curriculum which is widely anticipated to be the one she and Levin had hoped to impose on children four years ago.

And for some reason, the mainstream media has chosen to completely ignore what is going on with Levin's hearing today. The only news organization reporter at the hearing is Sun News' Faith Goldy along with one lone, independent blogger.  (more...)


Faith Goldy of Sun News Network Tweeting Benjamin Levin Hearing from Courtroom

Former Deputy Minister of Education for Ontario, Ben Levin, on trial for child porn at 10AM today



White Elephant School Boards


Sometimes things created for an earlier reality, for example cabooses, outlast their usefulness. School boards are a case in point. When they were created 150 years ago, there was only one school board per school, usually in a rural area, and it served as a democratic way to ensure that each school reflected the wishes of its community. But in the 150 years since then, the balance between rural urban schools has dramatically tipped in favour of urban schools, and a series of amalgamations have resulted in school boards that try to oversee up to 600 schools. This has proved to be mission impossible for school boards, and as a result bit by bit the province has stripped away the school boards' powers - to the point that virtually their only function is to get blamed by the provincial government when things (inevitably) go wrong.

These days, most school boards are non-democratic, powerless, and a waste of money.  (more...)


Worth a re-read:

Compulsory sex education won’t reduce rates of teenage pregnancy


Proposals to force all schools to teach a compulsory sex education curriculum from primary level up and to restrict the right of parents to opt-out their children are back on the parliamentary agenda in the UK. State maintained secondary schools currently have to provide sex and relationships education, but academies and free schools do not.

Back in 2010, similar proposals to make sex education a statutory requirement for all schools were washed-up in the run up to the general election. They are now being re-introduced through a private members' bill by Green MP Caroline Lucas. The education select committee also has an ongoing inquiry into whether policy changes are needed. Yet there is little evidence from research or international comparisons that making sex education compulsory will have a big impact on the sexual health of young people.

There is considerable agreement among academics that teenage pregnancy rates and other indicators of sexual health are strongly correlated with factors such as poverty, educational achievement, religion and family stability. But there is less agreement over the impact of policies aimed directly at reducing unwanted pregnancy, in particular the role of school-based sex education and access to family planning services.  (more...)


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Galloping Toward Gomorrah

A couple of nights ago, I ran across a lengthy interview in New York magazine, titled, “What It’s Like to Date a Horse.” I thought it was a satire of some sort. It’s not. I’m not linking to it, because it is sick, sick stuff. It’s incredibly graphic, and I had decided not to write about it. But the more I thought about the thing, the more disturbed it made me. Here’s why: What’s significant is not that this deranged behavior happens. It has no doubt always been with us. What’s significant is that this interview appears in a mainstream magazine.

Says the zoophile in the interview: “I love me. I love who I am. I love my sexuality.  … I wish we could talk more openly about sex and alternative sexual interests, or just sex in general.” He says that if we could do that, maybe so many zoophiles wouldn’t kill themselves.  (more...)


It's the talk of the town:



Ontario takes unusual step to deal with tensions at Toronto school board

Education Minister Liz Sandals, left, arrives at a press conference
at Queens Park with Margaret Wilson.
The Ontario government is taking the unusual step of hiring a consultant to probe governance issues at the Toronto District School Board amid growing concerns over tensions between trustees and the board’s top-ranking staffer.

Education Minister Liz Sandals announced on Tuesday that she has appointed education consultant Margaret Wilson to conduct an independent review of the school board, and provide advice by year-end on how to potentially change its governance structure.

Ms. Wilson has vast experience in the education sector. A former classroom teacher, she was also the registrar for the Ontario College of Teachers and the secretary-treasurer and chief executive officer for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation.

“The ongoing concerns at the TDSB are putting public confidence at risk – not just in Toronto but across the province,” Ms. Sandals said in a statement. “As minister, I have no choice but to act.”  (more...)


How we got here:

And @TrusteeSam takes a bow:


UK: Girl pupil, 13, raped by classmate on school grounds after sex education lesson


A teenage boy has admitted raping a 13-year-old classmate just after they had been in a sex education lesson together.

The student, who cannot be named, led the young victim to a secluded part of the grounds in a North Wales school and then attacked her.

Discussing the class they had been in he asked her if she wanted to 'try sex' and despite the young girl repeatedly telling him 'no' he pinned her down and raped her.

He told her afterwards: 'You can go now' and she did not reveal her ordeal until a year later.  (more...)


Ontario orders external review of troubled TDSB

Education Minister Liz Sandals
TORONTO -- Ontario Education Minister Liz Sandals appointed an outside expert Tuesday to conduct a review of the troubled Toronto District School Board, where she said "a culture of fear" exists among staff.

Police were called to a recent meeting of Canada's largest school board amid accusations one trustee held the director of education hostage in her office in the latest example of headline-grabbing infighting.

"It is now clear that we have no choice but to act," said Sandals.

The TDSB was the subject of two external audits which uncovered problems with capital and structural deficits and with trustee expenses, but it's the public disputes between staff and trustees that drew the government's attention.

"The school board has been plagued by issues that go beyond purely financial concerns, with almost daily examples of confrontation, obfuscation and a lack of communication," said Sandals.  (more...)