SCHOOL TRUSTEES ARE TOOTHLESS

Luisa D'Amato's Opinion column of last Friday (Oct.24/14) carrys this article "Trustees are essentially toothless, but choose them wisely all the same". Luisa rightly points out that about fifteen years ago our local School Boards lost the power to levy taxes as it was taken over by the province. While Luisa states that this was to ensure equality of education dollars spent throughout the province per child I believe there was more to it than that. I believe that the province rightly understood that School Boards were abusing their taxing privelege and routinely spending money unwisely as they could always go directly back to the taxpayer well. The fact that the province is now , as Luisa states, ""...telling them exactly how to do everything." may also be due to a relatively understated lack of confidence in the School Boards. Finally Luisa also points out that "...trustees put themselves into a hands-off relationship that gave most day-to-day decision making power to school board administrators.". So what's left for the trustees? Very little although many are still fond of being cheerleaders for the school board bureaucracy. Unsurprisingly, historically retired teachers have enjoyed being trustees where they can give back; not to the students but to their teacher union collegues. Such a system is why Ontario students are doing poorly in comparison and why the province has slowly been taking authority and responsibilty away from them. May it continue until the system is seriously reformed.