Ontario post-secondary education history revisited - thestar.com

Ontario post-secondary education history revisited - thestar.com


Holy mother of God, this makes me angry.

Speaking as one of the few students that saw it from both sides of the cuts to education (I dropped out in 1996 and returned to high school in 2004) I can tell you that Harris utterly, completely, gutted and destroyed secondary school in this province. The lessons got easier to learn, sure. Good for the standardized testing #s. Not good, in fact just about the worst possible thing, once you get to university. That's how I can get a 94 in grade 12 university physics and a 64 in first year university physics - not for not trying. Thats why more and more universities are instituting their own remedial courses (that instead of being free like OAC or grade 13 was, you now have to pay through the nose for). That's why my own students, now, as a TA, struggle with basic concepts that they should have covered in high school. University has had to go through an entire dumbing down process in order to compensate for secondary school being so poorly executed nowadays. And that is NOT the fault of the teachers - they are still doing the best that they can, with far less, and bad textbooks, and less prep time, and more students. Having gone to a university with a large proportion of international students, I can tell you that our secondary students are graduating with a fraction of the knowledge that they have.

My mother is a teacher. She still spits when she hears Mike Harris's name.