Hiring should favour male, minority teachers: Toronto school board

Submitted by Sheldon on Tue, 2013-02-19 22:47

This is an exciting and encouraging development in Canada. The Toronto District School Board, in a groundbreaking policy decision, has decided that due to the underrepresentation of men in the K-12 public education system, especially at the elementary level, they will favour hiring more male teachers to correct the imbalance. The school board is also favouring the hiring of certain racial minorities who are also underrepresented. A memo sent out by the school board to teachers and principals states, "The first round of TDSB interviews will be granted to teacher candidates that meet one or more of the following criteria in addition to being an outstanding teacher: Male, racial minority, French, Music, Aboriginal.” Excerpt:

'A Toronto District School Board memo to staff that included gender and race among qualifications that could win a candidate an interview for a teaching position has outraged some female teachers.

The memo, which was received by principals and teachers and obtained by The Globe and Mail, says that the qualities that could get a candidate an interview include being male or from a racial minority.'

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Comments

Hard to say-- studies have shown that male students by and large do better scholastically if they have male teachers-- all other things being equal (i.e., teaching skills, etc.). Overall then, theoretically anyway, if half all teachers were men and half were women, the students would be better-served collectively. However the female teachers (esp. unemployed, white ones who don't teach music or French) have every right to be peeved over such a new hiring policy. It's the same thing in principle that men have been clobbered with for decades now, particularly white ones. But as we've been saying, two wrongs don't make a right. And that's what's happening here, IMO.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2013-02-20 04:34

after 40 years of being denigrated for being a male, i no longer care about the idea of 2 wrongs not making a right, i no longer care about someone else's definition of justice - society has made me into a person that wants a pound of flesh for all the harm caused to me just because i was born male - how much patience should i absorb? 50 years? 100 years?

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Submitted by Kirk on Wed, 2013-02-20 07:59

I think this is a good move forward on the gender equity front. I hope that some good men are able to build happy, healthy lives because of this legislation.

At least this shows men in Toronto are seen as more than just animals to be beaten and starved into dancing.

And doesn't this just go to show how anti-progress women are generally?

Let's have mandatory paternity tests for every birth and legal penalties for paternity fraud!

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Submitted by cwondermagic1 on Thu, 2013-02-21 03:11