JUNK SCIENCE & FADS ARE SHARED BY MIN. OF ENVIRONMENT AND BY THE MIN. OF EDUCATION

 Baseball has a term which so well describes the behaviour of the Min. of Environment for sure and maybe also the Min. of Education. It is "defensive indifference" and refers to a baseball team taking exactly zero action to attempt to block an opposing player from stealing a base. This "defensive indifference" also applies to the two mentioned Ontario ministries as they go about their business essentially giving at best marginal supervision to School Boards and the environment. For example how could a so called professional Ontario ministry (Education) permit School Boards to drop phonics as a proven reading methodology back in 2003 and then wait 21 years to bring it back after many years of reduced student reading capabilities consistently demonstrated at the public school level as well as at both the high school and first year university level?

The Ontario Min. of Environment has been sitting back and barely scratching the surface of junk science and psuedo science inflicted upon the public and the environment by client driven consultants constantly finding ways to save their polluting clients from spending money on cleanups. Even to the most biased citizens wanting to believe in the Min. of Environment it has become obvious that the Ministry don't aggressively stop the junk science because they don't really care about the environment, hence "defensive indifference". Elmira, Ontario is a prime example.

Today's K-W Record has a front page story titled "We know we need something different". Duh so do parents. Sometimes it is just plain embarrassing to hear and read twenty year olds attempts at the English language. Plans by the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) are described by one scholar from the University of Toronto as "verbiage and word salad" followed by "This is a marketing brochure filled with lots of nice words." Ouch! He also suggested that "...education is very susceptible to fads,".  I recall years ago comments that the latest WRDSB initiative was merely "the flavour of the month" fad.

The Human Rights Commission has stated that the new way of teaching reading  "...failed, leaving too many students unable to read." They have called on schools to revert to phonics.

One of the supporters for the new WRDSB plan suggests that "We're kind of flying the plane while trying to figure it out." Really? Isn't that reassuring to parents of young children today who want their children to have a first class education in order to be fully involved in society as educated employees, business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals?  Here in Elmira we put lipstick on a pig (TAG & TRAC) whereas the WRDSB took a wise old owl and replaced it with a particularly slow pig without even lipstick on it.