Breaking Class/Race Barriers for public school students: Meeting Oct 6: Toronto

Sorry for the late notice, I just got this notice late last night.

quote:
Message from Education Action: Toronto

We need your help to build policies for the future of Toronto schools. Only genuine grass-roots engagement can give us the policies that will really make a difference for our children and on which we can mobilize.

Our regular policy-making meetings begin again at New College, at the University of Toronto, on the first Monday of every month, 6:30 pm, starting on October 6, 2008. The exception is the second Monday in January 2009.

We hope that these meetings (in addition to the ones we have held over the last year or so) will help us build a city-wide platform that will engage our school-community councils and which can be used to hold our trustee candidates to account in the coming election of 2010.

The topic for our first meeting is

Breaking the class/race barriers -- what will it take?

The TDSB's Student Census and the Urban Diversity Strategy has the data from TDSB's freshly published Student Census and Student Information System (SIS). They show that poor, immigrant, racialized children continue to do badly in Toronto schools. The newly announced Urban Diversity Strategy promises to do something about this situation but with few resources and minimal vision. We have a lot to talk about. Most importantly, we have to answer the question: What can we do to make things genuinely better for these kids?

Harry Smaller will be there to give us some of the history and analysis of class/race barriers that have developed in Toronto schools and David Clandfield will present a draft of Education Action: Toronto policies (developed out of community consultation) that will work to break down these barriers. The meeting will then be opened to discuss these policies and to find ways to insure that your views will be integrated into the eventual platform we produce.

Harry Smaller has been a teacher in Toronto inner-city schools for almost three decades and for the past decade has been an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at York University. His research interests include student streaming, teachers’ work, and the ways in which schools and school systems serve to structure the experience of teachers and students. He has co-authored Stacking the Deck: The Streaming of Working-class Children in Ontario Schools and has co-edited a book on teachers’ response to neo-liberal impositions on schooling structures and processes (Teachers' Activism in the 1990s).

David Clandfield, a former school trustee, has recently retired from ten years as Principal of New College at the University of Toronto, where he championed the growth of Women’s Studies, and area studies programs on Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. He also helped found a new Equity Studies program, including courses in emerging fields such as disabilities studies, food security and the Romani diaspora in Canada. He has written widely on education issues and has a long history of policy development at both the provincial and local board level. He is co-chair of Everybody's Schools: An Education Policy Institute.

Time: 6:30-9:00 pm

Date: Monday, Oct. 6, 2008
Place: William Doo Auditorium
45 Wilcocks Street
New College, University of Toronto

Directions:
Coming south on Spadina from Bloor: 3rd stoplight - 2nd streetcar stop south of Spadina station

Coming north on Spadina from College: 2nd stoplight - 1st streetcar stop north of College

Metered parking and bike stands in the general area.

Enter by the door at the corner of Willcocks and Spadina. Go down the stairs on the left OR go straight ahead and take the FIRST elevator on the left.

Please come if you can and bring friends and neighbours who also care about this issue.

In solidarity,

George Martell and Faduma Mohamed,

Co-chairs, Education Action: Toronto

Well Damn! I know someone who would likely go to that, but here we are, and its tonight. [img]redface.gif" border="0[/img]

Yeah, I'm sorry I couldn't get it posted earlier. As it turns out I have a meeting and can't go either. Maybe someone out there will be able to go.

I'll try to go.... see how it goes.

Is there any other contact info for the organizers of this event, so that we can get information about their ongoing activities?

A quick google search found that they're associated with New College, at U of T.

I also found two sites, both under construction:

Education Action: Toronto

Education Action: Ontario [7]

And of course I can't remember who sent me the original message. Sorry. I'll try to remember to pay more attention next time.

You could call New College and ask them.

Again, short notice. This meeting is being held Monday Nov 3 in Toronto.

quote:
A Message from Education Action: Toronto
This a reminder of our 2nd policy-making meeting for the school year coming up next Monday (Nov. 3) at New College, University of Toronto at 6:30 pm, William Doo Auditorium, 45 Wilcocks (southeast corner Wilcocks and Spadina – a couple of blocks south of Bloor)

Grace Edward Galabuzi and Antoni Shelton will be there to take on the question of building an anti-racist curriculum and culture in all our schools.

We hope you will join us to engage in this question and help us build the kind of policies we need for Toronto’s schools – in discussion and in written follow up. It is essential we nail down a set of policies to hold our trustees accountable in the 2010 trustee election.

Grace Edward Galabuzi teaches in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University and is a research associate at the Centre for Social Justice in Toronto. His research interests include globalization from below - local community responses to global economic restructuring in the global North and South; the racialization of the Canadian labour market; and social exclusion and the social economic status of racialized groups in Canada. Grace Edward has worked in the Ontario government as a senior policy analyst on justice issues, and he is a former provincial coordinator of the Ontario Alliance for Employment Equity. He has been involved community campaigns focused on anti-racism, poverty, community development, human rights, education and police reform. Email:

Antoni Shelton is the Executive Assistant to the President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE Ontario Division). He is the political liaison to the Equity Steering Committee and the Human Rights Committee. He has served as an international observer in Northern Ireland; a labour participant at the U.N. Elimination of Racial Discrimination pre-conference in Santiago, Chile; a Non-Governmental Organization representative at the official U.N. Elimination of Racial Discrimination Conference, 2001, Durban, South Africa; and lastly, as an international observer in the Pacific Coast of Colombia, South America. Antoni has received the W.P. Hubbard Award (City of Toronto Race Relations Award and the Ontario Government Volunteer Service Award. He chairs the Education Action: Toronto Organizing Centre. Email:

Directions To New College, William Doo Auditorium, 45 Wilcocks Street:

Coming south on Spadina from Bloor: 3rd stoplight - 2nd streetcar stop south of Spadina station

Coming north on Spadina from College: 2nd stoplight - 1st streetcar stop north of College

Metered parking and bike stands in the general area.

Enter by the door at the corner of Willcocks and Spadina. Go down the stairs on the left OR go straight ahead and take the FIRST elevator on the left.

Please come if you can and bring friends and neighbours who also care about this issue.

In solidarity,

George Martell and Faduma Mohamed,

Co-chairs, Education Action: Toronto

Got it. Thanks.

if you hold it in the middle of downtown most likely the people you trying to help won't be able to show up. But anything helps n you guys are so thank you