Dirty Stats

Earlier this year, Martin Long, President of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto observed that "without enough funding for ESL programs, classroom teachers are committing extra time to the ESL kids in their class. This is not working for students with ESL needs or for the other students in our classes."

Indeed, the statistics are startling. People for Education surveyed a random sample of public schools to discover the following:
· 30% of classroom teachers reported that they had special ed students whose primary needs were actually in English language support.
· According to the survey, only 28% of the Toronto District Board's designated ESL teachers actually teach ESL full time.
· 74% of ESL teachers said there were students in their schools who received inadequate or no language support at all

More problematic is the fact that some organisations are pulling out the race card, arguing that the TDSB is siphoning funds from ESL programs because ESL students and their parents wouldn't protest...