Photo credit: Toronto Star
About Save Our Schools
Save Our Schools is a newly registered Ontario Not-for-profit Corporation. Our mission remains to promote student achievement and well-being.
We were founded as Save Our Schools TDSB, (now our Toronto chapter), a coalition of students, parents, educators, and community members working to save the future of Toronto District School Board specialized programs.
Background
In May 2022, TDSB Trustees passed a motion replacing merit-based admissions for specialized programs (e.g., science/math, IB) with a randomized lottery process, shattering the dreams of thousands of talented students.
Under an admissions lottery, hard work, talent and dedication mean nothing.
This approach has been tried and tested – and failed. In San Francisco, Lowell High School moved to a lottery-based admission process, leading to record failing rates.
The evidence is clear: a lottery hurts the very students that it claims to uplift and sends the message to young people that hard work doesn’t matter.
Photo credit: Toronto Star
Our Concerns
Lottery admissions take away opportunities from students
These specialized programs can be pathways into exciting careers for many young people. It is not right to hinge the futures of talented and hardworking students on a lottery.
Students that are able to demonstrate passion, talent or ability should not be denied access to a program of their choice simply because they lost the lottery.
Lottery admissions lowers the quality of programming
A lottery leads to a mismatch between student abilities and programs, hurting high-achieving students without helping others.
The new policy will lead to programs being watered down, harming all students in the process.
The new TDSB admissions policy reduces programming
The TDSB has reduced the number of available seats at two science-focused programs: TOPS (Marc Garneau CI) and MaCS (William Lyon Mackenzie CI).
The arts leadership program at RH King Academy, one of the few secondary programs in the East End has also been cancelled.
Lottery admissions sends the wrong message and reward mediocrity
By telling students that luck determines access to these programs, students are being told that they don't need to work hard for anything in life. That isn't the message our education system should be sending.
Flawed and chaotic implementation of the new admissions policy
The implementation of the new lottery admissions policy has been plagued by confusion, technical difficulties and chaos. TDSB simply isn’t ready for this change.
Students from marginalized groups were excluded from admissions. Open spots were left empty.