Great Brain Learning

Part 4 of 4

Last week I concluded that to “fix” declining EQAO test scores, we need to “fix” equity. Fortunately/unfortunately, however, there’s no way equity can be fixed until we SEE what is inequitable. When we ignore the conditions that perpetuate inequities in educational contexts, the status quo becomes “the trouble with normal is it always gets worse” (Cockburn, 1983). The status quo is rarely a complimentary one—but because inertia is the biggest enemy of change in education systems, more of the same re: declining test scores is exactly what is ahead if we don’t change our approach to equity.

Every time we act as if privilege didn’t exist, we step further away from the schools we need and we reinforce the status quo, i.e., the schooling system we already have. That space, that gap between what is and what could be, undermines potential and limits futures. The reality that privilege exists is not only the reason for declining test scores in Ontario, but it could also help us begin to resolve the mess. Today I want to talk about hope and moving forward.

WHEN we consider that:
- white students are overrepresented in gifted programs in the Toronto District School Board (Brown & Parekh, 2010), underscoring systemic biases;
- racialized groups face higher suspension rates than averages in boards like Hamilton‑Wentworth and Peel (Tozer, 2023; CBC News, 2020); and
- nearly half (48%) of expelled students over a five‑year period in Ontario self‑identified as Black despite Black students comprising a smaller proportion of the overall population (Radebe, 2024),
we must acknowledge that educational statistics in Canada tell a story about belonging.

Paul Kuttner’s (2023) work on the right to belong in school makes it clear that belonging is complex, and not simply an experience but an active process that is “reciprocal, interpersonal…that involves choice, even though that choice is constrained by factors out of a person’s control” (p. 3).

Kuttner dismantles the notion of belonging as something that students are given (or not given) by others in schools, and posits a 6‑component framework of belongingness. Belonging at school is about many things, but foundationally is about how students negotiate their identities within the context of a larger community. For Kuttner, education is an inherently political space because it is here that human experience and agency come into direct contact with the boundaries concerning expectations and policies, and locates us within a grid of power. Kuttner asks, “Who is Us—and who is Them?” (Kuttner, 2023, p. 5).

In the coming days, I will be doing a deeper dive into the edges of what I am calling a Pedagogy of Possibility. Asking critical questions that define a more equitable, productive, and safe educational system that includes ALL students at the table of learning is a priority. Everyone has the right to belong, to learn, and to thrive in school. Stay tuned.

Resources cited in the comments below. References
Brown, R. S., & Parekh, G. (2010). Special education: Structural overview and student demographics (Research Report No. 10/11‑03). Toronto District School Board.https://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/research/docs/reports/SpecEdStructuralOverviewStudentDemo.pdf

Cockburn, B. (1983). The trouble with normal is it always gets worse [Song]. On The trouble with normal [Album]. Columbia Records.

Kuttner, P. J. (2023). The right to belong in school: A critical, transdisciplinary conceptualization of school belonging. AERA Open, 9(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231183407

Radebe, P. (2024). Anti‑Black racism in the Ontario public school system: Problematizing the labeling of young Black students as troublemakers. Journal of Black Studies, 55(5), 555–572. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347241245365

Tozer, A. (2023, May 15). Data shows racialized students suspended at higher rate: HWDSB examines anti‑Islamophobia strategy and suspensions. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hwdsb-anti-islamophobia-strategy-school-suspensions-1.6881150

CBC News. (2020, March 12). Review finds Black students disproportionately suspended in Peel. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/peel-school-board-racism-1.5496611

'A culture that must change': Review finds black students disproportionately suspended in Peel | CBC News Ontario's education minister has issued more than two dozen directives to the Peel District School Board following a review of the board looking at anti-black racism.

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When evidence guides the teaching, learning is transformed. Forever.

This is Part 3 of 4 in a series of blogs I started sharing last week about standardized testing in Ontario. I promised that in Part 3, I would talk about how to "fix" those test scores.

Our culture is profoundly affected by the racism that is entrenched in established and systemic practices, and is all too real for many young people and their families (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2018, 2023; Gajaria et al., 2021); Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2018). In Canada in 2024, nearly half (45%) of racialized Canadians, some as young as 15 years old, shared that they had faced racism and discrimination in the previous 5 years. At the same time, 8 in 10 (81%) of racialized Canadians reported experiencing discrimination more than once in the past five years. Equally chilling is the fact that racialized Canadians under the age of 45 were the most likely to experience discrimination, as compared to those older than 45 years.

In her recent study unpacking 2024 statistics from Statistics Canada on discrimination (in Canada), Maire Sinha (Sinha, 2025) discusses the impacts of discrimination on racialized Canadians from the perspective of age, type of inequity, frequency, and socio-economic status (SES). She concludes that discrimination in Canada poses significant barriers to the well-being of racialized Canadians. Discrimination limits and curtails educational opportunity, which affects access to employment and stable income.

One of the most challenging aspects of understanding racism means understanding how racism “operates” in a culture that affords unacknowledged privilege (power), to those with white skin. As long as privilege is invisible, it is not possible to see or engage with the dimensions of what privilege is, to understand its consequences (McIntosh, 2020). Remaining privileged depends on remaining unaware.

Those who benefit the most from white privilege are those who depend on it to attribute value and authority to people who look like themselves; and to claim value and authority for themselves, their ideas and realities. Nowhere in Canadian society is this more consequential than in educational settings, where access to programs and resources is (severely) limited for too many students.

Here is what privilege looks like. Black students in Southern Ontario are twice as likely as white students to be suspended and four times as likely to be expelled. Black students are underrepresented in gifted programs and overrepresented in some special education categories in the TDSB, e.g., autism, mild intellectual disability, developmental disability, and behaviour (Toronto District School Board, 2012; Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2003). Indigenous students in Ontario elementary schools face suspension rates nearly five times the provincial average (Chiefs of Ontario, 2023).

When we ignore the conditions that continue the charade of equity in schools, and act (at times, with wilful blindness) as if privilege didn’t exist, we perpetuate a status quo that undermines potential and limits futures. So, to "fix" declining EQAO test scores, we need to "fix" equity.

Sources cited below.

Join me on Friday for Part 4 of 4, when I will talk about specific actions and specific 'look fors.'

Super stoked about starting a new venture: sharing the tools I've designed to meet students where they are. Please check out my offerings on Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm adding more resources each day, and they are FREE until April 1, 2026! Look for Ma Pédago!

Hi! I'm Dr. June Starkey. I'm an Ontario-certified educator with 3+ decades of experience teaching learners from Kindergarten to PhD level. Twenty years ago, I left an award-winning 17-year career in French Immersion to open Ontario’s first private, evidence-based bilingual learning clinic. I've never looked back. From Great Brain Learning in Toronto, Ontario, I've worked with over 1,000 families across Canada to transform students’ learning trajectories.

This article marks the beginning of a new foray into writing for me.

In this series, I draw together the threads of data, observations, and lived experience from a teaching career that has spanned 17 years as an elementary French immersion teacher in two school boards in Ontario, and 20 years as an advanced practice educator, bilingual learning advocate, and consultant in private practice with clients across Canada.

I invite you to join me in this critical practitioner inquiry. My goal is to invite engagement and to advance our common struggle to teach and assess all students well so that all students—both now and in the future—may learn. My approach to this reflective inquiry is to address the overflowing bucket of critical questions. How do we find our way? What tools do we really need? Is there any hope for progress? What does growth look like?

Like many of you, I felt a resounding lack of surprise when I heard Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra’s solemn thoughts about the need for curricular reform and the falling EQAO test scores in his press conference on December 3, 2025. As a former marker of the Grade 3 Writing component of the EQAO provincial test and an experienced teacher educator, I am aware that this performative “improvement” opportunity felt detached from reality.

In retrospect, however, we all knew this news was coming. (Didn’t we?) Against a backdrop of rising anxiety about testing in general (and about what that means for individual school communities and students) as well as anxiety about Large Language Models (LLMs) like Perplexity, Gemini and the nth version of Chat GPT (and their appropriate use in schools); reduced budgets and mushrooming parental expectations all seem very 2015. In a field fraught with competing priorities, post-Pandemic educational recovery is real, however, and a real challenge these days, made no less so in the quagmire of standardized testing in Ontario.

Where and how does one begin to unpack the mess of making a difference, and is making a difference even possible? As I scour my professional toolkit for a better pair of glasses to see the bigger picture, and to ask why this moment matters so much, I seek perspective. Why? Because the overwhelming minutia of our education system overshadows, or at least threatens to overshadow, any real learning we create in real classrooms, with real students.

Join me Monday for part 2 of this 4-part series, when I share observations and begin to unpack the reason for some of the curricular mayhem in schools right now. My goal is to find pedagogical possibilities for a sustainable path forward.



https://www.youtube.com/live/NxCPFHBG6ik?si=Yq3GcqCiMlBnLqPp

This is an important and empirically-validated observation. Thank you, Canadian Parents For French.