Education Action: Toronto
Online Clearing House


May 1, 2014

Dear Friends,

This is an invitation to the book launch and public discussion of Restacking the Deck: Streaming by Class, Race and Gender in Ontario Schools , which you can download here.

It will be held on Thursday, May 15, 6:30 pm at the William Doo Auditorium, New College, University of Toronto, 41 Willcocks Street (at the corner of Spadina), two blocks north of College and two blocks south of Harbord on the Spadina streetcar line.

To give us an idea of the number of people who will be attending, would you please register for free tickets at http://restackingthedeck.eventbrite.ca


This book is a follow-up volume to Stacking the Deck, published more than 20 years ago in 1992 by Our Schools/Our Selves. It’s a collection of integrated essays by six writers you’ve already been introduced to in this Clearing House – David Clandfield, Bruce Curtis, Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Alison Gaymes San Vicente, David Livingstone and Harry Smaller. What these authors show is that for all the government denials of streaming in our current school system, the same destructive, if more hidden, streaming arrangements are still at work in Ontario schools. They are still based on class, race, gender and imputed special needs and bring with them substantial discriminatory treatment.

As the evidence overwhelmingly shows, streaming has no redeeming features: it hurts poor and racialized students, and it doesn’t improve the performance of students from wealthier homes.

In this neo-liberal era in education, serious resistance to streaming is going to require a sustained alliance of working-class and progressive middle-class parents and students, alongside teacher unions and labour and community organizations.

It’s this issue of resistance that the book launch and public discussion is most concerned to address. After the authors lay out the book’s arguments, the floor will be open to wide-ranging debate and the authors will be available afterward for further discussion.

We are especially grateful to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Our Schools/Our Selves) for generously allowing us to send you a free copy of Restacking the Deck. You can buy hard copies of the book (355 pages) at the launch or you can order them from the CCPA for $25 (www.policyalternatives.ca). If you can afford it, we hope you will buy a copy. Every one sold helps the good work of the CCPA. We also want to thank Social Planning Toronto for hosting this event and New College, University of Toronto, and its Equity Studies program for co-sponsoring it and giving us the space to hold it.

If you know people who care about this issue, please bring them along. We are looking forward to seeing you on March 15.

In solidarity,

George Martell, David Clandfield, Faduma Mohamed
for Education Action: Toronto
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