Op-ed: Violent Schools in Divided City -- Toronto school board's report on school violence

Violent Schools in Divided City

School Board has little real power to overcome social divisions based on economic inequality

Toronto Star, January 13, 2008

David Hulchanski

The murder of a student in one of our schools caused, at best, if we want to be honest with ourselves, a modest amount of concern in the City of Toronto and very little beyond Toronto. "The fact of the matter,” according to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, “is that there are millions of children who attend school every single day in Ontario and they do so safely and without incident.” This is only a problem in “some communities.”

The Toronto District School Board appointed a panel whose recently released report is as good, if not better, than one might expect in such a situation. Yet, as the panel mentions in passing, the problem is bigger than the school and the school board. The context matters. And the context is not pretty.

The City of Toronto, as a huge municipality created through forced amalgamation with a population of 2.5 million, is not one