Front Burner - Race, income inequality, and back-to-school in Canada

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

The back-to-school season is in full swing this week across Canada. But this year, especially in a province like Ontario where in-class learning is completely optional, returning to school looks very different depending on your income and background. While on one end of the income spectrum, some parents are investing in “learning pods,” on the other, many are keeping their kids home to study online because high COVID-19 rates in their neighbourhoods leave them with few other options. Today on Front Burner, Globe and Mail reporters Dakshana Bascaramurty and Caroline Alphonso on those disparities, and what they might mean for the public education system more widely.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Josh Bloch. Many kids in Canada go back to school today. And for weeks, parents and teachers have been talking about whether that's a safe thing to do. Really losing sleep over it.

You know, it's really hard because there's so many unknowns. Are these people all actually working on the same page, working together to make sure that our kids are safe in school? A one-size-fits-all solution will not work. And if we want school to be open past Thanksgiving, we have to take the time now to do it right so it'll stay open until June. Across the country, some parents are looking at ways to keep their kids home from school. But these conversations seem especially active in Ontario, the only province where in-class learning is completely optional for all students.

On one end of the income spectrum, that seems to have increased interest in these private learning pods. And on the other end, many parents from lower-income neighborhoods most affected by COVID-19 are opting to keep their kids home and study online. Today, how income and race are really shaping this school year, and what implications that might have on the public education system in the long run. My guests are Globe and Mail reporter Dakshana Bhaskaramurthy and Caroline Alfonso. Dakshana covers race and ethnicity, and Caroline covers education. And they recently wrote a piece about this called How Race, Income, and Opportunity Hoarding Will Shape Canada's Back-to-School Season.

This is Frontburner. Hello to you both. Hello. Hi. Caroline, one choice some parents are exploring instead of sending their kids back to school this fall is something called the Learning Pod. What is that? The Learning Pod is in Ontario. The government has made it optional to stay at home or to come into the classroom.

You have parents have a choice as to what to do. We will continue to respect the choice and authority of parents, the choice of whether to enroll their children for in-school instruction, and the expectation and delivery of live online teacher led synchronous Zoom style learning for their child when they are not in school and there are parents especially parents who have privilege you know the affluent parents are choosing to stay home but instead of doing virtual learning through their school board they are creating these private learning pods whether it's in their homes, whether they rent some space. We're in the process of transforming our basement into a little grade one classroom. We're in the gym space. We were able to repurpose what we use for our spin room.

Where they have a small group of kids, you know, much lower than what class sizes currently are in the province, where they have a teacher running these pods. So this way, their kids are not at home doing online learning, but they're receiving almost, you know, small group instruction privately. We're all coming together. And you know, one of the families, her father is a woodworker, so he's building a bookshelf. Another family is supplying the desks. We're all just using the resources we have at hand to try to make this a magical year. Dakshana, you've spoken to some of the parents considering this option.

Tell me about the father in London, Ontario, who decided to put his daughter in a learning pod. How did he come to that decision? So this father that I spoke to, his name is Marty Menard, and he has a six-year-old daughter. And he kept her at home, you know, as all parents had to, as the end of the last school year, you know, was interrupted. And he found that she was very lonely. He was trying to do supplementary learning for her through a private tutoring program, and then also, you know, looking online at resources available there for him to do with her. But he realized that going into the school year, because the Ontario government has not allowed for smaller class sizes, that he just didn't think it was a

safe environment for her to go back to. And so he joined a Facebook group that was for parents in London, Ontario to link up with each other to make learning pods. And he's found, you know, I think it's four other families, he's found a teacher. And right now they're just looking for space. But for him, he thought, you know, I don't want my daughter to be lonely this year. So this will take care of the socialization aspect. But with a smaller group, you know, the risks of her possibly being exposed to COVID-19 and bringing it home are lessened. I know you've also been following the conversation in a countrywide LearningPod Facebook group. Tell me about how active that group is right now. There's a massive

one that spans the country that's called LearningPods Canada. And there, you know, at my last check, there were more than 10,000 users in it. And you start a Facebook group. What's the reaction response been so far? What have you been hearing from other parents? You know, what you're seeing is just a gut reaction from a lot of families and teachers as well, feeling like they're not being prioritized or taken care of in an adequate way. And there are all kinds of conversations happening in there where people are trying to figure out, you know, how much would I pay a teacher, of conversations happening in there where people are trying to figure out, you know, how much would I pay a teacher, the legalities of doing this without having to register as a private school,

figuring out insurance. And there are also, you know, kind of tense conversations in this group about what it means to withdraw from the public system and create one of these pods and what the damage could be to the public system if parents are happy with these pods and decide to continue them after this pandemic is over. Maybe things don't go back to the way they were because, you know, we're being hoisted into a new normal. So this might be just part of that schema. We don't know, are those kids ever going to come back to school? What does that mean for the kids that are, quote unquote, left behind? What does that mean for the teaching force? This is all one big question mark. I mean, it is so interesting that this is happening right across the country.

I know that the CBC spoke to a mom in North Vancouver who's taking this on with like-minded parents as well out there. Yeah, it's happening everywhere. in this group are from Ontario, but we're seeing parents in Halifax doing this, parents in Vancouver posting, looking for other people to partner up with. I think that, you know, there's just a lot of panic happening right now. We couldn't feel safe. We couldn't bring my daughter into our house every day thinking, you know, has she been infected? There's even a sort of sense of, you know, the fear of missing out. Like if parents are seeing others doing this, you know, they wonder, am I going to be giving my child possibly a lesser education if I'm sending them back into the classroom, you know, with maybe 29, 30 or more kids? And Josh, there's been a lot of anxiety across the country right now.

We learned sort of how to live with this virus. And now come September, August in Quebec, but come September, we're sending our children back into classrooms where parents are puzzled how social distancing can even occur in some of these rooms, right? You know, we're trying to prep our children mentally and, you know, what our protocols look like now and going back to school. And then all of a sudden in the news, it's like, oh, you know, we're removing the masks inside of the desk or like when you're sitting down. A kid is sick at school. What is the isolation room they're supposed to go and look like? Do all 4,828 schools have specifications for that room? What if two kids need the room at the same time?

I don't blame parents for looking out for their kids. We always look out for our children. What's troubling in all of this is what it all means for public education going forward. Right. And obviously this option of forming a learning pod is only available to more affluent parents. I mean, you have to have the resources to be able to pay for a teacher, potentially pay for a space to teach your kid privately. Here I am talking about running a pod, and my daughter may or may not be in one, but I can afford to go that route. But what about the

moms and other parents that are not able to afford that? I'm curious to know, Dakshana, I mean, you spoke to a dad in the Jane and Finch area of Toronto. This is a diverse area. It's a lower income neighborhood with a higher rate of COVID-19 cases. What kind of options did he feel he had for his daughter's education this fall? What kind of options did he feel he had for his daughter's education this fall? So this father that I spoke to, his name is Atiba Ralph, and his daughter is 15. And when I spoke to him, you know, he had never even heard of the idea of a learning pod. This was not something he was hearing about in his community. And when I told him kind of what they were and what the cost

range is, and you know, in some communities, it's a couple hundred bucks a month, you know, if they are hiring a teacher, and they're dividing it among parents. And then in Toronto, we're seeing some parents who are, you know, spending $2,000 or more a month. Wow. And so he was pretty shocked to hear that that was the cost of it. And he said, you know, this actually sounds like a great idea. It would be wonderful for me to send my daughter to something like this, but it's just so beyond what I could pay for. And, you know, there's a heightened risk for COVID-19 in his neighborhood. Data that has come from public health shows that those people in our city's racialized and low-income communities have been hardest hit by the virus.

We're focused on flattening the curve, but there was less focus on who was under the curve. It's something he thinks about every time he leaves his home. think he thinks about every time he leaves his home. He's had two people who, you know, are kind of in his broader social circle who have died after contracting this virus. So there's definitely a much greater risk than in some of these more affluent communities where people are doing the learning pods, but he just doesn't have the resources available to him to even consider it. He just doesn't have the resources available to him to even consider it. So, you know, these two stories are a really good illustration, I think, of two ends of the spectrum. We have, you know, wealthier parents pulling their kids out of school, lower income families keeping them in. But then the Toronto District School Board just released this survey that showed

a much more complicated picture than that. And Caroline, can you tell me a bit more about this TDSB survey? Of course. So the TDSB released a survey looking at a school by school breakdown of how many students were coming into the classroom and how many were going to continue with virtual learning. And I think for the most part, the data surprised us because we've been hearing so much about learning pods and we've been learning so much of parents in those groups sort of driving out of public education that the data came as a surprise. What we saw from the TDSB data is that in areas of Leaside and in the beach, where you have middle to higher income neighborhoods, we're seeing about 80% or more of kids returning back into the classroom. Where parents are pulling their kids out of school and keeping them home is in those marginalized communities, in low-income neighborhoods,

keeping them home is in those marginalized communities, in low-income neighborhoods, in the Jane and Finch area, Thorncliffe Park, parts of Scarborough. That's where we're seeing half of kids, sometimes less than half of kids, returning to the classroom this fall. And why is this happening? What are you hearing from those parents? I've been sort of communicating with some of these parents over the weekend, you know, just to get a sense of why they're keeping their kids home from school. And these parents are nervous. They're nervous about COVID, naturally, but they're nervous about risk of, you know, of coronavirus. And so they want to keep these grandparents safe. The only way to do that is to not enter a school building. You know, Dakshana and I heard about people riding the elevator down, you know, where you have to social distance in an elevator. How do you get all these kids down to get to school? How long is that going

to take? Right. And I mean, I was astonished to see that you had written in the article that it could take an hour to get out of a building sometimes. Yeah. I mean, in Thorncliffe Park, you know, a lot of families there live in high rises. And pre-pandemic, sometimes, you know, the morning rush hour commute just on the elevator could be half an hour. Now, with social distancing, some parents are thinking, you know, this could be an hour or more. And how can I get my kid to school on time? How can I, you know, even do work if I'm budgeting so much time for this? And so a lot of these parents in these, you know, lower income communities, they're doing remote learning, but it's going to look a lot like this kind of emergency situation that we saw at the end of the last school year. You know, the pandemic, Canada is being rated really well in terms of how Canada is handling it. But when we look at how it's being handled from an equity lens,

it wasn't handled well, right? The people that should have been prioritized weren't prioritized. Well, so knowing that this significant number of students in these lower lower income neighborhoods aren't going to be going back to class. I mean, what is the consequence of that, Caroline? One of the things that we keep hearing, whether it's through the Hospital for Sick Children's report or others in this field, the impact of COVID-19 on children, their mental well-being, their social well-being, their academic achievement greatly impacted. And the impact is felt most by those who are in marginalized communities. So if these kids are at home and yes, they're receiving virtual learning, there is going to be a teacher on the computer screen.

But there's something to be said, Josh, about face-to-face learning in the classroom. What is the long-term impact on their, not only their mental and social well-being, but also on their academic achievement? Because remember, these kids have been out of school since mid-March. Hmm. I'll see you next time. empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So, you know, according to this survey in Toronto, the number of affluent parents pulling their kids from public school seems to be comparatively low.

And across the country, we don't actually know the numbers yet on how many parents are opting for these learning pods. But I want to ask you about this term that sociologists use to describe efforts by wealthier families to secure the best for their children. It's in the title of your article, and it's called Opportunity Hoarding. Dakshana, what does that mean? It's this idea that some groups are able to control resources and exclude others from accessing them. And that leads to social inequality. And we see this play out in education in so many ways. You see it when you have parents abandoning their local catchment school in order to select a French immersion school for their children. We also see it in neighborhoods where affluent parents through the school council are able to do far greater fundraising to benefit their specific school and their specific children.

And now we're seeing this term opportunity hoarding coming up when it comes to the parents who have the ability to pull their kids out of school and provide essentially a private education for them rather than advocating for the safe reopening of schools for all children. So I mean, why specifically now are experts saying that they're concerned with wealthier parents taking their kids out of the public school system, especially given that the numbers right now are relatively low? What I'm hearing again and again from education advocates is, even if those numbers aren't high, a lot of times those parents are the ones that are the most vocal, the most powerful in public education.

So those are the parents who are able to, you know, like I said, do this very effective fundraising for schools. They're the ones who are great at lobbying the government and ensuring that public education is at a high standard for their children. But if even 5% of those parents are gone, this chorus calling for the government to say lower class sizes, which seems to be the kind of main goal across the country, that advocacy is hurt by this. When parents are looking into the interest of only their children, you know, the whole system suffers, is what these advocates are saying. Well, I know some parents have said that they hope by taking their kids out of school, it actually leaves more resources for the kids who have to stay in school.

Caroline, what do advocates for public education, how do they respond to that claim? Well, it doesn't work that way. The way education is funded is you're funded for that child, for that kid in the seat. And if you take your kid out of that seat, there's less money in the pot for public education. There's less money to lower class sizes. There's less money for other resources. So it doesn't, by taking your voice out, by taking your kid out, you're actually diminishing the dollars in public education.

You spoke before about being clear that this is not necessarily about judging parents that make these choices for their kids. I mean, the stakes are really high here when you're thinking about your kids, your own kids' well-being and their education. And Dakshana, you write about this term called the conundrum of privilege, that parents who identify themselves as lefty or progressive often make this choice to give children, their own children, these advantages that might be at the expense of other kids or at public institutions. Tell me a bit more about that term. Yeah, so we mentioned, you know, earlier in this conversation, this dad in London, Ontario, Marty Menard. And at many points during our conversation, he described himself as being a lefty, as being very much in favor of public education, of being very supportive of equal opportunity for all students.

But he said, I have to do what's best for my kid. And I think that that is putting them in a learning pod this fall. pod this fall. And this sociologist that I spoke to in the States, Margaret Hagerman, she talked a lot about this conundrum of privilege, because, you know, she studied all of these affluent white families, many of them self described progressives, who were saying the same thing as Mr. Menard. I was looking at their decisions versus what they articulated were their values. They didn't always line up over and and over again, I would hear this phrase like, I care about racial justice, but you know, I don't want my kid to be a guinea pig. And they cared about equity. They believed in this, you know, this more equal environment that

their children would grow up in, but they were using their own privilege to work against that. Caroline, you've talked about how this moment we're in is actually just this extension of a longer conversation we've had around public schools when it comes to people opting for private schools or for French immersion programs. How pivotal do you think this moment that we're in right now is? Josh, there's always been, I think in the time that I've been covering education, there's been all these points in the system where there's been a test of confidence in public education, right? Alberta has allowed, they've just put in an act to allow charter schools to be created without going through the school board. Now you apply straight to the government and you can create a charter school. There's been tests of confidence. French immersion has been a big one right across the country. There's been parents who have called for changes in math curriculum. It's all these junctures that I've seen along the

way that have tested the public education system. And we're at this critical point right now, which is the biggest test, I would think, of public education. A pandemic where we're seeing these divisions right in front of our eyes, like they're not hidden anymore. You're pulling your kid out or you're keeping your kid in, right? And you're doing it for various reasons. And this is the greatest test that, you know, education advocates and experts have been saying

of public education. Thank you both for speaking with me today. Thanks for having us. Thank you. A bit of front burner news for you before we go. Starting tonight, we'll be on CBC Radio 1 and Sirius XM every Tuesday at 11 p.m., 11.30 p.m. in Newfoundland. So if you are the kind of person who loves terrestrial radio as much as you love podcasts,

you can now find us there this fall. That's it for today's show. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.