'No more TikTok teaching': Jewish advocacy group calls for Ontario classrooms to be free of identity politics

National Post

21 hours ago

A Jewish advocacy group released a report on Monday with recommendations to depoliticize Ontario classrooms. It called on the ministry of education to build a curriculum based on achievement, rather than identity.
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The report from Jewish Educators and Families Association of Canada (JEFA) comes after recent data from a survey commissioned by the Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism found that Ontario students were targeted by hundreds of antisemitic incidents.
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Speaking in downtown Toronto on Monday, JEFA co-founder Tamara Gottlieb said that Ontario's education system has lost its morals and its academic purpose, adding that this isn't 'only a Jewish concern.'
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The same policies that have made Jewish students feel unsafe have also created inhospitable environments for Hindu, Christian and Asian students, she said, adding that the human rights department at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trains staff on 'who qualifies as an oppressor,' singling out Christians. The TDSB did not immediately respond to National Post's request for comment.
'We discovered a system that has replaced reading, writing and arithmetic with politicized content, union-driven equity agendas and identity based labeling,' she said. 'When we hear the word equity, we think it means equality. But it doesn't. Equity is defined this way in school board policies as guaranteed outcome — not guaranteed opportunity.'
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According to the TDSB's own multi-year strategic plan, equity is its 'guiding principle.'
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The JEFA report, entitled End the crisis in education: A plan for equal rights and real learning, says that antisemitism is a 'flashing warning sign' of the education system's dysfunction. Antisemitism is not simply occurring in Ontario schools; it's being tolerated, said Gottlieb.
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Amid the myriad concerns, Gottlieb said that Ontario school board trustees, teachers and parents are 'muzzled' because code of conduct policies are 'weaponized' against them. Trustees are intended to give 'parents and local communities a meaningful voice,' per the report, but over time, they have become 'increasingly centralized and bureaucratic.'
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'They are actually precluded from speaking publicly about any concerns in the system and precluded from speaking privately with parents who come to them,' said Gottlieb.
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As a solution, the report says there should be a requirement of governance qualifications for school board leadership.
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Similarly, Gottlieb said that teachers 'can't actually speak up publicly when they have concerns…but at the same time, they have absolute professional discretion in their classes to use whatever resources they want.'
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One example given by Gottlieb included a Grade 6 teacher who was part of the TDSB — the largest school board in Canada and one of 72 in Ontario — wearing a keffiyeh to class right after October 7, when Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis, sparking an ongoing war in the Middle East.
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The teacher showed students videos from Al Jazeera — a publication that has a 'close connection' with Hamas, a Tel Aviv District Court found last year — about the Nakba as content for mandatory Holocaust education and had a Free Palestine poster with a QR code to donate funds to an 'ambiguous charity.' (The Nakba refers to the displacement of Arab Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, per the Times of Israel.)
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That teacher faced no consequences.
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The province should step in to enforce rules that affect thousands of students, said Gottlieb, like clarifying the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes a religious or political garment. Teachers donning keffiyehs at school has become a point of contention among anti-Israel groups and the Jewish community in Canada.
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Keffiyehs are now considered by many a symbol 'associated with the annihilation of a people,' said Gottlieb, adding that they have been 'codified' as cultural attire 'with zero historical basis.'
'The minister has to step in and unify these policies,' she said, 'so that your kid has the same rights in one board than they will in another board.'
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Gottlieb also pushed for centralized resources for teachers and called for an end to 'TikTok teaching.'
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'Yes, the Ontario government has the Trillium List of approved textbooks, but it's 2025. When's the last time any of your kids came home with a textbook? They don't. Textbooks aren't being used, so having an approved list of textbooks is moot,' said Gottlieb. 'What we need are all teaching or learning resources in the classroom to be centrally made by the ministry, to be approved, for teachers to be trained on how to use those materials, and then for them to exclusively use those materials.'
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The JEFA report recommends that teachers be licensed directly by the ministry of education, rather than the current model, where teachers are licensed by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT). It also includes recommendations for the entire education system, from the ministry of education to the school boards, the OCT, faculties of education (responsible for training future teachers) and the teachers' union.
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'JEFA's message is simple. Let schools be schools. Let's teach the basics,' she said.
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The group has written to Ontario's Minister of Education Paul Calandra, urging him to read the report and make changes.
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In an emailed statement to National Post on Monday, the minister's spokesperson Justine Teplycky said: 'Discrimination and racism in all its forms have no place in our classrooms. Parents expect schools to keep divisive politics out of the classroom and instead focus on what matters most: teaching students reading, writing, and math skills to prepare them for good-paying jobs and lifelong success.'
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Teplycky confirmed that the minister has received the report and will review it.
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'If Ontario can find the courage to make these changes, our schools can once again be places where every child feels safe and where the measure of success is achievement, not ideology,' said Gottlieb. 'We need equal rights for all students. Jewish students can't afford to wait.'
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