This paper examines zero tolerance discipline policies in Ontario's public school system legislated as the "Safe Schools Act (SSA)" 2001. The intent of our paper is to argue that the "SSA" set within a discourse of zero tolerance as the panacea to the problems of violence in schools has had a detrimental impact. Since the "SSA" is part of the…

This critical policy study provides an understanding of the different actors--individuals, interest groups, and other organizations--involved in influencing and defining, through their narratives what public education in BC ought to be, thus capturing the core intellectual dispositions that informed and determined the kind of policy problems that…

Beginning with the Sullivan Royal Commission on Education in 1988, British Columbia (BC) teachers experienced a policy context that led to a decade of intense professional learning around innovative instructional strategies and curriculum. From 2001 on, the policy context changed considerably. There has been a flurry of changes designed to bring…

The Ontario Ministry of Education has made a recent commitment to address the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-aboriginal students with the release of various policy documents. Yet, there appears to be a disconnect between the policy principles and the standardized means of reconciling these differences in achievement, teacher education,…

Teachers typically receive the brunt of the criticism for poor performance on large-scale standardized tests. In order to stave off this criticism, some teachers have begun to provide instruction that utilizes actual or cloned items from these high-stakes tests. Such teaching to the test rarely helps learning and has a detrimental effect on the…