TDSB High Schoolers Appear to Excel at One Thing--Under-Achievement

TDSB chief Chris Spence may be picking up awards for his terrificness, but for some strange reason (could it be his board's emphasis on "inclusiveness," "equity" and "green" instead of on the basics?) his High School students aren't faring too well in standardized testing:

Toronto secondary students’ test scores are at the bottom of the heap.

Toronto public schools scored a 5.3 out of 10, a scale which the Fraser Institute uses based on province-wide test results in literacy and numeracy, slumping down near the bottom of 12 GTA school boards.

The results are well below provincial average of 6.0 and behind the GTA average of 6.2.
Just three out of 10 Toronto students in applied math met provincial standards. On literacy tests, Toronto high school students scored better, with eight out ten students meeting provincial standards.

However, the board’s overall subpar performance has been a trend for the past five years.
At the top of the heap, both Halton and York Catholic and public boards scored well above the GTA and provincial averages with marks of 7.4 and higher.

Toronto’s low marks beg the question: why are Toronto kids consistently under-performing?

The answer is as simple as A-B-C: kids don’t know core fundamentals in literacy and numeracy in elementary school and the problems are compounded as they reach high school, college and then university...