Minister Tells Toronto School Board to Revisit Admissions Policy That Replaced Merit With Lottery

A Toronto District School Board logo is seen on a sign in front of a high school in Toronto, on Jan. 30, 2018. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce says he is concerned about the Toronto District School Board’s updated admissions policy for specialized programs that forgoes admission based on merit in favour of a lottery system.

In an April 17 letter to Toronto District School Board (TDSB) chair Rachel Lin, Mr. Lecce said he had “serious concerns” over the updated admissions policy. He told the board to review the changes, which were made in 2022, and “initiate a new, open, and transparent policy review consultation.”

The school board announced in 2022 it would be changing the application process to specialized schools, moving the process move away from merit-based evaluations and toward a lottery system.

It said the lottery would be more equitable and give students who may not have the means to pay for lessons or tutoring in areas like music and math an opportunity to attend a special school program.

However, parents and students saw things differently.

“In the weeks leading up to the spring 2022 vote on the new admissions policy, students, parents, and educators raised issues about data omissions and the lack of a transparent consultation process,” Mr. Lecce said in the letter.

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He added that the government is committed to a “modern, twenty-first century education system” driven by academic excellence and based on transparency and accountability.

“However, evidence would suggest that TDSB is not meeting that expectation,” the minister wrote.

His letter Lecce was shared on social media by Save Our Schools, a coalition of parents, students, and educators raising concerns over the specialized programs admission policy.

In response to the minister’s letter, the TDSB chair, Ms. Lin, told The Epoch Times that the lottery process has achieved its goal. 

“The TDSB takes its responsibility to meet the expectations of the Ministry of Education and the Ontario Human Rights Code very seriously,” she said in an emailed statement, adding that the province has emphasized eliminating barriers and respecting diversity.

“To that end, Trustees approved changes to the admissions process for Central Student Interest Programs two years ago. The data now shows that the new process has resulted in representation of students that better reflects the overall student population,” Ms. Lin wrote in the email. “More students from working class families and Black students are enrolled in these programs. This data is part of an update about the implementation of the admission process and will be shared with the Board shortly.”

Plagiarized Report

A year after introducing the change, TDSB commissioned a report that it used to support the lottery system for specialized high school admission.

However, parents asked University of Toronto economics professor Marcin Peski to analyze the report’s methodology.

Mr. Peski found the report to be full of false citations, unattributed quotes, and plagiarized text. In his analysis, he found about 20 percent of the citations in the report were false and about half of the text was copied from other sources.

In February 2024, trustees Weidong Pei and Dennis Hastings brought forward a motion to investigate the report at a meeting of the priorities and planning committee. However, the committee voted against the move 11-7.

Mr. Lecce referred to the report in his letter to the board chair, saying it was alarming.

“A report on the admissions policy was presented to trustees leading to publically raised concerns with regards to its credibility. Despite these concerns, the report has yet to be retracted,” the education minister said.

Ms. Lin called it “old news,” saying that one appendix in the report “contained information from dozens of reputable sources, but regrettably contained serious citation errors,” she said. “The author of this appendix is no longer working with the Board. It’s important to note that this report had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the Trustee decision to change the admissions process a year earlier.”

She also said that an updated appendix would be posted. 

Flawed Lottery System

For the new lottery system, TDSB said it would accept all indigenous applications as well as siblings of current students in the 2023/24 school year. Twenty-five percent of the remaining spots would be given through the lottery to students who self-identified as racialized, LGBT, or disabled.

TDSB said a random selection process would be used for any spots left.

However, a technical error led to a glitch in the process, and minorities who had been waitlisted were not included in the lottery draw—something TDSB tried to remedy by offering 89 more seats for the students who were overlooked.

A report with feedback from 3,600 community members said there was no consensus on the use of a lottery.

Moreover, according to the report, many respondents said there should be some form of merit-based criteria for specialized school programs.