Toronto District School Board Candidates Richard Klagsbrun (TDSB Ward 10/Trinity-Spadina) and Jerako Biaje (TDSB Ward 5/York Centre) unveil Curriculum Pledge

Toronto District School Board Candidates Richard Klagsbrun (TDSB Ward 10/Trinity-Spadina) and Jerako Biaje (TDSB Ward 5/York Centre) have crafted a Curriculum Pledge for Trustee candidates in the upcoming municipal election on October 27 to address what they see as major problems with the school curriculum. They believe the current approach inhibits the ability of the Board's students to get the type of education they will require in an increasingly technologically-based, competitive, global environment.  There are serious issues involving the way that the curriculum is delivered in Toronto's Public Schools, including a math curriculum which increasingly emphasises word-based problems which are designed to instil politicized attitudes. Though the Province is responsible for shaping the curriculum, the TDSB has a great deal of latitude in establishing how that curriculum is delivered to its students. As emphasis at the Toronto District School Board has shifted away from providing students with core math and language skills, and increasing numbers of university professors are concerned about post-secondary students graduating high school without requisite skills, Klagsbrun and Biaje feel that a focus on the core subjects of English/Reading, Math and Sciences needs to be restored in the TDSB. Accordingly, they have written the following Curriculum Pledge, which they invite all TDSB candidates to sign:

"We pledge as Trustees to work towards restoring the focus of the public school curriculum on core subjects - Math, Reading/English, and Science. We pledge to do all we can to restore an evidence and fact-based approach to education, in which learning is predicated on using objective facts rather than unsubstantiated opinion and trendy theories. We also pledge to work towards removing the politicized aspects of the curriculum and work towards providing an education which gives students the tools to employ logic, verifiable truth, and reason. Along with students, parents, and teachers, we pledge to do everything we can to enable our students to become successful, engaged citizens."

Richard Klagsbrun,  TDSB Candidate - Ward 10 (Trinity-Spadina) www.klagsbrun.ca

Jerako Biaje, TDSB Candidate - Ward 5 (York Centre) https://www.facebook.com/JerakoBiaje

Richard Klagsbrun is the former Creative and Strategic Planning Executive at Participant Media who was instrumental in conceiving the phenomenally successful marketing model used to make that organization's films, such as the Academy-Award winning An Inconvenient Truth. He is a writer and commentator on education issues in national publications and television, and has worked in both the private and public sector, including having organized the symposium which established, and being one of the first two staff members of, the Centre for Addiction And Mental Heath's Shared Care Clinical Outreach Program, which provides medical and psychiatric care to homeless people in Toronto residing in shelters. Richard has also been a social media entrepreneur, being the co-founder and Senior Vice President of View2gether, which pioneered online social viewing. Richard is deeply engaged with the community in Trinity-Spadina, and that engagement includes having been a co-Chair of the Parents' Council at Central Technical School. His current candidacy for TDSB Trustee in Trinity-Spadina is his first time seeking public office, and he has assembled an unparalleled group of endorsers for his TDSB Trustee campaign effort.

Jerako Biaje is  the TDSB School Trustee Candidate for WARD 5, Advocate, Mediator, Wife, Mother, and a Former Co-Chair of the TDSB's Parent Involvement Advisory Committee

For more information contact Campaign for Richard Klagsbrun:  VoteRichard@Outlook.com