What Canadian schools can learn from the U.K.

My friend Tom Mautner is the chair of the board of governors at a school in North London. This week, with students out for the summer, he took me for a tour. For a visitor from Toronto, where schools are run from the top down by a vast bureaucracy – a.k.a. the Toronto District School Board – it was an eye-opener.

Laurel Park is a public secondary school with around 600 students. It was built in the 1960s in what is now an area of mixed incomes and backgrounds. Until just a couple of years ago, it was faring poorly. School inspectors gave it low ratings. Ambitious families shunned it. Disciplinary problems were rife.