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But …

“Because my wife has French-language rights, and because we’re Catholic, I get to choose between four different schools to send my kids to,'” Tedjo says, referring to 150-year-old constitutional guarantees. “The other 70 per cent of Ontarians don’t get that choice. They can only go to an English public school. How is that fair for anyone?”

Parents are struggling with all manner of cuts and shortcomings to their children’s education, he notes. “And you start digging into why, and a lot of people will tell you it’s because we have multiple boards. … What’s available to one set of parents is not available to everyone else.”

Tedjo’s campaign cites a discussion paper by the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods that suggests merging the four systems into two could yield annual savings of as much as $1.5 billion by using available resources — not least real estate — much more efficiently. Merging bureaucracies seldom produces the savings it logically ought to — Ontario’s consolidated municipalities are the gold-standard example — but the idea clearly makes sense to many people.

Because we’re Catholic, I get to choose between four different schools to send my kids to. The other 70 per cent of Ontarians don’t get that choice

An Ipsos poll conducted last year, which Tedjo is happy to cite, found 74 per cent of Ontarians supported changing the system. Of that 74, 18 wanted to move toward funding more schools, not fewer; they and the remarkable 26 who somehow support the status quo would be among the loudest voices if this were ever seriously proposed at Queen’s Park. It is very notable that only 10 per cent of respondents strongly agreed it should be a priority issue. The political risks here almost certainly outnumber the potential rewards.