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Newsstand: April 29, 2013
Hope you enjoyed the lovely weekend weather! In the news: low-income high-school students still suffer from streaming, the Leafs have their first-round match-up, changes to the foreign-worker program are coming, and police issue an alert.
Teenagers from low-income households make up the bulk of students in non-academic courses, according to a new report from People for Education. The report from the research and advocacy group showed that though the practice of streaming—placing teens into basic, general, and advanced courses as they entered high school—officially ended more than 10 years ago, but it’s still happening in practice, including in the GTA. For example, at one particular school, the lower the average family income, the higher the percentage of students taking applied (non-academic) math. “It is startling, and it is coupled with the fact that, according to lots of different reports, kids in applied have a much lower chance of graduating, of succeeding, of getting all their credits,” Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education, told the Toronto Star.
The regular NHL season is over and the match-ups for the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs are set: the Leafs will meet the Boston Bruins. This will be the first Boston-Toronto pairing in the Playoffs since 1974, when the Bruins swept the Leafs in the first round. The two teams play for the first time of the 2013 Playoffs on Wednesday in Boston; tickets for the Monday, May 6 game in Toronto are selling on StubHub from $215 for standing-room only to more than $1000 each for 100-level seats.
Wide-ranging changes to the foreign workers program will be announced by the federal government on Monday. The reforms will try to ensure that non-Canadians are employed only after all reasonable measures to fill a job with a Canadian have been taken, thanks to a change that will require employers to have a plan to transition to domestic workers in place, according to the Globe and Mail. The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada in 2011 was 2.5 times higher than in 2001, and complaints by Canadians of being turned down for jobs in favour of hiring less-expensive help from overseas are increasing.
Toronto Police have issued a public safety warning after a unknown man followed a woman into her building at Bathurst Street and Lake Shore Boulevard on Saturday night. The woman reported that a man followed her into her building and onto the elevator at around 6 p.m. that night, then tried to enter her apartment before she was able to shut the door on him. A security photo has been released.