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What's in a name?

New bill promotes students' rights in all Ontario schools

04.01.2012

A bit of good news: the Ontario Liberal government’s anti-bullying bill legislation passed yesterday. The Accepting Schools Act states that no principal or school board can refuse to allow students to use the name “gay-straight alliance,” or a similar name, for support groups.

The bill comes after a prolonged battle for students’ right to use “gay” in naming school organizations and to create school organizations that focus specifically on queer-positive issues in Ontario Catholic schools, after students were blocked from doing so last year.

The bill defines bullying, requires boards to “develop and implement an equity and inclusive education policy,” and, most importantly for queer students, includes gender identity and gender expression alongside sexual orientation. The bill pushes school boards to take a more active role in creating anti-bullying policies in schools.

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Makara

7/10/2012 3:43:02 PM

to lift all boats and the region aronud the project area is expected to benefit. Like giving tax breaks to the wealthy is supposed to help the middle class.Spinners for the RDAs argue that redevelopment activities support 304,000 jobs annually, including 170,600 construction jobs; contribute more than $40 billion annually to California’s economy in the generation of goods and services; and generate more than $2 billion in state and local taxes in a typical year.Moreover, since the law requires 20 percent of the tax increment to be dedicated for low- and moderate-income housing, the RDAs argue that eliminating redevelopment will significantly undermine efforts to provide homes for those who otherwise cannot afford it.A close look at the numbers: But the most thorough and academically sound study of redevelopment we’re aware of, by Michael Dardia of the Public Policy Institute of California, found in 1998:“After correcting for local real estate trends, the author finds that redevelopment projects do not increase property values by enough to account for the tax-increment revenues they receive. Overall, the agencies stimulated enough growth to cover just above half of those tax revenues. The rest resulted from local trends and would have gone to other jurisdictions in the absence of redevelopment.”A study by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently concluded as much and more.“While redevelopment leads to economic development within project areas, there is no reliable evidence that it attracts businesses to the state or increases overall regional economic development. Instead, the limited academic literature on this topic finds that — viewed from the perspective of an entire city or region — the effect of this program on property values is minimal. That is, redevelopment may cause some geographic shifts in economic development, but does not increase the overall amount of economic activity in a region. (emphasis added)“The independent research we reviewed fo

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7/10/2012 10:45:54 AM

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