The Daily UbuntuThread 03 · Racialized but Human · September 12, 2026
The path chosen for you at 14
In the Toronto area, Black students were twice as likely to be streamed into the applied program. Ontario eventually abolished Grade 9 streaming.
1 · The scene
Parent-teacher night at a high school in Montréal-Nord. The plastic chairs creak, the teachers glance at the clock.
A father waits his turn outside the guidance counsellor's office, his son's report card folded in four in his pocket. When he sits down, he doesn't talk about grades. He only asks: "Why has no one ever suggested advanced science to him?" The counsellor opens the file, looks for an answer, then closes the folder. "I don't know," she says. "We'll talk about it with him."
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
In Ontario, the end of Grade 9 streaming
In April 2017, the report "Towards Race Equity in Education," led by Professor Carl James of York University, put numbers on a long-standing unease. In the Toronto-area schools studied, 53% of Black students were in the academic program, which leads most directly to university, compared with 81% of white students. Conversely, 39% of Black students were enrolled in the applied program, compared with 16% of white students: more than double.
That choice was made in Grade 9, around age 14, and weighed heavily on what came after. On July 6, 2020, Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced the end of Grade 9 streaming, acknowledging systemic discrimination in the school system.
The reform began in mathematics in September 2021. In September 2022, it extended to the other major Grade 9 subjects, including science, geography, English and French as a second language. The long-term effects remain to be measured.
This change did not fall from the sky. It took researchers, parents, students and educators to show that the label placed on a 14-year-old often became their destiny. The question arises everywhere, Quebec included: who decides a student's path, and on what basis?
3 · The voice
“It is clear there is systemic discrimination embedded within the education system.”
4 · The question
When a school decides early what a child can become, how do we make sure it is looking at the child, and not the label?
Sources
- "York University professor takes action to address anti-Black racism in schools" (York University, 2019) news.yorku.ca
- "Ontario to end streaming in Grade 9, early years suspensions" (Global News, The Canadian Press, 2020) globalnews.ca
- End of streaming in Grade 9 courses (Global News, 2021) globalnews.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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