Naomi Buck is a Toronto-based writer.

Anyone following the current Ontario election could be forgiven for forgetting that education is a provincial responsibility. Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has capitalized on the major distraction south of the border not only to justify a completely unjustifiable election, but also to focus Ontarians’ attention away from more mundane matters of provincial jurisdiction.

The opposition parties have done their damnedest to pull health care into the spotlight, but education has remained largely in the shadows. It was a full hour into the CBC’s leaders’ debate before the topic was raised, and it was dealt with summarily. NDP Leader Marit Stiles asked Mr. Ford why he had cut per student funding by $1,500 post-pandemic and Mr. Ford responded with characteristic hyperbole: “The fact is, no one’s ever invested more in education than we have.”

The actual fact is: Mr. Ford has failed miserably on the education file, and he’s only too happy not to have to talk about it.

When he came to power in 2018, Mr. Ford announced that he was going to fix a broken education system. He launched an “unprecedented consultation” into education reform and proclaimed a “back........

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