David Hunt
David Hunt is the Education Director and the British Columbia (BC) Director at Cardus.
Bio last updated April 26th, 2023.
Articles by David Hunt
COVID Lessons for the Education System
By David Hunt
September 1, 2021
The flexibility and responsiveness of Ontario’s independent schools during the pandemic prove the advantage of humanized education in small, family-centric schools, David Hunt writes.
For starters, the government needs to accept that huge, industrial-scale schools (typical in the public system) are pretty weak at responding to crises like a pandemic As Ontario’s public schools struggle to accommodate students in a new school year amid what could be a fourth wave of COVID-19, what can the Ontario government learn from the last 17 months?
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Religious Freedom Equals Educational Freedom
David Hunt
March 31, 2021
The latest call to defund Ontario’s Catholic schools both rewrites Canadian history and goes counter to international schooling norms, Cardus Education Program Director David Hunt argues.
If schooling is compulsory and taxpayer supported, it is only right and just that faith communities receive support for their own schools alongside the common school system Who sends their kids to Ontario’s 1,500 independent schools? Studies conducted in 2019 and 2007 find that Ontario independent-s...
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Independence and Inequality
Peter Stockland, David Hunt
May 21, 2020
Ontario’s independent schools outperformed their government counterparts during COVID-19. Peter Stockland reports on policy recommendations from Cardus Education’s David Hunt to strengthen Ontario's education for all students.
Hunt argues the “inflexibility, inequality and inefficiency” of government education stands in stark contrast to the nimbleness and responsiveness of Ontario’s independent schools, which he maintains did a far superior job of responding to the needs of the students and communities In a policy brief ...
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School Ruling Good for the Spirit
David Hunt
April 9, 2020
A Saskatchewan Court decision upholding religious freedom and pluralism for parents and students shines a light in gloomy times, writes Cardus Education Director David Hunt.
Conversely, in this most recent case, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal called out GSSD for discriminating against students based on their religion – or non-religion Furthermore, the decision notes the inappropriateness of the GSSD making a religious freedom argument – not for themselves but on other...
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Smudging Indigenous Religious Freedom
Brian Dijkema and David Hunt
January 17, 2020
A B.C. court decision declaring native smudging ceremonies as mere cultural practices is troubling whitewashing of the bond between spiritual practice and religious meaning, argue Brian Dijkema and David Hunt.
In this case, one side wanted smudging ceremonies, and Indigenous dance and prayer allowed in public schools Similarly, the opposing argument undermined freedom of religion in education, by essentially opposing the practice of religion in public schools – citing the state’s duty of neutrality ...