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OSSTF District 11- Thames Valley
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District 11 Office |
Education Matters Online
News
Volume 3, Issue 3: February 25, 2005
District 11 Submission to the 2005 Ontario Pre-Budget HearingsBy Wendy Anes Hirschegger, District President |
The following is the District 11 written submission made to the Ontario Standing Committee of Finance and Economic Affairs on Monday January 17, 2005. Click here for the transcript of the verbal submission.
I am pleased to be here on behalf of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation District 11–Thames Valley to make a presentation to the 2005 Pre-Budget Hearings. Thank you for the opportunity. I will begin my presentation with a preamble and then make specific recommendations for your consideration.
Preamble
On December 10, 2002, Dr. Mordechai Rozanski confirmed what the OSSTF had
been saying for years: that the Conservative government had been
under-funding education since virtually the beginning of their mandate,
under-funding it so severely that it would take close to $1.8 billion
dollars to bring it back up to merely “adequate”. Dr. Rozanski’s report was
a vindication of our unflagging opposition to that education-unfriendly
government and validation of our concerns.
Immediately, proponents of public education took up the rallying cry:
“Implement Rozanski”.
The very next day, on December 11, 2002, Liberal MPP Michael Bryant said:
For years now, Ontarians have been telling the Harris-Eves government that there weren't enough teachers, vice-principals, education assistants, guidance counsellors, special education assistants and resources, transportation, ESL teachers and programs, textbooks, supplies, busing for special-needs students, and the cancellation of outdoor education and music programs, to name only a few of the education deficits wrought under this government. (hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/37-3/l071a.htm)
These sentiments were echoed by Liberal MPP Jim Bradley who said:
The Rozanski report is just the latest of several warnings given to the government about the damage that would be felt by under-funding the education system, including a lack of adequate books and other educational tools, an inadequate number of teachers, the closing of schools based upon far too restrictive guidelines, the disappearance of secretarial and custodial staff, the deterioration of existing buildings and the deletion of vice-principal positions. (hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/37-3/l071a.htm)
Still later that afternoon, Dalton McGuinty, then Leader of the Liberal Opposition, was perhaps the most direct and the most blunt in Question Period when he called then Minister of Education Elizabeth Witmer to account:
What is most disconcerting is that this minister still refuses to acknowledge the truth: that she and her predecessors and this Premier and this government stand in the way of our children getting a quality education in Ontario. Madam Minister, just to remind you, it was you and this government who took away the English-as-a-second-language program from our kids. You took away adult education. You took away our kids' guidance counsellors, their education assistants, their psychologists, their phys-ed teachers, their librarians. For seven long years you have been successfully robbing our children of the quality education that we believe they are entitled to inside our public schools. (hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/37-3/l071a.htm)
None of these statements is in any way ambiguous. The Liberal Party
stated publicly that they believed the Rozanski Report and called repeatedly
for its implementation. Given the tenor of Mr. McGuinty’s remarks in that
speech in the Legislature, we were given to assume that what the
Conservative government had taken away, that what they had successfully
“robbed” from our students would be restored by a Liberal government.
Over the remainder of the Harris-Eves government’s mandate, the Liberal
Party, in its opposition role, continued to champion the cause of public
education on this issue. On May 8, 2003, Gerard Kennedy, the then Liberal
Education Critic, took the government to task for trying to mislead the
public. He said,
The government infers that it has followed the Rozanski report that it commissioned last fall. It was at least significantly enough impacted by people's concerns about education, it had to appoint somebody else to look at the job it was doing, to look at what exactly was happening to the students in Ontario schools in terms of this government. That review was done and it said that students in this province were being shortchanged significantly, and an immediate fix of that was required or the financial health of school boards was in immediate jeopardy and a number of things would have to happen.
In the language of the budget, in the language of the throne speech that followed, but not tied to the detailed estimates, scrutiny, the government would have us believe that's all taken care of, when in fact less than 31% of what was needed by our schools is being provided by this government. (hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/37-4/l006.htm)
Gerard Kennedy was even more direct on May 27, 2003 when he said:
We heard from their own report, Dr Rozanski's commission on funding, that this government has shortchanged, has picked the pockets of students in this province, to the tune of $1.7 billion.
The $1.7 billion that Dr Rozanski says they took out of education, not including the inflation and so on that is meant to be put in every year, that structural $1.7 billion that they took out for their tax cuts and other things, goes against that grain. It's very serious. It is saying that this government puts a lower priority on public education. (hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/37-4/l015.htm)
With just four days remaining in the 37th Parliament, on June 23, 2003, Gerard Kennedy was even more specific. On that day, in speaking to the Minister of Education, he said:
I can understand why you want to avoid the direct question. In estimates committee you said there might be some more announcements in the future, because you have not committed to even one third of the Rozanski report. There is no money, beyond some small dollars for textbooks, for the foundation grant, for more teachers, for smaller class sizes -- the single-largest recommendation: $477 million. There is no money for English-as-a-second-language classes to be improved. There isn't a single dime for crumbling schools. The fact is, your own independent investigator caught you taking money away from Ontario students and demanded you put it back. But you wouldn't do it. Isn't it true that the money you're talking about is simply the money that the Premier decided would be available for education even before the Rozanski report came out? What the people, the parents and the students of Ontario want to know is, why have you failed Rozanski? Why have you failed to get the dollars that students need back into our schools? (hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/37-4/l030.htm)
It is very clear that the Liberal Party knew very well what Dr. Mordechai
Rozanski said in his very detailed and well-researched report, “Investing in
Public Education: Advancing the Goal of Continuous Improvement in Student
Learning and Achievement,” and it appeared to understand why the report
recommended what it did. Indeed, the Liberal Party campaigned on an
“education platform” and Dalton McGuinty has said repeatedly that he wants
to be known as the “Education Premier.”
For its part, recognizing that much of the Liberal education platform
“Excellence for All” reflected much of its own “Student Success Plan”
(http://www.osstf.on.ca/www/issues/Studentsuccessplan/index.html), and
having monitored the performance of the Liberal Party in the legislature
closely, OSSTF felt that the Liberal Party understood the importance of
adequate funding of public education.
Once the Liberal Party formed the government on October 2, 2003, OSSTF
thought that at long last, almost a year after its release, the Rozanski
Report would be implemented and public education would begin to be turned
around by proper funding. Even when the devastating truth about the
province’s dire financial predicament became known, Dalton McGuinty
continued to say that even though they wouldn’t be able to do everything it
wanted to do for public education right away, public education would
continue to be a priority.
Last year in the 2004 Pre-Budget Hearings, OSSTF acknowledged this and made
circumspect recommendations, focussing on the aspects of the Rozanski Report
which are most critical for the restoration of the public education system.
However, when the 2004 budget was finally presented, the implementation of
the most critical and fundamental recommendation made by the Rozanski
Report, that relating to the Foundation Grant, was very conspicuous by its
almost complete absence. The number 1 recommendation of the Rozanski Report
stated:
I recommend that:
1. the Ministry of Education update the benchmark costs for all components of the funding formula (the Foundation Grant, the Special Purpose Grants, and the Pupil Accommodation Grant) to reflect costs through August 2003, and that funding that reflects these updated benchmark costs be phased in over three years, starting in 2003–04, as part of a multi-year funding plan. (Rozanksi 23)
On May 26, 2004, the government released its report “Delivering
Excellence for All Ontario Students”. Appendix I of that report is very
revealing in terms of how well the government is doing in terms of
“implementing Rozanski” and contrary to the government assertions, there are
significant shortcomings, most specifically and most seriously in terms of
the Foundation Grant.
As the basis for its comparison, the government has used the figures from
Appendix I.1 of the Rozanski Report, a chart entitled “Estimated Cost of
Updating Benchmarks and Proposed New Investments – by Grant” and added an
additional column entitled “Gov’t Response”. There it is very clear that
Rozanski’s number one recommendation is given very short shrift: Rozanski
recommended $477 million but the government had only increased funding in
that grant by $22 million. Since the Foundation Grant “is intended to cover
the components of a classroom education that are required by, and common to,
all students, it allocates the same amount per student to all school boards”
(Rozanski 11). As such it is the largest and most far-reaching grant which
provides much of the operating budgets of district school boards, and will
have the greatest effect on improving the funding situation for public
education.
As I mentioned earlier, Gerard Kennedy, now himself the Minister of
Education, who chastised the previous government in May 2003 for inferring
that it had “implemented Rozanski” when it had implemented less than 30% of
it, now infers that the Liberal government has implemented 82% of it. A
closer examination of Appendix I of “Delivering Excellence for All Ontario
Students” reveals that, in terms of the dollar figures that Rozanski
recommended in fourteen areas of the funding formula, the Liberal government
has only put in about 58%. To be fair, the report also shows education
expenditures above Rozanski’s recommendations in some areas, and a
significantly large number in areas which Rozanski never recommended at all.
However, the Liberal government which called the previous government to
account for its failure to implement the recommendation related to the
Foundation Grant, has now failed in that regard itself: less than 5% of the
funding that Rozanski recommended be added to the Foundation Grant has been
allocated to it. To echo Gerard Kennedy’s own words, I ask, “ What the
people, the parents and the students of Ontario want to know is, why have
you failed Rozanski? Why have you failed to get the dollars that students
need back into our schools?”
Hugh Mackenzie, in his October 20, 2004 report “Are We There Yet? A Progress
Report on Education Renewal in Ontario” puts it this way:
Equally important, the recognition of cost increases for items other than salaries for 2004-5 begs the question of why the cost increases between 1997 and 2002-3 — identified and measured by Rozanski — have never been captured in adjustments to the funding benchmarks. (6)
The implications of the failure of the funding formula to keep pace with costs are profound. At present, boards receive approximately 5.9% less under the funding formula than the actual cost they incur in employing the teachers they are legally required to provide. The shortfall in funding for teachers’ salaries does not mean that teachers are paid less; it means that boards have to find money in other parts of the funding formula; it means that fewer teachers are employed; fewer librarians are employed. Other things contemplated by the funding formula are not being done. (12)
Let me give you some local examples of what this means.
In Thames Valley, we have thirty high schools. However, at 1 full-time
Teacher-Librarian per 909 full-time equivalent students, the funding formula
only generates 27.67 FTE Teacher-Librarians for Thames Valley. Furthermore,
because only fourteen high schools have 909 or more FTE students, many of
our high schools have less than a full-time Teacher-Librarian: six have a
Teacher-Librarian for .83 of the year, three have a Teacher-Librarian for
.67 of the year and one has a Teacher-Librarian for .5 of the year. In
previous years, the board has allocated at least one full-time
Teacher-Librarian to each high school, however because of increasingly
inadequate funding to the Foundation Grant, it can no longer afford to do
so. Given the fact that a well-stocked and well-staffed library is critical
to literacy development and enhancement and to the education of all
students, here is an example of a benchmark factor seriously in need of
updating. Every high school should have a full-time Teacher-Librarian
regardless of size.
Another example concerns class sizes. The “new rigorous curriculum”
implemented by the previous government completely ignored one group of
students–those who struggle with basic skills. Courses and programs for
these students have no provincial curriculum and must be locally-developed.
These courses must necessarily have small class sizes so teachers can devote
a lot of individual assistance to these students to help them achieve. This,
in turn, means that in order for the board to achieve a board-wide average
class size of 22:1, other classes must be larger. Furthermore, “there is no
recognition of the additional costs associated with the provision of
commercial or technical education for students destined directly for
employment” (Mackenzie 18). The classes that are often much larger than 22
students are those in the larger schools, larger departments and usually at
the academic and senior level, so that classes in smaller schools and in
smaller departments and essential and junior level classes can be smaller or
even run at all. While this is advantageous to those small classes, it is far
less so for those students in large classes or for the workload of the
teachers of those large classes.
This year for the first time in Thames Valley secondary schools, we have
high schools which have a less than full-time Vice-Principal, again because
the funding formula doesn’t generate enough, and some schools which used to
have two Vice-Principals, now only have one. In previous years, the board
has allocated at least one full-time Vice-Principal to each high school, but
again because of increasingly inadequate funding to the Foundation Grant, it
can no longer afford to do so. At a time when concern for safe schools is
growing, this makes little sense.
All in all, Mackenzie shows that:
...instead of funding the operations of the actual schools in the province, the formula funds operations for an arbitrarily determined number of square feet per student. Instead of providing funding for basic common school-level services for the actual schools being used in the province, the formula funds these services for notional schools of an arbitrarily-determined standard size. This wouldn’t be a problem if all of the schools in the province were the same and if they matched the standardized models. But they are not, and they do not. (19)
Another serious deficiency in the current funding model has to do with
the artificial distinction between “classroom”and “non-classroom”. There
really is no such thing as “non-classroom”. Every aspect of the operation of
a school or a school board has impact on student learning. Principals and
Vice-Principals manage all aspects of the operation of a school. Department
Heads are integral to the smooth running of departments and are the
curriculum leaders within the school. Custodians keep the school clean and
maintain the physical plant. Secretaries are critical to the administrative
functions in the office. Lack of funding and personnel in any of these areas
can and does impact on the students. In addition, fewer adults in the school
can compromise the safety of the students within a school.
These are just a few ways in which the failure to implement the most
important of Rozanski’s recommendations has impacted on schools.
Recommendations
Having outlined the problems with the current situation, I will now focus on specific recommendations which the government needs to implement in order prevent the further erosion of public education, promote “peace and stability” and achieve its objectives as outlined in its “Excellence for All” platform. Some of them are reiterated from the OSSTF presentation to the 2004 Pre-Budget Consultations because they have yet to be implemented.
| 1. | The Rozanski recommendations related to
the Foundation Grant, bringing it up to date and then keeping it up to
date, must be implemented immediately. In addition, the government
should increase funding to allow the return of staffing levels of
Teacher-Librarians and Guidance Counsellors. Public education
simply cannot want any longer. It is simply not reasonable to expect
schools to run smoothly without adequate personnel and resources. To
fund high-profile “photo op” programs, many of which Rozanski did not
even recommend, while allowing the Foundation Grant to fall further and
further behind is like giving an old car a new paint job when what it
really needs is a new engine. The Liberal government must first ensure
that the fundamentals are taken care of.
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| 2. | The education funding formula should be
modified to include dedicated funding for school support staff to ensure
adequate levels of staffing in school boards to meet the office,
clerical. technical and plant support needs of schools. As funding and therefore personnel levels in these areas decreased steadily throughout the mandate of the previous government, teachers were expected to pick up the slack. Not enough secretaries? No worries, the teachers will do their own typing and photocopying. Not enough custodians? No problem, the teachers can clean their own chalk boards. Not enough Vice-Principals? That’s okay, teachers will patrol the halls. No money for cafeteria supervisors? The teachers can do it. The fact is that, on top of teaching more students because of burgeoning class sizes, teachers have become over-burdened with supervisory and administrative tasks. Is it any wonder that experienced teachers are retiring the minute they qualify for retirement and that more new teachers than ever before are leaving within their first five years of teaching?
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| 3. | The government should adjust the factors
in the Teacher Compensation Grant to assist school boards in the
recruitment and retention of new teachers, and restore funding for
Department Heads in the Foundation Grant. Entry level
salaries are low by private industry standards for employees with
equivalent education and training, and it takes ten to twelve years to
get to the top of the salary grid. Efforts must be made not only to
recruit and but also to retain teachers and educational workers whose
experience will support student achievements.
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| 4. | The government must remove the 7.5
average credit cap from the Teacher Compensation Grant. The
funding formula provides initial funding for an average of 7.2 credits
per student in the Foundation Grant. The Teacher Compensation Grant
provides funding for additional credits up to a maximum of 7.5 per
student. A number of boards are reporting an average of at least 7.6
credits per student. The main non-funded expense for these extra credits
is teacher cost. Even though these boards have credits above the funded
level, the board must still comply with the 21:1 or 22:1 class size
regulation. Additional staff, therefore, must be provided.
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| 5. | The Ontario government should
re-establish the funding level to students over the age of 21 to the
same level as high school students in regular day school. One of
the first actions taken by Mike Harris in 1995 was to end the ability of
students over the age of 21 to attend regular classes. In addition to
directing adult students to continuing education classes, the funding
for them was cut 75 percent. An adult day school receives no money for
guidance, library, school administration, supplies or equipment, and
only a fraction of the Accommodation Grant. Attendance and enrolment
rules are severe and discriminatory. These Tory initiatives reduced
adult education enrolments from over 80,000 to under 8,000 in the
decade. This forces more young adults to rely on more expensive
government programs, such as social assistance because they are not
ready to compete in Ontario’s job market. Adult day schools provide a
second chance; they lead to meaningful jobs and further education. It is
time to allow all day schools to provide a full service education and to
stop age discrimination for access to public education. |
Conclusion
In conclusion, while we want to believe that the government is sincere in
its desire to strengthen public education in Ontario, we believe that they
can no longer hide behind the deficit left it by the previous government. It
has been almost a year and a half since the Liberal government took office,
the economy is improving, the Private School Tax Credit and the Seniors’
Education Tax Credit have been repealed, and yet the Rozanski
recommendations have yet to be fully implemented.
Realistically, the government may still not be able to fully implement all
of the Rozanski recommendations but the most important one, the one related
to the Foundation Grant must be implemented immediately and before some of
the other initiatives the government wishes to pursue. A strong foundation
now will have broader reaching positive effects on the system as a whole and
make those other initiatives easier to implement later.
More importantly, doing so will demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that
the Liberal government IS sincere in strengthening public education and in
wanting to ensure “peace and stability” and that they are not just “Tories,
the Sequel”. Thank you.
Works Consulted
“Delivering Excellence For All Ontario Students.” Ministry of Education.
May 26, 2004.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/excellence/index.html
“Excellence for All: The Ontario Liberal Plan for Education”
http://www.ontarioliberal.ca/platform/education.pdf 
Hansard. Legislative Assembly of Ontario House Debates from the Third and
Fourth sessions of the 37th Parliament.
http://www.ontla.on.ca/hansard/index.htm
Mackenzie, Hugh. “Are We There Yet? A Progress Report on Education Renewal
in Ontario.” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. October 20, 2004.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/Ontario_Office_Pubs/on_education2004.pdf
OSSTF Presentation to 2004 Pre-Budget Consultations. February 2, 2004.
http://www.osstf.on.ca/www/issues/briefs/prebudget04.pdf
OSSTF Student Success Plan.
http://www.osstf.on.ca/www/issues/Studentsuccessplan/index.html
Rozanski, Dr. Mordechai. “Investing in Public Education: Advancing the Goal
of Continuous Improvement in Student Learning and Achievement. Report of the
Education Equality Task Force, 2002.” December 10, 2002.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/task02/report.html