EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION
WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION OF OTTAWA ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
ALGONQUIN COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY
RENFREW COUNTY TEACHER AFFILIATES
PHIL SWEETNAM
BOB STRUTHERS
DENNIS DATE
FÉDÉRATION DES ASSOCIATIONS DE PARENTS FRANCOPHONES DE L'ONTARIO
ONTARIO SEPARATE SCHOOL TRUSTEES' ASSOCIATION
STORMONT, DUNDAS AND GLENGARRY TEACHER AFFILIATES
CONTENTS
Wednesday 22 May 1996
Education Amendment Act, 1996, Bill 34, Mr Snobelen / Loi de 1996
modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation, projet de loi 34, M. Snobelen
Ottawa Board of Education
Linda Hunter, chairperson
Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa; Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Ottawa district
Alia Kent, president, WTAO
Larry Myers, president, OPSTF, Ottawa district
Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association
Donna Marie Kennedy, president, Carleton unit
Carleton Board of Education
Ann MacGregor, chairman
Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology
Bill Conrod, vice-president, continuing education
Teachers' Federation of Carleton; Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, District 43
Doug Carter, president, Teachers' Federation of Carleton
Larry Capstick, president, OSSTF District 43, Carleton
Renfrew County Teacher Affiliates
Lila Paddock, president, Renfrew County Women Teachers' Association
Pierrette Rhéaume, president/présidente, AEFO, Renfrew unit elementary
George Hooper, president, OSSTF, Renfrew district
Roger Perry, president, OECTA, Renfrew district
Sheryl Hoshizaki, president, FWTAO
Phil Sweetnam; Bob Struthers; Dennis Date
Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario
Diane Ellis, vice-president
Gabrielle Blais, membre, conseil d'administration
Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association
Patrick Daly, president
Patrick Slack, executive director
Arthur Lamarche, regional director
Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Teacher Affiliates
John McEwen, president, OSSTF District 21
Ken Slemko; Albert Chambers
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Président: Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Gerretsen, John
(Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Agostino, Dominic (Hamilton East / -Est L)
*Ecker, Janet (Durham West / -Ouest PC)
Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Gravelle, Michael (Port Arthur L)
Johns, Helen (Huron PC)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Laughren, Floyd (Nickel Belt ND)
Munro, Julia (Durham-York PC)
*Newman, Dan (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
*Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
*Pettit, Trevor (Hamilton Mountain PC)
*Preston, Peter L. (Brant-Haldimand PC)
*Smith, Bruce (Middlesex PC)
Wildman, Bud (Algoma ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West / -Ouest L) for Mr Agostino
Lalonde, Jean-Marc (Prescott and Russell / Prescott et Russell L) for Mr Gravelle
Rollins, E.J. Douglas (Quinte PC) for Mrs Johns
Skarica, Toni (Wentworth North / -Nord PC) for Mr Jordan
Silipo, Tony (Dovercourt ND) for Mr Laughren
Guzzo, Garry (Ottawa-Rideau PC) for Mrs Munro
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND) for Mr Wildman
Clerk / Greffière: Lynn Mellor
Staff / Personnel: Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0902 in the Delta Ottawa Hotel, Ottawa.
EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION
Consideration of Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act / Projet de loi 34, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation.
The Vice-Chair (Mr John Gerretsen): I wonder if everybody can take their seats so we can get the meeting started. Welcome to the standing committee on social development. My name is John Gerretsen. I am the MPP from Kingston and The Islands. Today we're here to hold public hearings with respect to Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act.
For those people who will be making presentations, the presentations are to be half an hour long, no longer than that, and that includes any time for questions and comments that there may be from any of the committee members. On my right are the government members and on my left are the opposition members. Welcome to our hearings.
OTTAWA BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Vice-Chair: I'd first of all like to call upon Linda Hunter, the chairperson of the Ottawa Board of Education. Could you come forward please and take a seat across the table. Good morning and welcome to our hearings. Your brief has been distributed. Could you identify yourself for the purpose of Hansard, please. We look forward to your presentation.
Ms Linda Hunter: Good morning. My name is Linda Hunter. I'm chairperson of the Ottawa Board of Education. I would like to also introduce Carola Lane, who is the director of education for our board.
Being first to speak in the Ottawa hearings for the standing committee on social development, I want to thank the Ministry of Education and Training and the government of Ontario for giving us this opportunity. This kind of direct communication is critical if we are to succeed with the task at hand of re-engineering the education system to better fit today's society. As a committee, you'll be making recommendations that will affect not only the education system but indeed the whole of the community that we call Ontario.
As chairperson of one of Ontario's leading boards of education, I want to focus today on our most important responsibility: ensuring the delivery of quality education to all students. Our learners, and indeed society as a whole, deserve this focus while we all work together to harness the provincial debt. This teamwork approach must come from all sectors: government, elected officials, educators, private citizens and corporations.
My wish is that my comments today will assist the standing committee on social development in providing sound counsel to the Ministry of Education and Training. Let us keep in mind that Bill 34 represents only one way that our education system is being re-engineered to better cope with today's challenging economy. As we update this complex system, we must remain focused on our key role in shaping the learners who will become our community leaders in the not-too-distant future. With these important roles uppermost in our minds today, the OBE's concern is that Bill 34 may limit us to prioritizing fiscal restraints well ahead of practical education objectives.
Like many other school districts in Ontario, we are now facing new realities of delivering education in today's world. The population that we serve has changed drastically during the last decade. The harsh reality for the OBE includes details that do not necessarily come to mind when one thinks of the Peace Tower or the tulip festival.
One out of every seven children in the Ottawa-Carleton area lives in poverty. That equates to 24,000 children who must daily battle the plight of being the underdogs. Nearly 15,000 of those young people reside within the boundaries served by the OBE.
To remain leading providers of education, the OBE has had to develop policies and programs that address the racial-ethnocultural and economic diversities in our community. In addition to English-as-a-second-language programs, some learners coming to us have no education at all and require a more basic service known as English skills development. This service is essential if we are to successfully integrate these learners into Ontario.
While other school boards may claim to have high immigrant populations to serve, closer examination will find that immigrants tend to arrive in downtown areas, take a few years to acclimatize and then, with their new-found feet, relocate to the outlying areas. This being the case, the ESD requirements for inner-city school boards such as the OBE are much greater than for outlying boards.
To ignore these new elements within our learner population is to ignore the end objective of the education system: to provide a place accessible by all where they can better prepare themselves to contribute to society.
Our time together today is limited and important, so with these opening remarks as a stage, let me continue by responding to the amendments to the Education Act as outlined in Bill 34.
Bill 34 proposes that boards of education exercise an option to deliver junior kindergarten. The OBE and many other boards have subsequently kept junior kindergarten in their curricula as testimony to the importance that these organizations place on a positive, strong entry into the school system. Supportive early years in school are critical if our younger children are to overcome the burdens of poverty and family environments that offer varying levels of stability. This stability is of course being threatened in more and more homes as Ontarians struggle with the financial and social realities of today.
The incumbent disabilities from these stress-filled family environments benefit so greatly from early recognition and intervention that it seems illogical to eliminate the junior kindergarten program from the scholastic roster. The effects of such an elimination may not be felt for the first few years, but much research points to the correlation between solid early starts in education and reduced future dependency on society.
Wherever programs such as the Ottawa Board of Education's Children Learning for Living program have been introduced, hostile or aggressive behaviour was reduced, referrals to psychology and social work departments declined and positive rapports emerged between the community, schools and families where they had previously been lacking.
These findings are consistent with research from the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research in Toronto. Their studies confirm what educators have long suspected: Stimulation at an early age is directly related to expanding the potential of children in later years in terms of employability, possessing a self-supporting lifestyle and a lower criminal activity than the general population. Research estimates that for each dollar spent on quality education during a child's initial years in the school system, society saves $7 in associated costs later in a child's life.
Leaving junior kindergarten open for budget cuts by school boards desperate to trim ever-decreasing budgets is to defer necessary attention to a population segment that could prove costly to support in the future. I am quite concerned that if we fail to provide solid, positive beginnings to the kindergarten students of today, we will only have to pay higher costs to support these children down the road.
Bill 34 seems consistent with the government's current approach to ignore some key social needs and to prioritize budget above all else. The OBE urges the committee to retain junior kindergarten even if adjustments need to be made to the current model to better cope with today's leaner economy. For the Love of Learning noted the importance of positive school influence in the formative years and indicated that introduction of early childhood educators might be one option to assist in reducing costs.
From the young end of the spectrum of students, Bill 34 then moves on to contemplate the older student. The OBE strongly urges the standing committee on social development to leave adult high school as is in the current Education Act.
Adult high school programs must remain open to all who seek improving their chances of being better contributors to our society. Transferring some of these learners into college or university programs is not feasible because the costs involved cannot be borne by this population. Many adult high school students are on social assistance, and asking them to hand funding from one ministry, the Ministry of Community and Social Services, to another, the Ministry of Education and Training, does not really seem logical.
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The OBE program uses staff qualified to provide the specialized support that all high school students require. Continuing education does not offer the counselling that has helped our students to identify areas in which they need support in order to begin the journey of self-improvement. The continuing education model does not offer other necessary supports for these students, such as librarians, child care options and computer technicians.
While on the topic of the adult high school, I'd like to urge the committee to recommend improved communications between the ministry and Ontario school boards. The OBE would appreciate receiving correct information directly from the ministry about, for example, the announcement of the graduation equivalent diploma, or GED, which came out last Friday in the media. That is the equivalent of a secondary high school diploma. We learned of this initiative through the media, and then were sent a press release from the Ontario Public School Boards' Association only after much paper chasing.
We are most interested in being partners in directing the province's education system more efficiently, but to do so requires cooperation from all parties involved. In this particular case, we at our board would like to know which stakeholders have participated in discussions and decisions to date as well as which Ottawa-area education stakeholders will be involved in this fall's pilots.
Looking at the bigger picture of education, the OBE already knows the importance of cooperative arrangements to maximize budgets. We are cooperating with other boards, with municipalities and corporations in areas of purchasing, transportation, energy conservation, media services and education services for developmentally delayed children. Last week, the honourable Minister Snobelen announced the ONE World/Un monde project that sees six local school boards, French and English, public and separate, plus the First Nations Education Authority in northern Ontario, the Keewaytinkook Okimakanak, and 10 private corporations collaborating to build a computer network that facilitates cooperative efforts among teachers, students and administrative staffs.
Section 7 of Bill 34, at least from our perspective, is already being done, and I applaud the government for encouraging important partnerships to maximize the benefits from educational budgets. Given today's economy, I anticipate an increase in collaborative agreements so that we can continue to deliver quality programming using qualified staff. However, I believe that more pressure, both positive and negative, would be advantageous to the system to encourage significant cost savings.
In considering budget matters, the OBE is adamant in its stand regarding equalization payments. We are committed to delivering cost-effective education to our learners. We are also committed to responsible representation of our ratepayers and will not facilitate the transfer of local education tax dollars to the province.
Our community was dismayed at the public release by the ministry of the information just prior to March break, as this is not, in our opinion, an example of rapport-building communication. The timing created serious concerns among our staff and our public.
On March 12 we convened a special meeting of our board to address the issue and passed a motion to start direct communication with the ministry stating, "The OBE will not facilitate the transfer of local education taxes to the province." The remainder of the motion is included in the package.
Even as I address this group today, the OBE has not yet been directly informed by the ministry of the phantom $14-million figure reported in the local paper, or the 5%, nor have we seen any related calculations. If this kind of thing can happen to the OBE, could this same policy then apply to other school boards or perhaps hospitals, or would it pave the way for cities or regional governments being asked to follow suit? Our correspondence of March 12 to the ministry about this equalization payment proposal remains unanswered and unacknowledged to this day.
Strong, clear direction from our ratepayers, local politicians at the city and regional level and businesses confirm our stand that locally collected education tax money must stay in the community from which it comes and, as education leaders, the OBE questions the appropriateness of local education taxes being diverted into the provincial general ledger.
I implore the standing committee to delete this section from Bill 34. Its inclusion suggests sweeping power for the government to direct education tax money away from education. But the use of "may" and "could" is a land mine filled with doubt and lack of clear indicators on which directors of education and their staff can plan budgets and programs. I believe most ratepayers would agree that having their supposed education taxes reallocated elsewhere to non-educational priorities at the whim of the province would be ill received at best. Leaving the Ontario community open for a tap on the shoulder by a provincial government does nothing to encourage the collaboration and team-building approach that is being sought in section 7 of the bill.
The Ottawa board sees itself as an important part of Ontario's education community and as such has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of the system. We must be part of the solutions, but the lack of open, cooperative communication surrounding the equalization payments earlier in the year does nothing to foster the teamwork necessary if we are to successfully re-engineer Ontario's education system.
The four issues addressed in Bill 34 are but one attempt by the government to maximize various aspects of delivering quality education in Ontario. They will all have far-reaching and possibly differing effects on each school board. As education leaders, we must consider holistically what we are trying to accomplish with public education in Ontario. Our classrooms and board buildings and government offices are part of the Ontario society to which we are contributing learners who are in part products of our classrooms and our school communities.
Government initiatives such as Bill 34 are important building blocks that should be helping us to create this better society. Our children are a precious natural resource that, if we invest in them wisely, will better position Ontario to be a strong player in the global community. Putting a greater emphasis on the bottom line of education now, at the exclusion of wise programming options, will only postpone and augment the problems that we will eventually have to face. As a taxpayer and a parent, I cannot support foolhardy policy changes that could jeopardize the future of my province.
There are a number of financial aspects I could discuss while considering the bigger picture of education, but in respect of time limitations, let me simply say that the time has come for a thorough review of education finances so that they are more fairly based on community needs. We all know that education funding has been tinkered with during the last few years. These Band-Aid approaches are no longer enough in the harsh reality of today's economy and I believe the right time is now for a thorough system tune up. A fair and equitable financial system must allow for unique community needs and be flexible enough to respond to society's changes. The OBE is most interested in participating in any initiatives the ministry may wish to consider to begin that re-engineering process.
In the case of the Ottawa Board of Education, I have included some statistics in the package, but I'd like to take a minute to just give you some of the facts.
The Ottawa Board of Education's cost per student: Our real cost per student is approximately $7,600, when we take into account the revenue we get from the particular special programs that we offer. I might add that these revenues do not include all transfer students from other boards, as we are still carrying the full financial costs of the McHugh section 27 students, where the average cost per student is over $10,000.
Using the ministry's definition of administration costs, the OBE spends a mere 3% of our total budget on administration of our board, and these figures fall well within the acceptable levels of Ontario standards. We have streamlined our out-of-classroom expenses significantly and have dropped from 20 to seven senior administration positions between 1970 and 1996. As well, we reduced the number of our trustees from 18 to 10 before the last election.
Fighting the poverty cycle requires an understanding of the importance of a support structure surrounding today's classes. Just as the three Rs are part of today's world in the classroom, so too are the indirect educational services that help prepare our learners to receive our education. Given today's society, we can no longer assume that children arrive at school nourished with food, love and family security, ready to absorb the day's lessons.
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I'd like you to consider a few of today's realities. The all-party federal resolution in the House of Commons declared in 1989 to eliminate child poverty in Canada by the year 2000 has not succeeded. In the Ottawa-Carleton area alone, there were 19,000 children living below the poverty line in 1986; 24,000 by 1991. Between 60% and 80% of young offenders have learning disabilities. Violent crimes have increased by 13% in 1993. Without help, more than 50% of students with learning disabilities drop out of high school. Low socioeconomic status is linked to a number of social problems. The education system has an important role to play in ending violence and improving equality through informing and modelling. These quotes are all referenced in the document.
All of these issues are concerns for the OBE. Our inner-city issues will undoubtedly differ from boards in northern communities as well as from rural boards.
The Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Community and Social Services and taxpayers alike need to keep the big picture in mind, not just as we consider Bill 34, but as we approach any project that will impact the development of society. The OBE's first priority is to its students, its staff and its ratepayers. As one of the largest boards in the province, it also has a social responsibility to contribute to the direction the province is taking with the education system.
In conclusion, I would just like to point out that it matters not whether the funding for quality education for our new social and economic realities comes from the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Community and Social Services or any other provincial or federal department, our children deserve all that can be supported by the taxpayers and the government to help them succeed in an increasingly complex world. What counts is the children in our school system and the hope that they bring to Canada's future. We must do right by our next generation of leaders.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Before turning it over for questioning, I should welcome today to the committee Mr Guzzo, Mr Newman, Mr Pettit and Mr Rollins, and on the opposition side M. Lalonde -- Mr Chiarelli will be here later on -- and Mr Martin and Mr Silipo. We have three minutes for questioning per caucus and we'll start with the government side.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): Thank you for your presentation this morning. I certainly found it most interesting and very in-depth.
Perhaps a philosophical question, if I might -- yesterday, when we were in Windsor, we received a presentation from a representative from the separate school board. In part, he addressed some of the issues that you have with respect to equalization payments and negative grant boards. From a philosophical perspective, I think, in fairness to that presenter, he understood the position that Metro and Ottawa would find themselves in, but at the same time it begs the question of how we address some of the overall educational requirements and societal demands you have raised in your presentation. As you have indicated, you want to be a part of the solution to education reform. How would you envision that unfolding and how in the interim would you address those inconsistencies or areas that currently are lacking in other jurisdictions?
Ms Hunter: I'd like to address that in two ways. First of all, I would like to remind you that the Ottawa area continues to pay both provincial income taxes and provincial sales taxes. Those are part of the base that are used to fund other educational boards across the province. So in fact, we are contributing to education across the province through that payment and none of those dollars come back to us because we don't get any grants from the province. I think we need to understand that.
In terms of overall education finance, and the reason I raised it today, I think we need to step back and look at the overall picture. We need to be able to recognize that there are differences in program needs, there are differences in community needs, and address it as a whole. What we have tried to do in the past, I think, is sort of pick around the edges. We have tried to tinker with education finance and I think we need to take an overall look and reform the overall system.
I think it would be too simplistic to suggest that we could have one cost per student or grant per student that would be equal everywhere. Needs are different. Northern boards, rural boards, we all have our special needs. Inner-city boards have special needs. I would like to make sure that when that review is done, we as a whole are part of that solution and that it allows for the differences in communities and is flexible enough to allow for changes to be made.
Mr Smith: You made reference to appropriate timing for a system tune up. In your opinion, what time frames are we looking at to achieve the goal you're speaking of?
Ms Hunter: I think that's something that should have been started yesterday, to be quite honest. I think it's something we need to work on on an ongoing basis. But we do need to plan how to do that and we need to get on with the job quickly. It's not something we can take many years to do. The system won't take that.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm the parliamentary assistant to the minister and I'll take your comments back as to the communication problems you've been experiencing.
Dealing with education finance reform, we've been now in a number of centres in the province and we're hearing the same thing everywhere we go: There needs to be education finance reform. Interestingly enough, we were yesterday in Windsor and we had some of the teachers' associations affiliates. Two of them, one from Essex and one from Windsor, both indicate that they felt the equalization payment from the board in a negative grant situation should be mandatory, so you're lucky they're not sitting here as opposed to us.
Ms Hunter: Our ratepayers don't agree. They've spoken out very loudly.
Mr Skarica: Obviously, whatever education finance reform takes place, some boards are going to be winners, some are going to be losers. That's inevitable, if I can use that term. How would you propose that the boards that are going to get less money under education finance reform than present then cope with the reduced fees? Some of the boards have told us they're operating at $4,000 to $5,000 a student, which is substantially less than what you're operating at.
Ms Hunter: I'd like to address that very directly because I think one of the problems with education finance reform and the whole issue is all these definitions. Because our board operates many high-cost programs, those costs per student are directly attributed to our board. The costs that other boards pay in buying that service from us is not attributable to that sending board. I think we need to understand that. That definition needs to be changed.
Going back to your direct question, all boards in Ontario today are struggling with financial realities. It's not easy. We put different priorities on things based on our community needs. I can't answer for particular boards of education. I know how we've dealt with it. We've cut over $20 million this year. It's been very difficult. Last night we spent the whole evening at a board meeting, and I left at 12:30. We looked at all the human resource implications in our board. We're looking at changing transportation, so that will affect some kids' ability to get to schools of their choice.
It's not easy anywhere. I think the quicker we get on to the whole idea of education finance reform the better. I don't see any reason why we can't start that right away. I think that's the real answer. To keep boards and the province tinkering around the edges of education finance is only doing that. We need to address the whole problem, and quickly.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Good morning and welcome to the hearings. I appreciate your decorum and politeness.
Ms Hunter: The boardroom didn't say it that way.
Mr Patten: As we start going around the province, one of the things this bill has tended to do is be divisive, in creating senses of resentment, senses of, "This board gets more than we do" etc, and it flushes out that kind of reaction. I know from personal contact that the ministry or the minister's office have not been in negotiations with you and still continue to talk about the equalization payments.
There's a report out of the Ottawa Citizen which says: "`The Ottawa Board of Education will be forced to hand over property taxes to the province, if not by legislation, then by other means,' education minister John Snobelen said Wednesday. He also said that if the trustees cooperate now, the board stands a better chance of receiving provincial assistance in the future." Does that intimidate you?
Ms Hunter: All I can respond is, we read that in the media as well and the minister hasn't said that to us. In terms of being intimidated, again, I will only respond, we are representing our ratepayers. Our ratepayers have said very clearly that we are not prepared to facilitate the transfer of locally collected education dollars to the general ledger fund in the province. We are representing our ratepayers in that sense.
Again, I would like to point out that not only have they not talked to us, they haven't even been in contact with us about this particular issue, and I think we need to remember that.
Mr Patten: I hope they would do that soon.
Ms Hunter: I'm not sure.
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Mr Patten: To at least sort out the problem, because I think it's unfair, given the circumstances and the nature of the funding arrangement that's there now, I'd like to ask you the most important question, and that is, what is the impact of this legislation or the cutbacks that have taken and will be taking place, the impact on the system as a whole?
Ms Hunter: In terms of kindergarten, our particular board had some difficult debates around that program issue. We are looking at trying to find alternatives to junior kindergarten. We have proposed a pilot project which would combine teachers and early childhood educators in the classroom. There's no question there's a lot of push, especially when the direction comes from the provincial government, that it is an optional program. It's unfortunate because I think everyone, even the proponents of reducing junior kindergarten, feel it's absolutely essential for many children in today's society. Unfortunately, by cutting it out of the education system, the very kids who need it may not have access to it.
Mr Patten: What's the likelihood of the impact on class sizes?
Ms Hunter: With this particular bill, in our board, nothing directly. However, in terms of overall education finance and the reduction we've been required to make because of the decreasing revenues, it's going to be substantial. We're looking at less support for special-needs students, for ESL and ESD students, and we're looking at larger class sizes across the system. At the secondary level, we're looking at not being able to provide some of the programs that have made our education system what it is. Some of our secondary classes don't have high numbers of enrolment, in the areas of languages and the arts in particular. That's going to change the education system from being something that educates the whole child to something that just provides training for the future.
Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): Thank you very much for the presentation. There are a number of things I'd like to get into, but time won't allow. I want to focus in a little on this question of what are called "equalization payments" and what you have correctly pointed out is simply the use of property tax dollars from, in this case, Ottawa to go to the provincial coffers.
I'm flabbergasted by the fact that there has been no contact with your board on this. I suggest that Mr Skarica, when he takes back the information, might also be interested in giving those folks in Windsor projections for the next five years, because that might show that they won't be as enthusiastic about this idea if they realize they're not that far from being next in line, because that's one of the things we've seen around this. Right now it's Toronto and Ottawa, but the reality is that this is going to start to take property tax dollars from a number of jurisdictions over the next number of years.
Ms Hunter: That's correct, and as you point out, given the way education finance has been played around with in the past year or so, there are many other boards that are much closer to becoming negative grant boards. Over the next few years, we would expect there would be a lot more in that circumstance. As well, as I said before, it's not just boards that this could happen to; this could happen to any other level of local government, city or region -- even hospital boards, for example -- and these are locally collected dollars for the specific purpose of education.
Mr Silipo: Are you aware that, certainly in the information the committee members have been given, the figures do appear for Toronto and Ottawa, but what also appears is a notation that says the ministry has already taken into account in its grant calculations for this year that this money will be coming from Ottawa and Toronto to the ministry? If not, it means that then, they say, other boards will have to bear those cuts. That's again, it seems to me, part of this playing off one board against another and one community against another.
Ms Hunter: Yes, I agree. A couple of people here have raised that issue. One of the things we have to remember is that we're all part of the education community. That's why I wanted to speak today about how important I think it is that we work together. We have differences, we won't always agree, but in the end, if we remember we're in it for the student, to provide the best education possible, whether it's French or English, public or separate -- that's what it's all about -- we have to find that way to work together. I think there are ways to do good education finance reform.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): You certainly present an excellent brief here and paint a very clear picture of some of the challenges facing the school system in the next little while. One of the things I wanted to point to and ask your response to is a reference you made in a number of places in your brief to the issue of poverty and children and the fact that we have to keep every change we make in education within the context of the overall impact of changes that are being made.
As you know, one of the first things this government did when it came to power was take almost 22% out of the pockets of the poorest families among us. Some 50% of people dependent on social assistance are children, or close to that, in this province. That, plus the diminishing of services for people in communities struggling with various challenges, is going to have a very direct impact on the school system and the programs it needs to deliver and all that. Could you be a bit more specific in terms of the impact it will have on your board? You gave us some numbers and you spoke to the numbers that now are out there re the question of child poverty, what this government has done by way of diminishing the resources to poor families and the education system. Is there a connection?
Ms Hunter: The first thing I would like to say, and I think it is in my brief, is that I believe we must find a way to deal with the provincial debt; there's no question. When we're dealing with children, this is their future, so we have to find a way to deal with that. However, I also believe we have to be very careful about the young people in our society. There are more and more children, certainly, who are becoming poor; there are more and more children who are socially disadvantaged. That's happening mainly because of today's economic and social realities. It's not just people in social housing; it's many of the more affluent neighbourhoods where people are losing their jobs on a regular basis. This is happening across society.
What we've tried to do in our board is put in programs that address those issues for children who are disadvantaged. We have a program called Focus on Future Schools, which is specifically designated to schools where there is a high proportion of socially disadvantaged children. We have a program called Children Learning for Living, which is a preventive mental health kind of program, and I've put information in our brochure on that.
The problem is that these are the first kinds of programs to disappear in an education system. When you're looking at tough budget decisions, everyone says, "Let's maintain the classroom." But by maintaining the classroom, in many cases it's looked at as being the classroom teacher. That's one part of the whole picture. You have to have the supports for these children, and you have to have the supports for the family, not just in the eduction system but in the community. I think it's important that we remember that and are able to maintain those supports.
To me, one the problems we've had is that we keep saying, "This is the education system." It's more than the education system. To me, it's not important whether the dollars come from the education pot or the community and social services pot or somewhere else. In the end, it's the same taxpayer. In the end, we need to find a way to make sure that these children have a good start in life, that they have a chance of success. We have to remember they're going to be supporting us in our old age.
The Vice-Chair: We'll have to leave it at that. Thank you very much for your presentation.
Ms Hunter: Thank you very much, and I would be pleased to talk with any of you if you'd like to talk off line about any of these issues directly.
WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION OF OTTAWA ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Vice-Chair: I'd next like to call upon Alia Kent, the president of the Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa, if you'd like to come forward, please.
Mrs Alia Kent: Good morning. My name is Alia Kent and I am the president of the Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa. I represent over 1,100 women elementary teachers. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to make a presentation. I will focus on two issues from Bill 34: the junior kindergarten option and the elimination of the legislated provision of the 20 days' sick leave per year.
We acknowledge that the tremendous debt load is not a debatable issue. As responsible citizens of this province, we are obligated to leave a financially sound future for our children and young people. The Ministry of Education and Training must seriously examine the issues and programs that are impacted through this goal to significantly reduce education spending.
Early childhood education and its merits are researched and informed tenets that are universal. Early intervention and detection of learning handicaps through programs such as Reading Recovery and Head Start have proven that they reduce the need for remediation in the older grades. Why then would the ministry make junior kindergarten optional?
Smaller school boards with limited educational dollars cannot afford to offer such a vital and necessary service. This appeal to maintain funding for JK is based on sound pedagogical reasoning.
Locally in Ottawa, junior kindergarten has been in existence for 50 years, but this year we came very close to losing it. The strong lobbying by the community and the JK teachers convinced the trustees to maintain it for another year. When boards like Ottawa with an enviable tax base, according to the provincial government, think twice about keeping JK, what chance do children in smaller boards have?
The Minister of Education and Training has stated that he is committed to maintaining quality programming for our students. How is this possible when one of the most effective programs will no longer be mandatory?
What is junior kindergarten? Junior kindergarten is an education program for four-year-olds which develops the skills of language, numeracy, early literacy and socialization. These are the essential skills and attributes that inculcate successful learning and create lifelong learners.
Junior kindergarten had its beginnings in Ontario in 1944 when George Drew was Premier and Minister of Education. It is worth noting that it was a Conservative Premier who introduced provincial financial support for JK.
In 1989, the government announced that school boards would be mandated to provide junior kindergarten programs. Presently, there are over 110,000 children in JK in Ontario.
What are the educational benefits of JK? Four-year-olds experience rapid and critical growth in language skills which provide a significant foundation for literacy. This growth is especially meaningful for children from other linguistic backgrounds, as it results in cost-effective development of early English-as-a-second-language competency.
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Longitudinal studies have shown significant cost benefits of early educational programs as the students move into adolescence. For every dollar spent on educating the four-year-old, there is a saving of $7 in the costs of education, health, social services and justice systems when the student is a teenager.
Unless provincial funding is available, many boards in Ontario will not be able to finance the program for our children -- our investment in the future -- with their entitlement: the most optimum learning opportunity.
The best preventive medicine for succeeding generations is the development of safe, nurturing, healthy environments for our children from zero to six years. Common sense tells us it makes good sense to capitalize on the advantages of maintaining quality junior kindergarten programs.
Effective August 31, 1998, Bill 34 removes the long-standing statutory entitlement of teachers in Ontario to be paid for up to 20 days of sick leave per school year. Between now and then, collective agreements that provide a lesser benefit to teachers can take effect. After August 31, 1998, collective agreements will be the only source of income protection for teachers with chronic or serious illnesses.
The number of sick days available to teachers is comparable to other professions such as nursing and is not excessive. Stress related to teaching has often been compared with that experienced by air traffic controllers. Teachers are also very susceptible to many illnesses because of their continuous exposure to bacteria and viruses. It is a unique phenomenon in teaching that many teachers get sick in the fall, since they lose their immunity while on summer break.
Issues surrounding sick leave and sick leave gratuities are very sacred to teachers and have on occasion resulted in strikes. Quite often other equally important working conditions were relinquished in order to maintain sick leave entitlements.
Reduction of sick leave days impacts greatly on women teachers because of the issue of pregnancies and the possibility of related complications. The maintenance of sick leave and sick leave gratuities is of extreme importance to the over 41,000 elementary women teachers in Ontario.
In conclusion, I strongly reiterate the efficacy of maintaining the mandatory status of junior kindergarten and the provision of the 20 days of sick leave.
Thank you for your time and your consideration of these issues.
I'd like to introduce Larry Myers, the president of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, who is making a presentation as well.
Mr Larry Myers: Good morning. I am Larry Myers, Ottawa district president of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation. The Ottawa district of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation represents some 345 elementary teachers, including principals and vice-principals, as well as approximately 600 occasional teachers.
As district president, I'd first of all like to thank you for allowing me this opportunity for input today. I wish to indicate some concerns about this proposed bill.
In this era of cuts to government spending, it's important not to lose sight of our goal to provide top-quality education to the children of this province.
The $400 million in education spending cuts announced by the government have put pressure on school boards to cut programs and services in a number of areas. Our school board, the Ottawa Board of Education, has announced changes that will result in the elimination of teacher librarians, a reduction in curriculum service support personnel, outdoor education teachers and speech teachers. As well, schools will be twinned, whereby one principal will be responsible for two schools, and teachers' supervisory responsibilities will increase as they take on extra noonhour supervision.
A short time ago Mr John Sweeney was invited here by the local community. His Ontario School Board Reduction Task Force suggested administration could be cut without affecting classroom teaching, but Mr Sweeney himself was not clear on what constituted administration. A suggestion that administration includes anything other than the classroom teacher does not take into account the value to the child that support personnel provide. The OBE has tailored its services to meet the unique demands of a city board with a substantial immigrant population.
Loss of services such as teacher librarians, curriculum support, English-as-a-second-language instruction and principal's contact time will greatly affect classroom instruction. That's not to mention the direct cuts in areas like junior kindergarten, as Alia has discussed, and adult education, which others here I'm sure will elaborate on.
Our board is considered a wealthy board and yet it has trimmed $20 million from its budget in an effort to prevent a tax increase this year. Bill 34 could put further strain on our school system by allowing the siphoning off of further local dollars to the provincial treasury.
We've just come through the social contract and have reduced teaching staff by 4.75%. This coming year, predictions are that student enrolment in our board will increase by 250, yet there will be 60 fewer elementary teachers. Consideration must be given to the quality of education.
Consideration must also be given to the morale of staff. Teachers are facing possible layoffs, reassignments from long-held positions, increased workloads and less support. Section 10 of Bill 34 would continue the assault on teacher morale by removing sick leave provisions from the Education Act, not because of any abuse by teachers. One would expect in an infectious school environment where children often arrive in various stages of illness that the rate of absenteeism among teachers would be high. This is not the case. I've included in the package some charts that show those figures.
The amount of paid sick leave for teachers is at present comparable to that offered to other groups. The maximum that can be accumulated for credit is also in line.
This section of Bill 34 may be seen as being politically expedient to make up for a lack of planning on behalf of some boards. Sick leave gratuities have been negotiated as part of the collective bargaining process. To reduce the number of days allowed in the Education Act would put further pressure to lower the standard of working conditions for teachers.
An effective teacher is a happy teacher who feels he or she is being treated fairly. Teachers care about the children in their care. They care about the quality of education in this province.
Funding cuts along with the provisions of Bill 34 represent a rapid and significant restructuring of education that will lower standards for our students. As well, these measures serve to provide a serious assault on teachers and their duly negotiated working conditions. OPSTF, Ottawa district, does not support this legislation.
Mr Patten: Good morning and welcome to the hearings. I would like to first of all address Mrs Kent. You asked a question in your presentation, which was, why then would the government make junior kindergarten optional? I would like to give you a scenario as to why.
First of all, this whole bill by and large is not dealing with anything to fix education. You have to see all of these things as windows of a way for the government to take money out of education -- and I underline "totally out of education." This is not going to redistribute money to other areas of the province. This is money that will go and contribute to the government's tax commitment. That's what it really is all about. As you know, those who are in the higher tax bracket will benefit the most. People will get some money in the left pocket and then find out later on that out of the right pocket they're going to be paying for services or they'll get less services or they'll get less quality. That's the motivation behind this whole bill. It has nothing to do with helping the quality of education. That's a bias, I will be told, because I'm in opposition and I'm a critic, but that's my critique of it.
I will ask you, in terms of junior kindergarten, in the whole area, how many of the boards in the area will be maintaining or dropping junior kindergarten?
Mrs Kent: Presently, I believe there are about 22 boards that have opted to drop junior kindergarten, but there are many more that are considering that as well. That's very disappointing because, as I said, we are basing our arguments on sound pedagogical reasoning, and that's why we don't understand why something so important should become optional.
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Mr Patten: We have heard incredible testimony from every level, practitioners, experts in the field, psychiatrists, psychologists, educational researchers, professors etc -- I've learned more about junior kindergarten in the last year than I have in my lifetime -- and the evidence is overwhelming, so pedagogically there's no question as to the validity of junior kindergarten.
The problem is that this not an education bill; it's a money bill. So when those arguments are presented, the government is caught in a tough corner, because they're trying to make arguments to justify junior kindergarten being cut on the grounds that the parents want it to be optional, this kind of thing. I don't know of very many people who want that to be optional. I suppose there may be a few, but the evidence suggests that we're wise -- you look around the world and you see how many countries are adding and increasing and even moving to four- and three-year-old programs in their educational system, and here we are moving in exactly the opposite direction.
Larry, what do you think are going to be the impacts of these kinds of cuts on class sizes throughout the school system, or let's say on the board of education?
Mr Myers: In our board there has been a movement to maintain the class size per se, so the class size has not been affected at this point, but I think that's a bit of misrepresentation of the actual situation, because the amount of support staff has been severely cut, and this has a dramatic effect on the class situation. When support personnel such as English-as-a-second-language teachers are cut back severely or remedial library resources, those kinds of situations, they have to have an impact on the classroom.
Mr Patten: Class sizes?
Mr Myers: Class sizes are being maintained at this point. There is pressure on that to increase, but at this point, with the OBE, the impact is being felt in these other areas at this time. All of the cuts, as I mentioned, the 60 full-time equivalent positions that are being eliminated this year, are coming out of other areas, but they will have an effect on the classroom teacher.
The classroom teachers are being called upon to do extra supervisory duties at lunch-hours, for instance, which naturally has to cut into their time at some point. In the areas of planning, marking, extracurricular activities, those kinds of things will all have to suffer.
Mr Patten: A teacher near and dear to me yesterday told me that she was informed that in their school their classes would be increased from eight to 10 students a class. That's in the OBE. Maybe it's not typical; maybe it's just that school.
Mr Myers: I'm not sure where that information would have come from.
Mr Martin: Thank you for coming before us today and presenting such a very --
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): Was it your wife who told you that?
Mr Patten: Yes, it was.
Mr Guzzo: Don't be ashamed to announce it.
Mr Patten: No, I'm not ashamed at all.
Mr Guzzo: She benefited when you were in power, didn't she? You were throwing that money around like a drunken sailor.
The Vice-Chair: Hold it now. Mr Martin has the floor.
Mr Martin: Certainly there is an onslaught at this particular point in time on anything that falls under the rubric of public service, and certainly education is one of those very valuable instruments that we have to prepare students, as a matter of fact, to prepare people to take their places in the world. Before you, the Ottawa Board of Education painted a picture of some of the challenges that will be faced by them as they try to come to terms with the new reality and the shortage of money, and within that, the most important person is the teacher and the teacher's morale and the teacher's ability to do the job that they all want to do and how this will affect that.
I think we also have to put this in the context of the other things that are happening out there to children within our society, and I talked earlier about the reduction in the amount of money that's now going to the poorest of the families who live within our communities. It was 21.6% that was taken directly out of the take-home pay of those families, and those families, of course, are responsible for making sure those kids are fed before they come to school, that they've got proper clothing and that they have a good place to live. When they come to school, they present at the door, and you as the teacher then have to take it from there. What do you anticipate will be the impact, given some of what you present here as issues of morale and ability re health and that of teachers to deliver? What impact will that have on teachers and their ability and the system?
Mr Myers: I think we're seeing the effects already in a number of ways, on teachers and on morale. This particular year, it's been a difficult budget for the OBE to deal with, and as a result, we're into this situation now where we're looking at a reduction in staffing and reduction in support services, and I think in part the uncertainty has affected teachers' morale.
We have been in the situation, I guess, as many other groups have been, where wages are not increasing, wages have been frozen. We've had some deductions as far as the social contract is concerned. So the money issues are in play as well.
In my experience, I'm seeing an increase in situations where teachers under stress are being involved in activities perhaps that might be inappropriate, an activity where they would need counselling. It's very difficult to get counselling services now at the board because there's so much demand on them, it seems. We're also finding that there are a number of teachers who are applying for long-term disability because of stress-related issues.
So we're seeing that teachers are being asked to do more with less, and it's having an effect in a number of different ways.
The Vice-Chair: The government side, Mr Preston. I've got four people on the government side, so if you can make it short.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): I'll be fast, as fast as I can possibly be.
Like Mr Patten, my wife is a teacher. My daughter-in-law is an early childhood educator, so if you want to equate those two wages, one is half of the other.
I have trouble with equating early childhood education and junior kindergarten. They're not necessarily the same. Mr Patten is correct. We have heard expert after expert after expert telling us about early childhood education, but that starts at six months with eye contact, coordination, recognition.
Do you agree that early childhood education can take place in alternative sites and with alternative educators other than the school?
Mrs Kent: We are not debating the issue that early childhood education and early childhood educators are equally important in the lives of children. What we are talking about is why JK is important, and that is because once the children come into the school system, the teachers have a global picture of education, they're able to discuss grade levels, they're able to prepare the children in the school environment, and that's why it's important to maintain JK, not because of whatever happens with early childhood education, but because of what happens from JK until they leave high school.
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Mr Preston: The thrust of all the experts we've talked about and talked to has been that early childhood education identifies problems, allows social interaction, and then they move to kindergarten, which prepares them for school. Why does JK have to be the sole arbiter of early childhood education at four years of age or three years of age or two years of age? At what point do we really start to subsidize early childhood education when it starts at six months?
Mrs Kent: I believe that seamless model of delivery was considered and rejected because it is so expensive. We're saying that there is a public system already in place. Junior kindergarten is one of the extremely important programs that's offered there, and it can continue and be maintained. That's why we are beseeching the government to reconsider that.
Mr Preston: Just one fast statement: There are many early childhood education centres in existence now that are working at half the price of junior kindergarten.
Mrs Kent: Looking at different delivery models is certainly an option.
Mrs Janet Ecker (Durham West): I think it's worth noting that we're not proposing to eliminate sick days or disability, but I'm very curious about the comparison that's been made many times yesterday and today with another high-stress occupation, nurses, who according to the information we've been provided have about 18 sick days, I understand, and are exposed to their clients, if you will, who are much sicker, on a year-round basis. Teachers, as you note, get significant breaks from the teacher-student ratio, so why would they need the 20 days? Is there any room to manoeuvre here? Why do they need more sick days, if you will, than nurses?
Mrs Kent: You're talking a difference of two days.
Mrs Ecker: I know, but in terms of negotiating and looking at where there are ways to moderate cost increases for boards, this has been a suggestion that's been put forward and it's something where there's the discipline of collective bargaining over what can happen with that. I certainly don't think any of the teachers' federations have been indicating their inability to bargain very strongly. I just wondered if there are any comments on the difference.
Mrs Kent: I don't know if the number 20 is really what is debatable here or what the issue is. It is the idea that something that has been statutory will now become a negotiating, collective bargaining item. We see that as an erosion of the kind of things that, as we were saying, are a sacred trust, of something that has become a tradition and a long-standing culture, and all of a sudden many of the -- it's looked at as a stripping of collective bargaining rights and issues.
Mrs Ecker: How does it strip collective bargaining, though, when collective bargaining is what governs it?
Mrs Kent: The more options you introduce, there is more of a chance of losing many of the things that we consider to be sacred.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Kent and Mr Myers.
Mr Myers: Could I reply to that very briefly? I think we're talking here about insurance. The statistics that I provided in my package would indicate that the actual use of sick leave is quite low for teachers. When individuals are in some difficulty because of poor health, that's what this insurance is there for. It should be a standard.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. I wish we had more time, but the rules were set that it be 30-minute limits and we want to be fair to everybody.
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: Next we have Donna Marie Kennedy, the president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, Carleton unit. Welcome to our meeting.
Ms Donna Marie Kennedy: Thank you very much. My name is Donna Marie Kennedy and I represent the Catholic teachers of Carleton. To my right is Neil Doherty, one of our staff people from our Toronto office. I want to thank you, first of all, for allowing me to have time to present to the committee today.
The Carleton unit of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association represents the 1,380 women and men who teach for the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board. These teachers work in both the elementary and secondary panels, from junior kindergarten to grade 12/OAC.
We have major concerns about Bill 34. While there are certain sections of the act with which this association can agree, other proposals cause us grave concern. The primary areas of concern, and the ones I wish to address today, are the proposed amendments on junior kindergarten, adult education and the sick leave entitlement. These amendments are a direct attack on the classroom and the professionals who serve the students in the classrooms. Who did the government single out? The most vulnerable: the very young and those who have dropped out but who have chosen to return to school to better their chances at being productive individuals in an ever-changing Ontario.
As a Catholic teachers' organization committed to social justice, we have seen and indeed experienced the devastating effects that this government's policies are having on the classrooms of this province and on the students and teachers of the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Despite the protestations and assertions of this government, the cuts are directly affecting the classroom and the students. The proposed amendments to junior kindergarten and adult education funding are prime examples.
The Catholic teachers of this province and of Carleton have continued to serve the students they teach with considerably fewer resources than other constituencies. Despite this fact, the proposed amendments will have a greater impact on assessment-poor boards, boards like the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board.
Junior kindergarten: No doubt you've heard from a number of groups regarding the importance of junior kindergarten. There are longitudinal studies that fully support early intervention and effective education for young children. Some of these observations are a direct result of the report on the Royal Commission on Learning in 1994.
The report made the following observations with respect to early childhood education.
By age 3 there are substantial differences among children in their understanding of how to count and calculate.
By age 4 the failure of a great many of our children to acquire knowledge and understanding will have serious consequences for their formal education.
By the time children begin grade 1, variations in oral language, vocabulary and comprehension are so great that it is difficult for teachers to narrow the distance between children who are more and less ready to learn in a formal setting.
Children identified in grade 1 as having a poor prognosis for school success all too often do become unsuccessful students and eventual school failures.
Effective school readiness programs are known to make a substantial difference for children's ability to benefit from compulsory education at age 6.
There are additional studies and reports that have been presented to you by our provincial organization, including Dr Mustard of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research and the Ypsilanti Perry Preschool Project. These studies clearly indicate that:
Promoting the wellbeing of children and defending their entitlements must become society's highest priority.
Children have the right to a secure life, education and the opportunity to achieve their potential.
A country that is trying to raise educational standards cannot afford to lose out by allowing its youngest children to be undereducated at a time in their development when they are most open to new learning.
Most of the countries in the world that are held up to Ontarians as those with which we must be prepared to compete are countries with very extensive formal early education programs: China, the Arab states, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and Japan. Those countries continually berating their schools and parents for poor showings in international assessments are those which consistently refuse to see the early years as important to the economic future of their societies.
The relationships between young children and their parents and between the family and the state in one nation have consequences for all.
In literate societies, the most disempowered and disfranchised are the illiterates. Children have rights. They have the right to literacy. They have the right to be assisted and guided in their learning.
Children are more likely to cope successfully with their first school experiences if they come to them with a history of positive experiences of being in a group away from home.
According to a recent survey by UNICEF, Canada's children are among the world's most troubled. Called The Progress of Nations, the report shows that Canada has the world's highest rate of suicide among young children.
Junior kindergarten provides a level playing field for all students regardless of their socioeconomic background. Despite these findings, the government has slashed funding for junior kindergarten. Boards like the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board which choose to offer a junior kindergarten program do so at a decided disadvantage and at a cost to the quality of programming. I'm going to give you a specific example of how these cuts are affecting the classroom.
In the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board's most recent proposal, class sizes for the JK program have increased dramatically. It would allow junior kindergarten classes to exist with 32 students in the room and the class not splitting until there are 33 students in the room. Prior to the social contract, the system-wide average class size for both junior and senior kindergarten was 18.25 to 1. The new staffing model is 24 to 1.
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These large class sizes will exist despite additional studies that clearly indicate the advantage and importance of small class sizes. A comprehensive study in Tennessee, called Project STAR, involved 6,500 students from across the state. It clearly showed that smaller class sizes in the earlier grades dramatically affect the success of students. In an article published in the Citizen on April 9, 1996, reports from Project STAR indicated that the average pupil "moved from the 50th percentile to the 60th percentile after one year in a small class." I have that article and the study here for the members of the committee.
Junior kindergarten is continuing in some jurisdictions, including our board. However, the dramatic cuts to junior kindergarten funding will have a direct impact on the other instructional areas as class sizes increase across our system. It is ironic that while many US states -- and, I would add, Republican-controlled states -- are moving towards smaller class sizes and earlier intervention and education programs, Ontario is doing exactly the opposite. But at what future costs?
We recommend that junior kindergarten be maintained in the Education Act as a mandatory program with certified teachers and that funding be maintained at existing levels.
Adult education: The proposed cuts to adult education grants will also disadvantage those individuals who for whatever reasons have not followed the regular steps to attain a high school diploma. These individuals are attempting, through a prescribed program, to better themselves and to become more productive citizens in an ever more competitive society.
Adult education has been a highly successful program in Ontario and indeed in the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board.
Adult education is unique in that it directly and almost immediately prepares individuals to play a more productive role in society. In our board, 75 people graduated last year from St Nicholas Adult High School; 34 went on to Algonquin College and the vast majority of the rest of the people went directly to the world of work. I would say that's a very successful program.
School boards are institutions able to grant an Ontario secondary school diploma as a key to future education and training.
School boards already have the programs and the staff to offer the proper training.
In 1980, 6.6% of secondary students were adult learners. By 1992, 25.2% of secondary students were adult learners. I'm not going to go through those statistics; you can look at those at your leisure.
The recent changes to the adult education grants have resulted in our board declaring 24 positions surplus. It has also resulted in the class sizes in those adult high school programs moving from 25 to 1 to 30 to 1. I would remind you that many of the people who returned to high school are people who have had severe problems in their first experience in high school. The comment of one of the students upon receiving this information when our teachers were cut was that this government views them as second-class students and, it would appear, second-class citizens.
The reduced grants will force class sizes to unmanageable numbers as boards run these programs on a cost-recovery basis.
The vast majority of students in adult high school programs also have learning disabilities. They require one-on-one support.
We recommend that the amendments to the adult education sections of the Education Act be withdrawn and that funding be maintained at existing levels.
Sick leave: The amendments contained in subsection 5(2) and section 10 will delete the statutory entitlement of teachers to any sick leave with pay. The amendments will affect sick leave accumulation and the portability of sick leave. The teachers of Carleton have no retirement gratuity. However, the changes to this section will have a dramatic effect on long-term disability, the long-term disability costs and the protection of those individuals who have serious long-term illnesses. Has any consideration been given to these costs, both financial and in human terms?
Our recommendation is that the proposed amendments on sick leave provisions be withdrawn.
Equalization payments: The proposed amendments enable school boards to make equalization payments to the province so that the impact of grant reductions is shared by all boards. The amendment stipulates that a board may make an equalization payment which does not exceed the negative grant amounts. Given the language of the legislation, it is clear that the government is depending on the goodwill of boards to comply. Was this goodwill evident during the social contract?
The association views the smokescreen of volunteerism as a token effort on the part of government to address the issue of negative-grant boards. The bottom line is, this part of the act will further exacerbate the plight of assessment-poor boards since they will in effect pay the share which cannot be extracted from negative-grant boards.
In short -- and I want to change this because of present actions that have happened in education in Ontario -- the rich will get poor, while the poor will become impoverished.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association believes that the language must be mandatory because this is an issue of adequate funding which provides equity and fairness for all assessment-poor boards, both public and separate.
We recommend that the equalization payments for the boards in the negative-grant situation be mandatory.
Finally, there's the issue of cooperation. I won't read my notes; I'm sure you'll be able to follow that afterwards. But we certainly support cooperation and we support that recommendation of the bill. Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for a very interesting presentation. We have four minutes per caucus and we start with Mr Silipo.
Mr Silipo: Let me just start from that last point that you made, because I want to challenge a little bit your conclusion on that and suggest that you take a look at that, because I think that what you're doing is buying into what exactly this government wants to do, which is to pit one school board against another.
There are problems with funding. I certainly know, as a former Minister of Education, that there are and there have been attempts to try to remedy that. I don't think that this is the way to do it. The grant formula really is completely broken and establishing such an entity as a negative-grant board really is just another way of playing around with statistics and numbers, because those grant numbers can be adjusted up or down with a small change in any one of the various grants that exist to have all boards be positive-grant boards if the ministry so chose.
So it's a bit of a hoax, quite frankly, that's been put onto boards so that in effect boards like yours that are poorer on a relative scale can then say, "We should get our share of that money from the `richer' boards." I just think it's completely the wrong way to go and I just wanted to say that. If you have a comment I'd be happy to hear it.
Ms Kennedy: No, I think we all know and I'm sure everybody around this table knows that educational finance is severely broken in this province and it has to be fixed in the way education is funded in the province. We have seen over the last number of years the province's commitment to education on a very slippery slide and it's unconscionable that a province like Ontario would allow that to happen.
I don't care what government it happens to be, whether it be Liberal, Conservative or NDP. We either put our money in our future or we don't.
Mr Silipo: That actually is the other point I wanted to pursue because I appreciated very much your comments earlier on in your presentation about the importance of junior kindergarten, as others have pointed out to us this morning. In your presentation, there was also the reference to other jurisdictions where regardless of whichever political party or movement has been in government from the political spectrum, from the right to the left and the centre, there has been an understanding and a recognition about the value of investing in the early years of children in terms of education and early childhood education.
Mr Preston talked earlier about the link with ECE and that you don't provide all of that through just junior kindergarten. I just remind him that in fact that's what the early years program was all about, which was to try to fuse together, starting with three-year-olds and according to the Royal Commission on Learning eventually down to two-year-olds even, the notion of junior kindergarten with early childhood education. Unfortunately, it was one of the first things that this government, his government, chose to cut, and now the attack continues on junior kindergarten.
What I find most objectionable about all this is that we're not talking here about a situation in which the government is saying, "We have to find $400 million or $800 million in the education budget in order to fix some other things that exist within the education system." They're saying, "We need to take that money out of the system to reduce the deficit," or, as others have pointed out, to help pay for the tax cut. And that's what I think makes all of this more objectionable. This is not a question of fixing the problems that exist within the school system; it's just a question of exacerbating those problems and of pitting boards one against the other.
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Ms Kennedy: If I could just comment on that, I think the important thing -- and I respect the importance of early childhood education. But what junior kindergarten is for -- and I'll quote from the royal commission: "The long-term educational benefits stem not from what children are specifically taught but from effects on children's attitude to learning, on their self-esteem and on their task orientation. Learning how to learn may be as important as the specifics of what is learned." That's why the seamless day is important for junior kindergarten, kindergarten and into the primary grades.
Mr Martin: You certainly point out, particularly early on in your presentation, that this is a continuation of an attack by the present government on children, and on poor children in particular. Junior kindergarten, as you say, is a levelling exercise for all children.
Are the teachers you represent beginning to find any particular change or challenge re the number of kids now coming to school because of the lowered amount of money going into the households of poor families? Are they coming to school hungrier or are they presenting more problems as they show up at the classroom door?
Ms Kennedy: I don't think there's any question of that. If we looked around our school system and saw the ever-increasing numbers of breakfast programs that are required for students who are coming to school hungry and tired and needing support -- and I'm talking about special education support. In all of these cuts, those people who have traditionally supported those children in the classroom, they also are being cut. That's a major concern for us as a teachers' organization. The needs of children are ever increasing, the supports for children are ever decreasing, and it's a major area of concern.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I'd like to continue with what Mr Martin was talking about, his vision that there's a perceived attack on children. I guess I have to ask Mr Martin if he's actually read the budget or not. The question I have for you, Ms Kennedy, is, have you read the budget that was recently released and what were your thoughts on it?
Ms Kennedy: I think what we have to look at is that the attacks on education were prior to the release of the budget and those attacks on education are having a profound effect on the students we're teaching. I think when we talk about attacks on programs, that means an attack on children, because if it means that we don't have a special education teacher to support the child who has physical challenges or mental challenges or behavioural challenges, then that child is being impacted on directly.
Mr Newman: My question would be, in the budget, child care funding was increased by $50 million a year to $600 million a year, which is the highest in the history of this province, and that doesn't include the additional money available for child care support for those on social assistance trying to get back to work. There's an additional $5 million for nutrition programs, $10 million for speech disorders and up to $20 million next year, and $10 million to help high-risk mothers prevent low-birth-weight babies. Is this going to help the situation?
Ms Kennedy: I guess I'll have to turn it around to another question for you, Mr Newman. What happens to that money that's already been extracted from education? Those moneys that you're talking about don't help the child in the classroom that I'm dealing with right now.
Mr Newman: It sounds like from the presentation you're making -- and maybe I'm reading you wrong, but can any savings be found in education or is the status quo fine?
Ms Kennedy: Mr Newman, I'm going to talk specifically about my board because that's my experience. My experience is that in my particular board, we don't have any teacher-librarians, we don't have any music teachers, we don't have any lunchtime supervision programs, we don't have a retirement gratuity, and these cuts that hit our board and our teachers and our students are exactly the same as other cuts across the province.
Mr Newman: So should I take that as a no, that no savings can be found in education?
Ms Kennedy: Not in my board, as far as I'm concerned.
Mr Skarica: I'd like to talk about the retirement gratuity for a moment -- I'm surprised to hear that you don't have one -- because this is the situation that's been told to us in the province of Ontario. Our government calculates there's approximately a $1-billion unfunded liability by the boards for that gratuity and that's a gratuity that a teacher gets when they retire. None of that goes to the children in the classroom.
In any event, we heard yesterday a really stunning statistic from Mary Jean Gallagher, who's the director of education in the Windsor board. She feels that the unfunded liability is closer to $10 billion. That's $10 billion that the taxpayers will pay that will never go to the classroom. I note from the Carleton board, their retirement gratuities, they have no reserve funds in a close to $59-million retirement gratuity.
In light of all that, one of your sister boards or brother boards, I'm not sure what's politically correct, but the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, which does have the retirement gratuity, made this comment and they put it in writing, "That in the event that our employer resists granting teachers 20 days of sick leave, refuses accumulation and further refuses that such accumulation can be used for retirement gratuity purposes, strikes will definitely occur with our board."
I'd like your comment. Are you going to go on strike if you don't get retirement gratuity? Obviously, you don't because you don't get it now.
Ms Kennedy: I don't have a retirement gratuity, so I couldn't possibly. It's not part of my collective agreement.
Mr Skarica: We're not taking away what's already accumulated. We're making it subject to negotiation. That seems to be an area for substantial savings which won't impact on the classroom at all. We're talking about a $10-billion potential unfunded liability.
Ms Kennedy: With all due respect, Mr Skarica, I'm surprised that they are unfunded liabilities, first of all.
Mr Skarica: But they are.
Ms Kennedy: These are corporations that should have -- and some jurisdictions have put moneys aside for that. So the fact that there are unfunded liabilities in particular jurisdictions is not my concern. But I think what is my concern are those issues that different groups have negotiated collective agreements. That's their right and their duty to negotiate the best collective agreement for their group.
Mr Skarica: Yes, but what about the children?
Ms Kennedy: Listen, I'm a child advocate as much as I'm sure you are, but I think those individuals who negotiate collective agreements negotiate those collective agreements with their particular group in mind. I'm speaking today on behalf of the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board teachers.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): The one question I had, I think Mr Newman covered it, was obviously your association feels that your board has done everything possible to find savings without affecting the classroom. Is that correct?
Ms Kennedy: The classroom has been drastically affected.
Mr Pettit: Okay. The other thing is, recently in Hamilton, the Hamilton Roman Catholic separate school board found savings of $3 million through a deal with their teachers where they reduced benefits rather than affecting classroom education spending. I'm just wondering if there's any possibility that your association is looking at anything along those lines with your board.
Ms Kennedy: No.
Mr Jean-Marc Lalonde (Prescott and Russell): Thank you for your presentation. I've noticed that you're in support of school boards that enter into an agreement with other school boards. Noticing that one of the very important issues is sick days, what would be your position on a province-wide collective agreement? There's been talk about it for a while, that there should probably be a province-wide agreement instead of individual agreements.
Ms Kennedy: I'm personally and the association is absolutely opposed to that kind of bargaining. I think the collective bargaining in Bill 100 has worked remarkably well in the province of Ontario and I think if people examine the history of Bill 100 and the way that it has worked, you would see that it's been a most productive bill and has worked well for both the teachers and the citizens of Ontario.
Mr Patten: Good to see you again. Donna, we were in Windsor yesterday, as was pointed out, and Reverend Joseph Redican from the Roman Catholic separate school board in Windsor was addressing the issue of junior kindergarten and suggested that making junior kindergarten optional it created a competitiveness between school boards, especially between the separate and public boards. His thesis was, once you lose a child to one system, and of course it's optional as to whether in communities you join the separate school system or not, once that child is lost, that child is probably lost forever. This creates great strains in the separate school board. What would be your reaction to that?
Ms Kennedy: I think every child in the province of Ontario has a right to junior kindergarten, whether they go to the public school system or whether they go to the other publicly funded school system in Ontario, which is the separate school system. But I think that's why junior kindergarten has to be funded fairly across this province and fully funded, so that it doesn't matter whether I go to school in Cochrane, Ontario, or whether I go to school in Toronto in a public school or a separate school, or whether I happen to go to school in Prescott and Russell. I should have the right to attend junior kindergarten in any of those jurisdictions.
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Mr Patten: You talked about the class sizes in junior kindergarten, moving up from sort of pre-social-contract of 18 to 25 to 32 students.
Ms Kennedy: That's what the board has presented us with, and we're in the midst of negotiations, that at 32 students, if another additional student was added at that point, the class would be split.
Mr Patten: Some boards, in their decision to maintain or retain junior kindergarten, have been examining having a mix of certified teachers along with some early childhood educators on sort of a team supervised by the certified teacher. Some federations, understandably, say, "No, they've all got to be certified teachers or there's no program." Others are saying: "Let's look at it. It may be half a loaf, but it's better than no loaf at all." What would be your reaction to some kind of a mix in order to protect the program?
Ms Kennedy: I think we already have that. In our system I can speak specifically for that. For instance, in a class of 29 junior kindergartens, we have the support of a teaching assistant and quite often those teaching assistants have either early childhood education diplomas or other forms of education.
Mr Preston: They must have.
Ms Kennedy: No, they don't have to. They might have, for instance, a developmental specialist certificate, to work with special-needs students.
Mr Preston: Oh, all right.
Mr Patten: Donna, your statistic on page 10, 1980, 6.6% of secondary students were adult learners, and by 1992, 25.2% of secondary students were adult learners, and presumably 1996 would even be higher -- given the pressure on capacity to maintain adult education in its fullness, it seems to me that is a very tough decision. What do you see as the alternatives for boards that will have to either drop or cut in half or limit their adult education for the adult learners?
Ms Kennedy: I would seriously ask all parties to look at those people who come back to school, those people who are post-21 and who have come back to school for whatever reason. Some of those people in our particular program are recovering alcoholics, they've come back to school at a great personal cost and they've come back to get an education. I think when we educate those people who have made a commitment to come back and to be educated, in the long run you're saving money.
I think you carefully need to look at these statistics of the number of people who are attending adult education programs, day school programs, the number of people who graduate from those programs and the number of those people who are now successful members of society, whether they are attending post-secondary education or whether they have gone directly into a position in the workforce. That, ladies and gentlemen, I think is the best form of workfare, the fact that these people are educated and then are making their own living.
The Vice-Chair: With that, we'll have to leave the subject right now, but we'd like to thank you very much for your very interesting presentation.
Next we have Kyle Murray, the director of education, and Ann MacGregor, the chairman of the Carleton Board of Education. As they come up, I believe Mr Skarica, you've presented the committee with some information that was requested yesterday. Could you just elaborate on that for a moment? Do you have it now?
Mr Skarica: Yes, this is a per-pupil survey, and what it does is it outlines the per-pupil costs of all the pupils in both the elementary and the secondary schools in the boards throughout the province, and the key statistic for the members is the operating cost; it's the third row from the right.
The Vice-Chair: Just so we're clear, this is with respect to a request that was made by Mr Wildman yesterday, and he requested information about the status of the Ministry of Education's current review of junior kindergarten in the province. In that discussion, this particular survey came up but I guess it's up to Mr Wildman to determine whether he feels his particular request for information has been answered. This was part of the information, but the rest of it we'll leave up to him.
Mr Skarica: I have other information, but do you want to wait until Mr Wildman is here? It would probably be fairer to do that.
The Vice-Chair: All right, that's fair enough. Thank you for the information. Also, just by way of a housekeeping note, for those people who are staying in the hotel, if you could check out between 12 and 1, a light lunch will be served in here. We're on the plane at 4:30, so we have to be out of here no later than 3:30, or I guess no later than whenever the last delegation is, a half an hour after that. You won't have time to check out after that, so if you could do so between 12 and 1.
CARLETON BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Vice-Chair: With that, I'd like to welcome the chair and director of education of the Carleton Board of Education. You have half an hour to make a presentation, which includes any questions or comments that there may be from the committee members. Welcome to our meeting.
Mrs Ann MacGregor: Mr Chairman and committee members, I'd like to start by thanking you for the opportunity to speak to you this morning.
When the province announced its cuts to the education sector last November of $400 million in 1996 and $800 million to $1 billion for 1997, it indicated that boards would receive assistance in the form of legislative changes, commonly referred to as the "toolkit." Subsequently, the impact in 1996 was eased by a freeze on capital spending, which was deducted from the $400 million. However, with the exception of making junior kindergarten optional, the legislative tools intended to assist school boards with their spending reductions were of no assistance in the 1996 budget. Other tools included in the announcement did not provide immediate relief for the Carleton board's budget problems.
Changes to sick leave entitlements will require difficult negotiations with our nine unions. Any change to the retirement gratuity incentive will have no impact until about 20 years in the future. Similarly, modifications for adult day school assume that boards can negotiate changes with secondary school federations which will allow the restructuring of the adult day program under continuing education. It would be fair to expect boards to undertake responsibility for negotiating such changes for the longer term were it not for the fact that the grant reductions these measures were meant to address were immediate. Not only were the reductions immediate, but for all practical purposes they were retroactive. For 1996, a year's worth of savings had to be achieved in four months.
Since 1991, the Carleton board has reduced its operating expenses by $52.5 million. This involved the elimination of 386 academic positions and 385 administration and support positions and numerous cuts to programs and services, including capping of SETAs -- a SETA is a special education teacher's assistant -- and changes to transportation entitlements. During this period, it must be remembered that the enrolment of the Carleton board increased by 2,400 students, even after taking into account the elimination of the junior kindergarten program. Contrary to figures quoted in the Ontario School Board Reduction Task Force report, this board's central administrative costs are between 3% and 4%. Any further funding reductions will hurt the system deeply and will of necessity have an impact on the classroom, either directly or indirectly.
In spite of continuously decreasing grants, the board has been able to keep its mill rate increase below 3% in the past few years. This year the board approved a mill rate increase of 1.94%. While the Carleton board has always tried to lessen the impact on the classroom, this year with great reluctance it had to cancel the junior kindergarten, not for pedagogical reasons -- the value of the program is undisputed -- but because the board could no longer afford it. It was a choice between this and continuing to slice away at the quality of programs and services for kindergarten to the OAC students.
The Carleton board supports the provincial government in its efforts to reduce the provincial deficit and to disentangle the complexity around funding and governance. We believe, however, that this must be a joint effort between the province and boards of education if these objectives are to be achieved. Adequate and ongoing consultation must take place. While boards of education have to provide constructive suggestions for ways of reducing spending, the ministry will have to provide the legislative powers to give the boards the flexibility they need to restructure.
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The board appreciates the permissive changes in sick leave entitlement. However, there must be sufficient lead time to accomplish these changes through the negotiation process. The teachers' federations have clearly stated that they will work vigorously to safeguard the existing provisions in their contracts. Negotiation for change will not be easy. A provincial legislated approach is essential if this is one of the tools intended to help us meet the imposed reductions for 1996-97 fiscal year.
In addition to the measures in Bill 34, we are offering some concrete suggestions for other areas that should be considered. To assist school boards with restructuring, the CBE believes that provincial legislation should be provided for user fees in certain areas; adequate funding for new Ministry of Education and Training initiatives; creative and flexible approaches to the school day and the school year; more flexibility in staffing; greater incentives for shared transportation; and rather than taking a piecemeal approach, a wholesale reform of education funding is needed. I'll expand on each of these.
The Carleton board has for a number of years supported user fees for transportation. The board believes its core business is education and this should be its primary focus.
During public input sessions in this year's budget process, there were numerous presentations by parents and ratepayers suggesting that the board should be permitted to charge user fees and indicating willingness to pay fees rather than see further reductions in educational programs. These suggestions for user fees went far beyond transportation and included possible charges for programs such as junior kindergarten and adult day school.
In an ongoing effort to reduce transportation costs, the board has over the last few years implemented double and triple busing in many areas of its jurisdiction, and this year has reduced the provision of OC Transpo passes for secondary students to a five-month period. The CBE continues to work towards joint busing with the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board in order to find further cost reductions.
Most recently, the board approved a motion to petition the ministry for permission to charge a nominal user fee for the home-school transportation, without loss of grants, to further relieve the board of part of the cost of providing transportation without imposing the entire cost on the parents. The board believes it should be allowed to charge fees for extracurricular transportation, such as late buses.
Other areas that could be considered for user fees would be a deposit for textbooks to offset the loss incurred for textbooks that are not returned and for non-mandated programs such as continuing education credit courses. In the case of textbooks which are not returned, the annual cost to the Carleton board is approximately $140,000 a year.
The board supports ministry efforts to improve the level of computer technology in the classroom and the recent announcement of government incentives of $20 million to be matched by school boards in the private sector.
On several occasions in the past, the board has emphasized the need for adequate funding to implement any new initiatives from the Ministry of Education and Training. While in the past some funding has been provided during the initial stages of a program, it is often token in nature, discontinued after the service has been established or has been inadequate to meet increasingly prescriptive standards spelled out by the ministry.
Ongoing costs should be recognized and provided for in the grant structure. In view of the financial constraints boards continue to face, the Carleton board believes that consultation should take place before any additional new programs are mandated.
The board is supportive of recent announcements that curriculum materials will be classroom-ready and accessible for staff. We hope this approach will apply to all new initiatives.
One change to the Education Act which would solve many problems for school boards is to stipulate the length of the school workday. For example, if the workday were set at seven hours, this would give two hours a day for preparation time, before- and after-school supervision, staff meetings and training. In other words, teachers could spend the instructional day teaching and attend to other duties during the rest of the workday.
The savings would be considerable. Ministry estimates of the cost of teacher preparation and on-call time amount to $20.8 million a year for the Carleton board. Schools would have greater flexibility in organizing preparation time and could restructure accordingly. We request that this change be seriously considered for early inclusion in the Education Act and that other creative approaches to the school year and the school day be explored.
The board has studied the issue of year-round schooling and information from areas where it has been implemented. Given the overcrowding in some areas of the board's jurisdiction and the current moratorium on capital projects, this approach may, out of necessity, be given more serious consideration in the future. However, in some areas, this too requires substantial costs to, for instance, air-condition older buildings.
The board supports the ministry efforts to allow boards greater flexibility in staffing in areas such as library and guidance and would encourage an expansion to kindergarten programs. In addition to the Education Act, changes may also be required in related legislation, such as the Day Nurseries Act.
Bill 34 allows school boards to enter into agreements to cooperate with other school boards and with other agencies such as municipalities, colleges and universities. Over the past number of years, the Carleton board has actively pursued partnerships with other boards of education, universities, colleges and businesses.
Examples of areas where cooperation has been achieved include the four-board agreement for the education of pupils with developmental disabilities -- I would point out that I think this was probably the first in the province -- the Ottawa-Carleton Education Purchasing Corp, the Ottawa-Carleton Network for Education, colloquially known as ONE, and courier services. As well, a number of CBE schools have very successful partnerships with business in this area.
As indicated earlier in this presentation, the Carleton board continues to explore cooperative efforts with its coterminous board for the provision of student transportation. The CBE and the separate board are already cooperating for home-to-school transportation for special-needs students and are continuing to work for the expansion of shared cooperation in transportation. The board considers that these efforts would be greatly enhanced if the government provided some real incentives for this type of cooperation.
The board believes that the government should pursue, by all means available to it, the 85 factor as an early retirement date. This will not only result in savings but will allow more senior teachers to retire early and will ease the impact of layoffs on younger teachers new to the profession.
As noted earlier, while Bill 34 does provide some assistance for boards in dealing with decreasing grants and revenues, the board considers that it does not go nearly far enough. Like anyone who has ever studied the area, we agree that the whole area of education funding needs to be addressed. But the grant cuts are immediate. Boards must cope with them now, in 1996 and 1997. We cannot wait for comprehensive and fundamental changes to the system. We need more immediately useful tools and we need them now.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.
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Mr Skarica: Thank you very much for your presentation. I don't want to belabour this too much, but you're one of the boards that has a substantial unfunded liability for its retirement gratuity. That's $60 million, or approaching that now, or in that neighbourhood?
Mrs MacGregor: In that neighbourhood.
Mr Skarica: And you have no reserves to pay that. Isn't that correct?
Mrs MacGregor: That's correct.
Mr Skarica: It seems to me that's going to put a tremendous financial pressure on your board over the next coming years. Am I right or wrong in that?
Mrs MacGregor: It certainly is and our immediate concern is that there is a peak coming where as long as it was going along that there were a certain predictable number of teachers who were retiring every year, we could budget for it. But we can see, just as there was one point when enrolment increased significantly, now we are hitting the teachers, moving into the period where the teachers who were hired by the board during that period will be retiring. Therefore, we will be expecting extraordinary expenditures in the way of payouts for that.
Mr Skarica: Is the Carleton board cutting junior kindergarten?
Mrs MacGregor: Yes, they are.
Mr Skarica: The Roman Catholic board?
Mrs MacGregor: No. The Carleton board, in its last budget, voted to discontinue junior kindergarten as of September 1996.
Mr Skarica: All right. Is the Roman Catholic board continuing?
Mrs MacGregor: They are offering it.
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): Thanks for that presentation. It's enlightening to hear some people who are digging in and doing some cooperation instead of putting up their feet and saying, "No, we're not going to come screaming to the table." It's a little bit nice to be able to see that you've eliminated since 1991 the number of teachers along with the number of administrations.
I think you as a board should be complimented on that kind of an effort because this government feels very strongly that's the area where those cutbacks have to be made. I know that everybody likes to think it's always the young people and the education people we have to worry about, but are we saddling them with a debt they can't afford to pay? I think we've got to take a look at it a realistic way. I think you people have and you're to be congratulated for it.
Mrs MacGregor: Thank you. It's been a painful process and no one likes to lay people off, but we have been looking for new and more efficient ways of doing things and, quite frankly, it's because we've been forced into it.
Mr Rollins: Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Mr Patten: Welcome today, Mrs MacGregor and Mr Murray. As Mr Rollins suggested, you have come up with a number of areas in really trying to address the financial pressures you have in your school system. But I would point out that what has happened as a result of the financial pressure, as you indicate, is that there are at least three areas in which the government said that it did not want to see this happen: They didn't want to see you increase the mill rate to your taxpayers, they didn't want to see you use user fees because the Premier doesn't agree with user fees -- "No user fees," you would have heard him say -- and they didn't want to see any impact at all on the classroom. I can see the hundreds of layoffs you have in your board, with a growing board, just have to increase the size of your classroom, do they not?
Mrs MacGregor: Yes.
Mr Patten: To what degree?
Mrs MacGregor: I'm sorry, I don't have figures on that. We have stayed within the limits of our agreement as to what the pupil-teacher ratio is, although we interpreted it more restrictively than we did previously. Quite frankly, we just found it impossible to make the kind of cuts that were required as a result of these recent grant cuts without affecting the classroom.
It may be less difficult for boards that have more latitude in their financing, but those cuts came on top of several years where we had already been making cuts. We felt that we had eliminated all the fat and extras in the board, then we got hit with the new cuts that came on top of that. There was just no latitude for making cuts that wouldn't affect the classroom. You must remember that all of this came on top of the social contract too.
Mr Patten: I am aware of that and I know it's not easy. In one sense I know that some school boards which began the process of cost cutting earlier now find themselves, in my opinion, in a position of double jeopardy.
Mrs MacGregor: That's quite true. In an area that we find that in particular, I'll give you an example. The new grants with respect to transportation are based on I think a four-year average of the previous year's transportation budgets. During that period we were into triple busing, where one bus does three routes, and in a number of areas we tried to cut down in the transportation. Now, as a result, we will be penalized because of the economies we had made during the years that are being used to average.
Mr Patten: Exactly.
Mr Martin: I continue to suggest very strongly that this piece of legislation is consistent with this government's attack on children, and poor children in particular, when you look at what's happened so far in their short term in office. I'm surprised a bit to see in your presentation, and maybe you can expand on it for me somewhat, the emphasis you've put on user fees and the use of user fees, because you know and I know that user fees hit those who are least able to afford it more directly and harder than those who are. That would be, in my mind, a continuation of this approach which really undermines the ability of poor families and poor kids to get the education they need to get themselves out of the situation they're in and to become more contributing as citizens in our society today. Would you expand on that?
Mrs MacGregor: The main area where we have been pushing for them is in the area of transportation. Only as recently as last week I was out with one of my home and school associations because we are starting now to talk about the budget for next year. I was saying to them, "Where would you look for us to make cuts that are going to be least hurtful?" and the answer came back: "I can't understand why you're not charging for transportation. I would far sooner make a contribution to the cost of busing my child than see you increase the pupil-teacher ratio, for instance."
What we're talking about is a nominal amount. If, for instance, it was to be $1 a day for a family in a board where we are busing 28,000 students, that could make a big difference, yet it's not the sort of thing that is going to break a family. You can make provisions. For instance, one of the things we have thought about is a charge for one child -- if there's a second or a third child in the family, then they will be exempt from the cost -- or make some sort of provision in case of hardship. It would get a little complicated to judge how the school board would judge need, but certainly if we put in any more than a very nominal amount, then we would have to make some provision of that kind.
Mr Martin: I would hope you would give that whole area some further very serious thought re the implications it will have for poor families who may not be able to afford to have their kids transported to school and what that will mean in terms of their having to move closer to the schools and the tremendous difficulty it will create, given that we're going to be into user fees in myriad other ways in communities as municipalities begin to look at ways to mitigate the diminishing transfer payments they're now getting. To suggest for a second that $1 a week or $1 a day or whatever it is somehow is nominal in a family that's already lost 22% of its income -- $1 is a loaf of bread. Has there been any discussion of that sort happening about the very serious consequence that will have, and how you define "nominal"?
Mrs MacGregor: We have not attempted to define nominal at this point. Certainly we have had very serious discussions over this. One of the difficulties is that we are an urban-rural mix and we are unfortunately in the position, in our present financial straits, of considering total elimination of transportation for, for instance, all secondary students because as it stands now, if we made any charge whatsoever we would lose our grants. When we have come to the point that we are considering total elimination of transportation, surely asking for a contribution from parents, most of whom have indicated willingness, even almost eagerness, to pay for transportation, is better than placing all the cost back on the parent, which is the kind of alternative we are looking at.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs MacGregor and Mr Murray, for your presentation.
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ALGONQUIN COLLEGE OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY
The Vice-Chair: I now call upon Mr Bill Conrod, the vice-president of continuing education at Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology. Welcome to our meeting.
Mr Bill Conrod: Am I standing between your lunch and this minute?
The Vice-Chair: Let it never be said that we would not want to hear from anybody because we wanted to eat. That's not the case. Go ahead.
Mr Conrod: Ladies and gentlemen, it may surprise you to find a college person here coming to speak about the changes to the bill. We do so because we are a member of a group of people in this city who have formed a coalition of public providers of education and business interests: the Ottawa-Carleton Learning Foundation. It may be a group you've heard about. We work together hoping to produce maximum delivery of our activity for our community.
Just yesterday, for example, we at Algonquin held a golf tournament raising bursary moneys for needy students at our college. That's the third golf tournament we've been able to organize in this community for education. One is the Peter Gzowski literacy tournament that you may have heard about before -- I know those are running all over the country -- and there's also one that my foundation, the Ottawa-Carleton Learning Foundation, runs with Apple Computers. The government's agenda to try to partner business interests with education is alive and well in this city and we're doing our part, we believe.
The reason I'm here is to really add my voice to the concern many people have in Ontario about the changes in the bill and its effect on adult education. There is no doubt when you look at the math, boards will be forced to reduce the number of opportunities. There will be fewer adults learning, and that is a concern of ours.
The college is a partner in the delivery of adult education. We have a long history, a good 25 to 30 years now, of delivering adult education, the famous alphabet soup of that area of basic job readiness training and basic training for skills development some of you have heard about. Really we're talking about a large number of our citizens who, for one reason or another, did not complete high school and have discovered, after a rather frustrating cycle of time, that low-security jobs and low-wage jobs do not provide the confidence that one can raise a family in our community, so at some point in that person's life they decide they must go back to school. They probably knew it for a long time, but the decision to come back to school has been made. You have to understand the importance of that, what that must mean to an adult to go back to a place where they originally failed and associate with failure. But they're back, and they're back learning.
That's a group of people in jeopardy right now because of some changes in the bill. We know why the changes are there. We know that finances are behind the whole thing. On the other hand, we have some expectation that through learnfare, people will come forward and join the ranks of studenthood because of that incentive. My caution is, don't turn off the people who are already aboard -- that's my concern -- because they've made a big step.
I have notes here that speak to sequential events to get your attention on this, but I suspect I've got some of your attention already.
The college could look at this in terms of: "Aha, the competition in the school boards is under some pressure. It'll be business for the college." That's not what we're here for at all, because we do belong to a literacy coalition in the city. We know there are approximately between 4,500 and 5,000 what we would call adult education seats for upgrading, but the precious seats in the school boards are the ones that provide those credits towards an Ontario secondary school diploma.
Colleges can't do that. We cannot give OAC credits. For an adult who knows that if they want to get into the new economy -- and let's face it, folks, the new economy in this community is the new economy that Nuala Beck speaks to. We're talking about software engineering, we're talking about high technology, we're talking about life science engineering and technology. Those are programs that people can take at Algonquin, but they have to have their high school sciences and math before they can even enter the place. There's no magic for that, no pill one can take. There is no quick fix for math, science, numeracy and computer skills. It has to be a painstaking, upgrading education to achieve those learning steps.
We're here supporting our colleagues who provide access to the OSSD, the OAC credits that allow those adults who have made the decision to return to school to get on about that business of becoming a sharer in the economy of the country but also a participant in the tax base. They already have to some extent, but they know they have to have their new skills if they're going to get into the new economy. This paper really speaks to that buildup.
I don't want to keep you from lunch, but we're here with a passionate plea that if we, the leaders right now, hold the keys to these people's futures, we have to recognize that more barriers, more closed doors, more hardships, isn't the way to go. These are people who have already made the decision that they want to do something about their lives.
The Vice-Chair: You're not holding us from our lunch at all, sir. We're interested in every presentation made to us for the full length of time we've allotted for same. We have, as a result of your short presentation, 21 minutes, or seven minutes per caucus, for questioning.
Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): Do you support the status quo or do you have some proactive suggestions to make in the area for school boards?
Mr Conrod: I'm here primarily to counter what looks to be a retrogressive move for these people. I would suspect, because I know there are waiting lists for people to access all levels of adult education in this city, that more could be done. But I'm also a realist and know we have other problems to solve within our colleges and school boards and what have you.
Mr Chiarelli: Is there a relationship between the adult students whom you're familiar with and welfare or support from the province in terms of financial support for different programs?
Mr Conrod: There's a high relationship. Many of the people who come to our programs have until very recently been social assistance recipients. There are now changes to that which force people to come and take out loans to go to college through the Canada student loan program. It's a relatively new wrinkle. It is considered somewhat of a barrier because of the red tape, but I think it's something we can manage. It's just going to take people a little longer to enter.
Mr Lalonde: I'm happy to see that you recognize the need of today's requirements. When I say that, I mean that in the past we have forgotten high-tech training, engineering training etc for the new economy, as you mentioned. But do you think Bill 34 is going to give us access to these types of training requirements in this area?
Mr Conrod: My colleagues in the school boards tell me that as a result of the funding changes for adult education, they will be forced to make it more difficult for an adult to attend adult education in the school board. It's strictly a capacity and a financial matter for a group of people who we know do not have the additional cash to participate.
Mr Lalonde: Especially since the federal government, as much as the provincial government, recognizes that they haven't focused enough on high-tech training in the past. Today, with all the cuts in government at both the federal and provincial levels, money won't be there for these training requirements. The $400-million cuts at the provincial level will force the student or the adult to have this user fee, as we call it, but the money won't be there for those people, and I don't know what's going to happen with today's economy when we see that the money won't be there for those people to go back to college and to get to this type of training requirement.
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Mr Conrod: You're very correct to raise the issue of the federal government decisions to back away from what had been traditional responsibilities in adult education. We read in our papers that there are all sorts of constitutional and political reasons to do that, but the fact is, what used to be paid for through Canada Employment, the federal government, in our communities to help the adults I'm talking about come and attend upgrading education -- that has been cut off for the last four years.
Mr Lalonde: Especially, it's been transferred to the provincial level.
Mr Conrod: Well, there's been a push that way, but one cannot see the evidence of transfer; it's fallen through the cracks.
Mr Silipo: Thank you very much for your presentation. An earlier presenter, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, reminded us of some statistics that I know I've seen elsewhere. It was the results of a survey by the continuing education school board administrators' association which show that from adult students across the province, some 51% of all graduates are employed within four months after earning an OSSD and 36% of the rest go on to additional training and education. That's a pretty good success rate, by any standard.
The reason I wanted to underscore that is because we hear a lot from Mike Harris and his government about wanting to give people a hand up. You pointed out earlier that many of the people who are in these courses are also people who are social assistance recipients. It seems to me that the adult education structure as it exists is exactly the kind of thing that should be in place to give people an opportunity to get the education they need, starting with the basic secondary school diploma and going on from there, yet these are the very programs being cut. Where's the sense of that hand up that the government seems to be so interested in doing? How can we get them to understand that this is completely contrary to what they say they want to do?
Mr Conrod: That's what I'm here for, sir, to help add my voice to that. I think there's a major myth about adults who have to go back to secondary school education. The myth is that they're stupid and lazy and that they're not productive people. But if you can remember the people you went to school with who left school early and went out to work, many of them were leaders in our high schools as far as athletics were concerned; certainly in the social aspects of our community they were leaders. They just happened to seize an opportunity and say: "Listen, I can go out and work now. There's a brawn job out there. There's an opportunity where I can make money."
A lot of it was a brawn job, being linemen for certain corporations, or a lot of it was outdoor work. A lot of it is work that has been replaced by technology, and those poor people now find themselves in this cycle of taxi-driving, waiting or waitressing, manual labour, and it's a go-nowhere kind of existence for a person who wants to build. And they're recognizing it. This community every weekend is saying high technology is where the new economy is. "I want in. I'm a taxpayer. I want in on that." We're trying to help them.
I really would like to burst that myth that we're talking about stupid people. We're not. We're talking about people who've already made the decision to come back to school. We've got to give them a hand.
Mr Martin: I've been focusing today on this government's attack on children, on poor children in particular, and I suggest to you that this incursion now into adult education and the diminishing of opportunity by way of what's in this bill is actually an attack on the parents of some of the poor kids out there, who find themselves now, because of the changing economy and the difficult economy we're in, without work and needing to get back into education so they can get into some of the jobs you're talking about.
What you've said today here is that any attack on adult education, whether it's in the secondary school level or at the college level, is an attack actually on people and their opportunity to get ahead. You also talked about efforts being made by colleges to try to supplement the money that's available to adult students to come back to school and get involved. I also sense in my own community the private sector adult education institution becoming more prevalent, which means that people pay.
When you look at the issue of lifelong learning, I think we all bought into that over the last five or 10 years. We thought that was a good thing, from as early as we can get kids into school until they're finished changing careers or even after they're finished with their career, in retirement, continuing to try and access some education so they can be better people and all of that. How will all of that impact on this whole idea of lifelong learning, and more particularly, how will it impact on those who can least afford the kinds of opportunities that now seem to be becoming more prevalent?
Mr Conrod: We have data. We have data nationally and we have data provincially that those with less education participate lower in adult education than those with education. That also bears true in our recent survey at Algonquin where we surveyed our fall part-time students and only 4% of our part-time evening students had less than grade 12 -- only 4%. You would think, wait a minute, part-time evening, you don't even require a high school leaving to get into it; you just come and take courses. Why wouldn't there be higher? Well, the fact is, folks, unless you've been successful, you just don't go into it. That's why I think it's so important for us to recognize that high school leaving equivalent or what we call in colleges college preparatory adult education, because that's the ticket.
At some point in your life you should attend and maybe be the speaker at one of these adult education graduation ceremonies. It's the most touching thing that you can imagine in your community. How proud these people are, and they bring their children and they bring significant others and they say: "Guess what? I've got a high school leaving now. I'm 42 but I've got one already." It really is a touching thing.
Mr Martin: You mentioned if they hadn't achieved a certain level of success to begin with, they don't come. What about the affordability factor? What impact do you think that will have on the number of people as we move to a more private-sector-oriented approach?
Mr Conrod: What's been marvellous in Ontario is through the school boards adult education has really been a very good deal for the taxpaying adult because it was picked up by the tax base, unlike the colleges where we actually charge our students to attend adult education, and the reason they come is because either they can't get into the school board or they're not there to get the whole school board credits -- they just need enough to get into a college program -- or they prefer to do it in a college milieu or they have the money. But clearly here's the concern I have: As you reduce the opportunity for tax-supported adult education -- and that's a very low charge and obviously the people who are making the decision to go there don't have an awful lot of money. If that's the point you're making, I certainly agree with it.
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Mr Skarica: Thank you, sir, for your presentation. I've been at some of those ceremonies, and one of the complaints that I had at those ceremonies from some of the adults was: "I'm pretty highly skilled already. I didn't really need to take the test. But I need the piece of paper, so I had to enrol in the education to get it." I've been to places like Stelco where people with grade 10 education are operating sophisticated computer equipment. It looks like an airline cockpit device. I wouldn't even begin to know what to touch or not to touch. If that person lost their job, they couldn't get a job, basically, without a high school certificate. That person would have to go to get grade 10, 11 or 12.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with this new initiative, but what we've needed for some time is a program where if you have the skills already there's no need for you to go to school. If you could just write the tests and get your high school equivalency diploma, then you could save all those costs. Are you familiar with the new program coming in that's going to accomplish that?
Mr Conrod: The GED?
Mr Skarica: Yes. It's coming to Ottawa this September as well as Windsor. I talked to the Windsor people yesterday, and the committee members heard that about 10% of the students could take those tests and not have to go through the training. That's going to be a significant savings down there, because you're looking at $5,000 per student on a day-adult basis that's saved. What would you estimate the number is here, the number of people who could just do that, who could take the test without having to get any further formal education?
Mr Conrod: I'm actually fortunate because I've worked in four jurisdictions. I was in Quebec, at a college there. I was in British Columbia, where, interestingly enough, the Minister of Education, Paul Ramsey, was the director of my adult basic education department up in Prince George. Now I'm in Ontario, but I also had some time in the United States. So I'm familiar with the general education equivalency program that you're talking about.
But interestingly enough, you don't need a credential right now to get into university or college if you show up and say: "Hey, I'm a mature student. I'm over 19, so let me come in, and if I fail, I fail." You don't need that right now.
Mr Skarica: But in Windsor we were told a lot of employers would not hire you without the high school certificate.
Mr Conrod: You see, here's the issue. Why would an employer want a certificate? Because it must mean something. It must mean attestations for something. Hopefully, that's what that GED is going to become known as in our community; it is in other communities. It's considered the equivalent to some of the high school. I think it's a good move on the part of the government to finally get with it in terms of North America and come up with something. But I don't think it's going to be the panacea that people think it is. I think people know: "I don't have enough algebra. Even if I test out and have a grade 10 equivalency, I know I need algebra if I'm going to move on to calculus." You can't get it in a test; you've got to get it by learning it.
Mr Skarica: I'm not saying it's the be-all or end-all, but still, if you cut down 10% of the students, that's a significant savings when you're talking $5,000 per student.
Mr Conrod: Definitely, if that's the result of it.
Mr Guzzo: If I could just follow up on Mr Silipo's question, because I think I heard you buying into the submission that Mr Silipo was making with regard to giving direction to the government of the day with regard to extending a hand up. In that regard, I might go back to 1991-92. Were you in Ontario then?
Mr Conrod: I was.
Mr Guzzo: You recall the government of the day spending its way out of the economic mess that it found itself in and taking the debt of this province from $50 billion to $100 billion, which means that our government today must spend $10 billion a year to service that debt. A debt that was costing $3 billion in 1985 when the Frank Miller government left now costs $10 billion to service. That's more than we spend on education, colleges, universities. In your position, in terms of sending that message to me, would you tell me to pay the interest on that debt that the governments had tripled since 1985 or embark upon the program that Mr Silipo was asking you to buy into?
Mr Conrod: I obviously am two things when I'm here today: I'm an Ontario citizen who did vote in the last election, and I know where I stood on that issue; at the same time, I'm looking at choices. At Algonquin, we had to cut $11.5 million out of our operating budget the year we're in right now. We had some tough decisions to make, but some of those decisions did affect the individuals who come to us and expect us to do something about their careers; there's no doubt about it. These are tough times and tough decisions. I'm not one to continue the debt. I wouldn't run my home the way we've been running governments in Canada.
Mr Guzzo: Thank you. You've answered my question. I appreciate it.
Mr Smith: One quick question. I'm not sure if it's actually a fair one to you or not, but yesterday in Windsor we received a submission from the OSSTF with respect to the definition of adult persons in the bill. Have you given any attention to that? I realize they've probably had the advantage of legal counsel on that interpretation. Do you have similar concerns with the definition as presented in the bill?
Mr Conrod: I haven't done that kind of specific homework. I basically trusted my colleagues in the adult-ed domain in the secondary school boards. They actually called the Clarion and said, "Hey, there's something we should be paying attention to, those of us who are in the adult education fraternity." So I just took their word for it, and at quick reading, I think they were correct.
Mr Preston: Just one fast one. Because you stated what you've just stated, I'd like to ask a question. They're claiming this is age discrimination. Where does age discrimination start and where does it stop? Is it age discrimination not to give a 15-year-old a driver's licence, not to allow a 16-year-old to drink, a 14-year-old to go in the army? Is that all age discrimination, in your opinion?
Mr Conrod: There'd be differences. The issue to me is really the expectation on the part of any citizen to get a level of education that would allow them then to become a participant in their community, an active participant in the economy of the country, a proud neighbour, all of those things we would like in our sons-in-law and daughters-in-law when we talk about our future.
What we have learned in my life is that the fact is it isn't as simple any more as "learn, earn and yearn," where you just studied, then you went to work, you worked in that firm or that company or that job for the rest of your life and then you retired. That business in the middle, that earning period, is very volatile. We can't even predict what the world of work is going to be like in three years, let alone a lifetime any more. But one thing we can predict: It's going to change. Those stores like Blockbuster Video that are selling cassettes, when they figure out a way to throw that down your telephone, that whole industry will explode or implode. It will vanish just like that. Those are the kinds of things we're facing. We have to prepare our citizens for that amount of change, and that means education, skills.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your short presentation, which allowed for lots of questions and answers and comments by everyone.
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TEACHERS' FEDERATION OF CARLETON
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, DISTRICT 43, CARLETON
The Vice-Chair: Our final presentation for the morning is by Doug Carter, the president of the Teachers' Federation of Carleton, and Larry Capstick, the president of District 43, Carleton. Welcome to our meeting, gentlemen. You have half an hour for your presentation, and that includes any questions or comments there may be from any of the caucuses. Could you identify yourselves for the purpose of Hansard and please begin your presentation.
Mr Doug Carter: Thank you and good morning. I'm Doug Carter; I'm president of the Teachers' Federation of Carleton. Speakers this morning have thanked you for allowing them to present to you, and I want to do that as well. Many proposals of the government have been of concern to us, and we asked permission to appear and present on Bill 26 and were denied. We asked permission to appear on Bill 31, the Ontario College of Teachers Act, and were denied, so indeed we are happy to be here today and able to speak to you.
The Teachers' Federation of Carleton represents more than 2,000 public school teachers employed by the Carleton Board of Education and nearly 1,000 occasional teachers who also work for the Carleton board. The Teachers' Federation of Carleton is unique in elementary public education in Ontario. It is the only complete and total amalgamate of the members of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario and the members of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation which exists at the local or school board level. The Teachers' Federation of Carleton has existed since the creation of the Carleton Board of Education in 1969. As president of TFC, I wish to convey to you today some of the concerns federation members have about education in Ontario and directions in which the provincial government seems to be going.
Frequently when teacher groups have appeared or made their wishes known, they've been dismissed as a special-interest group. I hope you would listen carefully today and say that not only are we advocating on behalf of our members, the teachers, which is our responsibility, but clearly we're advocating on behalf of students and learning and society.
The provincial treasurer and the Minister of Education and Training have each stated that in 1994-95 the Ontario school system cost 10% more per pupil than in other provinces. That is approximately $1 billion more per year. This is not true. Examination of data supplied by Statistics Canada reveals that the average per-pupil expenditure in Ontario is higher than the average for other provinces, about $165 per pupil per year higher, or just under $400 million more in total, not the stated $1 billion. Ontario's cost is higher because Ontario has traditionally defined a broader educational mandate than other provinces. The costs of health and social services for children at risk, English as a second language and multicultural initiatives are all included in the Ontario expenditures.
The Minister of Education and Training is fond of quoting the Ontario School Board Reduction Task Force definition and quantifying of classroom and non-classroom expenditures in Ontario. Supposedly the minister would have us believe that 47% of educational expenditures are outside the classroom.
Earlier today, one of my colleagues reminded you that last autumn a local coalition of school boards and teachers' federations sponsored a forum here in the national capital region at which we contributed money to bring John Sweeney, the chair of the task force, to town. At that time, Mr Sweeney conceded that his definition of classroom expenditures did not include essential services to students. He did not include items such as special education teachers, teacher assistants, guidance counsellors, teacher-librarians; he didn't even include school principals. He did not include in his definition expenditures for student transportation, although it would seem self-evident that if pupils in rural areas are not transported to school, then they are most likely prohibited from attending school. Mr Sweeney admitted at that forum that his definition of classroom and non-classroom expenditure was quite arbitrary. The minister's frequent usage of the 47% quote is misleading and creates a misperception in the public through the media.
There is considerable concern within all parts of the educational sector about some of the personnel within the Ministry of Education and Training. Many of the policy advisers and decision-makers appear to have very little actual experience working in schools and understanding the impacts of their decisions. Similarly, while we all recognize the essential need to take all views into consideration, minority groups from some sectors appear to be overrepresented at the ministry level. One sometimes wonders how much of this 47% the minister likes to quote is spent within the ministry itself.
The members of the TFC, like all other citizens of Ontario, want and indeed expect efficient use of their tax dollars. Everyone wants a government and an educational system where value is obtained for every dollar spent. But there is a difference. The members of the TFC wish to remind the government that the business of business is to make money; the business of government is to safeguard its citizenry and, where necessary, to redistribute wealth. In health and social services and education, the important bottom line is not the financial bottom line but the wellbeing and the interests of society.
Let me turn to the junior kindergarten proposals, of which you've heard a lot about already today. If the amendments to the Education Act which are under consideration by this committee are passed into law, junior kindergarten will become a permissive program. This will accomplish a promise of the Common Sense Revolution to make JK optional. All of us are aware of the growing body of evidence which repeatedly shows that junior kindergarten is a very important part of early childhood education. For the Love of Learning, the report of the royal commission, advocates increased early childhood education.
We have heard even this morning the statement that for every dollar spent on early childhood education there are $7 saved in future expenditures in health, welfare and the criminal justice system.
In a draft report last November, the Ministry of Education and Training showed that it was aware of the important nature of programs such as JK. Statements from the ministry have publicly acknowledged that studies of the importance of early childhood education and kindergarten are continuing. We would urge the ministry to consult widely and to complete the studies quickly, because we believe an objective review will confirm that early childhood education experiences, of which JK is an integral part, are important for later academic achievement.
You heard earlier this morning that the Carleton Board of Education decided to cancel its junior kindergarten program. It is the only area board to cancel JK. The board made this decision to save $2.8 million when it cancelled JK while it was establishing its 1996 budget and at the same time increasing the local mill rate. While saving this $2.8 million, the board also decided to place an additional $3.1 million into its reserves, which now total approximately $18 million. The government has determinedly followed its policy to make JK optional. Despite the knowledge that JK is an important program, the government has demonstrated that the prime objective is to cut government expenditures. The Carleton Board of Education has demonstrated that large reserves are more important than junior kindergarten.
Another section of the Common Sense Revolution says that classroom funding will be guaranteed. In the Carleton Board of Education, for 2,700 junior kindergarten students and for 85 laid-off teachers, there will be no classrooms requiring funding next September.
If we turn to sick leave, Bill 34 will repeal the provision of the Education Act which gives teachers access to 20 days of sick leave per year. Other groups have provided information to this committee to demonstrate that the 20 days of sick leave per year is not incongruent with many comparator groups. Members of the Teachers' Federation of Carleton believe that these proposals are not because the entitlement is unreasonable or that teachers take a disproportionate number of sick days per year; there is no evidence of either.
Among the members whom I represent, the average annual absence is 8.9 days per year. This number includes all types of teacher absences, not just sick leave. Unused sick leave days are accumulated and used to avoid disruption to earnings -- it's a type of insurance -- should a major illness occur in future years. If a teacher is not ill and has an accumulation of unused sick leave days, the teacher may receive a service payment of up to half a year's salary when they leave the employ of the board. This is the misnamed retirement gratuity; there's nothing gratuitous about it. Teachers have sought to delink the payment from sick leave for many years. Currently, a teacher must accumulate 200 sick leave days, that's the equivalent of never having been ill for a 10-year period, to qualify for the maximum payment.
Despite decades of cautioning from teacher groups, most school boards have chosen not to adequately fund their responsibilities and liabilities in this regard. The provincial governments since 1992 have been putting pressure on the school boards to contain and reduce expenditures. The various trustee organizations have asked the government to give them relief from the unfunded liabilities of both sick leave and the gratuity. This government appears willing to give the trustees the tools to strip teacher benefits. This is the kind of mean-spirited action teachers have come to expect from this minister.
This is the same minister who has commissioned push polls, used focus group testing, has planted setup questions in the Legislature and who began his tenure by vowing to invent a crisis. It should be of no surprise to you that he has not found much favour with the teachers of this province. Since his swearing in, he has not had very much positive to say about teachers and the difficult task they perform daily. Teachers despair not just because they feel not valued by the minister but because their work is not valued and, despite the rhetoric, it really appears that children are not very important to this government.
I will leave comments on other proposals contained in Bill 34 to others more directly affected unless the members of the committee wish to raise questions about them. Bill 34 attacks three fundamental components of public education in this province: junior kindergarten, adult education and the autonomy of local taxation. It does not in any meaningful way address the lack of cooperative agreements in the public sector; it does appear to undermine the principles of universality and equity which we thought we had established in this province.
The expenditure reductions to elementary and secondary education and the provisions of Bill 34 mandate significant change to the system. The change is occurring at such a rapid pace as to preclude significant public consultation or analysis of the impacts. The government has embarked on a series of cynical attacks on teachers to gain public support for its programs of expenditure reductions and its ineffective trickle-down economics. The Teachers' Federation of Carleton is not in support of these proposals contained in Bill 34.
With me today is Mr Larry Capstick, president of District 43 OSSTF.
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Mr Larry Capstick: This morning I wish to address three issues, and I don't intend to belabour two of them because earlier participants here have done so, that is, the adult education issue and the sick leave provisions in the act and a third item which deals with the positions of responsibility.
As far as the adult education, I find it would be very difficult to add anything more to the rather enlightened and passionate comments that were given by Mr Conrod previously. There is certainly no doubt in my mind that adult education is the largest single growth industry in education at this time in North America. One need only take a walk down Queen Street here and across the canal to the University of Ottawa to find that adult education and literature related to it is increasing dramatically.
In the Carleton Board of Education, during our recent budget debates, as the chairman this morning alluded to, there were numerous presentations made by participants in the adult education program in Carleton, by employers from Carleton who accessed the cooperative education students in that program, by a member of the Nepean Chamber of Commerce, who stood at the microphone and said he would be more than happy to pay a few more dollars in taxes to guarantee that program continued. I have provided as part of the backup a needs assessment survey which was prepared by the students and staff themselves at the adult day school. Again, I appreciate how difficult it is for the members of this committee going around the province and having an opportunity to normally hit only urban centres, not to be able to actually access a variety of rural settings because, to be quite honest, I don't believe there are any two boards that are probably the same or identical when it comes to these sorts of things. Therefore, in my part of the report I've tried to focus simply on Carleton to give you a synoptic view of what I deal with on a regular and daily basis.
You will see in that survey at the result the large number of new Canadians who access this program. That may not be the case in other centres. Certainly, in the high school that I left, we have seven full-time teachers engaged in English as a second language. A large number of immigrant groups ended up in that school, a school which, to be honest, was totally unprepared to deal with them because of a lack of training and/or experience, and repeated requests by myself and by our board, our trustees to the federal government to assume some of the financial liability and responsibility for providing these programs met with deaf ears. Hence it is downloaded on to the provincial government, the provincial government on to the local boards, the local boards on to the schools and in the classroom I as a teacher cope. The best word I can use to describe it is "cope."
Many of these are adult students and certainly our success rate in Carleton -- I'll finish off the adult portion by saying 80%-plus go directly into post-secondary education or the workforce. I can't think of an educational jurisdiction in the province with a higher success rate, and I applaud the decision of our trustees who, given that data as well as given a financial scenario which compared what currently exists with what might occur were they to change the funding and the anticipated number of students who would drop out of the program -- the board would have saved $26,000 as a result of that funding. Hence, the trustees took it upon themselves to proceed with adult education as it is currently delivered, and I applaud them for that decision.
The second issue, dealing with the sick leave provisions -- again, I don't want to engage here in the debate. I simply want to highlight for the members present the provisions that are put forward in this bill are being perceived by educators as an attack upon them. We've done something wrong; now we must be punished for that. One of the ways of accumulating savings is through the sick leave provision. Changing this act, making it a negotiable item -- in our case, at the secondary panel, as I indicate in my brief, 4.5 days on average for males, 8 days per year for females.
The school I left a year and a half ago is larger than the home town I was raised in: three full-time doctors, two full-time dentists, a police force, a volunteer fire department, I can go on and on. I have nobody except a principal, two vice-principals and sometimes a public health nurse when they need to do immunization. On top of that, we're dealing with the issues related to the new Canadians coming in and the problems they need to have addressed, our students who are coming from an increasingly diverse background -- and again, Carleton is not strictly an urban board; it's a rural board which is attached to an urban board, and we have such a mix of clientele that it is very, very difficult for us to address these issues.
I want to point out long-term disability, which is a problem that I as president of my district have had to come to grips with. The cost is exorbitant and increasing steadily, approximately $1,000 a year per member. Last year we went to the insurance companies and asked for bids, proposals to provide us. We received nothing but thanks-no-thanks letters, "We're not interested in providing you with a bid." We can't get an insurance company that will offer, even put forward a proposal for us to consider.
Mr Preston: On what was that?
Mr Capstick: On long-term disability, our insurance, because of the numbers of teachers who are having to access long-term disability. The rates in this province are higher than almost every other employee group.
The third item, and the one which has not been addressed this morning, is the changes in the act with relation to regulation 298, sections 14, 15 and 16, teachers in charge of organizational units. The reason I raise this particular issue is because I see a serious contradictory message being sent here. We had the Royal Commission on Learning, which very clearly put forward its recommendations and upon which the government and previous governments were proposing changes. In those recommendations from the royal commission, they talked about the importance of ongoing professional development, they talked about the need for organization, adaptability to change and so on.
This year we are in the process of implementing school councils in all of our schools in Carleton. I sat in on the debates which helped set up the constitutions and the bylaws by which these school councils will operate, and I'll be quite honest, I have been most supportive of them, because I feel at this stage they are the only support mechanism an individual school has, the parents of the students who are in those schools. Those parents, when we sat down and were involved in these meetings, talked about the importance of professional development and wanting to know how teachers were engaged in it, what was involved in it, how the school was run and how it was organized.
I now have a further complication. I have a draft proposal of secondary school reform, what I consider to be probably one of the most significant changes in secondary education in this province that we've seen in many a decade, at least the ramifications of it. The amount of change in curriculum, curriculum delivery and evaluation is enormous. I personally have been engaged in the last several years in the Ontario academic credit program for province-wide testing, that is, examinations at the OAC level. I went to several meetings at ministry offices, how-to, spent hours and hours preparing examinations to submit to the ministry, all for validation and standardization across the province. I see all of these requests out there from the government, from the parents, from business, even from labour. How is that to be accomplished, I ask you, by Bill 34, which removes or permits the removal of those individuals who would normally be responsible for supervising that, or at least being engaged in it directly?
At this point in time, within the Carleton board I have one school which is reorganizing today, hiring staff -- not hiring staff; I shouldn't say that, but allocating staff. The incumbent business head is retiring. That school is eliminating the business department and allocating business subjects to other areas, such as math and history and whatever. There would be no business department at a time when, as we've just heard Mr Conrod say, and we've had other people talk about cooperative education programs and we've seen the secondary school reform -- I have taught in the co-op program; one of the largest groups of employers in the business community. We have a current competition going on in the board for a cooperative position of responsibility. On the ad it says, "Specialist qualifications an asset." It is no longer required. This bill hasn't been passed, but its impact is already being felt; it's already happening out there. I think it is happening to the detriment of the system, because I don't know, my colleagues don't know, what you want. What is the goal? What is your ultimate objective here in terms of an end product coming out of the system, and therefore beyond the recommendations? The recommendations are those of the federation, which I'm sure you've already received in the brief.
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I'm speaking to you personally as an individual teacher in the classroom. If there is nothing else this committee does, will it please address this issue of establishing for the province a clear set of goals as to what you want at the end of the secondary school system? As a teacher, I cannot be bounced from pillar to post much longer in terms of the changes I have gone through in the 22 years I have been in this profession.
Certainly, as the liaison for the Ontario Teachers' Federation to the faculty of education, which is sitting on the other side of the canal -- they are sitting there saying to themselves, because they have a whole crop of new teachers coming in next year, 350 people, the vast majority of whom have master's degrees or better who aren't required any more. You won't need them because you don't need positions of responsibility. Members of the faculty, members of the teaching profession have now included in their jargon new phraseology: "The dumbing down of education in Ontario."
I would seriously consider leaving the profession if dumbing down of education in Ontario is the intent of this government or this legislation as well as other pieces of legislation.
Mr Silipo: Thank you very much for the presentation to both of you. I'm going to ask a question and leave it up to you as to which of you will answer it. I appreciate very much the presentation.
I'll start with one of the last points you made, your calling for a clear statement of intent with regard to the whole future of education, and secondary education in particular. Unfortunately, what we are getting from this government more and more is that the only intent it has with respect to education is cutting down the money we spend on it.
The backdrop, to go back to the beginning of your presentation, is exactly that. What we see is the minister not hesitating to misquote numbers, whether they're the statistics that in his view indicate we're spending proportionately more -- and I was glad to see you correct that in your presentation -- or continuing to refer to Mr Sweeney even though Mr Sweeney has, certainly here in Carleton and other places, clarified that the statistics he used were arbitrary and do not reflect the reality of the situation out there. That's what we are getting from this government more and more, a sense that what it needs to be doing is cutting.
One of the things that troubles me is that we aren't even getting what one might be able to somehow understand, which is to say, if we need to cut in the whole system to move that money into another area of education where we need to be spending more, then that would seem to me to have at least some potential merit. But what we are getting here instead is a constant push to take $1 billion out of education over this one year alone -- we don't know what's coming over the next year or two; I think we can expect more in the way of cuts -- just so the government can continue to reduce the deficit and continue to pay for the tax cut, which my friends across don't like to mention as being part of what will also add to the debt over the next five years.
As teachers who obviously see this kind of pressure exerted and resulting, day to day, in cuts in the classroom, how far can we go before we will no longer have a school system that is considered to be among the best in the world, as I believe ours is today?
Mr Capstick: I'll take a crack at it first. Let me begin by suggesting that in your preamble -- and I mean this with no disrespect. However, this morning I've heard a number of responses from gentlemen on all sides that are purely political statements. I spent two and a half years working up there on the other hill before I went into teaching and I'm well aware of the necessity for that. I'll call it political speechmaking. Once that is stated, however, one thing is very clear to me: You must move beyond the politics and get down to hard tack. It's got to hit the road at some point and we've got to know what we want and how we want it. Even before this government's recent initiative, and previous governments', there were impacts on the classroom.
My last year in the classroom -- again, it sounds like whining, and God knows I listen to enough whining from my students -- I bought the OA textbooks at the second-hand bookstore because there was no money; I bought the complete set. I know the realities out there. I know that in one half of the room they sat there with coats on in the winter and froze; in the other half of the room they could have been in shorts and T-shirts -- the quality of the building they're in. Yes, we've got problems. We can walk through various schools. Certainly you people as members are quite welcome to visit your schools and have done so. You've seen the good points and the bad points. More often than not, I'm afraid you're stuck on the stage for commencement rather than during the regular day-to-day activities.
This has been an ongoing situation, an ongoing problem. I'm not going to pretend I have the answers to these. Certainly I recognize it's out there. I know my colleagues are doing their best. I know they are doing their best to try and address the needs of the student. I still maintain that on any given day when you walk into that classroom and that door shuts, the vast majority of teachers are giving to their students because that's why they're there. I still maintain that is what keeps this system afloat. I will defend anyone on the quality of the students we produce in this province. There is no crisis in terms of the graduates.
Mr Silipo: I couldn't agree more with that. I appreciate your admonition to all of us, I suppose, in terms of political statements, although I would suggest to you that what is happening right now is very political in terms of the decisions that are being made.
Mr Capstick: Most definitely.
Mr Silipo: I think it's incumbent upon us to raise our perspective on that.
The Vice-Chair: Your time has come to an end. I've got three speakers on the government side, so govern yourself accordingly.
Mr Skarica: I'll try to be quick. I'd like to talk to page 5, if I could -- and I think it was Mr Capstick -- of the first presentation, where you refer to the "mean-spirited actions teachers have come to expect from this minister" and then refer to some conduct. I'd like to make this comment: I've found it very disappointing that there isn't a cooperative spirit. I know your federation blames us, but I recall my first political appearance was at your annual conference at the Inn on the Park. I think it was early August 1996. I arrived at noon and the press asked me, "What do you think about Mr Manners declaring war on you people?" The only thing that had been cut at that time was my hair. It's a two-way street. I think that comments like "mean-spirited" and so on and so forth -- I deny that. We care about education as much as you do. I know this is a political speech, but I believe it as fervently as you do. You care about the students. Well, so do we, and calling people names -- "mean-spirited" -- does not accomplish anything.
The Vice-Chair: Do you have any comment, quickly?
Mr Carter: Yes, I do. To respond to that, to begin with, you've confused the two of us. Those comments were mine and the Inn on the Park was the OSSTF conference. But in August of last year Mr Snobelen did come to the Constellation Hotel and delivered his first public speech and talked about service organization and front-line providers and all the terminology.
Interjection: Do you object to --
Mr Carter: What I'm saying to you, and what we have been saying consistently, is that every time there's been an attempt to be cooperative or collaborative, the response has been to attack the teachers and say: "You must talk on our agenda. Cut the money, cut the money, cut the money."
To cut sick leave doesn't save money. It reduces us into a 100-plus negotiating situation with this province, an adversarial thing that's bound to be confrontive. Teachers aren't away 20 days a year. You heard the chair of the board this morning tell you that if you limit the gratuity now, it'll take you 20 years. That's not the problem. The problem is that the government has lost its focus. The focus is on quality of education, like it should be on quality of health care and on services to the citizenry. Secondly is their fiduciary responsibility. I'm sorry if you are offended by it, but I think it's time we say, "If it smells like a rose and it looks like a rose, we should call it a rose, and if it isn't, we should find the proper name for it."
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Mr Preston: I'm very interested in some of those comments myself. I'm very interested in Mr Silipo's situation, in that that government of the day said, "You will save this," didn't give anybody any opportunity, said: "You're going to be off seven days. You're going to work seven days; you're not going to be paid. You're going to work five days; you're not going to be paid." They recognized at that time that we had to do better for less. Of course, when we try to do it now, it's a problem. We're on the backs of everybody and we're beasts who don't care about children. I happen to have six children and 12 grandchildren. I care greatly about what happens to the children in this province.
I would guess that as agents for the teachers, you would be against alternative methods and alternative sites for early childhood education, which we continually confuse with junior kindergarten. Would you be against alternative sites and alternative educators, if it did the job? Let's put it that way.
Mr Carter: I heard your comments this morning when you were referring to your wife as a teacher and I think it was your daughter as an early childhood educator.
Mr Preston: No, my daughter-in-law, but my daughter is too.
Mr Carter: I would presume that you'd then understand the difference in the training and the difference in the skill sets. In fact, right here at the University of Ottawa they have come up with a special program where early childhood educators can attend and gain a bachelor of education degree.
There is no opposition to looking into alternative delivery styles. But the problem is when we start looking at it by automatically assuming that the current style is without value and can be eliminated. The trickle-down economics said that 85 of the lowest-paid teachers in the board in my membership are going to be without work next year; 75 kindergarten lunchtime monitors who are being paid just about the minimum wage and don't have a large skill set are also the people who are being put out of work. Those are the people who are not going to be making money to contribute to this economy, but rather are going to be something the economy's going to have to look for as they go to it. That's of concern to me and I would suggest should be of concern to everybody.
Mr Pettit: I've asked this earlier; I'm going to ask it again. Do either of your federations feel that your boards have done everything possible to find savings without affecting the classroom, yes or no? If the answer is no, could you give us some thoughts as to where they should be going?
Mr Carter: I'll give you a very brief "no" and then let my colleague answer it, because I don't want to take all the answers. No, they have not, and when they cancel junior kindergarten to save $2.8 million and continue to build reserves, putting over $3 million in, I'm telling you they're not doing everything they can to save money and not affect the classroom.
Mr Pettit: What exactly are these reserves set aside for?
Mr Carter: They have them for a variety of things, and the more often you ask the question, the longer the explanations become. My background is in teacher bargaining. I first negotiated with the Carleton Board of Education in 1978. They talked about their unfunded liability and retirement gratuity. We said: "You should start saving. You can tell what you're going to need by the end of the century." They set up their retirement gratuity reserve fund last year.
The Vice-Chair: Any comment, Mr Capstick?
Mr Capstick: I think I'll leave it at that.
Mr Chiarelli: I've got a question for Doug. A number of people have mentioned that this really is not an education bill, that it's not a John Snobelen education bill, that it's an Ernie Eves budget bill. You alluded to the $1-billion-plus in cuts. As MPPs, we all know that Charles Harnick, as Attorney General, has to cut, and all the other ministers; MNR has to cut, and so on and so forth. We're talking fiscal policy; we're not talking education policy. You're kind of a little tool of Ernie Eves in terms of achieving certain cuts.
The question I have to you is a budget question: Where would you recommend to Ernie Eves that he find the $1 billion he's taking out of education? We're talking fiscal policy, we're not talking education policy, and I think we have to look at the broader story, the broader picture of what we're involved in, because you are seen as a special-interest group. You're here representing the interests of teachers. You don't represent the public as far as this government is concerned. They represent the public, the taxpayer. Where would you recommend to Ernie Eves that you find the $1 billion that he's taking out of the system?
Mr Carter: Let me start by telling you that teachers are taxpayers too and nobody wants to pay more taxes than they have to. I said to you that everybody expects efficient use of their tax dollars, but I believe there are some services that are provided by the government -- and that's why I said the business of business is to make money but the business of government is different -- where you operate with a scalpel rather than with a broadaxe. I believe there are efficiencies to be found. It could be in following some of the recommendations about taking more of a provincial lead in curriculum development, which has been abdicated by the provincial government for a number of years.
We could look at a lot of things. You heard talk this morning about the 85 factor. It isn't all the solution, but certainly there is a solution to, say, make it easier for the people who are about to retire to retire sooner, because if you have in the average around this province a teacher at maximum categories and years of experience, you're paying him about $60,000, and the entry level is about $32,000, yet we consistently make it more difficult for them to leave. We know of the stress particularly on the older teachers. In our long-term disability plan, the statistics would tell us for a group with our demographics we would expect five to seven teachers per thousand. I have 2,000 members and I have almost 40 people on LTD, most of them stress-related.
Where do you take out the $1 billion? First, I would have some things to say about the tax cut, but then I have things to say about the election and when promises were made when people didn't expect to be elected too.
Mr Preston: I find it very interesting that he used the word "we" in connection with the --
Mr Carter: Well, I'm a teacher.
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute, Mr Preston. Mr Patten has the floor.
Mr Patten: A few comments on your intro, when you talked about the comparisons that were used between Ontario's school system and the rest of the provinces: The more we got into this the more we discovered, and even the deputy minister agreed at estimates, that the comparisons were not really justifiable. He was to come back to provide some more comparisons of apples to apples. As a matter of fact, the OSSTF did somewhat of a comparison. Their suggestion was that after these cuts Ontario would be below, not even including Ontario, the average of all the other provinces in terms of their monetary commitment to education. I just wanted to point that out.
The other point I'd like to ask about is in terms of your projections on layoffs, because I'm hearing some astounding figures of a loss of teachers across the province that are going anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 over the next couple of years. What's your projection? If we take the $400 million for this year and we annualize that, and we know there probably is a bigger hit coming in 1997 than there will be this year, somewhat modified by the capital amount of money that was included in the $400 million, what's your projection on layoffs, actual job losses to teachers?
Mr Carter: At this moment in time I don't have a particular projection. I know it is a concern that has been raised at the Ontario Teachers' Federation level -- again, my association with the faculty of education. I'm aware of what's happening at the faculties all over the province. We have been downsized this year and downsized in the past through the social contract. There was absolutely nothing to put a cap on at the faculties of education, so they have continued to churn out graduates. As a teachers' group, we have been highlighting with the faculties and the deans of the faculties of education that this is a serious problem.
My grave concern is that we are going to have a segment of our teaching population where there will literally be a vacuum. Historically, we've had a situation where you have the older teachers mentoring the younger teachers as they come in and a constant progression through. We're coming to the point where we have a serious age gap. I think the average age of the graduate at the University of Ottawa last year was something like 31 or 32 years. They don't have a hope of a job, or the vast majority don't, for the next three, four years. By that time they are out of the profession and therefore we won't have that continuity. Again, it's something we're working at from a federation level and trying to work in collaboration with the universities, but they do not of course --
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. It's a good time to recess for lunch. At 1 o'clock we're back.
The committee recessed from 1210 to 1300.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call our hearing to order, please. We can start with our presentations this afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to the committee this afternoon, to our public hearings on Bill 34.
RENFREW COUNTY TEACHER AFFILIATES
The Vice-Chair: Our first presentation this afternoon is by the Renfrew County Women Teachers' Association, president Lila Paddock. But I see a whole bunch of other people there, so maybe you could introduce yourselves as you go along. We look forward to your presentation.
Mrs Lila Paddock: Before we begin I apologize for the error on the front of our brief, which should have said "to the standing committee on social development." I apologize for that.
The Vice-Chair: We were about to reject it, but what the heck.
Mrs Paddock: It is my pleasure to introduce the presenters and our head office advisers and colleagues. I am Lila Paddock, president of the Renfrew County Women Teachers' Association. Beginning on my left is Sheryl Hoshizaki, president of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. On my right is Pierrette Rhéaume, l'Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens, or AEFO, Renfrew unit elementary president; George Hooper, Renfrew Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation district president; Roger Perry, Renfrew Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association unit president; Duncan Jewell, director of counselling and bargaining services, Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation; Neil Doherty, member of the secretariat, Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association. I will begin.
The Vice-Chair: We have a greater delegation than we have number of government members on this committee.
Mrs Paddock: The Renfrew County Teacher Affiliates is pleased to have the opportunity to present our concerns about Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act.
Before the affiliates deal with the specific provisions of Bill 34, it is important to address the government's contention that the $400-million reduction in the 1996 provincial grants to school boards can be implemented without affecting the classroom, no matter how narrowly one defines the classroom. It should also be noted that the $400-million reduction in this year's grants will actually amount to about a $800-million reduction in school board budgets over the 1996-97 school year.
The Renfrew county affiliates endorse the cooperative agreements' amendment and further agree with equalization payments subject to the comments made when that section is addressed in this brief.
However, the Renfrew county affiliates are adamantly opposed to the amendments on junior kindergarten, adult education and sick leave entitlement. The junior kindergarten and adult education amendments are an attack on those in our society who are most vulnerable. We affirm our commitment, in rejecting these amendments, to maintaining equality of educational opportunity for all.
All of the changes proposed in Bill 34 are made for the sole purpose of cutting costs quickly, yet nowhere has anyone addressed how these changes, made in isolation, fit into the broader vision of what we believe our education system should accomplish and provide. The affiliates urge the social development committee to slow down and give serious consideration to all the issues. The affiliates urge the provincial government to reconsider many of the decisions which have led to the directions proposed in Bill 34. We do, however, encourage the government to pursue better integration of services for children, the proposal you will find in the cooperative measures section of Bill 34.
It is this legacy of concern for the common good and this commitment to distributive justice that lead us to reject the educational and social priorities of the government, specifically with respect to junior kindergarten and adult education. The Renfrew county affiliates view the amendment as the beginning of an assault upon public education through inducing a financial crisis in assessment-poor boards and decertifying the teachers involved in these programs.
We view the amendments made to the Education Act with respect to sick leave provisions as an attempt to contract-strip with respect to sick leave and retirement gratuity. Serious labour unrest in the education sector is guaranteed by such proposals.
We reject the thinking of the government that economic considerations are to be the new standard directed towards ensuring a major tax cut, regardless of the consequences to education or the welfare of Ontario generally. The affiliates are committed to preserving the continuity of program and quality of education in Ontario.
To much of the industrialized world, it is barely conceivable that Ontario is actually still questioning the long-term value of early childhood education. In much of Europe, Japan and elsewhere, it is a given. For decades they have brought their three- and four-year-olds to the education system. For decades they have seen the benefits.
Bill 34 will delete the requirement that schools must operate junior kindergarten. Therefore, junior kindergarten will no longer be an option for many boards, because ending it is the easiest way to find the savings imposed by the cuts in the grants. We believe this to be a totally regressive step from an educational perspective.
The report of the Royal Commission on Learning, 1994, identified that early childhood education significantly helps in providing a level playing field of opportunity and experience for every child, irrespective of background. The report of the Royal Commission on Learning recommends that early childhood education be provided by all school boards to all children from three to five years of age.
A draft report of the Ministry of Education and Training dated November 3, 1995, indicates clearly that the ministry is well aware of the importance of these programs:
"Research consistently indicates that high-quality early childhood education experiences are important for later achievement, especially for disadvantaged children. It further indicates that academic gains are higher when early childhood education programs provide a stable, consistent environment, have well-planned curriculum led by highly trained professionals, promote high levels of interaction between adults and children, and have high levels of parent involvement."
From an educational perspective, we respectfully request that the government rethink its course of action with respect to junior kindergarten.
The affiliates submit that the following facts apply to junior kindergarten:
Promoting the wellbeing of children and defending their entitlements must become society's highest priority.
Children have the right to secure life, education and the opportunity to achieve their potential.
A country that is trying to raise educational standards cannot afford to lose out by allowing its youngest children to be undereducated at a time in their development when they are most open to new learning.
Due to the time restraints, I will leave pages 4 to 7 for your study.
Pierrette Rhéaume will continue on page 7.
Mme Pierrette Rhéaume : Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs. Il y a une grande marge entre les enfants qui arrivent à l'école mentalement, physiquement et intellectuellement prêts à apprendre et les enfants qui viennent à l'école handicapés par un manque de stimulation et de soutien moral. Avec le programme de la maternelle, chaque enfant a la chance de développer son potentiel et mieux s'adapter aux exigences de la société. Autrement, nous créons un système éducatif à deux paliers. D'une part, les familles démunies seront sans support, et d'autre part, les enfants provenant de classes supérieures auront un avantage marqué dans leur éducation.
L'Ontario se doit d'être fier de son programme de maternelle. Lorsqu'il sera cancellé par les conseils scolaires suite aux coupures budgétaires, les jeunes enfants, la plupart de familles démunies, seront privés d'une situation d'apprentissage importante.
Toutes les recherches sur la petite enfance supportent le fait que la maternelle est un programme qui doit continuer et être financé adéquatement.
À peu près 90 % des conseils séparés catholiques romans et 60 % des conseils publiques en Ontario maintiennent un programme de maternelle. La réduction d'octrois par élève a un impact néfaste sur ces conseils scolaires, dont un grand nombre sont à faible revenu. Ces conseils à moindre revenu auront une subvention de 30 % de moins par enfant sous le niveau de 1995.
Pour les conseils démunis, offrir le programme de la maternelle signifie soit une augmentation de taxes aux contribuables ou d'autres coupures au niveau du budget éducatif. Vu la grande quantité de conseils scolaires offrant une maternelle, nous considérons cette coupure comme une attaque directe à l'éducation.
Nos recommandations : que les maternelles soient maintenues dans la Loi sur l'éducation comme étant un programme obligatoire avec des enseignantes et des enseignants diplômés, et que le financement demeure au niveau actuel.
Maintenant je vous présente George Hooper, qui poursuivra la présentation du mémoire.
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Mr George Hooper: Adult education programs in Ontario public secondary schools are extremely successful. Each school year we meet the needs of 80,000 daytime students aged 21 and over. Eighty-three per cent of adult students get a job or go on to further education after leaving our programs. They stay in our schools on an average less than one year because our full service programs, such as cooperative education and prior learning assessment, can meet their twin needs of getting a diploma and obtaining job skills.
In announcing the changes included in Bill 34, the Minister of Education and Training indicated that the legislation would "provide flexibility to school boards with respect to adult education by enabling school boards to direct certain adult pupils to continuing education credit courses."
We must not be fooled by the word "flexibility." The minister has already announced that effective the 1996-97 school year, the ministry will no longer fund students over the age of 21 as regular day students. If there is no funding for these students as regular day school students, there will be no flexibility for school boards as to where the students are enrolled.
But this legislation goes further than students over the age of 21. It denies regular day school programs for many others, including those who were attending school only part-time and so were unable to complete their qualifications for graduation within regular time lines and those who left school and now want to return to obtain their secondary school diploma.
Making the courses available only through continuing education is severely limiting the access of adults who will have to complete their secondary school education. Women will be particularly disadvantaged since juggling family and work responsibilities with school classes will be even more difficult. We also question whether the same range of options can be available for women in the continuing education program.
When introducing the legislation, the minister also said, "Our responsibility as leaders of the education sector is to create an educational system that is both excellent and affordable." Regrettably, we note the minister no longer includes "accessible" in this list.
I'd like to go through to paragraph 9.15 on page 12 and just mention one or two of these points.
A recent survey by the Continuing Education School Board Administrators' Association, including all boards in the province, found that 50.87% of all graduates are employed four months after earning their OSSD; 36.1% of all unemployed are enrolled in additional training and education. You can see the numbers there below.
Public school facilities are available throughout the province and in some communities are the only educational facility. The universality of access boards provides and serves adult learners well, especially in Renfrew county.
Now we go over to page 15.
Conclusion: The legislation provisions which are tabled in respect to adult education will have the effect of constraining the education of students who presently avail themselves of opportunities to earn credits and acquire skills for further education, training or job placement consonant with their present family or employment obligations.
It would certainly appear that the ministry's position with respect to the differentiation of staffing has been set far in advance of any findings or recommendations of the announced study group on the issue. The provisions are nothing less than the decertification and deprofessionalization of instruction for adult learners. With the implementation of monetary savings which accrue through the use of unqualified instructors rather than certified professionals, savings will be achieved. The costs of the savings will be the disfranchisement of young adults, our future ratepayers; the onset of significant future expenditure for the development of an employable workforce; and a profound reduction in the quality of education.
The government's reduction in funding for adult education contradicts its own position stated in the Common Sense Revolution that it's providing people on social assistance with a hand up and not a handout.
Recommendation: That the amendment to the adult education sections of the Education Act be withdrawn and that funding be maintained at existing levels.
Page 16 on sick leave: The amendments contained in subsection 5(2) and section 10 will delete the statutory entitlement of teachers to any sick leave with pay. The amendments contained in this section will further affect sick leave accumulation, the portability of sick leave between boards and dramatically affect the retirement gratuity provisions contained in collective agreements. There are no appreciable savings for the province to be found in this amendment.
The chart on the next page compares the length of sick leave and maximum accumulations of unused sick leave across occupations. It is clear that other groups have sick leave plans comparable to those of teachers. I'm sure you've seen these lists before.
Unpublished data from Statistics Canada reveal that in 1994 absenteeism among teachers was lower than the labour force as a whole. Teachers' absenteeism was also below that of several other groups, including nurses and broader categories of medicine and health, public administration and manufacturing. In Renfrew county the average is less than five days per year.
Recommendation: That the proposed amendments on sick leave provisions be withdrawn.
I'd like to hand over the next part to Roger Perry, of the English Catholic association.
Mr Roger Perry: I will start on page 19.
The government should carefully consider the issue of adequate funding which provides equity and fairness for all boards. Therefore, all students would have an equal opportunity within the province.
Recommendation: The affiliates believe there is a need for educational finance reform.
The Education Act will be amended to permit school boards to enter into agreements with other school boards for certain educational purposes. In order to encourage cooperation among school boards and other public institutions with respect to efficiencies, the amendments will permit a wider range of agreements to be made by boards. The intention is to encourage the sharing of facilities, equipment, transportation and various other support services. Should downsizing be a factor, the affiliates demand that all employee rights be protected and, furthermore, that the contractual status of each employee be honoured.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens and the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario support such cooperative ventures and point out that extensive cooperation presently does exist.
Continued cooperation in all areas cited is desirable. Please note that under the current funding, and transportation funding in particular, we in Renfrew county, the largest geographic county in Ontario, have been adversely affected because of earlier cost-saving measures. Recognition of our previous voluntary reductions and cooperative ventures should be reflected in the grant structure proposed by this government.
I thank you. We are open to answering any questions.
Mr Preston: Under junior kindergarten, 2.03, you've stated that the school boards have knocked out junior kindergarten because "it is the easiest way to find the savings," which would indicate that there are other ways; they're just not as easy. We didn't ask them to do the easiest thing; we asked them to do the proper thing. Obviously, there are proper things; they're not as easy as this.
The easiest way is to provide a window to allow teachers who are highest on the grid to leave, providing an opportunity for younger teachers to come back in. How do you feel about that, number one? And are you in favour of alternative sites and alternative educators if the criteria for early childhood education can be met? Two questions.
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Ms Sheryl Hoshizaki: I'm not sure the first question was about junior kindergarten. I think it was about an alternative to save money. However, this brief referred to the fact that it appears the boards of education feel junior kindergarten is one of the easier programs to eliminate because it was fully funded and it was at one end of the programming. That inevitably has turned out to be true, because 30 of the school boards have in fact cancelled junior kindergarten. To relate it to other ways to find money I don't think is specific to what we see as the credibility of the program itself.
Second, in response to your early childhood education question, as I have stated earlier and we as an organization have stated on several occasions, for many communities across Ontario there are no alternatives, there isn't a choice between junior kindergarten and an early childhood education program, so the comparison sometimes is somewhat redundant.
However, the suggestion that providing an early childhood education program because it is cheaper has been investigated by some school boards, recognizing that early childhood educators are more focused on what we refer to as child development in the area of large and small motor development for children, and junior kindergarten is an actual readiness school program. There is a significant difference. There are also different laws that insist on the number of students you can have or the number of children in your care. As you know, ECE workers, under the Day Nurseries Act, have a ratio of one to eight, which then increases the number of people who have to be employed, therefore may not be the cost saving that some school board had thought might occur.
We believe a combination of early childhood educators as well as a junior kindergarten teacher would provide the best program for children who are four years of age in Ontario.
Mr Preston: I didn't get an answer to my first question. Are they in favour of a window for the teachers on the highest part of the grid to move out so younger teachers can move in?
Mr Hooper: The older teachers, if they wish to do it, the answer would be yes, if they were given the opportunity. But they have to be given the opportunity.
Mr Preston: Very good. That's what we want to know.
Mr Pettit: You're with the Renfrew County Board of Education?
Mr Hooper: Yes.
Mr Pettit: I've got to ask you this also, and any or all of you feel free to answer. Do you feel that the Renfrew board has done everything possible to find savings without affecting the classroom, ie, perhaps pink slips for teachers? If the answer to that is no, would you please enlighten us on areas where you feel they perhaps should have done things where they haven't.
Mr Hooper: I'll speak for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation and the high school teachers. We're in rather a unique situation. We have lots to boast about in Renfrew county. We're the lowest-paid teachers in the province. We have the highest PTR, which tells you that our board is as extremely efficient as it can be. We simply have nowhere to cut now and that's one of our major problems. Our board, in the last four years of negotiations that I've been on, has always stated the fact that they can't go back to the taxpayer. Even prior to the social contract, our board had cut back dramatically, and when the social contract came up, we couldn't even cut back at that stage.
Mr Pettit: So as far as you're concerned, there is absolutely no room in administration?
Mr Hooper: No. We have one director and two superintendents.
Mr Skarica: Thank you very much for your presentation. I understand you're one of the assessment-poor boards, so I find it interesting that you agree with the equalization payments amendment, particularly because there was a comment made about it by another organization, the OSSTF in Windsor yesterday, which indicated, "It is a stark example of the minister exercising dictatorial powers and undermining the statutory autonomy of school boards." Obviously, you don't agree with that comment.
My main point is that it's clear from a number of presenters here that what we need is reform in the whole education finance area, because right now it's creating grave inequities in the system. Do you agree with that comment or no?
Mr Hooper: Read 14.01 on equalization payments. I think you get our answer there.
M. Lalonde : Ma question serait à Mme Rhéaume, un point de clarification. Le «junior kindergarten», c'est vraiment la prématernelle.
Mme Rhéaume : C'est la maternelle suivie du jardin.
M. Lalonde : Alors, c'est de même qu'on le considère.
Je vais aller plus loin avec une question. Est-ce que vous croyez que le fait qu'on va couper la maternelle ou donner l'option aux conseils scolaires d'aller de l'avant ou non avec les maternelles -- est-ce que vous croyez que le secteur rural va être le plus affecté par ces coupures ?
Mme Rhéaume : Je crois que non seulement le secteur rural va être affecté ; c'est certain que les secteurs ruraux vont être affectés. La disponibilité d'autres programmes dans le secteur rural est peut-être moindre que dans les milieux cosmopolitains.
Mr Lalonde: I really feel that the rural sector will be the most affected in terms of the option of junior kindergarten. The rural sector doesn't have public transportation, and very often we see that both parents have to go to work; in this case one of the parents will have to stay home an extra year to look after their children. Referring to Prescott and Russell, for example, the French Catholic school board has decided to go ahead with the junior kindergarten to make sure the parents have a chance to go to the labour market, to go to work, so it has to come up with a cut in another sector within the school board to be able to manage that extra $400,000 it is going to cost the school board. I believe the Renfrew County Board of Education or the Renfrew separate school board will be hit the same way as Prescott and Russell.
Mr Patten: Thank you for your presentation. We don't have much time so I'll speak quickly.
I'd like to address your comment, "The affiliates urge the social development committee to slow down and give serious consideration to all the issues," given the impact of the cuts.
By the way, I agree with how you characterize the bill and its purpose; however, I would like to remind you that the committee is a reflection of the House and there are eight members from the government on this committee. If the government side chooses to hear your suggested changes, they can do so. Whether they will actually do that is another story, but they will have to report back.
You must also know that this committee cannot just meet as long as it would like. It is directed by the government as to how many days it can meet and on what issue. We have three days this week, and as soon as we've finished that, we've got two days for the committee -- two days means only a matter of hours each day, by the way.
Mr Newman: It's the House leaders.
Mr Patten: It's the House leaders. Yeah, sure. Listen, if the government House leader says, "You've got so many days," that's the way it is.
Interjections.
Mr Patten: It's my time.
We have two days next week. Follow it up and see who votes for what at the amendments. Watch it on TV or have some of your people at the committee and see what is recommended in terms of who has listened to you and who has proposed it and what the response has been.
Mr Martin: I was pleased with the context within which you've placed this legislation, your opening remarks about the junior kindergarten education amendment as an attack on those in our society who are most vulnerable and then further along saying we need to put this in context.
The context I see, both in my own community as I talk with people and as I listen at Queen's Park, is an agenda that started almost from day one that was an attack directly on those who are the poorest among us and those who are most vulnerable and that this legislation is a continuation of that. I think we'll see that thread continue through the whole time of this government's tenure in office.
Given the massive reduction in the amount of money now in the pockets of the poorest families in the communities you represent in terms of education and the fact that those kids show up at school every day now and present themselves to you, as teachers and professionals in the business of education, what challenges are you beginning to see more dramatically because of that, if any, and what challenges do you anticipate with the diminishing of the resources people have in their own family to take care of themselves and the diminishing of resources by way of services to support families who are struggling, challenges that usually fall at the front door of schools?
Mr Hooper: Renfrew county is a very rural area, with approximately 86,000 people for the whole county. We have four major towns; the rest are spread out. One of the problems we have with adult education is that we have it within the cities or the towns only. We have other schools throughout the area and we have pilot projects within libraries or elementary schools where we conduct adult education. Many of these adults have no means of transportation because they're on welfare and their financial circumstances are such that they can't afford to go.
That's going to have a major impact on our future taxpayers -- at least that's what we hope they will be, because the statistics show that people who become educated get jobs, and that's not going to happen in Renfrew county. It's going to have a major impact on adults who leave and don't have their OACs and that type of thing.
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Mr Martin: It was suggested this morning that in the budget there was actually money put into the system that would help and support families in need and in difficulty of various sorts. Of course, when you put that in the context of the cuts that already happened, certainly this government is trying to separate what was just a litany of cuts since July of last year, and then all of a sudden we have the good news budget that puts a bit back in, which is a bit like telling you they're going cut off both your arms and then saying, "We're going to, for this year, save one."
In terms of some of what is suggested is put back, is that going to have any impact re the difficult situation that we're facing and the ability of families to participate more constructively in the preparation of their kids before they are sent off to school, in your understanding?
Mr Hooper: Is that at the secondary level or junior kindergarten too?
Mr Martin: I would think probably across the board. For example, you take 22% out of the pockets of families to feed their kids, and then in the budget you put back a little bit to say, "We're going to have a nutrition program so you can feed them in the schools." Does that make any sense to you?
Mr Perry: The problem of underfunding education, which really is at the essence of it, is that any cutbacks to the education system after a system has already taken a fairly large number of cutbacks is going to hurt.
For example, in Renfrew county, the separate board began its cutbacks back in 1991 when teachers agreed to no increases in salary at that time. Then came in the social contract. We've had no coordinators or diagnosticians etc since then. Our board runs very, very frugally. As a result, the problems that children bring into the school with them are downloaded onto the classroom teacher, and what's exacerbating that is a reduction in the moneys coming in, the number of bodies going out, and class sizes going up.
I'm a classroom teacher, and the more children I have in the classroom, the less time I am going to have to deal with each child. That's bound to happen. We do have lots of problems in the classrooms today and most of them are coming from outside the school. The school tries to handle a lot of those problems, but the job is becoming enormous, and I think we're going in the wrong direction in this province if we hope to improve the lifestyles of our children for the future.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Paddock and all members of the delegation. Unfortunately, your time is up. We enjoyed your presentation.
PHIL SWEETNAM
BOB STRUTHERS
DENNIS DATE
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Health Network: Phil Sweetnam, Dennis Date and Bob Struthers. You have half an hour for your presentation, which will include any questions and answers. If you could identify yourselves as you're speaking, then Hansard can identify you as well.
Mr Phil Sweetnam: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the very important topic of education. I note that we are listed as the Health Network, which is an organization that my wife chairs. We, however, have nothing to do with that organization. My two colleagues and I are concerned citizens who for some time have taken an active interest in the funding of education in this province.
My name is Phil Sweetnam. I'm a businessman. I live in West Carleton and I have a business in Goulbourn. On my left is Dennis Date --
The Vice-Chair: Just so that I'm clear, there's no one here, I take it, from the Health Network? You're not usurping somebody else's time; it was just that it was set up this way.
Mr Sweetnam: It was set up this way. The original contact was with my wife, Beth. In the old style, busy husbands sent their wives. In our household, the busy wife sends her husband.
Mrs Ecker: Hear, hear.
Mr Sweetnam: Dennis Date is a resident of Kanata and is the former treasurer in that city. On my right is Bob Struthers, a former General Motors executive and past chair of our transportation committee in the township of Goulbourn. We decided to share this time to tell you about how we feel about the issues which are crucial to achieving a balanced budget in Ontario.
I applaud the government's effort to control spending and the measures that have been introduced in Bill 34 as good steps in the right direction. However, I would like to suggest that more steps are needed if we are going to put our fiscal house in order.
Firstly, Ontario can no longer afford to pay sick leave gratuities to its public sector employees. We businessmen have had to ask our employees to take reduced hours and even a reduction in my own salary in order to have our business survive. Certainly, when employees leave private sector employment, they don't get any sick leave benefit. As a public representative at the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, I can tell you that sick leave benefits were terminated over 10 years ago. For the sake of our future economic stability in this province, we all have to be realistic in our salary and benefit expectations.
My second point is that allowing the boards to negotiate separately with their unions with fewer rules in place than before is a recipe for disaster. I agree with the bill concerning the removal of the provision of sick leave gratuities. However, if we are going to replace it with no new rules, it would be wise to make the control of the funding of education a provincial responsibility. A partnership with the province which would allow local involvement could be preferable, but I feel it is only feasible if strict guidelines are in place controlling the amount of money trustees can commit to future earnings.
At the moment, my understanding is that local school boards together are committed to at least $150 million of unfunded liabilities for sick leave gratuity. That is money that all of us who work in Ottawa-Carleton are on the hook to pay for, for the rest of our lives. To say to trustees, "You can negotiate collective agreements that include whatever future sick leave payouts you want to provide" is unacceptable. A local board, the Carleton Roman Catholic board, does not have accumulated sick leave and their teachers take no more sick days than the teachers for other boards.
Finally, in order to bring teachers' salaries more in line with the private sector, I feel it is time to declare teaching an essential service. Salaries of teachers will continue to escalate as long as teachers have the right to strike. No trustee wants to be in a position of causing children to lose their opportunity to learn, so the right to strike is an especially powerful tool for the teachers to keep pushing up salaries. The funding of charter schools or private schools would be another way of controlling spiralling teachers' salaries. Competition would force teachers to be more prudent in their salary demands.
In other words, I am recommending some additions to your toolkit if you really want boards to cut back in their spending. I do not want to leave the impression that I feel in any way we are badly served by the teachers of Ottawa-Carleton. I am suggesting ways of paying them less because we are all having to work for less. My impression is that we have excellent working teachers in our region but we can't continue to pay them at the level we have in the past. If we continue to commit large payouts that run up huge unfunded liabilities, we are never going to be able to have a stable provincial economy with a balanced budget. We all have to tighten our belts.
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Mr Bob Struthers: Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes to the Education Act. I support this government's effort to address some of the fundamental problems that have developed over time within our educational system. In comparison to many other countries, it appears that we have allotted undue resources to educate our youth, and these amendments should prove valuable in curtailing serious cost implications that have hobbled our economy.
While admiring your effort, I feel that additional revisions are necessary to provide further restraint, particularly in the areas of sick leave and general funding for education.
As to the first, I recommend that the concept of sick leave be abolished. Undoubtedly employees should be provided with the certainty of an income stream in the event of sickness or accident, but perhaps we should examine alternatives to provide this worthwhile goal. For instance, why could we not ensure that the taxpayer-employer supports their teacher-employee's short-term absence -- say, one to five days -- without salary interruption as a necessary cost of providing a fundamental service? In the event of illness or accident requiring extended leave, a week or more, would it not be reasonable to provide disability insurance, the premium to be fully or partially funded as an employee benefit? This revision to the traditional sick leave concept should ensure employee protection against income reduction due to involuntary illness, reduce current costs and eliminate future liabilities for accumulated sick leave.
Beyond this specific cost factor, there is the broader issue of funding for education and offsetting taxation as it has developed within our province. Our present system has not worked well, since splintered administrative control has led to salary levels exceeding many other jurisdictions, particularly those in the United States. This is not surprising as long as individual school boards are allowed to establish salaries, benefits and working conditions, while offsetting teachers' federations play off one group of trustees against another in a leapfrog scenario. This factor appears to be the major cause of our swollen education costs. No trustee could reasonably be expected to face down requests for matching salaries or benefits negotiated by a nearby school board if the consequence meant a withdrawal of services by their teachers, nor would anxious parents permit their trustees to risk a cessation of education for their children.
I am suggesting, then, that our present system tends to lead to excessive costs to provide education. As well, it often creates inequities in the quality of education provided.
Given the assumptions that I have outlined, I feel that many groups would be better served if Ontario assumed all funding of and taxation for education throughout the province. Costs should be better controlled, to the benefit of the taxpayers. Local confrontation and conflict between trustees and teachers' representatives should be minimized. Services should be delivered to end users in an equitable manner.
Your government has provided significant change of value in many areas in past months. I hope you will consider further improvement to our educational system. If not, this major expense program will continue to cause undue stress on our tax burden and economic wellbeing.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr Dennis Date: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I propose to follow on on the comments of my colleagues and address more specifically, in a little more detail, sick leave entitlements.
While also welcoming the proposal to eliminate the number of sick leave days as a statutory entitlement, the proposed change does not seem to address the most objectionable feature from the public perspective, namely, sick leave gratuities. Furthermore, allowing the school boards to agree to the sick leave credit terms in negotiated contracts is likely to take down the barn door which has already been opened and which I will refer to later with respect to how those credits can be abused.
I believe the government's amendments should be comprehensive and not be limited to the education sector. In support of this view, I'd refer you to the sections of the Municipal Act and the Education Act which specifically authorize sick leave credits for municipalities, school boards, other boards and commissions, and allow sick leave credits to be banked and paid out upon termination.
These specific sections place limits on the amounts that may be paid out. The acts both provide only one half of the credits saved may be paid out, provided that in no case shall the amount paid exceed one half of the employee's salary at the time of disbursement.
My concern over the negotiated settlement approach can be captured in this clause, not from a school board, but it is reflective of my concern: "On the date of retirement, the number of days unused sick leave standing to the employee's credit shall be doubled. The terminal allowance shall be 50% of this number of days, multiplied by the employee's daily rate of pay at the date of the employee's retirement."
I don't believe the Legislature intended any powers to be placed in contracts which are not to be found in the legislation.
With respect to this issue of negotiated contracts, there are several court cases in the United Kingdom, from which much of our provincial law stems, where municipally negotiated contracts have been overturned because they contained powers that were not specifically available to the municipality. In point of fact, only last week, two of these decisions were upheld at the appeal court level.
Without getting bogged down on this point, it is known as the doctrine of ultra vires. In layman's terms, it refers to the fundamental situation whereby municipalities can only do what they are specifically allowed to do. A negotiated contract is not enforceable usually if it contains conditions which are ultra vires the powers of the municipality. Yet the proposed change seems to open up a new way of/setting tfrms and conditions.
Let me now put this background into context. Taxpayers in thqs+region were astonished and upset by a sick leave gratuity in excess of $300,000 paid to a former police chief who was promoted to a similar position with a new force. More recently, the unfunded sick leave credits of the remainder of that force were calculated at $23 million. This liability was transferred to the whole region. Fortunately, the new police services board negotiated the discontinuance of this benefit for the new members of the regional police force. It might seem to suggest that only new brooms sweep clean.
In the education field, it was incorrectly reported, but it was reported, that the accumulated sick leave credit entitlement for an official who left to take another position was roughly $125,000, or the equivalent of one year's salary. For undisclosed reasons, a request was refused, a move described by the official as "unusual."
The unfunded liability for future payouts has been referred to and with respect to one of the major boards, it's $58 million and with respect to the other board, it's $50 million. I would hazard a guess that across the region, we'd be talking in the low billions. It's almost like, "Read my lips."
This unfunded liability is a real problem. In both of the individual cases I referred to, they were presumably arrived at through negotiated contracts, despite the legislation referred to earlier that sets a limit not exceeding one half of the employee's salary. When introducing that legislation, which does cover municipalities, school boards, other boards and commissions, and police commissions, I might say, by definition, it might be reasonable to suggest that the intent was clear by the Legislature.
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While it's commendable that the province wants to enhance the local autonomy of the school boards through its amendment, past performance in that sector suggests that unless the province intends to become the future employer, there's likely to be little change.
Since the mid-1970s, the majority of municipal councils have withdrawn the rights for new employees to accumulate sick leave credits. At about the same time, the provincial government withdrew this savings plan benefit for its new employees. Existing employees had their benefits frozen and no further credits were allowed to accumulate.
On the other hand, I was told by a school board chairman that only about six school boards had discontinued this practice for their employees. It appears that the major groups that generally continue to enjoy the benefit are police officers, firefighters and school board employees. One can only speculate why these groups have been able to retain the benefit. There is no comparable benefit in the private sector, and with short-term and long-term disability plans, there seems little justification for their continuance in the public sector.
Before concluding, a further point with respect to the unused credits might be noted. Reference was recently made to a possible understaffing situation in a fire department due to staff being on sick leave. It might seem that once the maximum number of days has been accumulated, there might be a temptation to use the further days available on a use-as-you-earn approach. In the education sector, of course, this presumably means or might mean the hiring of more supply teachers.
In summary, I repeat, it seems that more comprehensive amendments are required to both the Municipal Act and the Education Act. Perhaps the accumulation of sick leave days should not be allowed for new employees; perhaps the casual number of sick days during the calendar year might be restricted to a figure more in keeping with common sense; perhaps existing credits should be frozen, and perhaps the taxpayer should have a charter of rights.
Provincial leadership is needed when the role has not been exercised, for whatever reasons, by those charged with the stewardship of public funds. Being from an older school of thought, I still prefer the term "partnership" to "disentanglement" for describing the preferred kind of provincial-municipal relationships.
A municipal politician was recently quoted as saying, "If you don't pay, you don't play." That was in answer to a provincial. Despite the desire for clearer lines of responsibility, a partnership approach appears to offer a better prospect for taxpayers than unbridled disentanglement.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your very interesting presentation. We have two minutes left per caucus, and we'll start with the opposition caucus.
Mr Patten: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. Actually, I found it to be quite interesting in terms of some of the options you suggest to what is probably a looming financial problem. I can see by your orientation that you're all NDPers.
Mr Sweetnam: We are of a diverse political background here, Mr Patten.
Mr Patten: You began by saying you wanted to address the deficit. I would certainly agree that we want to address the deficit, but I would suggest that the implication of the other side, which you didn't address in this legislation, was really to tackle the tax cut, pay off some of the tax cut, because that's part of the equation and the borrowing that will be required in order to give a tax cut. So I wondered if you would agree with Ralph Klein when he said that it's crazy to give a tax break at the same time as you're trying to address the deficit.
Mr Sweetnam: I've been asked that in some other roles I play when I've been lobbying municipal councils for funding for conservation authorities. I think the way that governments pick up their funding really is a matter for them to decide. I think what we need to focus on here is what's appropriate or inappropriate in this legislation. Given that there are 30 minutes, and I was hoping to get some good questions from the floor, we didn't want to go into the whole aspect of how governments should fund themselves; we wanted to focus on just this Bill 34.
I hear by the radio today people are all saying: "It's going too far. You're cutting too much." We're saying, "Maybe you could go a couple of steps further." That was our approach, I think, in our discussions.
Mr Patten: The assumption is that -- a couple of phrases like "it's swollen" etc. You said in the paper that in comparison to many other countries it appears that we've allocated undue resources. What we found when we looked at comparisons, even within Canada, is that often it's apples and oranges that are being compared and that they are not truly direct apple and apple comparisons.
I would suggest to you, because I haven't got the time to get into it but perhaps you can respond, that when we look at the international comparisons, there are few other nations that have the kind of support we have for people with learning disabilities, kids with special needs, and the universality of our system is decidedly different than what you might find in Japan or what you might find in Germany. So I would caution you, when you look at those comparisons, to ask for the next level of detail in terms of who are we really comparing. Are we comparing the same kind of accessibility to systems for all kids, and are they serving children with disabilities or learning difficulties, that kind of thing? I don't know if you have a response to that.
Mr Sweetnam: I simply know, from an excellent CBC documentary, they suggested that we pay in the top four in the world and our product that comes out would be defined as in the top 10 in the world, so an excellent education system. But I would subscribe to the doctrine that would suggest that more money isn't going to fix it. In other words, I think reallocation of the resources that presently go to the system is probably going to do you more good than trying to fix up the system. I really believe -- my colleague Dennis Date has said it so well in saying this system of paying people because they're healthy is really so inappropriate and an example of how education resources might be better directed. My philosophy has always been, as Bob Struthers has said, if people are sick, you pay them, that's our responsibility, but if they're well, you don't reward them.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Struthers, did you want to speak?
Mr Struthers: Just two things quickly; one is that I don't think it's correct that someone like Commissioner or Police Chief Ford, who earned $10,000 a year as a first-class constable, should have banked his pro rata sick days, whatever that comes out to, and take them out at a rate of $200,000. I don't think that improved the policing and safety of the citizenry.
Number two, in response to Mr Patten's suggestion that we provide more complete education in our jurisdiction, there was a major article in the Citizen about two months ago. The writer had been to Tennessee and was very impressed with the education there and how the children were better served there. I think they had a ratio of 1 to 10, and she was very critical of Ontario for its very high ratio. At that time I just happened to have picked up a US News and World Report of December 4, 1995 -- I think it's in your material -- that indicated that the average salary in Tennessee was $31,000. So I would suggest that at a salary rate of $31,000 you could certainly pump a lot more teachers into the system. I'm not anti-teacher, but salaries are salaries.
The Vice-Chair: That's US$31,000, is it?
Mr Struthers: Yes, and they pay in US dollars too.
The Vice-Chair: I know. Mr Martin or Mr Silipo.
Mr Martin: It's interesting to note, in follow-up to the question you were just asked, that this isn't about reallocation, this is about taking money out. It's also interesting to note that you're the first group, since I've been here today, to come in support of this legislation. I don't know what happened yesterday in Windsor.
Mr Patten: We had one.
Mr Martin: You had one?
Mr Sweetnam: We heard the report on the radio and we rushed right down.
Mr Struthers: We wanted to create a balance.
Mr Guzzo: You're the first independent group.
Mr Martin: Oh, nobody's independent. Everybody has an axe to grind and a group that they belong to. And we're all taxpayers, you know that, you and I included.
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Interjections.
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute now. Mr Martin has the floor.
Mr Martin: Yes, be respectful.
Mr Sweetnam: I'd like to hear his question and I'll give a best, compassionate right-wing argument to you.
Mr Martin: Okay, that should fit right in because the question I want to ask you is this: This government in nine months has just rolled out massive reductions in public spending. You probably think that's a good idea. The only problem I have, and I'm asking you as business people how you feel, is that there's no business plan, there's no detailed analysis of the short-term or the long-term impact of this on society as a whole and on the economic environment as a whole that we need to have in this province if we're going to continue to do business and attract investment.
This piece of legislation today does not fit into, that we can ascertain, because it hasn't been delivered to us yet as a Parliament, any well-thought-out, detailed business plan. There's no plan here. It's just "Fly by the seat of your pants."
Mr Sweetnam: Can I answer your question? It's a pretty comprehensive one. Certainly I think in the long term there should be a business plan, but when you get turnaround experts into a private company and they start -- I understand the province spends $10 billion more than it takes in -- maybe the turnaround experts don't do everything you want or do things in the traditional manner, and it's really tough when you're in a company. I know some people who have been there when the turnaround expert said, "We're going to make this company profitable," and it has really been tough on the employees. They've had to work harder and give up some of the company cars and benefits they've had.
Mr Smith: Thank you for your presentation. We've heard a wide range of views extending from positions that there's too much money directed into the education system and that's problematic, we heard this morning that it's underfunded, that the government is mean-spirited in its cutbacks, but one of the consistent messages we have heard, irrespective of backgrounds, is the need for a fundamental review of the education system. I realize you've looked at one element of this bill. Have you given any consideration to the appropriate time frames and the types of issues that the government should be looking at? Should it pursue a fundamental review of the education system and how it's financed?
Mr Date: Yes, but you'd have to read my book. The restructuring and financing should go hand in hand. You cannot address one without the other. On that point, although it's off this agenda, I have reservations about the province taking over education, so it shows that we do have different points of view.
I think it was Mr Davis who said, "If you ever want to see escalation of education costs, give it to my provincial civil servants." On a more informed note, I would recommend that your officials provide you with a copy of the Layfield committee report of 1975, which gave a very good treatise on suggesting why education should remain at the local level, and in that sense I'd recommend that school boards be dissolved and their functions transferred to municipalities to the extent that any local decision-making is still worthy of pursuit.
Mr Smith: Just one last comment. From my personal perspective -- perhaps in a previous life I would be classified as a public administrator in the municipal sector -- I think the issue you raise today is important from the sick leave benefit perspective. As someone who's been inside a collective bargaining unit and outside I have never had, in my professional experience, the luxury of a retirement gratuity, albeit there were accumulated sick days which eventually would have been lost, so I certainly appreciate the perspective and some of the history you've brought with respect to sick leave accumulation.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. I guess you can also thank the Health Network for being on the agenda.
Mr Sweetnam: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario, with the president, Diane Ellis. Bonjour.
Mr Skarica: While they're approaching the table, Mr Chairman, I filed an answer to Mr Wildman's motion yesterday, the answer to the potential negative grant school boards and the long-term disability plans. Again, the two NDP members weren't here yesterday. If Mr Wildman feels that doesn't satisfy his motion, we're prepared to hear further submissions.
The Vice-Chair: We have that, and it's my understanding that there's an agreement that the final package of amendments will be in the clerk's office by Monday at noon. I believe there's an agreement on that between all the parties.
Mr Silipo: We'll take your word for it, Mr Chair.
The Vice-Chair: No, no. You're on your own, Mr Silipo.
Mr Silipo: If Mr Wildman has indicated that, that will be fine.
The Vice-Chair: Okay, thank you very much.
FÉDÉRATION DES ASSOCIATIONS DE PARENTS FRANCOPHONES DE L'ONTARIO
The Vice-Chair: Good afternoon. You have a half-hour for your presentation, and that will include any time for questions and answers.
Ms Diane Ellis: My name is Diane Ellis. I'm with the Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario. I am the vice-president. I thank you for the promotion that you gave me to president. Our presentation today will be focusing on junior kindergarten, and though the presentation is made in French, all questions can be answered in English afterwards. This is Gabrielle Blais, representing the eastern Ontario sector.
Mme Gabrielle Blais : La Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario est le seul organisme provincial représentant les parents des écoles de langue française catholiques et publiques en Ontario. Aujourd'hui, on vient ici pour vous dire que l'on n'appuie pas l'abolition de l'obligation, pour les conseils scolaires, d'offrir la maternelle tel qu'il est proposé dans le projet de loi 34.
Lors de sa 43e assemblée annuelle tenue du 27 au 29 octobre 1995, les associations des parents membres de la FAPFO s'inquiétaient déjà du maintien de la maternelle au sein du système scolaire, et une résolution mandate la FAPFO de «s'assurer du maintien des maternelles de langue française au sein du système scolaire».
La Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario vous demande de tenir compte de l'importance fondamentale de la maternelle pour les jeunes francophones de cette province. La décision de retirer l'obligation, pour les conseils scolaires, d'offrir la maternelle aura un effet démesuré sur la population de langue française, qui accuse un retard éducatif par rapport au groupe majoritaire. Il est évident que l'impact de la maternelle a des conséquences tout au long de la vie éducative. Les résultats des épreuves scolaires en font continuellement la preuve. Toutes les évaluations des élèves de l'Ontario montrent que les élèves francophones obtiennent des résultats inférieurs à ceux des élèves anglophones en lecture et en écriture, en mathématiques et en sciences.
En 1993-1994, l'évaluation provinciale de l'écriture et de la lecture des élèves de 9e année indiquait que 33 % des élèves francophones se trouvaient au niveau d'une performance rudimentaire ou limitée, en comparaison à 9 % pour les élèves de langue anglaise. Dans les évaluations nationales faites par le Conseil des ministres de l'Éducation, Canada, en 1994, pour les élèves francophones de 13 à 16 ans, 71,6 % et 50,7 % respectivement des élèves francophones de l'Ontario avaient une performance rudimentaire ou limitée.
La perte de ce service de base qu'est la maternelle se traduira certainement par une diminution de la performance scolaire. Le gouvernement de l'Ontario a la responsabilité d'adopter des politiques qui améliorent la performance scolaire, pas le contraire.
Pour offrir aux élèves francophones des possibilités d'avenir équivalentes à celles de l'ensemble des élèves de la province, il faut assurer un bon départ éducatif. La maternelle permet d'amorcer le processus éducatif dans un milieu professionnel de qualité.
La Commission royale sur l'éducation recommandait non seulement le maintien de la maternelle, mais l'ajout d'un service pour les jeunes âgés de trois ans, et le tout à l'intérieur du système d'éducation publique.
La valeur pédagogique de la maternelle est reconnue de par le monde, et le gouvernement de l'Ontario fait fi de l'expérience mondiale. La maternelle est d'autant plus valable pour les jeunes Franco-Ontariens qu'elle permet de démarrer d'un bon pied l'éducation formelle des jeunes qui se trouvent en situation de minorité linguistique.
Les parents de notre Fédération, déjà aux prises avec des inégalités fiscales et un manque d'accès à la gestion de leurs écoles, s'inquiètent de l'avenir de leurs enfants dans un Ontario qui ne leur assure plus un départ éducatif dans leur langue première. Le gouvernement de l'Ontario a l'obligation et la responsabilité d'offrir des services et des programmes d'excellente qualité tout au long de la vie éducative de nos enfants.
Il est prouvé que plus l'éducation commence en bas âge, plus le taux de rétention est élevé. L'étude longitudinale américaine, the Perry preschool study, démontre que les élèves qui ont eu l'occasion de se prévaloir d'un programme préscolaire ont terminé leurs études secondaires à raison de 71 %, comparativement à 54 % pour les autres élèves.
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Il est difficile de trouver les chiffres récents sur l'abandon scolaire. Cependant, en général on estime à 40 % le taux de décrochage des francophones en Ontario, un taux supérieur de 15 % a 20 % par rapport aux anglophones.
Il nous semble que le bon sens nous dicte qu'il est préférable d'investir dans une politique de prévention du décrochage et de prévoir les répercussions à long terme de l'abolition de la maternelle. L'abolition de la maternelle de langue française augmentera certainement le fardeau social et économique, et diminuera la qualité de la main d'oeuvre de cette province.
Les politiques proposées par le gouvernement de l'Ontario n'auront pas le même impact pour les jeunes d'expression anglaise, qui ont des possibilités d'obtenir des services dans leur langue partout en Ontario que pour les jeunes d'expression française. Ce sont les jeunes de langage française qui feront les frais de cette décision. La faible densité et l'éparpillement des francophones sur un vaste territoire ne permettent pas à la communauté francophone de mettre en place les services de base essentiels à la survie.
En remplacement de la maternelle, la proposition du gouvernement de l'Ontario soulève la possibilité de faire appel aux garderies. Or, dans le rapport annuel 1995 du Commissaire aux langues officielles, à la page 85 on peut lire : «bon nombre de parents s'inquiètent de la pénurie relative des services de garderie de langage française en Ontario». Ainsi, bon nombre de parents francophones se trouveront dans l'impossibilité de trouver des garderies de langue française et ne pourront inscrire leurs enfants à la maternelle de langue française.
La Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario recommande que le gouvernement oblige les conseils scolaires à offrir les services de maternelle aux jeunes francophones. Je vous remercie.
M. Silipo : Merci, madame, pour la présentation. Vous savez sans doute que la position du gouvernement est que ce ne sont pas eux qui vont décider si, oui ou non, les conseils scolaires devraient offrir la maternelle mais que c'est une décision locale. J'aimerais bien que vous répondiez à ça, parce que je trouve très intéressant et approprié dans votre mémoire non seulement la justification que vous mettez pour la maternelle au niveau pédagogique, mais en particulier les problèmes que l'abolition de la maternelle va causer pour les étudiants francophones. C'est certain qu'on n'est pas, au niveau provincial, aussi au courant comme on devrait l'être. J'aimerais bien que vous expliquiez de manière plus détaillée, si vous voulez, comment cette mesure aura, selon vous, des impacts encore plus négatifs sur les étudiants francophones.
Mme Ellis : Comme vous le savez, on retire dans ce projet de loi l'obligation des conseils scolaires d'offrir le programme des maternelles. Donc, présentement on facilite le retrait du programme éducatif. Je vais souligner aussi qu'on retire ce service d'une clientèle qui est plus vulnérable parce que souvent c'est une clientèle qui n'est présentement pas dans le système scolaire. Donc, ce sont des gens qui ont très peu d'endroits sur la place publique pour se prononcer parce qu'ils ne sont vraiment pas intégrés présentement au système scolaire.
Nous vivons dans un milieu minoritaire où la maternelle nous donne la chance d'intégrer les enfants dans un système francophone le plus tôt possible. Comme on vous dit dans le mémoire, nous avons déjà des pénuries de garderies, donc les garderies ne peuvent pas venir à notre appui. Donc, on voit que si on retire la maternelle, on se retrouve dans une situation où l'enfant arrive à l'école à cinq ans où une bonne partie de l'apprentissage de l'enfant a déjà été effectuée. Le taux d'assimilation va vraiment augmenter en résultat de ce changement.
M. Silipo : Est-ce que vous avez eu des indications parmi les différents conseils scolaires qui ont déjà décidé d'abolir la maternelle, ou est-ce qu'il y a des conseils qui ont pris cette décision qui vont toucher de manière particulière les étudiants francophones ?
Mme Ellis : Les conseils scolaires francophones homogènes en province présentement font leur possible pour maintenir les maternelles, mais je vais souligner que nous n'avons pas, dans la plupart des régions de la province, la gestion scolaire, donc les francophones se retrouvent dans des sections à l'intérieur des conseils scolaires anglophones. Chez les anglophones, comme on le témoigne dans la région d'Ottawa-Carleton, les maternelles semblent être le premier programme touché par les coupures.
The Vice-Chair: On the government side, anyone?
Mrs Ecker: Excuse me, I have an inability to converse in French. My apologies for that.
What kinds of services or increases would you like to see? You mentioned the child care services for francophone, for French language. I have visited some programs up here in the Ottawa area that were extremely progressive and very good. I was very impressed. You were saying that we needed more. What kinds of services or what kinds of things do you think are needed more for the child care area in the francophone services?
Ms Blais: If I can speak from my own personal experience -- Diane can after -- I'm very fortunate in the fact that my third child is presently in junior kindergarten and in the afternoon is in a day care which is located in the school. In effect, from the point of view of security, education, motivation and happiness and the francophone environment, it has been absolutely perfect for him. I can see the difference between him and my two other children, for whom, because of cost reasons, we could not afford it.
If we're talking about philosophy of education, we have to remember that early childhood is very important. When we are investing in them, we are investing in our own society and in our own pension, in effect.
Mrs Ecker: There was some discussion about whether it should be done as integrated or bilingual centres and services. Any comments on that?
Ms Blais: Since the 1970s we have moved away from the bilingual system because the bilingual systems result in assimilation. We have to remember that we are in North America, where we are bombarded by English. I think we can both speak for our children, who come from francophone environments, who by the age of four could speak in English without ever having been spoken to.
Ms Ellis: Actually, I can answer a little more on that. Coming from a mixed marriage, as we refer to it, my first three children were in French day care before they went to pre-kindergarten. My last child is a year away from junior kindergarten. If the program were to be abolished, he would go into an English school, because my last child does not speak French, although the other three do and do it very well. The rules are that at home we speak English because Dad doesn't speak French. He needs to go into the program to live in a francophone environment the majority of his day. We can't afford the day care services.
Mr Lalonde: I would recommend that you use your translation intercom, because I think the point I will bring to your attention is going to be quite important.
Je vous félicite pour la présentation tout d'abord, qui dit que les Canadiens français, ou les francophones de l'Ontario, vivent dans une période de rattrapage dans le moment. Nous connaissons que dans les années 40, l'éducation au niveau secondaire n'était pas subventionnée par le gouvernement, donc les francophones n'ont pu avoir accès à l'école secondaire comme les anglophones de cette province. L'impact que connaîtront les francophones de cette province avec les coupures qu'on entreprend avec la présentation du budget la semaine dernière et les coupures de 400 $ millions, les francophones vont être les plus frappés dans cette province.
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Nous regardons la maternelle pour un point, et aussi l'éducation chez les adultes. Nous savons que pour les parents qui souvent n'ont pas eu la chance de poursuivre leur éducation, la maternelle est très importante, surtout pour nos familles monoparentales et les familles du secteur rural de l'Ontario. Dans Prescott-Russell, nous avons injecté dans le budget cette année un montant de 400 000 $ afin de permettre aux familles francophones de pouvoir continuer d'aller sur le marché du travail et pour donner la chance aussi à leurs enfants d'être inscrits à la maternelle. Avec ces coupures, je ne sais pas combien d'autres conseils scolaires auront la chance d'avoir un conseil scolaire, comme celui de Prescott-Russell, pour leur injecter 400 000 $ afin de leur donner la chance.
Nous reconnaissons aussi au niveau mondial que la langue française est très importante lorsqu'il vient le temps de parler de développement économique avec le marché mondial. Je me rappelle le gouvernement Peterson qui parlait de l'importance de pouvoir négocier en français avec les pays de l'Europe et aussi de l'Afrique.
Maintenant que nous allons retirer la chance aux adultes de poursuivre leur éducation après une certaine période de temps au travail, croyez-vous que les francophones vont pouvoir continuer à progresser dans la province comme nous étions partis depuis les 10 dernières années ?
Mme Blais : Si on regarde les résultats des tests, qui pour nous sont très importants, et nous appuyons et nous avons appuyé la mise en place des tests scolaires, on nous montre déjà que les francophones accusent des retards très importants dans toutes les régions de la province. Jusqu'ici on accepte, on regarde les résultats, mais on n'a rien fait pour corriger la situation. Dans un milieu où on ne peut pas offrir le service de maternelle aux jeunes, tout ce que nous on peut voir c'est encore que la situation va empirer plutôt que s'améliorer.
M. Lalonde : En d'autres mots, les coupures vont être plus néfastes sur le côté des francophones que de la langue anglaise. Cela confirme, en bas de la page 2, lorsqu'on voit les chiffres que vous avez indiqués dans votre rapport, vraiment ce qu'on essaie toujours de préserver dans la province. Je crois qu'il est très important pour le gouvernement de reconnaître que dans le secteur rural c'est complètement différent du secteur urbain. Dans le secteur urbain, lorsqu'on coupe un service, une chose qui est importante aussi c'est que lorsqu'on doit appliquer des frais d'utilisateur, comme on l'appelle, c'est que définitivement le nombre d'institutions va être réduit, mais encore là on a la chance de fréquenter une autre institution à l'intérieur du secteur urbain. Dans le secteur rural, lorsqu'on ferme une institution, c'est fini. Le transport en commun n'existe pas.
Un autre point qui est très important : est-ce que vous croyez que le fait qu'on va retirer la maternelle obligatoire -- on l'a retiré obligatoirement, c'est ça. Est-ce que vous croyez que les parents vont être portés à inscrire leurs enfants dans d'autres institutions, telles que les institutions anglophones ?
Mme Ellis : Tant que je viens du conseil de Prescott-Russell --
M. Lalonde : Ah, oui?
Mme Ellis : Je vous reconnaissais, Monsieur Lalonde.
Je crois que si l'école la plus près est en anglais, c'est probable que l'inscription sera faite là, mais ce n'est pas où est-ce qu'ils vont inscrire leurs enfants s'il y a une maternelle ou non. S'il y a une maternelle en français, je crois que les francophones vont inscrire leurs enfants à l'école française parce qu'ils voient le bon départ. S'il faut qu'ils attendent à cinq, six ans même, le français de l'enfant ne sera pas peut-être assez fort pour le rentrer dans le système. Pour faciliter la vie à leur enfant, c'est possible qu'ils l'inscriraient dans une école anglaise, ce qui diminue le nombre d'enfants dans l'école française, ce qui diminue les fonds disponibles, et c'est un cycle vicieux. L'assimilation est continue.
M. Lalonde : Et le fait qu'on réduit les subventions des garderies aussi. Encore là, c'est nous qui sommes les plus frappés avec ces coupures. Donc, est-ce que vous aviez une suggestion où le gouvernement aurait dû arriver à des coupures dans le domaine d'éducation sans couper l'éducation dans la maternelle ou dans l'éducation des adultes ?
Mme Blais : Nos membres revendiquent avant tout une éducation de qualité. Quand on parle d'éducation de qualité, on parle de maternelle, on parle de programmes communs, on parle d'accès à l'enfance en difficulté, on parle de ratios élèves-enseignant raisonnables et on parle aussi de toute la structure de testing pour vérifier tout ce qu'on fait. Mais nous croyons que la transformation du système éducatif peut se faire présentement si on cible les programmes «l'enfant», que vraiment on protège tout ce domaine-là à l'intérieur de l'éducation et que c'est possible dans le contexte actuel.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, ladies.
ONTARIO SEPARATE SCHOOL TRUSTEES' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: The next presentation we have is by the Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association, Patrick Daly, president, and Patrick Slack, executive director. It's always nice to welcome back a former Kingstonian because it allows me to sing the praises of that very historic and touristy part of our province that we want many people to come to. It's on the record now, anyway. The other person who's with you is Arthur Lamarche, who's the regional director.
Mr Patrick Daly: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I won't introduce those you already have, but as well with us today, and we're very pleased, is June Flynn-Turner, the chairperson of the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board, and Phil Rocco, the director of the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board.
We are here today representing the Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association, which represents 53 Catholic school boards in Ontario which collectively educate over 600,000 students from junior kindergarten to OAC, and as well represent approximately three million Catholic ratepayers in our province. Separate boards are leaders in many areas, including primary education and the integration of students with special needs.
The mission of Catholic schools, in addition to supporting a complete academic curriculum, is to create a faith community that integrates religious instruction, value formation and faith development into every area of the curriculum. Graduates of a Catholic school should be able to evaluate society with a critical and even countercultural eye. The Catholic community believes that respect for the person, as created in God's image, is essential for school and for our society.
Our schools strive to be communities of staff, students, parents and parish, each with a special role to play, the whole being an integral part of the larger local community.
OSSTA is here today representing Catholic school boards. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before the standing committee on social development to discuss the areas raised in Bill 34. These are indeed important issues. Decisions on these issues will have an impact on the quality of educational opportunity available to all elementary and secondary pupils in our province.
Regarding equalization payments to the Minister of Finance, we acknowledge as an association that we are living in difficult economic times and that school boards will have to operate in 1996-97 with fewer resources than in previous years. We outline in our brief the impact over the last three years of the expenditure control plan, the social contract and the recent March 6 announcement by the Minister of Education that the school board grants over that three-year period have been reduced by a total of $950.3 million.
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Fairness and justice require that these reductions apply to all boards and particularly those that are in rich assessment areas. All boards must accept a fair share of the burden. Unfortunately, recent decisions suggest that reductions apply only to boards dependent on equalization grants and do not apply equally to those boards which have a large assessment base. The effect, once again, is to penalize children in assessment-poor boards by curtailing economic resources for their education.
Province-wide testing and provincial standards are requirements of the Ministry of Education and Training which we support. It is the height of inequity to impose provincial standards without providing adequate funding to allow all school boards equality of educational opportunity for the children in their schools.
It is important to note that grants to education from the consolidated revenue fund are not the same as grants to municipalities or to hospitals; rather they are payments which equalize the provincial and local shares of the cost of education up to the provincially recognized level. They serve to make up the difference between the amount of revenue that can be raised locally through the application of the provincial standard mill rate and the ceilings. Thus, poorer boards receive larger equalization grants while the richer assessment boards receive less.
Inequities arise because the provincially recognized cost of education is too low and does not reflect the real costs of providing education programs and services. Almost all boards are forced to spend above the recognized ceilings. School boards with large non-residential commercial and industrial assessment can generate tax revenues with relatively little pain on their residential taxpayers. On the other hand, boards with small non-residential assessment bases must place heavier burdens on their residential ratepayers to raise the same revenue, and in our brief we outline a couple of specific examples. First of all, to raise $100, ratepayers in the East Parry Sound Board of Education must make three times the mill rate effort of those in the Toronto Board of Education. This is because of the differences in their assessment base.
We go on to identify even two boards within the same jurisdiction, the Windsor public and Windsor Roman Catholic board, where the Windsor Roman Catholic board is required to make two times the mill rate requirement of the public board. I know that many of you around the table could cite similar experiences in the jurisdictions that you come from.
Across the province, there are major inequities in resources. These inequities have an impact on both programs and services. Children are deprived or privileged educationally simply due to unequal assessment bases and where they live.
The net effect of reductions of $400 million in provincial funding to school boards hurts the poorer boards and the children they serve. It has little, if any, impact on the richer boards. Indeed, the reductions have no impact on those few boards in negative grant situations, that is, boards that receive no provincial grants.
Boards that receive no equalization grants can make cuts equal to those made by other boards. Fairness demands that all boards should be required to share equally in funding cuts, including boards which receive no equalization grants. We have calculated that negative grants, including the amount owing due to the social contract, are over $100 million in 1996. This amount is in addition to the $250 million already accumulated since 1992.
The proposed legislation allows negative grant school boards to make payments to the province. It does not give the province the authority to collect such payments from these negative grant boards. As a result, this bill does not require all boards to accept their fair share of the expenditure reduction, and in this regard we propose that the bill does not go far enough.
There would be no issue of negative grants if non-residential assessment in Ontario were equitably distributed to all boards across the province. Pooling of non-residential assessment was identified by the Ontario School Board Reduction Task Force as essential in its final report of February 1996. All the major studies on education finance over the past 30 years have come to a similar conclusion on the issue of pooling.
We urge the government to act promptly to implement education finance reform to give all boards a common property tax base, which would be used to pay for locally determined expenditures, and the pooled non-residential assessment to help pay for expenditures recognized by the province.
In that regard, as you can see in our brief, OSSTA recommends that Bill 34 be amended to authorize the province to collect negative grants, that is, the expenditure control plan and social contract, and negative grant boards' fair share of the $400-million savings strategy.
As well, we further recommend that the government proceed without delay with provincial pooling of all non-residential assessment as a component of education finance reform.
At this time, I'd like to call upon Patrick Slack to comment on other issues identified in the bill.
Mr Patrick Slack: On the following pages we cover some of the other issues we wanted to mention in addition to that key issue of equity.
The first one is sick leave and it's our position that we do support the concept of negotiating at the local level the teachers' entitlement to sick leave payment as part of the total compensation package.
Another issue is the one regarding adults in day school programs. OSSTA supports the position that priority must be given to the education of young people working towards a diploma. We are concerned, however, that the legislation and the funding changes already announced support those in our society, such as single mothers, who want and need to complete their secondary school credits to enable them to qualify for employment or post-secondary education.
Mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that the new directions do not stand in the way of those unemployed individuals who need secondary school credits to upgrade their qualifications. We believe there is merit in the Ministry of Education and Training exploring the possibility of joint funding for these programs with the Ministry of Community and Social Services.
We therefore recommend that the Ministry of Education and Training monitor the effects of the implementation of Bill 34 and the funding changes for adults aged 21 and over and make appropriate modifications.
Another area is cooperative agreements. Roman Catholic school boards are proud of their long record of lean administrations. We recognize at the same time that there is support generally for less bureaucracy and less duplication of services. We support therefore the provisions of Bill 34 that enable school boards to enter into cooperative agreements with other school boards, municipalities, hospitals, universities, colleges and other prescribed persons or organizations for the purposes set out in Bill 34.
We are very strong in the position that these cooperative agreements must be based on essential principles, and they are listed there. The preservation of our Catholic school system is the first one; that the results must be beneficial to students in the systems; that local needs and autonomy are identified and respected; that the quality and levels of programs and services are maintained or improved; and that these cooperative efforts are cost-efficient.
We have accepted the challenge to streamline and to restructure our operations. We are working with local agencies, neighbouring separate school boards and our coterminous public school boards to find ways of reducing costs through joint efforts. It must be emphasized, however, that Roman Catholic school boards never had administrative and operating structures to match their public counterparts. It is more difficult therefore for us to find new moneys for the classroom through administrative savings.
Perhaps we should have put the next one first, but it's very important to us: the junior kindergarten question. As stated here, junior kindergarten is an essential component of our elementary school system. Its value to children is documented in research. While we agree that junior kindergarten should be an optional program, as it has been for so many years, we believe firmly that it should be funded as a category 1 grant in the general legislative grants.
The recent change to place it under category 3 means that it is no longer funded at 100% by the province. Instead, it is funded at each board's rate of grant on recognized ordinary expenditure. This change places a very heavy burden on assessment-poor boards that cannot match the dollars raised from the mill rate effort in assessment-rich boards.
We therefore recommend that junior kindergarten be recognized as an essential component of our educational system and that funding for it be restored to the category 1 level.
Consultation: The funding of elementary and secondary education is a shared responsibility between the province and locally elected school boards. Under this dual responsibility, it is essential that the province consult with boards on proposals that will have an impact on programs and services and how they are to be delivered. Full consultation builds trust, helps ensure that the effects of proposed changes are identified and considered before final decisions are taken and builds a shared vision for the future.
We therefore recommend that the Ministry of Education and Training provide for adequate consultation with school boards through the provincial associations on proposals which affect the delivery of elementary and secondary education.
Mr Daly: Just in conclusion, as we said at the outset of our presentation, fairness demands that all students be treated equitably. In the context of fewer resources, this is possible only if the current funding inequities are taken into account and only if all boards, including negative grant boards, contribute their share of the burden of the $400-million saving strategy.
Funding decisions that reduce equalization grants have the effect of penalizing children in assessment-poor boards, both Catholic and public. Providing fewer resources for the education of some Ontario students means that their future contribution to the economic, social and cultural life of the province may well be adversely affected.
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Education is a shared responsibility between the province and locally elected school boards. Both partners face challenges to provide excellence in education to help each child be the best that he or she can be. OSSTA, representing 53 separate school boards across Ontario, extends its hand to work with the province in support of education for all students in schools across the province.
We urge the government to implement the recommendations outlined in this brief. Again, thank you for providing us the opportunity to present our views. We'd be pleased to respond to any questions.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We have five minutes per caucus and we start with the government caucus.
Mr Pettit: Thank you, gentlemen. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that Mr Daly is a Hamilton trustee and to also say that we're very proud of his recent election as president of the Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association.
My question is actually for you, Mr Daly. The separate board in Hamilton recently reached an agreement with the teachers which I'm led to believe will save in the neighbourhood of $3 million in what would appear, to me anyway, to be a model of cooperation and understanding of the fiscal realities facing all Ontarians.
When I mentioned the deal this morning to one of the other groups, I think it was the Catholic teachers' association, if they would entertain such a deal, the response we got was a stern no. I'm wondering if you could please explain the mechanics of the agreement that you worked out with your teachers and just how you were able to reach such an amicable agreement between the board and the teachers.
Mr Daly: I'd be pleased to do so. I don't pretend to speak for the teachers, but I can certainly for our board and I think understand the principles with which the teachers came to the table.
Clearly we understood that the $5.6-million reduction in revenues to our board created a serious situation that we all shared ownership in. We went to all of our employee groups, suggested to them that we all needed to share in the burden of that cut. I think seven of the nine employee groups in our system came to the table. Some went to far as to open up collective agreements that expire at the end of 1997 to be part of the overall solution. Specifically, the elementary teachers -- the question that you asked -- understood that were we not to achieve the settlement, we would have been in a position of having to perhaps eliminate junior kindergarten, to lay off a significant number of teachers. They did not want to see that happen because of their interest in students and because of their interest in their fellow staff.
We reached an agreement whereby, through attrition, we reduced by 30 teachers. Obviously there needed to be some changes in the collective agreement that allowed that. They approved that and, as well, some significant restructuring of the benefit plans that saved our board over $1 million a year. The combination of those two issues saved $3 million a year, as you indicated.
Mr Pettit: Thanks a lot. I'll defer to Mr Skarica.
Mr Skarica: I'd like to congratulate you on your new position and, as well, on what you've accomplished through negotiations in a cooperative-type spirit of agreement between all the stakeholders in Hamilton. Quite frankly, that's what the government was hoping would happen province-wide. It appears to have happened in some areas and not in others. Even we, as politicians, have taken a pay cut. Mr Silipo, being the former minister, has taken the biggest cut of all for the last year.
The Vice-Chair: But that wasn't voluntarily.
Mr Silipo: You'll find out what it's like a few years from now.
Mr Skarica: Is that type of agreement possible in other areas of the province? Because some of the submissions have said to us, "We've already cut to the bone; it's not possible to reduce our expenditures any further." I note from looking at your own expenditures in Hamilton, they're pretty well as low as you go in the province.
Mr Daly: My own view is that first of all we need to correct the funding inequity issue and provide a level base. Assuming that takes place, clearly we all share in the responsibility of providing education to our children. The employee groups obviously receive in the area of 80% of that which school boards spend money on and need to be part of the solution. There just is no way that a board can reduce expenditures without that taking place.
I think our association is confident that we can work with our other partners in Catholic education and develop strategies that respond to the reality that we have to do the same or more with less and will come to the table with that attitude. That does not move away from the responsibility we think the government has to move ahead with education finance reform, and those two issues have to move together.
Mr Patten: Likewise, excellent presentation; good background, good analysis. On page 2, when you identify the resources that have been taken away from the system essentially over the past three years and you arrive at a total of $950 million, and then you annualize the $400 million from 1996-97, that suggests that will probably be around $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion that's been lost from the system in a four-year period. Would that concur with your figures as well, if you extrapolated one more year?
Mr Daly: Assuming the capital was --
Mr Patten: The $400 million is over a four-month period, if you annualize that for next year, for the next budget year.
Mr Daly: Yes.
Mr Patten: So that's a heck of a lot of resource, close to a quarter -- I think it is about a quarter -- of the total amount of money, which I believe will probably place us below the average of all the other provinces in Canada.
In terms of Bill 34, in your recommendation related to mandating negative grant boards to contribute their fair share of the $450 million, I have two comments on that. One is that boards are left in a position of, well, we got hit, so why didn't you get hit too, which essentially is what that is. None of the money that would be taken from the negative grant boards would go back into education, so it does nothing for the educational system, regardless of how much money is taken out of that. It's only, we got nailed, so we want you to get nailed too. That's my first comment.
The other is that -- this is not to say, by the way, that I don't agree with educational finance reorganizing or review and change -- my understanding is that the board is faced with a threat from its own taxpayers who are saying, "If you take this money that we are directly giving to you as a board," and we have trustee representation, representation by taxation, "we will sue you."
So the board is caught between the -- I don't want to be judgemental here, but they feel threatened by some of the things the province is saying in terms of: "You'd better come across with this stuff one way or the other. We know we can't do it, otherwise it would have been in the legislation." They couldn't mandate. Believe me, if the province could mandate that -- they couldn't mandate it. Why? Because there's a constitutional issue at stake here in terms of indirect taxation. That's the problem I believe those boards are facing. What's your comment to that?
Mr Daly: Just so we make our position clear, our position would be that out of the $400 million, say, for example, if the two negative grant boards' contribution was $60 million, then the reduction to the remainder of the boards in the province would be $340 million. We're not suggesting that be an additional $60 million the government, any government, may choose to take for whatever purposes they see fit, we're suggesting that it reduce the impact on all the assessment for boards in the province and those that would receive grants. So we're saying it would reduce the impact on the other boards.
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We do not see the provincial pooling of non-residential assessment as a constitutional issue -- and clearly we are ones who speak proudly and strongly about our constitutional rights -- we see it as an issue of equity for all children in the province and one that the government can proceed with with our support and with that of many other assessment-poor boards as well. We are here today urging the government and all parties to support that position.
Mr Patten: In terms of moving towards educational funding reform -- I believe the report is at translation at the moment, at least I'm told, and we may see something surface fairly soon -- there will be lots of sacred cows that will have to be addressed, on the public school side, on the separate school side and any other school boards. One of the areas I have heard about from public school boards is, "Listen, if you're talking about across-the-board equality for everyone, we would like to see the separate board acknowledge that not all of their teachers have to be Catholic teachers." What would be your response to that?
Mr Daly: I would suggest to you that Catholic boards have acknowledged that for 150 years. Our position is -- and that's, as you know, why we've challenged section 136 -- that we feel we have the right and want to maintain the right to prefer the hiring of Catholic teachers. I know, and I would suggest to you that probably every Catholic board in the province has at times hired and continues to hire non-Catholic teachers, and they provide tremendous service to our system, but to continue to deliver the programs Catholic parents demand of Catholic school boards, we need to maintain that right. I don't think it's the same issue.
Mr Patten: My last question is, do you believe that the ceiling you referred to is sufficient to provide the basic quality of education for everyone, even if that ceiling was for everyone?
Mr Daly: No.
Mr Patten: What do you think might be sufficient?
Mr Daly: It would not be fair for me to throw out a number, but it's significantly more than what it is.
Mr Martin: I wanted to congratulate you too, Patrick, on your election. I'm just wondering if you have to be Patrick in order to exercise any leadership.
The Vice-Chair: No, but it helps.
Mr Arthur Lamarche: I'm an Arthur, by the way.
Mr Martin: You don't have much of a chance then in terms of the presidency. Neither does Regis. I'll have to talk to him about that.
I'm glad actually that you pointed out in your brief some of the very difficult work we were doing as government in our term to try to come to terms with the very difficult financial situation we faced. You may get the impression sometimes that all we were doing was spending, and that actually wasn't the fact. We were really working hard at trying to manage. The only difference -- well, I shouldn't say the only difference -- one of the major differences in our approach was we weren't entertaining the possibility of a tax break. During the election the Liberals had in their red book a tax break possibility, and of course we're seeing that the now government is living up to that promise and we're moving ahead with a tax break. Just very quickly and briefly, if you had the power to decide what was more important for Ontario, continuing a critical level of support for education so it's the best that it can be or a tax break, which would you do?
Mr Daly: I'm not sure if that's a -- I appreciate the way it's being asked, but I would only be expressing my own personal views. Our association obviously hasn't taken a position and we think that's appropriately dealt with by people such as yourselves in the provincial Legislature. I have my own personal views and would be pleased to share them with you after, but I don't think, representing OSSTA, that would be appropriate. I'm not sure if Pat wanted to --
Mr Slack: No, that's fine.
Mr Lamarche: When we get into the tax breaks, I think the better job we do looking after our kids now, the better job they're going to do looking after us in the future. I think the reason we're here is that we're here for the kids. I think a tax break is fine and dandy, but if we can guarantee equality to our children, that's a priority. That's an individual speaking.
Mr Silipo: Thank you very much for the presentation. I hear your comments about the negative grant boards, and we had a chance to talk a little bit about this in the past. But I wanted to focus in on one aspect of your presentation that relates very much to that. As you correctly point out, some if not most of these inequities arise because the recognized cost of education at the provincial level is far lower than what in fact the vast majority of boards spend in terms of the grant ceilings. Have you done any calculations within the association to determine if the grant ceilings were increased -- I don't know -- even to some kind of average amount that the boards are spending above the grant ceilings, what that would do to the negative grants? Surely it would reduce it by a significant amount.
Mr Daly: I think we have done some analysis and my memory is that $2.5 billion is spent over ceiling expenditures and I think approximately $1 billion, or slightly over, of that would be required to bring about equity, so half of that which is being spent now over ceiling, because many boards spend over ceiling.
Mr Silipo: And that's right across, Catholic boards, public boards, spending, because 95% I believe, or close to that, of school boards --
Mr Daly: Ninety-five per cent of the boards spend over ceiling.
Mr Silipo: That's right. The point I wanted to underscore in that was that in fact it has as much to do, I would argue -- and if you don't agree with me, please let me know -- it seems to me, with this notion of a negative grant as anything else does.
Certainly a couple of years ago when I used to have to be concerned more directly than I am today about the grant formulas, I understood very clearly how ridiculous it is, because it doesn't reflect what boards are spending, first of all, and then it creates these artificial distinctions between boards. Not that there isn't an issue around assessment-rich and assessment-poor boards -- clearly that's there and those things are there -- but it seems to me that it comes down to really taking the bull by the horns and saying we've got to dramatically change the way in which we fund our school system, and start by recognizing what all boards have already recognized and are doing, which is that they need to spend more than what the grant ceilings now say you have to spend in order to provide a good level of education. If we did that, it seems to me we also would reduce greatly this kind of pitching one board against the other, and in this case pitching also one sector of the school system against another.
The Vice-Chair: Do you have a quick comment on that? We're running a little bit over.
Mr Daly: We see that the major part of the problem is the commercial and industrial assessment being concentrated in very few parts of the province, and that has allowed certain boards to spend significantly more than others. There are very few boards that have that luxury. We would agree with you that many boards should be spending more, but the solution is to have the few high-spending boards come down to that reasonable level and that would solve the problem.
The Vice-Chair: With that, we thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr Silipo: Mr Chair, while the presenters are coming up, could I ask for some information to be provided to us by the ministry? Would that be appropriate now?
The Vice-Chair: You can ask.
Mr Silipo: These are figures that should be readily available. We've heard a lot here about the question of junior kindergarten. I wanted to pursue it with the last presenters but we didn't have the time. I would appreciate getting, and I'm sure the members of the committee would find it useful to have, a list of the boards which have decided to eliminate junior kindergarten. That would be one piece of information. The second would be to get a comparison of the provincial grants for junior kindergarten between last year and this year -- that is, between the 1995 legislative grants and the 1996 legislative grants -- for those boards which are continuing to offer junior kindergarten, because one of the points made in here was the change in the grant structure.
The Vice-Chair: We'll get a copy of that. Since Mr Skarica didn't hear, I'll get it to him and hopefully we'll get an answer a little later on.
Mr Skarica: I'm always cooperative.
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STORMONT, DUNDAS AND GLENGARRY TEACHER AFFILIATES
The Vice-Chair: The next presenter is the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, District 21, John McEwen, president. Welcome, Mr McEwen, and perhaps you could identify the other presenter with you.
Mr John McEwen: Good afternoon. As you know, my name is John McEwen, and my partner beside me is Brenda King. My colleague presidents in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry are listed on the cover page of the brief. They have asked me to speak on their behalf as they are unable to attend, so in point of fact the record should show that I am making a presentation on behalf of all the teacher affiliates in SD&G, public and separate, secondary and elementary, English and French.
In June of last year the present government came to power in Ontario. The government has moved very swiftly to implement its program, a program to slash government spending in what we consider a radical measure. This is done in the name of waste elimination, deficit reduction and bureaucratic minimalization. The government has systematically sliced into those services which governments provide -- services which safeguard the safety and wellbeing of individuals and communities, and services which permit Ontario to exist as a civil and a civilized society. No area of government, despite previous promises, has been left untouched.
Our government seems bent on eliminating those things which have made Canada the envy of nations and Ontario the benchmark of the Canadian provinces. There has been a considerable public outcry over many of these cuts. Publicly, I have heard the government declare with much self-satisfaction that such complaints can be easily ignored. Fortunately, the rules of our Legislature require hearings such as this one. My colleagues observe, however, that it's a mockery of the democratic process to stage hearings, as was the case with the earlier bills in this series, which then proceed without perceptibly affecting the severity or the direction of the attacks on the people of Ontario.
None the less, despite these observations, we are grateful that we were permitted to appear. We were not permitted to do so when the Bill 26 hearings were held, nor were we allowed to appear before the Bill 31 hearings. We are also grateful to the MPP for Cornwall, Cornwall township and Charlottenburgh, John Cleary, who ensured that our written submissions were given to the legislative committees considering these two bills.
You may find it odd that we have agreed to participate in what some of us consider a futile exercise. I confess we have grown somewhat cynical and somewhat discouraged, but we speak none the less, because our constituents, the members of our teacher federations, have commissioned us to enter our concerns, fears and reservations and our resistance to Bill 34 into the public record. The present government must not, and will not, have the luxury of pleading, "If only we had known," or "We couldn't have foreseen," or even "We didn't intend that result," when the dire effects of this legislation adversely affect the quality of life here in Ontario.
We are here today to tell you this must not be passed in its present form, and we are also here to discuss some of the reasons we believe it must not be passed as written. We suggest that you ignore our words at the peril of the wellbeing of the people in this province.
We have many things we would like to talk about, but we'll focus on primarily two things: first, junior kindergarten, and second, those affecting adult education.
Bill 34, we believe, is at one and the same time an anti-person bill, an anti-family bill and an anti-society bill. It stands beside previous bills issued by this administration in that among its immediate targets are the most extremely vulnerable clients of the school system: the very young and the last-chancers, the four-year-olds and the former high school dropouts. Like the previous targets of Mr Harris's government's policy, these groups are the least articulate and the most powerless among us. It is well known that students who begin their primary education with an adequate set of skills, abilities and attitudes have greater opportunities for success and stay in school longer than those students who enter grade 1 without those attributes. It is understood that the present junior-senior kindergarten system provides a levelling-up opportunity for four- and five-year-olds to acquire those attributes. Research has shown that early education identifies children who are at risk in their development and where remediation can afford them later success in school. This is particularly helpful for students who are otherwise disadvantaged. In the long term, early education experience has been linked to diminished dropout rates.
I'd like to read into the record a report from the National Center for Education Statistics. It's an arm of the US Department of Education. The report is entitled Approaching Kindergarten: A Look at Preschoolers. I will read to you a concluding paragraph.
"The results of the study indicate a need for innovative approaches to the provision of early education services to disadvantaged children. As previous studies have shown, existing preschool programs have beneficial effects in the area of literacy and numeracy but they do not appear to be improving the behavioral, speech and health difficulties of disadvantaged preschoolers."
The need for earlier and more effective interventions for young children with special education needs has been recognized in their federal government legislation.
The parents of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry understand the value of kindergarten programs. They make sure their children participate. To illustrate the point, in the public board, 85% of the eligible four-year-olds and 99% of the five-year-olds are enrolled in kindergarten programs.
Section 6 of Bill 34, as you know, does not disallow junior kindergarten funding. It enables boards to use their discretion. It allows them to cut if they must or deem fit to do so. The parallel changes to the GLGs reduce provincial funding for junior kindergarten. This ambiguity is a masterstroke of political ingenuity from the government's point of view, but it's a terrible disservice to the people of this province. The state of JK varies from board to board and county to county. Parent, student and teacher committees who would protest are fragmented into groups of haves, have-nots, might-haves and maybes, and Ontario's four-year-olds are falling through the cracks.
The parents of those with the greatest need for this type of program may have the least opportunity to retain it or replace it. We who are speaking here today hold this government responsible for the frustration of parents, the dismay and the disillusionment of teachers and, most important of all, most serious of all, the ground lost to the children.
Moving on from our position that Bill 34 is anti-person in its undermining of the best interests and educational welfare of the children of this province, we assert that the bill is also anti-society. Perhaps you may have seen in the newspapers this last week the shrill calls of the Reform Party for a tougher response to violent crimes perpetrated by 10- and 11-year-olds. This controversy was occasioned by the alleged rape committed by an 11-year-old child who is suspected of committing other crimes.
We would like to distance ourselves as far as possible from Jack Ramsay's draconian solution to the problem. We suggest that the appropriate response is not a tougher punishment but a more enlightened approach to childrearing. We in Stormont say it takes a village to raise a child, and this child's failure to be raised should be read as our collective failure to raise him.
Our child care policies are acutely inadequate. In this area, we rank only behind the USA, which holds last place among the G-7 industrialized nations. To lop off junior kindergarten programs is to make our inadequacies even more acute. As a society, we need more, not less, in this area from all levels of government. Damaged and deprived children cannot be excised or isolated like social cancers; they must be nurtured, and the time for nurture is before the damage is done.
Early childhood education complements parental training and nurture. Whether the child-client is four or 14, society benefits when education is accessible to all its members. If you're not persuaded of the high correlation between poverty and lack of education and criminal activity, we've got a fairly exhaustive bibliography we'd be pleased to provide to you. Appendix A and appendix B contain articles from the Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Globe and Mail respectively, assessing the cost of the neglect of our young.
We recommend that the government reimpose the obligation of school boards to offer junior kindergarten programs and that these programs be fully funded in the grant structure.
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At the other end of the age extreme targeted by Bill 34 are young adults, former dropouts, who summon tremendous courage to try once more to meet society's expectations, who seek to gain the citizenship paper in the form of a high school diploma. These are the disfranchised of our communities. We must not, in fact we cannot, afford to slam the door in their faces. Their loss does not just leave a void; it also is a threat to our personal safety and our personal security.
The government has acted against adult students in a fashion similar to its attack on the education of four-year-olds. Adults are not denied access to high school education. Instead, boards are given the power to direct an adult student to enrol in a continuing education program. Where the board permits, adult students may attend the regular day school program. In either case, as with junior kindergarten, the grants received will be smaller than before, and like the JK issue, different school boards have reacted in different ways.
Some, like the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Roman Catholic Separate School Board, have eliminated adult education. As a result, francophones in the francophone heartland of Ontario cannot get an education in their own language if they're an adult former dropout. Others, like the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry public board, are striving to continue to provide education to adults. This board, however, will restructure the program to compensate for its reduced funding, and here is where things get difficult.
The continuing education model for adult education is -- I've written "difficult," but it's really impossible for largely rural school boards. In order to provide service where it is needed, the SD&G public board has a series of rural satellite campuses for its alternative school. Each of these satellites has a small number, 20 or 30 students, who are studying a variety of courses at any one time. Job responsibilities and personal circumstances have led to a school structure based on continuous intake and progress at one's own pace.
The continuing education model does not permit that. Courses start on a specific date. There are specific times and dates of instruction for a particular credit, and there is a minimum number of students required for a course offering. This is particularly unsuitable to rural Ontario. Imagine trying to find in the village of Winchester, which may not have 100 adults in it, 20 adults who are going to take grade 10 math between 9 and 12 on a Wednesday, a Thursday and a Friday.
There are other specific consequences to the reduced funding for adult students.
First, there is a reduction in service. Reduced funding may lead to reduced staff, larger classes and course offerings which are freely available to those under 21 but only on a limited basis for those over.
Second, reduced funding will result in reduced expenditure for instructional material, supplies and resources. Funding for technological tools and computer hardware and software will also be affected. Most serious of all, adult students may be deprived of the appropriate assessment tools.
Third, the funding cuts threaten the physical classroom. Unlike traditional schools, our adult and alternative schools currently lease space in basements of schools, churches, public buildings, storefronts and in low-rental and municipally subsidized buildings. Our rural campuses require local space to serve the local adult learner. These individuals are frequently without the resources to travel to an urban location to have access to education. There can be no equity of opportunity to learn when funding is cut so that it is financially impossible for a school to rent space and to staff sites throughout a rural community.
Fourth, funding cuts affect curriculum delivery. The learning outcomes, the skills and the knowledge that students, regardless of age, must demonstrate in a secondary curriculum are part of a solidly established learning matrix. These performances or demonstrations are clearly anticipated by the educational consumer and by the post-secondary community. It's unrealistic to expect those same outcomes for adults with a smaller expenditure. On the contrary, adults who often carry considerable impediments to learning should be funded at a higher level. There's no point in asking the adult student to return to school, make all of the sacrifices necessary to facilitate this, and then offer a substandard product.
As an aside, I was in Utah the other week. I visited their adult school there, and their adult school was funded at a higher level than the regular day school program. I understand as well, in the state of Florida, they weight students, and adult students have one of the higher weightings. So indeed there is precedent in North America for funding adults not at a level below what the regular day school program has, but indeed at a level above.
Appendix C is an account from the Morrisburg News of the support given to adult education by the Morrisburg town council. This is a highly unusual move for the council, and it's attempting to circulate a resolution of support for adult education among municipal councils.
Appendix D -- and I urge the committee to read appendix D carefully -- is an article written by Susan Hunt, an adult graduate of the T.R. Leger Alternative School, describing the impact that the school and its method of program delivery has had on her life.
We recommend that the government remove from Bill 34 those sections which allow a school board to deny access to adults to regular day school.
We further recommend that the government end its discrimination against adult students by removing from Bill 34 and the general legislative grant regulations all of those sections that have the effect of lowering adult program funding from regular grant to continuing education levels.
Before we conclude, we must make at least a passing reference to subsection 10(1) of Bill 34, the section which abolishes the statutory entitlement for a guaranteed number of sick days per year. It's our contention that the existing system of sick leave is reasonable. It addresses in an effective fashion the real need which led to its creation and it should be preserved in the interests of the boards, of the students and of their teachers. Such an arrangement is common in public and private sectors and, I might add, more generous in a number of other sectors. The attempt to single out and strip teachers of what is enjoyed by many others is a simple act of discrimination.
We recommend that subsection 10(1) be removed from Bill 34.
In conclusion, we must return to this theme: Bill 34 as a legislative proposal is anti-person, anti-family and anti-society. We would ask that it be withdrawn and we recommend that this committee not proceed with it.
At this point, I would like to thank you for the hearing that you have given us, and we would be pleased to entertain any questions that you might pose.
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Mr Patten: Thank you very much for your presentation, John. It's hard not to share a degree of cynicism, I would imagine, but I would suggest that you follow through and watch what happens in the process. I have some questions about the process, frankly, that I share with you in terms of whether especially majority governments really listen.
I think you've pointed out more vividly than most the discrepancy between the urban and rural options, and I think you have graphically illustrated for us the tenuousness and the fragility of the options in a rural area by and large than one might have in an urban environment with options that are there. Therefore, I would ask if you would speak to that at the moment and ask you whether, in your observation, the greatest number of school boards will be the rural school boards which will not be able to afford the adult education option in particular.
Mr McEwen: Specifically, if you have a school board that has a low population density, that is, where the population is spread out through a large geographical area, and where there are large incidences of rural poverty, as exists in eastern Ontario, this is going to be a significant problem.
There is also, with that set of factors, a set of disadvantages that must be overcome on the part of the adult learner, which will increase costs. It's not just a matter of bringing the program to the adult learner but, if you've seen the Susan Hunt letter, it's also sometimes assessing impediments that have been long hidden, diagnosing them properly and finding, in a rural area, where such resources are hard to find, those resources and applying them. All of that costs money.
Mr Patten: One of the arguments advanced by some members on the government has been that "Well, these are adult learners, they're more mature, they have more experience in life, and therefore all they need is the continuing education model." That's the rationale. I don't share that view. I'd like to get your reaction to that.
Mr McEwen: The specific problem with the continuing education model is it assumes that the learner is available in sufficient quantity -- there is a sufficient number of them -- at specific times of the day or week over a period of time. Many of our adult learners are people who have shift work, who have family responsibilities and who in other ways cannot, although they wish to, be part of a program that requires them to be there each and every day.
The kind of program model that we've evolved in SD&G allows for continuous intake and allows for people to go along as far as they can until something happens to their lives; they take a brief respite, handle that. Maybe you're going back on to the night shift in two weeks, you're on day shift for the rest of this week so we won't see you; when the shift cycle returns you can then plug yourself back in. If people are making those kinds of efforts and those kinds of sacrifices, it's totally unrealistic to put upon them a continuing education model that requires that they turn up on a regular basis, and in fact there aren't enough of them.
I heard someone muttering about my comment about Winchester. There probably aren't 100 people in Winchester who don't have their high school education, and of that 100 they all wouldn't want grade 10 math; maybe just a couple of them might want grade 10 math. But if you got 20 people in a room and someone wants grade 10 math and somebody else wants OAC physics, you need a model that will deal with that and make sure that they get the same quality of education and the same standard of assessment that's available to the regular day school student.
Mr Silipo: Thank you, John. It's good to see that the students of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry have as strong an advocate in you as the students of Toronto did at one point.
Let me just come down to this point of junior kindergarten because there have been times, I have to confess, in watching the present government, and particularly in the area of education, where I have said to myself, surely they just don't know what they're doing; surely they're making these decisions without realizing what they're actually doing, because if they did they couldn't do this. They talk about local autonomy and then they proceed to put into place what seems to be fulfilling that direction in terms of junior kindergarten, except that then you look at what they've done -- and you've pointed this out and the previous presenters pointed out this out -- in terms of the funding. They haven't just said to school boards, "Okay, it's now a local option to offer junior kindergarten and, by the way, if you continue to offer it we'll just continue to pay it the way we've done it for years." No, they've also changed the grant formula so that now there's a disincentive to school boards to offer junior kindergarten.
So then I get to the point of saying well, then, this isn't an accident; they in fact are exactly knowing what they're doing. They really don't believe that junior kindergarten should exist and they don't want to simply get rid of it outright, but what they're doing is what they're doing here and what they're doing in other areas, which is to say, "It's the school boards that are making the decision; it's not us." As you correctly point out, it then puts people into a situation locally where it pits one group against another. It pits a school board against another. It pits parents within the same system one against the other.
I guess the question I have of you, whether it's in that area, whether it's in adult education -- we talked earlier about the inconsistencies within that as well in terms of what the government is saying not matching what it's doing -- are people out there understanding what is going on? Or is there just sort of a general state of despair, of people saying, "It's got to be done and we'll just have to take it no matter how much our system and our society is being ravaged by all of these cuts"?
Mr McEwen: Our parents are very anxious to retain the program. Certainly, scholars and others involved in the area of education research understand fully the cost of not providing junior kindergarten. It's a cost that's paid in wasted lives and, frankly, future economically unproductive people.
Beyond that, I can't speak for the broader community but I do know that those people who have a stake in the school system -- and the members of the committee should know, I'm a secondary school teacher who teaches at the senior level. I have never in my teaching career taught someone at the junior kindergarten level but I appreciate the value of early education in the students when they reach me. They properly socialize, they have skills and abilities and they don't have the deficits that other young people bring to the program.
Mr Preston: I object very strongly, sir, to you saying that this government is making Ontario cease to exist as a civil and a civilized province, and then telling us that this poor little 11-year-old should be dealt with because he's misunderstood. Sir, I've been in Young Offenders Act caregiving for a number of years and I can tell you what 11-year-olds who have had all the benefits can be like. They don't need to be dealt with a little easier.
I don't suggest that early childhood education should be abolished. I'm all for it. Everybody who has come here today has heard me talk about early childhood education. I just feel it can be done outside of your classroom and outside of the teachers you represent as an agent for them.
I think you're fortunate I'm here to listen to you and you're not here to listen to me because you'd be here a long time. Toni.
Mr McEwen: That's quite all right. They are really two distinct questions there --
Mr Preston: No, I'm finished. Toni.
Mr McEwen: Sorry.
Mr Preston: I made statements.
The Vice-Chair: He made a statement; don't answer.
Mr Preston: I made a statement. I don't need any answers. I heard what the answers were like before.
Mr Skarica: He has the right to answer. Go ahead.
Mr McEwen: Thank you very much, Mr Skarica. I thought I heard two distinct questions, the first being did I think that this government was converting Ontario from a place that exists as a civil and civilized society, and I say yes, I do, not only as a teacher, as a parent, as an environmentalist, as a citizen in my community. I see all sorts of things that threaten the existence of the quality of life in my community that can be tied directly back to what this government has done, so yes, I believe that to be true.
The second question had to do with the 11-year-old. No, I don't believe the 11-year-old should be left. I don't believe that. What I believe is that young people of that age and younger age should be provided with the adequate supervision, training, nurturing that is required, and in the case of the 11-year-old, he has to be dealt with. That is not necessarily to say that I advocate taking him out to the middle of Nathan Phillips Square and stringing him up, but rather I believe that there are things that you do with 11-year-olds to bring them along no matter how terrible they have been so that they become productive adults. That's what I believe, sir.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, to both of you, for your presentation.
Interjection.
The Vice-Chair: No, not to you, Mr Preston. You're with us every day.
Mr Preston: Not very much longer. We have to leave, Mr Chairman.
The Vice-Chair: No, we still have one presenter, Mr Ken Slemko.
Mr Preston: Have you got the airplane scheduled to wait?
The Vice-Chair: These delegations are scheduled and I think we should hear them all. I understand, and I just want some direction on this, that there is an Albert Chambers here as well, who represents some 30,000 parents, so I understand. I understand that there's a waiting list as well and I want your direction as to whether or not you want to hear from Mr Chambers.
Mr Preston: Mr Chairman, I had some notes a moment ago about -- there have been two or three objections today about people who could not get in to see us. I was not on the past tours, but I do know that I have seen in Toronto and Windsor and here exactly the same people again, over and over and over. That is what is preventing people getting in here. We've heard from 32 people from the OSSTF, and the guy who's representing 30,000 or 60,000 parents can't walk in the door and get a place here. There's something basically wrong with that. I've heard the same thing, in the same binders, over and over and over and yet a person who has some representation can't get in.
The Vice-Chair: I understand your point. I understand there's not unanimous consent to have this gentleman heard. All I would suggest to you, sir, is that you provide us with a written brief --
Mr Skarica: Can I propose something?
The Vice-Chair: Yes.
Mr Skarica: You're a parent here, and the other individual here. Perhaps, you have a half-hour, if you could share half your time with the other individual. I leave it up to you. I don't want to put pressure on you.
Mr Preston: You haven't come here with a big presentation, have you?
Mr Ken Slemko: I have a presentation here. I know Albert very well. Actually, we work together on the joint council for the Ottawa Board of Education. He's the chair and I'm the treasurer. I'd be happy if he'd like to maybe -- what do you think? How about 10 minutes at the end of mine? I think my thing is limited to about 15 -- how about we just waive about 15 minutes?
The Vice-Chair: We will waive questions and we will listen to both of you up to that, but no more than that, not past 4 o'clock, and it's 3:30 now. If you'd like to join the gentleman at the table, sir, you're more than welcome to. All right, sir, go ahead with your presentation.
1530
KEN SLEMKO
ALBERT CHAMBERS
Mr Slemko: What I would like to say, though, is that these are my remarks as a parent. They're not representing any group. So let me get started here.
I knew it was going to be late in the afternoon, so the first part of my presentation is a cartoon which I think gives you a bit of a view of how parents sometimes might view the whole education system. You can see federations, school boards and ministries all pulling in different directions. Sometimes we don't really know who's on what end of the rope there, and wondering whether there's disaster for our children lying at the end of all of it. I thought I'd just start out with that, sort of lighten things up a bit here.
The next part of it, I've given you these various things that you can follow as I'm going through my presentation. They're quick summaries of what I'm going to say, but I'll get started, and the complete text of my speech is in the back there.
I would like to thank the committee very much for providing me with an opportunity to present my views on the proposed amendments included in Bill 34. Although I am active on the parent advisory committee at my children's school and in the umbrella organization which advises the OBE on parents' views, my remarks today are my own, representing those of a parent with a 10-year-old son in elementary school and a 13-year-old daughter about to start high school next year.
I'd like to start then, because it's getting late, with a Chinese proverb that I found: "If we don't change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."
While the amendments do go some way to changing our direction, I am concerned that unless they are broadened, we will still end up too close to where we are currently headed, a direction that has me and I believe other parents concerned.
Let me start by indicating the areas I would like to highlight. First, I would like to make a short comment on the financial realities facing the education system. As part of this, I would also like to address the provisions that would authorize grant-negative boards to make equalization payments, an item close to my pocketbook, being an OBE ratepayer.
In the next part of my presentation, I recommend that the annual financial report proposed in Bill 34 be expanded so that it will be a true accounting of the school board's activities.
I close with an urgent request, which I know is shared by many parents, that the legislation be reviewed to give the education system the flexibility it needs to retain the best teachers with the needed skills to educate our children. Let me start.
These amendments must be judged in the context of the significant financial pressures facing the province of Ontario. As a parent, it is easy just to say that education spending should be left untouched. However, in my view, that would be shortsighted. Even if our children received the best and most costly educations in the world, we would leave them in a sad state if we continued to pile on them an ever-growing mountain of debt, and this is, unfortunately, the situation we face.
Therefore, in looking at the proposed amendments, I asked myself two questions: First, how will they affect the ability of the system to meet key education needs, and second, how will they provide the system with the flexibility it needs to reduce costs while still delivering the necessary services?
As a ratepayer to the Ottawa Board of Education, I must confess a certain pecuniary interest in the proposed revisions dealing with grant-negative boards. As I understand it, the proposal is to add words to the act so such boards could send money to the provincial government for redistribution to other boards.
The major problem I see with the proposed amendment is that it singles out one group of ratepayers and suggests that the money they believed was being collected to meet local needs is instead being sent to Queen's Park for redistribution to other communities. It would be very difficult for we Ottawa ratepayers and parents to understand what would possess our trustees to take such action, short of major provincial arm-twisting.
I think it would also create a money-making opportunity for one group many of us might like to see making less: lawyers. My business experience suggests that lawyers make money whenever the law is unclear or subject to interpretation. Certainly this provision has all the hallmarks of becoming a cash cow for the legal profession.
Having just been through an excruciating budget process with the Ottawa board, I can assure you that through a significant accounting error and by spending estimated budget surpluses that never materialized, the trustees have made sure that OBE parents are suffering as much as those in other boards where grants were cut.
What this provision really points out is the major need to reform the financing of education and the way in which grants are made to individual boards. I would recommend that instead of going ahead with this provision, the provincial government move ahead on an urgent basis with its financing reform initiative. In my view, financing reform has had enough study. It is time to see some concrete proposals.
I would like to add a few words on the matter of financing reform. Pooling assessments from each board in the system and redistributing the money through grants is not the best solution in the long term. Property taxes can be highly regressive, and there are differences from one municipality to another in the base that is used. The government should take a serious look at financing a larger part of the school system either through an income or a consumption tax. I would not see this as representing an increase in income taxes. Just as there is only one taxpayer, so too there is only one pocket with money, and how the government decides to pick it is largely immaterial. The government might as well choose the fairest and most progressive way.
The grant system will also require reform. Grant-negative boards like the OBE are, in my view, victims of their own success. By providing a broader array of programs to meet special needs, they have attracted those with the special needs. The grants to the Ottawa board will have to be higher so it can continue to provide such programs as English as a second language, programs to the handicapped and the like. Given its aging infrastructure, the province will also have to provide the OBE and other inner-city boards with the funds needed to renovate older schools so the central parts of our larger cities will continue to attract young families.
Accountability of school boards and the Ministry of Education and Training are a major concern for parents. For this reason, I welcome the proposed amendments which would require boards to provide financial statements and a record of initiatives they have taken to save money through joint ventures. The problem is that these proposals don't go far enough.
Based on my experience and conversations with other parents, we share a common worry that many of our boards lack either the will or the capacity to plan for the long term or to set priorities. Therefore, I suggest that the report that boards would provide to ratepayers be expanded in two important ways: First, each board should provide ratepayers with a clear statement of its objectives for the next year and for the next three years; second, each board should report to ratepayers on how it met the objectives it set for itself, and, where it failed to meet those objectives, an explanation of why. The report should also summarize any program reviews the board conducted and how the board responded to the findings of those reviews. This would force boards to develop clearer missions and objectives, to systematically review their programs, and to report to their key stakeholders on their results. In my view, this is where the real emphasis should be placed. Financial statements are nice, but understood by few -- which brings me to the Ministry of Education and Training.
1540
What is good for the goose should be good for the gander. There is growing frustration among parents over the lack of activity in the ministry on a wide range of key education issues. They include the ministry's role in curriculum development, where many curriculum services units at board levels have been substantially reduced, with the understanding the ministry would play a larger role in this area; the plan for redesigning intermediate and high school when high school will end at grade 12; and the tools that boards and schools will use to deal with the reduced funding.
All stakeholders would be very interested in the ministry providing a clear outline of its mission and objectives and a report on its success in achieving these. Therefore, I would recommend also mandating an annual report from the ministry on its direction and activities.
Only a short comment needs to be made about the proposal to repeal the section that allows teachers to be paid for their unused sick leave: About time. I think most parents found it a bit outrageous to learn that after paying teachers what are very good salaries, we also provide them with an extra and costly incentive to take sick days only when they are sick.
I would like to spend my last five minutes concentrating on what I believe is a key concern to parents. As a parent, I ask simply that the education system ensure that the best teachers, with the necessary skills and support, teach my children. As we all know, most of the education our children receive is still provided by teachers in the classroom. With the cuts that have been going on over the past few years -- they are certainly not limited to this year -- parents are becoming increasingly alarmed that the system, with all its rigidities, is simply not ensuring that we always have the best teachers with the right skills in our classrooms.
Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I have tremendous respect for teachers. When I have been particularly impressed with one of my children's teachers, I have made it a point to ensure that the superintendent and principal are aware of how much we as parents appreciate the teacher's work. But I have doubts that the current system will ensure that those teachers will be working next year.
Seniority is a great way to determine who stays and who goes during cutbacks if you are building Model T Fords. Back when Model Ts were being built, every worker essentially added one part. If cutbacks were needed, then preference could be given to the older workers, since they could do the job as well as the recent employees. It is interesting to note that in a modern car factory, specialized workers like robotics experts and computer specialists use their expertise to ensure modern cars are produced. If seniority ruled the day, the plant would have great difficulty producing cars. A similar conclusion can, I believe, be drawn for a modern education system.
Merit and skills should play a larger role in determining which teachers instruct our children. I am particularly concerned that the current labour arrangements simply do not permit this to happen. To provide an example, the Ottawa board has decided to replace teacher-librarians with library technicians, and has considered on several occasions eliminating junior kindergarten. The teachers displaced by these cuts, if they have seniority, will bump out younger teachers who may very well be better qualified to teach our children. I am particularly concerned that we are losing teachers with the skills and ability to use the latest technology in meeting the education needs of our children.
Just to illustrate, I note that a teacher who graduated in 1970 used a slide rule to multiply big numbers. A teacher who graduated in 1980 used a calculator. A teacher who graduated in 1990 used a computer. Which of these is most likely to take advantage of the significant advances in information technology to teach our children? Probably the 1990 graduate. I must note that many older teachers have kept improving their skills, and with their experience are among the best teachers in the system. Others, however, are not.
I do not believe that boards of education are capable of dealing with this matter on their own. The ministry will need to determine what changes are needed so the best teachers with the right skills will be teaching our children. We need to review the act, regulations and other procedures to determine what provisions work against this basic principle. This may require collective bargaining at the provincial level. It will involve extensive discussions with teachers' federations to see how best to implement the needed changes, but it must be done.
In summary, therefore, I would like to run through the main points of my presentation.
First, the education system must be made more efficient. We do not have the option of continuing to spend large sums of money on education without focusing on what the system must deliver and how to do this at lower cost. Financing and grant reform must be acted upon immediately. The issue of grant-negative boards should be dealt with as part of that reform and not through the proposed changes in Bill 34.
Second, school boards and the Ministry of Education must be more accountable to their clients. The proposal in Bill 34 should be expanded so that both boards and the ministry are required by law to provide an annual report on their short- and long-term objectives, on how they met those objectives, and on their financial state and cooperative efforts.
Finally, it is essential that the law be changed to provide greater flexibility so the best teachers with the right skills are teaching our children. It won't be easy, but as a parent I feel it is key to providing our children with the education they will need in the highly competitive global economy of the 21st century.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Slemko. You've given us a lot of food for thought.
Mr Chambers, you've got seven minutes.
Mr Albert Chambers: Seven minutes? Your watch runs faster than mine.
The Vice-Chair: Okay, eight minutes.
Mr Chambers: Mind you, we've both been here all day, which I think goes to show how much some volunteers are willing to put into the running of schools in this province.
I represent the joint council of the elementary and secondary school advisory committees of the Ottawa Board of Education. I'm their co-chair. So in effect I represent the parents of the approximately 30,000 students in the Ottawa Board of Education. Come September, I hope to represent the school councils, which will replace those advisory committees in each and every one of our schools.
I hope that in future Mr Preston's suggestion will indeed have an impact on this committee in that if this committee is going to engage in hearings about education, it does exercise some forethought to make sure that parents are (a) informed and (b) able to make representations.
On Friday, when I was told that we were not on the A list, I called my counterparts at several of the other boards in Ottawa to find out that their organizations had not even been informed of the opportunity to apply to be on the list. My sense is that there was a certain amount of concern about that, although frankly, some of them, being sufficiently bruised by the budget debate they were just finishing, perhaps didn't have the energy to invest in such a presentation.
Most of what I would have said today and put in a brief has been said about the junior kindergarten and about adult high school. Obviously, the chair of the Ottawa Board of Education, when she made her presentation this morning, enunciated very clearly the views of ratepayers and parents in the Ottawa Board of Education about the provisions in Bill 34 concerning the equalization payments. These are unacceptable to parents and ratepayers in Ottawa.
She noted, as we have noted in a letter that was sent to the minister and is included in the package that she presented, as long ago as March that local taxes are raised for local purposes. Those of you who have had experience on municipal councils, on boards of education or wherever in your past understand the views of municipal ratepayers when they expect the money they raise to be spent in their communities.
Ken has already indicated the importance of change, as have many others today, in the education financing system. What we are talking about must be progressive and equitable. I cannot myself believe that I sat here through the day and listened near the end of it to a group of trustees come in and say, "We will simply take from, on the most regressive base possible, one community to give to another." It just doesn't fathom with my understanding of their responsibilities as agents of the population to raise taxes and to expend them that they could possibly be supporting that. I don't think their taxpayers, if they understood what those trustees were saying today -- and they were just one group; I'm sure you've heard it in your other hearings -- would be willing to support that option. Certainly in this community all we have heard from business and industrial payers as well as from the ordinary residential taxpayer is that this is not an acceptable solution to education financing reform.
The other point I want to make most strongly is one that was also alluded to by the chair of the Ottawa board first thing this morning. It's the lack of consultation that has been undertaken by this government. We all understand the pressures that a government encounters when it tries to change the direction of an institution that has been going in a certain way. We understand that. However, what we also understand as parents is the vital importance of our being confident that the new direction is going to yield the right results. I bring your attention forcibly not to Bill 34 but to the major change this government is in the process of implementing in our education system.
It has, quite rightfully, I think, and certainly with the support of many groups, including the joint council of the OBE, decided that grade 13 will cease. This is acceptable; this is understood; it's supported. However, we have a group of students who are this year in grade 7 who are expected to be the guinea pigs of this process, who are expected to graduate in the same year as their counterparts in grade 8 who will have had the full benefit of 13 years of education plus, if they're lucky, their two years of junior and senior kindergarten. They will have had the benefit of that. They will be operating on courses that are well understood, that universities know about, that will allow them to progress quickly and simply into post-secondary education or into the world of work.
The grade 7s who have been targeted for this change are not yet certain what will be before them in terms of the curriculum. This is of great concern to the parents in this city. It is not acceptable. We understand the need to make the change, we understand the attractiveness of having the saving, but we want to see the curriculum and know it's there before we launch our children into the process.
We have written to the minister to request of him very clearly that this be delayed. We know it costs money to delay it, but we believe it is essential that the reforms take place not just in grades 10, 11 and 12, but starting with the curriculum in grade 7 so that we will have an improved education system. There is a lot of scepticism, a lot of concern, some of it justified, some of it unjustified, about the transition years, but what we see at this point in time from the perspective of the documents that have been leaked -- not made available, because the process has been so damn slow -- is that we're going to see reform only for grades 10, 11 and 12. Compression must take place; it must start sooner than that.
That is the message from the parents of the OBE. It's one that we hope you will listen to. It is the simple reason that I have stayed here all day long in order to make it to this committee. We see your role as the guardians of our education system from a provincial perspective. We see no reason at this point in time to have any confidence that careful, thoughtful planning is going into major changes.
I heard someone say today, "We need to have a thorough review of our education system." We have just completed a major royal commission which hardly even had the chance to get debated before it disappeared from the policy agenda of this province. We have had innumerable reports on many subjects. We have lots of information to start with, but we need to review it carefully and think it through. We don't want our children to be guinea pigs. We want them to be successful contributors to the future of Ontario and this country, and we want to see curriculums changed so that we know what the outcomes are going to be, not have them thrust upon us in a half-assed kind of fashion.
I'm sorry I'm a bit testy at this point in time. I want to thank you for your sitting through this, but I also want to caution you that parents want to have a voice and they expect to be heard by legislative committees. Unions and trustees are not the only people who count in education.
The Vice-Chair: On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank both of you for your presentations. I certainly agree with you that all of us hope these kinds of meetings would be more dialogues than the monologues that unfortunately they've turned into.
With that, I'd like to thank everybody here for attending today. We're adjourned until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning in Thunder Bay.
The committee adjourned at 1555.