ONTARIO CONFEDERATION OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY ASSOCIATIONS
ONTARIO PUBLIC SUPERVISORY OFFICIALS' ASSOCIATION
FÉDÉRATION DES ASSOCIATIONS DE PARENTS FRANCOPHONES DE L'ONTARIO
VOICE FOR HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN
CONTENTS
Tuesday 23 April 1996
Education Quality and Accountability Office Act, 1995, Bill 30, Mr Snobelen / Loi de
1995 sur l'Office de la qualité et de la responsabilité en éducation, projet de loi 30, M. Snobelen
Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1995, Bill 31, Mr Snobelen / Loi de 1995
sur l'Ordre des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario, projet de loi 31, M. Snobelen
Aboriginal Education Network
Douglas Maracle
Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations
Marion Perrin, executive director
John Lye, member, executive committee
Don Dworet, faculty of education, Brock University
Didi Khayatt, faculty of education, York University
Ontario Public Supervisory Officials' Association
Paul Collins, president
Bev Stewart, central region director
Larry Langdon, eastern region director
Grant Yeo, president-elect
Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario
Francesca Piredda, présidente
Voice for Hearing Impaired Children
Rosemary Pryde, executive director
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:
Miclash, Frank (Kenora L) for Mr Gerretsen
Ross, Lillian (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC) for Mrs Johns
Skarica, Toni (Wentworth North / -Nord PC) for Mr Jordan
Clerk pro tem / Greffier par intérim: Doug Arnott
Staff / Personnel: Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1535 in room 151.
EDUCATION QUALITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR L'OFFICE DE LA QUALITÉ ET DE LA RESPONSABILITÉ EN ÉDUCATION
Consideration of Bill 30, An Act to establish the Education Quality and Accountability Office and to amend the Education Act with respect to the Assessment of Academic Achievement / Projet de loi 30, Loi créant l'Office de la qualité et de la responsabilité en éducation et modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation en ce qui concerne l'évaluation du rendement scolaire.
ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TEACHERS ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR L'ORDRE DES ENSEIGNANTES ET DES ENSEIGNANTS DE L'ONTARIO
Consideration of Bill 31, An Act to establish the Ontario College of Teachers and to make related amendments to certain statutes / Projet de loi 31, Loi créant l'Ordre des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario et apportant des modifications connexes à certaines lois.
ABORIGINAL EDUCATION NETWORK
The Acting Chair (Mr Michael Gravelle): Good afternoon and welcome to the continuation of our public hearings into Bill 30 and Bill 31. My name is Michael Gravelle; I'm the acting Chair for today's proceedings. I'd like to thank you all for joining us.
Our first presentation is by the Aboriginal Education Network, Grand Chief Douglas Maracle. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee. You will have 30 minutes for your presentation, which you can use in whatever manner you wish. If you have a presentation to make, whatever time is left over will be divided equally between the three parties.
Mr Douglas Maracle: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation to the standing committee on social development. My name is Douglas Maracle. I'm the grand chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians. Linda Commandant is a member of the Mohawks of Wahta. Murray Maracle is a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. Also with Murray today is his daughter Mindy Maracle who is off on a job shadow opportunity this afternoon. I think it's a unique opportunity for her to come and participate and sit in also.
For the purposes of the presentation, I'll be confining my remarks to Bill 31.
The proposed legislation will create an autonomous body responsible for determining professional standards, certification and accreditation of teacher education programs. The Ontario College of Teachers will coordinate both pre-service and in-service teacher education and set career-long learning standards for teacher education and the power to ensure that these standards are met.
We have some comments and recommendations to make to ensure that aboriginal issues have fair and equal treatment within your system. We appear before committees such as this and take every opportunity that is open to us to discuss the positive and negative impacts your legislation will have when it is applied in our territories. However, to be very frank, the record will verify that the history of Ontario dealing with aboriginal issues within the context of its own legislation has not been a positive one for us.
Many of our recommendations have not been incorporated into the proposed legislation. However, we continue to write papers and make presentations because it is our responsibility to keep you informed when your legislation has the potential to negatively impact the advancements first nations communities have made.
Bill 31 has a wide-ranging ability to negatively affect first nations education, both on reserve and in related school boards, while not ensuring fair and equitable representation on the governing structures.
Specifically, the legislation will require that all teachers be members of the Ontario College of Teachers and hold an Ontario teacher's certificate. This limits the view of education to what has been learned from a book and cannot recognize the knowledge and wisdom of our elders, who are the foundation of our education systems. We agree that standards and professionalism are necessary, but we cannot allow your standards to inhibit the transfer of intrinsic knowledge or make it lesser than it is.
To be eligible to teach in federally operated reserve schools, the criteria specify that teachers must have or be eligible for teacher certification within the province. First-nations-controlled schools may place a higher priority on the sharing of inherent knowledge and wisdom as compared to a standardized perception of a structured way to learn.
As an example, the legislation sets up a governing council that will control who will or will not be a teacher. Without the opportunity for all-encompassing participation, the regulatory bodies could become élitist and exclusionary. Many native teachers may not want to join a centralized body that cannot relate to the issues the teachers must deal with on a daily basis. However, the choice will not be theirs.
The legislation will have a negative impact on elders, community resource workers, uncertified language teachers and classroom assistants who do not have recognized teacher education. The college is prepared to provide a temporary letter of standing to those who have not acquired an Ontario teacher's certificate. However, the affected individual must demonstrate to the college that they have a development plan that will raise their credentials to suit the college.
Anyone holding a temporary letter of standing will not be eligible for full membership in the college. This means they will not have the opportunity to participate in functions of the college, nor will they be eligible for election to the governing council of the college. This will further marginalize aboriginal people who do not possess the credentials the college deems necessary.
The following recommendations are made with the understanding that, with some additions and modifications, the college could be a positive developmental tool that could be utilized within the aboriginal system and enhance your system as well. It is recommended:
(1) That the proposed legislation contain a process to address the specific situations of aboriginal teachers who do not possess all of the qualifications required by the Ontario College of Teachers.
(2) That an aboriginal body of the college be created that is responsible for all aboriginal education issues. The body would be elected by aboriginal members of the college and report to the governing council.
(3) That the membership of the governing council be increased from 31 to 35 representatives, raising the number of representatives elected by the college from 17 to 21, and that the four additional representatives be from the aboriginal system.
(4) That of the 14 publicly appointed representatives, designated seats be created for an aboriginal teacher, an aboriginal faculty of education member, an aboriginal school board trustee and an aboriginal student teacher.
(5) Create a provision for native language teachers to evaluate native language programs.
(6) Create an aboriginal teacher education program that includes courses in aboriginal culture, language, curriculum design and pedagogy.
(7) That an aboriginal standards panel be created that will set standards for native curriculum and teaching methods, which will include aboriginal community representatives, teachers and native education faculty members.
(8) That all statutory and standing committees created by the college have aboriginal representation.
That is our presentation, and we'll utilize our remaining time to answer questions.
Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): Mr Maracle, good to see you again. I remember meeting in different forums.
I need to get out the bill again and go through it to see which of your recommendations would actually require specific amendments to the bill. I'm not asking you which ones, because I live with legislation and it's not always easy to remember which ones relate to specific clauses of the bill. I hope when the parliamentary assistant, Mr Skarica, gets a chance to speak next, he could perhaps address that issue of to what extent your concerns could be addressed, either through specific amendments to clauses in the bill or simply to do it some other way, although I'd be very cautious about doing it some other way when it should be in the bill.
Mr Maracle: From two aspects, I think we have to be very cautious regardless of how it's done. Having it done through the legislative process is one that creates a little more of an assurance, albeit that has not been demonstrated totally in the past, but we're always hopeful that the more times we do it, the better it becomes.
Mr Laughren: Could you help me? How does it work now if there's a problem with native teachers? You mentioned the federally operated reserve schools. If there's a problem in one of those schools, how do you deal with things like competence and misconduct and incompetence? What's the process now? Whom do you work through?
Mr Maracle: We work through the federal government at the present time, and that is with schools that are still under the control of the federal government. However, in the recent past the picture has changed in the sense that communities have had the opportunity to assume local control of education. Although the funding itself still flows from the federal government, it flows to the community, which has opted to assume what is acknowledged as local control. They hire their own teachers; they virtually have community control over education within their community.
In that sense, many of those situations create the opportunity. I guess it would be similar in communities still operating under federal government control. They utilize local expertise -- elders, members of the community -- in the course of the normal school day. That is becoming more acceptable. The individuals hired for the purposes of teaching in band-controlled schools as opposed to government-controlled schools do not always put the emphasis on a teaching certificate as opposed to the expertise that has come from the community in the area of language, discipline, many areas of that.
Mr Laughren: Maybe even wisdom rather than learning.
Mr Maracle: Very much so.
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Mr Laughren: I genuinely don't know this; somebody help me. If nothing's changed in the way the legislation is now, would the college have jurisdiction over native teachers?
Mr Maracle: The reason for the comments in the fashion they are is partly because of the wording in the federal Indian Act under the area of education, where it does stipulate that teachers they employ must have a provincial teaching certificate.
Mr Laughren: I see. So it means the college would have jurisdiction.
Mr Maracle: It does have some control.
Mr Laughren: But -- surprise, surprise -- you're not part of the controlling process.
Mr Maracle: Exactly. We've heard time and time again for a number of years, since the early 1980s, in my community, Tyendinaga, about education for aboriginal people being the responsibility of the federal government, and more so in secondary than in elementary. When we approach federal bodies on post-secondary, the federal government says no, post-secondary is the responsibility of the province. We continue to go back and forth, and we've done that for a number of years since the early 1980s.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I'd like to begin by welcoming the Aboriginal Education Network to the committee today, and I thank you for your clear and concise presentation. I was especially pleased to see the recommendations so clearly presented.
Recommendation 3 on page 5 states, "That the membership of the governing council be increased from 31 to 35 representatives, raising the number of representatives elected by the college from 17 to 21, and that the four additional representatives be from the aboriginal system." How would you determine those four positions? Would it be the aboriginal community at large or would they be geographically designated to ensure that both on- and off-reserve interests are met, along with the southern and northern differences being taken into account?
Mr Maracle: In the general makeup of Ontario, the general political makeup, there are four segments of political bodies, and we have normally shared that opportunity for each of the groups to designate a representative.
Mr Newman: You indicated that you wanted to confine your remarks to Bill 31. Are you prepared to make any comments on Bill 30?
Mr Maracle: Not at present.
Mr Newman: That's fair.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): I want to pick up on the theme my colleague was just questioning about. We received a similar presentation and concerns expressed from the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres. Albeit they recognized the importance of having one designation, I think they made reference to it being tokenism, which raises concerns when that perception is there. Given the recommendations you've made for increasing the number and the fact that we receive presentations that suggest broader representation from other groups, addressing the big picture, what do you think should be the overall representation of the council? Given your concerns about the number of representatives and knowing there are perhaps competing interests from other groups in terms of representation, what do you feel would be the appropriate size of the governing council?
Mr Maracle: It's a difficult question in the sense that the overall governing council -- I can only speak for ourselves. Going back to Mr Newman's question about why we suggest four, it comes back to the political divisions within the province. There are four structured groups covering both the north and the south and the central part of Ontario, each one having a representative. Really, two from the north and two from the south is quite adequate. It's put together in that fashion because there are very distinct differences between the four groups, and one representative wouldn't be satisfactory, nor would two.
Mr Smith: I believe last week questions were being raised by my colleague Mr Wildman on a similar issue, and I'm asking this because I don't know. How does that exchange of ideas occur currently between north and south? You obviously have a network or a mechanism by which views on education are exchanged, be it within the community or between elders and communities. How does that mechanism look today?
Mr Maracle: I think it works reasonably well from the standpoint that the information always comes from the grass-roots level. If we could compare two diagrams, ours always appears to work opposite to what we see in diagram form or picture form of any provincial or federal hierarchy. In our hierarchy the people are the highest and the elected people are at the bottom and information flows in a different direction. It flows down to the elected people instead of up to the elected people. It comes from the people to the local elected councils, on through to their representatives on one of the four organizations, on through to the leadership of those organizations, and it goes from the leadership of those organizations as a provincial group through individuals in the provinces. In Ontario that is Vice-Chief Gordon Peters, who is on the executive of the national Assembly of First Nations. That is how the information flows from the people to the elected body to the Assembly of First Nations.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): Chief and folks, welcome to the committee. I want to go back to something that was touched on by the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres: the exemption of traditional language teachers from the authorities of the college. They expressed that as a concern. What, in your opinion, do you see the bill doing to protect these teachers?
Mr Maracle: We have some difficulty when you say "exemption" because of the stipulations out there. For a person to teach a native language off-reserve where some of our education has to be purchased, the only way that person can be there is to be certified. Certified native-language teachers are rather scarce. It further creates a complication when boards hire a native-language teacher. They have difficulty hiring them in that they may only have enough students for one section a day, and to try to hire a person to work for one class a day is difficult when that teacher is perhaps only certified in native language. It's much more acceptable for boards to hire someone who can teach the rest of the day, and it's more acceptable for a teacher to be able to work full-time, so to speak. It's difficult when the requirement is that a native-language teacher hold the credentials identified by another government to say, "If you're going to teach in this school, this is what you have to have," giving no consideration to the other aspects and elements of need.
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Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Grand Chief, thank you as well for you and your friends being here today. It seems to me, in a nutshell, that you're caught between a rock and a hard place, from two aspects. One is that you have one level of government suggesting they will help with funding for payment of staff if you're recognized by another level of government in terms of your teachers, yet your representation in terms of cultural tradition and heritage and what education means to you and what the realities are in your particular community -- albeit that it manifests itself in the north and the south differently than it does on-reserve, than it does in the urban areas. There's a highly fragile degree of cultural understanding required in this.
In all that you say, what I take from this is that the college really cannot avoid, unless it encourages setting up a separate body -- but it has to have some function that really provides the opportunity for aboriginal teachers and their programs and support structures, which obviously are decidedly different.
Mr Maracle: Very much so. It begins with an understanding, first understanding the situation and that we initially had no part in creating it. But we are on a daily basis trying everything within our means, in presentations such as this, to have that understanding out there. And it doesn't end with education, it affects virtually all areas, but this is education we're talking about here today.
We don't blame anybody or point fingers at anybody, but simply raise the issue that this is a problem that is created, whether it's a lack of understanding, a misunderstanding, or a void in the provincial education system that what we're faced with everybody doesn't know about.
Mr Patten: It will be a big challenge. I thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
ONTARIO CONFEDERATION OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY ASSOCIATIONS
The Acting Chair: I call forward the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Ms Marion Perrin: Thank you. I'm Marion Perrin, the executive director of OCUFA. John Lye is a professor at Brock University and is on the executive committee of OCUFA; Professor Didi Khayatt is at the faculty of education at York; Professor Don Dworet is at the faculty of education at Brock University.
OCUFA represents over 11,000 faculty and academic librarians across the province. This includes, of course, all 10 of the province's faculties of education.
We thank the committee for the invitation to appear to speak to you about Bill 31, because we always appreciate the opportunity to address important changes taking place in the educational system. Our remarks will be in the context of the legislation and the report of the Ontario College of Teachers Implementation Committee, and will be focused on how they affect our members.
The first issue we'd like to address is governance. Bill 31, in keeping with the recommendations of the report of the Ontario College of Teachers Implementation Committee, establishes a governing council of 17 persons elected and 14 appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. The report recommends that one representative be elected from the academic staff of the faculties of education and further recommends the appointment of three post-secondary representatives, two of whom are nominated by deans, and one faculty of education member.
We assume that OCUFA is the appropriate body to appoint that person and that's why we ask this committee to note that. However, we urge the committee to recommend this provision be embodied in the regulations that will be forthcoming under this legislation and that we be named as the body to nominate that second faculty member.
Professors from faculties of education will bring considerable expertise to matters dealt with by the college. Both as academic researchers and as professionals training other professionals, education faculty help define professional competence and incompetence. Education faculty understand what is required of teachers to establish and maintain the high standards the college is mandated to promote and protect.
The college in turn will likely affect faculty work in significant ways. There will be sensitive questions about academic freedom versus the powers of the college to specify what must be taught in order that a faculty's program achieve accreditation. Identification and resolution of such issues before they become problematic can only be assured with adequate and effective representation of education faculty.
As noted by the deans in their presentation to the committee: "It is important to recognize the complementary responsibilities of the professional governing body and the university professional school. Both organizations are vital, one for its responsibility for professionalism, the other because of its responsibility for education."
While faculty teaching in the universities' faculties of education have been responding and will continue to respond to the requirements for new approaches to teaching strategies in light of social change and growth in the knowledge of teaching and learning, it is important that faculty have input in the work of the college as it develops standards to enhance the profession of teaching, "while not compromising the ability of universities to carry out their responsibilities."
University faculty have a responsibility to pursue truth in teaching and research. Faculty encourage intellectual debate about teaching, learning and research and act as critics of accepted knowledge. They pass on their knowledge and research techniques to the next generation. Education faculty in particular have a responsibility to develop and explore alternatives for teacher education and provide the critical intellectual content of teacher education curriculum. University faculty are "responsible for ensuring that what they teach is academically sound and free from undue political influence, that students are selected on fair and objective criteria and that [they] are working at high levels of scholarship and teaching."
It is for these reasons OCUFA believes effective representation on the College of Teachers council is not only desirable but necessary.
Bill 31 establishes, as you are well aware, four committees. We strongly recommend the establishment of an education committee, by legislation or otherwise, with representation from the elected group. In addition, at least one of the faculty of education members, among others from council appointed for their expertise in particular areas, must be included. The education committee's responsibility would include ongoing liaison with faculty and administration in the province's faculties of education. The committee would work with faculty in the development of standards for the profession and the education of students in the profession. This type of partnership could only strengthen our faculties of education.
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OCUFA supports the Ontario Teachers' Federation recommended changes to Bill 31 that provide for a fairer and open process with respect to both registration and discipline. In particular, we support the following recommendations.
First, that a member with a physical or mental condition or disorder whose competency is questioned should not have a hearing before the discipline committee. OTF recommends a fitness-to-practise committee. We recommend the same or a special panel of the registration appeals committee be struck to hear this type of complaint. I'm glad to see your head nodding in agreement.
Mr Laughren: I'm not the minister.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): No, but I think there's general agreement. I hope there's general agreement.
Mr Patten: There is on this side.
Ms Perrin: Secondly, we agree with OTF that subsection 18(1) be changed, as well as all other sections pertaining to production of information and documents to an applicant or party, to ensure that a person may examine all relevant information and documents in the possession of the college.
Third is that members be advised of any right to make submissions and that members receive a copy of any notification to the college by a school board where the board has terminated a member of the college.
Fourth is that the legislation provide for panels to be established by the chair of the discipline committee.
Fifth is that members of the college be allowed access to their college files.
In summary, OCUFA believes the report's recommendation for faculty representation is the minimum necessary for effective representation. Further, it is appropriate that OCUFA be named to nominate the second faculty member to the council.
We recommend that there be an education committee established, as well as the four committees outlined in Bill 31. The purpose includes, of course, ongoing liaison with the province's faculties of education.
Finally, OCUFA supports changes to the legislation recommended by OTF and believes that the changes suggested will serve to strengthen Bill 31 in its efforts to provide the college with a fair and open process in pursuing its mandate.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): I just have one or two questions regarding the governing council. We've heard from a number of the teachers' federations, and the criticism they've levelled at the makeup of the council is that of the 17, 14 are classroom teachers and three aren't, one of those three being the member employed as an academic staff member of the faculty of education. From your presentation, it would appear that person would in fact be a classroom teacher. I wonder if you could comment on that criticism.
Ms Perrin: If a person is from a faculty of education, they are a classroom teacher. They're training teachers, however, in a faculty of education. That is, I believe, the question you asked. Is there anything further?
Mr Skarica: Yes. My simple question is, would the representative who would come from your body be a classroom teacher, yes or no?
Ms Perrin: Yes, a classroom teacher in the faculty of education.
Mr Skarica: That's my question.
Mrs Janet Ecker (Durham West): On page 5, you make a recommendation "that members be advised of any right to make submissions and that members receive a copy of any notification to the college...." I wasn't clear what was the purpose of that particular recommendation, because one of the things, as I read it, is that the public register is there if people have questions about the status of a particular teacher. For example, if they've been terminated as a member of the college or whatever, they would be able to access it, as opposed to, as I read it, having to copy the several thousands of teachers. I wasn't quite clear what you were trying to achieve.
Ms Perrin: Are you talking about point 5 on page 5?
Mrs Ecker: Point 3 on page 5, "that members be advised of any right to make submissions and that members receive a copy of any notification to the college by a school board where the board has terminated a member of the college."
Ms Perrin: This relates back to OTF's recommendations, and when I say "advised of any right to make submissions," for example, if a process has been started for reinstituting a certificate and the registration committee refuses that, that person should be given notice as to whether they have the right to make a submission then further, to the council or to the next step, as opposed to --
Mrs Ecker: You're talking about individual members?
Ms Perrin: Yes, that's what I meant.
Mrs Ecker: Okay.
Ms Perrin: That's one part. Then the other part is about notification should a complaint be laid against them by a school board when their employment with the school board is terminated.
Mrs Ecker: Okay. So it's the individual members.
Ms Perrin: Yes.
Mrs Ecker: Sorry, I misunderstood that. The concern "that members of the college be allowed access to their college files": Are you talking about files, for example, if someone had come forward with a complaint, a young student about sexual abuse or something like that, before it had gone to discipline, before the college had made any decision as to whether or not it was accurate? Are you saying that's the kind of information you believe an individual teacher should have access to, or was there something else you were trying to address in that point?
Ms Perrin: No. I'm addressing some file that is kept on any individual member of the college. That specific member should have the right to review that file.
There is also a provision to protect information if it will be damaging to another individual, and the registrar -- I believe it's the registrar -- would have the right to withhold that information. So there is a protection in the act that people not be allowed to see information or names, and you can always provide information without names. But an individual member of a college, in our view, has the right to access what is in their file, or to see what is in their file as being accurate. It's like your credit rating.
Mr Smith: One quick question with respect to your comments on the inclusion of an education committee. Is it fair to assume that there is a vehicle already in place with respect to liaison between faculty and administration? Does that exist today? How is that information exchanged, and given that there is a current framework, why would the college framework be better than what you have today in terms of the exchange of information that occurs?
Dr Don Dworet: I have to know what you're referring to by administration. What administration are you referring to?
Mr Smith: Of faculties of education.
Dr Dworet: The faculty and the administration of that particular university?
Mr Smith: Yes.
Dr Dworet: The faculties of education report to the senate of that particular university, so any changes or adjustments to our program would go through our dean and through to our senate.
Mr Smith: With respect to your proposal then, you're suggesting the inclusion of an education committee. Why do you feel that would be a more effective means?
Dr Dworet: An education committee within the College of Teachers; that committee, with representation from teachers and from faculties, would meet to develop program for both pre-service and in-service programming, and the information from that committee --
Interjection.
Dr Dworet: Standards, that's right; standards for pre-service and in-service programming. Those standards would then go back to each of the individual faculties for implementation.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): I'm just wondering if you could tell me what you see as being the benefits to teacher education programs by the establishment of the College of Teachers.
Ms Perrin: Benefits to --
Mr Pettit: Teacher education-type programs. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Dr Didi Khayatt: Part of my work as a member of the faculty of education at York is not just to teach, it is also research and committee work as being part of the university, but the operative word for today is "research." A lot of the ways in which we think and we produce theory has to do with more than just the classroom work we do in the everyday work of the university. It has to do with the way in which we connect up with our colleagues across the nation to see what is happening and to be able to establish standards and understand how we are functioning.
With respect to the work and how the college would benefit, the representative would bring a lot of that experience, a lot of that knowledge to some of the discussions that would be going on.
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Mr Pettit: So as far as the --
The Acting Chair: Sorry, your time has expired. I'm terribly sorry.
Mr Patten: Thank you very much for coming. I have several quick questions. Do I take it to mean that when we read "17 certified teachers and one from a faculty of education," you are suggesting, although it's not in the document, that the representation from the faculty would be a teaching faculty member?
Ms Perrin: Yes.
Mr Patten: Therefore, from that definition, it's a classroom teacher, which I like. I mean, it's cool.
Ms Perrin: I think that's what he was getting at.
Mr Patten: I hadn't heard that before.
Ms Perrin: There are two faculty or academic positions named. We would expect and hope that they would both be faculty who do teaching of education students in the classroom. So that there are two deans' positions noted in the appointments, and one elected and one appointed for faculty.
Mr Patten: Do all your teachers in the teaching part of the education faculty receive teacher training?
Ms Perrin: They have received different teacher training than you may --
Mr Patten: Because we know that in the other part of university they don't.
Ms Perrin: Some of them do and some of them don't, in a formal sense.
Mr Patten: How come you haven't had that kind of influence yet on the rest of the universities?
Ms Perrin: John, you can handle that.
Dr John Lye: I'm not sure I can. But back to your original question, do all of the faculty of education have, for instance, teaching certificates? The answer is no, not all of them do, just as not all people in the department of psychology have certification as clinical psychologists.
Mr Patten: No, I meant the ones who are teaching.
Dr Lye: The ones who are teaching? We go through the same process of evaluation in the college of education as anywhere else to establish our facility as teachers as part of the qualifications for our contract.
Mr Patten: That was a little equivocal, I think. All right. It just seems to me you have a wonderful opportunity to share your wisdom at the faculty of education with your peer teachers outside of the faculty in other areas to upgrade considerably the teaching that goes on generally in universities. That's my bias.
The one aspect I would ask you around the information that is gathered -- and you have a caution on accessibility to file. Do you have a comment to make on the nature of what kind of information is permissible or is wise to gather, or are there limitations that should be imposed in terms of what can be gathered on a teacher and put on a file?
Ms Perrin: I would hope there are some limitations; otherwise it's not a terribly good -- you're talking about a particular section of the act, aren't you?
Mr Patten: We've had some representations from some groups that are worried about race, hearsay from institutions, sexual orientation, things of that nature.
Ms Perrin: That's one of the reasons, due to those worries, that I agree with OTF, and OCUFA agrees with OTF, that all people should have access to their files.
Mr Patten: The public apparently will have access to the information that's on the registry as well.
Ms Perrin: On the registry, and the registry means X is registered to be a teacher in this system. It's analogous to what occurs in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. They don't have access to your full file. They have access to the information as to whether or not you're a registered certified teacher in the province, certified nurse, doctor, lawyer. They don't have access to your file. But the limitations in law that are of some concern to people -- you addressed the very issue: What should be collected? I think that has to be discussed further. I can't find the section or I'd talk about it more.
The Acting Chair: We'd move to the third party, but they're not here. We'll start their time.
Mr Patten: Can I ask a question?
The Acting Chair: Go ahead, Richard.
Mr Patten: In light of the Aboriginal Education Network presentation -- I don't know if you heard theirs -- which I thought was a very powerful statement in terms of cultures approaching education in a different manner, from your grouping's point of view, what relationship do you have in terms of relating to aboriginal teaching methodologies, history, traditions, things of that sort?
Dr Dworet: There are four faculties in this province that do considerable work with native teacher education, and those four faculties I believe are Nipissing, Brock, Lakehead and Queen's. Each of those faculties has a variety of programs involved to prepare aboriginal people for Ontario teaching certificates or aboriginal people with native second-language programs. In my particular institution, we have accessibility admission policies for native students and we run a summer program. Both provide an OTC and native second-language certificate. Each of those four faculties is doing a variety of things, both on reserve and off reserve, in order to hopefully develop more native teachers.
The Acting Chair: Just to clarify: I noticed some raised eyebrows when I allowed Mr Patten to ask another question. The reason was because his time had not been all used up. I don't want you to think I'm being anything other than fair.
Mr Wildman: I think you're completely and utterly biased.
I want to ask about the representation of members of faculties on the board. As you know, we had a presentation from representatives of faculties of education, deans, and they welcomed the establishment of the college and indicated they were looking forward to working with the college in terms of accreditation and program and so on.
I may be interpreting them incorrectly, but I understood from their point of view that in choosing a representative of the faculty they did not necessarily agree with your position that OCUFA would be the logical group to appoint, although they didn't say so. I'm wondering if you've had discussions with the deans in that regard.
Ms Perrin: No, and I'm surprised to hear that there is the impression that the deans would not want OCUFA --
Mr Wildman: Sorry, I don't want you to misunderstand. I'm not suggesting they said they didn't want OCUFA to. That wasn't even discussed. It wasn't raised. I'm just wondering. You haven't had any discussion with them?
Ms Perrin: No. We've met informally in many ways with people from the implementation committee, and deans were present at those meetings, the pre-discussions prior to the report, but we've not had discussions about the representation on the council of the teachers' college.
Mr Wildman: Is your main interest in the college in terms of ongoing professional development or teacher learning as opposed to the other aspects or mandate of the proposed college with regard to discipline or investigation of misconduct or competence question?
Dr Khayatt: I would say for the most part, yes, but it's also to try and -- part of the teaching we do has to do with --
Mr Wildman: Competence.
Dr Khayatt: I should hope so, but also with school law and what the rights of the teachers are. I think that kind of liaison would make our experience in teaching more relevant to what we're saying to the students.
Mr Wildman: I suggested to the deans that perhaps the worst pedagogy takes place at the post-secondary level. They did not necessarily disagree with my point of view, and they're not obviously talking about any of you individuals, of course, but I'm wondering what benefit might accrue to teaching in the faculties of education from participation and work with your colleagues in the elementary and secondary levels in a College of Teachers.
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Dr Dworet: It's a difficult question to answer because most of us in the pre-service sector of the faculty of education work closely with schools and with teachers anyway. Myself, I'm in about 30 schools, 30 classrooms a year on a regular, ongoing basis. What additional information would be provided, I suppose, on membership of a committee is to listen to them and influence them in terms of what teacher education is all about right now.
One of the frustrations I share as a faculty member, and I was mentioning this to my colleagues on the way over, is that teacher education has undergone some pretty dramatic changes over the last five to 10 years. Unfortunately, due to a variety of cutbacks and whatever, there are not a lot of teachers teaching who have undergone that program, because they haven't been hired if they've graduated in the last five to 10 years. Our involvement on an education committee would be to hopefully bring them up to date on what we are doing and then listen to what they think we need to do, and hopefully there is a blend.
Mr Wildman: What role would the faculties have in ongoing in-service training for teachers who perhaps received their certificates some time ago and have been in teaching for a number of years?
Dr Dworet: As you're aware, faculties right now run additional qualification courses which teachers take to upgrade. All my colleagues, and I believe the colleagues at York, provide a variety of professional development day activities, special workshop sessions, when asked to by school boards or individual schools. We do this as a regular part of our career path.
Dr Khayatt: And graduate work as well, at both the MA and PhD levels.
Mr Wildman: I was just wondering, in regard to the proposals before us that individual teachers would be required to develop a program and submit it to the college to indicate what their growth path is going to be, what role the faculties might have in that regard, if any.
Dr Dworet: It's difficult to even answer, but I suppose we would have to continue providing a variety of courses -- in-service courses, short-term courses -- that teachers can enrol in so they can meet their particular professional needs.
Dr Khayatt: We don't just teach content; we teach how to think in the classroom. We teach pedagogy. We teach theory. It has a whole lot of varieties of ways in which we can be influencing the teaching of teachers.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr Wildman: I appreciate that you would listen to my admonition and you were less biased in that last --
The Acting Chair: Always fair.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SUPERVISORY OFFICIALS' ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: I call for the Ontario Public Supervisory Officials' Association. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Mr Paul Collins: My name's Paul Collins. I'm here as president of the Ontario Public Supervisory Officials' Association. Grant Yeo is the president-elect. The other two folks I'll leave for just a moment, because they're going to do most of the speaking to you.
Just so that you know, our organization represents approximately 400 supervisory officials who work for public school boards. A key aspect of our work has to do with providing input on policies and legislation, and so we're really pleased to have the opportunity to be here today and share some thoughts with you.
We think these are two really important pieces of legislation and we're here speaking in support of them and wish to share some more specific comments with you on each of the bills. I'm looking for some direction in terms of how you would like us to proceed. Bill by bill, to speak and take some questions? We wish to speak to both pieces. Or would you like us to speak to both bills and then take questions relevant to both?
The Acting Chair: It would probably make sense to speak to both bills and complete your presentation, and then allow the questioning. Then we'll know exactly how much time is left per party.
Mr Collins: We'll begin then. Bev Stewart will speak to the legislation on the College of Teachers. Then we'll follow that with Larry Langdon speaking to the legislation on the office of accountability.
Mrs Bev Stewart: We appreciate the opportunity to present. I'm Bev Stewart. I'm a supervisory officer with the York Region Board of Education and have been so for the last eight years. Richard, nice to see you; and, Bud, we had an opportunity to meet last week.
We'd like, first of all, to emphasize that we do support both of these bills and that we feel strongly there are really important aspects of the bills that can be used to utilize and improve education in the province for students.
I'm not going to read through it, because the points are there, but I am going to highlight some of the points.
We certainly feel that the College of Teachers, through the people who are in the College of Teachers, can set standards and improve and accredit professional development for teachers. We agree that the representation should be broadly across the province. We certainly do support the value of learning throughout a member's career. We think that's a very important aspect.
We think there should be more pre-service and in-service plans and certainly appreciate that young teachers are given an emphasis in this act; that they will be given more support through mentoring programs and through in-service programs, support that can be documented. We feel that's very important. Our young teachers need all the support they can get in their first years of teaching. We agree that people in leadership positions can help design the roles.
One concern we had was that in the development of the membership of the council there is only mention of one supervisory officer. We have worked closely in our association, and particularly with OCSOA, the Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers' Association, and each one of us, as an association member, ASFO, OCSOA and OPSOA, represents our own constituency. We each have legislative responsibilities in terms of documenting and working with and improving educational delivery in our schools, but each of us has a particular interest, which is also referenced in this act through the inclusion of representation of parents and public representatives who represent French, Catholic and public education. So to name only one supervisory officer seems inappropriate and imbalanced because each of us has a constituency that we have to represent.
We also are bound by our own legislation, and the reason we got to where we're getting is that we are there to evaluate, monitor and improve the teaching of teachers. We would like very much to feel that we still have a say, each of us, again representing our own constituency, in continuing that.
We have some concern, because it's absent, if anything, from the act, about the degree or the definition of "misconduct" or "inappropriate behaviour" on the part of teachers. Daily we are confronted with trying to improve educational delivery, and I don't just mean in a curricular sense. If we find in our own jobs teachers who are not performing at an adequate level, there are legislative responsibilities for us to undertake to improve that. We're not sure whether this act is clear enough yet on what it is that constitutes professional misconduct. We're assuming, although it's not, again, specified, that it's something in the nature of a very severe action, something that would harm, physically or mentally, a student, for which I think a severe requirement or a severe consequence is required.
We ask that you look very closely at the work of the supervisory officers and how they can be an adjunct to the College of Teachers and how we can support what the college is promoting. Certainly we're doing that even now in certain professional development activities and so on.
The clarification part in the paper here is not so much for response right now. We know that the regulations, as they are developed, will spin out many of the things that are contained in our request for clarifications. Particularly, we're concerned about the definition of "teacher" that's in there, because it suggests that only those people who are under contract in a public or a separate school are teachers, and yet the word "teacher" in the College of Teachers includes everyone who has an OTC, and certainly everyone who has an OTC doesn't fit under that contractual responsibility. Supervisory officers don't have contracts in the same way, but we all have OTCs and so on.
I think that's all I'll say right now. I'll respond to questions later and let Mr Langdon carry on.
Mr Larry Langdon: I'm director of education for the Prince Edward County Board of Education and have been in that position since January 1990. It's a great deal of pleasure, as my colleagues expressed, the opportunity to speak to the committee in regard to our support for both the first bill and this particular bill. We strongly support the concept of the Education Quality and Accountability Office, and I say that for three prime reasons.
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First, we believe it is essential to evaluate on a province-wide basis the quality and effectiveness of Ontario education, both at the elementary and the secondary level. We say that for two reasons. We believe that such testing, if properly done, will lead definitely to the improvement of program and, secondly, will lead to the legitimate assessment of student progress.
The second positive we would point out to you is that the development of tests will truly reflect the Ontario curriculum, and the contracting out that has already been undertaken by the Education Quality and Accountability Office is moving towards those persons and groups that are already actively involved in the Ontario education continuum. We believe that those groups are most knowledgeable and best positioned in terms of being able to put tests together that are valid and indeed test that curriculum.
Third, we believe that this agency will have a great deal to do to assist with the establishment and maintenance of public support for education through demonstrating by this arm's-length agency the quality of the Ontario education system. We sit before you saying very clearly that, as Ontario public school officials in this province, we support the Ontario curriculum, we support the progress of what students are doing in the Ontario curriculum at both the elementary and secondary level, and we believe that our educational system is second to none, something we should all be proud of.
Very briefly, I would draw your attention to three concerns, perhaps recommendations. Taking a look at subsection 4(1) of Bill 30, while we believe that both clauses (a) and (b) are completely valid, we would like to see reference to a clause (c) that would provide the opportunities for boards to test beyond the sample provided by the EQAO, for a payment of a fee. In other words, there are boards in this province that perhaps would like to test all grade 3 students or all grade 6 students or all grade 9 or grade 11. We believe that should be available at the board's discretion to move forward in that area, subject to the same controls that those tests are used when they're used with the sampling.
Subsection 4(3): We have a concern we would draw to your attention and it falls in two categories. If you truly believe that the testing is for the improvement of program, then we have concerns with the status of English-as-a-second-language students, those students who come to Ontario whose first language is not English who are then tested on a test that depends upon the English language to ensure performance. We believe that has to be taken into account, not by exempting those students but by providing some controls that allow for the lack of English fluency to not be an impediment to test performance.
We would also draw your attention to a large number of students in this province who are in French immersion programs who do the vast majority of their work in school in the French language, and therefore what test are they going to be testing? Are they going to be compared with French-as-a-first-language students on the French component, or are they going to be tested in comparison with English-language students who are taking all of their training in English? We believe that issue has to be looked at carefully.
The last and final point I'd make is to continue to ensure -- the legislation is silent on this issue -- that the utilization of such testing is not for the performance appraisal of teachers. We believe there are much more adequate mechanisms. Boards of education all across this province have a variety of methods that test teacher competence on a yearly basis. Teachers have no control over classroom groupings, where students come from, the socioeconomic background of some students that might influence what they can bring to the test, and we ask you therefore to take a look at this issue and ensure that the testing doesn't go beyond the original two components, which are the improvement of program and the assessment of student progress.
We'd be prepared to take questions on this bill, too.
Mr Miclash: Is Dick Coburn any relation to your committee at all? Does he have a position?
Mr Collins: Dick is a member of our organization.
Mr Miclash: He is northern representation of some sort?
Mr Collins: He was a past director of our board. He isn't at the moment, but he has been.
Mr Miclash: Something that Dick has always mentioned to me, and you people will be familiar with who I'm talking about, is the opportunity to participate in the drafting of legislation as it comes forward, and it's been a concern of his over the number of years that he's been involved with the association. Did you have any opportunity at all to participate in the drafting of either piece of legislation here, 30 or 31?
Mr Collins: Not to my knowledge.
Mr Miclash: Okay, and as I say, it is a concern.
In terms of the amount of detail the public have in regard to the college in particular and the makeup of the committees etc, do you find the public are asking a lot of questions, looking for more detail as to how this will affect their children and what effect it will have on education throughout the province? Are you getting a lot of questions from the general public on that one?
Mr Langdon: No, I don't think we are. I think, though, that the general public is very supportive of comprehensive system-wide testing. We saw with the grade 9 reading and writing tests that were done for two years, and achieved very positive results, that the public and that component of the public, the parents, found that information very useful, found it very supportive of the education their youngsters were receiving, and I believe would respond appropriately and favourably to these types of tests once they come forward in, we hope, a similar fashion.
Mr Grant Yeo: If I can continue, Mr Langdon and I are from different parts of the province. I'm from Lambton county. The questions we've been getting are about assessment and not the College of Teachers. There seems to be a sense that the College of Teachers legislation has had a great deal of discussion, and the questions we've had are about the grade 3 testing and the work that will be done with the teachers prior to that. So there is an interest in that part.
Mrs Stewart: If I could just add my voice to that, I can't recollect one single question, even in the local newspapers, regarding the College of Teachers, but there certainly is an ongoing interest in the forms of assessment, the regularity of it, the standardization of it and the information to be shared, and it's more at this point just an inquiry, not a passionate concern. It's just something they think will happen.
Mr Patten: Good to see you again. First of all, your comments related to Bill 30 are well taken. Most people have concentrated on Bill 31. One of the concerns that we had raised, likewise, as critics, has been the very large gap between grade 6 and grade 11, and seeing that it's such a tumultuous period of time, the maturation period, that lots of things happen and go on, that there should be a strengthening of the testing in that particular area, in the middle grades between the two, beyond simply some sample testing, so your idea is an interesting one.
If we took everyone's recommendation we would have a very large board, by the way, I might mention. But one of your questions under seeking clarification -- I would ask, do you have legal counsel with you at the table?
Interjection: No.
Mr Patten: No. One of your questions is "on the application of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act as it applies to the act to establish the Ontario College of Teachers." We're advised in writing from the commissioner, Tom Wright, that indeed it would not apply, which of course then raises another question, that if it does not apply to the college, then what does, especially using the model from the Regulated Health Professions Act, that it would be under that model, and if that were so, have you had any chance to reflect on what that would mean?
Mrs Stewart: If I can respond to that, I think that's what causes probably the most anxiety in any kind of group, in any teaching group: not knowing the amount of information that could become public information. As teachers and employees of educational facilities understand now, they know what information can be made public and what they're entitled to have shared. It would make them very nervous to know that it wasn't covered by the freedom of information act.
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Mr Patten: I would think so. We're awaiting comment from legislative counsel on, in the absence of that, what would then replace it or what vulnerabilities would occur given that clarification has been made. If you have any counsel that suggests ideas and you wish to share it with us, we would welcome very much your thoughts on that.
Mr Collins: We'll take that back. Thank you.
Mr Wildman: I would echo the comments of my colleague just now. We would welcome that information.
First, I'd like to ask a couple of questions with regard to the accountability office and testing. There has been some concern expressed, and I share this, that while we support testing and a more thorough program of testing than the current government is prepared to finance, there's a tendency for the press, the media to use the results to compare board to board, school to school and for parents then to be influenced about selection of school on the basis of test results. I know most educators would think that's unwise, or an abuse of the information that is gained from province-wide testing. Could you comment on that and give some suggestions on how the office might avoid that?
Mr Langdon: I think the office has taken one step already where it's using the sampling in some of its testing which really gives a provincial profile, but doesn't necessarily give a full, comprehensive review of every student in the system. I think it's always going to be susceptible to that sort of a challenge. Any time you do that type of testing, the comparison is going to come out.
If I can use the grade 9 reading and writing as an example, we found that indeed was the initial reaction of the press, but when it occurred at the school and at the county level, more of the concern focused there on student performance and what you were going to do to respond within either the school or the board to what the test results showed you and the improvement in program and the assistance to improve student performance.
I think that's where you have to put your focus, Mr Wildman. I don't think there's any way you're going to avoid the initial exposure in terms of some of the things we had come out of the grade 9 reading and writing. I think there are some real pluses, though, that individual boards are able to use those tests for their most appropriate use.
Mr Wildman: I have a question about the suggestion that was made by representatives of the public school boards' association and by the separate school trustees' association, which both appeared before the committee, in which they expressed some concern with regard to duplication in the areas of discipline, investigation of alleged misconduct, questions of competence between the role of the board as the employer vis-à-vis the teacher as the employee and the college and concern that there might be duplication.
Do you share any of those concerns, and if so, would you advocate moving towards the BC model where the college there apparently in most cases, although there are a couple of exceptions, does not take action with regard to reviewing the question of removal of a teacher's certificate until the board process and the arbitration, the grievance procedure, all of that has been completed?
Mrs Stewart: I'd like to respond to that. I couldn't agree more. As I was studying the legislation, one of my main concerns was the point at which there was an overlapping of responsibilities. I think there are certain instances that supersede a normal process.
Mr Wildman: In BC, a criminal conviction, for instance.
Mrs Stewart: Exactly, and that's what I was referring to. Certainly there should be a process that's carried out to a point and then moves to the College of Teachers. There ought to be provisions somewhere in the act for moving along a process that seems to be stalled. I guess an investigation or a review committee could do that, but that would be one of my major concerns and the BC model seems to fill that bill.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Thank you for coming forward today. Many of the teachers' federations that have come to this committee have stated that they don't believe supervisory officials should be classified as classroom teachers. I wonder if you could give me your opinion on that.
Mrs Stewart: I would have to agree. By definition, we're not classroom teachers, but we're all certified teachers and we've had to go through a series of examinations and promotions to get to the position we're in now to administer teachers. I think the difficulty is that you're trying to separate management and union and in a college there shouldn't be that management-union separation. We believe if we are to be included in the College of Teachers, then our say is equally as relevant and important, especially based on the fact that we do a lot of disciplinary management as it is now, as well as professional development.
Mrs Ross: I want to ask you another question on the office of accountability. I didn't write the words down exactly as you said them, but you made the comment that you felt controls should be in place so that lack of English wouldn't be an impediment to passing some of the tests. I just wonder if you could give me some suggestions as to how we could accommodate that. You also mentioned it in relation to the French language, I think.
Mr Langdon: What I would say in regard to that is that I think, first of all, there has to be a recognition that some students going into that process are going to be disadvantaged because of their fluency in English or the fact that even though English is their first language, they've spent most of their school career in early immersion programs.
The controls I refer to are a recognition within the test that could be even built up over time which say normally students who take this test at grade 3, who are recent entries to the Ontario educational system, perform at such-and-such a level, and some sort of tracking that says this should not therefore be a measure of their proficiency in mathematics, in the sense used for the sole judgement of what student progress might be all about.
I think it's always going to be an ongoing area to say what the difference is between outcomes and student achievement. We would hope the testing agency could take a look at this and over a period of time even deal with tests that might test separately these particular youngsters' proficiency that could take into account the impediment that has nothing to do with their ability to achieve the outcome. The impediment is in the translation from what the test is asking them to do or their understanding of what needs to be done. I don't mean to portray it as simple, but I think it's something we would address to you very strongly.
Mrs Stewart: To elaborate for a moment on that, coming from an area where all the schools with which I deal, the 10 schools with which I deal, are very heavily multilingual, we've experienced that very same situation during a recent standardized test given grade 3 and grade 6. The difficulty with a one-shot test is, it measures achievement at that particular moment but it doesn't measure progress.
I think when we're dealing with students who are acquiring English, you have to have that element of measured progress in there to show the degree to which they have improved over time. I think that's a critical issue. One of the most critical issues in any kind of assessment program is educating the public to what that assessment stands for and how to look at it down the road, to see whether there has been progress made, which would also take into account the progress made in areas where children have had less opportunity for learning.
Mrs Ross: I just want to follow up on that. At some point in time, there has to be a level you reach that says you've been here for so long and you should be able to pass a test after a certain time. How long? I guess you have to put in some sort of a benchmark somewhere along the line.
Mrs Stewart: We already have that research data. It takes five to seven years to acquire a language proficiently. You can acquire fluency in a language within a year or two, but to acquire academic conceptualization takes five to seven years. That gives you some idea of the extent of it. When you have students enter without English at grade 7, they are in a far worse situation than someone entering at age 5.
Mr Newman: Welcome to the committee. Do you think the preparation and training that teachers will have on standard-based assessments will help them teach more consistently across the province?
Mr Langdon: I don't think there's any doubt it's going to be one of the tools that are really going to provide direction for teachers as they design the classroom curriculum. I think the testing has to be very specific in what is expected in terms of outcomes, and hopefully then leave the teaching to the teachers where they have the training to go forward.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
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FÉDÉRATION DES ASSOCIATIONS DE PARENTS FRANCOPHONES DE L'ONTARIO
The Acting Chair: I call forward la Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario. Thank you very much for joining us.
Ms Francesca Piredda: Thank you for allowing us.
The Acting Chair: You will have 30 minutes, and you may use your presentation.
Ms Piredda: Have you have seen the length of the brief?
The Acting Chair: Actually, I haven't had a chance to look at it yet.
Ms Piredda: I would like to say that our presentation will be made in French. We will be reverting to English occasionally to stress a point perhaps, but I really hope you have the equipment necessary to follow me in English and French.
The Acting Chair: Indeed we do, oui.
Ms Piredda: Very good. We're all set.
Marie Biron is here with me today from la Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario. We want to speak in support of both the establishment of the Ontario College of Teachers and the Education Quality and Accountability Office. I'll be glad to answer questions afterwards in English.
We are the federation of French-language parents in French-language schools, both Catholic and public schools. We are the only provincial organization and we have been in existence for over 50 years. We have the privilege of experience, and I think also of a very modern outlook. We are elected by delegates from member schools throughout the province. We have members in associations in over 100 schools throughout Ontario, which means about a third of French-language schools, and we estimate we represent about 75% of existing associations with statutes and regulations in the province.
À propos de l'Office de la qualité et de la responsabilité en éducation, la Fédération veut exprimer son appui à la création de cet Office. Comme nous le signalions à la Commission royale, «Nous croyons que lorsque des objectives sont établis, lorsque le succès ou l'échec sont visibles, les intervenants peuvent mieux assumer leurs responsabilités.»
À cet effet, la FAPFO recommande que l'Office soit responsable d'informer les parents des évaluations provinciales annuelles. Il est important de rejoindre le plus grand nombre de parents possible, de leur faire part de ce que les tests vont mesurer, qui sera évalué et quand, ainsi que des dates prévues pour la diffusion des résultats. Il ne suffit pas de dire que l'Office rend compte au public dans son ensemble sans prévoir une responsabilité particulière vis-à-vis des parents.
Dans la pratique, nous croyons que l'Office doit être responsable des fonctions suivantes :
(1) entreprendre des évaluations ponctuelles et périodiques ;
(2) évaluer la compétence linguistique en langue première et en langue seconde, et permettre aux francophones et aux anglophones qui le désirent de passer les deux tests de compétence linguistique afin de refléter les connaissances et l'avantage des élèves d'expression française et d'expression anglaise qui ont une compétence dans les deux langues.
Les résultats des élèves francophones de l'Ontario aux tests internationaux, nationaux et provinciaux montrent un écart significatif avec les résultats des élèves de langue anglaise, un écart inférieur. Nous souhaitons que l'Office mette en place un mécanisme neutre et professionnel qui permettra d'élaborer et d'assurer l'implantation des mesures correctives nécessaires.
La FAPFO recommande que l'Office communique les résultats directement aux parents, en particulier résultats individuels des élèves, résultats collectifs de l'école, résultats de l'ensemble de la province par conseil scolaire, afin d'assurer une transparence au processus ;
-- renseigner les parents sur les liens entre le programme d'étude et le testing, tout en indiquant ce que le testing mesure ;
-- renseigner les parents des facteurs de pondération, des mesures de normalisation et de toute autre technique utilisée pour ajuster les résultats.
-- I think it's important to communicate results within the same province or the same community, making comparisons between boards and linguistic communities;
-- proposer les mesures correctives pour les élèves évalués et valider leur mise en oeuvre, afin que l'évaluation et le testing soient un outil d'apprentissage, pas punitif ;
-- proposer la formation initiale et continue requise par le personnel enseignant, par suite de l'évaluation du rendement scolaire de nos enfants.
Puisque l'Office doit pouvoir améliorer et vérifier les normes de qualité de l'éducation de langue française aussi bien que de l'éducation de langue anglaise, il est essentiel que le statut du français à l'Office soit reconnu officiellement dans la loi, au moyen d'un préambule.
Je passe maintenant à l'Ordre des enseignants.
I would like to say that there is symbolism in the French wording of the teachers' college. In French it is called "Ordre des enseignantes et des enseignants"; "ordre" in French means professional group and it also means order in the sense of an orderly process.
Mr Wildman: Like a religious order.
Ms Piredda: Yes, and also a command, but we will skip those two. We feel a need for a process that is clear, accountable, inclusive, transparent and efficient. We said at the royal commission that excellence cannot be in the school without the competence of teachers.
Nous croyons que le mandat de l'Ordre des enseignantes et des enseignants pourra définir les normes de compétence du personnel enseignant et permettra de répondre aux besoins éducatifs des élèves inscrits dans toutes les écoles de langue française de cette province.
Pour traiter des situations et des défis spécifiques à l'éducation de langue française en Ontario, la FAPFO appuie fortement le principe que ce soient des francophones qui décident des normes particulières pour les enseignantes et les enseignants de langue française. Nous demandons aussi que ce soient des francophones qui traitent de tous les éléments du mandat de l'Ordre des enseignants touchant à l'éducation en français.
Pour cela, il est essentiel que le statut du français soit reconnu officiellement dans la loi, au moyen d'un préambule.
De fait, l'article 41 du projet de loi indique que «toute personne a le droit d'utiliser le français dans ses rapports avec l'Ordre». Il nous semble important de bien définir l'étendue des rapports. Qu'est-ce qu'un rapport ? À cet égard, nous pensons qu'il faut inclure une définition qui affirmerait que les rapports comprennent les services offerts aux membres et au public, les communications internes et externes et les démarches administratives.
L'Ordre doit être en mesure d'établir des normes professionnelles à l'appui de la formation initiale et continue du personnel enseignant. Le personnel enseignant des écoles de langue française devra être en mesure d'enseigner efficacement dans un milieu où le français est en situation de minorité avec toutes les fonctions de récupération du niveau de la langue et toutes les stratégies menant à l'adhésion à la culture de la communauté francophone.
Au sujet de la composition de l'Ordre, nous pensons qu'il faut assurer une meilleure représentation des intérêts éducatifs des francophones en assurant que la composition du conseil d'administration comprenne des membres de l'éducation catholique française, de l'éducation catholique anglaise, de l'éducation publique anglaise et de l'éducation publique française.
Nous sommes convaincus, du fait de notre expérience et du réseau que nous avons dans la province, que nous sommes le seul organisme représentant les parents qui ont inscrit leurs enfants dans les écoles catholiques ou publiques de langue française en Ontario et, par définition, l'organisme en mesure d'entreprendre les démarches de nomination de parents francophones à l'Ordre. Nous vous demandons, dans les règlements connexes à la Loi, de reconnaître notre Fédération comme l'organisme qui fera ces nominations.
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Mr Wildman: Merci beaucoup. I am interested in your comments in terms of the membership on the board and the recognition of French in dealings with the college. Have you had any discussions with officials of the implementation committee and/or officials of the ministry with regard to this request?
Ms Piredda: Yes. Quite a number of us from francophone associations in education met a few months ago and we did bring it up. I can't speak particularly for parents. I think that if there is to be one parent or if there are to be a number of laypeople, those persons should be capable of appreciating the necessity of giving equal weight to the two components of the French-language system. It takes persons who have made a commitment to it who have been working with associations that were committed to the principle of giving equal importance and access to both components.
As regards the nomination of parents, I think we've done a wonderful job of managing to reach a level of understanding with a maximum of associations throughout the province. Most of them are Catholic, by the way, but we have understood that we were such a small, emerging movement that we had to work together, and we are working together and we have been working together.
Mr Wildman: With regard to the accountability office you point out, as I guess most members of the committee are aware, that the performance of francophone students on standardized tests has not met the same level as that of anglophone students generally; of course, there are lots of exceptions, but in general. This would make the work of the office, I think, very important for your community. Have you had indication of a specific interest in that area from the officials of the proposed accountability office?
Ms Piredda: I have had, personally, hardly any contact with the accountability office. I would welcome them in the future. We have been bringing forth this difficult subject of saying that we want an education in French but that this education is not giving the results we wanted.
Mr Wildman: It must be equal.
Ms Piredda: It must be equal, and testing is the first, perhaps limited, proof that there is a problem. You must understand it is difficult to work with educators and say, "We are here because we are worried." We have been hearing some sense of responsibility towards this, and definitely the office appears to be a very important element in explaining how a French-language student, for instance, may not be superbly proficient in French but perhaps has other qualities which are not being tested right now. For instance, as we all know, francophones are much more bilingual than anglophones. It's a delicate subject, because we don't want them to be too anglophone, but on the other hand it's an advantage that they have. So we want to measure our strengths as well as our weaknesses and make progress.
Mr Wildman: The aboriginal community has raised, for obvious reasons, similar concerns with regard to their language and culture and the results in terms of education for aboriginal people, which are abysmal, and they have pointed that out very clearly before this committee. I'm hoping that the accountability office will make a significant effort in terms of the francophone community and the concerns you've raised as well as the aboriginal community.
Mrs Ross: I just have a couple of questions. They may sound like they're foolish questions to you but I hope you'll bear with me. You made a comment about language proficiency and that perhaps students who were involved in French immersion should be allowed to take those tests in both languages, English and French. I raise this because the last group that was here commented that in a multicultural community, some of those individuals who are learning English as a second language may be fluent but not proficient in English -- there's a difference -- and that it takes them about five to seven years. I just wonder if you could comment on that with respect to the French language.
Ms Piredda: We are always interested in hearing officials from English-language schools speaking about the different levels of language, particularly in big cities, because there are a number of newcomers who don't master English.
In the French-language system, the diversity of the levels of language can be very significant, depending on where you were brought up, depending on how francophone your family is, depending on the level of awareness of the cultural environment in French. With respect to French-language students we hypothesize, and we would like to have more hard proof about it, that perhaps they reach a maturity of language which is later than for a student who would be mostly in an anglophone milieu. On the other hand, we would not want to believe that too much, because it's easy to say, "He will flourish later"; you don't want children to blossom too late, of course. Besides, I am not too certain about how much time you need to really, truly master a language. There are different theories.
In general though, notwithstanding that, we also want them to speak and write a very good standard or slightly non-standard French, we want them to be very capable of reading difficult math instructions and we want them to be exactly like you would expect all students in this province to be. We also want to specify that as a child goes through school in a French-language school, he probably is picking up a lot of English, and this to us is not a disadvantage at all, but rather should be measured if it is something that can provide a better portrait of the student's accomplishment. We suggest it is something worth exploring, and perhaps there are some comparisons that could be drawn with English-language schools as well, the reverse.
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Mrs Ross: Do you think there's a difference between fluency and proficiency?
Ms Piredda: I'm not a linguist. I'm a demi-linguist, which is a specialty of this country. I have a schoolmate who learned French from speaking only Swedish, within three months, and came to be number one in the class. I remember that, and I have high standards about the speed at which some children can learn a first or second language.
Accommodations have to be made for milieus that are extremely isolated. A school that is isolated in a very English-speaking area of course might not have the same achievements as another one in a more uniform francophone community. All the same, I don't want this to be used as an excuse; I want this to be used as a way of improving.
Mr Smith: During your presentation that dealt with the accountability office, you made reference to the need for spot and periodic assessments. Have you given any thought to the frequency at which these assessments should occur?
Ms Piredda: I think it is a matter of money. I'm afraid we've not considered this very carefully. I know one assessment, recent testing, disappeared in the clouds and I've not heard from. I certainly would like people to know how frequent they are and be told exactly where they are going. There's been perhaps a not very broad dissemination of information. I would expect them to be on a regular basis, but we have not particularly studied whether it would be more useful that they be every year or every two years or every three years.
M. Patten : Merci pour votre présentation. Une clarification, s'il vous plaît. Votre point sur les examens de langue seconde : est-ce que vous proposez ça pour anglophones et francophones aussi ?
Mme Piredda : C'est cela qui est très intéressant, parce que justement, nous nous comparons aujourd'hui aux anglophones. Quand nous nous comparons à la langue écrite et lue, lecture et écriture, nous voyons une différence, une infériorité. Alors, nous pensons qu'une façon de faire un portrait global du jeune anglophone ou du jeune francophone, c'est dire, où sont les forces ? J'ai appris il y a quelque temps qu'on ne peut pas toujours regarder les problèmes. Il faut regarder les avantages.
M. Patten : Évidemment. Je pense que c'est très valable.
Un deuxième point, sur le projet de loi 31, est-ce qu'un terme comme «Collège des enseignants» ne marche pas très bien ?
Mme Piredda : Comme terme ?
M. Patten : Pour remplacer «Ordre» ?
Mme Piredda : Non, absolument pas. Je ne voulais pas faire de suggestion. «Ordre» est magnifique. Ça sert bien.
M. Patten : Dans le projet de loi je vois mentionné le système francophone. Il me semble que votre point est toujours que le système francophone se compose de deux secteurs : du secteur catholique et du secteur public. Dans chaque division, comme parent ou enseignant ou superviseur ou quoi qu'il soit, comment est-ce que le comité peut faire la distinction entre les deux pour avoir une balance pour pouvoir prendre une décision comme ça ?
Mme Piredda : Il devrait y avoir un équilibre. Je sais que le comité de mise en oeuvre a dû faire des calculs très complexes pour décider des quorums, de l'équilibre, de la participation. À notre avis, à tous les niveaux il serait du moins important que s'il n'y a qu'un membre, il faut qu'il soit capable de connaître, d'expliquer les deux points de vue, parce que la francophonie en matière d'éducation a choisi d'avoir deux systèmes. Par contre, il serait infiniment plus équitable d'avoir deux membres, parce que deux membres, c'est deux voix.
Mr Patten: Merci bien.
The Acting Chair: Merci. Thank you very much for your presentation. It was much appreciated.
VOICE FOR HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN
The Acting Chair: I call forward Voice for Hearing Impaired Children. Thank you for joining us.
I want to inform our presenters, as well as committee members, that we've just learned a vote is scheduled for 5:45 this afternoon. With agreement from all three parties, I recommend that we proceed with the presentation and see how far we can get through to questions, and if we are interrupted and are not complete before the vote happens, that we come back and complete our questioning afterwards. Is that okay with everybody here?
Mr Wildman: If it's acceptable to the presenters.
The Acting Chair: Is that fine with the presenters as well?
Ms Rosemary Pryde: Yes, it is, thank you.
The Acting Chair: Please proceed.
Ms Pryde: First I'd like to introduce you to Cherrie-Anne Robinson, who is my oral interpreter. She doesn't sign. She actually mouths the words of what is being said, and she will be a great help to me with questions that any of you might have for me a little later on.
My name is Rosemary Pryde and I'm the executive director of Voice for Hearing Impaired Children. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I realize that it's probably been a very long day and I'm the last speaker, so I will try to be as brief as possible.
For those of you who are not familiar with my organization, we are a parent support organization that provides information and support and services to families with hearing-impaired children. We've been doing this since 1963. We have chapters across Ontario and have recently expanded into other provinces.
We believe that most deaf children, even with profound hearing losses, can learn how to communicate orally just as I am doing, with early diagnosis, good hearing aids and intensive language development therapy. Our goal for these children is that they have the same opportunities as their hearing peers in regular classroom settings, working with the help of specialist teachers that we call itinerant teachers of the deaf, and it's in the context of this goal that I'm here to speak to you today.
I want to speak very briefly on Bill 30. We have one issue that we would like to bring before the committee. We support the intent of the bill and want to talk very briefly about the idea of testing, specifically testing situations and environments for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.
In many situations, deaf children are tested on deaf norms, because many years ago educational authorities believed that because of language delay caused by deafness these children would be at an insurmountable disadvantage if they were tested against the norms for the general population. Our organization feels that we're preparing our children to enter the normal world, and we want them to be tested against the norms of the general population as long as they have appropriate support.
There is a particular section of this bill, section 29, paragraph 3.3, which talks about establishing policies and guidelines for the assessment of academic achievement. It is in this section that we would like to see specific guidelines established for the preparation and the testing environment for these deaf children. Something as simple as providing written exam guidelines rather than a teacher orally instructing at the beginning of the class can make a world of difference. The test is half an hour. If that's spoken, that may not get through to the deaf child.
Consultation with the specialist teachers, the itinerant teachers of the deaf, in the development of these guidelines would help to ensure that they are sufficient to meet the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
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With reference to Bill 31, we have a little more to say. Most of it is in my brief, but I want to highlight the two key areas we are concerned about. First of all, we support the bill. We think the responsibility of accrediting teacher training programs is important for the education of our children, and we're also pleased about the inclusion of community members on the governing council.
To give you an example, one of our teachers, in trying to define the difference between a specialist teacher of the deaf and a parent of a deaf child, said that the teacher is like someone running the 100-metre sprint and a parent runs the marathon. A parent is much more involved for a much longer time and, because of their obvious interest in the education of their child, they seek out opportunities, they do research, they bring a lot of information and guidance and advice to the table. We think it's wonderful that you are including this larger community, and hopefully parents will be part of that in the governing council.
We're not going to address the disciplinary sections of the bill as we don't feel that's part of our mandate. Our main focus is with objects 1 to 4 as they relate to training and accreditation of teachers of the deaf.
We understand and agree with the college's first priority to look at the regular teacher training program as it exists with a view to possibly changing, enhancing, expanding it, but we feel that training of teachers of deaf and hard-of-hearing children is an almost equal priority because those teachers also are classroom teachers. They provide very specific support, such as language development, to children who are in the regular classroom setting and they also deserve the attention being paid to the broader teaching population.
Understanding of language is a prerequisite to learning. This is pretty basic, but it's also key to understanding the importance of specialist teachers for deaf children. As I mentioned earlier, language delay is unfortunately a part of deafness, particularly if a child is deaf from birth or prelingually deaf, which means that they're deaf before they learn language.
Itinerant teachers -- I'll be using this term a lot -- provide instruction and language development. Without them, our children will be unable to learn. I want to illustrate how important these teachers are by giving you a quote from a speech made by a mother of three deaf children, three deaf daughters -- you can imagine. She was talking to a school board last week about potential cuts in the itinerant program, and she said this:
"The itinerant teacher of the deaf is my daughter's lifeline, her voice, her key to remaining in the regular classroom.
"One of my daughters wants to be a veterinarian. She is getting 90s in her high school. She would not be where she is today without years of academic support from the teacher of the deaf."
The reason I'm telling you all this is because I want, hopefully, to convey to you the importance of this particular kind of teacher and to now address the concerns we have about the training being provided. All teachers who are now graduating with diplomas in deaf education receive their advanced education through the teacher training program at York University. Voice is very concerned with the quality and level of training currently being provided. There is no specific training for itinerant teachers. There is very limited training in language development. In fact, the training specifically referring to language development, which is called auditory-verbal therapy, is actually an optional program. This concerns us, because the majority of children who are deaf and hard of hearing and in school board programs are oral and require the support in language development that the itinerant teacher can provide. Newly graduated teachers from the York program, particularly those in the northern part of the province, are really finding it hard because they haven't received the adequate training they need, and this really hurts our children. So we want to see a stronger emphasis on teaching of those teachers who are going to provide special language instruction to our children in regular schools.
We know the York University officials are at the moment reviewing their program, and that's why we came to you today. We anticipate that they are going to be doing perhaps a major, maybe a minor, overhaul of the teacher training program very soon and we really would hope the College of Teachers would work with York to make sure the training program meets the needs of the teachers so that they can meet the needs of the children.
One final thing I want to say before I invite questions refers to the prerequisites for entering this program. The Ontario teachers' qualifications, subsection 20(1), talks about students who are entering teacher training programs who are hearing-impaired and exempts those students from either a bachelor of education degree or an Ontario teacher's certificate or a temporary letter of standing. York University is trying to upgrade those deaf and hard-of-hearing students who are in their teacher program by providing a course called Introduction to Education. We question whether this is really sufficient to provide proper teaching to our children and also ask that the College of Teachers take a look at that particular course to make sure it is sufficient.
We do urge the passing of both Bills 30 and 31 and ask that the standing committee include our recommendations, which are more clearly spelled out in the brief, in the body of the bills. All teachers, and teachers of deaf and hard-of-hearing children in particular, have a great responsibility for educating our children. The intent of the bills, as far as we can see, will only help to increase teaching excellence.
We thank you on behalf of the 1,000 Voice members and their children for your time today.
Mr Pettit: Thank you very much, Rosemary, for coming today. I too share your concerns about the limited training for itinerant teachers. I was reading, and you also mentioned, about the program at York University. Aside from the program at York, is there anything else the college could do to help prepare teachers to teach kids with special needs?
Ms Pryde: That's an interesting question. I haven't actually thought too much about that. Certainly one of the difficulties with the program at York is that it's at York. It's in Toronto, and it does somewhat restrict students, particularly mature students, coming from the northern part of the province, particularly those students who are already teachers, good classroom teachers who have taken some special ed courses and would very much like to upgrade their skills and become a teacher of the deaf but can't afford time away from their family for a year. It would be nice to see, as there is for teaching programs for teachers of the blind, either summer institutes or part-time training, and possibly in another part of the province.
Mr Pettit: Is York University the only university that provides this type of training? I just want to be clear on that.
Ms Pryde: Yes, it is. The program used to be provided through the provincial school for the deaf in Belleville and it was moved to a university setting, I think about four years ago.
Mr Pettit: Would it be your view that perhaps we need more than just York University for training for itinerant teachers?
Ms Pryde: To make it accessible to mature students in the north and to also increase the practicum placements. Right now, the teachers in the program have a specific chunk of time where they actually go out to the schools. They go to the provincial schools for the deaf and they go to school boards. They don't go to any rural schools, they don't go to any northern schools, and things are a lot different in rural schools and northern schools. Particularly for those students who are going to eventually be teaching in school board programs outside the Metro area, it's really important that they know what they're up against, because they have to be just about everything to the students in those isolated areas.
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Mrs Ecker: Thank you very much for coming this afternoon. I understand that the Education Quality and Accountability Office will be developing a set of policies and procedures to ensure that as many students as possible can engage in the testing and be measured and whatever, and I understand they're going to be consulting with groups with expertise in this area.
I wanted to change the subject here a bit. You mentioned itinerant teachers. What are the qualifications for those itinerant teachers? Are they the same as a teacher in a classroom or is there anything different? What's different about them?
Ms Pryde: The qualifications to enter into training to become an itinerant teacher are the same as for any other post-graduate program. If they're hearing, they need to have a bachelor of education degree.
The qualifications, as they're laid out right now, to become an itinerant teacher of the deaf would be to complete the program at York University and receive a diploma, and for that the student teachers would receive instruction in different communication approaches. I'm sure you're all aware that signing is one approach that's perhaps a little more visible than the way we are interpreting. There's some training in deaf culture, there's some training in audiology, a little bit of training in audiology, very little in language development, some in American sign language if the students don't have it -- they must be proficient in American sign language by the time they leave -- and then the practicum, which really forms the bulk of the program.
They don't get the kind of language development that is really key. Most teachers in the regular teaching program do get language development. That's pretty important for regular teachers. It's even more important for our kids because they don't hear, or if they hear, it's distorted, and the development is different and it's slower. They're not picking up all the idioms around them, as hearing children are. So that's one element that is still missing.
The teachers in the program -- and some of them are actually teachers and they have been classroom teachers or have completed either a bachelor of education degree or the teacher's training program. They're good, they're enthusiastic and they want to help, but they don't yet have the wherewithal to do it.
The itinerant teacher is often the only person available to either one child or 20 children in a school board area. They have to provide support to the classroom teacher; they have to troubleshoot for hearing aids, which always go on the fritz. They have to invent language games. They have to assess on a regular basis, sometimes even a weekly basis, the hearing level of a child, because that changes, and not just because of colds. Some children have progressive losses, where loss goes down and up and down and up. They have to know the subjects the students are learning in their regular class so that they can tutor them, particularly the language-rich subjects: English and history and that kind of thing.
Mr Miclash: It's not really a question, but I'd just like to say that I appreciated your comments. It certainly has been an education for me. Particularly your comments regarding rural and northern Ontario I think will serve well in terms of the deliberations we get into in terms of both Bills 30 and 31. Again, I'd just like to thank you for those comments.
Mr Patten: My question was similar to Ms Ecker's question, but let me ask you this. The distribution of qualified teachers: What can you tell me about that in terms of the province? Is it more difficult in the north, is it more difficult in eastern Ontario, places of that nature, to find your very best qualified teachers?
Ms Pryde: It's the same as everything else, doctors and other professions. There are more people to choose from in the metropolitan areas. There's more money generally, although this seems to be changing, so there's more choice, and because there are more people in the system itself, the teachers can learn from each other and share information and troubleshoot.
In the north -- and I'll give you one specific example in North Bay. We have a teacher who is not yet qualified who would like to be qualified. She is actually working with hearing-impaired children, some of ours in the school board. She can't get qualified unless she goes to York for a year, and in all probability she has more skills than some of the teachers coming out of the program because she's been doing it for so many years. She's an exception, unfortunately.
Everybody says this, but we really need to concentrate our efforts more in the north and also in rural areas. I heard today about a family down in the Niagara Peninsula that there are no services, period. Nothing. They've just moved into the area. There's nothing available for them
Mr Patten: Does this mean the youngsters would have to travel to go to the nearest location, and does that happen very often?
Ms Pryde: Parents have moved to provide their children with service, and parents have not moved. I remember a dad who lived just outside of Toronto calling me because he had been offered a wonderful job -- I won't tell you where, but in central Ontario -- and he wanted to know what services were available. At that time there was nothing for his daughter, so he didn't take the promotion. That's pretty sad. We're talking basic education here, too. We're not talking anything beyond reading and writing and arithmetic and all those basic things. So yes, parents have to make very difficult choices. When you think about the fact that there are teachers who could be available -- often what a child needs is maybe a half an hour a day or an hour two times a week of language tutoring and troubleshooting -- that's a pretty small price, I would think, to pay to ensure that the child is learning in the same way as his classmates.
Mr Wildman: I'm wondering if the initiative to integrate students into the general population, into the normal classroom, has exacerbated the problem of the availability of itinerant teachers for your community.
Ms Pryde: I'm not sure that I understand.
Mr Wildman: I'm just saying, if we are attempting to integrate students into the classrooms rather than segregating them in special classes, does that mean we need more teachers and does that mean we're facing a shortage in some areas, or not?
Ms Pryde: We don't necessarily need more teachers when we're integrating a child into a regular class; we need more itinerant teachers.
Mr Wildman: Yes, that's what I was asking.
Ms Pryde: There are other teachers of the deaf who provide teaching in what are called self-contained programs, as you had mentioned, or segregated programs. In fact, up in Thunder Bay several years ago, before there was a Voice chapter in Thunder Bay -- just before -- we talked to the school board about the possibility of taking one of the teachers who was providing service in a segregated class and having that teacher do itinerant work. The school board, much to its credit, agreed. That teacher, instead of working with five children all day, is now working with about 15 children. So it can balance out. It's a challenge for the smaller school boards to do that, but it does eventually balance out. And in our view, integration does provide a much superior learning environment for the child.
Mr Wildman: I'm in support of integration as well. My initial question was about the need for itinerant teachers, and you've indicated that, yes, it does mean we need more itinerant teachers.
Ms Pryde: We certainly need more itinerant teachers. We may eventually need fewer teachers in segregated programs, so what we need to do is make sure those teachers have all the training they need in order to become really good itinerant teachers of the deaf. They need to be troubleshooters, they need to work very closely with classroom teachers all the time, whereas the teachers in the segregated class don't, because they have their own class. But the other ones have to be diplomats. I mean, there are all kinds of skills that aren't necessarily readily available for some of these teachers that they will pick up very quickly as long as they're given the opportunity to do so.
They also probably need a little more tutoring themselves in the subjects in the regular classrooms, because you immediately jump up when a student goes into a regular classroom; their learning curve gets a bit steep initially. There's a fair amount of learning that has to take place because the regular classrooms are often ahead of the segregated class.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Pryde, for your presentation.
Before we adjourn -- by the way, we've made it, which is great; the vote hasn't been called yet, so no interruption -- I'd like to acknowledge the presence in the audience today of a former member of the Legislature and former Minister of Education. Bette Stephenson is sitting in the back, who I see has been watching things very closely. It's nice to see you. Thank you for being here.
This committee stands adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, April 24, at 10 am.
The committee adjourned at 1753.