EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION
KENT COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION KENT COUNTY ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, WINDSOR SECONDARY UNIT
FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO
WATERLOO COUNTY WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE CITY OF WINDSOR
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, KENT COUNTY
WINDSOR ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD
SELF-RELIANT LEARNING PROGRAM, HALTON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
CONTENTS
Tuesday 21 May 1996
Education Amendment Act, 1996, Bill 34, Mr Snobelen / Loi de 1996
modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation, projet de loi 34, M. Snobelen
Kent County Board of Education; Kent County Roman Catholic Separate School Board
Wayne Houston and Sandy Easton, directors of education
Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, Windsor secondary unit
Raymond Moreau, president
Marilies Rettig, president, OECTA
Claire Ross, general secretary, OECTA
Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario
Sheryl Hoshizaki, president
Margaret Clarke, president, Windsor Women Teachers' Association
Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association
Donna Reid, executive director
Windsor Board of Education
Beth Cooper, chairperson
Mary Jean Gallagher, director of education
Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation
Earl Manners, president
Mike Walsh, executive officer
Chris Malkiewich, staff
Leisha Nazarewich, president, District 1
Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association
Rick Meloche, president, Essex secondary unit
Bernie Dupuis, president, Essex elementary unit
Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Kent county
Ginn Rawlinson, district president
Deborah Slade, representative, Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations
Gerard Charette
Windsor Roman Catholic Separate School Board
Rev Joseph Redican
Jane Meriano; Sue Carey
Self-Reliant Learning Program, Halton County Board of Education
Margaret Daniels, supervisor
Bill Callen, student
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:
Pupatello, Sandra (Windsor-Sandwich L) for Mr Agostino
Duncan, Dwight (Windsor-Walkerville L) for Mr Gravelle
Cooke, David S. (Windsor-Riverside ND) for Mr Laughren
Carroll, Jack (Chatham-Kent PC) for Mrs Munro
Beaubien, Marcel (Lambton PC) for Mr Newman
Klees, Frank (York-Mackenzie PC) for Mr Pettit
Also taking part / Autre participants et participantes:
Crozier, Bruce (Essex South / -Sud L)
Clerk / Greffière: Lynn Mellor
Staff / Personnel: Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0858 in the Ramada Inn, Windsor.
EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION
Consideration of Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act / Projet de loi 34, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation.
The Vice-Chair (Mr John Gerretsen): I'd like to get the committee started and welcome everyone here to the standing committee on social development and its public hearings into Bill 34. We've set aside half an hour for each delegation, which will include the presentation and any questions and comments or answers there may be from the three caucuses. On my right is the government caucus and on the left are the opposition caucus and the third-party caucus. My name is John Gerretsen and I'm the member for Kingston and The Islands.
KENT COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION KENT COUNTY ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call forward, please, Wayne Houston, director of education at the Kent County Board of Education, and Sandy Easton, director of education at the Kent County Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Good morning, gentlemen. If you'd like to start your presentation, whatever time is left is shared among the three caucuses equally for any questions and comments. Please identify yourselves for Hansard's purposes.
Mr Sandy Easton: My name is Alexander or Sandy Easton. I'm director of education for the Kent County Roman Catholic Separate School Board, and my colleague is Wayne Houston, from the Kent County Board of Education.
On behalf of both of our boards, we would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation to you this morning. It's important to us especially, that organizations such as ours be allowed this opportunity. We were pleased to be invited to make this presentation collaboratively, since really that is a reflection of how the two school boards in Kent county have worked for many years and continue to do.
With your permission, we would like to make our presentation in somewhat of a point form, as we feel it's probably more easily understood and will allow for more specific questions if required. If any further information is required from our two school boards, both of us would be pleased to provide that within any format the committee wishes.
Therefore, in the spirit of many years of cooperation, it is with pleasure that together Wayne and I will present the following information to the committee.
First of all, with regard to junior kindergarten as an optional program, let me state very clearly that both school boards feel very strongly that the junior kindergarten program is a very fine educational program and needs to be maintained for our students. I might also add that in this year's budgets, in spite of the funding cutbacks etc, both boards made the decision to continue JK for at least another year, and hopefully for many years to come.
We feel this program is especially important for those students who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, broken families, single-parent families etc, as well as others, for in many cases the JK program in their home school is the most stable environment that they have during each day.
The cuts in funding to the JK program made it much more difficult for both of our boards to continue to offer the program, but as I mentioned, we've decided to do that.
We would certainly encourage the Ministry of Education, though, to stop basing programs on conditional grants. In other words, let us, as a community in Kent county, decide whether or not we wish to provide a JK program and other programs based on the needs of our own community; at the same time, however, through a much more fair funding model, make sure that the funding is available for us to make that decision.
We believe that a professionally certified teacher is still the most important and best way to deliver the junior kindergarten program. However, these costs could be offset with the addition of certified alternative types of staff who would work under the supervision of the classroom teacher. This more flexible organization would allow the program to be delivered effectively at a much reduced cost.
Research clearly shows that if our children are given basic skills at a very early age, the benefits to our society will continue to be felt throughout childhood right to adulthood. The earlier we help these children, the better our society will be in the long run. Junior kindergarten is not a babysitting or day care program but rather a very specific educational program which results in students being much better prepared for more regular grades and programs in the future.
Mr Wayne Houston: With regard to adult day school programs, the cut in funding for adult day school programs has forced boards to send these adults unilaterally towards night school or continuing education programs. Most adult education programs are provided by the public school system in Kent county, and therefore the cuts in this area have hurt us more than the separate school system.
The cuts in this area limit the availability of education to all members of our society. Further, these programs are vital during tough economic times when many laid-off workers are returning to school to update their skills.
Perhaps a resolution can be found somewhere in new regulations that would allow these programs to function in the day school but at a reduced cost from the normal collective agreements of the regular day school program.
Although our two Kent school boards do not compete against each other for these adult students, it seems to us there may be duplication of these kinds of programs across the province, ie, the same programs being offered by both boards in the county. If the regulations and the grants were provided in such a way as to force collaboration and cooperation, the programs could still be provided, but at the same time not duplicated, thereby reducing costs. The Ministry of Education could be the agent through the regional offices to coordinate and facilitate this kind of cooperation.
Mr Easton: With regard to school board cooperation with other agencies, I don't need to tell this committee, if you have done your homework and I'm sure you have, that Kent county has been and continues to be held up in the eyes of the province as an example of the kind of cooperation and collaboration that public agencies such as school boards, municipalities, hospitals and post-secondary school institutions should be emulating throughout the province.
The Kent Area Administrators Group, better known as KAAG, has been in existence since 1982, but did not get started because of any mandated legislation. Instead it was accomplished through the trust and goodwill of the chief executive officers of these agencies with support from their boards and councils.
The recent cuts in education particularly have forced other boards to begin this cooperation. Unfortunately, because of the way education is funded in this province, boards such as ours in Kent county have not been rewarded for the cooperative accomplishments already achieved. Transportation grants are a very good example of this.
Having said that, I should add, however, and I know Jack Carroll wants me to remind you of this, we do feel in terms of the grant cuts that some consideration was given for assessment-poor boards such as ours, and we do appreciate that. I will be speaking a little bit more about that later on.
We in Kent county have always believed that you cannot mandate goodwill and cooperation. However, if the funding model provided incentives for this, we are sure that many other boards and public agencies across the province would take advantage and begin doing what the KAAG group has been doing for many years. But let me also add that does not mean we will compromise or are suggesting for one iota of instance here that we would compromise the integrity of Catholic education in this province or in our board or the respect that the Kent County of Board of Education has for us and we for them. Being all one does not make it right.
There is no doubt in our minds that we must continue to develop partnerships. The corporate community is now beginning to realize the value of partnerships with school boards and other public agencies. The ministry needs to provide legislation and direction to encourage more of these partnerships, while at the same time protecting the integrity of the mission of school boards.
Mr Houston: With regard to teacher sick days, the provision of Bill 34 intends to amend the Education Act to remove references to sick day entitlements, beginning in September 1998. It is unclear why it is necessary to delay this for two years. It's important to note that in both Kent school boards, our teachers do not abuse the sick leave provisions, and we suspect this is the case across the province. The greater question and liability is the issue of retirement gratuities, which is an unfunded liability most if not all school boards are required to deal with.
In our opinion, the best way to deal with this liability problem is through local negotiations, recognizing that each school board within each county experiences different circumstances regarding retirement gratuities. Although we recognize a resolution to this problem must be found, a provincial resolution is not the best method but may be the only way to overcome the opposition that individual boards will face from provincial teacher federations.
Mr Easton: Regarding the negative-grant boards and equalization payments issue, this government -- your government, sir -- has stated very clearly on more than one occasion, through the Premier himself, through the Minister of Finance, beginning with the November economic statement and even recently with regard to the budget, and the Ministry of Education and Training in terms of our organizations and presentations to them, that the funding model for education in this province is inherently unfair and must be remedied. The Sweeney report, the Royal Commission on Learning report, the Golden report and the soon-to-be-released education finance reform report all clearly point out the need for this reform. The division of opinion centres not on this concept but on how this is to be accomplished.
Both Kent school boards encourage this committee and this government to go forward with education finance reform as soon as possible, and no later than 1998, and to bring forward a sense of fairness and equality to all publicly funded school boards in this province.
I just want to add one other point. This debate has been going on in Ontario for years. It seems, however, that finally this government is ready and prepared to do something about it. We firmly, firmly encourage you to continue on that goal and that road. Education funding must be fixed.
Mr Houston: Some last points.
Department heads: The amendment of regulations 285 and 298, which focus on department heads and their duties, is helpful but difficult to negotiate. In order for school boards to go forward with the new Common Curriculum and an organization that can effectively implement such a curriculum, the regulations for department heads need to be specifically legislated as opposed to trying to modify regulations that may or may not result in new collective agreements on this issue.
School year calendar: The regulations regarding school year calendars need to be adjusted in order to distinguish between the school day and the instructional day. This would allow boards to cooperatively negotiate the issue of prep time with their teacher employees. Otherwise, the teacher federations will continue to take a very strong stand against any encroachment upon preparation time. It is our feeling that this issue can only be addressed at the local level through collective negotiations, provided that this provision regarding the school day and the instructional day is regulated from the ministry.
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Long-term financial grant regulations: For many years the grants provided to school boards and municipalities and other public agencies have traditionally been announced on a year-to-year basis. This makes planning and implementation of programs extremely difficult from one year to the next. Consider the fact that we get our grant information near the end of April and our budget year starts in January. We're four tenths of the year through before we know what our revenue is. We would like to encourage the government to provide specific grant announcements for three years at a time. This would allow for greater planning and implementation of programs for all school boards across the province.
Program-conditional grants: For many years the Ministry of Education has forced boards to provide certain programs simply by controlling the grants and financing for these programs. We feel this is wrong. Firstly, we reiterate our need for a fair funding model. We also encourage the Minister of Education to set high standards of achievement for all students in schools across the province.
We further encourage the Ministry of Education to establish a core curriculum for elementary and secondary students. Beyond that, however, we ask the Ministry of Education to allow each school board to determine for itself what programs the school board will provide to its students, based on a fair funding model.
Further, we believe the school boards should be held accountable for those decisions by their local ratepayers. What may be a worthwhile program in Toronto does not necessarily mean it is also a good program in Chatham, Sudbury, Ottawa or Windsor. Diversity does not have to compromise quality or accountability.
In conclusion, we would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation. We assure the members of the Legislature that as professional educators we are determined to work closely with them to ensure that the Ontario educational system, and particularly that of Kent county, remains a first-class organization.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We have 18 minutes left, so six minutes per caucus, and we start with the government caucus.
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): Mr Easton and Mr Houston, thank you very much. Welcome. Before I ask a couple of questions, I want to publicly compliment the two of you for continuing the cooperative efforts that go on in Kent county. I certainly have heard a lot about them in the last little while and was aware of them before. I compliment you on those. Obviously, some other communities in the province will learn from what our experience is in Kent county.
The school year calendar: You talk about the provincial government making provisions to regulate the school day and the instructional day. Can you elaborate a little for me on exactly what you mean there?
Mr Houston: If you consider that prep time is part of the instructional day, you have to include all the students in all of that period of time, so you have to provide teachers for those students during that instructional period. If, however, the instructional day and the school day were different -- in other words, the day for the students was different from the day for the teachers -- you could have prep time outside the time the students are there. Therefore, you wouldn't have to have teachers cover for other teachers while they're having their prep time; they could all have their prep time together. You would thus save the cost of providing that prep time coverage totally, and the kids would not be deprived of having their teachers present during that period of time.
Mr Carroll: Are you suggesting that there should be a provincial regulation that sets out what the school day should be for the teachers and what the instructional day should be for the students?
Mr Houston: That it should allow that difference to occur.
Mr Carroll: Regarding junior kindergarten, on page 2 you state that "a professionally certified teacher is still the most important and best way to deliver the junior kindergarten program," but then you talk about "alternative types of staff who would work under the supervision of a classroom teacher." In the typical school, there would only be one junior kindergarten, if I'm not mistaken. How would you envision a program working where there would be a certified teacher and then alternative staff working under the supervision of that teacher when you only have one class? How would you see that working?
Mr Easton: One of the ways, Jack, is that if you look at junior kindergarten and kindergarten programs together, with the flexible staffing arrangement if we were allowed to do that through regulations and negotiations, it's possible that, for example, in a school such as St Ursula's in our city of Chatham, where they would have a full JK and a full kindergarten, there might be one teacher but there might also be one or two paraprofessionals underneath them. As a result, you save money on a teacher in every classroom versus having one teacher and a couple of other, lesser-paid people.
It's a concept that can be developed and that we feel we should have a flexibility for. Again, though, I want to reiterate that there should be a regularly certified teacher who's in charge of those paraprofessionals. I still believe the most important person in the classroom is the teacher. But with the programs and the curriculum we have being so activity-oriented and really dealing more with learning styles as opposed to a specific grade or level, that kind of arrangement could be very, very helpful and in the long term save some money.
Mr Carroll: Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't you be adding another employee under that scenario you were just describing?
Mr Easton: Not necessarily. What I'm suggesting, depending on the circumstances -- you would have to go from school to school. Some schools are so large they would have a number of classes of JK and K, and there are other schools in our system, very, very small, that have a combined JK and K. But within that overall primary area, if somehow we could arrange to have paraprofessionals supporting teacher staff, then maybe we could negotiate agreements with our teachers that would not hold us to a pupil-teacher ratio that was so rigid.
Mr Carroll: Do you see that happening in areas other than junior kindergarten, say the library services? Do you see the possibility of other than certified teachers being used in other areas of school?
Mr Easton: We're doing that now in our system. We have had library technicians in all of our schools, including secondary schools, for years. These people are very well trained, two- and three-year programs out of community colleges, whereas a teacher-librarian has a six-week course. I'd rather put the teacher in the classroom and have a library technician in the library.
On the other side of the coin, however, that again comes back to negotiations and how those things unfold in every school board. In Wayne's board, for example, that's a little different.
So we do have technicians, we do have paraprofessionals now. In our special services area for special-needs students, we use TAs and EAs. The EAs are particularly well-qualified people coming out of developmental service worker programs of the community college, and TAs are just fine, very good, caring people, many of whom have all kinds of qualifications. So we're already using these paraprofessionals now in our school system.
Mr Houston: If I might add a point, though, on this one, what has happened to education over a long number of years is that new programs are put in place, and because teachers happen to be handy, we assign the duties to teachers. It's not necessarily teaching, and what has gradually happened is the teachers have assumed all of these roles.
We would much rather see teachers teaching, and supervision and all of the other things that go along with running a school done by non-teaching personnel. We don't feel that teachers are being efficiently used if they're being used to supervise, to do clerical work, to do all of the things, but because they were handy, because they were there, they were assigned the duties; hence, I guess, why prep time came into being. Teachers were overloaded, they had no time, no time between classes and so on, and prep time came into existence. If we had given those jobs originally to someone other than teaching, because it really isn't teaching, we wouldn't have had this big problem we've got right now.
With regard to librarians, I've got to say that I think a librarian is a teacher and there's probably no more important place in a school for a teacher than as a teacher-librarian, because we're teaching kids right now how to do research and how to analyse information and so on, and that's the job of the teacher-librarian. A library technician is all right for filing books and stacking and doing the clerical work, but you need a teacher-librarian in there to run the programs, because kids come to the libraries for programs.
The Vice-Chair: We'll now go to the official opposition.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): Can you tell me how much, for each of your respective boards, your 1996 grant reduction is?
Mr Easton: For my board, we anticipated about $1.5 million, and as I said earlier in my comments, we weren't pleased, but we were more relieved it was just a little shy of $900,000.
Mr Duncan: And your board?
Mr Houston: The public school board, we were $3.8 million less than 1995. That's about a 9% reduction in the provincial grant.
Mr Duncan: I notice in the public board that you've given layoff notices now to 34 elementary teachers as a result of the grant transfer. Is that figure correct?
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Mr Houston: You call them layoff notices; we call them surplus notifications. Whether they will be laid off is yet to be established.
Mr Duncan: You don't know yet, then. How about for 1997? What do you anticipate next year in terms of grant reduction?
Mr Easton: Our expectation at this point, not knowing anything in terms of what the details will be, a worst-case scenario is $1 million.
Mr Houston: We would probably increase what we had as a loss this year by 25%.
Mr Duncan: The government has said repeatedly that you can find those savings in the upper administrators, like you guys, and non-classroom. Is it your view that you can save those costs through better management of your administration?
Mr Easton: First of all, "better management" is a big phrase, but let me talk about my board. There's no question in my board that we're overstaffed at senior administration. I say that because a couple of years ago the board made a decision to hire an extra superintendent when one was on leave, and the one who was on leave came back instead going to another board. So we've been overstaffed by one for some time. But in February 1997 two superintendents in our board will be retired and will not be replaced; however, the work they do will be shared among the remaining supervisory officers. So somebody else is going to pick up the slack.
Mr Duncan: So then these cuts are no problem for your board?
Mr Easton: These cuts are very big problems for our boards.
Mr Duncan: At the classroom level?
Mr Easton: In my opinion, everything affects the classroom level. The idea that it doesn't affect the classroom is a misnomer, because in our board, and I know Wayne will want to speak about this too, we've been a very efficiently run organization for years. Of course, with a funding model that is simply unfair, we've had to struggle for years at a less-per-pupil cost than most of the other school boards in the province, so we've been lean and mean. We don't have a whole cadre of people in central office and coordinators and consultants. We don't have any of those people.
Mr Duncan: So in your view these cuts do affect the classroom?
Mr Easton: They affect the classroom, and the new 1997 cuts coming, if they hold true, will absolutely affect the classroom.
Mr Duncan: How about mill rate increase? Have you had any projections this year?
Mr Easton: This year our mill rate went up 1.5%. I guess some people were happy about that in the sense that it wasn't worse; others were not happy about it at all. However, I'm not aware of any school board in this region that has come in without a tax increase of some sort.
Mr Duncan: Absolutely. Would you attribute the reason for that mill rate increase partially to the cuts in transfer?
Mr Easton: One of the reasons we would attribute it to is the decision we made to maintain junior kindergarten, for example, and some other programs. We just felt a reasonable tax increase would be accepted by our community, based on a lot of input from our parent community.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Good morning, gentlemen. I'd like to follow up on the question of the increase of 1.5% in the mill rate. That must have been an interesting set of discussions with your parents. What were some of the tradeoffs you had to make to convince the parents that this increase was necessary?
Mr Houston: Part of our decrease was a decrease in staffing, 24 people. We cut budgets at every level. Anything we could shave, we did. Again, we were pleased that it was only 1.5%. The $3.8 million that we had to cut, we were expecting a lot of that because of social contract cuts. Those were incorporated and so on, so with the social contract cuts that we were expecting and then the additional decrease in funding, we were fortunate to get away as well as we did. We didn't have to cut JK. We talked about that long and hard. The savings we would have created I don't think were worth cutting the program, for the good of the kids.
Mr Patten: What would the 1.5% equate to? What would a 1.5% mill rate increase mean in dollars and cents?
Mr Houston: About $800,000 to $900,000.
Mr Easton: For us, about $225,000.
Mr Houston: With regard to cutting budgets at senior administration, we've been doing that, and the only reason we can run as lean an operation as we do is because of all the cooperation we have between the two boards. For instance, we took the Sweeney formula and applied it to the Kent county public school board, to all of the people in the board office, and we would have had to hire nine people in order to meet his savings level.
Mr Patten: You talk of cooperation between the school boards, and I see you're demonstrating that and you are held up as a model. But you say here, "However, if the funding model provided incentives to boards," presumably meaning some value back to the board to find savings. What do you mean by "incentives"? What kind of incentives would be helpful for people to find further savings?
Mr Houston: What we would like to see is that the school boards that have done this and have created the savings and so on would be funded at a little higher level than others who are spending the money on other things. They are able to now make the cuts that we made a long time ago. They get that savings; we get nothing.
Mr Patten: So you're being jeopardized now. Somebody who's been frugal up to now then gets hit with this requirement, and it's kind of like double jeopardy.
Mr Houston: You got it.
Mr Patten: So you get hit twice as hard for having done a good job heretofore.
Mr Easton: I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention our francophone colleagues. We have a French-language section of our school board, and for years the French-language school boards and sections in this region have been cooperating together. As one example, they share resource centre staff. Rather than having to hire a person for each school board and incurring that cost, they've been sharing that for years. There's another example of the kind of cooperation, and if incentives were there to encourage more of that in all aspects of education, you would see a tremendous result.
The Vice-Chair: To the third party: Mr Wildman.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): You mentioned that you had a 9% cut in your grants this year and you're expecting more next. And I think you indicated a 1.5% increase in the mill rate.
Mr Easton: That's what this year was.
Mr Wildman: The Minister of Education and the Minister of Finance have both repeatedly said, both in the Legislature and outside, that these cuts only work out to 2% to 3% of the expenditure on education. How is it you can come up with a figure three to four times as much as that?
Mr Houston: You have to look at what we consider the operating grant, which is the portion we get from the provincial government for our operations. That amounts to about $39 million. We get another $41 million from the local taxpayer, and the rest is tuition and other revenue. So if you take it as a total $3.8 million out of the $39 million, you come to about 9% of the operating grant, but if you take that out of $94 million, you get 2% or 3%. It depends on what you're taking which part from.
Mr Easton: Let me add one other point. If anyone in this province, including our former Minister of Education, could decipher the grant regulations, I'd love to sit down with him for a while.
Mr Wildman: Particularly in terms of the minister's announcement about the $14.5 million for smaller boards that has completely thrown the grant people off their keel.
Mr David S. Cooke (Windsor-Riverside): Anybody who wants to sit down and try to learn it has to be crazy.
Mr Houston: I agree.
Mr Easton: By the way, that's undue burden grants. Please note, Kent county did not qualify for them.
Mr Wildman: There was a list of 27 boards released, and in terms of the numbers, the 3% and the 15%, it looks more like about 60 would actually qualify.
Mr Easton: My understanding is that of all the boards that were listed on there, the only one from this region was the Elgin county separate school board, and in discussing with their director after they got that announcement, they didn't qualify for the further funding.
Mr Wildman: I'd like to ask two other questions. The minister has said that he does not want to see local property tax increases to make up for the loss in grants.
Mr Easton: Neither do we.
Mr Wildman: You've had a mill rate increase and you anticipate more cuts next year. I know that it's up to the boards and it's somewhat speculative, but do you anticipate further tax increases?
Mr Easton: Our hope is, if there are tax increases at all, that they would be very reasonable, but we are tremendously dependent now on what comes out of education finance reform. We're at the bottom of the barrel here. There's nowhere else to go, and the government has stated very clearly that education finance reform is going to happen. I'm going to tell you very honestly -- I've said this publicly -- I'm optimistic that they're going to keep their word, and with the support of the opposition I'm sure they will. I would just encourage the government to go through with this.
When you look at the per-pupil cost of our board, which is around $4,800 a student, and in Toronto they're $7,000 and $7,500 per student, something is wrong, and it is unfair. Let's face it: All taxpayers support the Toronto Transit Commission; all taxpayers built that SkyDome; all taxpayers have a lot to do with what's going on in the Toronto real estate market etc, so there should be, in all fairness to all Ontarians, a model of funding that is equal and fair. We're not asking for more money to be added to education.
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Mr Wildman: I understand what you're saying.
The last question I have is in regard to the Sweeney report, which the minister quotes many times, where Mr Sweeney concluded that 47% of boards' expenditures, on average, are outside of the classroom. Could you tell me what you estimate to be your expenditures outside of the classroom and if you include prep time as classroom expenditure or outside of the classroom?
Mr Houston: Prep time is definitely classroom expenditure. If you didn't have to have teachers in front of the students, I guess you wouldn't have to have prep time coverage. You also need buildings to house the kids, you need them to be cleaned, you need them to be looked after and so on. If that's all 47%, it's playing with words.
Mr Easton: Let me also add that the definition of that, if it includes principals, vice-principals and department heads as well as supervisory officer staff and central resource staff, then the number, of course, continues to grow. In our case, however, we have very few people and central office staff below the superintendent level. As I mentioned earlier, we are overstaffed a bit at that level. That will be corrected in 1997. As far as principals and vice-principals are concerned, because of the funding cuts we're going to twin two of our schools under one principal, so there's an issue, and also we will be downsizing the number of vice-principals in our elementary school panel to accommodate these cuts, so our numbers will be far below 47%.
Mr Cooke: I'm going to raise two issues with you and get your reaction, following up on what Mr Wildman has said, to the Sweeney report. My recollection from reading the Sweeney report was that he talked about moving from 47% to something lower for outside-of-classroom expenditures after the framework of education finance reform, and that you can't do the latter before the other because of the differences in the way school boards are funded across the province and the difference in wealth, and that if you try to do it out of step, the impacts of the cuts are going to be devastating from some of the poorer boards in the province.
I ask you to comment on that, and then very briefly: At this point, have you had any role at all in defining what this new disentanglement arrangement is going to be whereby there no longer may be school boards in the province, and that when you talk about education finance reform and you couple that with disentanglement, some people are concerned that it's going to mean a huge grab of property tax dollars coming into the province, and that's how it's going to work in the end?
Mr Houston: In answer to the first question, we feel that if you just cut unilaterally across the board, as it presently stands, again we get punished for being efficient in the past. Unless you have finance reform first, you get everybody on an equal playing field and then you decide what the funding model is going to be and how each person is going to have to handle it. That would be fair, but to do it now, we would be feeling the same way we feel right now: With unilateral cuts across the board we're being dealt with unfairly. We shouldn't have been as efficient in the past; we would have some fat to cut.
In answer to the second one, no, we haven't been involved in the disentanglement discussions.
Mr Easton: I echo both of those comments. I agree exactly with what Wayne said, the same comments.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Houston and Mr Easton, for your presentation.
Mr Easton: We appreciate the opportunity.
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, WINDSOR SECONDARY UNIT
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, Windsor secondary unit, Mr Raymond Moreau. Welcome to our meeting.
Mr Raymond Moreau: My name is Ray Moreau. I'm president of OECTA, secondary unit, in Windsor. I'm also a teacher in the classroom. If I weren't here, I'd be teaching politics right now. I've changed to come here. With me is the president of OECTA provincially, Marilies Rettig. They're going to help me make the presentation. The brief you have in front of you has been prepared by teachers for the provincial organization. I think you're going to find it very clear and self-explanatory. With me as well is Claire Ross, our general secretary, who has flown in to help me make this presentation.
For those of you who are not from Windsor, we really are glad you are here. We hope you have an opportunity to enjoy this beautiful city. We're extremely proud of it. If you don't have time on this trip, we hope you will come back and enjoy the beauty of this city and all the things that we have to offer here, and they are many.
The Vice-Chair: Do you work with the tourist department too?
Mr Moreau: I promote Windsor everywhere I go, but I do, actually.
Mr Cooke: You're saying that a Catholic teacher wants everyone to spend money over at the casino.
Ms Marilies Rettig: Just for bingo.
Mr Moreau: We have lots of history here too. If you want a historical tour, I can give you one and would be very happy to do that.
I just have a couple of general comments before we start our actual presentation. I think it's really important for the government, for members of the committee and for everyone in general to remember that we, as educators, are really interested in all the changes that have gone before us and the changes that are needed for the future. We are not opposed to change. We want to be part of the change. Because I personally am in a classroom, I think I have a lot of valid things to say about the changes that are to come in our educational system.
It's also very important to remember that we, as classroom teachers in the educational system, are not talking about an assembly line; we're talking about people. It's very difficult to put a dollar figure on what teachers do on any given day. I want to reinforce that, because to put everything down to just a business system is not fair to the educational system. I'm not saying we can't save money. I think we have to remember that we're dealing with people, not machines.
As we make these changes, it's really important for us to remember that, by all accounts, we already have one of the best educational systems in the world. I know we've been told that it's more expensive in Ontario than it is in Alberta. To make those comparisons is, in my personal view, absolutely ludicrous simply because Toronto, for example, is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. When you have a classroom of students, you can have up to 20 cultures and 20 languages. It's not the same as teaching in other areas. Considering those facts, I think taxpayers are getting a good return on their money.
I turn to my president, Marilies Rettig, who will make a presentation on junior kindergarten. The brief is before you.
Ms Rettig: It's certainly a pleasure to be here this morning. I'd like to thank Ray Moreau for allowing us to come and join him in the presentation. As such, we not only speak for the teachers of Windsor and area but we speak for the 34,000 teachers of separate schools who work at the elementary and secondary level across this province.
I'd like to echo some of the comments that were made by Ray in terms of the whole backdrop and the premise on which we make our presentation this morning, that is, for the betterment of the education system and certainly looking towards the opportunity for each child and the future hope for each child, each student, each youth and each adult we teach within our separate school system.
In looking at the area of junior kindergarten, which is the first topic we address extensively within the context of our brief, we have to reflect briefly on a report that was given approximately 14 months ago, namely the report of the Royal Commission on Learning. That report looks quite extensively at the effectiveness of early childhood education programs. They cite examples from Japan, France and other European countries as to the incredible success and importance of early childhood education programs and how they contribute to the later success of students throughout their academic career.
In fact, as we're all well aware, the Royal Commission on Learning makes its recommendations not only pertaining to the junior kindergarten program but to the effect that junior kindergarten programs should be extended by offering them to three-year-olds; that is, extending the program by offering it to younger students. I'd like to make the following points relative to junior kindergarten programs and the risk they are facing.
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The removal and change of the current funding structure will equate to the loss of junior kindergarten programs. Currently, one third of the boards across this province have cancelled junior kindergarten programs, and certainly that's tragic, not only for the students in question but for the families and communities of which they're a part.
The removal of the program equates to a loss of opportunities for young children to develop language skills, conflict management skills, social skills, psychomotor skills and emotional and psychological development.
I quote from our brief: "The long-term educational benefits stem not from what children are specifically taught but from effects on children's attitude to learning, on their self-esteem, and on their task orientation...learning how to learn may be as important as the specifics of what is learned. The most lasting impact of early education appears to be children's aspirations for education and employment, motivations and school commitment. These are not moulded directly through experiences in the pre-school classroom but are indirect effects of children entering school with a learning orientation and beginning a `pupil career' with confidence. This enables them to avoid early school failure and placement in special education.... Early childhood education may be viewed as an innovative mental health strategy that affects risk and protective factors."
It is quite clear that junior kindergarten is an academically based program. It is not an exercise in child care. Thus, it's absolutely important, for the continued existence of effective junior kindergarten programs, that they are delivered by qualified and certified teachers.
To that end, the savings are shortsighted. Certainly the research we've quoted extensively by Fraser Mustard and by others looks to the long-term benefits of a junior kindergarten program. Indeed, research has shown that for every $1 that's saved at the junior kindergarten level, $7 additional are spent throughout the academic career of that student.
Finally, I'd like to reflect upon the impact of junior kindergarten upon families and upon communities. We look specifically to areas in which junior kindergarten was first developed and promoted. I would suggest it was not the urban centres, which could most afford it, but the smaller rural communities in northern and eastern Ontario, communities where they decided 25 to 35 years ago that a junior kindergarten early childhood education program was absolutely essential to the wellbeing not only of those children but to the families and communities in which they reside and wanted to ensure that those programs came into existence and continued to exist.
With the current state of cuts and the risks that are there, those jurisdictions will lose the programs first, for they will not be able to sustain a junior kindergarten program. A direct analysis of the boards that first cancelled those programs shows it's those small rural centres where both parents work, where there is undue hardship with respect to socioeconomic status, that are the communities first impacted negatively by these cuts.
Today over 100,000 children attend junior kindergarten programs, and I ask, what percentage of those children will not have access to junior kindergarten programs next year? What will this government do to provide for those children, not the provision of child care but the provision of an academic program that will be to the benefit of each and every child who is that age?
I turn it over to Ray Moreau to speak of adult education.
Mr Moreau: The brief on adult education that we presented to you is very clear and concise. I'm going to speak more from a personal level because I teach adult education in part of St Michael's Alternate Program high school. I teach politics. My class is with me this morning because, if I weren't here I'd be teaching them at St Clair College in a grade 11 politics class.
One of the things I try to instil in my students when I teach politics is the value of the political system that we have. They're here today to see how we go through a second-stage reading and that a committee examines the legislation that goes before the House. I'm a firm believer in the system we have and I want them to understand how the system works, so they are here. Having been involved in politics all of my adult life, I have some background in it as well.
I want you to know as well that it is really important that we continue the funding of adult education, and I'm going to give you some personal reasons for that. It's not a bonus. You're not doing them an exact favour. We have people who are young adults, and we have people who have been working in industry or in management positions for 20-some years. The plant closes or through downsizing they lose their supervisory capacity and they go out into the work force and they can't get a job because they don't have a grade 12 diploma.
It's been my experience, and I want to reiterate this very clearly, that one of the common elements we have found, and I've been working in this for two years now, is that employers only have one common element to judge the people coming through the door, and that's a grade 12 diploma. You can have all kinds of agencies and self-help groups and groups that provide all these courses, but there's no curriculum, there are no qualified teachers, and the employers of Windsor -- I'm speaking for Windsor now -- don't accept them.
When you allow these people to go back to school, they are redirecting and making a very significant change in their lives. They're scared when they come back. They have been out of school maybe five years, or sometimes 25 years, but they have great skills which we haven't tapped. I told my class from last quad -- the classes are two months each -- that if I was an employer and I was hiring people who had grade 12 qualifications, I would hire them very quickly because of their life experience and their skills. They make a positive contribution to society.
If you don't give them the chance to change their lives and improve their skills, not only will their self-esteem go down the tubes, they will also be a drain on society as opposed to a contributor to society. By cutting the grants and the funding to this, you're not going to save the taxpayers a penny. If these people are not given the opportunity to become productive members of society, then they'll have to take from society. I can give you all kinds of examples, and I could be here all day doing this, of individuals who have come to us and have left us and got a job right out of their grade 12.
We had a woman who had worked in her dad's insurance office for 20 years. She managed the office. When it closed, this woman, with all her skills, couldn't get a job in this city because every employer said, "Where's the grade 12 diploma?" She came to us, got a grade 12, and we put her on a co-op placement at the casino. She's now in charge of the benefit program at the casino. She went from our school to a full-time, well-paying job, and she's only one example. Not to give these people the opportunity to get a grade 12 diploma is really going to hurt, but it's not only going to hurt them, it's going to hurt all of us.
I ask you again not to disfranchise these people. As the Common Sense Revolution said, we are going to give them a hand up. If you look at the stats which are provided in the brief, you'll find that the number of adult students in the province has increased tremendously.
We're also talking about disentanglement. The only group of people that can decide the needs of the adult learner is the local community. We change our program at St Mike's every two months to meet the needs of the people who are there. We don't set up a program and say, "You have to take this." We do what is necessary for them to get a grade 12 diploma and we change the program as often as we can to meet their needs. You can't do that from Toronto; you have to do it from Windsor. Let us do it, but please give us the money to do it, because you're going to save money in the long run.
Ms Rettig: Very briefly, I'd like to touch upon sick leave credits and sick leave as it's outlined in Bill 34, and what I would like to do is discern between myth and reality. I feel it's myth that has led to some of the amendments that are proposed within the current bill.
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The first aspect is the thought that sick leave credits for teachers are too rich and are much more rich than what is currently enjoyed by other professions. Reflecting on page 18 to a chart we provide for you, one can ascertain that when you're reflecting and comparing other occupations to that of teachers, there's not much difference between the sick leave credits that are allowed in teaching and that are currently enjoyed by other occupations.
The second item that's often referred to in an unrealistic manner is that teachers overuse their sick leave credits. Again, I reflect upon evidence that's given to you on page 19 and page 20 that shows very clearly that teachers do not make extensive use of their sick days, and comparatively speaking, a study that was done over 1994 showed that teachers used between seven and eight days, in contrast to other professions which use much more than that on an annual basis.
Who would this negatively impact? This would negatively impact those teachers who, because of ongoing chronic illnesses, need to have accumulated sick leave credits and need those kinds of credits, be it because of rheumatoid arthritis or other kinds of chronic diseases of that nature where teachers need to have access to that time. There's no short-term disability plan currently within the teaching sector, and it would be those teachers who are most vulnerable and most at risk who will be negatively affected by this change.
I turn it over to Claire to briefly highlight the equalization payments.
Mr Claire Ross: In attempting to deal with equalization payments, I'm struck by the references to casinos and so on. In terms of the plight of the assessment-poor boards, we either need more casinos or we need a printing press to attempt to survive.
I want to make reference to a newspaper article, "Education Funding Facing Turf War Crisis," which was in the Toronto Star of Saturday, May 11. These comments appear on the part of the writer:
"Consider these facts. Two elementary schools -- one Catholic, the other public -- share the same building and facilities in Etobicoke. It seems to work well, except for one very important difference. The children who attend the public part of the school, Humberwood Downs, receive 31% more -- or $1,789 per child -- in revenue than do the children who attend the Catholic part of the school...." Then the author notes, with great clarity and accuracy, that the problem, the issue, is one of assessment-rich and assessment-poor boards.
How does one explain the unintelligibility of the grant system? As David said, and I agree with him, it's probably better not to try, but let me try.
Consider two bank accounts. In the one bank account you have a small amount of money. Those are the bank accounts of the assessment-poor boards. They live on what comes into those bank accounts from the GLGs primarily and, if you like, everyone has access to the bank account. They can stop putting money in if they wish, things like that. The person who draws from it relative to the services provided must depend on what is being put into that bank account. Consider a second bank account, a large one, one that is totally self-controlled, one in which there's no outside dependency, one in which you can raise the amount of dollars above ceiling to whatever you define the local need to be.
This is the reality of what is going on in the province, and thus, as somebody noted with the GLGs, the reduction in terms of the assessment-poor boards is somewhere in the order of 16% of what the government provides measured against the some $5 billion that is given to the boards on a per annum basis. Thus we see with the assessment-poor boards, both public and separate, on the one issue alone, which is the grit issue, that the differences in teachers' salaries could be in the order of $10,000 teaching across the street.
When you look at Metro and recognize that this paper says 31% and add to it the second level of cuts, it increases the percentage differential. Now what are you trying to do here in terms of the so-called equalization payment? Basically what the government is saying to the assessment-rich boards is simply this: "Pay us the money that we're taking from all the assessment-poor boards because we control their bank accounts. Pay us that money, provided you choose to do it."
I've been on the ed finance reform for more than a year and I know the position of the assessment-rich boards. I suppose if I were in their position I would take the same position: "Why should I pay any money when I don't have to?" Thus, you have it set in legislation here that, based upon their goodwill, they are being asked to provide.
Quite frankly, members of the committee, what you have in place is a formula which continues to protect the privileged. It is a formula which continues to widen the gap between the rich and the poor; thus the position we take, that what you ought to do is to make it mandatory, because unless you can apply reductions equally across this province, I submit to you on behalf of the children, it is totally improper of you to do anything other than not to attempt to apply something which is so blatantly unfair and so destructively harmful, particularly to the assessment-rich and the assessment-poor.
Ms Rettig: In conclusion, I'll just make reference to page 24, where we speak of cooperative agreements. We acknowledge the number of boards and jurisdictions where cooperative agreements currently exist, and a prime example of that are the two individuals who made the first presentation to this committee. Kent county is a fine example of the kind of cooperation that takes place within local jurisdictions. That's not unique to Kent county; that's certainly characteristic of a number of agreements and working situations for boards across this province. We feel that can be enhanced across the province, and hence our recommendation stands before you.
We'd certainly be willing to address any questions the committee may have at this time.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We only have two minutes per caucus.
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): Good morning and thanks for coming, especially to the guests from out of town. I'm glad that you took such a strong stand on the junior kindergarten issue, as we think it's vital to the program as well. When we met with the Minister of Finance in estimates, he indicated that the change in the financing of it doesn't mean that JK needs to be cut, and we disagree. The changing in the grant structure clearly means boards have to make that kind of decision.
It was interesting that prior to the mandating of JK, 80% of school boards across Ontario were moving towards offering JK. The difficulty in politicizing JK, there's a very small group or percentage of parents at any given time in the school years of students or of their children where they're actually enjoying the benefits of JK so they see them. How do you feel about the change in the funding and the comment by the minister that "We have not insisted that it be cut or that it be looked at as not a required program"?
Ms Rettig: Certainly it will have a negative impact. There are a number of jurisdictions where they've already cancelled junior kindergarten programs, and that's very distressing and of great concern to us as a profession. The change to category 3 has impacted the amount of money that will come back to boards and as a result those boards that don't have access to additional funds, the assessment-poor boards, will not have the opportunity to continue to offer the program. That's of very grave concern. The announcement did have a negative impact upon the continued and ongoing development of junior kindergarten programs, and that's seen and very visible by virtue of the announcements that are taking place now, and more tragically, by those children who will not have access to the program next year.
Mr Duncan: Is it fair to say that, based on your four recommendations, your federation is of the view that these cuts will directly affect classroom education, number one, and, number two, will disproportionately affect poor boards, for instance the Kent county board?
Ms Rettig: Precisely. It will result in the elimination of junior kindergarten programs and the elimination of adult education programs, as well as having a very negative impact on the delivery of other programs within the context of the school environments.
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Mr Cooke: After hearing Sandra's intervention I only wish she had been in the Legislature when we introduced mandatory JK because then maybe the Liberal caucus would have voted in favour of it.
Mrs Pupatello: You want to pick your targets, Dave.
Mr Cooke: Down here, Sandra, I know who the target is. Ray, could you outline especially for those on the committee who aren't from this area what has happened over the last 10 years to the Windsor separate school board? I think it's important. When I hear the parliamentary assistant on radio this morning and the minister in the House, you'd get the impression that every school board across the province has been spending wildly for the last 10 years.
Your board has gone through a very difficult process of balancing its budget, eliminating its deficit with a lot of pain and a lot of controversy, and I just wonder if you could outline for the committee what happened to the Windsor separate school board in the last 10 years.
Mr Moreau: Thanks, Dave. I'll try and be brief, as hard as that is, because it's good for about three hours. Number one, five years ago our board had a deficit of $7 million. They closed schools, they laid off 140 teachers, and today they are in a surplus position. That was done without changing the delivery systems to any great extent in the system. We are now in a position where we are taking care of most of the reductions in the future by attrition. We have one of the best tech programs in the secondary panel in the province of Ontario because we didn't have it before; we started off with the new. We have done a great deal in conjunction with industry. We have one of the lowest per-pupil class ratios in the province; we also have the cheapest administrative costs of separate school boards in the province. We've gone from a position of having actually no money to a position where the books are balanced, we're in a surplus position, but we have to say, at that time it took layoffs and a restructuring within it.
One of the biggest problems I face -- and I don't mean to say anything negative about the former Minister of Education.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): Go ahead.
Mr Moreau: No, I don't. What happened was that we, in effect, did all that, but we didn't get any credit for it when the social contract came in. I have lots of things to say about the social contract, but the fact of the matter is -- because it's done blanket. I think what the minister is also saying here, and what's been said again this morning is, just doing blanket cuts without recognition of where different boards are at may be very difficult if you're sitting in the minister's position, but it's really imperative if you're back here in the local areas trying to sort these things out. We're one of the cheapest systems in the province, we have one of the best educational systems in the province, and we're extremely proud of that and we don't think we can handle any more blanket cuts. Did I cover it, or did I miss something?
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): I'd like to take you to page 21 of your brief. Quite frankly I have some problems with your position on sick leave. I was in the civil service last year and we all got six days' sick leave which didn't accumulate, and I didn't feel hard done by. What I find of concern about your position is that right now there's an approximately $950 million unfunded liability by boards for accumulated sick leave for retirement gratuity purposes, and that unfunded liability is growing. The Sweeney report has indicated they feel that amount now should be frozen, the sick leave that has accumulated right now, and that contracts contain no further retirement gratuity benefits.
When a teacher does retire and gets their retirement gratuity, not a nickel of that goes into the classroom. Your position seems to suggest that if you're not allowed to continue accumulating sick leave and if that unfunded liability does not continue to grow, you're going to go on strike. Is that your position?
Mr Ross: Let me try to answer this. First of all, you're confusing two issues: You're confusing sick leave and retirement gratuity. They're two separate and distinct issues. One can be handled in terms of local collective bargaining or, I suppose, if you wish to address that in other means and forms that would be likewise possible. I think one of the things you're going to have to look at very carefully with respect to this is the kind of harm that can be done by the implementation of this kind of legislation relative to long-term disabilities and so on, and in order to get at something else, you're prepared to destroy a whole basis in terms of a benefit that teachers have relative to personal sickness. In so doing, it seems to me that you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater and more. So I would think that there needs to be a lot of clarity of thought in terms of what you're trying to do with this.
Mr Skarica: I have a simple question. If you don't continue to get the same retirement gratuity benefits, are you going to go on strike?
Mr Ross: I don't think that's the kind of place to ask that kind of question. I mean --
Mr Skarica: You're saying right in there, "strikes will occur."
Mr Ross: I think we're raising the possibility that what you're probably going to do is put in place an issue that could become extremely serious from the point of view of teachers in this province.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much to all three of you for your presentation.
Mr Moreau: I've really enjoyed it and I hope you guys come back. I'll keep telling Ms Mellor that I want to sit in front of the committee anywhere you sit and any other committee, too.
The Vice-Chair: And keep bringing your class, too. I'm sure they've enjoyed this.
Mr Moreau: They're going to be here. If it's in Toronto, it might be tricky, but we'll give it a shot.
FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Windsor Women Teachers' Association, although I believe they've yielded their time to the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. Welcome.
Ms Margaret Clarke: Thank you for giving us an opportunity to present to the standing committee on social development. I'm Margaret Clarke, president of the Windsor Women Teachers' Association. With me I have Sheryl Hoshizaki, president of FWTAO, and Joan Westcott, executive director of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. I'd like to turn it over to Sheryl.
Ms Sheryl Hoshizaki: I am sure that some of the things that we'll present to you today you've heard before and you will hear again, but of course this is almost June and as teachers, you know that we do a couple of things in May and June. One, we review a lot and we do this because hopefully this time it sinks in; and we also do it because we want to make sure that when we're finished we can at least say we've taught you this.
As Margaret said, we are a federation of women teachers' associations of Ontario and because of that we are truly representative of communities across Ontario. For that reason, we have chosen to actually meet with you here in Windsor.
We, unlike some others, do not profess to be experts in everything. However, we do believe that we're experts in the link between schools and communities and that that link of schools, communities and families is very complex. We've worked really hard at understanding these connections and we'd like to illustrate the impact of these changes being proposed in Bill 34 and what they will make on this network. We do not suggest at any time that the system is perfect nor do we advocate not addressing the deficit that exists in Ontario.
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But we do insist that: (1) the deficit not be delivered solely on the backs of children or adult learners; (2) the process must slow down since the domino effect in one area impacting on the other is alive and well and that the future plan or vision of this government must be clear for us to make our adjustments; and (3) most importantly, we believe that better integration of these services and the communication coordination for children would be better served.
On page 2, we have outlined our rationale for the importance of junior kindergarten. Junior kindergarten as an organization is our area of commitment. What can we say new about junior kindergarten that we have not already said before? We already know and the committee already knows what the government has done: You've lowered funding from 100% to approximately 45%; you've cut $398 million from the school grants for 1996, and we know that for a school year, it's $800 million -- no board has cancelled junior kindergarten for half a year; and you've introduced this bill to make junior kindergarten optional for school boards.
I guess our question to the government is: Knowing the research and the rationale -- and most of you know it -- and the progress that early childhood education programs, junior kindergarten, benefit children in many ways and particularly provide support for families -- it's essential care for young children. It's a safe, accessible and stimulating environment, preparing children for school, for academics, and it makes a lot of economic sense. Everyone has heard over and over again the investment of $1 and the return of $7, but put quite simply, the cost of education is much cheaper than the cost of incarceration.
We also know -- and let's not pretend we don't -- that offering JK as an option when it's no longer fully funded is a complete misnomer, in fact an untruth.
On page 2, at the bottom, we have outlined that for the public education system, we're approximating that around 26 school boards have cancelled it, affecting 30,000 young children, knowing full well that last year we had 100,000 four-year-olds attending junior kindergarten.
On page 3, we again have outlined the research and the rationale that is established for insisting that this program remain: the famous Perry preschool study; the reinstatement by the Alberta government of funding for junior kindergarten; and, of course, the commitment that all European countries make in early childhood education, understanding the value of their young children.
Then in item 4, we've outlined the Premier's Council on Health, Well-being and Social Justice, and we've excerpted the importance of children in their early years towards their healthy development.
Making early childhood education difficult to obtain is a mistake in other ways as well. It threatens the most vulnerable in our society -- the young children. High-risk children are already hurt by government cuts to welfare, municipalities, health care, child care and women's shelters. Now they'll lose the invaluable, preventive and remedial effects of early childhood education.
At the bottom of page 4 we've outlined what a junior kindergarten program is. For example, it provides opportunities for children to listen, to ask questions, to talk about experiences and extend their knowledge of print. This is essential. I suggest to all of the committee members that you read this part, because I know there has been great discussion and debate on the difference between a junior kindergarten program and an early childhood education program, and we would like to have the opportunity to respond to that.
On page 5, there is an excerpt from the Metro task force on services to young children and families and the statement they have issued on the commitment to children and the importance of early childhood education programs as well as junior kindergarten.
In addition, this government is always looking for new ideas, innovation, creative solutions, new ways of doing things, doing more with less. We find that interesting considering that one of the first moves this government made was to cancel the pilot projects that would have been the opportunity to take a look at a test case on the integration of junior kindergarten and child care, to truly look at a seamless day that would of course support families that exist in society today.
On page 6, the minister refers to, on many occasions, not just through the questions we have asked as an organization but publicly, and stated to the press, there being this complete review that will be made on the impact of junior kindergarten. We find this complete review somewhat sketchy, because, first of all, how is a complete review done in a province like Ontario when we know some school boards will not have junior kindergarten? At the same time, we have presented and we have offered to present to this government our experiences with junior kindergarten and have only been turned down. So our question to the government is, if there is a complete review, where is it and how is it being done?
As we have stated before as an organization, there's a lot we have learned about how children learn in the past 10 years. The most important thing we've learned in education is that if we can identify the difficulties of young children early enough, we can assist them in the regular program, but in order to do that, we have to identify the difficulty when they're four and five years of age.
Interruption.
The Vice-Chair: Ma'am, these people have requested to meet with us.
Continue, please.
Ms Hoshizaki: We'll move into the section on adult education, and hopefully I won't have the backdrop for adult education.
I've read with interest the presentations that have already been given on adult education, especially those that have been done by the adult education student herself. Again, this isn't an area that we as an organization are really involved in, but as a women's organization we believe it's essentially important to listen to life experiences of people who are enrolled in adult education. We believe that to be your best thermostat on the importance of adult education in Ontario.
Having read some of the presentations that were given, especially the woman who demonstrated the obstacles she overcame to graduate from the program -- and she insisted that her presentation was not based on self-interest but that she believed it was essential for future people who are enrolled in adult education. I guess what we would like to say as an organization is that school and education is more than just courses. It's really about a community. It's where relationships are the key component for success and the range of options are absolutely necessary for a full and a real rich experience for any educational history in preparation for participating in society.
I'd like to move to the changes in sick leave provisions, and this was covered in the previous presentation. We'd like to reveal the myths around sick leave. First, teachers' sick leave provisions are not excessive, and we have indicated in our brief, at the bottom of page 8, comparable employee groups -- nurses, for instance. The second myth: Teachers' sick leave is not abused. In fact it's lower than most of the employee groups. But we would like to talk about the confusion of the two: sick leave and retirement gratuity.
Retirement gratuity is a negotiated gratuity. What we believe as an organization is that intervention into this collective bargaining process is not an issue of assisting or helping employers. Collective agreements are just that. They're an agreement. They're the word of the local employer and the employee group, and to upset this balance for whatever reason will upset local relationships, local bargaining, and this is not advisable. Locals have known both hard times and good times. Collective agreements are founded on trusting and egalitarian relationships, not on intervention by legislation. The public agrees with us. They have said over and over again, a deal's a deal. So we suggest to you that you leave the sick leave out of the legislation.
When we asked the minister and the ADM why they would suggest taking sick leave out of the Education Act, the reply was, "This is not a cost saving; this is an issue that we believe doesn't belong in the Education Act." If it is not cost saving, what is the action for? A way to punish teachers in Ontario? I believe the government should really reflect on what its responsibility is.
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Page 10, joint activities with other public agencies: Of course, we as an organization support cooperative efforts. Obviously we have to. We're basically a classroom teachers' organization. We know what cooperation is all about. However, we also recognize the significant differing circumstances that exist for school boards in Ontario, especially in reference to resources. Some schools, for example, Kent county, have already cooperated to the maximum, and so have school boards in the north and they have been doing this for years. We continue to applaud the movements of this government to encourage this cooperation. However, we as an organization do not support the concept of joint action or cooperation if any measures are taken that are detrimental to the education of children in Ontario.
Cooperation and a local model is only one step. What is essential would be cooperation at a provincial level. What we have advocated for years now as an organization is for a government to have the courage to truly look at integrated services, to truly look at the different ministries that serve children: health, community and social services, education and other agencies that serve children. All of us know that children's needs are horizontal, not vertical, and for that reason, we would suggest that this government have the courage and the insight to look at how to better integrate and decrease the amount of bureaucracy in serving children in Ontario.
Page 12, equalization payments: You have already heard from those people who are affected most dramatically by the change in the tax base. We would like to comment, however, on the amendment itself, and that is, as an organization we do have serious concerns about any legislation that intrudes on the use of the property tax base. School boards have the authority to raise funds locally, and with certain limitations, how much money is raised and how it is used is the responsibility of the elected officials and the communities they represent. In other words, these officials are accountable to their communities for where their dollars are raised and where they go in education.
To suddenly require that a portion of these dollars be diverted to the provincial treasurer we believe is away from the purpose for which they were originally intended and is an unjust intrusion into local decision-making and an infringement on the rights of property taxpayers to have revenues collected locally that serve their local communities. It is also an intrusion by one level of government, a level that has taxation powers, into the resources of another level of government. In simple terms, we believe this is a mammoth tax grab. We find it very odd that a government that places so much importance on local flexibility, local accountability, should be taking away from a selected number of boards and taxpayers.
In conclusion, hopefully we've presented some insight into the complexity of the education system and how changes impact on the learning of children and adults in Ontario. However, the action of this government has given no opportunity for us, the federation, the teachers in Ontario, to respond to the effect these changes will make in the lifetimes of children in Ontario. What angers us most is about this government's savings in education -- that's what it's about -- is that in effect it doesn't impact on classrooms. If this government wants savings in education, just be truthful about the impact it's going to have in classrooms because we believe it's your responsibility.
The impact on classrooms: Basically classrooms do not exist in isolation. Classrooms are about teaching and learning, and teaching and learning exists within a community, within the school community and within their own community. Learning is affected by poor nutrition, by unsafe transportation, by unhealthy learning environments. Learning in classrooms is supported by resources, resource centres, places where children get help. Junior kindergarten and adult education are classroom, places where learning and teaching occur, so let's not pretend it's anything else.
The Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario has recommendations on page 15:
(1) That junior kindergarten be retained as a mandatory program for all publicly funded school boards.
(2) That adult students have access to both continuing education and regular day school programs for credit courses.
(3) That Bill 34 be amended by the deletion of sections related to sick leave for teachers.
(4) That school boards be directed to include representatives of all staff groups in planning with other public bodies for cooperative measures which will provide better integration of services for children.
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your presentation, and we apologize of the disruption. Just in regard to that, I think it was obvious that the lady who interrupted was not aware that junior kindergartens, even when they were proposed by our government as mandatory for all boards in the province with the additional funding, would be optional for parents. She didn't seem to be aware of that.
Having said that, you indicated that the Minister of Education and Training has talked about a province-wide review of junior kindergarten and the need for it. From my standpoint, I find it a little bit strange that you would cut the funding, eliminate the pilot projects and then afterwards announce a review. It seems like putting the cart before the horse. You've indicated you don't know where this review is taking place and how it can be effective if a third of the students involved in JK are no longer involved because boards have cut their programs. What contact has your federation had from the ministry with regard to this review of junior kindergarten?
Ms Hoshizaki: We have met with the ministry, with OTF, the Ontario Teachers' Federation, on one occasion prior to the actual announcement of making junior kindergarten an optional program. The subject of that meeting was more about how could the program be delivered in a different way, in a different manner, not junior kindergarten as junior kindergarten. There was no discussion as to the importance and the research and the rationale behind why junior kindergarten should exist in Ontario schools, but more in fact what would be an alternative program for junior kindergarten. That was prior to the announcement.
We have since then as an organization upon our own initiative met with the minister to present what we believe is our rationale and our insistence on why junior kindergarten should remain, but there has not been a formal process that we know of for a provincial review, certainly not in the past six months.
Mr Wildman: As far as you're aware, there's no formal process. So your federation or OTF is not represented on any formal group that is reviewing junior kindergarten in the province?
Ms Hoshizaki: That's right.
Mr Wildman: Do you know if boards of education or separate school boards have been asked to participate in any such review?
Ms Hoshizaki: We know of none. If there are any boards that are participating in this review, we certainly would know whether teachers are being asked to participate and, in particular, junior kindergarten teachers.
Mr Wildman: In your meetings with the minister and the ministry staff, did they indicate which ministry officials are involved in this review?
Ms Hoshizaki: No.
Mr Wildman: I wonder if this review actually exists.
The Vice-Chair: We'll have to leave it at that, Mr Wildman.
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton): Good morning. I think in your presentation you referred to the fact that you are the experts between the schools and the community. Could you explain to me why there is so much or appears to be so much friction between the school community, the municipalities, the teachers, the parents, the students? Could you clarify that, if you are the experts?
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Ms Hoshizaki: First of all, you're leading the question by saying there is friction. We don't agree with you that there is the friction you're suggesting among the parties you have -- unless you're speaking of some specific area, I can't respond to it. I can tell you that as the president I've travelled the province, I've met with communities as well as the schools, and generally speaking, statistics and research demonstrate that most parents are quite happy with their schools and the education their children are receiving locally.
Mr Beaubien: I have just conducted five public meetings in my riding, which is Lambton, along with one meeting with representatives from three high schools, and that is not the feeling I get. High school students resent the fact that when teachers have preparation time, they're using that time for jogging around the track.
Ms Hoshizaki: I would like to respond on that, because I think your research base would be similar to my research base if I were to go into my community and ask the same question about politicians.
Mr Beaubien: Well, we're not going to get into an argument here.
Mr Preston: I was very happy to hear you differentiate between junior kindergarten and early childhood education, because I think we've been using the terms interchangeably and they're not necessarily interchangeable. Early childhood education, as all the experts have been telling us, starts at six months. I don't believe we should have our children in schools at six months; I do believe we should start our early childhood education. I'm asking you about alternative sites for early childhood education and alternative means of delivery, which means not necessarily a teacher and not necessarily in school, but achieving the goal of early childhood education. What are your comments on that?
Ms Hoshizaki: Certainly, as you've stated, there is a difference between ECE, or early childhood education, and junior kindergarten. Let me go over what they are: Early childhood education is about child development -- cognitive and physical development and the stages children go through. Junior kindergarten really is about child development and the learning process, the development children go through in the academic and cognitive stages. One is in preparation for learning readiness, more the academics of schools; the other is the socialization development or the development children go through in their early years.
It doesn't mean they have to exist in isolation. They do in some places where you have early childhood programs and you also have junior kindergarten programs. I've been in schools throughout Ontario where they have an ECE program as well as a junior kindergarten program. I've also been in places throughout Ontario where they have a combination of the two, where they have a team that delivers early childhood education and there are ECE workers in the program as well as a junior kindergarten teacher who overviews or oversees the actual dynamics of the academic program. I wouldn't like anybody to think that in Ontario junior kindergarten exists in isolation with all school boards; it doesn't.
There are many combinations of ECE as well as child care as well as junior kindergarten in different school boards. It's the way in which we're formatting the program. What we say as an organization is that they belong together, that there is and should be provision where ECE workers can work with junior kindergarten; they don't have to be replaced. There's valuable contribution from an ECE worker as well as from a junior kindergarten teacher. Both can extend and have reciprocal learning processes. Children benefit the most from having experience from both programs.
What we would like to say is that when you say children who are six months should not be in school systems, junior kindergarten is not a replacement for parents; it's not the state taking over the parenting of children. Junior kindergarten, as well as early childhood education programs as well as child care programs, is essential to the support of families today.
Mr Duncan: Having been through a number of schools here locally -- indeed this morning, dropping my son off at school, I was approached by a number of teachers about the hearing -- the agitation I have sensed in classrooms, having met with kids and teachers, is towards the government, not towards prep time. Is that the finding of your teachers? I've met with high school, elementary, public and separate, and there is a great deal of anxiety in the classroom, but it seems to be directed more at the government than at teachers. Would you concur with that?
Mr Preston: No, not a chance.
Ms Hoshizaki: That's a leading question. A quick response is, generally speaking, the teachers I speak to do not look necessarily to the blame. What they are fearful of is that the extraction of the resources will definitely impact on their ability to make a difference in a child's life. That's what the issue is for teachers. They could probably assign blame to government upon government upon government; that's not their issue. Their issue is to be able to have the resources they need to serve children the best they possibly can to make a difference in a kid's life.
Mr Patten: I would just like to refer to your comment that "JK is no longer an option for many boards because it's the easiest way to find the savings imposed by the cuts to the grants." Frankly, this is not a debate about the quality of the program or the quality of education or which program is the best to implement; it is an economic venture, as I think you point out. We've had incredible representation that was so overwhelmingly conclusive about the value of junior kindergarten that it makes your head spin. I personally have learned a great deal by the presentations thus far, so I concur.
You said that so far there are 26 boards that have cancelled junior kindergarten, and you've identified the increase in loss of funding next year when we get an annualized situation. What do you think is the projection of how many boards would actually cut junior kindergarten next year?
Ms Hoshizaki: It's really difficult. We had projected around 40 school boards this year, and it's moving at around 30. We've had many that are holding their decisions still at this late date, which is unfortunate. I would say that half of those school boards that are holding it for this year are saying they're just postponing the decision one year, so it's really scary to try to predict how many school boards will cancel by next year. I think what's really important, though, is that government is also about leadership, and when you have the leaders in the province saying that junior kindergarten is not important enough to be mandatory, then in fact you have the same decision-makers locally following that model, and that's the unfortunate situation.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for your presentations and your comments.
Mr Wildman: I have a question to put to the parliamentary assistant, or to the committee at least, if we can get an answer. I'd like to get an update from the ministry for this committee on the review of junior kindergarten to find out where it is, who's doing it, and when it will be complete.
Mr Skarica: I'll check into that and get back to you.
WATERLOO COUNTY WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association: Donna Reid, executive director. Welcome to our meeting.
Ms Donna Reid: I'm very pleased to be here and I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to talk to people about the concerns of Waterloo county.
As you know, my name is Donna Reid. I'm a teacher, and I've been a teacher for over 30 years. I'm here today because I want to give you a face to the stories that you're hearing. I want you to know the story of Waterloo county from the viewpoint of the teachers in Waterloo county, and in particular the women elementary teachers in Waterloo county.
I've been around for a long time. I was around for the first royal commission, Living and Learning, and again for the latest one, For the Love of Learning.
I want you to know that the trustees and the teachers in Waterloo county have an excellent working relationship. We value it on both sides and we want to keep it. It's becoming more difficult, with some of the strains of the cutbacks, for us to keep that. Our negotiations, for the first time, were not concluded until just about a week ago, and for the first time in Waterloo county we had a mediator. So you can see that there has been more difficulty for us as we're trying to maintain that positive relationship.
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A little bit about us: There are 1,860 women teachers in Waterloo county. We are just one of the associations of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario that you just heard from. The two concerns I want to talk about today are junior kindergarten and eliminating the 20 sick days. Those are the two concerns that our members have spoken of most frequently.
In Waterloo county we'd only just begun the program of junior kindergartens. The teachers had wanted it for a very long time but had great difficulty in convincing the trustees it was a viable program. Not that they hadn't tried; the federations had tried very hard, as well as our consultants and coordinators. Some of them you may know, very respected educators. But for a long time our trustees resisted and resisted and resisted putting in JK programs. But because there had been leadership from the Ministry of Education and Training and because they said it was mandatory because they believed in the program, our board began to initiate them. We have only had them for two years, as you might well know, going from nine to 45 classes and then hoping to have every school community with a JK class.
The trustees looked at the cutbacks and decided to eliminate the JK program in December. They were probably one of the first boards in the province to eliminate JK. We were very, very disappointed that this happened, but we realized and we knew that if the commitment was not there from the government, it was not going to be there from our trustees. We believe in early-years education and we believe the ministry must show leadership to school boards by maintaining this program as mandatory.
We also believe that good working conditions for teachers equal good learning conditions for students. That leads into the removal of the sick leave provisions. We feel very strongly that people in service fields such as teaching choose that career because they're the kind of people who are helping people by nature. Teachers have a sense of responsibility to their students and to their other staff members, and it shows in the statistics around sick leave. The statistics we gathered in Waterloo county show that, on average, seven or eight days per year are used by teachers in sick leave. It tells me two things: Teachers do not misuse these days, and change is not necessary to cut costs.
We know that sometimes teachers have serious illnesses that require them to be off for longer than they would like to be. It seems to us a hardship for those teachers not to be able to accumulate so that they could then keep their income protection until they can go on long-term disability. We think that 20 days available for sick leave is reasonable and just. Other professions have similar provisions. In our opinion, all workers should have sick leave available to them.
We have noticed over the past few years that there has been a serious increase in our long-term disability claims. It's difficult to pinpoint the cause of this serious increase, but stress is one of the causes, we feel quite certain, because of the kinds of disability claims that are being made. There certainly is additional strain in the workload of a teacher.
The other thing I'd like to point out to you is that locally we have bargained for a personal day. That personal day is being used at this point for an important matter in a teacher's personal life. Now we have about 40% of our staff that use that personal day each year at the elementary level. Again, this tells you that teachers do not misuse the kinds of opportunities and benefits they have.
We are hoping that the government will take a leadership role in education in this province and we are hoping that you would not take the sick days out. We think it would be fair and it would cause less acrimony among boards and teachers if the government retains the sick leave provisions in the Education Act. Good working conditions for teachers equal good working conditions for students.
We know that change is inevitable and we know, with this rapid change in technology, that we are facing change and as teachers we are prepared to embrace change that means our students will benefit.
The changes the government is proposing to the Education Act that we have commented on today will not benefit our children. It will not benefit the teachers in Ontario. It is left for all of us to ponder who it will benefit.
I'm here today to ask you to abandon the proposed changes to JK education and the sick leave proposals. We want you to consider carefully the points I have made and the earnestness of my appeal. We are teachers who care about students, our board and ourselves. We want a government that will do the same. Thank you.
Mr Carroll: Thank you very much for your presentation. Most people who have come before us this morning have stressed how important junior kindergarten is. If I accept that fact of how important it is, then why is there not some compromise about the person who teaches it? All we hear is we must keep it and it must be done with qualified teachers.
Early childhood educators, who are specifically trained for early childhood education, take that child from six months or one year old, two years old, three years old, and they train them. Why all of a sudden at four does it become absolutely essential that the person who is imparting knowledge to that small child become a qualified teacher? Why isn't there some compromise there among teachers' federations and school boards to allow a less expensive person into the act?
Ms Reid: I believe the previous speakers who were speaking from a provincial level said there was and that we wanted to work with ECE workers as well. If you're asking me is it important to have a teacher in a JK program, absolutely. It's a teacher's role to diagnose, to evaluate and, on the basis of that, to plan the educational future for that child, but to work in concert with early childhood educators, yes, indeed.
Mr Carroll: Did the teachers in Waterloo propose the use of ECEs?
Ms Reid: No, we did not have ECEs in our classes.
Mr Carroll: Why not?
Ms Reid: It's not for me to answer that question. That would be more properly put to the board of education.
Mr Carroll: No, but if the program is so important to educators, why would we compromise the program just because the kind of person we wanted to teach it we couldn't afford any more? Which is more important, the program or the teachers?
Ms Reid: I think both are extremely important, the program because of my personal belief in the program; in fact, I was devastated on a personal level because I wanted my grandchildren to have an opportunity to go to a JK program. But as a teacher I also am very concerned that it be teacher-driven, that teachers have a responsibility for the program.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I'd like to just address a quick question to the issue of the sick leave. In a previous presentation this morning from the Catholic teachers, it was made very clear that if that is touched, there will be strikes.
You make reference in your presentation that, on average, elementary teachers use seven to eight sick days per year. If that's the case, why the firm position on retaining the 20 days in legislation? What the government effectively is saying is that should be left for negotiations between the boards and the unions. Why is there such a strong position that this position be left in the statutory provisions?
Ms Reid: I think I make reference to it in the brief before you, that we believe it should be a provision the government makes so that it happens for all teachers across this province and it is not something that is negotiated at the local level where there may be differences in what teachers are able to achieve. We think it is fair, we think it is reasonable, we think it is just, and we really believe it should remain.
Mr Klees: Should all negotiations then be done on a provincial basis?
Ms Reid: No, I'm not proposing that.
Mrs Janet Ecker (Durham West): Just to go back to the early childhood education thing, are you saying then that early childhood educators are not teachers as you would define teachers?
Ms Reid: No, they're not. They do not have a teaching certificate, in that definition of teacher.
Mrs Ecker: Early childhood educators will tell you that the same kinds of things you have talked about, identifying disabilities and all those sorts of things -- they're quite capable of doing it.
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Ms Reid: I certainly do not intend to put down early childhood educators. I am saying in the formal sense of having teacher training they do not.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Good morning. I want to, just for a moment, go to the sick leave provisions. I say this without any prejudice, but I think there's a significant number of our constituents who do not quite understand the sick leave provisions. I think they agree that teachers, like any other profession or worker for that matter, should in the case of a catastrophic illness have protection so that there may be a limited number of days under which a board or an employer would cover the employee and then long-term disability would come into effect.
But I think it's the banking provision, to use an old term -- I don't know what the most modern term is, but we used to call it banking sick days. I think that's the craw they can't quite swallow. A growing number of the general public is saying: "Why should you be able to bank sick days? We'll take care of you if you have a catastrophic illness, but why should you be able to bank 280 days, 180 days, 300 days?" Can you justify for those who are questioning this why you should be able to bank half a year's salary collectible at the end when you retire?
Ms Reid: So you're talking about something that's a little different than just the banking of the days. The banking of the days of course would be for that catastrophic illness you talked about, so that if you were ill and it was an extended illness, you would have enough days to take you through to your LTD.
Mr Crozier: That's the point. The LTD would pick up at seven days, 20 days, whatever.
Ms Reid: Sometimes they don't pick up till 60 days.
Mr Crozier: All right, 60 days.
Ms Reid: The banking then is for that purpose, but the other issue you're talking about is retirement gratuity, which is something that is negotiated locally. I don't have any stats here with me to back it up, but I believe that retirement gratuity pays for itself in many ways because of the fact that teachers don't use the days.
Mr Crozier: That's, I think, a big term that we're going to have to explain to the general public.
Mrs Pupatello: I had occasion to travel to Waterloo and meet with people from both the Waterloo public and Waterloo Catholic boards, speak with teachers and students from that area. I can tell you that I was pleased to see that not only were the teachers very outspoken about the direction of the provincial government and did feel strongly that the government was in the midst of dismantling education, but the directors of both boards have also been very outspoken, widely reported in the press in the Waterloo area. I was pleased that both teachers and board administrators were coming on side and saying that the provincial government is not improving education through Bill 34, for example.
We understand also that Elizabeth Witmer, the minister from your area, when the toolkit was announced, specific Bill 34 items, she was on the phone about 7 in the morning -- and this was reported to us by the people she was calling -- apologizing for the contents of the toolkit, saying clearly to both teachers and directors of boards that she apologized for its content, realized it was wrongheaded. We must also note that Elizabeth Witmer is a former chair of a board of education in Waterloo, so she's very cognizant of education issues.
It's unfortunate that a cabinet minister from Waterloo has not had the ability to impact on Minister Snobelen in Bill 34. Coming from Waterloo you probably are familiar with that background.
Ms Reid: Well, I can tell you, I was not one of the people she called at 7 in the morning.
Mrs Pupatello: Thankfully.
Ms Reid: I can't really respond.
Mrs Pupatello: Both Mr Wildman and I actually were in Waterloo together and we certainly missed having a Conservative representative at the debate that occurred there that evening. Tell me the difference between the stripping away of rights that have been collectively bargained for at a local level, ie, the sick days' entitlement -- and the Conservative government is on record as saying they agree with the collective bargaining process -- and the stripping of rights that occurred through the social contract with the NDP government. Is there a difference, or are they both stripping away rights gained through collective bargaining?
Ms Reid: That's a very complex question you've asked me and I don't know that I can give it really the answer it deserves, but I'll try.
The social contract, in my opinion, although it interfered with collective bargaining, did give teachers an opportunity to say what they wanted to say. So if you were going to say anything good about it at all, that would probably be the thing you would say.
Mr Cooke: Time's up.
The Vice-Chair: No, no, she's got 30 more seconds. Go ahead.
Ms Reid: But I'm finding with this government there isn't the opportunity to talk. There simply isn't. And I was pleased today, and somewhat surprised, that I had this opportunity to talk, because it's been unusual. When we've tried to get to places and to tell people what we think, what we feel, what we know in our hearts, we haven't had that opportunity. I really value having that dialogue.
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. What really hit home to me was your statement that you're concerned that the changes that are coming out will not benefit children, and your question as to who benefits since teachers and boards don't benefit, in your view.
You talked about junior kindergarten, and I understand your concern for your grandchildren. I have a little girl who I had hoped would benefit from junior kindergarten programs as well. Does your federation -- have you had any contact with the ministry about a review of the junior kindergarten program now that the so-called option has led your board to discontinue the expansion of junior kindergarten and the elimination of it really in your area?
Ms Reid: As a local association, no, we haven't had that opportunity.
Mr Wildman: Okay. There was a question put to you by my colleague Mr Carroll. He was questioning as to why teachers should argue that teachers should be involved in JK, teachers with certificates -- I wrote it down as he said it -- "since we can't afford it any more." Isn't it a question of making decisions based on allocation of funding based on priorities, and if everyone recognizes the importance of early childhood education then that should be one of our priorities?
Ms Reid: You're talking to somebody who would certainly sell that story. I think the federation to which I belong has always been a leader in early years education and thoroughly believes in it. We have attempted many, many times with different governments to convince them of that fact and from time to time have been successful. Hopefully we can have some impact now, because I really think that junior kindergarten is going to assist students, it's going to assist families and it's going to have an impact beyond what many of us can even envision.
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Mr Wildman: It would seem to me that if a government were to make junior kindergarten compulsory and allocate funding and grants to that, that would be an indication that that government saw it as a priority. If another government makes it optional and removes funding, that government obviously does not see it as a priority.
Ms Reid: I would agree.
Mr Cooke: I wanted to just go back, because I think there seems to be some confusion here this morning. I recall very clearly having discussions with your federation in particular about the expansion of junior kindergarten. Even looking at the three- and four-year-olds' program, your federation, as I recall, was very clear and up front in saying that teachers should be part of the program but that you supported very strongly the different professions being part of it.
Maybe you can confirm this, that the ratios we currently have in junior kindergarten and kindergarten are much higher in terms of students to professionals than they are in early childhood education or in child care centres right now. In order to improve that program, we do need to lower the class sizes and have more professionals. Your federation was at that time, and it's still your federation's position, that you're prepared to work hand in hand with ECE workers.
Ms Reid: Absolutely.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Reid, for your presentation and the comments and questions that followed.
BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE CITY OF WINDSOR
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Windsor Board of Education; chairperson Beth Cooper, and the director of education, Mary Jean Gallagher. Welcome to our hearings.
Mrs Beth Cooper: I am Beth Cooper, chairperson of the Windsor board, and with me is Mary Jean Gallagher, the director of the Windsor board. I think our brief was passed out. We are going to do the Mutt and Jeff routine of switching backwards and forwards -- good terminology for the two of us.
Many of you know that I have been a school board reformer since the time I got on a board of education in 1988 and I have personally fought for and sought financial restraints, accountability and access to board information. I openly support the strengthening of the role of the trustee and am an advocate for local governance as vested in that duly elected trustee. This is the oldest basic democratic principle. I have pressed for demonstrable quality in education through valid assessment and evaluation, and all of these things I have pursued both locally and at every provincial opportunity.
The greatest improvement in these areas across the province has evolved through local trustee elections. There is far more public awareness of educational issues, and noticeable inroads for change have been made in many parts of this province. Now what is required is the enabling legislation to correct the out of date and the imbalances in current legislation that restrain further reform at the local level.
There is no question that at our board, change has taken place. These significant changes, coupled with the financial realities, are making boards change. Out of necessity, they are moving from the comfortable status quo.
I would cite the $6.8 billion spent on education in 1985 and the $14-billion-plus spent in 1994, as mentioned in the Sweeney report. Certainly one source for this escalation was the duplication caused through the extension of full funding, but this is not the only reason. There have been extravagances within boards that must be controlled, and I applaud the efforts that have been taken at our board. There is significant vacant space that once had positions, desks, chairs and people in our central offices.
Restructuring, downsizing, cooperation, financial accountability, restraint and quality in education: Ontarians are frustrated because of what they are paying. They have no control over this and no control over what is being taught and how. Local school boards must be held accountable for the delivery of this service. The ministry, on the other hand, must provide solid leadership and quality documents if positive, measurable improvements are ever to be achieved.
Education reform will fail unless it leads to higher, better-informed expectations on the part of all stakeholders, of themselves and of each other.
There is a role for school councils, but not as a means of governance. Special interests, economic status, demography would cause even greater disparity and lead to an even weaker public education system. The funding of the three systems we have has already weakened our resources and proved divisive. Ontarians collectively purchase the service; the governance mandate must be broader than at the local school level.
I believe the current model can still work if the Education Act is revisited. Amending it will assist local accountability and access to information -- full information. True decision-making will be vested where it belongs, in the duly elected trustee who will be charged with and will be held accountable to ask better questions, confirm adherence and compliance. Boards will be able to deliver the service the electorate want and be accountable for it. Non-elected boards, as in the hospital or college-university sector, do not undergo the same scrutiny as school boards, nor are they held to the same standards for accountability. The same would be true if the method of governance went to local school councils at this time.
To impose massive changes now to the method or the source of funding would create chaos. The problem does not lie entirely in how we are funding, but also in what we are funding.
I'll turn it over to Madam Director.
Mrs Mary Jean Gallagher: As Beth mentioned, my name is Mary Jean Gallagher. I'm the director of the Windsor board.
I believe strongly that different communities have different needs from the education system, so I wanted to begin my address this morning to you with some discussion about the Windsor community and our board of education, because it is, I think, a precursor to understanding the position we're taking on some other areas.
The Windsor board is a public board of education in our city with responsibility for educational programs for approximately 20,000 elementary and secondary students and several thousand adults.
Windsor is a community of great ethnocultural diversity. Recent surveys of one family of schools -- we refer to a family of schools as a secondary school and the elementary schools that feed it -- revealed that its student body contained 59 different ethnic cultures and an even broader range of language and dialect. Our diversity matches or exceeds Toronto schools, yet the population density of some of our ethnic groups is small enough to leave them isolated from the ethnic support groups common in larger metropolitan areas. This leaves our schools as the critical centre for many communities.
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Fully one third of our elementary schools are designated compensatory, identifying them as having higher proportions of higher-risk children as a result of family and economic circumstance. We're geographically located at the far southwestern end of our province, feeling somewhat isolated ourselves from the provincial milieu and surrounded by American influence.
Finally, our economic history is one of boom or bust. Our community understands well the significant impacts of plant closures and economic insecurity.
As a board, we take seriously our accountability, both to our students and parents for our learning programs and to our ratepayers for fiscal decisions. Like all other boards of education in Ontario, we're struggling in these times to maintain the breadth and quality of service our citizens require, while coping with unprecedented funding reductions. Bill 34 has as its intent the implementation of various government announcements regarding the reduction of education grants, but falls far short of the kind of assistance to school boards and their staffs which was both needed and promised.
Mrs Cooper: Back to me on junior kindergarten.
Bill 34 makes junior kindergarten an optional program, in recognition of the large reductions in grants experienced by boards who offer this program. Because of the way in which the new grants are calculated, this reduction in financial support has been implemented on an uneven basis from board to board across the province. In fact, differences between coterminous boards have resulted in situations in which access of children to junior kindergarten programming is now determined along religious lines, hardly a commitment to universal access for Ontario residents.
For Windsor students, our junior kindergarten program represents our best opportunity for early intervention in meeting the needs of special-needs or high-risk students. This identification of special needs at an early stage can be accompanied by more interaction between the various provincial ministries responsible for providing service to these families. The primary role of teachers should be to teach. They need the assistance of others to remove the many obstacles to these students learning. Early literacy preparation is a critical issue for later student success. Particularly in our urban setting, we believe junior kindergarten provides a crucial link for us to establish beginning partnerships with parents in order to support children.
We believe junior kindergarten is no longer an option for our community or in our society. This conclusion is supported strongly by the research of such people as Dr Fraser Mustard and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr Mustard's research links future economic prosperity and high-quality early childhood supports and experiences. Our junior kindergarten program provides early access for learners and their families, giving us an early opportunity to enhance parenting skills for parents of our junior kindergarten students and their younger siblings.
Not every child in our community or our province enjoys an environment rich in literacy and learning resources. Recently, one of our teachers shared with our trustees a very common, typical type of situation. As we said, one third of our schools are compensatory. A parent arrived at school at 9 am impaired, with her kindergarten child, searching for that child's medication. So the staff, the administration in our school, had to deal with not only a child and their medication but also with the impaired parent. Failure of our system to reach such children early, to enrich their learning opportunities, will have significant and long-term financial consequences for us all.
If we believe that children should be ready to learn when they enter school, then we must be able to remove barriers to learning as early as possible. We must also know that our staffing provisions provide the team of professionals required to support the programs in an affordable way. For these reasons, we must be assured that faculties of education have fully prepared our teachers to practise the craft of teaching. We must also be able to use fully the ability and the skills of early childhood educators. It is the view of the Windsor Board of Education that the government must proceed as quickly as possible with its reviews of junior kindergarten and differentiated staffing.
Coming from a nursing background, I know too well the values of differentiated staffing. The use of the nursing assistant or the licensed practical nurse, physiotherapist, respiratory therapist -- these things came upon health care in the 1970s, at the time that nursing was being taken out of hospitals as schools of nursing. Some things worked. At that time, they thought you could take anyone off the street and have them pass instruments in an operating room, and therefore they created many OR technician programs. There isn't one left standing today, because it didn't work. But we are saying that certainly early childhood educators have a place in our system.
We believe junior kindergarten is not an expensive form of child care in our community; it is an essential first experience in preparing our children to succeed in school and in life.
Mrs Gallagher: I'd like to pick up with some comments about adult and continuing education. In Windsor, as I mentioned, our economic cycles, because of the proportion of our economy directed to one industry, gives us a boom-or-bust cycle. In this environment, adult and continuing education programs are not makeup programs for people who have already had their chance. This program is instead our community's most powerful vehicle to reduce our reliance on welfare and social assistance, social support programs, to prepare our citizens to take advantage of the employment opportunities of the 21st century, and to provide for our employers a capable and skilled workforce.
A boom-or-bust environment is not dissimilar to a long or extended agricultural year. The history of Windsor's economic cycle shows that in times of bounty, jobs are plentiful. It's harvest time and our citizens take on those jobs to provide for their families, often leaving schooling incomplete. They do this because they know that in a few years the wintertime of economic bust will be upon us and that that's the appropriate time to retool and retrain. It's exactly support for that cycle that our adult and continuing education programs provide.
The changes in this act implement the government's decision that students over the age of 21 in Ontario are not entitled to the educational resources and programs to which their children are. Not only does this significantly reduce the programs we can offer adults across the province, but it also implements these changes in narrow ways which leave school boards in untenable situations.
If a legislative change is to be implemented to address adult and continuing education, it's critical to change all the related areas of the act and regulations so that there is consistency in the approach. To do otherwise leaves school boards to either pass the costs of comparable programs on to our ratepayers or to face legal challenges surrounding either our collective agreements or human rights issues.
Bill 34, in its attempt to enable boards to divert adult students to programs in continuing education, in fact limits this ability significantly. Clearly, provincial grants are changing for students over the age of 21, but the change of access is limited for students who have not had seven years of access to secondary school, or four years after age 16. This limitation permits boards to direct over-21 students to continuing education programs only for those for whom appropriate programs exist. This raises the following significant questions:
If a board offers no continuing education program during the day, will we be required to admit over-21 students to a regular secondary school program if employment or child care needs prevent their attendance at night school? If that's the case, how are boards to do that without significantly increasing expenses to their local ratepayers?
What about adults with special education needs? Adult and continuing education programs have never been designed or funded to include special-ed programs. This board is currently defending itself in a human rights action involving a hearing-impaired adult who felt he should be provided with interpretive support in a continuing education class, even though ministry grants for such programs do not exist. This case is a relatively small cost item when compared to other possibilities.
Mrs Cooper: How do the needs of developmentally challenged adults fit into this legislation? Some adult citizens in our community have spent many years living in or supported by a range of agencies either in Canada or abroad, in the case of recent immigrants. Often these people have accessed very few years of secondary school but may have been identified as exceptional in the past. We have no continuing education programs so specialized that they are designed to meet the needs of this population.
I wish to point out that at present, when age-appropriately placed and provided support in our schools, these students can represent a program cost of up to $35,000 per student year. As provincial funds become restricted for other agencies, school boards are facing increased numbers of these adults requesting access. School boards should not and cannot be expected to accommodate these adults for many years because other agencies are restructuring and have left us to do the job. There are many with us in our board that we have for age adulthood. Developmentally there may be no change, or little change. Parents wish us to continue this because the care is good. It is often one-on-one care and it provides respite for those parents. I guess for boards of education the question is, for how long should a board be responsible?
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Mrs Gallagher: While I mentioned legislative simplification in the area of adult and continuing education, there are some other areas as well.
This government has spoken of its platform of eliminating red tape for businesses and pursuing disentanglement for municipalities. Please recognize that school boards need simplification of the legislation as it applies to them as well, and this simplification extends beyond what this bill provides for us.
Considerable recent provincial legislation has increased costs to boards both in direct dollars and increased staff. The minister speaks frequently of too many dollars being irresponsibly spent by school boards in non-classroom areas, and yet many of those areas are exactly those things that government legislation that is still in place for school boards requires us to provide. I don't mind being held accountable for things that are my responsibility in this board, but I quite frankly resent being held up as an example of someone who makes poor funding decisions when I'm doing my best to comply with provincial legislation and to maintain services in my classrooms.
For example, continuing pay equity legislation has dramatically increased our costs in adult and continuing education and may also be what ultimately prevents us from offering a continuing education program model during the day to meet our community needs.
The increased expectation and requirements that boards of education assume responsibly for social programs and other government initiatives such as primary class sizes, pay equity, employment equity, employer health tax, WHMIS, drug education, anti-violence initiatives, AIDS and sexuality education, heritage languages and multicultural initiatives all take a toll in terms of providing administrative time, seminars, committees and the production of teaching documents. We aren't simply going to be able to throw all those out there and say: "There you go, teachers. Figure it out yourself in terms of how it's going to sort out." Their primary responsibility is to teach the students in our schools. If these initiatives and expectations remain unchanged, it's grossly unfair to assume the social and program needs and the staffing levels of the 1990s can be returned or compared to those of Ontario's classrooms in the 1950s.
The negotiations time lines in the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act, when combined with Education Act identification of dates and rules for individual teacher contracts, leave boards in a catch-22 situation. Free collective bargaining on a level playing field is actually prevented because of the ability of either party to an agreement to extend and/or manipulate time lines in this process so as to prevent change.
In our view, this represents a fundamental flaw in the process. In the past, boards have used this to delay increasing staff levels, and now teacher groups use it to delay decreases. While both parties over time have been responsible for this behaviour, the financial consequences to boards as they restructure and downsize are greater, particularly in an environment in which we're expected to do our financial planning almost retroactively. The reality is that reductions in teaching staff, with or without direct classroom consequences, can only be accomplished in August with appropriate notice by May 31. If we go past those dates, nothing is going to change for at least one additional school year. It makes planning and responding to financial information and reductions that come in November, with details in April, absolutely incredible in terms of what we try to do.
Mrs Cooper: Permissive legislative changes surrounding sick leave plans and the retirement gratuity do not provide enough assistance to boards. The retirement gratuity, developed as a result of provincial legislation creating and enshrining it -- that is a typo in your copies -- is strongly defended by provincial federation commitment. Ultimately, it can best be resolved through provincial action.
Adding to that, I would talk about the Sweeney report again, which indicated the unfunded liability across this province at about $1 billion. I am here to say to you that it is probably $10 billion. The public has a right to know about this unfunded liability across the province. It is a serious and urgent issue and it is perhaps the one area where boards need the most assistance in provincial legislation.
Mrs Gallagher: I'm aware of the time, so I will try to speed up a little bit here.
An area of concern to our board that isn't in any of the recommended changes is an area that boards have long requested assistance with, and that's the definition of an occasional teacher. It seems like a fairly minor thing, but under the current wording in the Education Act, and as a result of some recent arbitrations, let me give you an example of some issues we are facing.
School boards are struggling to restructure and to minimize layoffs. None of us wants to lay off our staff if we can avoid it. We're being forced to hire teachers on contracts in the following scenarios.
If I have a teacher who goes on a maternity leave May 1 and is going to be absent until October 1, the definition of an occasional teacher in the Education Act requires that I not replace that teacher with a supply teacher or an occasional teacher, but in fact I give a teacher a contract. Then when my first teacher comes back October 1, at best I'm carrying that extra teacher until December, because the Education Act says I can only reduce staff as of December 31. That's not what that was intended to do, and yet that's the effect for school boards.
In addition, if I have a teacher who is absent September 1 and expected to return, if that teacher doesn't return until the following September, I just hired the supply teacher I put in there on a contract basis retroactively. I didn't go through the process of trying to select the teacher I wanted to have in that position, but again it's a matter of the definition of the occasional teacher.
We have to look at that whole host of legislative areas and, I would submit, listen more carefully to some school boards which have been requesting some things that don't turn the world upside down but make a significant difference in our ability to deal with those issues.
Mrs Cooper: On agreements to cooperate, just very quickly, I would say our board certainly supports the intent to promote more sharing, but we would like the initiative to go far further to facilitate the removal of the barriers to sharing and the provision of additional incentives to share.
The removal of barriers includes the need for more interministerial cooperation and coordination to be reflected in how various provincially funded organizations function. Reasonable sharing arrangements are often impeded by these structures and they encourage local agencies to compete with one another in the provision of services. A pilot that we have currently going is working with one of our local inner-city schools with the Windsor social services, police services and children's aid services, and taking the approach that whoever identifies the problem first is the lead agency but that all other agencies will work together for the benefit of that family, that child. This, I believe, helps in removing the silo effect, the giving and the receiving of messages, both at the ministry level and at the local level. I think we need to eliminate this silo approach.
In Bill 34 you also encourage boards that are in a negative grant situation that they may make an equalization payment. This is grossly unfair to Ontario's citizens in other regions because the reduction in grants comes to the rest of us, so the impact on the rest of us is certainly greater.
In summary, I would certainly like to thank this committee for giving us this opportunity to speak about some of our concerns on these issues. We know that governing a province such as ours is no easy task and that solutions are not easy to make. We very much wish the members of this committee to understand Windsor's economic and geographic realities. They have made us unique and independent in this province, often innovative in our attempts to meet the needs of our people in our community. Windsorites have never been willing or able to wait for provincial answers in a number of areas, and we would submit that this has strengthened our community and probably our province. We have a proud history of leading the way in Canada in per capita United Way giving, of being the first hospice site in Canada, of achieving the recent voluntary health care restructuring to lead the province, and leading the province in the provision of adult education since the 1920s. We respectfully ask that our government, in this bill and in other legislative areas, act in ways that empower local decision-making and enhance service-driven leadership processes and accountability.
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Mrs Pupatello: Thank you for your presentation today. I did want to mention to the government members that the Windsor Board of Ed adult program has a better track record for employment than any government employment program in the history of the Ontario government, and for that reason alone we have to have a special look at the changes you're making and encourage you not to go in the direction you currently are. This board of education also has one of the highest numbers of nutrition programs in Ontario and sees the critical need for nutrition and its impact on learning and education.
Can you tell me how the school board will withstand the cuts you're taking currently and that you'll continue to take next year? How will you ensure that it will not affect the classroom, as is the mandate from the current Conservative government?
Mrs Gallagher: First of all, I've been really clear that I don't believe you can reduce funding to education to that extent and not affect the classroom. We are, in our budget deliberations and in our discussions with our employee groups, doing our best to minimize the impact on class size, but just because you don't change the size of the class very much -- and some of that will have to go on -- doesn't mean you aren't making tremendous differences in what's happening in a classroom.
We are in discussions with our employees, with our teachers, about issues like preparation time and administrative allowances, we're dealing with significant reductions in central office staff with reductions to support for custodial positions and so on, we're going at all of those sorts of things, but the Ministry of Education itself identifies that across Ontario 95% of education spending is going into classrooms and classroom-related programs. It is a fact, even according to the ministry's statistics, that 4.5% of education dollars are spent in any central office administration programs, so quite frankly I can't do it without having an impact on the classroom, and it's absurd to think I could.
Mr Cooke: I'd like to thank the chair and director. I always detect great skill in presentations from schools boards where they try to call for centralization where it's appropriate -- in other words, where there might be something you don't want to do at the local level with collective agreements but you'd like the province to do it for you, but then claim that you want to have local autonomy when it comes to things like curriculum and other things, "Because Toronto can't possibly understand Windsor." Your brief was very skilfully done in that area.
What you didn't outline for us and what is very important for us to understand -- because we constantly hear in the Legislature, every day from Mr Harris, that there's no reason for property tax increases and no reason for any cuts to classroom education in this province. I'd like to understand better from you what the cuts are to classroom education, what the cuts in general legislative grants have been to this board this year and what you're expecting them to be next year. There was some pretty good documentation in the local press.
Mrs Cooper: I could start by saying that when I got on the board in 1988 -- my first budget was 1989 -- about 43% of our funding came from the province. This year it was 28.9%. That's the kind of decrease we've seen in funding.
Some of the impact on classroom is not direct. We have reduced, in program departments, seven of 23 positions. We certainly have seen a reduction in our special services. Those are the supports to our teachers. As we try to follow the mandate of integrating wherever it is possible, you need people to help that integration. I don't know of one teacher out there -- with seven, eight, 10 different learning styles in a classroom, and now you're adding special-needs students into that -- who says, "Bring more, I need some more challenges in my life," without supports. We've had reductions in our special services in the classroom. Certainly we have tried to eliminate or lessen the impact, but I don't know for how much longer.
One of the things that is not included in some of the predictions of the 47 cents is the administrative time, the preparation time. Those are administration costs, but they certainly impact on what that teacher is able to do in the classroom.
Mrs Gallagher: What I would point out is that this board in its current budget has reduced by $4.5 million out of a total budget of about $140 million. Of that, approximately $3 million was a reduction in provincial grants. Now, that reduction in provincial grant applies to only 40% of my budget year. As I've pointed out, I can't go in there April 1 or May 1 or whenever I finally find out what my bottom-line budget is and make changes immediately.
Mr Cooke: So the impact on an annual basis is $6 million.
Mrs Gallagher: No. The impact on an annual basis is close to $8 million because it's 40% of my year. I've got 60% from January to June. What that amounts to is that there have been significant changes.
Mr Preston: Thank you for coming today, ladies. Your presentation was interesting and informative. I want to get back to childhood education, and I don't want to say childhood education versus JK. We'll leave it at that. You agree with alternative staff and alternative sites?
Mrs Cooper: I don't believe we said sites.
Mr Preston: Well, I'll say sites. You said alternative staff.
With identification of problems being one of the most important parts of early childhood education, and bearing in mind that these things start to manifest themselves as early as six months -- eye contact, coordination, what have you, can be the leaders into problems -- at what point should a municipal, regional or provincial government start funding early childhood education?
Mrs Cooper: There's no question that the parent is the child's primary teacher. The fact is that in today's society those primary teachers are not found on a consistent basis, specifically when we talk about one third of our schools being compensatory and the fact that we believe in it, even the pilot we're attempting with the city and other agencies, because we can reach that school-aged child at the junior kindergarten level, and younger siblings and the family as a whole. A lot of our schools are running programs, workshops on parenting and other programs, to teach that whole family unit in order to try and break out of that cycle. I believe that the earlier we can get some kind of handle on those disadvantaged children in our society, the better chance we will have as a province and as a community to remediate the problems that exist in society today.
Mrs Gallagher: The one comment I'd make in direct response to your question is that often people hold up school systems and what they achieve in places like Germany and Japan and France and Sweden and so on as being superior to our school systems. I would point out to you, sir, that those school systems begin with quality early childhood education programs as early as age three. I would say to you that if we were really serious about preparing students for literacy programs and so on, we should be moving to earlier childhood support rather that later, as is the current situation.
Mr Preston: My question was, when does some form of government fund some form of early childhood education? When, in your opinion? You're saying we should go back to three.
Mrs Gallagher: I certainly was a supporter of the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Learning that it be started at age three.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. It's been very informative and we've enjoyed it.
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ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation: Ms Leisha Nazarewich, the president of District 1, Windsor; Mike Walsh, executive director of the OSSTF provincial office; and also Earl Manners.
Mr Earl Manners: And also one other: Chris Malkiewich, who is a staff with OSSTF as well as a member of the board of directors of the American Education Finance Association.
Ms Leisha Nazarewich: I would just like to thank the committee for the opportunity to present the OSSTF view to you. Earl Manners, our president, will be dealing with most of the presentation.
Mr Manners: You have our brief in front of you. I'm not going to go through all of it. I'd like to leave an opportunity; I'm sure you'll have some questions. I'm just going to highlight various aspects of it at this time.
Let me begin by saying that Bill 34 emerges in the midst of the most determined cuts to its funding that Ontario public education has ever experienced. More than $800 million, annualized, will be removed from the elementary and secondary education systems over the next school year. As a result, during a period of sustained enrolment growth in the province that has the highest per capita income and cost of living and that welcomes the greatest number of immigrants, our per-pupil expenditure will fall below the national average. No Ontarian concerned about the future of our province can be secure in the face of this reality.
Using the most up-to-date Statistics Canada and Canadian Teachers' Federation data as well as those provided by the Ministry of Education and Training, we find that Ontario in 1995-96 expends about $277 per pupil more than the average of the other provinces. That doesn't include Ontario in the calculation of the average; in the appendices, you can look at the fact sheet, "The $1.3-Billion Myth," to see how that's calculated and look at the sources. In 1996-97, after factoring in the grant cuts, Ontario will spend about $27 above the average of the other provinces. Using the more common calculation, however, the one that includes Ontario in the calculation of the Canadian average, we find that in 1996-97 Ontario will spend an estimated $85 below the Canadian average. Given the nature of Ontario's population, its geography and cost of living, there's no justification for dropping our investment in education to this level. The inevitable result will be lost educational opportunity for a generation of Ontario's students.
In fact, the government's attack on education funding seems to contradict the message of the Progressive Conservative Party's education document Blueprint for Learning. I'd like to quote a section from it: "About 75% of immigrants to Canada eventually settle in Ontario. In many cases, the children require intensive English-as-a-second-language training in order to join the academic mainstream. This is placing an incredible demand on our schools, particularly those in Metropolitan Toronto, where the majority of Ontario's immigrant and refugee population settles."
Given this statement in the Conservative Party's own education document, section 4 of Bill 34, the one dealing with adult education funding, and section 9 of Bill 34, the clawback or tax grab from Metropolitan Toronto and Ottawa, seem to fly in the face of this statement of fact from the government's own documents. I'm going to deal with adult education first, and I'll ask others to deal with the clawback.
When we deal with adult education, the Common Sense Revolution seems to say an awful lot about education, as we know. Let me give you some quotes from the Common Sense Revolution, and I'm not necessarily agreeing with all of these. One of them is learnfare: requiring able-bodied welfare recipients not working "to be retrained in return for their benefits." That's one of the directions of the government -- learnfare. "For every life we get back on track we are avoiding further costly programs down the road." "Young single parents on welfare will be encouraged to stay in school and complete their educations." Finally, as you know, the last statement, which has been mentioned by more than myself: "Classroom funding for education will be guaranteed."
These are statements from the Common Sense Revolution. I would like you to keep those in mind when we talk about adult education, because the proposed amendments to section 49 of the Education Act, which redefine who is eligible to attend our secondary schools, and regulation 285 amendments, which allow boards to offer continuing education programs during the school day, facilitate the dismantling of the regular adult day school programs. In our brief, you can look at what's been happening in many jurisdictions across the province.
But there are serious flaws even with the amendments to section 49. I'll remind you about that quote about single-parent mothers staying in school. If you look at amendments to section 49, you'll see that dropouts are punished. The amendment may even cause the dropout rates to increase. Clause 49.2(2)(b) of the definition of "adult persons" appears to be open to several interpretations. This clause allows boards to target dropouts. Under this wording, a female student who drops out at 16 because she gets pregnant and returns a year later, having not attended secondary school for a total of four or more school years after having turned 16, would be denied access to daytime secondary programs. I have to ask why the government would be trying to punish someone like this, punishing dropouts in general, rather than trying to help them get back into the school system and get the education they need.
It also seems to be discriminating against 20-year-olds. They'll be pushed out of day school. Clause 49.2(2)(c) allows 20-year-old students with birthdays before December 31 to be denied daytime secondary programs. These students may be found in every high school in Ontario. This section is age discrimination in disguise. As the definition of "adult student" is contained in the grant regulation, it can be changed annually at the whim of the government and school boards will thus have great difficulty in carrying out long-term planning, not knowing what that regulation will be from year to year.
Funding cuts to small boards are going to destroy the adult ed programs. I think the minister has even recognized, in some of his later announcements, that the cuts hurt smaller boards. In subsection 49.2(3) the government is passing the buck to boards by the so-called flexibility it's providing. But for smaller or isolated boards, the cut in funding for adult students amounts to a 70% to 80% reduction. None of these boards then has a real choice of whether they can offer adult programs or not. As noted above, adult daytime programs are being cut in board after board around Ontario.
To give the government some credit, in subsections 49.2(4) to (7) the government appears to be trying to guarantee adult students some minimum rights to an education, but I want to point out to those on the government side that adult students are unlikely to be able to use these guidelines, and they're probably ineffectual to begin with. Adult students are unlikely to be able to challenge school boards that merely turn them away, for example. Is a 23-year-old refugee from Bosnia likely to be able to identify in English what courses he needs and whether they are offered only in day school? Even with section 49.2 and its various subsections, legal counsel suggests that it is probably against the Human Rights Code; it is probably an example of indirect constructive discrimination, discrimination very definitely based on age because of the exclusions and the restrictions and the preferences that are in there based on age.
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The result will be a two-tiered education system for Ontario's students. The plan of this government is to deny access to a quality education to the most the vulnerable members of our society. The proposed changes to the Education Act, made in the guise of offering flexibility to boards of education, will set up a two-tiered secondary system in the province. Those over 20, including single parents on family benefits, immigrants who need upgrading and anyone who did not make it the first time, will be denied access to the day school programs that have had such resounding success rates -- all of those data are included in the brief -- and directed to severely underfunded continuing education programs that cannot meet the needs of these students. Nor can they ensure that students graduate as quickly as they do in our day school adult programs, and thus they will remain on welfare for even longer. This just doesn't make common sense.
I'm going to ask Mike Walsh and Chris Malkiewich to make some comments about the clawbacks.
Mr Mike Walsh: My name is Mike Walsh, executive officer with OSSTF. Referring briefly to section 9 of Bill 34, which permits boards to make an equalization payment to the province up to the amount of a board's negative grant, "equalization payment" in this context is a delightful euphemism for tax grab. The property tax for educational purposes is clearly designed to meet the needs of local schools and their students, and not to help the Ontario government fund an income tax break to our province's well-off citizenry. However, thanks to Bill 34, public taxpayers in negative-grant boards like Ottawa and Metro Toronto will be in the unenviable position of contributing their education property taxes, if the Minister of Education and Training has his way, to the consolidated revenue fund of the province.
The Golden report on the greater Toronto area clearly indicated that Metro Toronto already subsidizes services in other parts of the province through the income tax system. This tax grab would lead to a further subsidization by Metro Toronto of the rest of the province. This was something the Golden report clearly advocated should not happen. She indicated in her report that pooling might take place at the regional level but should not go to the provincial level.
Metro Toronto, as Earl has already indicated, has a high-cost student population by virtue of the overwhelming number of immigrants who come to the area. Metropolitan Toronto and Ottawa, particularly Toronto, both are suffering from losses of funds as a result of tax appeals that have eaten away at the assessment base. This tax grab comes at a most disadvantageous time and will be, in our view, a loss of funds to education. They will be moving out of education into other things, into the black hole. Chris will add to that.
Mr Chris Malkiewich: I'm Chris Malkiewich, staff person with OSSTF. One of the roles I have in education finance is to look at other models of funding for education, both in Canada and the United States. One of the things I've always been proud of is Ontario having one of the most favourable funding models compared to other states, one that seems to allow for the disadvantages and advantages that are present in Ontario, as well as identifying things like the area, transportation etc.
When we look at what happens in terms of grants, grants in negative boards are actually determined not by their assessment but really by how the ministry determines the funding formula. That's driven by the fact that the government first determines how much money will be given to education from the province and then drives the formula backwards. One of the things that is true in Ontario is that there are grant-rich boards and there are also assessment-rich boards. If you happen to be grant-rich, then you are assessment-poor, and in reverse, if you're assessment-poor, you tend to be grant-rich. We can look at a board in the far north that has a very high ceiling, a board that's spending in excess of $9,000 per student, and being recognized for it, and having virtually no assessment base. That's where the balance comes in.
It's also interesting to note that there is no real correlation between the amount of money spent by a board and the board's wealth. In all the studies we've done through the years, in ones we've presented in the States, this seems to be fact. If we look at what's happened between 1992 and 1994 -- and the reason I use 1994 is because the education finance review used the 1994 numbers -- and what is happening in 1996, the amount spent per pupil in Ontario is decreasing. What hasn't decreased, though, is the amount of immigration, the number of social needs and the different types of problems that Ontario faces. Ontario doesn't have the advantage of choosing who it lets in, who it doesn't let in or anything else; they have to service all. Some of these factors that are identified by the amount of money known as compensatory education are used, for a very small amount of money, to provide that equity, and as funding has decreased that equity has decreased.
The boards determine what types of programs are run, and they also determine what programs don't run. That's based on local need. One of things we've found in looking at the various models in the States is that when there was local autonomy there were local decisions. An area like Hawaii, which for years has run its own education system from the state capital, is now looking to got to some sort of board structure. They don't have a large number of schools; in fact, the greater Toronto area has more schools than all of the state of Hawaii. I'll leave it there.
Mr Manners: Let me conclude -- I think we're coming up on the halfway point -- by mentioning that there are a number of other items in our brief, including references to junior kindergarten and the overwhelming research that shows that junior kindergarten can provide a head start to all of the youth of Ontario and that it is the most cost-effective means of ensuring students get off on the right track in their education.
Regulation 298, which we call the deskilling of secondary schools, talks about department headships, but certainly with all of the announcements that the government has made about changing the curriculum of secondary schools, if you think this can be done and managed without having certified, qualified professionals as department heads and directors of subject areas who are responsible for helping rewrite the local curriculum, if you think that can be done without them, you better relook at that. It's just impossible.
Of course, there's other background information on the number of layoffs that have occurred or been announced throughout the province, as well as information on sick leave on a comparative basis.
I'll leave it there, with this final statement: It seems to me that, going back to something that was said in the Common Sense Revolution, you can pay now or pay later. Usually later the costs are much greater. I believe this government has chosen fiscal expediency at the expense of the long-term viability and efficiency of our education system. I would urge you to relook at certain aspects of Bill 34 in the interests of students and in the interests of the education system as a whole. Thank you very much.
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your brief. I'd like to deal with classroom education, but for a moment I want to clarify a few things you raised. You have obviously consulted legal counsel, and your concern with regard to adult education is that the provisions in the act might be considered age discrimination and subject to human rights investigation and action. Have you advised the ministry of this and, if so, what response have you received?
Mr Manners: When we first heard the announcement about adult education, the whole question of discrimination came up in informal talks, I believe including at the education finance reform table, but it has since gone ahead. The ministry responded to some of those concerns by trying to word subsections 4 to 7 the way it did. However, I don't believe it accomplishes the goal of overcoming discrimination. There is still indirect constructive discrimination according to legal counsel we've consulted and legal counsel the trustees' organization has consulted as well. We're very much concerned that charges will be brought under the Human Rights Code.
Mr Wildman: The provisions with regard to negative- grant boards and your characterization of them as a tax grab: Obviously that effects Toronto and Ottawa right now, but because of the way the ceilings are and so on, it's quite conceivable the negative-grant boards will not just be Ottawa and Toronto in the future, but will be other boards, such as Windsor, Hamilton, London perhaps. Who knows? There's no provision in this legislation for determining which boards, other than that they are negative-grant boards, and there's no provision for time frames in terms of how long. This could go on forever.
Mr Manners: Admittedly, it seems weird to be highlighting Metropolitan Toronto and Ottawa in the city of Windsor, but the tax grab from Toronto and Ottawa has implications and creates an artificial ceiling for every other board of education in the province. Because what is a negative-grant board can change from year to year, based on the assumptions and various definitions that are used through regulations by the Minister of Education, any other boards of education could find themselves in a negative-grant situation. I understand Peel, for example, is very close to being in a negative-grant situation, and there may be others, including some of the places you've mentioned. Where in the past there has been some negotiation of a settlement regarding Metropolitan Toronto and Ottawa, this puts into legislation something that can be used and misused by any government.
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Mr Wildman: This gives the provincial government access to the property tax to go into the consolidated revenue fund, as you indicated. There's nothing in this legislation that I've been able to identify that indicates these funds will actually be used for education. They could be used for health care or they could be used for roads or social services, whatever the province determines they should be spent on. Have you been able to identify any provision that requires the money that accrues to the provincial government be used for education?
Mr Manners: There's absolutely no protection whatsoever for education in this bill. The money taken from Metropolitan Toronto or Ottawa does not have to go back into education. It would go into the general coffers of the province and therefore be double taxation on those areas and any other area that might find itself in negative taxation.
Mr Wildman: There's no provision that this would help Kent county, for instance, because they are a poorer board.
Mr Manners: Not that I'm aware of. I don't see that it could help Kent county. The way you deal with Kent county and others is to make sure the provincial funding of education is at an adequate level.
Mr Carroll: Mr Manners, I just want to go over it a little bit. The OSSTF, as I understand it from my information, is opposed to the College of Teachers; is opposed to JK being optional; is opposed to the elimination of grade 13; is opposed to the Toronto public board -- not the Toronto separate board -- sharing in reduction in funding; is opposed to sick leave reform; is opposed to reform of adult education; is opposed to the tax cut for hardworking people in Ontario. Your answer for all this -- you're opposed to everything we do -- is to increase funding to the system. Would you please tell me, sir, whether we should take it from health care, policing or social services?
Mr Wildman: You're taking it from them already.
Mr Carroll: Mr Manners is going to answer the question.
Mr Manners: That is not an accurate reflection of what this federation stands for. We are in favour of many things. Unfortunately, you haven't listened to them as a government. We have been in favour of education finance reform and we've been participating in that. We've been sitting on your secondary school reform project in spite of the fact that one of its goals was to save $350 million, and yet we're there participating in that project. We have made submissions to the royal commission on something called the full-service school which would look at ways to ensure that we provide all services for students that are necessary, from the classroom to support services for special-education students, in a cost-effective manner. This is just a number of examples of things we're in favour of that could save money.
At the same time, we do not accept the premise of your finance minister and your Minister of Education for cuts to education that we were spending $1 billion or $1.3 billion above the Canadian average. That is simply not true. We have 42% of the students in this country and we are only funding 41% of the costs of education in this country, so if the goal of this government is to be merely average, we're there. We think our education system should be above average.
Mr Carroll: A quick follow-up: Did I understand right that the OSSTF joined the Canadian Labour Congress?
Mr Manners: Yes, you did.
Mr Carroll: Could you explain the reasoning behind that decision?
Mr Wildman: What has that got to do with it?
Mr Duncan: What does that have to do with it?
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute. He's entitled to ask the question.
Mr Manners: I'd be pleased to, because it is a question of whose side you're on. You're accusing me today of being a special-interest group.
Mr Carroll: I didn't say that, sir.
Mr Manners: No, but that's the implication, and we're no more a special-interest group than the Tory government is. The difference between us and you is a question of whose side we're on. We're on the side of working people, we're on the side of the middle class, we're on the side of young people, and we joined the Canadian Labour Congress because there is an example of 2.2 million parents and citizens interested in education. We think that the voice of education should be there, and it's been missing for a number of years.
Mr Skarica: We heard some disturbing evidence from Beth Cooper of the Windsor Board of Education this morning that with reference to the retirement gratuity, there's an unfunded liability, she feels, of $10 billion; the government says approximately $1 billion. That's money that does not end up in the classroom. We also heard some disturbing evidence this morning from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association that basically, if the status quo was interfered with, strikes will occur, according to their brief.
I'd like to know two things: Do you agree with their position, and if not, what is your position with reference to the retirement gratuity situation as it stands right now?
Mr Manners: With reference to the retirement gratuity, the statement was made earlier of an unfunded liability of $1 billion across the province. This is pure myth-making. Just examine this: You have a teacher in Windsor at $65,000 who retires and gets a gratuity of half a year's salary, a further $32,500. The following year, if anyone is hired in place of that teacher, it will be someone at the bottom of the grid earning $32,000, so they've saved the $32,000 they had to pay out in a gratuity the year before.
This is exactly the reason I've talked to the Metro Toronto financial people, "Why don't boards budget for gratuities?" The answer is very simple: They don't need to because it will never be more than 2% of a board's budget to pay out gratuities, and it's self-funding -- the rollover costs. The second year after that teacher has retired the board is more than $30,000 to the good, so it is a huge myth about gratuities going to be breaking the bank at some future time.
Mrs Pupatello: Welcome to Windsor. You spent some time speaking about this tax grab from the Metro Toronto and Ottawa areas. I want to quote an Ottawa paper. There's some kind of coercion suspected, that Bill 34 is not going to mandate the turning over of funds but that Snobelen said if the trustees cooperate, hand over the money, they stand a better chance of receiving provincial assistance in the future. There might be coercion involved in that the ministry may simply merge the Ottawa and Carleton boards as recommended in a recent report and that the ministry expects trustees to think twice before openly defying the minister.
This is more of what we've seen in terms of a bullying tactic by the government: going out to the public and using fancy words that essentially mean, "You're going to do as I say," and doing the political thing in making changes such as Bill 34. The political thing doesn't really work out, as has been pointed out to us by boards of directors of the education system and associations representing teachers. The government has been quite good at doing the political thing, which isn't actually solving any problems, that if the government truly had the will, they would have made the tools real tools that trustees would have liked and just been up front about what the heck they were doing.
Mr Manners, you have been misquoted in the House and quoted several times specifically on the issue of the amount of money Ontario spends on education, that the very number the government uses as the basis for making the change, that is, for simply cutting money from the system, is wrong. You've pointed that out in a number of reports. Could you comment on that?
Mr Manners: The numbers that were used by both the Treasurer and the Minister of Education in earlier statements were based on 1992-93 data, first of all, which didn't take into account the restructuring that took place over the last three years in particular.
Secondly, it included the costs of junior kindergarten and kindergarten students but didn't include the students, therefore artificially raising the per-pupil cost. As well, they included funding for private schools and through the federal government. All those were used to artificially inflate the number.
We have data from the Ministry of Education and Training, from Statistics Canada and from the Canadian Teachers' Federation -- none of it disputed by the government, by the way -- that show that those data are absolutely out of date and out of touch with reality in 1995-96. That's why we can say unequivocally that we are not spending above average in Canada's richest province; I don't think we should be, anyway. We are spending below average as a result of these cuts.
I hear statements that we are not prepared to change. Of course we're prepared to change. We're changing all the time. It's just a question of direction. I'm not interested in bankrupting the education system, as our Minister of Education suggested might be the way to go.
Mr Patten: Just a tiny follow-up on that. I think the figures you used for calculating that are very good. It's been our contention as well that we're not spending above the average. When you did the 1996-97 calculations, did you annualize those figures or is that just the $400,000 that was used in cutbacks for 1996-97?
Mr Manners: It's annualized.
Mr Wildman: I'd like to move a motion. I would move that the government table with the committee their projections as to which boards across the province will be or could possibly be in a negative-grant position over the next 10 years that the provision of this bill would then apply to. We have the figures.
The Vice-Chair: Could you put your motion in writing and perhaps at the end of the day we can deal with it, if that's all right?
Mr Wildman: If the government wants to supply the information voluntarily, I don't have to move a motion.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Skarica, any comment?
Mr Skarica: I'm sure we don't have that information available.
Mr Cooke: I'm afraid you do. You had it when I was there, so I think you still have it now.
Mr Skarica: I'll check into it and let you know.
The Vice-Chair: All right. He'll check into it. We're recessed until 1:30. Please be back on time.
The committee recessed from 1215 to 1330.
The Vice-Chair: It being 1:30, we'll resume, if everyone could take their seats, please.
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: We have with us now the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, the Essex secondary unit and the Essex elementary unit, represented by Rick Meloche and Bernie Dupuis. Welcome to our meeting, gentlemen. Proceed any time you're ready.
Mr Rick Meloche: My name is Rick Meloche. I am president of the OECTA Essex secondary unit. I represent 240 men and women teachers who have chosen careers in the separate system in Essex county.
Mr Bernie Dupuis: I am Bernie Dupuis, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association Essex elementary unit. I personally have been in the teaching career business for 33 years and I represent 440 women and men who are employed in the JK program up to grade 8, including French-as-a-second-language teachers and special-education program teachers. Thanks for the opportunity to address you.
Mr Meloche: I will be taking you through my brief, and we will be doing this together, so there will be times, for example, when we are speaking on JK, I will turn the mike over to Mr Dupuis. I will be highlighting certain sections of it. I will not be reading it all for you. As an introduction, I think some of these say it very clearly.
The Essex secondary unit of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association is pleased to have the opportunity to present our concerns about Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act. We sincerely hope that what we are about to say will be heard very clearly by all those present.
The unit is strongly opposed to the amendments on junior kindergarten, adult education and sick leave entitlement. We are committed, in rejecting these amendments, to maintaining equality of educational opportunity for all.
In paragraph 1:05 I think it's pretty clear as well. The unit views the amendments to junior kindergarten and adult education as the beginning of an assault upon public education through inducing a financial crisis in assessment-poor boards like the Essex County Roman Catholic Separate School Board and decertifying the teachers involved in these programs.
The unit views the amendments made to the Education Act with respect to sick leave provisions as an attempt to contract-strip with respect to sick leave and the retirement gratuity. Serious labour unrest in the Essex secondary unit is guaranteed by such proposals.
Under junior kindergarten, I will speak very briefly and then I will defer many of my concerns to Mr Dupuis, who is the president of the elementary unit.
Reports have shown clearly that there is a correlation between early childhood education and performance as teenagers and adults. My concern as a secondary unit president is the student who is coming to us in high school, and if they will be disadvantaged by not having an established junior kindergarten program at the elementary level, then we are going to be finding, obviously, problems occurring that needn't occur.
As you can see in the brief, several things have been mentioned. For example, the rate of employment doubled for people with early education, completion of high school increased and so on, so we are looking at productive members of society. It is not to say that if you don't have JK you will not be, but it seems that it will help you along the way if you have JK. It will impact obviously on the ability to effectively teach young students at our level depending on the person we get to begin with.
Mr Dupuis: I'd like to spend some time with you on the junior kindergarten, and I'd like to focus it on the Essex county Roman Catholic school board and its program, including the opportunity of two of my four girls attending junior kindergarten and seven of my grandchildren attending kindergarten. So maybe I have some knowledge of that program other than just from a teacher, but also from a parent and from a grandparent.
I'd like to focus on the junior kindergarten program the Essex board includes. I've listed about seven sections of what learning opportunities for kids that program includes. I would like to make sure the words do not stay as words in your mind but that you also have a vision of what it means when you encourage a child to explore and when you teach a child to solve problems.
In the Essex Roman Catholic school board, the teachers are trained to use learning centres. These learning centres adapt daily, and they are used specifically to give kids the opportunities to explore, to discover, to investigate, to take risks and to solve problems. While they're doing that, the various social skills are happening in that context.
We also try to provide opportunities for the child to talk about experiences. In the Essex Roman Catholic school board, we have daily occurrences where there are talking periods or communication periods, sessions for the kids to share, to listen -- particularly to listen; most of them want to talk. Most of them, then, are learning the skill of listening and understanding others their own age. That happens daily, more than once daily; it's part of the program that kids need and the opportunity of understanding and appreciating school and learning.
We like to prepare the child to read and the opportunity to introduce a child to the world of books. In our school board, there are ample opportunities for language development to occur in JK. Speaking and listening are your first steps to reading. The daily program is filled with speaking and listening, through the learning centres, through the sharing of talk time. That is a constant every day for those kids. Without that program, that opportunity may not exist at home, it may not exist at a day care, but it certainly exists in our school board. Needless to say, with the sand and the water centres, the development of science and mathematics begins to take place in the child's mind. That again is a daily occurrence in our school board.
Through all that, we also include the arts, particularly creative arts, where the child can experience, through non-verbal ways, creativity. That is also a daily occurrence.
The emphasis I'd like to show you on that is that I listed in my brief that for the last four years about 7% of our total student population was in junior kindergarten. Presently, we have 701 kids enrolled in junior kindergarten, which is almost 9% of our student population. Even though the board just made the decision in the last two weeks to have JK for one more year, we have 751 kids enrolled in next year's JK program. I think that ought to give people the idea the parents want the program, it's growing at that rate. The only thing that will stop it is if our board makes a decision not to have it next year. They have mentioned that this will now be an annual decision that has to be made.
Needless to say, we're recommending that JK be maintained in the Education Act and funded, with certified teachers. At the end of the presentation, I certainly can entertain questions regarding that.
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Mr Meloche: My fear as an educator is that what we will be going to if JK is eliminated is a two-tier system, where the children of rich people or well-to-do people will become educated at an early age and those who do not have the luxury of being born into a family with wealth will not be.
Turning to adult education, though the proposed cuts in funding will not directly affect the Essex County Roman Catholic Separate School Board, they could very well affect our neighbouring board, the Essex board of education, and the Windsor separate and public boards of education, thereby having a detrimental effect, we feel, on the Windsor-Essex county area. If the adult learners of Essex county and other counties and cities throughout Ontario are limited in their pursuit of an education for financial reasons, it follows that the province of Ontario will indeed suffer needlessly.
With respect to sick leave, I think paragraph 4.02 sums up what I'd like to say. The amendments contained in this section will further affect sick leave accumulation, the portability of sick leave between boards and drastically affect the retirement gratuity provisions contained in our collective agreement. Our board has indicated that the sick leave entitlement contained in our collective agreement since 1969, as of September 1, 1998, will be non-existent under Bill 34.
In 4.05, the government action is seen by the teachers as an attempt to promote contract stripping and is thereby encouraging employer groups to make it a major disruptive issue in bargaining. The past history of Essex County Roman Catholic Separate School Board in negotiations makes this a certainty.
Mr Dupuis: I just want to comment on the sick leave. We've just reached a tentative settlement with our board for a two-year period, up to August 1998. The major issue that will be confronting us in September 1998, because our board's put us on notice, is that if the Education Act no longer has sick leave entitlements, then our teachers will have zero sick days starting in September 1998.
That is clearly contract stripping for something that's been in our collective agreement since 1969. Without collective bargaining effecting the change, I don't believe free collective bargaining is in play as promised by the three parties during the election if we have a collective agreement that no longer has an article that we did not collectively bargain away. Our board has put us on notice that is what will occur on September 1, 1998, with this change in the Education Act. So clearly, we're seeing that as an opportunity indeed for the boards to strip a collective agreement without free collective bargaining.
It was clearly my understanding during the election, at least in the Windsor area, that all three parties agreed that at the exit of the social contract there would be free collective bargaining. We have a chance of losing this article without bargaining it. It's just kind of going to disappear on us.
Somebody mentioned this morning to our general secretary, "Mr Ross, are you proposing strike?" We're not proposing strike, but we're certainly not going to sit back and let people who are averaging six or seven days' illness in a year have no illness days to take. We just can't say, "Well, so be it." Something will have to occur to get redress for the entitlements that are being stripped away by the act and not bargained in collective bargaining, and it is a bargaining item. It's been article 1608 in our collective agreement since 1969 and all of a sudden it won't exist and we had no part in the non-existence of it, except at this forum today. I wanted to make that clear. We've been put on notice by our employer on that.
We certainly recommend that the proposed amendment on sick leave entitlements be withdrawn and let free collective bargaining occur for those boards that have any problems in that area, if that's what the issue is. But we certainly have not abused sick leave, and we've never been accused of abusing sick leave, but it's an opportunity for our board to strip an article in our collective agreement. We're not going to stand by and let it happen.
Mr Meloche: Continuing on page 5 of my brief, I will go over equalization payments in a very short manner. The recommendation says it all, that the equalization payment from the boards in a negative-grant situation be mandatory. I cannot envision a board in this situation that will willingly contribute moneys to assessment-poor boards like ours. In theory, that is what is being asked of them; in practice, I can't imagine it happening.
With respect to cooperative agreements, the unit supports cooperative ventures and points out that extensive cooperation exists presently. One flaw that I see in what this government is trying to do, however, is with respect to transportation. As an example, our separate school board, along with the Essex public board, has been sharing arrangements with respect to media centre, computers and so on. But in a large part in transportation in the last five or six years, we have saved millions of dollars in this venture. The problem we have now is that the government is coming along and saying, "You have saved this and economized to the point where it is a very efficient system, but now what more can you do for us?" as opposed to saying: "You've already had these economies; we realize that. We'll leave you alone; you've done your bit." That's not what's happening.
We are talking in these instances of legislative changes. There's another legislative change I would like to bring forward with respect to department heads. I know it does not pertain specifically to Bill 34, but it's a legislative change none the less and one that will drastically affect performance levels at the secondary end of education. This government states very clearly that it wants to maintain quality education. They also are on record as saying that they will not adversely affect what is taking place in the classroom. In reality, this change takes us as educators in the other direction. Department heads have many tasks: to provide leadership, plan and write curriculum, revise curriculum to meet the ever-changing needs of our students.
They are support personnel. Certainly anyone who is in education understands that it's not the classroom teacher alone who teaches students. They have to have help. That help comes in the form of consultants, coordinators. At the high school level, it comes very clearly in the hands of our department heads. They enable secondary school teachers to teach effectively. The system that now has approximately 12 department heads per school will be cut to five or six chairpersons. How can one person have expertise in two areas and lead the charges who are out there trying to teach and educate our young people to the best of their ability? How can this be done when you are now taking a person with expertise in one area and having him cover two or three? I find it educationally unsound to even consider it.
I thank you for your listening and your patience and I believe we are now ready to answer any questions you may have.
Mr Carroll: Mine is a very quick question. How long has the Essex county separate school board had junior kindergarten? Does either one of you know?
Mr Dupuis: It's been at least six years with my experience in the schools I was involved in, Jack, but there might have been a piloting going on prior to that. But in the schools I have been in, we've had JK at least since about 1989.
Mr Carroll: The public board the same length of time, roughly?
Mr Dupuis: They both became very competitive in that field about the same time.
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Mr Carroll: Any demonstrable evidence that you can give us that the students who are currently in grades 4 or 5 are a whole lot better than their predecessors because of JK?
Mr Dupuis: I can only comment on the areas where in my 30-some years of teaching I've been able to maintain a certain grade level and how kids are better prepared coming into the grade level that I'm working in as compared to when they were prepared when JK was absent. Just looking at the curriculum, say, in the junior areas, where you and I, if I date you with me, in our schooling would have been probably in grade 7 or 8, now we're in grade 4 and 5 areas, in mathematics in particular.
Where did that preparation and opportunity come from? The only thing that's different is the pre-grade-1 years. There's a drastic change in how kids are ready for the junior years. They now have five years of preparation instead of the previous four or three, and I certainly would attest to that in all areas, particularly science and mathematics, which are where my interests lie.
Mrs Ecker: Thank you very much for coming today. There was something I wondered if you could clarify. Based on the comment you made on the bottom of page 2 and your subsequent comments verbally about the difference in parenting, you seem to be saying that the only people who are capable of being good, nurturing parents who can help their children in the early years are those upper-income levels. I find that, if that's indeed what you're saying, a little personally -- sorry -- offensive, that you would make that distinction about parents based on their income level.
Interjections.
Mrs Ecker: So Toys R Us equals good parents? I just wondered if you could clarify that statement.
Interjections.
The Vice-Chair: Come on. Let's have the gentleman answer it. Go ahead, sir.
Mr Dupuis: If that's how it was interpreted, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that parents who are not well off could not be good parents. What I'm saying is that you're looking at a JK program right now that is open to everyone regardless of who their parents are. If we go to a system of early education where it must be user-friendly, if they have to pay for it in some fashion, I don't believe we are going to be having the children of poorer families involved in taking advantage of a right they should have. I really believe we will not have that because they will not be able to afford it.
Mr Klees: With regard to sick leave entitlement, you made reference to the fact that removing the requirement from the act would interfere with free collective bargaining. I think it's important that we clarify that what we are doing is proposing to remove that requirement from the act. That in no way interferes with the collective bargaining you enter into with your board. That is contained in your collective agreement. It should continue to be a matter for you to negotiate with the board. In no way does that affect free collective bargaining. I'd be interested to know why you feel it would.
Mr Dupuis: At present, we have 20 days' sick entitlements from our collective agreement. If this law takes effect, we will not have 20 days' sick day entitlements in our collective agreement.
Mrs Ecker: No, that's wrong.
Mr Klees: Excuse me. The reason you wouldn't have is because you wouldn't negotiate that with your board. In no way does this amendment affect your ability to negotiate that provision with your board. Why do you feel that it would?
Mr Dupuis: Very clearly, without your change in the amendment to the Education Act, the language is very clear in our collective agreement that we have 20 days' entitlement. We don't need to negotiate any longer; we negotiated in 1969. What are you suggesting? That we now have to propose 20 days' sick leave entitlements that we've enjoyed for the last 25 years? We did not negotiate it away.
Mr Crozier: Rick and Bernie, welcome. Clearly, the majority of educators I've heard from and heard of agree that early childhood education, and specifically JK, is beneficial to our children. You may comment on any discussions you've had with ministry officials, bureaucrats, regarding that issue. Are you confident or are you not very confident, in view of the way the government has put forward these options, that we will make any difference by your appearance here today with regard to JK?
Mr Dupuis: I would not have asked for a standing if I hadn't thought this opportunity to address all three parties wouldn't make a difference. It's important that the JK issue is put out by the professionals, on the research that is out there, on the experiences I have. Whether we change anybody's positions is for next week's newspaper to tell, I guess.
I hope that whatever decision you make, you clearly are making it with the understanding that junior kindergarten is an important element in a child's education. When they do not have the opportunity as four-year-olds, we will pay much more at a later date for the lack of opportunities those kids should have. Whether we change anybody's mind, I don't know.
Mrs Pupatello: Thank you, gentlemen. I wanted to mention this comment from the government member about removing the sick days from the act and what it would do. In fact, it is stripping the collective bargaining agreements. I'm going to have to say plainly that it's being naïve to suggest that a local board that cannot fund things currently within the Education Act is going to fund items that don't appear in the Education Act. That's why taking that element out then removes it from the table. It's naïve to suggest that it would be anything else, or it's just playing word games to not have to come out publicly and say that is what you're doing, which is, again, a broken promise. You said you weren't going to go attacking collective bargaining, and you've done exactly what the former NDP government did, and that was strip collective bargaining agreements with teachers. That is plainly what it is.
Bernie, I was hoping you could clarify. The last item of your report said, in relation to the sick leave entitlement, "There is no appreciative savings for the province to be found in this amendment." Could you explain why you would say there would be no savings?
Mr Dupuis: I'm taking it for granted. If the 20-sick-day entitlement is removed from the Education Act, I don't believe all of a sudden there's a vault of money coming down on the province because of that. I don't see any savings to the province because of that being taken out of the Education Act; I don't see a connection at all to it. Someone can enlighten me on that. I'm going to stand by that. The fact that we have 20 days' entitlement in the Education Act does not make money disappear from the province.
Mr Patten: A short question re your proposal to not tamper with junior kindergarten, especially the aspect of maintaining the certified teachers only. Some school boards have come forward and said that to save junior kindergarten one of the only options they would have would be to have junior kindergarten certified teachers but also have some early childhood educators as part of a team and they would take a team approach. That would enable them, they think, to increase their probability of saving the program. What would be your reaction to that?
Mr Dupuis: I'm not certain that program would be saved if you were going to be adding staff -- and I assume that's what that seems to suggest -- or if you're saying you're eliminating the professional and you have someone who has a certificate in charge. I'm not sure that's what we mean by having a teacher teaching the kids. It sounds more like somebody's saying something else here.
Mr Patten: Yes. In other words, if you had five or six JK classes, then you would have maybe two certified teachers and you'd work on a team approach?
Mr Dupuis: But if you've visited the classrooms -- I hope most of you took the opportunity when you were invited -- in JK, at least in the Essex county separate school board, we have FSL teachers -- the kids are learning French as a second language. That's a certified teacher. There are some special education teachers who are involved for kids. What you're suggesting -- is all that disappearing? I think you need a certified teacher to carry out the JK program for the educational values it has. I'm not certain you can replace that with early childhood educators. Particularly, FSL comes to mind clearly as a certified program where no one I know of in the day cares would have French as a second language as part of the program; at least not in the Windsor area anyway.
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Mr Cooke: Thank you for the presentation. I'd just like to very briefly get back to the comment that Mr Carroll made asking if you had any evidence in your classrooms about the benefits of junior kindergarten. You might have, and perhaps you could supply to Mr Carroll, some of the research that I know your federation centrally has provided us in the past, from Fraser Mustard among many, many others who have documented that every one dollar that's invested in our preschool programs can save us up to $7 not only in education later on but also in social services. Perhaps you could try to dig out some of that information or legislative research could, since it's been around for a long time, Mr Carroll, and I would have thought that by now, sitting on this committee, you'd be aware of the benefits of those early intervention programs.
Mrs Ecker: That's not the question he asked.
Mr Carroll: I was asking for a little local input.
Mr Cooke: Well, I don't think, as far as I know, that the kids in Essex county, at least the ones in my riding, are any different than the kids in the rest of the province. If they're given the resources, they do as well, and if the resources are taken away, they don't do particularly well.
I wondered if you could help the other members of the committee here as well. Your board has been one of the leaders in the province in terms of programs for special education students, and I know from reading the newspaper clippings that as a result of the cuts that are being made to the boards and the fact that you're very reliant on the general legislative grants, your commercial and industrial assessment is very low and you go from financial crisis to financial crisis because of some of the financial difficulties, that some of those supports for special education students are at risk. I wondered if you could outline some of the programs that exist and some of the possible cuts in that particular area if resources continue to be pulled away.
Mr Dupuis: I can speak quite at length on the special education program that you have alluded to. We have what's called a mainstreaming approach to special education where it's important that all children have the opportunities to be with all their peers while they're being educated. That program has been in existence for probably 12 to 15 years and it's fully supported by the federation locally as an important aspect of education for all kids.
In my own classroom I have 37 students; 15 of them are what we call identified for placement and review and what you call special education. It's important to deal with those kids so that they can feel the same as any other child. That is important, that they're getting the best education available. You do need some support to carry on. One person, particularly myself, cannot be available for 38 kids with 15 having special needs.
I don't know if that program is going to continue the way it is right now. The support staff, I understand, may be aware that cuts are going to have to take place. No question 15 of those kids are going to have less opportunity to learn in the fashion that they can learn if someone takes the time and has the support. I look forward to that program not being cut, but if you're looking for cuts in our school board, I know it's a bit of an expensive program. I guess that has been publicly stated by enough people.
If you look at the eyes of the kids in the classroom who appreciate that they're not isolated in some room somewhere or they're not appreciated as good learners, it's certainly well worth the cost. But I am a bit worried, David, that if there will be massive cuts in our board, that seems to be the one that's been overextended and it probably would be the one they would look at. For the classrooms' sake, that would be detrimental to all our classrooms because all our classrooms are mainstreamed for special education.
Mr Wildman: I think you have reason to be concerned in that area because a lot of boards, particularly rural boards, that have had this kind of program in the past with teachers' assistants in the classroom helping with the progress of the children are looking at eliminating the teachers' assistants, or if not eliminating them completely, significantly cutting the number, which then will encourage many parents, if they can afford it, to remove their kids from the program and to take them home, which of course defeats the whole purpose of integration. Either that or the boards will simply move kids into special classrooms with the few special-ed teachers they have to do the job. Do you see that as having a detrimental effect on not only the students themselves who have special needs but the other students?
Mr Dupuis: That's clearly what occurs when you have 38 kids in the class and everybody in that classroom has a role to play on the education that happens in that room, there's just as many social skills and learning opportunities for kids who are your regular students because of the other students in the classroom needing special help. I mean, it's a 20-way street. Everybody is in the game. I will fight to the last ounce I have that that program cannot be dropped for the old special education classroom, because all 38 kids will suffer because of that move, not just the 15. I totally agree with that statement you made, that all of us will suffer, including the teacher.
Mr Wildman: I must say I'm alarmed by your statement that you have 37 or 38 kids in your classroom, whether or not 15 of them are special-needs students.
Mr Dupuis: We are in the separate school system.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. We appreciate it very much.
Mrs Pupatello: Mr Chair, I have a question for the clerk's table, please. Could we have a collection of all the submissions that have been made to date and those that will continue the balance of this week that would itemize all the presentations made and their status on JK specifically and which ones of those in the presentations have itemized the research data that would speak to the necessity of early childhood education? It's just a listing. The same kind of listing was done for us through Bill 26 in terms of positioning. I don't know how many that would be, but there are probably tens of them, if we could just get that from research.
The Vice-Chair: That's legislative research, and to a certain extent that's already been done in the summaries that are being presented. But you're asking for something more than that, the way I understand it.
Mrs Pupatello: At the end of it all I'd like to know that if there are 20 presenters, then all 20 have requested that JK be left as is as opposed to amended, or that 18 of 20 have recommended that. It's just a tally.
Mr Ted Glenn: That's it? No attempt to figure out the sources, as you said earlier?
Mrs Pupatello: No.
The Vice-Chair: We'll try to comply with that request, depending upon the workload of our researcher in that area.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, KENT COUNTY
The Vice-Chair: Next we'll hear from the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Ginn Rawlinson, president of Kent district. Could you identify the other person who's with you?
Ms Ginn Rawlinson: I'll let her identify herself, if you don't mind.
Ms Deborah Slade: I'm Deborah Slade. I'm the Kent representative for the Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations.
Ms Rawlinson: The material that you have as my submission will be read to you verbatim. I just let you know that ahead of time so that you can choose to listen or follow along. I hate to be read to myself, but I'll leave that choice to you.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today regarding Bill 34, the Education Amendment Act. I represent the Ontario public school teachers employed by the Kent County Board of Education, and do so very proudly both on behalf of the board and the teachers, and on their behalf wish to address four areas of concern: junior kindergarten, teacher sick leave, cooperative service delivery, and because I have the opportunity to be here and to be listened to today, I'd also like to briefly address education finance reform.
To begin with junior kindergarten, teachers as well as other of this government's educational experts are convinced of the educational value of the early years and particularly the junior kindergarten programs to Ontario students. Given a stimulating learning environment, the child's fourth year of development is a period of rapid acquisition of interpersonal competencies and language skills. Most children at this age have an inquisitive mind and are able to explore larger environments and new relationships beyond their home environments, benefits that all children can derive from junior kindergarten.
This additional year prior to kindergarten and grade 1 is even more critical to children who are at risk. As single- and two-parent families struggle with the daily challenge of paying bills and feeding their families, fewer and fewer young children are receiving the kind of attention and learning opportunities that they require to develop mentally, morally and socially. At the same time, this government's escalating cuts to health care, education and social services are leaving greater numbers of children and their families with fewer child care options and support services to meet their individual needs. In September 1995, parents of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds sent more than 110,000 children to junior kindergarten. Since the program has ceased to be mandatory, over 25,000 four-year-olds will have no place to go to school this fall.
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Early stimulation and identification are the key components to learning and a successful school career. Children who start school earlier have improved reading, math and language skills, they stay in school longer, have lower incidence of unemployment, teen pregnancy or delinquency and have higher enrolment levels in post-secondary education. This additional year of school also provides teachers with the opportunity to monitor students' progress and to more accurately identify learning and behaviour problems early in the child's school career. With appropriate adjustments to the learning environment, additional resources and, in some cases, referrals for appropriate intervention and specific assistance, learning and behaviour problems can correctly and effectively be remediated.
The Ontario Public School Boards' Association's submission regarding Bill 34 makes the recommendation that the provincial government proceed as quickly as possible with the review of the value of JK and make the results of its study public. Please don't waste more precious time and educational resources on this endeavour. Volumes of existing research are already on the shelves which consistently indicate its pedagogical value and importance, especially for disadvantaged children.
In 1983, Dr Bette Stephenson, Minister of Education, set up the early primary education project. She indicated that research done by her ministry recognized the significance of the early years as critical in setting the stage for future educational success. In 1985, the recommendation of that project was that school boards be required to provide JK programs and that appropriate funding be provided by the province.
In the 1989 throne speech, the Liberal government announced the mandating of half-day JK programs by September 1994 and, in 1994, a $35-million capital fund was made available for school boards for this purpose.
Section 6 of Bill 34 implements the Common Sense Revolution promise to make JK optional. This policy cannot be guided by concerns for child development or the general health and welfare of children. On September 27, 1995, in its first speech from the throne, this government raised its concerns over the fact that too many children can't read, too many children don't have the skills required for today's jobs. High-quality early childhood education programs are proven to be important for later achievement.
If the key focus of this government is to save money, there is no greater investment than junior kindergarten, for it is not only an educationally sound program, it's fiscally responsible. The Perry preschool project is a longitudinal study which has tracked the progress of students who entered the system at age four in 1962. By the time these children were 24 years old, every dollar spent on their program at four years of age had saved $7 in education, health, social services and the justice system when compared with their peers who had not had the early start. While these results are not immediate cost savings, the current and future impact on the whole of society cannot be ignored.
Millions of tax dollars were spent over the past six years to finance the creation of new JK programs in public schools that had not previously offered the program. That initial and substantial investment of capital has been wasted in those boards that have now foolishly opted out of the program for next year.
Last fall it was rumoured that any funding for JK would be withdrawn for the 1996 school year. The ministry is to be commended for maintaining the per-pupil grant funding for this program and also needs to restore the mandatory requirement for it. I would suggest to you that boards that have cancelled their JK programs for next year have done so as a knee-jerk reaction to the funding cuts, much the same as those who prematurely announced hundreds of layoffs that will not occur.
Under the current funding structure, there are no appreciable savings to be realized by school boards that have elected to remove this program. The cancellation of grade 2 or grade 4 would make about as much sense and save the same amount of money. I urge you to restore some common sense to the reasoning and budget deliberations of trustees across this province and again require them to offer this vital program so critical to the future educational success of Ontario's students.
A second OPSBA recommendation with regard to JK is that this government proceed as quickly as possible with its previously announced review of alternative staffing. To this request I must respond that the high-quality, curriculum-based nature of this most vital program can best be accomplished by a qualified teacher. The student monitoring and early intervention strategies so important in this first year of school must be implemented accurately by those most qualified to perform those duties. Certified teachers are the obvious candidates to be given this responsibility.
I've heard the rationale for appointing early childhood educators to this task. I believe that my 15 years of experience as an early years educator, the ECE courses I've taken and my masters degree in education qualify me to speak very knowledgeably on this issue. I welcome certified early childhood educators into my classroom, and with senior administration in our board I've discussed their addition as teacher assistants to our larger classes. If, however, the possibility of replacing qualified teachers with early childhood educators is being entertained, I have very significant reservations.
Ontario's day cares are governed by the Day Nurseries Act under a separate ministry other than education. The requirements of this legislation with regard to the preschool environment, were they applied to the school system, would increase our costs enormously. I'm sure that is not this government's intent. To suggest that ECEs would replace teachers is equally foolish. A certified early childhood educator is trained and, according to the act, employed on a ratio of eight four-to-six-year-old students to one certified staff. At an average class size of more than 20 students, what savings can be realized by hiring three ECE grads to staff each JK classroom? If, on the other hand, they are being considered as replacements for qualified teachers on a one-to-one ratio without the necessary salary adjustments, it's nothing short of exploitation of the worst kind, of the women who are ECE certified and of the children in their classrooms.
The determinants for success or failure in life are set in the early years of human development. The work of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research has linked successful economic development to the early years of a child's life. Today, more than ever, it makes common sense to support quality junior kindergarten programs.
The recommendations I make to you are: first, that you delete section 6 of Bill 34, which makes JK an optional program, and return it to its mandatory status to ensure this early education opportunity for all of Ontario's children and especially for those at risk; the second recommendation is to continue to employ qualified teachers in JK classrooms and abandon any consideration for differentiated staffing of this vital program.
With regard to teachers' sick leave, section 10 of Bill 34 repeals the provision of the Education Act which establishes that teachers shall have access to 20 days of paid sick leave annually and leaves the issue to be negotiated between teachers and their employing boards. Given the current funding climate, teachers are becoming easy targets for school boards desperately seeking a quick fix to their budget woes. Sick leave will be an extremely difficult issue to deal with at the bargaining table; because of the environment in which we work, it must continue to be assured us, as provided in the Education Act.
A comparison of the length of paid sick leave and maximum accumulation of unused sick leave across occupations, both in the public and private sector, demonstrates that teachers' sick leave benefits are comparable to other occupational groups. I am aware of no evidence to suggest that there has been abuse on the part of teachers of this benefit. In fact, Statistics Canada data consistently demonstrates that absenteeism among teachers is comparable with that for the labour force as a whole and significantly lower than for several other groups.
In contrast to most other occupational groups, teachers receive no vacation pay. The fact that schools are closed for two months of the year is not of the teachers' making or, necessarily, their choosing. It's the responsibility of school boards and the ministry to establish the school-year calendar, and radical or innovative changes to it have been rejected by the taxpaying public and parents of the children we serve, not by us. Many of us who are healthy and still energetic enough at the conclusion of the school year use a portion of the summer to enrol in professional development activities or post-secondary education courses to upgrade our skills and to become more familiar with current changes and educational philosophies.
Teachers also have no access to paid overtime, as do so many other occupational groups, yet across this province we spend hours beyond the instructional day in school-related responsibilities. We voluntarily give of our leisure time to coach young athletes and teams, conduct choir practices and assist students to perform in a variety of academic and extra-curricular activities beyond their regular classroom work, such as concerts and dramatic presentations, oral communication, science fairs, environmental projects, to name just a few of them, yet to my knowledge paid overtime benefits have not been proposed at any bargaining table for teachers' time spent marking assignments, recording student progress, school-based team and staff meetings, regular and unscheduled parent-teacher interviews or report card writing, long-range planning, curriculum-writing -- the list goes on and on. There are myriad responsibilities which must be performed outside the instructional day.
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Provision for sick leave and its accumulation must be maintained for teachers. Unlike most occupational groups, except for health care providers, we're constantly at risk of contracting any and every flu bug and cold. Children are sent to school when they are not well, or in their most contagious state, leaving us constantly susceptible and at risk of infection. The common cold may not require a lengthy recuperation time, but the average teacher suffers from more than one of them each school year.
Ontario's teachers are an aging lot, and under unprecedented pressures from numerous sources. They're finding themselves with more serious illnesses and in need of surgical procedures in greater number than ever before, with weeks of recuperation time frequently necessary. Though I've heard much about the non-accumulation of sick leave, I have heard no proposed replacement. Am I to assume that an extended illness or period of recuperation would require a teacher to suffer excessive loss of pay, or even jeopardize their employment? If this is a thinly veiled attack on negotiated retirement severance packages, then show respect for the teachers of this province and for the school boards like mine who have made provision for this, and deal with this issue honestly.
The recommendation I leave you with is that by virtue of the working conditions teachers daily face, the sick leave provisions of the Education Act must be respected and section 10 of Bill 34 deleted.
With regard to cooperative service delivery, I am proud and fortunate to be employed by a board of education whose cooperative service delivery has been recognized as exemplary by the royal commission, by OPSBA and by the ministry. Their model of cooperation has been considered business as usual for the 23 years I've been employed as a teacher in Kent county. Formalized as the Kent Area Administrators' Group in the early 1980s, not only the public and separate school boards but the city, its hospital, local college and some of its businesses have saved themselves and the taxpayers an estimated $18 million in the last 13 years, and over $2 million in 1995 alone.
The residential support for education in Kent is the third-lowest in Ontario, and only half of the province's per-household average. Commercial support for education in Kent is approximately two thirds of the provincial average. We are not a tax-wealthy board. But the potential savings that can be realized through this approach to doing business have been the salvation of the students of Kent county, and its province-wide implementation could save at least the $1 billion the ministry has begun to remove from other areas of the education system.
Private member's Bill 37, introduced by MPP Bud Wildman, recommends that where two or more boards have the same or part of the same area of jurisdiction, the boards shall "cooperate in the provision, purchase and use of goods and services." These are truly the tax cuts that can be made to reduce education spending by 20% without directly affecting the classroom.
My recommendation to you is that cooperative service delivery, including the purchase of goods and services not directly related to the classroom, shall become mandatory and expected operating practice by school boards in Ontario, and that they report annually on cooperative measures undertaken and their savings. A system of incentives and penalties should be developed to ensure that all school boards cooperate in this manner and are rewarded or penalized accordingly.
As I said, since I have this opportunity, I'd also like to address educational finance reform. I'd like to paint a picture for you to help you understand, not a hypothetical one, but a very real case scenario to demonstrate the need for education finance reform.
The Kent County Board of Education is, as I've said, among the lowest-spending in the province. It employs approximately 500 very dedicated teachers committed to providing the best learning environment for approximately 10,000 students. I'm speaking only of the elementary teachers, for those are the ones I represent and have full knowledge of. Compared to the current operating costs of the wealthiest southern Ontario boards, Kent would have up to $20 million to spend on elementary education alone, in addition to the portion of its $95-million annual budget currently allotted for JK through grade 8.
In an ideal world, of course my request to you would be to have Kent programs funded at this same level, though I realize this is an unrealistic request. In reality, our school board has again been forced to raise its mill rate to survive with a barebones budget for this year. Over the past decade, it has been forced to increase local residential taxes in excess of 20% in order to offer a very basic education to its residents.
I have read other briefs presented to this committee and have heard the complaints from my colleagues in Kent and in other areas across the province. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not here to request that you reconsider the cuts being made because we may risk losing our instrumental music, our industrial arts, our math science and technology, swimming or outdoor education programs; they have not existed for decades. Our elementary schools have no noonhour supervisors to forfeit; that work is done by classroom teachers. We do not fear the loss of support staff, superintendents, supervisors and coordinators of programs, for we would be in a position to hire a whole bunch of them if we could afford to comply with what the minister has set as standard support service requirements.
The so-called fat we have maintained for our parents and elementary students consists of extended French and junior kindergarten. The former is made up of two classes of grade 7 and grade 8 students who have to be taught in some language anyway. The latter has been wisely recognized by our board as being a vital program for future learning success, sustains itself through per-pupil grants, and with savings of less than 1% of its total budget if discontinued, does not warrant, through layoffs, the loss of a number of its newest and most energetic teaching staff.
So where does a board like Kent cut when it's already one of the most efficient and lowest-spending in the province? Let me just say that we have been instrumental in helping the Premier break his election promise. We have nowhere left to cut costs substantial enough to meet the cuts to the grant structure but in the classroom.
Our teachers and trustees have demonstrated great interest and concern over the recently published study from Gainesboro, Tennessee, confirming the academic benefit of small class sizes. Many educators believe they can answer the question posed by the Toronto Star: Is "Ontario Losing the Numbers Game?"
During the social contract and now, with the additional cuts imposed by this government, we have no choice but to increase class sizes, for there are few and very limited options for cutting operating costs. On a system basis, we have been forced to increase our class sizes by an average of at least three and as many as five students per grade.
I try to have regular dialogue with our Conservative MPP from Kent. His admission to me was that this government's agenda is only an economic one, and it makes me fear for the educational future of our children and the welfare of my colleagues. Jack has repeatedly told me that "Government should not be responsible for redesigning or designing education, just setting base funding levels." How the two concepts can be separated without tragic consequences escapes me.
It's been my experience that this government and its Minister of Education and Training have little interest in consulting with educational experts who would be in a position to redesign it. Even worse, without any concern for matters other than financial, how can it assure that the systematic removal of financial support will allow boards like ours to continue to offer education of any quality to our province's children?
Let me again refer to the concern of this government, as indicated in its first throne speech, that "too many children can't read" and "too many children don't have the skills required for today's jobs." To continue on the present course with only an economic agenda and without understanding the impact of funding cuts to individual boards such as mine makes me fear that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. How can we protect all of our children's futures if we don't provide adequately and equitably for their education today?
I have two recommendations. One is that this government abandon its economics-only agenda -- there must be a mechanism for understanding and addressing how current financial restraints are inequitably affecting school boards -- and that investigation and implementation of rational and systematic education finance reform take place as soon as possible.
On behalf of the teachers I represent, thank you for allowing me this opportunity for input. I'd be happy to further elaborate upon anything that I've already referred to or answer questions regarding the topics I've presented for your consideration.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your very thorough presentation. Unfortunately, there's very little time left for questions and answers, so there'll just be one question and answer from each caucus.
Mrs Pupatello: We've always known that the government's agenda is strictly economic when it comes to education, and thus the cuts have been found in the classroom as well as everywhere else, and they simply need to finance one item in particular, and that is the tax cut. I'm surprised that Mr Carroll has actually been quoted repeatedly and publicly saying that the government's agenda is economic only and that government should not be responsible for designing education.
I guess I marvel at that, because, as we know, the government provincially is looking now at curriculum being drawn up at a provincial level. It's our understanding that the ministry officials, the numbers of staff, have moved from about 85 down to 10 people responsible for curriculum setting provincially and that in fact the discussion is about that the regional offices will be closed as well. Who do you think, then, is going to design a provincial curriculum? I don't know how that sits with a government member suggesting that government shouldn't be responsible for it anyway, but the ministry direction is obviously going that way.
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Ms Rawlinson: I appreciate your comments because I too cannot conceive of a provincial curriculum established by eight people. Without that, it's going to be a curriculum established locally. How then will our children fare with standardized testing? It's another one of those items that I see as inseparable. How can you have one without the other, unless there is truly a need for this government to somehow prove that the teachers of Ontario aren't doing their jobs? That would certainly be accomplished by what you're suggesting.
Mr Wildman: I will let Mr Carroll respond directly to your comments in regard to the economic agenda, but I want to raise the question about, I think, the central issue that you've raised, and that is the commitment in the throne speech to deal with what the government perceives as inadequacies in terms of students' preparedness and how that relates to JK.
In the Common Sense Revolution, the government, the then Conservatives campaigning, said that classroom education would be "exempt," that was the term they used, from the cuts. You've said in your brief that's impossible and you point to JK as a place where the cuts will be made by boards but they will not be able really to get much saving out of it. Could you expand on what your understanding is of why they wouldn't be able to make the savings? A lot of boards seem to be jumping in that direction, which I consider to be penny wise and pound foolish.
Ms Rawlinson: It's not even penny wise.
Mr Wildman: That's why I'm asking you.
Ms Rawlinson: Yes. Within our own board, having done the research, the per-pupil grants are the same for JK as they are for any other program, and under that form of funding, our director has publicly stated that of a $95-million budget, discontinuation of junior kindergarten would save between $40,000 and $120,000. It would also require the exit of more than a dozen new teachers.
What is to be gained by doing that? There is a lot of feeling on the part of taxpayers that JK is a free ride and that parents don't have to do parenting. I don't know; there's something about those who don't have children hating to pay for those who do, which unfortunately is where our society has come to. But there are not appreciable savings to be had, in my opinion, and I'd love to be proved wrong, for any board to discontinue junior kindergarten.
Mr Wildman: In my view, you wouldn't be proved wrong, because we'd be spending later.
Mr Carroll: Ms Rawlinson, you and I have had several hours of conversations and quite frankly I resent a little bit the spin you've put on the comments we've made. I thought we'd had some good discussions about some things, but I never said that our government only had an economic agenda. I did say that all of the programs, be they health care, education or whatever, are paid for with taxpayers' dollars, and since we've been spending a million of those more an hour than we've been taking in, the number one priority had to be to get our economic house in order. If that becomes only an economic agenda, then I will confess to that.
At the same time, how can you accuse a government that has instituted a College of Teachers to bring about professionalism in the profession, that has instituted an accountability office to raise and to maintain standards, that has instituted a nutrition program for children so they don't go to school hungry and that has instituted --
Mrs Pupatello: Haven't instituted it yet, Jack.
Mr Carroll: I have the floor, thank you.
The Vice-Chair: He's got the floor.
Mr Carroll: -- that has instituted language and speech therapy for preschool people -- how can you say the government that has instituted those programs only has an economic agenda?
Ms Rawlinson: I suggest to you that some of those programs already exist without any funding from this government within the framework of our school boards. They do in mine.
Mr Carroll: The taxpayer is paying for all of them, though.
Ms Rawlinson: I beg to differ. The nutrition programs have been funded by the Ontario public school teachers for years.
Mr Carroll: Are they all taxpayers?
Ms Rawlinson: Well, Jack, if you are going to make fun of me, would you like me to bring the tape that has you saying this government has only an economic agenda?
Mr Carroll: Oh, you tape our conversations now. Isn't that interesting?
Ms Rawlinson: You were there. You agreed to the taping.
Mr Carroll: I'll remember that next time.
Ms Rawlinson: I don't wish to discuss issues in that way.
The Vice-Chair: There was somebody else from the government side who wanted to speak, but I understood that Mr Carroll wanted to speak even more than the others so I let him have the floor for your side. That's it.
Thank you very much, ladies, for your very interesting presentation.
Mr Klees: Mr Chairman, I have a question. I thought if we could make a request of the table, in light of the number of submissions that have referred to the issue of the sick leave benefits being removed from the act and the very severe implications that would have -- I believe the last presenter suggested it would require a teacher to suffer excessive loss of pay or even jeopardize their employment, and this has been a recurring theme -- I believe it would help this committee in dealing with that issue if we could get details of the long-term disability benefits that are in place for teachers in this province, over and above those 20 sick-day benefits in the act, and how that compares to other professions in the province. I think that would help us.
The Vice-Chair: I assume that's a question to Mr Skarica and that he could provide us with the necessary information if it's available.
Mr Klees: I think it's a research question, Mr Chair.
Mr Skarica: It's in many of the briefs that we have.
The Vice-Chair: That's in the briefs, but I think the question is, can we get our legislative researcher to look into that.
GERARD CHARETTE
The Vice-Chair: Next we have Gerard Charette.
Mrs Pupatello: A question for the Chair: Because our next presenter has represented the Conservative government in the Windsor area via media interviews etc, is the next presenter representing the Conservative government in his presentation or representing the law firm Wilson, Walker, Hochberg, as the envelope indicates?
The Vice-Chair: The next presenter is sitting right here and if he wishes to answer that question, maybe he can do so.
Mrs Ecker: Excuse me, Mr Chair, on a point of order: I think this is a highly offensive question. We are not in the habit of asking the political loyalty or affiliation of any of the presenters who come here before us, so I think this is highly offensive.
Mrs Pupatello: Not political; I said Conservative government.
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute now. We have a presenter here who is ready to make a presentation. We're cutting into his 30 minutes. If he wishes to address the issues that have been raised, it's up to him. If he doesn't, that's entirely up to him as well.
Mr Wildman: I must say I agree, frankly. Every citizen has the right to apply to make a representation to the committee.
The Vice-Chair: The only reason I suggested that Mr Charette may want to answer is because he was shaking his head at that point in time and I thought he might want to put something on the record.
Mr Gerard Charette: Mr Chairman, these are my own submissions. I have not reviewed them with anyone other than my wife. Frankly, I do apologize for that label. That was a mistake. My secretary, instead of putting a plain white label on it, put a -- that has nothing to do, of course, with my submission. I apologize for that error.
The Vice-Chair: Welcome to our meeting, sir. You have half an hour for your presentation, and that includes any time for questions and answers. Just commence at any time, sir.
Mr Charette: This submission you're about to hear is based upon my earlier submissions given to the Royal Commission on Learning in 1993 and to Mr Tom Wells when he appeared in Windsor on the issue of local school board amalgamations.
At tab 1 of my document book -- and I am going to ask you, if it's not too difficult, to work with the document book. I apologize that it's not bound. I taxed my secretary enough. You'll see at tab 1, there's an account in the Windsor Star of the presentations made to the Royal Commission on Learning, and some prominence is given to my comments. I still stand by those comments today, and I want to get into that a little bit more if I may, including my difficulty controlling my weight, which continues on.
I think it's only fair to the listeners that I declare my biases to you today. In that regard, I declare that I'm a married parent of a 16-year-old daughter who goes to one of our county high schools. I have two brothers who teach in the separate school system and one who's a professor of economics. I have a sister who's a mathematics professor in the state of Texas, and my father and my mother founded the first Montessori school in Windsor. Education has always been a hot topic at my home.
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I am a fiscal and social conservative.
I am a supporter of the current government. I believe that Mike Harris and the members of the Conservative caucus are doing a great job, and of course I accept that others may have a different opinion.
I am solely responsible for this submission.
I have already mentioned the document book.
Next, on page 3, criticisms about our educational system: I think in many respects our educational system is in difficult shape, and I do mean and intend to criticize it. However, I should make clear that we have excellent people working in the system, and I'm not criticizing the people so much as the system. I just hasten to emphasize that to you, if I may.
The first part of my submission deals on page 1 with the issues of accountability and responsibility. What I draw back to is an article which appeared in Saturday's June 24, 1993 edition of the Windsor Star. The article deals with the fact that Windsor's public schools scored average or lower on national tests undertaken, I think, in 1992-93. My question, a rhetorical one perhaps, is, were the school boards fully responsible for these results and were they even partially or minimally responsible? I quote from the article, and you'll see it's indented:
"Grade 4 pupils in Windsor's public schools scored average or lower on recent national tests. According to the Windsor Board of Education, social and economic status are the biggest reasons for the poor showing....Dr A, head of the public board's psychological services, said that while the students `did not do as well as expected,' it's not the school system that is failing. Windsor's high unemployment rate is having a definite impact."
Going on: "Educators agree that parents and the public shouldn't fret about the test scores. Results are still in the average range."
Now listen to this, ladies and gentlemen. I'm a lawyer by profession. If a client asks me how my work rates, how do you suppose he would react if I said I was average and showed no sense of shame?
Mr Cooke: Let's do some independent testing and try it.
Mr Charette: Well, you may. I sit by the phone waiting for calls all day, gentlemen. That's right. I think that's something every one of us has to look at. How do we rate and are we just average?
We read on: "`We feel it is very much a reflection of the current economic situation in the city,' said Mr B, coordinator of the Windsor public board's special education services. `That's when our city really started to lag economically, which brings stress. When they're living in a stressful family situation, they're not thinking as clearly as they should be. They may not have had the stimulation they should have.'"
If you think back to the Great Depression of the 1930s, and if you were to research the educational results from that period, you would find that our educational system, by and large, produced good results. This was done at a time when poverty was at an all-time high.
As my mother-in-law is fond of telling me, when she went to grade school during the Depression, students had a sense of responsibility and were made to study. Parents and teachers had a sense of responsibility and created the necessary environment, one of moral obligation and respect. They didn't blame the lousy economy.
Continuing on: "Asked if the schools bear any responsibility, he answered, `I do not believe so. I believe our teachers provide a very adequate program....'"
Two conclusions I draw from that: (1) Our administrators are refusing to take any personal responsibility for poor results; (2) they display "very adequate" as the new standard of excellence.
If our administrators can only provide excellent results in education under ideal circumstances, when there are no economic difficulties, no social problems, and if they have no ability to respond to the current situation, then we might as well consider shutting down the schools.
If I may now, I'd like to look at the word "responsibility." I think it's something we forget. It's a compound word, and each part of the compound bears an important meaning.
"Responsibility," at the top of page 7, is really two words. It's "response" and "ability." It's the ability to respond to a state of affairs. That is what it means, to take and to have response ability.
Our educational administrators are unintentionally correct when they say the schools do not have responsibility for poor academic achievement by our educators. They are correct, although not in the manner intended by them. What they intended to say is that it's not their fault. What I am saying is that by their own admission they have not demonstrated the ability to respond to the academic needs of our children. It is my understanding that when one looks closely at the results of current testing, the same state of affairs exists.
Let me talk about the quality of education a little bit, if I may. At the top of page 8, I refer to tab 2 of my document book, which is taken from the American survey section of the Economist magazine. At tab 2, it recites a talk about educational TV, and it's all about the Jetsons. You can read it for yourself, but this program exposes children to "initiative, family feeling, love of pets; it provides introductory lessons in social responsibility and aerodynamics." That's passed off as education.
What are our educators doing? Let's take a look at tab 3, if you would. This is a press release I picked up a few years back put out by the Phantom of the Opera company directed towards teachers. It cites, "The highly successful Phantom education program" -- boy, that's an unintended statement -- "which has been offered at Toronto's historic Pantages Theatre" -- I don't think they meant what they said, but they're actually correct; let's follow along, please -- "has been expanded and revamped to give students the opportunity to learn more about some of the theatrical special effects that they observe on stage during performances of Andrew Lloyd Webber's...`The Phantom of the Opera.'"
Paragraph two: "Part two is a multi-media experience which will answer some of the questions students have been asking about `The Phantom of the Opera' over the years. A live host will demonstrate dazzling lighting and smoke effects." Can you imagine a young student going out for a job and telling his would-be employer, "I know a lot about smoke effects"? My Lord, what does this have to do with education?
There's an educational component in everything. Waking up in the morning is educational when you think about it, but the reality is that we're scoring low on the hard sciences, maths and language skills and we've got time to send people to see The Phantom of the Opera.
My daughter just went to Chicago last week. She spent 13 hours on a bus rolling down Interstate 94 to Chicago to learn something about urban geography. When I tell my wife or mother that I'm going to Chicago, she's worried because it can be a dangerous city. Why is my daughter spending 13 hours, two days out of school, on a bus rolling down a highway to go and study urban geography in Chicago? I really don't understand that.
Number 4, please: What our competitors think about our educational system I think is quite important. I work in the automotive industry here in Windsor, and we always keep track of our Japanese competitors.
Tab 4 I think is an excellent survey of the emerging economies of Asia and it really is scary information. I'm going to let you read the bottom of tab 4 because I see my time is running, but the emphasis is this: The four emerging tigers of the Far East, Japan, Korea, China and the new one coming on line, Singapore, are really challenging us. They're here to compete with us on a global basis, and these people take education very seriously.
Let me go, if I may, to tab 5, which I think really gets to the heart of my presentation. Tab 5 is The Economist's 1992 survey of education, an excellent article, if I might say. At the bottom of page 13 of that survey you will see some interesting words:
"Tigers behind the desk. Nobody can travel in Japan and the newly industrialized countries of the Pacific Rim without being startled by the cult of education.
"In Japan neatly unformed children" -- may I respectfully suggest you highlight that -- "stride to school at 8 o'clock on Sunday morning.
"In South Korea every other side street has a cramming school....
"All this effort has paid off in spades (not to mention grades). Glance at any league table of educational performance" -- that's a comparison table like the American baseball league -- "and you will find several Asian countries bunched near the top.
"The achievements of the region are a puzzle to people who think that educational success is a matter of public expenditure." Please highlight that, ladies and gentlemen.
"Even in Japan most of the schools are shabby and ill equipped by comparison to their western equivalents. In many schools in the region the average class size is more than 40."
"In Japan schools cut down on overheads -- and impart moral lessons in the bargain -- by getting the pupils to do menial tasks such as serving meals and cleaning the school."
These people are not from Jupiter. They are human beings and they have a wonderful focus on education. They approach education with humility and seriously.
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Tab 6 deals with a fellow who is perhaps a little controversial, the former Prime Minister of Singapore. These people are much too autocratic, much too authoritarian, there's no question about it, but listen to what this gentleman said. It's at the bottom of page 11.
"In a constituency meeting on February 8, Mr Lee did it again. He warned Singapore against heeding `liberal sociologists' who ask for a softer, less meritocratic touch in the schools. Look how badly the British have done with that kind of policy, he said, not to mention the Americans" -- and I dare say, ladies and gentlemen, Canadians.
"This is the result of 20 years of liberal education, new ideas of education, fulfilment, creativity. You never teach the child, you engage the child. You never discipline the child, you reason with him. The result is a workforce that cannot compete."
I am surprised that this man tipped his hand by giving this strategic information, but that's exactly how they look at us. I know this guy in many respects is not a model, but none the less that's how --
Interjection.
Mr Charette: That's right, and I do not emulate that, Mr Duncan, but we could get a lot more conservative and a lot tougher without even getting close to these people. I agree with you fully that there is a bad aspect to it, but the reality is, we're competing with these people.
Mr Cooke: More conservative than the Reform Party.
Mr Charette: No, sir, I do not agree. I think there is something wrong with that man, but the reality is that we are competing with these people.
Specific comments on Bill 34, if I may.
Mr Preston: That kid won't throw any more paint on cars.
Mr Charette: No, I guess not.
In any event, amalgamation versus joint venturing; the idea of amalgamating school boards is troubling to me. Although there are clearly circumstances in which some boards should be amalgamated, in many cases amalgamation is not the solution. We follow the mirage of economies of scale too frequently.
I like the idea of boards having the authority to enter into joint ventures. This permits school boards to look selectively for opportunities to enjoy economies of scale, and that's why I clearly support that portion of the bill.
Let me tell you a little bit, if I may, about the idea of amalgamation. If you go to tab 7, there's a really interesting article from the Economist magazine that tells about the attempt to break down a monolith, the Los Angeles district school board, which is just a horrendous thing. The basic message I'm trying to give to you is that when we amalgamate school boards, we sometimes produce bigger and more efficient bureaucracies. They are more remote from their clients, and frequently we are looking -- let me to back to my submission to get further into that idea, if I may. I apologize for any confusion.
At the top of page 14 I refer to an article from tab 8 which deals with the fall of big business. My submission recites the fact that "for decades firms in almost every business had sought `economies of scale' -- the idea that manufacturing or distributing goods in ever larger volumes lowers costs per unit, so that a firm becomes more efficient as it grows.
"Most managers recognize that expanding a business involves new costs. As they grow, firms may become bureaucratic, inflexible and wasteful. Employees, believing themselves to be mere cogs, are less accountable and harder to motivate.
"But such `diseconomies' are usually a footnote. They seem more than outweighed by the benefits of bigness.
"The triumphs of mass production early in the century had given birth to most of the giant firms which came to power.... That bigger is better was rarely disputed.
"Until recently, it was even true. The great surprise of the past decade has been that changes which were supposed to make bigger even better have had the opposite effect."
The message here is that bigness is no guarantor of efficiency and economies of scale. It frequently leads to bureaucracies that are less responsive to customers. If we look around the world at our economic landscape, we see the GMs and the IBMs of the world that have gotten so big and bloated that they cannot serve their clients. The same is true, I would submit, of our school boards and school bureaucracies. Making them even bigger quite possibly will lead to even more frightening diseconomies of scale and little, if any, educational profit. That's why I like the idea of the joint venture. It lets people attack things selectively.
Will we ever learn? Just recounting the fact that the average bank merger in the United States did not raise productivity and actually made the combined banks even less profitable -- in reality, this is the risk I see with school board mergers.
At the top of page 16: In fact, the worst mergers are those of two struggling businesses, or educational bureaucracies, I would submit, that are looking for ways to merge themselves out of their own problems instead of dealing with those problems head-on. The merger of some educational bureaucracies will only result in an organization that is further from the customer, the teacher, the student, the parents and the taxpayers. It is axiomatic that truly successful mergers involve two different types of organizations. Typically, in the best merger one organization is stronger and more focused than the other.
If you merge two organizations that are both weak and lack vision, the couple arising from the merger will, by definition, be an unhealthy couple. It's a little bit like merging a stroke patient with a patient on kidney dialysis. No matter what you do, you've got an unhealthy couple.
School boards and school bureaucracies must yield to new and simpler forms of management and they must be willing to dismember themselves. We must have smaller schools.
I move now to the last point. If there's one idea that I could help kill in Ontario -- one lie I should say -- it's that spending money automatically leads to an improvement of service. I would submit to the members of this committee that it's even worse than that: Spending does not improve service. In fact, when you're spending too much, you actually decrease the quality of service. I think Ontario's education system is in that mode right now.
Let me give you a classic example, what I think is just a dynamite example. It's from the Economist American survey of the Kansas City, Missouri, school district. That school district suffered under a 10-year desegregation plan by a United States federal judge who in effect ordered the school district to spend $1.3 billion. I think this is so critical, I'm going to read directly from the article, if I may.
I'm beginning at the middle column of the first page, right above the picture of the young lady:
"Both in the scope of their programs and in the quality of their physical facilities, Kansas City's schools now match any in the world. An `agribusiness' high school has two greenhouses and laboratories galore. There is a business and technology high school, an engineering and technology high school, and an `advanced technology' high school, which boasts 16 areas of specialization, including car repair, garment design, and construction. One high school prepares people for jobs in health care, another for jobs in the military, a third churns out policemen and firemen.
"The range of courses and the variety of teaching methods available is mind-boggling. Two elementary schools use Montessori methods." My parents would be impressed. "Eleven schools concentrate on international studies, and teach foreign languages through `total immersion.' Eight schools concentrate on maths and science, six on the visual and performing arts, four on Latin. The schools even have a $900,000 annual budget to promote themselves on local television."
It goes on, but let's take a look at the dark side of this story. I'm going over to the bottom of the first column on the second page, just below all the graphs: "So far, however, all this lavish expenditure has produced few of the desired results." It cites how white flight has continued and goes on from there.
Continuing on with the next paragraph in the extreme right-hand margin at the bottom:
"Indeed, some key statistics suggest that things have got worse since the spending binge began. Pupils in elementary schools which have not been turned into" so-called "magnet schools regularly outperform pupils in generously funded magnet schools. The rise in expenditure has coincided with a fall in the maths scores of middle-school pupils and a surge in the dropout rate. Moreover, the dropout rate has risen every year, without fail, since the" desegregation "decree was handed down, and now stands at a disgraceful 60%."
Here's the punch line, ladies and gentlemen:
"So far no one has been able to explain these negative correlations between expenditure and performance. Perhaps they reflect the stress of removing children from neighbourhood schools and putting them into unfamiliar surroundings. Perhaps they come from the pressures of a more rigorous syllabus and more intensive competition. But the Kansas City experiment clearly underlines the lack of any simple relationship between spending more money and getting better results."
That's the bottom line.
"To aficionados, this is familiar news. Eric Hanushek, an economist at the University of Rochester in New York state, points out that almost 200 econometric studies have come to the same conclusion. But such studies are too boringly statistical to influence political opinion, as witness the recurrent cry for more spending on public schools. Kansas City is different. The school system is running on an experiment based on every educationalist's daydream, `What if I could build my own school system, regardless of cost?' and it is coming up with uniformly negative conclusions. Educational reformers should forget about their money-spending schemes and start thinking instead of some more hardheaded ways to raise educational standards."
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That, ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you is the exact situation you're in. If you think back to my daughter barrelling down Interstate 94 for two days out of school and if you think back to those young Orientals, who are admittedly in shabby surroundings, they are learning. It's a paradoxical truth, I would submit to you, that the more we increase spending, the poorer our results are going to be.
I know that goes contrary to every experience that anything is ever told us about western economies, but the reality is, the same thing happened in the automotive sector. I listened to all the complaints for years in the early 1980s and late 1970s when the American car companies and tool and die manufacturers were talking about how they couldn't compete with the Japanese, they couldn't do it their way. They cut costs and quality went up -- quality went up. If you cut costs, I submit if you love our children, you will cut costs and we will get better standards.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. That is my submission.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, sir. We have time for one short question from each caucus, starting with the NDP.
Mr Cooke: Well, Mr Chair, I drew the short straw. Mr Charette, I just have one question for you. If I follow what you're saying, you would definitely be one person who would strongly support making the public education system more accountable and one of the ways of doing that is more province-wide assessment of our students.
Mr Charette: Yes, I would support that as a general principle.
Mr Cooke: If you support that, and I certainly do, then you would at least criticize the government for one thing, and that is that they have drastically rolled back the amount of province-wide testing that was planned for the province, that was funded for the province. In fact, we're not even going to have our first province-wide test in grade 3 for a bit and then a few more years before we get to grade 6 and then a few more years before we get to grade 9. In fact, grades 6 and 9 aren't even going to be province-wide testing; they're going to be spot-testing of students. So if in fact you believe in the philosophy this government has announced in terms of cuts, and you believe that it's going to produce better results in our school system, why is this government afraid to test those results in our province?
Mr Charette: Mr Cooke, I don't speak for the government. I know they intend to establish an office of education quality --
Mr Cooke: It's been established. That was established by our government. The legislation was passed. They've rolled back the testing.
Mr Charette: Really, you have me at a disadvantage. I wasn't prepared for that question and I accept what you're saying. I think testing can be an important component to determining exactly what's going on in school. I agree with you.
Mr Skarica: You bring out an interesting point, sir. If I could just read you the Windsor Board of Education figures with the Windsor Roman Catholic board figures -- which school system does your daughter go to?
Mr Charette: She's in the county separate.
Mr Skarica: Generally throughout the province I think they spent about $1,000 or less, but in secondary school the Windsor Board of Education spends $7,780 per student whereas the Windsor Roman Catholic separate board spends $9,000, which is $2,000 higher. You're familiar with the area. Would those students in the Windsor separate board be getting a better education than the Windsor board, or the same, or would you equate it?
Mr Charette: I can't speak to that with much detail. I guess my basic position is that -- look, I grew up in a poor system. I started in literally a two-room schoolhouse. I'm thankful for that because we focused on learning and not on all the frills. That's all I can say. I'm sorry I can't be more specific on the answer. I'm very, very leery of school boards that have high spending; I really am.
Mr Patten: Mr Charette, I enjoyed your presentation.
Mr Charette: Thank you.
Mr Patten: It has some very controversial issues and you come at one thing. I must say that your thesis is: Less money spent will see standards rise. My assumption is you mean if objectively, truly, there is an excess amount of spending, because I don't think you would disagree, and you see it all around you, that children who were exposed to more resources, more opportunities, things that cost, enhance the stimulation of a child for growth and one thing or another -- growth and development.
I agree with this, by the way, most of all in your presentation, that is, your issue that bigger bureaucracies are the most expensive and the most wasteful and get away from their mission, if it's child-driven, or student-driven, what have you, in terms of education. I would share the faultiness of the Sweeney report, on which it was based, that you begin with the end result -- just cut school boards in half, and this will somehow bring you to a point where you will have more efficient systems. I have not seen that with schools, I haven't seen it with organizations -- you refer to IBM and you refer to GM -- and I would say the same thing for municipalities, those who propose, "Just take these 11 municipalities from my area, throw them all together and you will have a more efficient municipal administration." So I support your thesis.
Mr Charette: No, that's not what I've said. I think some amalgamations are warranted. I'm concerned when we have weak, large, inefficient bureaucracies. But there are definitely some amalgamations I believe are warranted. I don't think there's any question about that.
Mr Patten: But question it. In other words, you're saying, "Question it, look at it specifically." Right?
Mr Charette: Oh yes, look at it closely; no question. I do question you. I don't accept the point that the more exposure people have -- again, think of my daughter who spent 13 hours on Interstate 94. By argument, that was broadening her horizons. She's having a tough time in algebra this year and I would rather have seen two days in school instead of a trip down Interstate 94.
Mr Patten: In the long run, she might be more worldly.
Mr Duncan: If it took 13 hours to get to Chicago, I think you need a new bus driver.
Mr Charette: Well, that's a return trip.
The Vice-Chair: It was a slow ride. Thank you very much, Mr Charette. We enjoyed your presentation but we have other people to listen to as well.
Mr Cooke: On a point of information or a request for information, Mr Chair: The parliamentary assistant, when he was referring to the per-pupil expenditures for the Windsor separate board and the Windsor public board was clearly wrong, otherwise those two boards would be spending more than the Metropolitan Toronto board. I would not want those numbers to remain on the record, so I would ask that the ministry supply the appropriate numbers for the record.
Mr Skarica: I can file the document that I referred to.
Mr Cooke: I can assure you we do not spend $9,000 per student in the Windsor separate school board.
Mr Skarica: That's just the figure I've been --
Mr Cooke: No way.
The Vice-Chair: He'll file the document. We can all take a look at it, then we can make up our own minds after that.
WINDSOR ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Windsor Roman Catholic Separate School Board, and making a presentation is Rev Joseph Redican. Welcome, sir.
Mr Cooke: Do you spend $9,000 per student?
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute now. I would ask the members of the committee on both sides to keep the sidebars to a minimum so that we can pay attention to the presenter.
Rev Joseph Redican: Mr Chair, as an old debater, I don't mind sidebars at all.
Mrs Ecker: Don't encourage us. It's a bad practice.
Father Redican: By trade I'm a teacher and a high school principal and that's why I don't have any voice today, so you'll have to excuse the gravelly texture of my remarks.
The actual figure that we had for 1994 was $6,800 roughly per pupil, which is considerably less than the public board, but that's another story and there's some reason that their figures are higher.
The other thing I would like to point out, although it's pretty darned irrelevant, but I know the school that Mr Charette's daughter goes to, I know about that trip. I know the teachers who put it on. One of them has four kids and I'm sure would rather have been at home with his children than on the road with teenagers to Chicago; on top of which, no child is allowed to go from any of the boards in this area on any trip, particularly one out of town to an American city, without the express written permission of the parents. So if that child went on that trip, it was with Mr Charette's permission.
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Mr Cooke: Or his kid can forge his signature pretty good.
Father Redican: I don't know. Some of them are good.
At any rate, in terms of our submission on Bill 34, which is what I believe we were specifically focused on today, the Windsor Roman Catholic Separate School Board believes that some of the amendments to the Education Act contained in Bill 34 are educationally, socially and fiscally regressive. Take, for example, the provision to remove the requirement from school boards that they operate junior kindergarten. Educationally, it flies in the face of numerous studies, including the widely acclaimed Royal Commission on Learning, which told us that effective early childhood education is the single greatest factor that can address learning deficits, especially in children who come from economically deprived backgrounds and/or families where English is not the first language spoken at home. As the principal of an inner- city school, a core city school that has a very large ESL program, I can tell you right now that we encounter these kinds of learning deficits on a regular basis.
The royal commission states, "The evidence we've reviewed of the effectiveness of such programs, combined with the significant number of households...where positive family responsibilities are not met effectively, tells us that we can't afford not to have them," and by "them" they mean early childhood education programs such as junior kindergarten. As a matter of fact, the royal commission recommended the option for boards of having even earlier childhood education, for as young as age 3.
Despite this and other compelling evidence, the government has seen fit to make optional the offering of junior kindergarten, a move that is certain to exacerbate the growing inequities that will sooner or later threaten the social fabric of our province. Kids who are not given the kind of head start that JK provides become tomorrow's problems in high school and in the court system.
The legislation also exacerbates inequities among school boards. Junior kindergarten is a point of entry into the school system for most children. In many cases, separate school boards have had funding for JK cut but still must find the money for JK or face an enrolment catastrophe because their wealthy coterminous public boards can easily afford to continue to offer the program.
I dare say it's not simply a matter of public and separate; it's a matter of school boards that have commercial-industrial wealth and those who do not. When you set up some sort of permissive system, it seems very progressive in some ways, but in fact what it does is create a competition that is not healthy. It's better to do away with JK entirely or to have it entirely, but to set up this system where some boards must squeeze out of somewhere else to get the money for JK -- particularly JK, because it's just so critical. If you get the kids into your schools and into your system in JK, you've got them for the next 12 or 13 years. If you don't get them in JK, then you don't have them for the next 12 or 13 years. It's really a very critical year and not one that can be left to chance.
The effect of this legislation, presented as it is in the current context of inequitable school finance arrangements, increases in competitiveness, makes it even more difficult for poorer separate boards and poor public boards to balance their budgets.
This inequity, the reform of which is seen as the sine qua non by the Ontario School Board Reduction Task Force, is also problematic when it comes to another major component of the bill: the provisions to require school boards to take cooperative measures to reduce costs. Until all boards are financed equally, cooperative measures will be problematic at best. For many years, the public board's idea of cooperation has been to design a program or service and then solicit the financial support of its coterminous separate board. In many cases, separate boards have found it more economical to offer the same service or program on its own. Case in point: The Windsor separate school board shared computer services with the Windsor public board, but we discovered that we could actually set up our own program, hire our own staff, get our own equipment and it would be cheaper within two years. The problem is often that the whole notion of cooperation has got to begin at the concept stage, not at the implementation stage.
In order for these cooperative provisions to be effective in the legislation before this committee and eventually the House, the government must first address the issue of educational finance. It must also carefully monitor the cooperative measures process and sanction those boards which see cooperation as the last rather than the first step in program or service development and implementation.
Returning to the issue of educational finance reform, the bill allows the government to claw back the commercial and industrial tax wealth that some boards enjoy, particularly, I believe, the Toronto school boards and Ottawa-Carleton. However, the actual amounts indicated by the minister to be clawed back in this current fiscal year are a small fraction of the negative grant amount of the boards affected by this provision. In fact, the Sweeney report indicated that as much as $600 million would eventually come out of the Toronto school boards in terms of the commercial-industrial tax wealth that they have. If I'm not mistaken, the amount that's being clawed back from the Toronto school boards this fiscal year is around $35 million. I may be off by $5 million or $10 million, but what's $5 million or $10 million? This, combined with the fact that there is still no comprehensive plan to reform educational finance in this province, gives the impression that the government lacks the political will to deal with root causes and instead prefers to dabble with superficial, cosmetic adjustments to the status quo.
Another provision that will serve to increase inequity is the one to remove teachers' sick days from the act. The effect of this will be to widen the gap between the benefits enjoyed by the employees of rich boards, who can negotiate better benefits, and those of poorer boards, who cannot afford to.
In conclusion, while it is difficult to see how this bill addresses the need for reform, it is easy to see, in my opinion, how it will increase inequities in both educational opportunity and educational finance.
Mr Skarica: I just quoted some figures regarding the difference between what the Roman Catholic board spends and the public board spends, and those were total costs, including capital, but your operating costs basically show the same differential. I've been to numerous high schools in the province, both Roman Catholic and public, and I think that same inequity exists throughout most of the province: the Roman Catholic boards have around $1,000 less per student to spend. I don't see any appreciable difference in the education that the Roman Catholic kids are getting as opposed to the public. It seems to me they're both getting about the same quality of education. Do you agree or not agree? Would you comment on that? I'm not being critical of either system.
Father Redican: I understand. I think that to a certain extent what is not shown in the public school figures, for example, is that they tend to run higher-cost tech programs. We do offer a complete range of technological programs in the Catholic high schools, but because, by and large, we took over old composite schools or we were not building large tech facilities, we tended to go more with the generic technological programs, we might have one auto shop in our entire system rather than at several schools. Those are cheaper programs to run. That's one factor.
In terms of the overall criticism that more money does not equal higher quality, there is a point at which that is true. For instance, in the Windsor separate school board, because of Bill 80, the extension of the separate school system, between 1984 and 1987-88 we opened up three new high schools and the board ran a deficit. That debt had to be paid off, so we had to go through some very severe cutbacks to pay off that debt. There's no question that in doing that we found waste; we found areas that we could cut back and not seriously affect the quality of education being offered to the kids. But there is also an absolute point beyond which you can't do that. If we had to absorb another $4-million or $5-million hit next year, for instance, there's no question at all that it would mean fewer supports for kids with learning difficulties, it would mean higher class size and all those kinds of things.
As a former English teacher and history teacher, I can tell you right now that class size makes a difference. If I don't have the time to mark the papers, to grade the kids' writing, to interact with them on a one-to-one basis, that makes a difference as to the kind of improvements they're going to be able to make in basic skills.
Yes, there's dead wood to cut, but at least in some boards, our board being one of them, we don't have much left to prune. If we cut much more, we're going into flesh, not fat.
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Mr Carroll: Father, I had an opportunity to go out and participate at the opening of the new field house and the new stadium for a new separate high school out in LaSalle-Sandwich. I forget the name of the school right now. It was just recently. They boasted about this incredible track they had which is made of the finest material in the world and they boasted of an NBA-sized, regulation-sized gym. As a taxpayer, I struggle a little bit to hear you talk about, "There's no fat to cut; we're down to the bone," all these things that are important, when we're still building Taj Mahals. Can you explain that?
Mr Cooke: The parents raised a lot of that money.
Mrs Pupatello: Not one dollar of taxpayers' money. You know that. You asked the school that.
Mr Carroll: I've asked Father Redican to answer the question.
Mrs Pupatello: You asked the school that too.
The Vice-Chair: Okay, just a minute now. Please answer, sir.
Father Redican: Are there some cases where there have been perhaps overly generous amounts of money spent in some areas? Yes. I believe that. I'm in a school parts of which are 70 years old. It was redone for $4.5 million. We've got 1,000 kids functioning quite well there. I mean, yes, we can get along with a lot less in some cases, but if you're talking about fat in the 1990s as opposed to fat in the 1980s, we can't reclaim capital money that we believe could be spent more prudently. That's not an option. But if we start claiming operating expenses out of schools in order to cut our capital deficit, we're in big trouble. We cannot sacrifice the operating of the school. To be honest with you, in terms of our school boards in this area, the separate school boards in this area, there's not a lot of fat to be cut in terms of operating.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Klees.
Mr Wildman: Jack, did you refuse to participate in the opening of that?
Mrs Pupatello: No. He took credit for it, though.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Klees has floor.
Interjections.
Mr Klees: Do we get to put the time back on the clock, Mr Chair?
The Vice-Chair: You'll get back all the time.
Mr Klees: Thank you. I'd like to just follow up on one point with regard to your comments about the fact that JK is a very important entry into the school system for most children, that that creates a competitive environment between coterminous boards. You indicated that the separate system is therefore in competition with a public board that may have more money and be able to provide that. Our experience is, and the numbers will show at this point in any event, that there are more separate school boards that have chosen to retain JK than public.
Father Redican: You bet.
Mr Klees: What is driving that? Is it capturing the students as opposed to the need for the program?
Father Redican: Absolutely. The fact of the matter is that if a school board is going to function fully and effectively, it needs to have the kids coming to it. In terms of the current legislation and the legislation that's governed separate school boards for 150 years, parents have the option of being separate school supporters, which means that if you don't ask them to exercise that option at the earliest possible moment and they choose not to exercise that, it puts separate schools at an even greater disadvantage, on top of which any access that separate schools have to commercial-industrial pooling, as it's set up right now, is based on the number of residential ratepayers we have. So it's a very, very critical point for separate schools, and sacrifices will be made to offer JK as long as it's a program that's available to kids in the province.
Mrs Pupatello: Reverend, it's good to see you. Excuse my smiling, but as you know, those of us who were at the various openings of track houses, field houses, along with the government member -- while the government member proudly held the plaque on behalf of the government as though he were taking some kind of credit for having funded the project, it's laughable that he should today suggest that there's only one taxpayer. The reality is that in the --
Mr Cooke: You mean he didn't give the same speech then?
Mrs Pupatello: No, he gave the same speech as well. But the reality is that in all of those what the government members call "excesses" are in fact fund-raised dollars by parents of all of those school communities.
I don't know if the same is true with your Catholic school board, but certainly in the county Catholic school board, the previous presenter discussed the very basic necessities. We have a school in our county, Sacred Heart. They lack the very basic necessities such as adequate washroom facilities for the number of students that school is now carrying. The board is now plagued with the issue of not enough portables. The portables are multiplying out there. They have one set of washroom facilities in that school -- very basic requirements in education.
What concerns me is that the government members put forward some kind of notion that everything is grand in the Taj Mahals of schools in Essex county, and the reality is that we have areas of hugely growing populations, such as LaSalle, where we are not meeting through education ministries the very basic necessities like bathroom facilities. Could you comment on that, please?
Father Redican: Our board at present is not in an expanding situation. We are probably holding our own in terms of total number of students, so our accommodation problems are not that grave at this point. But there's no question that everything we build has to be maintained and has to be replaced.
Mrs Pupatello: It would be like funding an MRI without giving the operating dollars to fund it, would you say?
Father Redican: Right. All of our schools, every building that we have, every desk that we have, have to be replaced every so many years. The minister's decision, for instance, to cut the capital for building costs and that type of thing is okay for a year if it helps to solve a problem. There's nothing the matter with that for a year, but you run into some serious problems if you do that continually over a long period of time.
Mr Duncan: Father Redican, one of the more compelling aspects of your brief and one of the ones I found distinct from some of the others we've heard is the notion around inequity that this bill creates, not only between Catholic and public boards but between rich and poor boards. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a bit, your concerns around the issues that deal with inequities between and among boards.
Father Redican: Mr Duncan, I was addressing this to the whole committee, of course, but the impression I've gotten from conversing with government members and people in the minister's office was that trying to reduce costs was a very important item on their agenda, and frankly I don't object to that. I don't object to reducing costs, but one way that you do reduce costs is to set up a more equitable situation. If you can eliminate some of the unnecessary competition that goes on, if you can do those things that will not lead to large expenditures of capital in certain areas and that type of thing, then I think that's something that ought to interest all members of the House and both sides of the House. That's why I think the issue of equity is very important.
If we want people to be educated fairly across the province, if we want tax dollars to be spent fairly across the province, then equity's the first thing that has to be addressed. But to be absolutely fair, and I have some sympathy for the government on this, it's going to take a lot of chutzpah to do it. It's going to take a lot of chutzpah because there are going to be some people pretty upset. I could use more colourful language, but they're going to be pretty upset because you're going to be taking dollars out of one place and putting them someplace else. It's a question of whether we as a society have the will to look out for the whole of the province of Ontario or if we're just primarily concerned with making sure that kids in Toronto have a whole lot of money for their educational system. As a former Torontonian and probably future Torontonian, I love to see Toronto have wonderful things, but as someone who's lived all over the province, I know the needs of the entire province. We can't afford to have one part of the province gobble up all the resources of the rest of the province.
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Mr Patten: Father, you made the point regarding cooperative ventures or consortia efforts to share costs or services, that kind of thing. I want to provide you with the opportunity to elaborate a little bit, because I'm not sure it was necessarily understood. What I understood by what you said was that sometimes you could say "cooperate," but you've got two different systems that are incompatible, and one system, the smaller system, might be the better one to use, but one system doesn't want to back off and change their system. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit on that, because I think it's a good point.
Father Redican: I think what Mr Skarica was saying, for instance, was that the cost differential between the boards indicates that if the separate boards are offering a good-quality program for roughly $1,000 or $1,200 a head less across the province, then it seems to me that in terms of how to save money, the separate boards ought to be the ones being consulted. Meanwhile, the public boards are calling for the merger or the abolition of separate boards. It doesn't make a lot of sense when we're the ones that seem to know how to manage money pretty well.
There are two items. One is the compatibility of the two systems. That's a factor, but that's not the only thing. It's how they do business and how we go about cooperation. I know in the bill -- I left the bill over there and I couldn't put my finger on the exact provision -- there's a provision for reporting on what measures are being taken to cooperate, but is there in that something that analyses it and that there's a sanction to it?
In other words, if a public board or a separate board, whoever, has just paid very superficial lip-service to the cooperative business and they simply say, "We asked the separate board to share in computers, but they wouldn't," period, end of story, did you ask them at the beginning? Was the committee formed when you decided you needed this? Was the consultation begun at the front end of the process rather than the middle or the end of the process? If that's either in the legislation or the regulations or the implementation of it, then it could be fairly effective at bringing about some of the cooperation that everybody wants to see happen, but if it's not, then it's not going to do a darn thing.
Mr Cooke: Thanks for the presentation. I just have a couple of questions or comments to make that maybe you can respond to. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I have a couple of areas I disagree with, and since we've been agreeing with all the presenters except for our lawyer friend this afternoon, I want to just pick on a couple of areas.
One is that you made a statement a couple of minutes ago that you don't disagree that there can be some cutbacks in how much money is spent, but what we need to do is to distribute that money more fairly. I think it's only fair, though, that you say to everybody that it's easier for you to say that from the Catholic school system, because if the pie is cut and then redistributed in the way that education finance reform would see, you wouldn't have less, you'd have more, even though the pie was smaller. So that misses the point of the pain it's going to cause in one of the systems.
It's not just Toronto. I remember sitting in the boardroom in the minister's office, and the two people who were in to see me were the trustees' organization for the Catholic system and the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board. I asked the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board, "Are you in favour of province-wide pooling or just pooling in the region?" and of course they're just interested in pooling in Metropolitan Toronto, because the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board is one of the richest boards in the province.
I don't think when we're discussing this really difficult issue of education finance reform -- I agree that something needs to be done, but I don't think it's fair to just pass over the surface of it and say, "It's just a matter of fairness," and if you could see the pie being decreased in size, you would support that, when you then missed the next statement saying, "Of course, that means we're going to have a bigger portion of the pie, so it's going to be easy for us." It's going to be tough on them.
Father Redican: I don't think the intention is that we would have an even bigger portion of the pie. I think the idea is that overall we would get better control in certain areas of education expenditure. What I think the separate system objects to is a point-by-point decrease. If there are going to be cuts in spending in education, and we're already at if not the bone at least the flesh, then not underestimating the pain that people have to go through, that public boards and enriched boards will have to go through, if we are cut even more, it's the survival of our schools and it's the quality of education of our kids.
Mr Cooke: All I ask you to do is keep in mind that there are some difficulties.
Father Redican: There are tremendous difficulties.
Mr Cooke: Tremendous difficulties, and also keep in mind that coming from the Windsor separate school board, even though we have difficulties in Windsor, the Windsor separate school board is one of the wealthier boards and it is wealthier than a lot of the poorer public school boards.
Father Redican: Absolutely.
Mr Cooke: I'd also like to talk on cooperative services, because I fundamentally disagree with the argument you've used in your brief here that the only way we can ever have cooperative services is when the two systems are entirely -- until the funding system is fixed. I agree that would help it, but in this area of the province, of all the areas of the province, your director has been quite direct about it publicly, saying, "We have an incredibly poor record here in Windsor and Essex on shared services."
You look at the empty schools between Tecumseh and the east end. In your system, in the east end, in Forest Glade, there are empty school spaces, in Tecumseh there's huge overcrowding, and until very recently the Catholic school board and the county said, "We refuse to bus our kids a mile and a half into Forest Glade, because it's not our board and we'd rather build new schools." So I also think it's absolutely important.
You further the cause of these folks over here cutting billions of dollars out of the system by saying that we're cooperating as much as we can. We're not. That's where money is wasted, and we've got kids in portables in Tecumseh when they could be in classrooms in Forest Glade. How do we justify that?
Father Redican: I don't think it's justified at all, and I think what you're going to see happen is greater cooperation as a result in part of legislation like this; not solely but in part. I know when you were minister, Mr Cooke, a lot was done in terms of promoting cooperation, and there was some movement made.
To go back to your other point in terms of redistributing the wealth of boards, it cannot be done precipitously, it cannot be done overnight. When you brought in the localized pooling of commercial-industrial taxes -- actually I think it was the Liberal government and it was implemented by your government, but that was over seven years, I believe. Anything that's done has got to be over time. With any sort of cooperative measures, you have to build those kinds of bridges and you put in -- well, you know from writing legislation -- encouragement, incentives and sanctions in a balance that will result in the kinds of behaviours that you want to have.
I know as a teacher I have the kids for a year, and I start from here and hopefully I end up with them knowing a little bit more at the end, and that's the same way we progress socially. We start with what we've got and we make some changes until it's better, and I think it is getting better, but it's going to take some time.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation and your comments. Very thoughtful.
JANE MERIANO
SUE CAREY
The Vice-Chair: Next we have a whole group of people.
Mrs Jane Meriano: No, there are just two of us.
The Vice-Chair: Maybe you can come forward and introduce yourselves, because I don't know who you are exactly.
Mrs Meriano: My name is Jane Meriano, and beside me is Sue Carey. I'm going to speak first and then I'll hand it over to Sue.
Good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity afforded me by our democratic process to speak publicly to those gathered here today, even though Mr Cooke is leaving. My name is Jane Meriano. I have been involved in adult education with the Windsor public school board since the 1980s.
Yes, I support adult continuing education day school programs, but I wish to note that the grants should be increased to $7.35 per student-hour as it is in the regular high school program. If this is not viable, school boards should be encouraged to access support from the local community tax base through the mill rate structure to compensate for the shortfall created by the provincial government and the Ministry of Education and Training. Increased funding is vital to ensure a successful program for adult students.
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What do adult students need? Adults need a full range of courses leading to a secondary school diploma accepted by employers, colleges and universities. Adults need experienced, qualified teachers with expertise in teaching adults. Adult students need support services, such as guidance and career counselling, offered by qualified teachers experienced in working with adults. Adult students need co-op programs in partnership with business to provide work experience and access to job markets. Adult students need support materials, such as books, computers, computer software, computer hardware and audiovisual resources, in order to receive a complete education. Adult students need flexible schedules offered by continuing education day school programs to accommodate the shifts and hours worked by adults. Some students work all night and go to school during the day, as many businesses now are running 24 hours. Take, for example, our own casino.
Without sufficient funding for adult continuing education day programs, the Ministry of Education and the government of Ontario is in danger of failing these adult students twice. These students were failed once as teens by not having the appropriate support services to stay in school. Now, as they have matured and resolved to return to high school, they are again failed by having limited access or unavailable access to suitable secondary programs.
Many adults have special needs that cannot be met in regular school programs or through impersonal night school programs. Now these adults need encouragement and support to maintain a healthy self-concept to re-enter and stay in school to complete a graduation diploma so they can become productive members of society, able to secure a job and pay taxes. These adults need qualified, experienced teachers who understand their needs and who can help them fulfil their goals.
Adult students cannot afford access to private educational institutions which charge exorbitant rates and come up short in providing marketable skills. Without marketable job skills or academic qualifications for higher learning, adult students must resort to social assistance and thus become a greater burden on taxpayers for a much longer period of time.
Many boards offer night school programs, but night school programs do not meet the needs of the greater population of adult students. Many night school courses are not accessible to many of the day students. Adults who are single parents and require child care cannot access night school. Adults requiring public transportation find public transportation limited and possibly unsafe during the evening hours. Night school programs offer fewer course selections, more inflexible schedules, few support services and a longer period of time to complete a diploma. As a result, adult-ed students on social assistance will need social assistance for a longer period of time.
This government, by denying full funding to adult education day programs and by passing legislation which will eliminate adult education day programs in secondary school, will deny access to a quality education to the most vulnerable members in our society. This is not common sense; this is regressive sense.
I urge you to advise the Ontario Conservative caucus to end its discrimination against adult students and I urge the government to increase the funding options for adult continuing day school programs. Discrimination against adults based on age is not acceptable. Increased equitable funding is required to provide the educational support and job skills needed to get most adult students off social assistance and into the workforce.
Lower funding will mean that many adults will be denied skill-based courses. Lower funding will mean that there will not be enough qualified professional staff to do complete individual assessment to properly assign maturity and equivalency credits. Lower funding may hinder appropriate guidance to ensure maximum success in the shortest period of time.
Many students succeed because of co-op programs. These programs do not exist in night school or in underfunded continuing education day school programs. In co-op, students learn job skills and employers have an opportunity to observe prospective employees. Adult students who do well usually receive jobs.
Social services report a high success rate in subsequent employment among graduates of the continuing education day school program. The success is based on the fact that responsibility, self-discipline, self-motivation and the establishment of routines have been successfully internalized by attending continuing adult education day programs.
In conclusion, I urge you to advise the education minister and the cabinet to reconsider your policy of withdrawing support from adult education day programs. Give people hope for the future. Give people faith in the democratic system. Include humanism in your policymaking. Have a hand in breaking the cycle of poverty.
Mrs Sue Carey: I'm very pleased that the Legislature committee on social development decided to include the city of Windsor for its hearings on Bill 34. My name is Sue Carey and I'm representing the Ontario Council of Adult Educators, of which I've been a director for the past two years. I am also an experienced adult educator for 14 years with the Windsor Board of Education. I've taught adults for six years and have been program leader at the Adult Learning Centre for the past eight. Therefore, I will address only those sections of Bill 34 that deal with adult ed.
During the past 14 years, I have counselled, guided, taught and encouraged adult students who have dropped back to school. It's impossible to label all adults who return to school with the same negative label of "dropout," because many return to complete their high school diploma that for whatever reason they did not complete years before, or return to school because their job was lost due to plant closure, or return to school as part of a training plan for workers' comp or Human Resources Development Canada, or return to school to complete the requirements for post-secondary education.
The Windsor Board of Education was one of the first adult daytime credit facilities in the province of Ontario. Since originally set up in the late 1970s, the Windsor board received continuing education grants. Our model was copied throughout the province as more and more adults returned to school. Our school is still on continuing education grants in 1996.
In recent months, a major problem has developed because the Ministry of Education has adopted the view that if Windsor can operate a successful continuing education facility during the day, so can all other boards in the province. However, no one bothered asking us the advantages and disadvantages of operating this type of a day school on continuing education grants. I was paid by the hour originally back in the early 1980s, and we provided a limited service to the city of Windsor. It was limited in the sense of the number of hours we operated, the type of courses we selected or had, we had no co-op, no guidance, no special ed and it became increasingly clear that such a service needed to be provided.
The Windsor board recognized the needs of the community of Windsor. All of our major employers demand a high school diploma as a minimum requirement for employment in this city, and also for advancement in the company. The Adult Learning Centre grew in size of student population, teaching staff and hours of service. We introduced a shift workers' program to help employees of the three auto plants and their feeder plants. This growth resulted in the need for guidance counsellors. I won't repeat what Jane earlier had to say concerning the needs of the adult learner except to repeat that as taxpayers to the educational system, it would be discrimination to deny them access to all the services provided to children.
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The purpose of what I've mentioned previously is to tell you today that the taxpayers of the city have contributed to the running of this very successful program. Our day school credit program does cost money. It's impossible to run any effective, efficient program that meets the needs of the citizens of this province on continuing education grants.
When the Ministry of Education mandated that all adults over the age of 21 could only be educated on continuing education grants, why didn't somebody come down and talk to us? We would have shown you what we were able to do and not do. The teachers earn full salary as of February 1995. The staff are all qualified teachers who just happen to be teaching adults high school credit classes. The Ministry of Education and Training makes us follow its policies, guidelines and curriculum, so why should adults who are taxpayers be denied a chance to complete their education?
It is not common sense for this government to implement major changes to the educational system in regard to adult education without finding out more about what we've been able to do and not do. To implement funding cuts without realizing that our system needs more than $2,257 per adult is not very wise as far as policy advice goes. Yes, education is costly, but future gains far outweigh today's costs.
It's not common sense for this government to fail the business community by changing funding to adult ed, which has resulted in the cancellation of many adult ed programs throughout the province. Business is constantly telling the educational system to train future employees. What do you think we've been doing? Workers' comp, HRDC and the adult learning centres throughout Ontario have worked very, very closely to provide business and industry their new employees, whether it's teaching computers, math, history, geography, communications. Through cooperative ed, many of them do get off the system, that funding system, and they find employment, but funding cuts will hinder this form of workfare.
It's not common sense to set up workfare as mandatory for welfare recipients and then deny them the opportunity to be hired full-time because they haven't a high school diploma. If you want people off welfare, then work with the school boards to provide an education and help increase future employment.
I won't quote all the statistics compiled by the Ontario Council of Adult Educators concerning adults who graduated from the various adult programs throughout the province in June, 1995, but a few statistics I'll draw to your attention.
For example, in our graduating class of 375 students, 47% of them are now working; 45% of them are attending some post-secondary or further training program. That represents a rather highly successful rate for the graduates, and that is why workers' comp, HRDC, Futures etc made use of the Adult Learning Centre.
The state of employment of our graduates represents an excellent workfare program already in place. I can praise the success of our program, but that's not the point of mentioning these few statistics: 175 citizens of Windsor are now working in jobs that they could not have applied for without their high school diploma which they gained by coming to our school. Also, 160 graduates are now furthering their education so that they can become taxpayers in the province of Ontario. This success story is repeated throughout the province, and has been for many years. There is no doubt that the success rate is about to plummet as many communities in the province have cancelled their adult programs.
It's not common sense to cut funding, which results in adult education cuts, which will result in an increase in the welfare rolls. In the city of Windsor, workfare will produce jobs that cannot lead to full-time employment because the basic job requirement is a grade 12 diploma. If a person on assistance in Windsor has a high school diploma, they likely are not on welfare to begin with because of the availability of jobs. Since our adult program is in danger of being either cut or cut back, the circle of poverty for many citizens of Windsor will continue. Adult education leads to real jobs.
A quote from the Common Sense Revolution is: "For every life we get back on track we are avoiding future costly programs down the road." That statement is in direct contradiction to the Ministry of Education and Training's cutbacks to adult ed. The motto of the Windsor board and our school is "learning is forever." Ask any adult educator what they feel is the greatest value of adult education, and the answer will be the same. Adult education makes a difference now to help that person become a more productive citizen in the future.
Adult ed's been a success story in the 1990s. To attack what works doesn't make sense. There's no doubt that the provincial deficit must be reduced and that costs must be reduced in many areas, including the educational sector. Local taxpayers do want to get good value for their dollar, the same as all taxpayers in the province want tax cuts and the deficit reduced. The provincial cuts to education have cut money today but will result in future increase in welfare costs. I am not an economist, but there is no doubt that unless all citizens in this province have full access to the best education available, we will pay dearly in the future.
There is no doubt education will change. On-line education, GED and distance education will become very familiar terms in the near future. However, the drastic cuts and amendments to the Education Act are too much, too quickly. Touring the province now seems a little late. Thousands of adults have already been denied access to education with the cancellation of their programs in their local communities. It's not an option for most adults to attend classes late in the day or in the evenings due to part-time work, or for young mothers especially, it makes sense to attend school during the same hours that your kids do.
I am sure that this government will say that adults are not being denied access to school programs since they are available at night school. This is not common sense to expect a young, single parent to attend night school and it's absurd to suggest that anyone would encourage a single parent to disrupt their family life by going to night school. Many of our students are single parents whose children attend the compensatory schools in the Windsor Board of Education. They constantly remark how they can become role models for their children and can now help their children with their homework. Many of our students have become involved in the school councils now that they have been turned on to learning.
I realize that some sections of Bill 34 have already been amended or changed, in particular, 49.2(2)(c) concerning 20-year-olds. Section 49.2(2)(b) is also very confusing and has been widely interpreted as to what "four years after age 16" means.
I know that the Ontario Council of Adult Educators and the Continuing Education School Boards' Association have made presentations to the ministry. All presentations zero in on the same theme: Pay now or pay later. Learnfare is workfare. The success rate of adult education programs is overwhelming. Adult educators are very flexible in the type of programs and the delivery of these programs, depending on the community. The first reading of Bill 34 at the end of March and subsequent funding announcements since then have caused many boards to take the easy way out: Simply cancel adult ed or junior kindergarten.
Agreeing for the moment that changes need to be made and lower costs are necessary, September 1, 1996, is almost an impossible target to implement these changes so quickly. Three-year-olds and adults are being denied access to the provincial educational system due to costs, not the benefits of the programs. This is not common sense and it is in fact zeroing in on those who need a start.
It is ironic that all of the funding announcements in recent weeks refer to ways to help boards of education transfer from day school grants to continuing education by talking about form 1, form 2 teachers, total special grants of $1,400 for 1996 and 1997 and so much money per student on a specific date versus daily attendance for adult ed. The Windsor board set up a program in the late 1970s on continuing education grants and has kept their program as originally intended by the Ministry of Education. We're not eligible for any of these special grants or any different ways to count FTEs and consequently will be receiving actually less money per adult student than most boards of education in the province of Ontario. It doesn't quite make sense, since we were the model to start all this to begin with.
All Ministry of Education announcements in recent weeks state that continuing education programs are business as usual. Tell that to the thousands of adults whose chance for a new start, a chance to break the circle of poverty and a chance for that real job have been eliminated by boards in the province.
In conclusion, this committee should recommend that further consultation with adult educators continue, especially with those involved with the only current continuing education day school program in the province, in order to establish a fair and equitable system throughout the province. This would enable access to all adults who want to return to school. The city of Windsor's model of adult education is being implemented in the province because it was less costly due to the lower grant. Policy advisers should have consulted the Windsor board to discover the advantages and disadvantages.
Adult students and taxpayers deserve the best system possible. Adult education is a necessity, not an optional program.
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Mr Duncan: Both your presentations focused on, the importance of adult education to helping people get back into the workforce. That is what I would term a more comprehensive, more thoughtful approach to welfare reform. Could you go into that, given your front-line experience with folks who come back for adult education, and the importance of it? I noticed in your statistics that the unemployment rate among graduates seems to go down significantly. Would you view enhanced adult education as an important component of significant welfare reform; that is, reforms that would make the welfare system work better?
Mrs Meriano: What do you mean by "enhanced adult" --
Mr Duncan: I'm of the view that this strategy is penny wise and pound foolish in terms of its approach to the welfare issue. One of the heros of the revolution is a fellow named Tommy Thompson, the governor of Wisconsin, who is a neo-conservative like our colleagues opposite but who has advocated broadly and very eloquently for enhanced adult education opportunities.
Mrs Meriano: To obtain a job at the Windsor Star stuffing the advertisement flyers in the paper, whether it's Wednesdays or Fridays or whatever day, you need a grade 12 diploma to apply for the job. When our students come back to school and receive a grade 12 diploma, then they're marketable. They can begin to apply for work. Many of them continue and go on to St Clair, to the university, to other areas of learning to increase their chances of getting a job. But when you need grade 12 to stuff flyers, what can you do without it?
Mrs Carey: I was just going to say that it's impossible to put dollars and cents value on adult education. You can't do it. It's impossible in the sense that there is not a student who comes to any adult education program who does not take away something. It may not necessarily be a credit, but the point is that they gain something: self-esteem, which we didn't mention, and things like that.
Mr Duncan: The people you see genuinely want to get work and they need to have this opportunity in order to get off of public assistance.
Mrs Carey: Absolutely.
Mrs Pupatello: I just want your general commentary. It's been advanced that potentially the government is after the privatization of this area, adult education, and there have been some reports in our local media about simply having them pay through private institutions to finish their high school diploma. Really, I guess the background of that is the idea that they've already had their chance and they blew it; why should the taxpayer pay to give them another chance at what they could have done on the taxpayers' shoulders the first time? How do you respond to that move to privatize?
Mrs Meriano: First of all, a lot of our students don't have the funding to access privatized educational facilities, and secondly, a lot of our students may not have been successful the first time around but it may not have been their fault that they weren't successful. Sometimes there were extenuating family circumstances. Is it not cheaper to educate the person and allow them to get a job and end up paying taxes than keep them on welfare or some type of social assistance for infinity?
Mr Wildman: I want to thank you for your presentation. I'd just like to respond for a moment to your sidebar comment when my colleague was leaving. I don't quite get the point of that. He had another appointment he had to --
Mrs Meriano: I apologize. It's just that I'm in his riding and I'm sorry he left.
Mr Wildman: He's been here with the rest of us for the rest of the presentations today.
Is it possible, do you think, that what the government is about here is to try and force adult students not only into continuing education programs in the evenings but into the college system, and if that is an approach that might be considered, is that practicable, considering the federal government's cuts in that area to high school equivalency programs and the fact that they're not buying nearly as many seats in the college system? I'm just wondering if that's another option that is available to students, or is it not really available?
Mrs Carey: I've been in adult ed for a lot of years, so I think I can speak on this one. Over the last 14 years, with the thousands of people who have gone through the doors of our school, probably less than half of them could have gone someplace else to begin with. They would not have been successful; it wouldn't have mattered what the program was, and the agency that sent them often realized that at the time it sent them. Whether it was workers' compensation, whether it was HRDC or whether it was social assistance, they realized that this particular person, for whatever reason, was not able to simply go and take a welding course or to go and take a course at the college. The thought of walking in the doors of our building --
Mr Wildman: Sorry, I was saying high school equivalency programs, that the federal Department of Employment and Immigration used to purchase seats for high school equivalency programs in the college system and now they're cutting back.
Mrs Carey: Most of the employers do not recognize the high school equivalency as equal. They don't equate it as being equivalent to a high school diploma. That is one of the reasons why in this particular city the high school diploma became so important, because the employers here decided they wanted the real thing, they didn't want a high school equivalency, with the result that they set up and wanted students to go and get a diploma instead. That generally is what's going on throughout the province.
Mr Wildman: The real concern I have is that as you've said, both of you, this really is contradictory to the government's own stated program in terms of getting people back into the workforce and being productive. In fact, it means more people are going to be trapped on welfare.
Mrs Carey: Yes. I agree.
Mr Klees: Thank you very much for your presentation. I think it's important that it be stated and reaffirmed for you that this government does indeed believe in the importance of adult education. What we are struggling with, as you well know, are some financial realities. We're certainly willing to continue to discuss this issue, to get some additional information, but we are told that this province should be able to deliver adult education at less cost than education for juveniles within the normal system.
One of the reasons, among others, is that we should be able to increase class sizes for adult education. For example, we're dealing with people who are more mature in years, and if you look at colleges or universities, I personally have sat through lectures where we've had 100 and 150 people who, because of their maturity, perhaps have more of an ability to take seriously what's happening. They have a vested interest and so are able to participate in a different environment than younger children.
I think it's important that we make the record clear that we have not eliminated funding. What we're asking the school boards to do is to work with us and to help deliver adult education in a more economic way. I guess what I'm hearing from you is that you're saying that is impossible. You're saying that cannot be done. I'd like to get some information from you as to why you feel we need the same standards for a more mature student than for younger children.
Also, there's one other point I'd like to make and get your thoughts on. What I'm hearing about the employers in Windsor, because that's where we are and your examples are from Windsor -- perhaps there needs to be some educating of the workplace here in terms of the grade 12 equivalency. Perhaps there needs to be a little more cooperation and maybe we need to enter into some discussions with the chambers of commerce and so on to address that issue.
You make reference to an employer requiring a grade 12 certificate to stuff envelopes. I've employed people for 25 years in my other life, and I can tell you that when I interview young people I look for skills, I look for abilities, I look for their ability to commit to the task. Whether they have the certificate or not at that point in time isn't the prerequisite for employment. I'd like your comments on those points.
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Mrs Carey: At our particular school, when you talk about larger classes, because we have been running on continuing education grants, we have had our classes starting at 40 students, in comparison to the normal size in regular high schools. That is one particular thing that we have done, and have done it for many, many years. Our classes are larger; we recognize the maturity level of the student.
The problem is that with continuing education grants, there is usually a cutting of those specialized programs, such as guidance, for a particular, and cooperative education suffers greatly. Cooperative education is a tremendous value for anybody, whether it's a teenager or an adult, because if you worked at a plant for 20 years which then closed and you needed a whole new way of life and you had no idea of what you wanted to do, cooperative education is an excellent way and a new way of doing it.
As far as class size and so on goes, there is a lot of room under continuing education. The problem is the cutting of those specialized services, which really are needed, because the adults require them, just as a teenager does.
Mr Skarica: We heard this morning the example of a woman who is now working at the casino who was working for her father and was totally skilled but just didn't have the high school certificate. I don't know if you're aware of it, but the government is implementing a new testing procedure -- it's called the general education development testing services program -- where people like that don't have to go to day school. They can just write the exams and get their high school certificate. That's starting up in Windsor in September. How many people do you think that could eliminate from your program, people who really don't need the education but need the paper?
Mrs Carey: I would guess maybe 10% who could walk in and go and take that.
Mr Skarica: That would be a significant saving, 10%.
Mrs Carey: Yes, it would. There is no doubt that the GED serves certain adult students very well.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, ladies, for your excellent presentation.
SELF-RELIANT LEARNING PROGRAM, HALTON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Vice-Chair: Now we have our last group for today, the self-reliant learning program, Margaret Daniels, who is the head of the program, and Bill Callen, an adult student. Good afternoon and welcome to our meeting.
Mrs Margaret Daniels: As Bill and I represent an adult program, you'll find that we have in our presentation some of the points made by the previous presenters, but we hope we have enough that is different to keep you alert and awake. I apologize for the incorrect date on the front. I know you've been here since 9 o'clock, but it has not passed over to tomorrow.
The Vice-Chair: We never noticed that.
Mr Wildman: We've come so far west that we thought we'd crossed the international date line.
Mrs Daniels: Mr Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address the committee and comment on the proposed amendments to the Education Act.
My name is Margaret Daniels, and I'm the supervisor of the self-reliant learning program, a part of the adult high school in Halton county, located in Burlington. I began my teaching career 37 years ago, and I will retire this June. With me is Bill Callen, a student in our program who will graduate with a high school diploma in June.
I would like to give you some information about our program, make some suggestions for adult education that we hope would be incorporated into the act and then let Bill tell you his story.
The adult high school in Halton is located in 14 sites around the county and consists of five separate programs: a day school classroom delivery model for adults providing an opportunity for upgrading, retraining and diploma completion; a program for pregnant teens and young mothers that provides them with the opportunity to complete their diploma requirements; an alternative classroom delivery model linked to work placement for those students aged 16 to 24 -- that's the Futures program and many of you may be familiar with that; various projects funded in partnership with provincial and federal governments; and an alternative, flexible time delivery model for adults with job or home commitments, labelled self-reliant learning, which provides an opportunity for upgrading, retraining and diploma completion.
The self-reliant learning program began in 1983, and is a flexible program for adults and senior adolescents. The school operates from 8 am until 8:30 pm, allowing the students to complete their 6.5 hours per course per week commitment at any time during this period. Students complete high school credits using materials prepared by our teachers, and with teacher support. We offer courses from grade 10 to OAC level. In addition, because we are located in a vocational high school, our students have had the opportunity to access the technical areas and earn credits in job-oriented courses. Next year, because of the changes in funding, our host school will not be offering technical courses to students 21 and over.
The current decisions of the ministry to reduce funding for students 21 years and older did not cancel adult education, but they certainly have had, in my opinion, a detrimental effect on the operation of existing programs across the province, ranging from outright cancellation to drastically altered delivery models, including capping of enrolment by some boards.
Our own program next year will be staffed with a blend of grid, which are form 1 and form 2 teachers, and form 3 teachers, who are paid hourly for the time they are actually teaching.
Adult students have the same needs as adolescent students. In fact, they may be even more fragile and needy. The intake and assessment process is crucial to their success. They need to have their prior educational achievements accurately assessed by trained and experienced guidance counsellors who can quickly determine the type and number of credits needed to earn a diploma. They need a strong support system to help them deal with the myriad problems they face when returning to school. They need well-designed curriculum with an adult focus to meet their particular needs. They need materials and up-to-date technology to enable them to be prepared for today's workplace. All these needs cannot be met by the reduced amount of continuing education funding.
In contrast, they do not need new or separate facilities and a lot of administrative support. They can be squeezed into available space in existing schools and don't need to have a principal or vice-principal on site to deal with discipline problems or motivational issues. They are highly motivated and determined to reach their goals and get on with their lives. These students have left school for many reasons, reasons that made sense at the time. Perhaps they dropped out to earn money, because of pregnancy or because school was not serving their needs at the time. They deserve another kick at the can. Even the Minister of Education, Mr Snobelen, reported recently that he left school "because I could."
Today's students are staying in school at an ever-increasing rate. They know that education is the key to their future. Older students had no idea when they left school many years ago that they would need the skills and knowledge that are necessary in today's marketplace. They are stunned today when they lose a manufacturing or low-skill job and are unable to compete in the job market. A recent study completed for the Ontario Association of Adult and Continuing Education School Board Administrators of June 1995 graduates of adult programs across the province shows that of 2,133 respondents surveyed in October, 51% were employed, 25% were attending college or university and 9% were involved in other education or training, including apprenticeships. Only 12% were looking for work. These results show an amazing success rate and represent huge numbers of citizens who are off public assistance rolls and have become productive, taxpaying members of our society. It seems obvious that the current practice is working.
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The changes to the funding process for those students is having a negative effect on that structure. While it is true that the government has not cancelled adult education, the reduction in funding is indeed having an adverse effect. Many boards have cancelled programs or drastically altered the ability of staff to deliver existing programs. The immediate savings from grant allocations may well be overshadowed by the increase in social assistance costs.
We have some suggestions or recommendations.
Our first suggestion is that the government reconsider its decision and restore full funding to adult education programs. Schools have the facilities, experience and well-trained staff to educate adults at an average cost of about $7,000 per pupil a year. In contrast, private trainers will charge upwards of $12,000 per student for training which does not even include a high school diploma.
Another suggestion would be that the government restore full funding for students up to the age of 24. This would encompass a large group of young adults who potentially could be lost to society and enable them to get back on track and become productive members of our community. There is a necessity to provide programs with a skills focus to meet the needs of these students. This group has the highest rate of unemployment, and we need to provide fully funded adult programs to address this issue.
Failing that, we suggest that the government participate in a pilot study, along with boards offering adult education, to compare a school that is offering programs that are fully funded and staffed by form 1 and form 2 teachers with a school operated with blended staffing, such as our own, and a third program staffed entirely with form 3 or hourly paid teachers.
I would respectfully suggest that members of the committee or indeed all members of the Legislature take some time from their busy schedules to visit an adult education facility in their riding or in the city of Toronto, observe first hand the exciting educational activities taking place and talk to students. Hear their stories, listen to their hopes and dreams, be impressed with their plans for themselves and their families.
At this time I would like to introduce you to one of our graduates, Bill Callen.
Mr Bill Callen: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bill Callen. I'm a 39-year-old former truck driver and biker from Burlington, Ontario. I would like to speak to you about the value of adult education in today's society, and in particular the positive impact returning to high school has had on my life. I've always been a very physical person, used to working and playing hard. However, after sustaining a serious injury on the job, all that changed. I found myself no longer able to drive a tractor-trailer which, for all intents and purposes, was the only type of work I knew.
After 23 years in the workforce I found myself with the choice of ending up on a pension or on welfare or changing careers completely. Certainly, changing careers and finding a new way to continue to be a productive member of society was the option that most appealed to me. This was not, however, an easy task, as I had to move from a very physical profession to a new career that is entirely sedentary in nature.
Possessing no office skills whatsoever, I realized the only way to accomplish this goal was to upgrade my education. Since I had left school in 1972, having achieved only grade 9, I believed the only way for me to begin this re-education was to earn my high school diploma. Consequently, I began to explore the different ways available for an adult to acquire this education. I then decided that the self-reliant learning program offered at General Brock High School was the program most suited to my needs, which was to earn my diploma in preparation for college in the fall of 1996.
Clearly, the staff at the self-reliant learning program have been instrumental in pointing my life in a whole new direction. During the last year that I have been enrolled in this program, I received one-on-one career counselling, which has assisted me in choosing the subjects best suited to my new career choice of legal assistant. In addition, I have been given a great deal of personal attention by the teaching staff, all of which has allowed me to learn how to learn again. I have now completed my high school education and have been accepted to the two-year legal assistant/law clerk program at Niagara College. As a result of the time spent earning my high school diploma, I have come to realize the value of adult education and the positive impact it has on the lives of the many adults enrolled in the various programs offered.
Adults who return to high school are learning many new skills that will assist them in becoming employable in today's high-tech world. For example, they're learning new communications skills to help them better meet the demands of the modern business world. Adult students have the opportunity to learn such skills as word processing on computers, which is necessary to produce the error-free, accurate writing modern business demands. Consequently, when adults become better educated and acquire new job skills, they most often end up with better jobs for better pay. The fact is that statistics show that 83% of adults who earn their OSSD go on to further education or better jobs than they held previously. To me, that statistic alone speaks volumes about the value of adult education in our society.
Furthermore, adults returning to high school after many years in the workforce relearn how to open their minds to the learning process. As a result, a boost in self-confidence is also something adults returning to high school often feel. This is extremely important for adults considering post-secondary education and a new career, as they must believe in their ability to learn at the senior level.
This was especially true for me, having left school after completing only grade 9 almost 23 years ago. When I first contemplated going to college, the thought terrified me. Much of this fear was because I really had no idea how school worked nowadays. Certainly I had no study habits developed, no idea what supplies would be needed or how I would fit into the school environment after such a long absence. Now, however, after returning to high school to earn my diploma, I have a new-found confidence in my ability to learn new ideas and technologies.
All this leads me to believe that I can reasonably expect to complete successfully a two-year college program and enter into a new career, all of which seemed an impossible dream only a year ago. I feel I have a much greater chance of success at college now than I would have, had I gone straight to college without the benefit of high school. Undoubtedly, the best preparation for college or university for an adult or teenager is to complete high school. The skills learned at the senior level of high school are extremely valuable skills that will help a person during further schooling and with life in general.
In conclusion, I would like to re-emphasize the positive effect all the self-reliant program teachers and guidance counsellors have had on my life. Unquestionably, returning to high school has allowed me to look forward to a new and rewarding career instead of a life on some form of government assistance. Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, sir. I'd certainly like to congratulate you and wish you well in your future endeavours. It's a nice way to end the day's activities.
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much. I'd like to echo the Chair's comments.
I appreciate the proposals made by you, Ms Daniels, but I wonder: Obviously, if there were a cutoff of age 24, that wouldn't have met Mr Callen's needs.
Mrs Daniels: That's true. We're just trying to make some suggestions to at least help some more people.
Mr Wildman: It was suggested earlier today by representatives of the OSSTF that the proposal to fund adult education at a different level, particularly with the provision of four years after age 16, was probably age discrimination and could be challenged under the Human Rights Code. Have you had any experience --
Mrs Daniels: I've heard that from various presentations. That wasn't necessarily our point in making that suggestion.
Mr Wildman: I'd like to ask Mr Callen a question. Beyond the skills and confidence you talked about that you've gained from the upgrading, what did the experience of a day program at the centre give you that has helped you, as you said, change your life? Obviously the confidence and the skills, but is there anything else you could describe as helpful to you as you contemplate going on to post-secondary education?
Mr Callen: I would say, beyond the skills and the self-confidence, that it's also given me a greater sense of belonging in the community. I feel more a part of the community; I'm involved with more parts of the community. I've got some time on my hands right now. I'm looking to do some volunteer work for the summer, which is something that had never crossed my mind until I went back to high school.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your presentation and congratulations on your successful completion, Mr Callen. I'd be interested in a couple of points. When you completed the course, did you do this during the daytime or did you do it during the evening?
Mr Callen: During the day.
Mr Klees: That was a convenient time for you.
Mr Callen: Yes.
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Mr Klees: Were there some people who did this strictly in the evening, and are you familiar with what percentage of your students would be taking advantage of the evening hours versus daytime?
Mrs Daniels: I would say about half and half. We have all sorts of learning and study patterns. Sometimes we have mothers who can get a babysitter for one whole day, so they come to school maybe just on Tuesday for the whole day. We have people who work shifts. Some weeks they come in the daytime and some weeks they come in the evening. We have people who come after work.
Mr Klees: So the flexibility is very important?
Mrs Daniels: The flexibility is the key component of our program.
Mr Klees: One last question: As you're aware, the decision to cut back on the program or not to have a program lies strictly with the board of education. That's not a decision by the province. Have you or your colleagues had discussions with boards that have taken these decisions and, if so, what kind of reaction are you getting from them? What is their response to your concerns?
Mrs Daniels: Our board on several occasions has put into their policy what they considered to be the importance of adult education. We have had a very strong fight over the last couple of months to prevent our board from using entirely form 3 or hourly paid teachers. Blended staffing was the compromise we came up with.
We've made presentations to our board. Bill is a person who presented to the board, so he's an experienced presenter. They always reaffirm their commitment to adult education, but the bottom line is money, and they're not prepared to take from other programs to fund our program.
Mr Klees: Do you feel that perhaps a more concerted effort to communicate with the boards and impress on them the importance of these programs is in order?
Mrs Daniels: We're sure trying. We've invited our trustees to our school and so on, but I will not stop trying.
Mr Carroll: Your reference to hourly paid teachers seems to have a stigma attached to it. Is there something wrong with hourly paid teachers?
Mrs Daniels: No. It means that in our program next year we're going to have two classes of teachers side by side. Our board has declared over 100 teachers excess, so presumably those excess teachers, or some of them, will take form 3 jobs, so we'll have a situation where in our program we'll have persons doing virtually the same job they did this year for about 40% of the pay they are earning this year.
Mr Carroll: If the program is really important, as you say it is, and I agree with you that it is very important, if all we can afford to fund to teach is these class 3 teachers or hourly rated teachers, isn't that a fine compromise? What's wrong with that?
Mrs Daniels: Nothing, except that doesn't allow any scope for guidance services. To serve those students on the per-pupil, per-hour grant that con ed provides, each of our teachers would have to have 40 or 50 students per class, and we don't have a classroom delivery model; we have an individually based delivery model, so there's no time. The teacher is going to become just a marker.
Mr Carroll: I don't mean anything offensive by this, but this isn't about protecting teachers at the expense of protecting the program, is it?
Mrs Daniels: No. That's why I put in the fact that I am retiring in June.
Mrs Pupatello: I don't know how amused you might be to hear the comment from one of the government members that it really isn't the provincial government's fault; it's the local board's fault.
Mrs Daniels: That's what our board says too.
Mrs Pupatello: Yes. I think both you and I might give them full marks in terms of marketing strategy, because they make these kinds of legislative changes and then present them to the public in such a way that the decisions are forced to be local decisions. The reality is that local boards have all these items which are necessities to provide and they have to choose and decide between which necessities they will not provide their students or the public in their area because they don't have the funding and they're not being given that funding by the provincial government.
I've got to say that there are many Conservative members with their heads in the sand. They are being told in their caucus that it is not their fault, so you can't really blame individual members for coming here with absolutely asinine remarks like the ones we've heard today.
Mr Callen, I do want to congratulate you, though.
Mrs Daniels: That's what our board says too.
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): Please don't speak for us, Sandra.
Mr Klees: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I would ask that my honourable colleague withdraw that comment. I don't think it's appropriate. She's certainly entitled to her opinion; we are entitled to ours. I don't think this forum is appropriate for that kind of comment.
The Vice-Chair: I don't think there's anything unparliamentary about it.
Mrs Pupatello: Thank you, Mr Chair. I direct my comments to the --
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute now. Are you talking about the fact that she said somebody had their head in the sand? Is that it?
Mr Klees: No, no, whether she's entitled to characterize our comments as being asinine.
The Vice-Chair: Oh, "asinine." I didn't hear it.
Mrs Pupatello: I made my point. I don't give a damn what you think about it. It's absolutely ridiculous to say that it's not the provincial government's fault.
The Vice-Chair: Will you take back the word "asinine"?
Mrs Pupatello: Hell, no.
Mr Wildman: "Asinine" is quite parliamentary.
The Vice-Chair: I take it on higher authority that it is parliamentary, but please restrain your language.
Mrs Pupatello: Thank you, Mr Chair. I think we've all agreed that the remarks really are just ridiculous in light of the fact that we are faced with significant decisions that have to be made at a local level because the provincial government has done this to us. Their marketing is actually very clever, because the people on the street feel that -- letters to the editor: "It's the school boards' fault. Look what they're doing to us." The reality is that the provincial government is legislating these changes and I, for one, will make it my purpose to ensure that people know where the decisions are being made.
Our local adult education people were here today. I know that you were here as well to hear much of their presentation. I wanted to congratulate Mr Callen for his presentation. It takes a lot of nerve, really, to come and speak about your own experience.
Can you tell me, if the government goes forward with their privatization agenda in the area of adult education, would you have had the opportunities you have now? Could you afford the potential $12,000 it would take to finish your degree and go on to post-secondary?
Mr Callen: Absolutely not.
Mr Patten: I want to congratulate you on your presentation as well and witness some courage on your behalf, Bill, to do what you've done.
Mr Callen: Thank you.
Mr Patten: It seems to me that the essence of your program, or the adult education program versus just courses -- you come to a course for an hour or two to learn a specific course -- is truly, decidedly different in terms of those who have had difficulty with that system in the past or are facing new learning skills, are facing the requirements for support personally for their confidence, for identifying the skills they need to move along. Then I look at the history of the program itself, which has a terrific record, and I haven't seen anything better, suggested or otherwise.
Would you agree that it is not whether you take this course or that course -- it's the skill content and the knowledge content, yes -- it's really the personal support and encouragement as a developing person that is making a difference between the two? Both of you, if you would. Mrs Daniels: Certainly. The good thing about our program as well is that students have a certain degree of independence. It's a good preparation for post-secondary education.
Mr Patten: I meant the encouragement, the guidance counselling that you referred to, Bill.
Mr Callen: I think that's very valuable. A person like myself who's had basically one job, one career for his whole working life and all of a sudden is faced with dramatically changing careers needs to talk to people who can help him go through what's called the choices program, identify skills that you have to get you ready and even make you think. I looked at different jobs that would never even have occurred to me, had I not gone to high school and talked to the guidance counsellors.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation and for staying with us for the day. I'd also like to thank everyone else who has been here for the whole day.
This hearing is adjourned until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1641.