Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

CONTENTS

Tuesday 13 October 1998

Ministry of Education and Training

Hon David Johnson, minister

Ms Nancy Naylor, director, education finance branch

Mr Larry Langdon, director, operations and field services branch

Ms Lynn MacDonald, assistant deputy minister, elementary/secondary policy division

Ms Veronica Lacey, deputy minister

Mr Theo Grootenboer, manager, capital and operating grants administration branch

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

Chair / Président

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South / -Sud L)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South / -Sud ND)

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall L)

Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)

Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South / -Sud L)

Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)

Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain PC)

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener PC)

Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William L)

Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough-Ellesmere PC)

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma ND)

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes

Mr David Caplan (Oriole L)

Clerk / Greffier

Mr Viktor Kaczkowski

Staff / Personnel

Ms Anne Marzalik, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1527 in committee room 2.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Vice-Chair (Mr Rick Bartolucci): I'd like to welcome back the minister and staff. It's my understanding that we have eight minutes left in the official opposition portion and then we'll move to the third party, then the government and then we'll continue the rotation. Mrs McLeod, do you want to start? The meeting is underway.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I want to use this eight minutes to focus on two particular areas. As I indicated on the last day, there are a number of areas. I'm not sure if we're going to get to cover them all.

The two I'd like to focus on right now are the issues of school closure numbers and plant maintenance numbers. I had indicated that I would be very interested in knowing the minister's estimates of the numbers of schools that they predicted might close just based on their own excess space numbers. I've shared with you how we calculated ours using basic ministry figures. I'm wondering whether you have a figure of approximately how many schools you thought might be affected by school closures, given your restrictions on space and maintenance budgets, and how many students would be involved in potential closures.

Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): This is a question that has been posed in the House and I can't give any different answer here than I have in the House. The issue of accommodation is one that school boards deal with on an annual basis, as they have with all governments, whether Progressive Conservative, Liberal or NDP. I don't think there's a year in recent history where school boards haven't decided to change their accommodation patterns involving the closure of some schools. That's true right through all three governments, and my guess is that that will probably continue in the future.

As I mentioned in the House about a week ago, in September there were some 20 schools opened across Ontario, and I wouldn't be surprised if school boards didn't come to the conclusion that they also would close some schools where they didn't that there was a need or use for them. I have no way of predicting what conclusion school boards have come to. I know that in Thames Valley there was some thought, and I think it was in the media, that some 20 or two dozen schools possibly would be closed by the board. But the board changed its mind, and at this point in time apparently is not closing any schools. I think in Niagara there was concern two or three months ago that about 30 schools were going to be closed and the board said, "No, that's not true." In fact, they may be looking at, I don't know, three or four schools, and the same thing in Ottawa, where there was concern that a number of schools were going to be closed and the board tried to put an end to the rumours there.

I don't think it's fruitful to speculate or to forecast. I know that boards are working with the parents in their communities. Community input is very important. There are lots of community activities that take place in these schools too, recreational activities, social activities, and community organizations may wish to be involved as part of the process and part of the solution. I would encourage it if they do.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you. Mr Minister, I am going to try and give you very specific estimates questions. I feel that's part of the responsibility of this committee. If I undertake to do that, I hope you will undertake in kind to give me specific, factual and statistical answers in response to the estimates questions that I'm asking.

I'm already on record as expressing my concerns about the irresponsibility of a minister who could put out figures that say there's 320,000 square feet of excess space and not have given any thought to what that might mean in terms of school closures. I'll let that stand.

I'll ask you the next question, then. What you've just described as boards' responses to the school accommodation numbers in terms of not closing schools is not a full and fair reflection of what boards are saying, which is first of all that they can't meet your December 31 deadline and won't meet it. Second, they cannot face the closure of schools of those numbers because they don't believe it's in the best interests of their students. What that will mean for those boards is that they will try and operate what you consider to be excess school space without the maintenance dollars to heat, light and clean those spaces.

My question, Minister, is on the maintenance cuts. I am wondering if you can give me a figure on how much has been cut from the maintenance budgets of all school boards in this province, and a comparison between the year in which you were providing 100% funding under the funding formula and the previous comparable year for all school boards in the province. If you have those data, I would appreciate receiving them.

Second, I would appreciate your verification of the numbers we have produced, which is simply taking excess space numbers, multiplying by 100 square feet for elementary school students and 130 square feet for secondary school students, and multiplying that by the $5.20 per square foot at which you fund maintenance. We assume that the excess is space which you are not funding. We have a letter from you confirming that you do not intend to fund anything which you consider excess space. We assume that you're still looking at the 100 square feet and 130 square feet and the $5.20. We would be happy to receive correction on any of those factors so that we know exactly how much maintenance money has been cut from school boards under your funding formula.

Our figures would show that secondary schools would be over $77 million in missing funds and elementary schools about $107 million in missing funds. There may be some extenuating circumstances such as special factors for francophone boards. I'd appreciate knowing whether there are. Apart from that, I would appreciate either your figures or the verification of our figures.

Hon David Johnson: The problem with specific numbers is that some of the numbers aren't always correct.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): Sometimes they're embarrassing.

Hon David Johnson: Yes, sometimes they are. For example, we were told that 10,000 teachers would be fired.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chairman, if I may. Minister, I'm hoping you will give me answers to estimates questions.

Hon David Johnson: If you can believe it, Mr Chair, there were entities, parties, I guess, which indicated that there would be 10,000 teachers fired in Ontario.

Mrs McLeod: That's why I'm asking you to verify, correct or submit your own figures.

Hon David Johnson: I realize it's embarrassing to be on record as having said that --

Mrs McLeod: No, it's not at all. "Embarrassing" means you will not give me a response on your own figures.

Hon David Johnson: -- particularly in a day and age when school boards, as the chair of the Toronto board indicated, are going to have go out and hire teachers.

Mrs McLeod: Do you have maintenance cuts figures, Minister?

Hon David Johnson: The critic from the Liberal Party may not believe this, but I've had one or two boards saying that there may be a shortage of teachers.

Mrs McLeod: Minister, do you or your staff have any figures for the cuts to maintenance budgets in school boards?

Hon David Johnson: They're hiring so many new teachers into the system, and every teacher that was hired certainly would have a job in Ontario, plus many more teachers, new teachers.

Mrs McLeod: Could we ask staff to come forward if the minister has no answers himself?

Hon David Johnson: No, I'm sorry --

The Vice-Chair: Minister, are you going to answer the question? Yes or no?

Hon David Johnson: I think I get to respond. Do I get to respond without the constant interjections?

The Vice-Chair: You do, but there should be an attempt to answer the question.

Hon David Johnson: I'm coming to it, Mr Chair, and I would appreciate your indulgence.

Mrs McLeod: I now have two minutes.

Hon David Johnson: The member went on at great length with a number of questions and in her questions used certain assumptions and talked about figures --

Mrs McLeod: On maintenance.

Hon David Johnson: -- making certain inferences on the figures.

Mrs McLeod: No, Minister, I am not making inferences. I am asking you for a verification or correction of the figures. It's a simple question.

Hon David Johnson: I would say that the figures that have been injected into this whole issue from the opposition parties have been greatly exaggerated and in many cases and outright wrong in a number of other things.

Mrs McLeod: That's why I'm asking you, to give you an opportunity to give me correct figures.

Hon David Johnson: All right, I'll give you the correct figure in terms of teachers. There will not be 10,000 teachers fired. I assure you of that.

Mrs McLeod: I'm asking for maintenance figures.

Hon David Johnson: You were dead wrong when you gave that number of 10,000 teachers.

The Vice-Chair: Minister, you might want to deal with the figures and the statistics in terms of what Mrs McLeod posed to you. Is there an answer to that question?

Hon David Johnson: I realize she doesn't want to know the other figures where she's wrong.

Mrs McLeod: The last day I asked for your figures on teacher cuts and how many fewer teachers you budgeted for. I don't have that figure either.

Hon David Johnson: I will also assure you that there will not be 10,000 fewer teachers in the system.

Mrs McLeod: I'm asking for your figures, Minister.

Hon David Johnson: That's another allegation that has been made. Certainly, over a three-year period, there will be more teachers.

In terms of the maintenance dollars, the setting of the money is on the basis of a median amount. Some boards would spend more than that amount of money in terms of their operations and maintenance and some would spend less. Some of the larger boards spent more, some of the larger boards spent less, and the same with smaller boards. The $5.20 that's quoted is a median amount and there are a number of boards which operated under that.

Mrs McLeod: That is your figure that you're providing? That's the basis of your funding?

Hon David Johnson: The $5.20 is the basis per square foot. This is the amount, recorded by boards, that they have used. Half spend more than this amount and half spend less.

The Vice-Chair: We'll now move to the third party.

Mr Wildman: In the last session, I requested that Hansard provide to the committee the Instant Hansard so that the minister would have an opportunity to answer the questions I had raised in my leadoff. I have the Instant Hansard and I imagine that the committee and the minister have it as well. I will simply proceed, if that's acceptable to you, to give the minister the opportunity to respond to the questions I asked on the first day. I appreciate the fact that Hansard was able to prepare this so quickly.

One question I asked relates directly to the questions Mrs McLeod was raising. At one point in the exchange last Wednesday, the minister indicated, I think he said, there was $580 million going into the classroom this year. I asked in response to that how much of the $580 million is for cleaning, lighting and heating. Could the minister indicate, in determining the money that is allocated by the ministry for classrooms, how much is estimated for those needs of cleaning, lighting and heating?

Hon David Johnson: While the member has a good memory for the dollar value, $580 million, that is the increased amount going into the classroom over a three year period. The ministry numbers show about $580 million more going into the classroom. That money is for classroom teachers, supply teachers, teachers' assistants, textbooks and classroom supplies, computers -- those are the computers in the classroom, obviously, not the administration computers -- professionals and paraprofessionals, library and guidance, and staff development.

Those are the categories in the classroom, and over the course of the three-year period each and every one of them will realize an increase in provincial funding. The sum total of all of them together, eight categories there, I believe, will realize an increase of about $580 million. That means that during that period of time their proportion will rise from 61% of the total budget -- in other words, 61% of the total budget being in the classroom -- to just over 65%. None of that money is involved with school operations. School operations would be in the non-classroom category.

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Mr Wildman: Thank you. I appreciate the minister's answer.

The $580 million additional, over three years, doesn't deal with, as you say, school operations. In developing the funding formula, if I could ask a supplementary, what estimates did the ministry come up with for these specifics, cleaning -- maintenance, in other words -- lighting and heating schools, to determine how much money would be needed over three years?

Hon David Johnson: The question is in terms of?

Mr Wildman: The total funding formula.

Hon David Johnson: In terms of the methodology or in terms of the numbers?

Mr Wildman: No, the actual numbers. How much money did you --

Hon David Johnson: In terms of school operations in 1997, what's being reported by the boards is $1.2 billion.

Mr Wildman: Over three years?

Hon David Johnson: No. That's what was spent in 1997.

Mr Wildman: In 1997.

Hon David Johnson: In one year. It's about static. It remains roughly static through the three years. It's still $1.2 billion in the year 2000-01.

Mr Wildman: So an annual expenditure of about $1.2 billion?

Hon David Johnson: It's a little bit down: $1.27 billion, to be precise, in 1997 and $1.22 billion in the year 2000.

Mr Wildman: That's total for school operations. Did you separate --

Hon David Johnson: I might say it's $1.26 billion in 1998.

Mr Wildman: That's total for school operations. Did you separate out, in determining the funding formula, determining how much each board was to get, how much of that amount annually is for maintenance of schools as opposed to administrative staff, that sort of thing?

Hon David Johnson: I will ask for some expert assistance. You'd better identify yourself again.

Ms Nancy Naylor: I'm Nancy Naylor. I'm the director of the education finance branch.

Hon David Johnson: The $1.2 billion in question is totally for school operations. None of it is for board administration, directors, supervisory officers, secretaries, trustees, consultants, department heads or any of those other things. They are all separate again.

Ms Naylor: There are a couple of sources for that. One is the pupil accommodation grant, which provides funding to boards on a per pupil basis for school operations and school renewal and on a slightly different basis for new pupil places. We should also note that we consider about 25% of the remote and rural grant to go towards school operations as well. The figures that the minister quoted are a combination of the pupil accommodation grant funding and the remote and rural funding for school operations.

Mr Wildman: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Could you tell me, on the basis of the pupil accommodation grant, how many of the boards would actually receive less funding than they spent in 1996-97?

Hon David Johnson: I don't know. Again, when you say --

Mr Wildman: In terms of their school operations.

Hon David Johnson: Again, the $5.20 per square foot is an average.

Mr Wildman: Exactly. I'm just wondering --

Hon David Johnson: Half of them would have spent more than that and half of them would have spent less.

Ms Naylor: That's correct. There is a second component to what they actually get in funding, which is the space benchmark component of 100 square feet for elementary students and 130 square feet for secondary students. As a combination of those, I don't know if we have those numbers at hand, but the minister's statement says that the $5.20 is the median.

Mr Wildman: The median or the average?

Ms Naylor: It's actually the median. Half the boards would have spent more than that on a per student basis in 1997, and I think your exact question was 1996-97, but on the 1997 actual calendar year, which was the year that we collected data for, and then half would spend less.

Mr Wildman: I would like to return to the remote and rural later but I'd like to get through as many of these questions as I can.

I would like to turn now to questions around school closures, which of course are related to the pupil accommodation grant. The minister has repeatedly said, and he did again today as he did last week, that schools have closed before; boards do this. I asked last week if the minister could explain why so many more boards are contemplating more closures this year than under previous administrations, except if you go back to the 1950s and 1960s when we closed one-room schools in Ontario? Nobody debates that boards have closed schools based on changes in school population over the years under many government, but why so many more this year?

Hon David Johnson: I guess we don't know that for a fact, do we?

Mr Wildman: No, we don't. We know the estimates on the list.

Hon David Johnson: That's the problem I have with the question.

Mr Wildman: So you won't be able to answer this question until after the fact and we see that more boards have closed more schools.

Hon David Johnson: We know that in London there was stated in the media the possibility of two dozen or so schools to be closed and now apparently the board is saying none.

Mr Wildman: OK. Then I'd like to go to that. I raised a question about that as well. That board is proceeding on the basis that they will not have to close schools now, as the minister has said. My question was, if the Thames Valley board doesn't meet the province's December 31 deadline because it doesn't think it needs to close schools, but then subsequently comes to the conclusion that they will have to close one or two or more schools, does that mean they will not be eligible for funding if they need to construct a new school?

Hon David Johnson: They could be eligible at some time in the future, depending on their enrolment.

Mr Wildman: This year?

Hon David Johnson: I must say that I'm not precisely aware of the Thames Valley space situation, each of the 72 boards at the elementary and secondary.

Mr Wildman: I understand that, but the minister should understand the import of my question. Is there a deadline?

Hon David Johnson: In terms of establishing the space they have, we're asking boards to report by the end of this year. However, if they don't wish to change the preliminary space allocation, then they needn't report. It's possible, for example, in a board like Toronto, which has a number of empty schools, that it will decide that its best route will be not to bother reporting through this process. It may wish to report or it may not wish to report, but if it doesn't, it may wish to go the route of simply selling its empty schools, the schools that at some point in time it has no further use for, retaining the proceeds from that sale and using the proceeds to either purchase additions or a new school.

Another board may choose not to report and perhaps won't be eligible for new pupil places, the flow of revenue for new schools, for a year or so. But at some point in time, if the enrolment increases, they may become eligible. They may become eligible a year from now, two years from now.

Mr Wildman: My specific question was, and I don't want to belabour this: If the board perceives that they don't think they're going to have to close schools because of changes in the accommodation grant and so don't meet your December 31 deadline, but at the same time is hoping to build a new school in an area where they might need additional accommodation, but then subsequent to that deadline comes to the conclusion that they will have to close some schools, you're saying they still could be eligible for the construction grant for the new school?

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Hon David Johnson: It's possible. If their enrolment is increasing, for example, then it's possible that their enrolment would come up to such a point that they could be eligible for new pupil places. I might say that there's the facilities renewal component of this as well which they would be continually eligible for all along, and that facilities renewal money is not used for new schools, but it can be used for some capital.

Mr Wildman: In relation to this, I also asked why the government has decided that schools have to operate at 100% capacity when, as I understand it, the panel that was making recommendations for the funding formula to the ministry made the suggestion that the ministry might accept 90% or 95% capacity before declaring surplus space. Why did you decide 100% against the recommendation of the expert panel?

Hon David Johnson: First of all, in terms of the operation grants that go for small schools and rural schools, the flow of money through these avenues results in boards not having to be at 100% capacity. The estimation is with the flow of I think in some small schools $56 million, and in remote and rural schools there's some $90 million, both of which are more than double the previous year. This is a pool of money to assist boards running at less than 100%.

Mr Wildman: I understand that. The context of my question was in regard to large urban boards that have growth needs in the suburbs but in the inner city might have rooms that were built for 25 students but only have 22 or 23 in them. The accumulation of the so-called excess capacity may require them to close inner-city schools if they want to get assistance for building suburban schools. My question is not in relation, in this case, to rural and remote schools, but why you require 100% capacity in those inner-city schools when most people would think that a school is operating at a pretty efficient basis if it's at 95% capacity.

Hon David Johnson: I guess the other thing to say is that we don't require schools to be at any capacity. How school boards place the students and accommodate the students, is up to the school boards. If they choose to allocate students on the basis of 110% capacity or 80% capacity, those are their decisions. I will say that there are spaces -- libraries, instrument music rooms and gymnasiums -- that are not counted in this loading either. I think the main point here is that to what percentage schools are loaded is up to the individual boards. What we're saying is that the boards that need the assistance in terms of capital flow monies are those that have the greatest shortage of space.

Over the years, through a period of time, there has obviously been quite a huge backlog of space that boards need assistance with. So the new pupil places flow of money recognizes those boards that have greater needs. I think that's the fair way to go. The other way would be to pick and choose who are friends, or who complains the loudest, or who has the contacts, that sort of thing, but we've chosen to go the route of where the greatest need is where the money goes to assist the greatest number of students.

Mr Wildman: I would say that is certainly debatable. I will return to the rest of my questions that I raised last time when it comes around my turn again, Chair. I just would like to point out that for rural schools as opposed to those that are eligible for the remote grant, I don't think the funding formula meets the needs of communities. I will briefly read into the record some portions of a couple of letters I've received. This one is from a Mrs Valerie Thomson of Granton, Ontario.

She says:

"The provincial government's funding formula for the education system in Ontario is terribly flawed, and discriminates against rural schools. The idea of only funding so much square feet of building space per board is very unsensible and doesn't take into account the variables between school boards, such as distances between schools in rural areas.

"There must be a different formula for rural schools. Urban and rural schools cannot be treated the same because there is a difference between them, just as there is a difference between urban and rural lifestyles. If we wanted our elementary school-aged children to go to an urban school, then we would sell our farm and move to town. We have chosen life on a dairy farm because we believe it is good for our children."

Then further on:

"We have four children attending South Perth Centennial School in the Avon Maitland school board district Our school is in danger of closing at the end of this school year. It is only 31 years old, is near its capacity in enrolment, and has a large, beautiful playground. Our home and school association has put close to $60,000 into our school in the last five years. If it closes, our students are to be divided into four different schools, one of which is below MET standards" -- ministry standards, in other words -- "and one of which is already at 108% capacity. Both these schools are urban and have very little room to expand or set up portables. The other two schools are very close to capacity. Overcrowding in schools causes social problems. The plan our school board is being forced to implement makes no sense.

"I would also like to know why the government can dictate to our school board how to spend our money."

Then further on:

"Bear in mind that this is not just a problem for people concerned over one school. This is happening province-wide and, as more rural people are discriminated against, there will be an uprising. We are doing what we can to make the media and other rural areas aware of this unfair treatment."

I just want to point out that this is something that is going to haunt you.

The Vice-Chair: We'll move to the government party.

Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): Minister, I'm not one of these people like members of the opposite side who think we should go back to the little red schoolhouse out in the country.

Mr Wildman: There's something to be said for that little red schoolhouse.

Mr Wettlaufer: The little red schoolhouse out in the country certainly couldn't prepare the students for what is going to be coming down the pipe for them over the next 20 to 30 years. As you are quite aware, Minister, we need to prepare our students for a technology that is advancing at such a rapid rate that students today haven't been prepared. We have a need in my own community, which is a tech centre, for about 10,000 jobs that isn't being met. It can't be met with this year's crop of graduates; the only way it can be met is by going overseas to England or Germany to bring in the people.

One of the problems we have had for years is that we have had an education system that believed that its primary purpose was to train students to be able to think. I don't want to downplay that -- I think that's important, it's an important role -- but it hasn't prepared the students for a job. Even over the course of the last 12 months we've heard a number of statements from union leaders that it's not the teacher's responsibility, or it's not the education system's responsibility, to prepare students for a job. If it's not our responsibility in the education system or as teachers to prepare the students for a job, whose responsibility is it?

The one thing that we hear is that there isn't enough prestige for students to encourage them to go outside of the university for post-high-school education. If they are going to have post-secondary education with prestige they must go to university and they don't want to train in the tech educational areas that can only be achieved in community colleges.

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You mentioned in your speech that we're investing $150 million over the next three years to implement the access to opportunities program. Of course, in the budget a fair amount of money -- I believe $3.5 million if I remember correctly -- was given to Conestoga College for training in metal machining and other key engineering technologies. In order to attract more students into these areas, are we giving any consideration to allowing some of the community colleges to convert to universities for the purpose of granting degrees in applied technology or applied sciences? Would that be a feasible option over the course of the next few years?

Hon David Johnson: You've said a good deal there. I think you almost have to start right back at the beginning and tackle this issue, which I agree with you is one that needs to be tackled. We have to recall that while our participation rate at the post-secondary is going up each and every year, nevertheless over half of the young people do not go on to post-secondary and need to find their way into the everyday world and the workworld. We have a big obligation to address their needs and prepare them for their future.

We've begun with a kindergarten program. I wouldn't say it stresses technology to the ultimate at that point in time, but it is at least I think the first new kindergarten program that we've had in 50 years. There's some rigour in it that gets kids off to the right start.

Grades 1 through 8: There is the new science and technology curriculum. Again, the technology curriculum is the first new one in over 30 years, as I can recall. The kids coming through the elementary classes now will have not only the theory, which is the science, but the practical application, the technology. They'll be able to see how the one marries with the other. There are specific expectations, grade by grade, so that the teachers, parents and students know what the students should be taught in science and technology at every level.

This will carried on through high school with the new curriculum that's being developed at the present time; it's under development as we speak. We expect the science and technology component to dovetail with the elementary level and to carry through grades 9 to 12.

We have essentially doubled the number of spaces for the Ontario youth apprenticeship program, so that many more kids will have the opportunity to start their apprenticeship while they're in high school and get a number of hours in. Then they can proceed after graduation. They've got a head start on the apprenticeship. There are many wonderful opportunities in the apprenticeship field, but we simply haven't focused as a society, and maybe as a ministry, hard enough in terms of bringing these opportunities to the attention of the young people who are in a position to take advantage of them.

Once we get into the post-secondary -- and I don't know. The deputy's throwing a lot of notes in front of me here; I can't read them while I'm talking.

The issue you raise in terms of degrees through the colleges is one that I know the president of Seneca has raised. I attended a speech he made back a couple of months ago, and he feels pretty strongly that this should be the way to go. I wouldn't say that I've come to a definite conclusion in that regard, but there are some courses at the college level -- and I think it's computer animation at Sheridan -- which are world-renowned, not only well thought of at Sheridan or in Ontario or Canada, but literally world-renowned, and the graduates are in huge demand.

I guess I'm always in danger of causing a stir with thinking out loud, but it may be that what we should do is set some standards, and if proper standards can be met, then other institutions should have the ability to grant degrees. I know that in many cases the students are looking for the degree because it's a recognition. It allows them greater mobility and flexibility in the workforce. A degree means more than a diploma.

Redeemer College has recently been granted the right for a bachelor of arts. I can tell you that when I spoke to the students and the staff there, they were ecstatic. They did have the right for a bachelor of Christian studies, but to be able to grant a bachelor of arts is a little more in keeping with societal thinking. There was tremendous support and gratitude through Redeemer College for the ability to do that.

I think that's something we have to look at, but I'm unable to give you a specific answer at this point other than that we need to explore opportunities to enhance the educational opportunities of our young people. We need to get out of the box a little bit and look at other institutions that might help in that regard and meet a real need. At the same time, we have to recognize that we've had wonderful institutions in the universities and we don't want to put them in jeopardy either. We need to work with them and they need to work with everybody in the education field. I think there could be some exciting years ahead in terms of what could be done in post-secondary education.

Mr John L. Parker (York East): How much time have we got?

The Vice-Chair: Ten minutes.

Mr Parker: Minister, I wonder if I could just step back from the discussion we've been having so far and look at things from a slightly broader perspective. I'm speaking in terms of the general direction and thrust and goals of your ministry and your work in that ministry.

Looking at your actual estimates briefing book that was prepared for this year, right up front it sets out the ministry vision. The very first item under that category is, "Ontario's students will have the best quality education in Canada." Those are fine words, but we might all have our own ideas as to what the best quality education might entail, what it requires, what it means, how you would measure it, how you would define it.

There seems to be some debate around that very issue, not only in this building but around the province these days. We've heard it going on for some time now. I get the sense that some people are inclined to define quality in terms of dollars put into the system. Dollars put into the system are obviously important, but I suspect there is more to a quality education than the dollars that go in. Specifically, I'm interested in your thoughts, your views, as to exactly what is meant by this statement, this vision, that Ontario's students will have the best quality education in Canada. What do you mean by that and just what steps have you taken, what steps has the government taken, in order to advance that vision?

Hon David Johnson: There are a lot of words that I could use in terms of tackling that question. "Partnership" is one word. Most, if not all, of the quality enhancements that we've made to the education system have involved teachers. I will relate to the curriculum. I think to have the best quality education in Canada, we need to have the best curriculum. That curriculum at the elementary level has been determined with teams of teachers writing the curriculum with the Ministry of Education, and I think we've come forward with a much superior product. The same exercise is underway at the secondary level, teams of teachers, also a university representative, a college representative, a representative from the workforce, again determining a high-quality curriculum at the secondary level.

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We obviously need quality teachers; I believe we have quality teachers. Teachers are very much a part of the vision of a high-quality education, the highest in Canada, right here in Ontario. But setting up the Ontario College of Teachers, as we did a couple of years ago, to set standards for teachers, to ensure that those standards are met, I think is very much a part of the quality program.

Getting parents involved: How can one hope to have a true vision of education and of higher quality without the involvement of parents, and again I guess the word "partnership" through school councils. I'm pleased that the Education Improvement Commission is now discussing this matter with the people of Ontario and determining what the role of the school councils, the parents and the other representatives on the school councils should be in bringing the best possible opportunity and quality education to the province.

The report cards are so that, again, parents, even if they're not on the school councils, at least can understand what's happening. The standardized testing brings both parents and the school boards into the equation, so that parents will understand how their children are performing through the standardized testing -- grade 3, grade 6 next year -- and how their schools are performing. "Accountability" is a key word in terms of quality, and the testing will bring, I believe, an accountability at the local school level, at the board level, back to the parents.

I agree with you that, although Maclean's says that we invest more per student than any other jurisdiction in Canada, money isn't always the best measurement of quality. But I will say that to the degree that money is invested, it needs to be invested wisely where it has the maximum benefit. Through the fair funding formula in terms of a vision of fairness all across Ontario and equal quality all across Ontario, the new funding formula does allocate fairly and equally all across the province and it does focus on the classroom because that's where we want the quality. We don't necessarily need the quality -- we need efficiency outside of the classroom and equality to a certain extent I guess, but inside the classroom with the teachers, with the students, that's where the focus has to be and that's where our vision of quality focuses right in the classroom.

Mr Parker: One of the criticisms that has been levelled at the reforms coming out of your ministry is that it has the tendency to centralize control. This is the allegation that one hears, and I've been hearing for about a year now. It was about a year today that I first started hearing that sort of criticism, that the whole thrust of Bill 160 and the other reforms in the publicly funded school system is towards centralizing control of the system into your ministry. It wasn't very long ago, just a week or so ago, I read some column where it was suggested that the goal of the process was so that you could check your watch, you as minister could look at your watch and know that at that time of day the students all across the province in grade 10 would be learning how to decline the vocative form of some Latin word or other, that there was that degree of control.

I haven't heard you discussing control of that sort. I've heard it from others but I haven't heard it from you, and I wonder if you can reconcile what I'm hearing on this subject. Give me your thoughts as to the appropriate degree of control that the ministry should have and the appropriate degree of control and the areas of control that should be vested elsewhere within the ministry and where that control should be vested.

Hon David Johnson: The role of the ministry is to set province-wide standards, because we believe that our children deserve the same general opportunities. I think this has not always been the case in the past, so we have set general standards in terms of the number of instructional days, the maximum number of students on average in a classroom across the boards, the amount of time teachers spend in the classroom, those kinds of standards.

We also believe that the curriculum should be uniform across Ontario so that students have the same opportunities with the curriculum. But I will say that within the scope of these standards, there remains at this time a broad role at the local level for the local authorities, whether they be the school board, the local principal, the local teachers, the parents, the school councils, that they have an important role to play in determining how best to present the education to their students and how the programs are run in the schools and that sort of thing. There are many responsibilities that are retained at the local level, but there do need to be standards set at the provincial level to ensure an equality of opportunity and I think the ministry has exercised its responsibility in that regard.

The Vice-Chair: Thanks, Mr Parker, thanks, Minister. We'll move over to the official opposition.

Mrs McLeod: I had placed a question with the ministry financial staff at our last session. I believe the staff person is here now and I would like to ask to have that information provided as well as three very specific questions that I'd ask you to respond to before turning it over my colleagues. I'd like the enrolment growth numbers you had undertaken to obtain for me, the numbers that you use as a basis projection for the next three years, this year and the next two.

Let me just place the questions on record that I'd like ask you. That would be the fastest.

I'd like to know whether the francophone boards are being funded at the $5.20 of maintenance funding for what is seen on the school accommodation grant figures as being excess space; whether or not the francophone boards are being funded for their excess space.

I'd like to specifically know on the ISA funding what percentage of the approved, validated and approved individualized funding requests has actually been funded; at post-validation stage, approval stage, what percentage has been funded.

Lastly, the capital budget that shows here on vote 1002-4 is $429,581,000, and I'd like you to relate that, please, to what was provided on the documents on the revenue impact of the new funding model, which showed the total capital revenue for district school boards renewal debentures and new pupil places as being $598,920,000.

Those are straight information questions, and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues for other areas of questions.

Ms Naylor: Mrs McLeod, I'll start with the enrolment question. I may have to check back with you. It was a bit hard to hear you. In terms of enrolment projections all the financial projections in the new model that were released in March when the minister made the announcement are quite enrolment-sensitive, so the accuracy of enrolment forecast really is quite material here.

We collect enrolment counts in the school system twice a year, once on October 30, once on March 31, so we don't have the official enrolment counts for the 1998-99 school year yet. However, we did ask boards in July to give us a preliminary estimate of where they thought enrolment was going and that confirmed that our projections in March were quite accurate. If I could just briefly describe for you what we used as assumptions in that respect, what we were working from was a 1997 calendar year basis and we had to project into 1998-99 and the two successive years to give a three-year picture.

The enrolment growth forecasts that we used were 1.4% in the first year as an annual rate of growth, 1.3% the second year and 1.2% the third year. Those are obviously cumulative. In the first year, from the published 1997 figures, we're obviously going from a calendar year into a school-year fiscal year, so we have a 20-month gap. We did gross up that 1.4% annual rate of growth to reflect that by a factor of 1.6%. That reflects the fact that there were 16 school months between the beginning of one period and the beginning of the second period. We were forecasting about a 2.2% difference in enrolment between the 1997 year and the 1998-99 year.

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Based on the July 31 numbers, we were very accurate in our projections. We were better than 99% accurate on both the elementary and secondary panels if those numbers from a board perspective hold up in the October 30 count. That gives us a certain amount of confidence that at least on an aggregate basis the financial projections on the eligibility of school boards in total for funding under the new funding model will be quite accurate. We do see some variance board by board. Especially in some of the high-growth areas there might be a little bit of variance, but for most boards we were pretty accurate.

We used a three-year trend line to get to those projections and modified it using a forecast with Minister of Finance demographic figures for the province as a whole. That's what caused us to step it down in the out years a little bit, because we do see some moderation in the enrolment growth trend line.

In terms of number of students, that translates into a projection in the elementary panel of an increase of 28,000 students in 1998-99 over 1997, and in the secondary panel of an increase of 18,000 students, for a total of 46,000. That does encompass on the elementary side a significant increase in JK enrolment, which the minister may speak to later, but we do see quite an increase in JK enrolment as a result of the new funding model in 1998-99.

Mrs McLeod: Do you have similar pupil numbers in the next two years?

Ms Naylor: Actually, I'm afraid I don't. We could calculate that in terms of numbers, yes.

Mrs McLeod: I'd appreciate that. Just lastly on that, were the 1998-99 projection numbers the enrolment numbers that you used in calculating school accommodation?

Ms Naylor: Yes, that would be the enrolment numbers that underlie the model entirely.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Ms Naylor: May I just say that in terms of new pupil places, there is a variation that you should be aware of, which is that in other areas we can net on an aggregate basis enrolment growth in some parts of the province with enrolment declines in others. On the new pupil places, in terms of capacity we really have to look at places that are experiencing enrolment growth. Obviously we can't move schools from one part of the province to another, so in that area our projections are always based on gross enrolment increases, not netted by enrolment decline.

Mrs McLeod: The second question then was, and I just need a yes or no answer, francophone boards show significant excess space. They're in a unique situation this year. Does the same rule apply to the francophone boards in terms of no maintenance funding for excess space, or do they get the $5.20 for all the space that they currently have?

Ms Naylor: Francophone boards are actually funded on the same basis in terms of straight formula funding within the model for school operation, so the same benchmarks would apply to them in terms of space per student and dollars per square foot or per square metre. However, there are some accommodations for the French boards in terms of start-up funding and first-time funding that are part of the $385 million in restructuring funding, so there's some quite significant start-up funding. Part of that is in recognition of the fact that they're getting started. Some of those schools are just being transferred to them and their enrolment is coming up to our projections.

Mrs McLeod: But they're being funded in terms of maintenance funding on numbers of pupils times the same formula as any other board?

Ms Naylor: In terms of their straight formula funding, but there is significant one-time funding being transferred to them over this year and the next school year as well.

Mrs McLeod: In regard to ISA funding, the individualized funding, the question was what percentage of the validated, improved claims for ISA funding is actually being funded.

Ms Naylor: The minister and the government made a commitment in June that the preliminary allocations that were included in the board profiles released in March would be funded as guaranteed funding. So those are being flowed now. The cash flow schedule that we have with boards gives them a certain percentage of funding in specific months and that is key to their activity level. For example, in September we flow them 13% of their annual allocation. In succeeding months it's usually 8.4% to 8.6%. It reflects the fact that most school boards have a lot of cash outlays in September because they often pay teachers a higher percentage of their salaries.

In terms of the cash that is flowing, the full $1.52 billion which was the original special-ed grant commitment would be flowing in cash flow to school boards now. The process that we're in, as we speak, is that boards will be completing their estimates forms to give us a formal calculation or a submission with respect to their revenue entitlement under the new funding model. Once we get that, where it's necessary, we would adjust the board's cash flow to make sure that on an annual basis they would catch up to the annual amount of funding that they're entitled to for both education grants from the province and education property tax from the local municipalities.

Mrs McLeod: I'll raise this as a specific question in writing to the ministry. I've a public letter from a teacher indicating that only 1% of the validated claims from her particular classroom is receiving funding, but because it is a specific class situation we'll seek some clarification of that later. Mitigation funding, then, was applied. Where any board was receiving more than 4% total increase in budget, the mitigation factor on that 4% was applied to the total budget, including special education ISA funding?

Ms Naylor: There are phase-in provisions for the model, and you're right in the sense that we use a 4% factor on a per pupil basis because we also recognize enrolment changes, both increases and declines. Boards whose revenue declines by more than 4% would be limited to that and receive additional grants on top of their formula entitlements. Boards whose revenue increases from the funding model will be limited to a 4% increase, essentially on a per pupil basis. It's the way the formula works. However, that mitigation in terms of how a board can manage their own expenditures, they are required to envelope the special education allocation, so that must be spent on special education. That is included in the grant regs. It was included in the minister's announcement in March. Essentially that funding is protected, but with respect to the amount that their revenue in other areas and their expenditures in other areas can grow, they are constrained by that overall 4%.

Mrs McLeod: So the funding that was mitigated under essentially special education, that amount of money has to be withdrawn from the balance of the budget. That was my understanding of how it was to work.

Ms Naylor: It is primarily.

Hon David Johnson: But the key point here is that the special education money which was being flowed must be spent on special education and not be spent on something else, so that no board is put in the position of having to determine that this student gets it and this student doesn't. They all get it because this money is flowed, no matter what the circumstance of the board is, to special education.

Mrs McLeod: I'll leave my last question as a point of notice because I realize it's a calculation question. If I could get the information for the next day, and it was just to relate the capital budget that was indicated in the revenue impact of the new funding model at $598,920,000, and I'm just trying to piece together some of the estimates figures. You have a capital expenditure for the three categories that looks to be $429,581,000. If you could just for tomorrow relate those two figures for me, I would appreciate it. I'll turn it over to Mr Caplan.

Mr David Caplan (Oriole): In earlier questioning, I believe one of the government members of the committee referenced Bill 160. Under Bill 160, the government assumed total control of property tax dollars for the purposes of education financing. My question is a very simple one: How many dollars were raised through the property tax system this past year and how many property tax dollars are projected to be raised for the 1998-99 year?

Hon David Johnson: I guess in round terms, on the residential side, it's about $2.5 billion this year. I think the Minister of Finance and the government have made general commitments to halt the growth of property tax increases. Anybody who has served on local boards or local councils will know that ratepayers have been irate over the years because of the rapidly increasing school component on the commercial-industrial side. So there has been a commitment to halt the growth there. There's $2.5 billion from the residential side that came off the property tax as well as $2.5 billion that remains on. On the industrial and commercial side, it's about $3 billion.

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Mr Caplan: Three billion off the commercial-industrial side?

Ms Naylor: That's correct. Of course, the Minister of Finance did announce in the budget that that would be reduced by $80 million as some of the education property tax requirements of business are being reduced to the average and that money is replaced by provincial grants to school boards, and that replacement will actually increase over the next few years.

Mr Caplan: It's very interesting: I recall the minister's comment, as well, that accountability has to be an integral part of the school system, certainly for students and teachers. There was no debate in the Legislature, there was no public input for this raising of property tax dollars on the people of Ontario, residential or commercial-industrial. I find it ironic that the word "accountability" is used and yet there is no accountability to the public of Ontario for raising $5.5 billion in property taxes. That's astounding.

One other comment: The minister just talked about increasing property tax dollars as the rationale behind assuming provincial control. I did a bit of research. I discovered that in the borough of East York between the years 1982 and 1993, property taxes more than doubled on the municipal side. On the school board side it was virtually identical. So there was no real difference in the patterns and spending behaviour and the raising of taxes between municipal officials and school officials in the borough of East York. I find it very ironic that the provincial government has used this as a rationale to assume control of 5.5 billion property tax dollars, and yet there is no accountability like there was, by the way, with local municipal councils and local school boards.

Mr Wettlaufer: You call that accountability?

Hon David Johnson: I guess I'm supposed to respond to this. I would say that the member may be surprised that the province of Ontario doesn't make all its decisions just on what happens in the borough of East York, however worthy that municipality is and however much my heart remains in East York. Still, one looks at a slightly broader picture.

What is astounding, and what taxpayers have found astounding over the years, has been the growth in revenues coming through the municipalities and through their tax bills to fund education. I assure the member that I've been at many ratepayer meetings around tax bill time. We used to organize them in East York and invite taxpayers in before we set the tax rate. In more recent years, they were televised so that people could either phone in or actually be there in person and put their questions to their elected representatives -- accountability before the tax rate is set.

Generally, I would be there representing the borough of East York. We would have the Metro representative representing the regional government, and we would have the school board representative representing the school board. I can tell you that I could basically sit back for the evening. Nobody would ask questions to me. They would always be to the school board representative. People would be irate. They would look at roughly 55% on their tax bill and look at the increases and that was the concern.

If the member thinks that the only reason is to gain control of the rapidly increasing cost of education on the property tax bill, I assure him that hundreds of thousands of people across North York and Ontario would say that's a worthy objective. But I would say that there's a much broader goal than that, and that is to ensure fairness to all the students, all the young people across the province because there are many municipalities, particularly in rural areas, with a very low assessment base, and many of these students were not getting the benefit of the same sort of financial resources as students in some urban areas.

To ensure that fairness and to ensure protection for taxpayers and to ensure a high-quality education system, the province has acted. But it has acted after years and years of pleading to all three parties. I'm sure that when the Liberals were in power, when the NDP were in power, even when we were in power before 1985, people were pleading to do something about the education system. We have.

Mr Caplan: It's just interesting that the accountability of having a representative responsible for property tax increases or not no longer exists for $5.5 billion of taxes collected on the backs of the people of Ontario. That no longer exists. These funds are raised strictly through regulation. There's no debate, there's no discussion, there's no input. I think it's a very sad day when that kind of activity takes place in this province. Unfortunately the facts don't bear up the minister's characterization. The only spiralling I hear is rhetoric. The tax increases under Mr Johnson's regime are virtually identical to those under the school board in the exact period of time. I'll pass to my colleagues.

The Vice-Chair: Time is up, so we'll move to the third party.

Interjections.

The Vice-Chair: We'll move on to Mr Wildman. The government side will get its opportunity to make comments and ask questions. They have respected your rights for the 20 minutes; you respect theirs, please.

Mr Wildman: When I last had the floor I used the example of South Perth Centennial School, which has been slated for closure, and the concerns that were raised about that.

I have a copy of a letter from the Mills family, including Bobby Mills, in grade 5 at South Perth Centennial School, and a letter attached from Bobby explaining why their school is so important in their rural area and why they don't want to see it closed. I'll just table that with the committee and it can be provided to the minister. I'm sure he would want to respond personally, and I think he should. This is not a matter he can simply slough off and say, "Well, it's up to the board," when in fact the board is making these decisions based on a funding formula that is determined by the government, not by the board, and is making a decision on the basis of funding, which again is determined by the government, not by the board.

As my colleague has indicated, when a decision is made legislatively to concentrate the power and control over funding of education in the hands of the minister and the Minister of Finance, the minister can't turn around and say, "Well, these decisions are all up to the board." Because the board makes these decisions based on funding that is made available by the ministry, and those decisions are made here at Queen's Park, not at the local level. It's true that the board may decide this school as opposed to that school. But the point is, they still have to close a school.

I'd like to turn to a couple of other things that I raised the last time, referring to Hansard of October 7. I raised a question with regard to the effect of the deadline for new textbooks in Ontario on curriculum development in Ontario, but not only in Ontario, in Canada. I raised the example of Harcourt Brace Canada withdrawing from the Atlantic science curriculum project. I'd like to hear the minister's response in terms of the effect on curriculum development of the deadline set by him and his ministry here in Ontario.

Hon David Johnson: I see a number of staff here who may have a specific response to that. I assume you're talking about the book purchase we've been involved with.

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Mr Wildman: Yes, the December 1998 deadline for publication of the K-8 science materials and the fact that that's going on the MERX Web site, and in the case that I raised with you, the e-mail I received from a Mr Chuck McFadden of the Atlantic science curriculum in which he said:

"The Canadian Publishers' Council has informed Harcourt Brace Canada that the Ontario Ministry of Education will be announcing on the MERX Web site a December 1998 deadline for the publication of the K-8 science materials for possible inclusion on their list. In response, Harcourt Brace and Company Canada has just informed us...that it is cancelling its agreement with the Atlantic science curriculum project to publish a new edition of SciencePlus. With the loss of half of its potential market, it feels that it is no longer feasible to produce the kind of edition of SciencePlus that would be competitive."

Hon David Johnson: I don't know if this is helpful, but the note I have before me says that Harcourt Brace did withdraw from publishing a grade 7 to 9 science series in Atlantic Canada, and the publisher has advised the ministry that they made an internal decision to withdraw from publishing the series and that the decision had nothing to do with the investment in classroom materials initiative.

Do you want to introduce yourself, Larry, and elaborate on that?

Mr Larry Langdon: I'm Larry Langdon, director of operations and field services branch.

Yes, Mr Wildman, when the question was introduced we contacted Harcourt Brace directly about the e-mail you had received, to ask them on what basis they withdrew that science series. As the minister has already noted, they advised us that it was an internal decision that nothing directly to do with the investment in classroom learning materials initiative. They will be following up, we understand, with the Atlantic science group to provide that clarification to that group.

Mr Wildman: From your understanding from Harcourt Brace, their decision to withdraw from what is referred to as SciencePlus was simply a corporate decision that did not relate to the announcement of a December 1998 deadline on the MERX Web site?

Mr Langdon: That was the response we received from Harcourt Brace to our inquiry.

Mr Wildman: I also asked specifically how many additional staff the ministry has taken on for processing and reconciling the textbook orders.

Hon David Johnson: Zero.

Mr Wildman: Have you transferred staff to this from other operations within the ministry?

Mr Langdon: A number of existing staff were used and the lead is provided by operations and field services, so several staff involved are from there.

Mr Wildman: Twenty or 30?

Mr Langdon: No, not 20 or 30. Three, I believe, are involved in that. We also use our district offices to gather information and to sort information. We were also provided resources from the curriculum learning and teaching branch. Several individuals worked periodically on getting the call for resources ready.

The French-language education policy and programs branch took the lead in dealing with the science and technology area. Obviously the legal services branch looked over the call for resources to ensure that it and the RFP were accurately stated and fulfilled the intent of it. Communications branch helped periodically to ensure that the materials that were to become part of the public domain were appropriate, and of course contract management was actively involved in the call for resources and the RFP.

Two short contracts were signed for project management services, one in order to get the project up and running quickly and a second to follow through on phase 3, which was recently announced.

Mr Wildman: Those were for individuals?

Mr Langdon: They were for individuals and were outside of the other staff that was there, but for a limited period of time not exceeding, I think, about 40 days in total.

Mr Wildman: So the zero is 40 days in actual fact.

Mr Langdon: As I said, project management contracts were let in order to do specific jobs over a specific timeline.

Mr Wildman: While I appreciate your response on the Harcourt Brace Canada question, have concerns been raised by publishers about the deadline of the end of this calendar year and the ability to meet it and at the same time have a well-developed science curriculum or any of the other areas of curriculum?

Mr Langdon: In the original call for resources, 165 books were approved: 114 on the English-language side, 51 on the French-language side. A number of publishers originally missed the call, especially on the French-language side, and there was a predominance of material in the language arts and mathematics area because that guideline had been introduced previously. The science and technology guideline had just been introduced in the late winter.

Yes, the publishers have expressed a concern that it takes a fair period of time for them to translate the guideline over. So in phase 3 of the program, while it will certainly include a major portion dealing with textbooks, 165 textbooks will remain available for school boards that wish to take a look at purchases they perhaps deferred the first time or, because of enrolment changes, need more of.

There was a series of six books that were appealed and didn't make the original list. Five of those were French language; four of those were a mathematics series that the French-language boards were particularly interested in having a chance to order. That will be the first stage of phase 2, which is in the process of going out this week.

There is a plan, as mentioned by the minister, to attempt to see what else might be available that publishers have been able to put together in the interim. We are meeting with the Canadian Publishers' Council and the Association of Canadian Publishers later this week to discuss that aspect of it.

Mr Wildman: Can I just ask either you or the minister: I understand the need -- and far be it from me to argue with the need for new textbooks; I've raised this, as the minister knows. But if we are just in the process of developing and translating the new science curriculum over, why wouldn't we want to give them the right amount of time to do it right? Why would we be involved in this kind of transition and trying to figure out how to do interim solutions rather than ensuring that we have it done right in the first place?

Hon David Johnson: I assure the member that it has been and is being done right. I say that because all the books are vetted by the Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse. The Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse is composed of, I think, about 200 teachers and educators on the English side. These are people who have a good deal of experience in the educational system, who know the curriculum and who see the books that are submitted and look for a match. If they find that the material does not match the curriculum, then they will not put their stamp of approval on it. On the French side, the Centre du leadership -- and again I think fairly close to 200 educators are involved there -- don't put their stamp of approval on material unless it meets the curriculum. On the science --

Mr Wildman: I understand that. I'm just saying that maybe we would have had more competition, more that met the curriculum, if we had given them the time required to do the job, and then we would have a better choice of quality materials for the students.

Hon David Johnson: Well, we could wait for a couple of years.

Mr Wildman: I'm not suggesting --

Hon David Johnson: What we're hearing from students and parents and teachers is that there is a lack of textbooks today --

Mr Wildman: There is, there's no question.

Hon David Johnson: -- and I think you're concurring in that.

Mr Wildman: Yes.

Hon David Johnson: We're not forcing school boards to buy this or that book, but we are saying that here are materials that have been submitted by the publishers and vetted by the Curriculum Clearinghouse and the Centre du leadership. These materials meet the curriculum requirements. They sort of have the stamp of approval of the teachers and educators, and if you wish to buy them as part of your allotment, go ahead. Another part of the allotment is on science equipment. Again, we sought the advice of science teachers, and again they've given their stamp of approval on this particular science equipment. But boards will have the choice of what to buy and what not to buy.

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Mr Wildman: I'd like to just ask a couple of other questions related to what I'd raised last time. Can you confirm that the cost of the universal testing at grade 6 will increase the estimate of $3 million for the random testing that was contemplated to $6 million; that is, will it double?

Hon David Johnson: The cost for the grade 6 across-the-province testing is $6 million. I guess the partial testing was about $1.5 million.

Mr Wildman: Oh, so it's more than double.

Ms Lynn MacDonald: It's $1.5 million in this year as additional monies allocated, and $5.6 million is the annualized amount starting in 1999-2000.

Mr Wildman: OK. Thank you. I also ask if you could provide the committee with any empirical evidence that the ministry has to show that a universal test of all students at grade 6 will give more valid or better results than a well-designed random test.

Hon David Johnson: The information I've received is from parents, school boards and people involved in the system. There is, I think, tremendous support for the across-the-province testing.

Mr Wildman: But you don't have any educational scientific evidence?

Hon David Johnson: I have, again, evidence from parents saying that they support this.

Mr Wildman: I wasn't asking that.

Hon David Johnson: -- saying that they support it because it allows parents to know how their student stands, school boards to know how their school stands, school boards to know how they stand. I think it introduces tremendous accountability into the system.

Mr Wildman: Can I also ask, then, in regard to a question I raised last time related to the memo from two project managers of curriculum development, from Karen Allan, is the argument for deleting violence prevention, anti-discrimination and education about native people that this would be redundant at the grades 9 and 10 curriculum levels, because there are policies that the ministry has that govern questions around these things that boards have to comply with?

Hon David Johnson: There are existing policies that pertain to native issues, multicultural issues and issues of discrimination. These policies, I might say, the one around anti-discrimination was formulated in 1993, which is a year that you may remember.

Mr Wildman: Yes, I recall. I'll use an example just out of the hat. If in an English curriculum students were studying The Merchant of Venice, a curriculum that includes anti-discrimination and multicultural issues might in fact encourage a teacher and give the teacher ideas on how to deal with the depiction by Shakespeare of Shylock in that play. Does a policy directive to school boards give the teacher the same kind of assistance in terms of dealing with anti-discrimination or racial issues, ethnic or religious issues in the English curriculum?

Hon David Johnson: I think a policy is a powerful tool. It is, again, a tool formulated by the government, in this case, by your very own government, so you must have thought it was a powerful tool and a useful one --

Mr Wildman: It's certainly an important one in terms of dealing with violence at the administrative level and dealing with violence in the school.

Hon David Johnson: -- that could be extended to all the boards and all the schools and would govern all of the teachers, schools and school boards. But I will say that in addition to that, there are 15 teams writing the secondary school curriculum, and each one of these 15 teams has a representative on that team whose purpose is to --

Ms Veronica Lacey: Specialists in anti-discriminatory education.

Hon David Johnson: There's a specialist in anti-discriminatory education on each one of the 15 teams to ensure that when the curriculum is being developed, it is developed with sensitivity in that regard. You can rest assured that not only is there the overall policy, created in 1993, but there's also the specialist to ensure that there's no discrimination within the curriculum itself.

The Vice-Chair: We will move to the government side.

Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): I'd like to go back to the parent councils. Last fall, during the Bill 160 debate, a lot of parents were coming in to me and were suggesting to me that through Bill 160 there was going to be a loss of local accountability vis-à-vis the school trustees and various other issues. I came up with three questions that I asked various parents who made this claim, and they were: First, can you name your school trustee? Second, do you ever volunteer at your school? Third, do you participate in your kid's parent council? In my office, we averaged it out that eight and a half out of 10 answered no to all three questions, to which I submitted back to them that we already had a problem with public education because of those answers.

What I'd like to get from you is, a lot of the parent councils still don't seem to have defined in their own minds just what their role should be. I'd like to ask you what your vision of a real school council would be. How can we overcome the parental apathy out there? I think the biggest problem with public education is the lack of parental involvement, and I have two kids in the elementary system. Beyond that, how far do we go in terms of who can be on these councils? Should I be able to be on at my own kids' school and/or should an MPP's spouse be allowed to be on them?

Mr Wildman: Should an MPP's spouse be able to be a member of the Legislature as well?

Mr Pettit: It's just a question I'm asking. Should a teacher be allowed to be on them, not necessarily at her own school, but if she has a child in another school? How far do you go? A lunchroom monitor, let's say, obviously would be considered an employee of a board. Would that prohibit his or her spouse from being on it?

Hon David Johnson: Let me say at the outset that I agree with your overall premise that we need to involve the parents. We need to make parents welcome in the system. My vision, certainly, is that the education system can do nothing but improve to the degree that parents get further involved in the education system. Many parents tell me the concern they have is that on these councils or home-and-schools or whatever they've been involved with down through the years, they haven't really had meaningful input into the system, that a lot of the activities surround fundraising -- and fundraising is very necessary. Down through the years, name a decade and fundraising has been important. I'm certainly not wishing to denigrate that.

Nevertheless, many parents have said they wish a more proactive role, actually being part, in some way, shape or form, of decision-making. In fairness, others take the opposite view, that they wish only to advise and they wish not to have any role whatsoever. If the EIC, which is now hearing these views from parents and the people of Ontario, was able as a result of these discussions to recommend a role for members of the school councils that did have some authority, did have some responsibility, I think you'd find, based on comments I've heard, that there could well be more parents wishing to get involved, and wishing to get involved in greater detail. So we'll see what the outcome from the EIC is and what their recommendations will be. Hopefully the government will be acting on that at the earliest opportunity.

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In terms of the makeup of the school councils, they were actually, as I'm sure we all know in this room, created under the previous government. My understanding is that the previous government felt that there should be a teacher on every school council, there should be a principal in every school council and there should be a staff member on every school council. The remainder of the members should be parents and not teachers in some other guise. At least, the Education Improvement Commission has advised me accordingly, Mr Cooke and Ms Vanstone. That is their reading, that was their assessment of the situation, and they advised me accordingly and advised the school councils and the school boards of their view on that matter. They are also seeking opinions across Ontario, and I'm sure there may be those wishing to give them advice on that particular aspect of the question as well.

But I think we do need to ensure that parents without a connection in the school have an avenue through which they feel welcome and can participate. Teachers, of course, not only have an avenue through their membership on the school council and through the principal -- the principal is also a teacher, I might point out -- but they have an avenue through the day-to-day workings of the school itself.

Mr Pettit: So you're saying that they are still studying the membership, as it were, as to who should or should not be allowed --

Hon David Johnson: Yes, they're studying that whole broad issue of the roles of the school councils, and part of that would be the makeup of the council. I expect their recommendations next month, I guess.

Mr Pettit: That's important, because some of them are having elections now. If they do make recommendations in certain areas, will that necessitate change in the councils as they are elected, perhaps this week?

Hon David Johnson: I would say the vast majority of the school councils have been elected, some in June, some in September, and some, very few now, would still be ongoing. I don't expect the EIC recommendation until, as I say, next month, and then whatever time it'll take the ministry. If there's any legislation or anything of that nature required, I don't know how long it might take the House to deal with it. Without knowing what the EIC is going to say precisely, it's a little difficult for me to speculate on the timeline. The timeline could be on into the year, perhaps even early next year.

Mr Parker: I want to discuss the issue of fairness in the context of unequal situations. My earlier questions were more broad in their context; these ones are coming down now to something more specific.

I represent an area -- you represent the area right next door -- which has a number of different communities within it, and it's hard to draw parallels in all cases between the different parts of those communities. I'm thinking in particular of the areas where there are a large number of children from other countries who are just learning the English language for the first time, who are just growing accustomed to our culture and our world. In many cases, they come from families which are just getting their feet on the ground and learning to adjust to life in this country. Those kids come to school with a few handicaps that are not faced by the kids from other communities, who come to school already with a command of the English language, who come from families that are firmly rooted in our community and who feel quite comfortable in our community.

With the fair funding approach to education, you've been commenting on the equality of the funding across the board. It seems to me that there are cases where there are not equal situations faced by the kids in the schools. There are some kids who clearly need help, just to cope, that other kids do not need.

I wonder if you could help us out with an understanding of what sort of acknowledgement the provincial funding system makes of that situation and what steps and what mechanisms are available within the funding process to ensure that those needs are properly addressed.

Hon David Johnson: I think you raise a good point, because we had been talking earlier about situations in terms of the small school grant or the rural and remote school grant, which attempt to identify the problems of schools in those situations and allocate a flow of money to them so that they can operate, in the knowledge that their operations are different from a school in your riding, for example, in York East. But in York East, in Don Mills, in Toronto and in Ottawa there are other circumstances involving those that you've raised.

The one grant that I would bring to your attention in particular is the learning opportunities grant. The learning opportunities grant is for students at risk. That can be due to a low family income, it can be due to low parental education, it can be due to the fact that they are recent immigrants. In your summary, you're indicating that in your riding and other ridings in Toronto -- and maybe if you didn't, you would have -- there may be many people recently to Canada or, in addition, of aboriginal status, another category. There's a flow of some $185 million in the learning opportunities grant, and the monies could be spent on breakfast programs, reading recovery programs, expanded kindergarten or after-school programs, tutors or counsellors or classroom assistants, reduced class size, mentoring, all of these kinds of activities.

In particular, the Toronto board is in this kind of situation. The Toronto board doesn't get much money from the small schools grant or from the rural and remote grant, you may not be too surprised to hear. As a matter of fact, I would guess that it's zero. That would be pretty close. But because of the kind of situations you've raised, they do get, I think, about 40% of the learning opportunities grant -- I see a nod to say yes, that's true -- which would be almost three times higher than their normal allotment that one would expect. I think about 13% of the --

Ms Naylor: About 14%.

Hon David Johnson: About 14% in general.

Another grant that I would bring to your attention would be the language grant, which is $374 million, to be used for ESL, for new immigrants and Canadian-born children who don't speak English at home, and of course the French equivalent and second-language instruction in native languages. Heritage language, I must say, is funded through this grant as well. So the $374 million essentially protects the existing spending that boards have reported to us that they're spending in this direction. Again, you'll find that a board like Toronto -- I don't think it gets quite 40% of this, but it would get more than the 14%, I'm sure.

Ms Naylor: That's right, and when the validations are finalized we do expect them to get a higher than enrolment base percentage of that.

Hon David Johnson: Are there any others here? Those are two that I would bring to your attention that attempt to recognize that some boards do deal with those specific circumstances of children at risk and children coming from other countries.

Mr Parker: I've been to some of the schools that have a large component of ESL students, and I've noticed that often the extreme cases of kids who have very little knowledge of the English language are taken off into a separate class and they receive very intense attention from one teacher in a group of maybe as small as six kids in that class, simply because their ability to learn in the English language is virtually nil and they need intense attention just to bring them up to a functional level before they can join in with another class and carry on in the regular curriculum.

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Some people have suggested to me that that's an easy way to get the average class size to work out: If you have enough of these particularly small classes -- and in Toronto we have a fair number of them -- then it's easy to make the average figures work out because the large number of small classes automatically brings the average down. Therefore, you can get away with having a larger number of large classes and achieve the ministry's average class size targets. It has been suggested to me that the average class size that's mandated in Bill 160 is actually an artificial concept because the numbers can be manipulated this way. I wonder if you can comment on that.

Hon David Johnson: I'll comment specifically on special education and ask Nancy to help me a little bit. It has been alleged right in the House, in the not terribly distant past, that the special education classes, which could have half a dozen or eight or so students in them, bring the average class size down. We've said over and over again that those classes do not count when one is creating the average class size. They do not count.

If you have, say, 22 students in a normal class, and if there is one special education student in that class, that student counts in that class. That class does count, because that's a normal class. But if there is a class composed of special education students -- six to eight is the normal number, I guess -- it doesn't count. In terms of ESL, I understand it's the same.

Ms Naylor: To add to the minister's comments, it wouldn't be quite as typical for a board to deliver ESL education in the same way. It is fairly typical in some boards that they use that congregated class approach and the smaller class size for the special education students. That is why it is an explicit exception or exemption in the methodology contained in the regulation to calculate class sizes. On an ESL basis it would be more typical, for example, for the child to remain integrated in the class, perhaps withdrawn from the class for an hour or two a day. In that case that really doesn't change the class size mix. In that respect the methodology outlined in the regulations is quite reflective of the way boards tend to deliver education and it is quite fair to boards with respect to how they tend to deliver classes and also how the funding model supports them in doing that.

Mr Parker: In any event, the answer I'm hearing from the two of you is that these special small classes cannot be used statistically to skew the average class size result. When the average class sizes are calculated, these particular small classes are not included in that calculation.

Hon David Johnson: That's correct.

The Vice-Chair: Any other questions? You have two more minutes.

Mr Parker: I could ask you a question about school closings. I was just reading in the clippings from the weekend that there seems to be some confusion as to what would happen with the land if a school were to be closed. Somewhere here I've got the actual clipping.

Hon David Johnson: That's probably the Toronto board.

Mr Parker: The suggestion was that the view has been expressed out of the Toronto board that if a school is declared surplus it cannot be sold on the market; it can only be sold through a series of mechanisms that are controlled by the ministry, and only if certain steps are pursued. First it has to be turned over to another board or to another public purpose and so on, and if there's no such purchaser under that mechanism, then it can be sold to the province. In any case, the price would be controlled by the province and the return to the school board would be governed by provincial rules, and the province would stand in the position to earn a large benefit by then selling the property on the open market, at market value.

Hon David Johnson: Yes, there are some pretty remarkable things being said; I don't know if it's out of ignorance or with some other motive. I will say there is a process -- you wouldn't be surprised -- for the disposal of properties in general from the government. Hopefully, if there's a need for government to have certain properties, and government already owns certain properties, then it may be wise to poll around and see if there is that need.

In the case of schools, the Toronto school board, for example, would be required to see if any of the other coterminous boards, either the separate school or the French board, need property. Because in a community not only is there public money that has gone into a school but the general public view that if there's a school, that's a compatible use with their community. To the degree that we can retain a school there, albeit in another system, that's a good thing. That's what most people in the public would think and that's probably the best use of the facility.

So we ask the Toronto school board to poll the other school boards. If the other school boards need a property, then the sale would take place in line with the new pupil places grant so that the Toronto school board would get the same flow of money essentially as the new pupil places grant would give them. If no other school board is interested, then there may be another public agency, there may be a university or a college, or the Ministry of Community and Social Services, or somebody else who may wish the property. However, if the sale is made to any of those other public institutions, then it's at market value. Beyond that, if it's made to the private sector, if no public institution is interested, it's made at market value and the Toronto board would have full access to the market value funds. By the way, the province of Ontario doesn't get a dime out of it.

Mrs McLeod: I have some very specific estimates questions which I'll place. If they're not answered, I'd ask for the information for tomorrow. I believe my colleague Mr Cleary has some questions he'd like to place.

As a point of information on that last issue, could I please have the number of the most current regulation governing the disposal of school assets? If that's not immediately available, I'll just ask for it as a point of information.

Mr Theo Grootenboer: That's 444/98.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much. I'm not sure it's on the database on the Internet yet, but it would be available, I assume, if we were to call the ministry for it.

Mr Grootenboer: Yes, that is available.

The Vice-Chair: Excuse me, sir, could you identify yourself for Hansard.

Mr Grootenboer: Oh, I'm sorry. Theo Grootenboer. I'm a manager in the capital and operating grants administration branch.

Mrs McLeod: I had a question outstanding from yesterday. I had provided some information on the overall per pupil funding, given stable funding for the next three years. The calculations that we had done were based on an assumption of 25,000 more pupils per year, which has been the past history according to -- I'm somewhat staggered by the fact that the enrolment is actually going to increase at a higher level than 25,000 per year, which certainly makes the per pupil funding considerably less next year than we would have anticipated. I know you've said that you can provide me with the actual pupil numbers that you're expecting in the two years subsequent to that and I would appreciate receiving the per pupil funding, overall funding, over the next three years based on your population projections of 46,000 now being the figure for 1998-99. I'm prepared to leave that question for information in the future.

I'm not sure who might be able to answer this question, but exactly what rebate on the textbook purchases was negotiated, on average, if that's the only figure available, and was that rebated figure returned to each school on a pro-rated basis depending on the size of their purchases? Or was it returned to them on the basis of each individual textbook purchase and the specific rebate on each textbook?

Hon David Johnson: The boards only pay the discounted price. The boards pay the lowest discounted price. The problem is that putting the system out in the first instance one does not know which boards are going to order what books and the publishers base their discount on the number of books ordered. If the total order was a hundred books, there would be a very minute discount; if the total order was, I don't know, a million books, then there would be a huge discount. The original price going out to the boards had to specify the basic list price to give them some kind of guidance, but when all the orders came in and we determined precisely how many of each book would be ordered, then the discounted price was applied and that's what the boards were charged.

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Mrs McLeod: So in terms of the budget that each school had to spend on textbooks as per your spring announcement, those boards then, having order the textbooks at the original list price, the price was then discounted -- I'm following through your scenario. So the difference between the price that the boards originally assumed they were paying for those specific textbooks and the actual price that was paid is now credited to the board's account and each board has a textbook account which they could spend this fall. Is that correct?

Hon David Johnson: That's not exactly how we would word it, but in essence you have it exactly right.

Mrs McLeod: So that fund is there in each board's hands to spend on cheaper textbooks.

Hon David Johnson: When you say in each board's hands, that fund, that exact amount that each board has to spend is on our records. But we didn't give the boards the money, as you appreciate; we gave the boards that allotment.

Mrs McLeod: Does each board know what their budget is for textbook expenditures based on the rebate each board received?

Mr Langdon: That information is just going out over the next couple of weeks. The second page deals with the kindergarten program materials, the books and the science equipment out of the $100 million, and then boards will be informed not only of how much that allocation is but also of what was actually paid for textbooks on their behalf and how much money --

Mrs McLeod: I assume that material will be made public so that we can see the actual expenditure and the credited account for each board.

Hon David Johnson: I don't think there's any problem with that. Just in gross terms the $68 million was what the order was, but the actual expenditure was $55 million. So the boards have $45 million to spend, not $32 million.

Mrs McLeod: I'll look forward to having that on a board-by-board basis.

The next question is in a totally different area and has to do with tracking. This is basically a yes or no question. It's a question of whether or not the ministry is tracking class size data and specifically whether or not you are tracking junior kindergarten class sizes, whether you will be able to tell us how many junior kindergarten classes are running as of now, October 13, at more than 25 students.

Hon David Johnson: I'm sorry, it's hard to hear. Your microphone must be funny or something. But it's something to do with the number of junior kindergarten --

Mrs McLeod: No, it's specifically, are you doing class size tracking, so that data will be available in terms of how many classes are above and below your averages? Very specifically, do you have data at this point on how many junior kindergarten classes are actually running at over 25?

Hon David Johnson: First of all, I'm sure we're doing the tracking, but Nancy I'm sure will apply the -- on the junior kindergarten, I know that we have 17,000 new junior kindergarten students this year as a result of the government initiative on early education.

Mrs McLeod: I'm aware that the early incentive grant was not picked up, that boards have chosen to run junior kindergarten programs --

Hon David Johnson: There are 17,000 more students. How's the tracking?

Ms Naylor: We collect class sizes grade by grade. This is a little different from the calculation that we were discussing earlier, which is that boards will submit to the ministry their average class sizes on a board-wide average. As part of the major data collection that we do on October 30 and then partially again in the second term, we ask boards to give us class size information school by school and grade by grade. We will be able to report on that some time after that calculation. As you can appreciate, it takes a bit of time for us to roll it up from the school level to the school board and get a picture of how large those class sizes are. We have some preliminary numbers about JK enrolment in total, board by board at this point in time. We don't know the size of JK classes at this point in time.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the fact that you're tracking it, so again that information will be made public as it's available?

Ms Naylor: It will be collected on October 30, the official count date. Boards submit it to us as of October 30, and so those submissions come in over the month of November.

Hon David Johnson: We want the people to know what the average class size is, so we're with you 100% on this. We want that accountability.

Mrs McLeod: I was asking for the actual class size data.

Hon David Johnson: Yes, the class size data. We want the people to know, we want the parents to know.

Mrs McLeod: I'll look forward to that being provided.

Hon David Johnson: Some boards, I might say, have already come and asked for exemptions, just as a matter of course. There may be some areas of last resort of their particular problems --

Mrs McLeod: I understand that funding wasn't quite adequate to meet the --

Hon David Johnson: But just to grant a holus-bolus exemption right off the top, we don't think parents would be very happy with that.

Mrs McLeod: The other tracking question that follows Mr Parker's question is that I know that the elementary teachers federation has presented some preliminary data on the reduction in English-as-a-second-language programs, specifically in Toronto. Is that another area that the ministry is tracking?

Ms Naylor: One of the things that we would collect -- if I could just step back a little bit, the collection this fall will be more meaningful I think than it has been in previous years, and it has to do with the change in the basis for providing funding for English-as-a-second-language programming. In previous years that has been largely on a gross enrolment basis, adjusted somewhat by the number of teachers that boards have designated ESL teachers. In their review of these grants, boards did advise us that they felt that there were better proxies available for the amount of need for ESL instruction.

What we are turning to in the new funding model is actually a set of data that we have collected over the years in the October reports. This will be used for funding purposes, and that is specifically the number of children who are enrolled in the schools of the board who have immigrated to Canada within the past three years from a country in which English is not a first or a standard language. Boards advised us, in the context of the Working Group on Education Finance Reform, which was quite a useful basis of review and which has formed a lot of our formula design in the new funding model -- they informed us that that would be a better basis for funding English as a second language. In October, when we get that data again, we will adjust the grants for school boards, but school boards at this point in time are claiming, or are budgeting on the basis of the students that they already know are in their schools who would meet those eligibility criteria.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate that. Again, it's debatable whether or not the criteria are too stringent.

Mr Chairman, how much time do we have left?

The Chair: You have another 10 minutes.

Mrs McLeod: Very quickly then, because I want Mr Cleary to have some time.

I was interested in the figure that was provided to Mr Wildman on the fact that the grade 6 testing expansion is going to cost $6 million compared to the $1.5 million now and the EQAO budget is down by $3 million. Can you tell me what is not being done by the EQAO in terms of testing to reduce the budget by $3 million while the cost of the grade 6 testing increased by $4.5 million?

Hon David Johnson: The EQAO will need the amount of money it needs to conduct the grade 3 test and the grade 6 test, so the expectation is that the actual monies will exceed the budgeted monies. I guess they'll exceed by --

Mrs McLeod: You mean you're deliberately deficit-financing, Minister? I'm shocked.

Hon David Johnson: This is a very important initiative. Maybe you haven't come to this conclusion yet, but I'm sure the Liberal party will come along at some point in time. The testing is important across the province.

Mrs McLeod: I happen to believe that if you're going to announce it, you should fund it, that's all. It's one of those basic things about budgeting.

Hon David Johnson: I think the budget was struck before this initiative was fully determined, and we just think this initiative is so important that we're prepared to allocate the resources it takes to do it.

Ms MacDonald: Just to expand on what the minister has said, we consulted extensively with the chief executive officer and the senior staff at the EQAO as to, first of all, what form of expanded testing should be undertaken and, second, what it would cost to do that. It was on their advice that we put in the $1.5 million this year for development and design and then the $5.6 million would cover the full implementation.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate that. I suspect it was not on their advice that their estimates were cut by $3 million. I'll turn to my colleague Mr Cleary.

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Mine too was about class sizes. Over the past months we've heard from a lot of taxpayers, teachers, parents, students, and what they referred to me was that they were led to believe that class sizes would be in the low 20s. They referred certain examples to me. One says that a split class has 28 children, another one that a split class, grades 1 and 2, has 39 children. They just wanted me to ask you what your opinion was on this, Minister.

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Hon David Johnson: My opinion is that over the years, through different governments, the class sizes have grown, although I must say that when I went to school I guess my first class was 40-some-odd students, so I suppose since when I've gone to school they've probably dipped down. But recently they've begun to climb; for example, over the last seven or eight years the average class sizes, particularly at the elementary level, have increased each and every year. My view is that it's time to put a stop to that. At the secondary level it's been a little more uneven: They've increased some years, decreased other years, but through that same period of seven or eight years, the average class size has also increased at the secondary level. Again, it's time to put a stop to that. That's why, through Bill 160, we put a cap on the average class size.

The boards need a little flexibility. For example, if you have an elementary class at 25 and one or two students come partway through the year, do you force them to rend apart that one class and disrupt all the students or do you allow them to add another student or two on top and deal with the situation through the rest of the year? So, we did say that it was the average class size, to allow boards some flexibility, but at least we put a stop to the overall growth.

You will know that when one talks about average, you have to put in the large classes. Unfortunately, there are classes, just such as you say exist, with 39 students. But if a board averages 25 students, for example, and has one with 40 students, then it has three other classes, presumably, with 20 students, so that the average is 25. I think most parents would say, and I would concur, it would be better if all of the classes were closer to the average so we didn't have the classes of 35 and 40 students, and indeed we didn't even have classes of over 30 students. But stopping the growth of the average class size, so that that same class you're talking about with 39 students this year doesn't have 40 or 41 next year and 42 or 43 the year after, we've made that start. I'm hopeful that at some point in the future we'll be able to address the kind of situations you're talking about and ensure that no class has beyond a certain number of students.

Mr Cleary: I tried my best to explain it to them, and my explanation wasn't very good, so they wanted yours. Yours is pretty nearly the same as mine, so it's still not going to sell.

Another concern from eastern Ontario is the funding for French language beginning at grade 4. Many teachers feel this is too late, particularly for children from non-francophone families. They say that without this foundation many children will not learn linguistic abilities. Some of the boards have set this as a priority and they're robbing money from other areas and starting French in kindergarten and grade 1. When do you feel these children should begin this curriculum? Do you foresee any change in provincial funding for the French curriculum?

Hon David Johnson: We were talking about parents being involved and local autonomy. These are decisions that need a great deal of input at the local level. Certainly students can still start in grade 1. The number of hours of French study is still the 600 hours through the elementary system, so it's the same number of hours that are required. The funding formula has been changed somewhat, but it doesn't prevent a board from starting in grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, through that process. The local school board, in conjunction with the school councils and the parents, will make the determination as to what's best for their community.

Mr Cleary: Another area we've heard a lot about is the busing policy across Ontario. We have been told that it's complicated by having two boards cover a similar route. Parents and teachers say that they think it's strange the ministry has meddled in other aspects of education, cutting French curriculum and the textbooks and all this, and they wonder why you're not dictating about the school buses.

Hon David Johnson: Sorry -- why we're not which?

Mr Cleary: Why you refuse to look at the policy of school buses.

Hon David Johnson: As a matter of fact, there is a team in place right now reviewing the transportation policy. This team has a representative from the Ministry of Education and has representatives from the school busing industry and school boards. A week or two ago, they suggested an interim kind of situation that we might deal with. The ministry responded by releasing more funds for transportation, of which you're probably aware, about 3% to 4% more monies in transportation, specifically in recognition of the five PA days that have been reduced. Previously there were nine PA days. Now with five being turned into classroom instructional days, there's the need for transportation. This was brought to our attention by the committee that's studying this. The committee's work, I might say, is ongoing, and there will be a report at some point from this committee.

Ms Naylor: That's right. One of their primary mandates is to provide advice on a new funding formula for student transportation, to take effect for the 1999-2000 school year. Also incorporated in their mandate are recommendations on how to achieve greater efficiencies and greater co-operation between and among boards for route planning and route sharing so that maximum efficiencies are achieved.

Hon David Johnson: Boards have responded quite well, actually. There have been efficiencies. That's not to say we can't always do a little better, but over the last three years there have been considerable efficiencies built into the busing system.

The Vice-Chair: Mr Wildman, you'll end off the day.

Mr Wildman: I'd like to return to the class size issue, and specifically to kindergartens and junior kindergartens. Are you tracking how many senior and junior kindergartens have been combined in the province? Whereas they used to be separate, now boards are combining them.

Ms Naylor: I believe our October report data collection does ask boards to report on where they have combined grades or split grades. We're aware that boards do that for two reasons. First of all, in the case of smaller enrolments in small schools, grades are sometimes combined. A second reason, however, is for pedagogical reasons. A number of schools, for example, in Toronto where they have a very dense pupil population, still choose to combine their JK and SK classes for a number of reasons. They feel it enhances the learning experience of students. It also facilitates the matches that can be made between individual students and individual teachers and gives the principals more flexibility in matching students and teachers who they feel will work well together.

Mr Wildman: In many areas that I know of, they are combining them simply because of the cost of transportation. It is not for pedagogical reasons. In the past, they had split kindergarten and junior kindergarten, each of them a half-day each day all week. What they've done now is combine them and have them going full days, sometimes two days a week, three days a week the next week, to save money on busing. It's a transportation, economic, grant-based decision, not a pedagogical decision.

My colleague asked how many of these were above the average 25 for elementary, and you said you're tracking that. I'd like to know how many are above 18. Are you tracking that?

Ms Naylor: We would know when we get the results of that data exactly what the distribution of JK classes by size would be, so we could look at that as a perimeter or a criterion.

Mr Wildman: I would certainly like to have that information. How soon will it be available? Do you know?

Ms Naylor: As I mentioned in response to Mrs McLeod's question, that generally is available to us sometime in December, by the time we get the school-by-school reports rolled up and validated.

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Mr Wildman: I have a question for the minister, but I understand he's consulting. I'll wait until he comes back to ask him specifically on that.

The question was raised about the parent councils, and there was a discussion about the EIC's consultation. Many of us participated in that. I'm just wondering if the minister can respond to the concerns I raised with regard to either the unwillingness or the inability of the Education Improvement Commission to respond to what was a clear majority view with regard to French-language secondary education, a majority view among the francophone community in northeastern Ontario, where the francophone community has an historic compromise where they basically have Catholic education at the elementary level but, in order to ensure a critical mass, had accepted secular public education at the secondary level.

In thousands of petitions, letters, public meetings and at the hearings then held by the EIC on the division of assets, the francophone community on the north shore of Lake Huron and the eastern shore of the Lake Superior, Chapleau and other communities, made it very clear that they wanted their high schools to remain public high schools in the new French boards and not to go to the Catholic boards. Yet the EIC apparently made a decision based on advice of an academic from Laurentian University and did something quite different.

Hon David Johnson: I can only say that the EIC has dealt with a number of issues in terms of the assets, splitting and determinations of this nature. My understanding is that by and large there has been a general consensus that the vast majority of the decisions have been fair and have been deemed to work quite well. I find it awkward and perhaps even inadvisable to make specific statements about a particular issue. The EIC was set up to deal with these matters.

Mr Wildman: Okay. I understand that position.

Hon David Johnson: There has been a mediation process. As I understand, there is a process they go through in their attempt to be fair. On what evidence they base their decisions, I'm not really privy to.

Mr Wildman: Well, if the minister doesn't wish to comment further, I understand that, because the two boards are now appealing to the minister and the minister will have to make a decision. I fully understand that. I just point out that I raised this with the EIC and Ms Vanstone informed me that she understood the concern on the north shore but that "The EIC is bound by legislation." I'll just leave that.

Hon David Johnson: Well, if there's any further information that comes to me I will have a better determination of what is meant by all of it, but I will say that the Education Act, subsection 58.2(15), I'm told, states that the orders and directives of the EIC are final and shall not be reviewed or questioned in court.

Mr Wildman: That's correct.

Okay. The two boards have come up with a different solution, which is satisfactory to many people but not to others. They have suggested that that be implemented. I guess that's up to the minister.

I raised another question, which goes directly to the divisions and controversies around the negotiations of collective agreements at the secondary school level in Ontario as it relates to Bill 160 and the minister's letter and the instructional time. I specifically asked if the minister could explain why, when teachers and their federations offered to lengthen the periods they were now teaching, the government refused. If the government wishes teachers to teach more minutes and they have agreed to teach more minutes but only to teach them to the students they are now teaching, in other words, ensuring more time and contact between individual students and teachers, why would the government refuse and say the government wants them to teach more periods, not just more minutes?

Hon David Johnson: I'm not aware of which board I have refused. Perhaps I could be enlightened.

Mr Wildman: The boards have informed the teachers' federations that that would not be acceptable in most cases. Particularly the Catholic boards have indicated to the federations that that is not acceptable to the ministry.

Hon David Johnson: The ministry certainly has concerns, and I have concerns. Particularly in northern and rural areas, there has been a good deal of input by parents, I understand, over the years because of the lengthening of the school day. It has to do with the daylight hours in many communities. Parents are concerned about children coming home at a later hour or going to school at an earlier hour. I'm sure the member for Algoma will identify with that.

Also, in terms of the school bus scheduling, elementary and secondary kids may come home on the same bus, but that may not be possible if the time is extended. That may have implications. Some people expressed concern about, with the existing class size, four credits per day, being about 75 minutes. To allocate more time on top of that again is quite a lengthy period of time for young people. There has been concern expressed about that, if it had to do with the periods being extended to 85 minutes, for example.

There's the issue of part-time jobs, which many students have after school. They may need the monies to assist them in their everyday life or with their schooling. Many students have part-time jobs after school. Plus there are extracurricular activities, and we've all indicated on many occasions how important those are to young people. If that period of time eats into the extracurricular activities -- extracurricular activities are a very valid form of education. Many students would lose out on that.

There are many different problems associated with it. I'm unaware that I've actually vetoed or refused any particular board at this point. But certainly I hope we'd all agree that there are many problems that we have to look at.

Mr Wildman: I understand the minister's argument with regard to the length of the school day and so on. If the desire -- and frankly I think it's a good one, if it is the real desire -- is to increase the contact that individual students have with individual teachers, then surely having a teacher teach the same number of students over a longer period of time is something the ministry would like and want.

Hon David Johnson: Certainly the ministry is anxious to have teachers spending more time with the students. We feel we've accomplished that in a way that is generally accomplished across the rest of Canada, which is to increase the number of instructional days.

Although I suppose we can say that the rest of Canada doesn't always have the exact correct ideas on everything, one might wonder why the number of instructional days on average at the secondary level was 180 across the rest of Canada and 170 here in Ontario a year ago. Maybe all the rest of Canada is on to something; we felt they were, and we've increased the number of instructional days by 10. That involved reducing the number of PA days by five and the number of exam days by five. But we now have the same number of instructional days. During those extra 10 days the students and the teachers are together and our students are having a better opportunity to learn what they need to learn. That, we think, is the logical solution to this.

Mr Wildman: Just as an aside, Chair, since the minister mentioned examination days, could he identify the legal beagle who came up with the word "invigilate"?

Hon David Johnson: If I could, do you think you and I would have the same attitude towards legal beagles? We might share common ground on that one.

Mr Wildman: I thought perhaps this was a new suggestion that we should hire vigilantes to look after school examinations.

Ms Lacey: Those people who have been in the education system for a number of years will recollect that term. It is a long-standing term in education.

Mr Wildman: I must admit, I understood it, but it was a little disconcerting when I first read it.

The minister has indicated clearly that he is pleased that the numbers he felt were outlandish, in suggesting the numbers of fewer teachers, were inaccurate and so on. Could he tell us when the ministry will actually know how many fewer teaching positions there are this year in Ontario, at the secondary school level in particular?

Hon David Johnson: I'll interpret your question to mean, when will the ministry know how many teaching positions there will be? I have every confidence that over the course of the next three years there will be considerably more teaching positions.

Mr Wildman: I was talking about this year, actually.

Hon David Johnson: In terms of this year -- do we have an answer to that question? I've been asking that very same question myself, for opposite reasons from the member.

Ms Naylor: Again, this information is formally collected on our October 30 count date. We would have it as part of that process.

Mr Wildman: So about December?

Ms Naylor: We'll have some earlier indications of the number of teachers from another process, which is our financial claims process. The boards will complete what's called their estimates submissions, which they're required to do under the Education Act. That's their budget. In the process of that, they are essentially giving us the data that we need to estimate their revenue eligibility. That includes some data that is indicative of the number of teachers they have. So we will have a preliminary projection at that time, but they give us the formal data on October 30.

Mr Wildman: Finally, could the minister clarify for the committee how instructional time is going to be calculated for teacher-librarians and for guidance counsellors?

Hon David Johnson: To the degree that a guidance counsellor, for example, teaches a credit course, that counts in terms of instructional time. If they're not involved in any regularly scheduled credit courses, then it doesn't count.

Mr Wildman: Then I'm a little confused. If a teacher is a guidance counsellor, let's say hypothetically a guidance counsellor full-time, you're saying that person doesn't teach?

Hon David Johnson: It's up to the board to determine who teaches, obviously within the requirements of the Education Act etc. But if a guidance counsellor, for example, gives the guidance course, which is a credited course --

Mr Wildman: I understand that, or if someone is a part-time guidance counsellor and may teach English or math or something else as well, certainly there's no question that that period when they're teaching math or teaching English is instructional time.

Hon David Johnson: Right.

Mr Wildman: But let's say that's half-time. As far as you're concerned, that's a half-time teacher.

Hon David Johnson: I don't know what you mean by "half-time teacher." It's a teacher who's teaching instructional time half the time.

The Vice-Chair: That ends the third party's 20 minutes. We'll start tomorrow with the government side.

I'd like to thank the minister's staff for their attendance and their clarifications. Thank you, Minister. We'll see you all tomorrow.

The committee adjourned at 1755.