Ministry of Education
and Training
Hon Janet Ecker, Minister of Education
Mr Norbert Hartmann, assistant deputy minister, elementary and
secondary business and finance division, Ministry of
Education
Ms Suzanne Herbert, deputy minister, Ministry of Education
Ms Nancy Naylor, director, education finance, Ministry of
Education
M. Maurice Proulx, assistant deputy minister, French-language
education and educational operations division, Ministry of
Education
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
ESTIMATES
Chair /
Président
Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough-Rouge River L)
Mr Gilles Bisson (Timmins-James Bay / Timmins-Baie James
ND)
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke L)
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough-Rouge River L)
Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park L)
Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe PC)
Mr John O'Toole (Durham PC)
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Steve Peters (Elgin-Middlesex-London L)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Anne Stokes
Staff / Personnel
Ms Anne Marzalik, researcher, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1557 in committee room
1.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING / MINISTÈRE
DE L'ÉDUCATION ET DE LA FORMATION
The Vice-Chair (Mr
Alvin Curling): We resume the estimates of the Ministry
of Education and Training. I understand it is the NDP that has
the floor for 20 minutes.
Mr Gilles Bisson
(Timmins-James Bay): I just wonder if you can tell me
how much longer we have with this particular minister.
The
Vice-Chair: As long as we want her today.
Mr Bisson:
Thank you.
Since our last chance at
having this discussion around the estimates of the Ministry of
Education last week, I've had an opportunity to go back and speak
to some of the school boards in regard to where they find
themselves this year and next year vis-à-vis funding issues
and others. If you remember, I had raised some questions around
the funding formula. I need to get a clarification because I
asked you a question earlier last week. I had an opportunity to
raise it with some of the boards and they were not quite-how
would I say it politely?-satisfied with the answer the minister
gave with regard to stable funding.
You would know that last year
the school boards across Ontario had been given two pots of
money: One was phased-in adjustment funding and the other part
was the stable funding guarantee that you gave school boards to
make sure that their funding formula represented as closely as
possible what they were getting before the funding formula was
put in. If you went strictly with the model, a number of school
boards across Ontario would find themselves at a disadvantage.
The ministry, I think quite rightfully, tried to respond by
providing some stable funding so that the funding formulas were a
little bit more generous than they would have been otherwise.
There are a number of
rumours, and this is why I'm coming back with the question. I've
had a chance to speak to three of the school boards in our riding
and they're all saying they're hearing the same thing. There is a
rampant rumour within the Ministry of Education that there is a
decision coming down the line that what was supposed to be a
stable funding guarantee and the phase-in adjustment are going to
disappear this year. I would like you, for the record, to clarify
that hopefully that's not going to happen; and if you are looking
at doing it, what your timeline is for such a move.
Hon Janet Ecker
(Minister of Education): There have been a number of, as
you say, pots of money or funds that have been set up to assist
boards through the transition, restructuring etc. There have been
funds available for giving more stable funding to boards. There
have been a number of steps taken. There's no question that some
of those funds were for limited times, and it was very clear to
the boards what money would be available through what time.
As to where we'll go with
next year's grant regulation, in terms of how much or where, I
can't answer that because that work is not done yet. But we were
very clear about what monies would flow within what time periods
and for what purposes. There's been no change in that policy, but
I can't prejudge where we'll end up for next year with some of
these issues.
Mr Bisson: I
asked you last week, and I guess for the record, when do you
expect that decision to be taken in regard to whatever position
the ministry's going to be taking on these two particular pots of
money?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, the grant regulation for next year,
in terms of how it will translate for different boards, will be
announced in the usual time frame, which is somewhere around
March, in the spring. If there is to be any extension or
enhancement of any funding or any changes in any funding, I would
anticipate that if those decisions are made, that would be the
time that would occur. But we've been very clear with boards
since the beginning of this process that there were time limits
on certain pots of money. There's been no change on that.
Mr Bisson:
But you recognize that the decision by the provincial government
last year to do this staved off the closure of a number of
programs across Ontario school boards and, I would even argue,
staved off the closure of some of the schools. I had a chance
over the weekend to talk to a number of trustees from all-not all
four boards; I only managed to get three of them on Thursday and
Friday, as well as some of the people within the administration.
They're telling me-this is not from me-that in the case of the
school boards in our area, especially the French-language
public-and I don't want to diminish this for any of the other
ones, but they seem to be more affected by this-they're going to
be in a position that if they lose that funding next year, and they're
fearing that's going to be the case, it means that they're really
dipping into student dollars. This is not a question of going
into administration and saying, "We can do this in administration
and save some dollars here, there and everywhere." It's that
they're actually going to have to go into the classroom.
The Premier had made a
promise, and your precedessor had made the promise, that you were
going to make sure the dollars in the classroom would not be
affected. The trustees want me to ask you, if it comes down to
that, if taking away these dollars affects classroom spending,
will the government maintain the promise it made two years ago
not to affect classroom spending?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, classroom spending is protected.
They can't raid classrooms for other purposes, if you will, and
we've been clear on that. I understand there are challenges for
boards. That's why we have so much money available in transition,
because boards have been asked to find efficiencies and savings.
Many of them are doing a very good job of that. The Education
Improvement Commission has tried to praise those boards that have
done a good job, to encourage those boards that haven't done such
a good job, to share best practices. They are expected to find
efficiencies and savings on the admin side, and the reason we had
a time frame was so they could do that.
Mr Bisson:
With all due respect, Minister, they're telling me that when it
comes to administration, we've already taken the big hits in
regard to the transition to the new boards, as well as what the
new funding formula has already done. They're telling me-and you
know this-that there are a number of programs that are counted
outside of the envelope that have to do with classroom funding. A
number of programs are not counted, and my colleague Rosario
Marchese last week raised a number of those programs that you
don't count as classroom spending that we would argue are.
They're saying that a lot of the programs that go to support
students in the classroom may end up going the way of the dodo
bird if your government doesn't maintain its promise not to
affect classroom funding.
The question I have is, and
this is the question I've been asked to ask you: Will you
maintain your promise and make sure that you're not going to
negatively affect the programs that are presently being delivered
to students not only in Timmins-James Bay but in other parts of
the province?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Our goal here is to have more money on classroom
funding. The money will grow as enrolment grows, and that has not
changed. But I cannot, and don't think it's appropriate to, give
blanket guarantees to boards that for any programs they wish to
have-
Mr Bisson:
So that's the wiggle word.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -above and beyond what we have as classroom
programs, guarantees that we will fund anything and everything.
I'm sure there are specific programs that some boards run that
are different from other boards. Many boards have made decisions
in the past, as they will in future, if they want to maintain
those, but our goal here is to protect the classroom, to make
sure boards are not raiding classrooms for other purposes. As we
are hearing from boards, the challenges they have in
restructuring, in transition-we know northern boards have some
significant issues. We are looking at that. As I said, I can't
say how we will come down on some of those other things, but we
certainly hear those concerns and are attempting to work with
boards to see what we can do in the future.
Mr Bisson:
The French Catholic system and the English Catholic system raised
the issue of what's going to happen with junior kindergarten. In
our particular community our school boards very much believed, as
boards did other parts of the province, that junior kindergarten
was very important and that the earlier we get to the child-I
think you would agree with that philosophy. What we do in the
early years is especially important, being able to help that
child to move forward in the system of education and to really
grow within that system over the years. They're worried that part
of the effect of this funding, if it disappears, is that they're
going to be in a position of having to make choices about
offering or not offering junior kindergarten next year.
The question I have for you
from both of those boards is, and it's a concern for the others
as well: Are you going to make sure the dollars are in place to
make sure that junior kindergarten will be available to students
across Timmins-James Bay and, I would argue, other parts of the
province?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's a good question, Mr Bisson, because I think
junior kindergarten-
Mr Bisson:
Now we're looking for a good answer.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -in many areas is extremely important. We do
fully fund half-day JK. That is not changing, and if a board is
not using dollars on junior kindergarten that we're giving them
for junior kindergarten, I want to hear about it because they're
not allowed to do that. We would take steps to fix it.
Mr Bisson:
You're saying you don't plan on cutting funding to junior
kindergarten. The school boards-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We've been very clear that we fully fund half-day
JK. That has been made known in terms of what that means for
individual boards. We've been very clear on that, so there's been
no change in that policy.
Mr Bisson:
And you don't expect a change either? That's one of the rumours
they're hearing. They're hearing that the JK dollars are at
risk.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer
(Kitchener Centre): That's because you're telling them
that.
Mr Bisson:
No. Mr Chair, Mr Wettlaufer-I forget your riding-I think is being
very facetious in his comments. It's not me putting those words
to the school boards. They're coming to me as elected
representatives, elected school board trustees and administration
people and they're raising questions. I have a legitimate right
to come to this committee
and ask those questions. You may not like them-
The
Vice-Chair: And you are doing so, Mr Bisson. Just direct
your questions to the minister.
Mr Bisson: I
just come back to the question that was asked of me by some of
the trustees, which is: Can they expect to fully see the JK
dollars available in the next couple of years?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We fully fund half-day JK. We are not changing
that. As you know, for those boards that don't offer JK, we also
have an equivalent grant, an early learning grant. After saying
very clearly that it was our commitment to fund half-day JK, I
certainly don't anticipate that changing. With the early years
work that Minister Marland is doing, the task group and whatever,
they're going to be making I suspect some very useful
recommendations about how we enhance early learning. That may
well mean changes in terms of programs or money down the road but
not a decrease in the commitment that we have to date on half-day
JK.
Mr Bisson:
One of the other issues that was raised is a particular problem
for boards with large geographic areas. I'm sure you've heard
this before, but for the sake of the committee and also for the
questions that were put to me, I'd like to get some answers.
In the larger school boards,
such as we have up in our area, that in some cases stem from
Muskoka or Sturgeon Falls and go all the way up to Hearst, the
way the funding works for schools is based on, as you would
understand, the amount of space they're supposed to have within
those schools. The way the funding formula is set up, as I
understand it, is that if you have extra space within a school
that's not being utilized, you should try to utilize that space
to the maximum. For example, if you're living in the city of
North Bay and there are two schools within the same system and
one's half-full, the other's half-full, the funding formula
effect is to try to get the students to go into one school and
close one of them down in order to make sure that we're not
funding schools that are half-full. There's an argument for that.
I'm not going to argue that we shouldn't do that in cases where
it makes sense, and in fact that has happened in the past, as you
all know. Not just recently, but for the past 10 or 15 years
those types of things have been happening within school
boards.
1610
But the problem, as I'm being
told by a number of boards, is that, for example, if you have
space available in the system-and I'm just going to use this
example: In Sturgeon Falls, in the French public system, there
are some 400 spaces available within their schools, overall, at
the primary level. But in a community like Iroquois Falls, which
is another part of their school board about 400 kilometres away,
they don't have any space, don't have any at all. They're not
able to offer program to kids in the French public system. Now
they're in a position where they're wanting to offer to the
residents in that community the ability to go to French public
school but they've got no school to put them in and they're being
penalized, as I'm told-maybe you can clarify this a little
bit-that they can't get dollars to do capital work in order to be
able to offer space to these kids in that community because
they've got spare space within the system itself. I'm wondering,
because I know there is some discussion in the ministry in trying
to deal with that, if you could bring us up to date with where
you're at.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Actually what may be helpful is to have our ADM,
Norbert Hartmann, articulate the policy just to make sure that
you and I are on the same page here on it and then we can go from
there.
Mr Bisson:
Yes, that's OK. That's fine. This is why he gets paid the big
bucks, right?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Absolutely. His hourly rate is probably higher
than yours and mine.
Mr Bisson:
Combined, I would think. And the darnedest thing is that they
don't have to run for re-election every four years.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: They have sometimes pointed that out to all of
us.
The
Vice-Chair: I've got to call the minister to order.
Mr Bisson:
Ministers may come and go but deputy ministers and deputies stay
around.
Mr Norbert
Hartmann: Now that I know I have job security.
Mr Bisson:
Can I have a comment on that one before you-
The
Vice-Chair: Could you please identify yourself.
The pupil accommodation
grant, as I think I indicated at the last committee meeting,
provides for monies to school boards where the capacity of the
school board is exceeded by the enrolment of that school board,
so in those cases where you have more enrolment than you have
capacity, under the formula described the other day the school
board receives money. That, as Mr Bisson has indicated, is
calculated over the entire jurisdiction of the school board at
this point in time. That is an issue that we're looking at, as Mr
Bisson has stated, because there have been concerns raised from a
number of areas. We have no position on that at this point in
time but we understand that there are concerns from a number of
school boards that have broad jurisdictions.
Mr Bisson:
Can I ask either the minister or the deputy minister if you would
agree that something needs to be done to address the issue that I
raised, which is, what do you do in those cases where the space
is 400 kilometres apart or 100 kilometres apart and it's a
question of not moving the kids across the street but moving them
into a whole different town, if you're going to try to address
that?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There's no question that for some boards this is
a significant challenge, and so the question that I have asked
staff is, how do we or can we make the way we fund more
responsive to those larger geographical entities but at the same
time keep the pressure on boards that need the pressure kept on
them to make appropriate decisions about school accommodation?
Because it is a tough
decision for trustees and boards to make. So we're looking at
whether there are things there that we can do. Again, I don't
want to prejudge where we'll end up on it, but there's no
question that for some of the boards with large geography it is a
significant challenge and it's one we're looking at.
Mr Bisson:
Is there a team or anybody presently working on this that we can
be talking to to offer some suggestions? Who's the team, who's
running this?
Mr Hartmann:
There is a team in the Ministry of Education, particularly for
the French-language students. There's a study of the
French-language school board funding because, as you know,
French-language school boards are for the most part a new entity
in the province, so we are particularly interested in ensuring
that the way in which the funding model works for them is well
understood. There is a team that has visited almost every
French-language school board in the province to date and had
discussions with the officials in those boards about the
challenges they face, and they're bringing back the issues from
each of those boards.
Mr Bisson:
But the question was, who do we talk to? Is there a person in
charge?
Mr Hartmann:
Through my office.
Mr Bisson:
So you as deputy minister are dealing with that. OK.
The problem is different for
the newer boards. I think you're right in pointing out that for a
brand-new French-language public board, the problem is very
different than for an existing French separate board or English
separate or public board. The issues are a bit different and I
don't want to get the two mixed up. Let's deal with the first
one.
I hear you saying that a team
is currently taking a look at how to deal with the newly created
boards to make sure they get the ability to allow their system to
grow and do what it has to do according to demand. So you're
going to look at how you deal with the space, let's say, between
a Sturgeon Falls and an Iroquois Falls, because that's exactly
the case.
Mr Hartmann:
For clarity, we're looking at all school boards in the
French-language sector, whether they existed previously or are
newly created, to see how the funding applies.
Mr Bisson:
Where are you in making a decision on this? Are you anywhere near
making a decision?
I notice you were really
afraid to answer that without looking at the minister. All right,
Minister, we'll let you answer. That's how you remain a deputy
minister. You just look over every now and then and say, "Oops,
am I letting the cat out of the bag?"
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, no. These are issues we're looking at now,
and we're saying, "How do we change, if we change, the moneys for
next year?" I anticipate that when we talk about the grant reg in
March, that would be most likely but not necessarily, if there
are to be any changes in that.
Staff are doing the work.
Staff have been meeting with the boards and taking a look at how
we respond to the challenges those larger boards have. I'm
looking forward to making decisions about where we go from
here.
Mr Bisson:
How much time do I have left on this round, Chair?
The
Vice-Chair: Two minutes.
Mr Bisson:
I'd like to make the pitch for a number of communities, not
specifically one or the other. For example, a couple of weeks ago
I was in Opasatika doing community clinics. For those of you who
don't know, Opasatika is a small community just north of
Kapuskasing. They're in a situation where their school is about
half-full. The community school in Val Rita, which is about 40
kilometres down the highway, is also half-full. Right now there
is an attempt on the part of the school boards to take a look at
busing the kids from Opasatika to Val Rita. First of all, most of
us as parents are not very keen on the idea of having our kids
put on a bus and shuttled down the highway in the middle of
winter, or whatever the time might be, to a community that far
away.
The other point is that for
small communities like Opasatika-and I'm sure some of the
Conservative members who represent rural ridings will understand
this-the school is often the focal point of the community. In the
case of Opasatika, it's very true. It's basically one of only two
halls that are available in that community for anything to
happen. There's the church and the school. If you take the school
away, it makes it very difficult for that community to keep
functioning the way it does. I just want to make the pitch that
whatever we do with the funding formulas, we need to recognize
that the issue is very different for small communities, where
that's the only game in town, than it is for communities like
Kapuskasing or Cochrane or Timmins, where there are more
community schools in the area. I think we need to put that into
the mix. We'll come back to that when I get an opportunity.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Just very quickly, staff have actually visited
communities. I don't know whether they've been to that one, but
they have been out there to see. I think that will be quite
helpful in terms of their recommendations to me.
The
Vice-Chair: Members of the Conservative caucus.
Mr John O'Toole
(Durham): Minister, I appreciate the clarity you bring
to many of the questions. At this stage, some of the political
statements have been kind of put to rest and we're trying to find
out how the changes affect our ridings. I think it's certainly a
difficult transition.
My question specifically is
really more around the funding model. I recall that before 1995
one of the issues was bringing some equity to the public
education system. It's difficult. Clearly, the record shows there
was great disparity from region to region and from area to area,
and even in the GTA there were significant differences in the
amount of resources each student in the public education system
got.
You would know that my riding of Durham really has
six different school jurisdictions within it. I will just outline
them for the record.
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There is the Peterborough
Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School
Board, which is probably one of the lower-funded boards with a
very weak assessment base and experiencing lots of growth. There
is the Pine Ridge board, which is an amalgamated board now. It's
one of the newly created boards of Peterborough and
Northumberland and Clarington. The Durham separate board-a fairly
well respected board, doing a lot of things right, at that time
anyway. The Durham separate board, again, acts in harmony. The
EIC said they could do more things co-operatively to save more
money. I think some of the messages in the EIC report are
important. Of course, there was the French district board, a very
large board serving our area. Some schools were assigned to that
newly created French-language board. There's some controversy
there.
Allocation of capital was
significant because of the growth pressures as well. The net
analysis I would make is that we've generally been a net
beneficiary in public, separate, French and access. I don't think
I'm making a political statement, but we've benefited. I've been
to probably 10 or 15 school openings. When I was a trustee for
two terms, I was at one for the whole time.
I'm going back to the equity
of the issue. It's difficult to say that equity means the same. I
just want some reassurance. I looked at the discussions that were
part of the funding model that recognizes students at risk, ESL
and special ed through a series of stacked grants.
Mr Kennedy, on the opposite
side, asked some good questions. But really we're looking more
for honesty and integrity. At the end of the day, I think we all
want to live with this system.
My final statement isn't
anything more than that I recognize that 75% to 80% of their
budgets are wages and benefits. In Bill 160, we said we were
going to have six out of eight, whatever it was-seven out of
eight was our plan-but most of the boards. Six out of eight.
Clearly that wage money, for whatever purpose, has been paid for
out of some other pool of money, arguably larger class sizes or
something. With that general sketch of funding model and how the
various silos of funding work, perhaps you could share with
members the intention, the explicit outcomes you are looking for
to improve the quality of public education, recognizing that it's
a difficult transitional period.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'll call on Norbert to come back again on the
funding formula. While he's doing that, on Bill 160 our
requirement is 1,250 minutes. We don't set whether it's five, six
or eight out of eight, or whatever. That has more to do with
collective agreements and other issues, but we do 1,250
minutes.
The other point I should make
is that for those boards that have experienced great population
growth, representing communities that both you and I share, the
way we fund is helping them very much. Because it's enrolment
based, because it goes to those boards on a regular basis, it
promotes and supports long-term planning that enables a board not
to have the kind of backlog we experienced in previous years. You
are going to a lot of school openings now because we're starting
to try and catch up on that backlog. That is one of the
improvements that the way we finance education has led to.
I'll turn to Norbert for some
further comments.
Mr Hartmann:
It might be useful to contrast what used to happen in the funding
model with what now happens so that we can get an overview of the
basic structure of the model, what it is intended to do and how
it operates.
As most of you are aware,
prior to the introduction of the current funding formula, the way
education was funded depended basically on the wealth of the
local jurisdiction and the actions of the government to equalize
that wealth, to a recognized limit of expenditure. From the point
of view of the government's reform objectives which, as one
member stated, had to do with accountability, with equity, with
raising standards and with fairness, that model had a number of
difficulties in it. There were fairly wide variances in spending
among students, fairly limited accountability and significant
property tax increases. It was a very complex model, as the
minister has indicated a number of times. There were over 34
separate grants.
That model has been replaced
by one that now focuses essentially on students as the basis of
funding. It looks at what high-quality education is and what is
required to produce it, on the one hand, so that we have a
foundation grant piece to it. On the other hand, it also
recognizes that there are differences between students and that
there are differences among communities. So there are a number of
special purpose grants that are built into the model that try to
recognize those uniquenesses, and then there is the pupil
accommodation grant portion of it.
I'll briefly describe the
rules that govern those and the way they are constructed.
Essentially the model tries to work under four very basic rules.
We have spoken often in this committee of classroom and
non-classroom spending. The first rule in the funding model is
that any money that is put into the classroom in the funding
model is used in the classroom. It cannot be used outside for
other purposes. The second is that money dedicated to special
education is also protected. It can only be used for special
education and in those years that it is not, boards must actually
place it into reserve accounts to use in special education
programs in future years. The third rule is that monies for new
schools, additions and major repairs can only be used for that
purpose. The fourth is that the money that's provided for
administration and governance is all that a board can spend on
administration and governance.
Within those basic rules, the
monies available to school boards are defined by the three major
components I indicated earlier. There is the foundation grant,
and the foundation grant is the amount of money that is made
available equally to each
student in the province, regardless of where that student lives
or goes to school. It provides an amount of money-that's $3,367
per pupil at the elementary level and $3,953 at the secondary
level-to provide the basic elements for the education of the
student.
It provides for the monies
for classroom teachers, monies for teacher assistants, monies for
textbooks and learning materials, monies for classroom supplies,
monies for classroom computers, monies for the library and
guidance programs, monies for professionals and paraprofessionals
who support the work of the teachers, including psychologists,
social workers and the like, and it also provides for the
preparation time teachers need to do their work and for in-school
administration. That amount of money is essentially the same for
each student across the province. That is about $7 billion worth
of expenditure for the province.
There is also a recognition
in the funding formula that students do not all come with similar
circumstances, nor all live in similar communities. There's also
a series of special purpose grants which are given to school
boards depending on the circumstances in which those boards find
themselves.
There are a number of those
special purpose grants. The first, which has been talked about in
the committee fairly consistently, is a special education grant.
That special education grant is made up of two components: the
amount per pupil that is given to every pupil in the province,
and then an intent-to-support amount that is given on the basis
of identified need for each pupil. There's about $1.2 billion
spent in that grant in the province.
The second special purpose
grant is a grant for language instruction. That includes the
funding of all language instruction, ranging from French as a
first language to French as a second language to native language
to English as a second language and the equivalent in the French
language system, as well as the international or what is more
commonly known as the heritage languages program. Boards do not
all receive the same amount of money under that grant because
they offer different levels of service and have different levels
of need on that grant. There is about $384 million in the
province spent on language grants to the school boards.
1630
The third is a geographic and
school authorities grant for boards that, as was pointed out
previously, are operating in the remoter areas and rural areas of
the province. That grant tries to recognize that there are higher
costs when purchasing goods and services for boards that are far
from urban centres. It tries to recognize that small schools have
higher costs than larger schools where more efficiencies can be
recognized, and it tries to compensate for that. It also provides
monies to the 37 isolate boards which operate essentially in the
remote areas of the province. That grant is around $141 million
in the province and has very differential impacts in different
boards, depending, as was pointed out previously, on the
geography and the size of schools in those boards.
Then there's an early
learning grant that the minister has referenced in today's
session. That's for those boards that have decided not to put in
place a junior kindergarten program. That gives boards an
equivalent amount of money that they can use for children in
kindergarten to grade 3 to support an early learning program, if
they choose not to put junior kindergarten in place. There's a
further $36 million spent on that.
Then there's another
significant portion of the grant, which makes up about $185
million, called the learning opportunities grant, which is a
grant for students at risk. What it attempts to do is recognize
that there are a number of factors which provide challenges to
high achievement. It measures those and provides differential
support to boards based on that measurement, such as the level of
family income in a board, the level of parental education, the
recency of immigration, the percentage of aboriginals in the
board and so forth. Those all become another component of the
grant, to recognize differences between boards.
Then there is a grant
around adult education, continuing education and summer school
for about $154 million. That's to provide for the adult day
school programs, the continuing education programs, the heritage
language programs and the remedial program that was put in place
for grade 8 students this year.
Then there is a teacher
compensation grant. Whereas there's a basic amount for each
teacher, there's also the recognition that the kinds of teachers
you have in a board differ depending on their level of experience
and level of qualification. The grant tries to recognize that as
well and pays out some $665 million to school boards to recognize
differences in teacher qualifications.
There's also a
transportation grant, which is $574 million, to transport pupils
from home to school, to transport special-needs students and to
transport students to the five provincial schools.
Then lastly there is the
school board administration grant, which covers the cost of
administering school boards, governing school boards and
operating central facilities. That's around $429 million. In
addition, there is, as I indicated in the previous session of
this committee, the pupil accommodation grant, which provides for
the operation of facilities at the school, and that is about $2.1
billion.
That essentially is the
structure of the grant. It provides both for an equal amount per
pupil, then recognizes differences between boards and funds those
and has the four general rules around how those monies can then
be allocated or used by school boards.
Mr
O'Toole: Thank you, Mr Hartmann. I appreciate that
detail. I have to get a copy of it. I think it would be useful
for all members to have that because that is the guideline.
Outside of all the rhetoric
from either you or I, the objective I hear you saying is to find
some ability to customize a fairly uniform set of criteria in the
grant structure as
opposed to some unpredictable, historic direction we were tending
in.
I just want to comment.
Were there recommendations in the EIC that you think are wise for
boards to follow, and perhaps as a government should we do
anything more to absolutely insist that, where possible and where
it doesn't affect the student outcome-such issues as
transportation were talked about when I was a trustee. Those are
clearly out-of-classroom expenditures where you said there is
almost $600 million and the EIC tended to encourage that.
Is the job done? The
outside classroom spending and the use of and sharing of
resources-maybe it's more of a policy question but I don't mean
it that way. You were administering this when there were 34
different types of grants. It must have been a nightmare to try
and figure it out. It perhaps still is. I think you get the gist
of what I'm saying. I think there are more efficiencies without
affecting the individual student, teacher and classroom. Am I
wrong there?
Mr
Hartmann: There were two questions asked. One was
whether we could make the presentation available to the
committee. I'd be pleased to provide it to the Chair for the
members of the committee.
The second is whether there
are other areas of the grant that could still be refined. We've
always considered the student-focused funding model a living
entity that should be continually reviewed so it is responsive to
the needs of school boards. There are a number of recommendations
in the EIC report, as you've indicated, that various committees
are pursuing. There are recommendations around transportation
consortia, for example. A transportation committee has been
established that's studying how those could be implemented across
different boards. There are numerous examples of ones that
already exist. For example, in the tri-county area around
Kingston there's one transportation system that provides for all
of the transportation for the three boards in the area. It saves
considerable amounts of money in doing that. There are numerous
jurisdictions with coterminous transportation between the public
and Catholic boards in the area. Those are expanding as well. So
there are things that are being done in those areas.
Mr
O'Toole: I'm encouraged by that, and I hope we see it as
a non-stationary model.
I just want to cover one
more area, with your indulgence. The area I hear most concern
about-and there is no one here on either side of this particular
room or any room who wouldn't support the needs of children,
especially vulnerable children. As a parent of five, I know that
all children have various times and places and conditions to
learn. Some of it is defined as special ed. You mentioned $1.2
billion in that particular envelope under the ISA portion
only-that's not part of the SEPPA; that's the intensive support
amount-which I gather is more money.
That's the argument. You're
probably going to hear it from our laudable opposition today. I
know their motives are genuine from the respect that we all want
the best for the students. I guess it comes back to the
uniformity, having some predictable criteria by which to
determine the fair use of public resources and distribute those
appropriately. We can all scream and holler because we have
different mandates. Mine is to bring forward policy and
legislation that is fair and equitable, and the opposition's role
is to oppose everything we do. I still go back to the great
courage in David Cooke's determination to see these changes
through by heading up the EIC, and here he is an NDP former
education minister, who would probably know more than all of us
in this room, with the exception of our minister and the ministry
staff.
I just want some comfort. I
want to push that a little bit further. I'm not pushing here for
a single board, although that might be something in my third
term, but here's what I'm saying to you: High-cost resources that
I'm hearing about, speech and language pathology,
psychologists-these are high-cost items, and much-needed-I think
they should be shared between public, separate and other boards
as a resource. That's what is missing. These silos of bureaucracy
may have been a fine older model, but it has to be a more
horizontal model of being a resource base, a service-based
organization among boards to best utilize those high-cost yet
very essential resources of psychologists, psychiatrists,
psychometrists. These are high-cost pieces, and some of the small
boards simply can't afford them. This is public education. It has
nothing to do with religion.
I just want some quick
feedback. Am I expecting too much to have that kind of
transparency in the publicly funded education system, where they
should be required-in fact, why are they in different board
offices?
The
Vice-Chair: Mr O'Toole, you may not get the feedback if
you don't give them a chance.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Very quickly, that's a good question. Having
better integrated services for health, social services and
education is something that needs to be done. We've taken steps
in this direction through social services and health, and now
through education. We already have such a project in the north,
ISNC. I won't tell you what it stands for, but it basically means
integrated services for children in the north. I think we've
taken some good steps in this direction-the Healthy Babies,
Healthy Children program; the preschool speech and language
program-but there is a lot more work that needs to be done. I
know Minister Baird, Minister Witmer and myself-and Minister
Marland, who of course, with her responsibility for children, has
a role in this as well-are working to have an even better
integrated set of support services for children, whether they're
in school or in the community.
Mr
O'Toole: Preschool.
1640
Mr Gerard Kennedy
(Parkdale-High Park): Minister, I wondered if you could
give us the information that was promised last time. There was
none received in between meetings. Is there information the staff
has brought for us today?
Hon Mrs Ecker: Which information?
I know there have been a number of things that we answered here.
There were others-
Mr
Kennedy: Last time there were specific undertakings
around figures to do with revenue and expenditures and being able
to provide equivalencies over various years. That was brought up
and an undertaking was made to come back with that. I'm wondering
if those are available.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I don't know if that's available today. I'll
certainly ask staff. I know we had answered some verbally. I know
I had offered the staff of the ministry the opportunity to
verbally respond, so it is clearly on the record for all those
who watch or read this record because I think that is helpful and
you didn't seem to want us to walk through that. But if there are
unanswered questions or information that you've requested, we'll
certainly be endeavouring to make that available to you.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I just want to express a little
disappointment, because there was a specific document I provided
to the staff concerning sources of revenue for the boards, and
there was, I believe, an undertaking at the time that that could
be provided and I think it's essential.
This is the estimates
committee, it's the only opportunity that the money spent by the
government on education gets a chance to be scrutinized, and I
don't think it's a partisan comment, but the estimates for
education are limited in their detail. There are only four charts
that show the expenditures of some $8 billion in primary and
secondary. I think it's very unfortunate that that information
isn't available here today, because there were at least a couple
of times where we stopped where the staff indicated that probably
would be available. The undertaking was to come back today, and
it hasn't been provided.
Just for the record then, I
would like to identify specifically. I refer to-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, if I can just answer the
question-
Mr
Kennedy: I haven't asked the question, Minister. I just
want you to bear with me because I do hope that this information
is forthcoming and I want to make sure that we do have it clearly
and substantially on the record. There is a-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We're quite prepared to put it on the record.
Nancy Naylor and Norbert Hartmann are quite prepared to answer
questions verbally and put it on the record.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, the reason I'm asking you to let me
identify the document in order is that I don't think it's
reasonable to take up estimates time for information that should
be available to all members of the House in the pursuit of their
duties of understanding what education is doing.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: And it is.
Mr
Kennedy: It has been requested. I provided the document
last time which showed a breakdown in the expenditures of the
ministry, showed the sources of those expenditures, showed the
operating grants and so on. It was available up to 1997. I had
asked specifically for that to be available today, and the
undertaking I had was that it could be. We haven't seen that, so
I want that on the record. If there's a further undertaking
today, I'd be happy to have that because it could be useful in
future.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Sure. I'll ask staff where that is. I wasn't
aware that it was supposed to be here today, but I repeat, we're
quite prepared for staff to discuss it.
I think it's also
appropriate though, because there are many people who like to
read the Hansard, which is a public record, that I have a staffer
here available to answer questions on that data, to provide that
data, to talk about it so it is on the record for people. I think
that also is appropriate but we'll certainly follow up with any
outstanding requests that may not have been met.
Mr
Kennedy: So the multi-year review is specifically the
table I'm referring to: elementary-secondary statistics broken
down by the sources of funding for elementary-secondary spending,
breakdown between compensation, but significantly, breakdown
between provincial support and property taxes. Again, I provided
that document. It goes to 1997, the one I have in my possession,
and I'd asked for it to be brought up to date. That has not been
provided, but hopefully, it can be in future.
Minister, I'd like to ask
you about some specific programs around the funding and I'd like
to ask you specifically around the provincial schools. They were
reported in estimates in 1998-99, and they're not reported this
year. I'm wondering what you can tell us about the expenditure on
provincial schools. Last year, in 1998-99 estimates, they were
marked to go down from the actuals of that year from some $3
million. I'm wondering what you can tell us about their
expenditure this year, is there a specific number, and whether
the expenditures were indeed cut as the fiscal plan was last
year.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: For the provincial schools?
Mr
Kennedy: Provincial schools, yes.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, the deputy is just obtaining that
information and -
Mr
Kennedy: While we're doing that, can I ask you about
provincial schools? As I think most people know, provincial
schools provide for some of the neediest children in the
province, as a last resort, I guess that has really been the
direction, in terms of students who can't be accommodated within
the regular school system. Are there any changes planned with
provincial schools for this or next fiscal year that are
substantive? And while we're waiting for the actual figures, do
you have program changes or purpose changes in mind for
provincial schools, or can those parents out there who have
children in those schools, and others who depend on them as
resources, depend on them continuing for the next couple of years
as they are today?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, this is a service that we provide.
It's important. There are no proposals to reduce the expenditures
on those services. If there are improvements in the way those
services are provided, we're always prepared to look at that, but
there is no plan for the
ministry to cease providing those services to those students.
They need those services and there is no plan to reduce the
amount of money that supports those services.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you, Minister. Was there a figure
available for-
Ms Suzanne
Herbert: Yes. If I could, it's Suzanne Herbert, the
deputy minister. First of all, I just might explain. In the
estimates, the provincial schools are directly operated by the
ministry, so those figures appear in the ministry's salaries and
wages line. That's why you don't see them separately as you would
a transfer payment. They are in our estimates book but they are
part of the general salaries and wages.
Mr
Kennedy: It's just that for the last five years, as you
know, they have been reported separately, because they do attract
some special attention and concern. I'm just asking if you could
give me the total expenditure for them.
Ms
Herbert: Yes, I can. I'll start in 1997-98, if I might,
and give you three-year figures.
Mr
Kennedy: Do you have 1998-99 interim actuals?
Ms
Herbert: For 1998-99: $5,239,400. And 1999-2000
projected?
Mr
Kennedy: Yes.
Ms
Herbert: That's $5,319,300.
Mr
Kennedy: And maybe if you wouldn't mind, 1997-98, the
actual that you show.
Ms
Herbert: That's $5,102,600.
Mr
Kennedy: All right, thank you.
Minister, I'd also like to
ask you about your intentions in terms of adult education. When
we look at the comparable records-and regrettably the records
that we discussed last time haven't been made available, but
there are some equivalencies, and I'm citing A Report on School
Board Spending 1995 to 1996. Looking at that and comparing it to
recent figures, it looks as though adult education and continuing
education is where a good amount of the cuts have come from. Some
$43 million seems to have been cut from that line item.
I just want to ask your
views on continuing and adult education, particularly adult day
schools, whether that funding is reasonably secure. We don't have
ministry figures but I'm citing the amount of money that was
quoted in the ministry document, and also the document that is
available to us today shows about a $43-million cut. Are there
further cuts in mind for adult education and continuing
education?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We have made commitments to funding adult
education. I think Nancy Naylor, who is here at the table, can
walk you through any specific numbers or questions in terms of
what has happened on adult ed.
Ms Nancy
Naylor: I'm Nancy Naylor, the director of the adult
education finance branch. On adult education, we do provide
funding for boards, depending on the level of enrolment that they
actually offer and attract for their adult ed and continuing ed
program. We provide a figure of $2,257 on a full-time equivalent
basis and we provide additional funding if those students happen
to be enrolled in a day school program, on the assumption that
they will require some additional funding for their pupil
accommodation costs because they're often not able to use schools
and infrastructures that are available for evening programs.
Mr
Kennedy: How much less is that than the amount that was
given for day schools two years ago, on a per capita basis as you
outlined?
Ms Naylor:
That figure is the same in the old funding model and in the new
funding model, that figure of $2,257.
Mr
Kennedy: No, but the amount for the day school
differential was changed. How much was that previously and how
much is it now?
Ms Naylor:
That figure has been in place for several years. It didn't change
with the introduction of the new funding model, the adult day
school. The only thing that did change in the adult day school
was that we did begin to recognize school operations and school
renewal funding being available, as well as the basic educational
program costs.
Mr
Kennedy: So you're saying there has been no reduction in
the ministry's funding of adult education?
Ms Naylor:
There's been no reduction in the rate we provide for full-time
equivalent between the old funding model and the new funding
model.
1650
Mr
Kennedy: I'm asking, for the life of this government, in
the last four to five years, have there been reductions in the
amount of money provided for adult education?
Ms Naylor:
Over the life of-I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.
Mr
Kennedy: With this government, in the last four years,
since education reforms have begun, has there been a
reduction?
Ms Naylor:
There was a change in 1996 around the funding for adult day
schools. There was a clarification of which students were funded
as secondary students and which students were funded as adult or
continuing education.
Mr
Kennedy: For the record, could you indicate the
difference in those, the amounts available as secondary students
and the amount available as a continuing ed student?
Ms Naylor:
I don't know off the top of my head what the basic per-pupil
amount was in those years.
Mr
Kennedy: Approximately would be fine.
Ms Naylor:
I would have to go back to those regulations.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I don't think it's appropriate for the record
that we should be guessing on these numbers. We can certainly
take a look at that.
Mr
Kennedy: If someone could provide that before the end of
today, I'd be very appreciative.
Ms Naylor:
What was introduced at that time really was improved consistency
in terms of how adult students were funded, regardless of whether
they were supported in adult day or continuing ed, because the
programs were very
similar and the cost structures were very similar, so that's what
was carried forward into the new funding model.
Mr
Kennedy: I appreciate that opinion, Ms Naylor, but in my
riding of York South at that time, it caused, according to the
local school boards, some 800 people to no longer be funded for
adult education because they couldn't afford the cost structure
you offered. So obviously there's a variance on that.
I think it would be better
for the record if we had the variance that was available to
boards, because your own figures show, and I'll have to cite
these figures in the absence of others, that in 1995-96, adult
and continuing education expenditures by the boards was about
$190 million, and that went down to $147 million in the last
completed fiscal year, 1998-99, so a significant drop in the
amount of money available to the boards for that purpose.
Ms Naylor:
What I would say in response to that, Mr Kennedy, is that if you
look at the documents that were tabled by the government when
they released the new funding model, the government did make
available the same amount of money for adult education, and it
was a higher figure. During the course of the 1998-99 school year
we saw a number of boards restructure their programs, and the
actual take-up on that grant did result in a slightly lower
expenditure level, but the amount of funding and the availability
of that funding was the same.
Mr
Kennedy: But the amount of money had already been cut
from 1995-96, so by the time the new funding formula came into
place, it was only consolidating the old level of expenditure.
Unless, again, there are some other figures that contrast this,
it looks like it's about $43 million, or approximately 25% less
than the original figure spent in 1995-96. Is there any response
to that?
Ms Naylor:
I think what we can do is take a look at the figures and-
Mr
Kennedy: I'd like to move on, then. Thank you.
Minister, there was large
concern-I know your statements in the House were fairly
unequivocal, but I'd like to explore mitigation funds for the
boards. They are now one element of adjustment that didn't exist
to the fullest extent before a change the government made last
year. They were extended for some of the boards, and those
boards, we'll find as we discuss later, are some of the boards
feeling the most pressure. Is there any risk at all that
mitigation funds will be changed, either in their terms or in
their amounts from that which has been promised, for example, to
the Toronto and Ottawa boards, who have them occurring over five
years?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Your NDP colleague beat you to the punch on this
question.
There have been a number of
financial steps taken to help support boards through the
transition. Some of those amounts were specifically for certain
time periods, for certain years, and that's been very clear.
Where we go next year and the year after and the year after that,
we obviously will be making those decisions as part of our budget
process, and that's not a new process. But as to some of the
restructuring and mitigation monies that boards received, there
are time limits on that and they knew that at the time. Where
we'll be next year in terms of what the grant will be, those
decisions we're looking at now. Again, this process is no
different this year than it has been for all the years on
education. Every year there's a process they go through for
grants.
Mr
Kennedy: With respect, Minister, what is different is
that these boards are being asked to slash a significant amount
of money from their budgets, and what you've done is you've
backfilled them a little bit of that money, some of that money,
and you've given them a schedule under which they can depend on
that money. All I'm asking you to affirm-because if you're
leaving open the prospect that you could provide more support,
that would be terrific, but I don't hear you saying that
specifically. What I'm asking you specifically is, will that
backfilling, that money you're allowing to exist as mitigation
funds, be available on the calendar you've promised, and there
will be no changes to that, no reduction in that over the
foreseeable future?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'm not aware of any changes to that. We have
been very clear in terms of the commitments we've made. Where
we'll be next year or the year after that or whatever in terms of
the grants, certainly as the enrolment grows, the monies grow
with enrolment. But I'm not aware of any policy changes around
mitigation, restructuring funds that change the way they've been
originally put out there.
Mr
Kennedy: You're the minister. So there are no changes
you would make to those arrangements over the next couple of
years. Is it fair to say that?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, as you know, every year we go
through a process with school boards, with all the transfer
partners, in terms of what monies will be made available. That is
no different than under your government or the previous
government, the NDP. There were monies put out to boards with
certain time lines on them. As to the time lines and those
monies, there has been no decision made to change that but I
certainly would not wish to speculate about what may occur in
terms of the usual process about the monies boards get from year
to year.
Mr
Kennedy: That is your right, Minister. It's just that I
think you missed an opportunity there to assure the boards that
the long-term cuts, which you've already told them are not
negotiable, are going to be mitigated by a long-term commitment.
You said you haven't planned to change it but you haven't
guaranteed that it will be there. That's what they need. The
planning is their biggest challenge.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: But Mr Kennedy, the whole point of the way we
fund education now is so they can plan.
Mr
Kennedy: They can't plan unless you guarantee those
mitigation funds; they cannot plan.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, mitigation funds are there for
specific purposes. It's for specific projects, for specific
transitions, things that boards are going through. That money was put there for
those purposes with particular time lines.
Mr
Kennedy: And those time lines will be respected, is all
I've asked.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Those have not changed, as I've said for the
500th time. I understand what you're trying to do here-
Mr
Kennedy: Not at all. Minister, you have an opportunity
to give whatever assurance you like.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -but we've put in more ability for boards to plan
than they've had in the past, quite frankly, and it is something
that boards and the Education Improvement Commission have said is
a good thing about the changes we've made and how we finance
education.
Mr
Kennedy: That's fine. I'm not sure they're cherishing
the plans, at least 25 of the boards having to cut their budgets
next year, but I appreciate your point.
On page 25 of the 1998
Ontario budget, your government made a promise for $130 million
to connect schools to the Internet. I'm wondering if you're able
to provide us with the exact status. How much of that $130
million has been spent? How much will be spent this fiscal
year?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's my understanding that only approximately $5
million has been spent to date. There's a fair degree of work
that is needed to make that particular initiative happen because
of all the other things boards have been doing, as you will
appreciate. There have been a number of changes, and one of the
messages we've certainly heard from our partners in the boards
was that there were only so many things we could all accomplish,
so that is an initiative that is not yet complete.
Mr Gilles Bisson
(Timmins-James Bay): First of all, before I get into
questions, I'd ask whoever within your ministry can provide the
answer-they don't have to do it this minute but they can start
looking up the numbers-how much do we actually spend on
special-needs education today? That's something I'd like to have,
and if we can get a bit of a breakdown, where we've gone.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We've got a number here we'll get in the next
minute or two.
Mr Bisson:
I'll come back to that in a minute. I just wanted to get into
that.
I left off earlier. For the
Chair of the committee, I find myself at a bit of a disadvantage
here because there are a number of questions I'd like to be able
to pose in French, because they were put to me in French by
school boards within my communities, the communities I represent,
and unfortunately we don't have translation services here. It
puts me at a bit of a loss. I know if I start speaking to the
minister in French, she ain't going to be able to hear me. I'm
wondering if there are translation services available.
Mr
Wettlaufer: You have an advantage over the rest of us
and that includes the bilingual-
Mr Bisson:
With all due respect, Chair, if we can get an answer. You missed
the point, Wayne.
1700
The
Vice-Chair: If we were in room 151 we could have done so
because it has translation. This room hasn't got it. It's
unfortunate and it would have been right if all committees were
available in both languages because of official languages.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We do, Mr Bisson. I appreciate the purpose of the
question, and my apologies for not being able to take your
question in French.
Mr Bisson:
It's not your fault.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We do have our ADM, Maurice Proulx.
M.
Bisson : Tu parles le français?
M. Maurice
Proulx : Absolument.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, he can. So we could certainly do that if
you'd like, and any translation that would need to be done, if
that would meet your needs.
Mr Bisson:
OK.
The
Vice-Chair: I should just caution you that you may put
the Chairman at a disadvantage at that time, which is his.
Mr Bisson:
I can assure you, Mr Chair, I will not do anything to take jabs
at anybody.
Une couple de
questions : comme on a parlé un peu plus tôt, on a
dans nos communautés à travers le nord, puis j'imagine
que c'est de même pour beaucoup de députés
conservateurs et autres dans les comtés ruraux, des
écoles locales.
Pour le record, on a
commencé cette discussion un peu plus tôt dans l'autre
tour que j'ai eu il y a juste une vingtaine de minutes, et on a
eu la chance d'en discuter un peu avec la ministre : c'est
la question de l'importance des écoles dans les petites
communautés comme Opasatika, Val Rita et autres. On avait
dit comment, selon les formules de financement qu'on a
présentement, on est dans la situation que les formules de
financement mettent les petites écoles, qui ne sont pas
pleines, dans des petites communautés dans un
désavantage quant ça vient à garder les
écoles ouvertes.
Je vais vous donner un
exemple. Dans la communauté d'Opasatika, on a une école
qui est remplie d'environ 50 % des élèves. Je vais
prendre un chiffre. S'il y a 100 places dans l'école, il y a
possiblement 50 élèves.
Dans la communauté de
Val Rita, qui est à environ 40 kilomètres plus loin, on
a encore la même situation. Il y a présentement des
discussions dans le conseil scolaire d'être capable
d'emmener ensemble ces élèves dans une école. Ils
ont commencé le processus de discussions pour voir s'il y a
une possibilité de transférer les élèves
d'Opasatika et les mettre directement dans l'école à
Val Rita.
Je veux mettre sur le
record que c'est quelque chose qui n'est pas acceptable. À
Opasatika, comme vous le savez, madame la Ministre, il y a
seulement une école. Ce n'est pas comme être à
Timmins, ou à Kapuskasing, ou à North Bay, ou à
Toronto, où on transfère les élèves d'un bord
de la rue à l'autre.
Dans la situation
d'Opasatika, ça veut dire que ces élèves, et on
parle des petits élèves de la prématernelle
jusqu'à la sixième année, je pense, parce que les
grades 7 et 8 sont déjà transportés hors de la
communauté, on parle des jeunes en bas de l'âge de 10
ans, de les mettre sur un autobus, de les envoyer à Val Rita
et de les retransporter
à la fin de la journée. Je vous dis que la
communauté a pas mal peur présentement de ce que
ça veut dire pour leurs élèves, premièrement,
sur la sécurité sur les routes et,
deuxièmement-puis je vais vous donner une chance de
répondre-c'est toute la question de ce que ça veut dire
pour la communauté.
La municipalité me
dit : « Si nous, on perd notre école, ça
veut dire que les résidents futurs qui pourraient venir
s'établir à Opasatika ne vont pas venir parce qu'il n'y
a pas d'école. » S'ils perdent eux autres
l'école, ça enlève beaucoup à l'aspect de la
communauté d'être capable d'attirer des nouveaux
résidents parce qu'ils ne peuvent pas leur offrir une
école pour les petits de ces familles.
J'aimerais avoir une
réponse à ce qu'on s'attend du ministère
d'être capable de donner le support nécessaire aux
écoles comme celle à Opasatika.
Mr Proulx:
I'm Maurice Proulx, ADM, French-language education and
educational operations.
La question que vous
soulevez concernant les communautés qui n'ont qu'une seule
école en est une qui est préoccupante, je pense, à
travers la province pour toutes les communautés rurales.
Dans la formule de financement, il est à noter qu'il y a des
fonds qui sont alloués pour les petites écoles pour
permettre aux conseils scolaires d'opérer les petites
écoles malgré le fait que les nombres soient plus
petits.
La formule de financement,
c'est qu'on prend également un montant pour opérer des
écoles en milieu rural ou en milieu éloigné, parce
qu'effectivement on cherche à pouvoir maintenir ces
écoles-là.
Il est à rappeler
également, en date de l'automne de l'an dernier, une
modification qui a été apportée à la formule
de calcul pour les places-élèves qui permet aux
conseils d'opérer une école jusqu'à raison de
80 % de sa capacité puis, d'être financée
pour 100 % de sa capacité. Cela est également une
autre mesure qui aide aux conseils à pouvoir opérer les
petites écoles sans penser strictement en fonction de si
c'est une école qui était en milieu urbain, par
exemple, et pouvoir la garder.
M.
Bisson : Vois-tu, la question qui dérive pour
une communauté comme Opasatika, c'est qu'on est
déjà dans une situation où on a transporté
les 7 et 8 hors de la communauté, et là on se trouve
dans cette école qui est je pense de 50 % à
55 % pleine. Ils me disent, eux autres, que la formule de
80 % les désavantage parce qu'ils ont déjà
transféré un bon pourcentage d'élèves en
7e et 8e à Val Rita, et tout le
secondaire est à Kapuskasing, alors ils n'ont pas les
élèves nécessaires pour acheminer le 80 %. Ce
qu'ils demandent, c'est s'il y a de l'ouvrage qui va être
fait sur la formule de financement pour regarder le numéro
de 80 % pour l'abaisser, pour être capable d'allouer
aux communautés comme Opasatika afin de garder leur
école ou de rapatrier les élèves, possiblement,
des 7e et 8e pour les ramener, pour
accomplir le 80 %. «L'un ou l'autre, on va arriver
à la même affaire.
M.
Proulx : Toute la question de la formule de
financement, comme vous le savez, est à l'étude et puis
on cherche toujours des moyens d'améliorer la formule de
financement telle qu'elle existe.
En bout de ligne, il faut
penser également que les conseils ont une
responsabilité de regarder les besoins de tous les
élèves à travers le conseil pour offrir le
meilleur service puis, ultimement, ce sont des décisions que
les conseils doivent prendre concernant l'ouverture de nouvelles
écoles ou la fermeture d'écoles.
Mais, certainement au
niveau de la formule de financement on cherche à donner aux
conseils la flexibilité nécessaire pour maintenir les
petites écoles.
M.
Bisson : En bas du 80 %?
M.
Proulx : La question de pourcentage, c'est clair
que cette mesure-là a aidé les conseils à savoir
s'il y aurait une autre modification à apporter. Je ne
serais pas en mesure, aujourd'hui, de vous l'indiquer.
M. Bisson
: Je veux vous dire, le directeur responsable pour cet
aspect, que vous comprenez mon point. Si on n'a pas ces
écoles dans les communautés, puis c'est la même
affaire pour beaucoup de membres conservateurs dans leurs
comtés où il y a des petites communautés-il y a
seulement une autre école, il n'y a pas autre chose dans la
communauté que l'école et l'église dans beaucoup
d'exemples, comme Opasatika et d'autres communautés-s'ils
perdent l'école, ça ôte l'habileté d'attirer
de nouvelles familles dans les communautés, ce qui veut dire
que c'est un peu la mort de la communauté sur une
période de temps. C'est très important qu'on trouve des
solutions pour être capable de garder ces écoles en
place. Oui, ça veut dire que c'est plus cher, mais des fois
il faut regarder ce que ça veut dire pour ces
communautés.
M.
Proulx : Oui, puis je pense que ultimement, c'est
la raison d'être derrière l'octroi petites écoles,
pour permettre, justement, le maintien des petites écoles.
C'est certainement l'un des résultats de cette facette de la
formule de financement.
Mr Bisson:
To the members, unfortunately we don't have translation service
in this room. Many of you have the same problem in your own
ridings as Conservatives where you represent rural ridings. You
have schools in some of your communities, I'm sure the same as
ours, where there's only one school and the nearest school is 30,
40 miles away. If they close the school because of the funding
formula, there's an 80% factor, there's a special part of the
formula that says if you have a school that's not filled but is
within 80% of being filled, there's a special funding arrangement
to keep the school open. Some schools fall below that mark. If a
school ends up closing, it means that first of all those kids
have to be transported fairly great distances to go to school. As
parents I'm sure you feel as I do, and this is not a partisan
issue. My kids are older now. One is in university and the other
one is about to go, but I didn't want my kids to be transported,
and I'm sure that nobody else would want to transport their kids,
on highways farther than we have to.
The other issue is an
economic development issue. If you lose a school in a small town,
it's very difficult to attract new families into that community.
I think we need to look
at that. Yes, it might be a little bit more expensive, I say to
the government members, to operate a school in a community like
that, but for the community it's very important. I think we need
to take that into consideration when we're coming up with our
funding formulas. Maybe the minister wants to comment.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, I-
Mr Bisson:
And I didn't say a bad word about any of you in all of that, and
I understood it in both languages. Did you?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We know we can trust him on this.
You raised some very valid
points. The ministry is quite aware of the significance of this
issue in smaller communities, whether in the north or in rural
communities. We've certainly taken steps in the past to provide
more financial assistance for boards that are faced with that. We
understand we have a challenge in front of us in terms of how
much further we can go. I hear the concern and it's one we are
looking at in terms of what we can do. I appreciate your
point.
1710
Mr Bisson:
Before we go to the issue that I first raised around the funding
for special needs, I want once again to put the pitch, because I
don't think I got an answer last time. I think it's because we
didn't have enough time. I'm sure you wish to give the proper
answer. That was the issue of the teacherage grant- I forget the
exact term-for the James Bay Lowlands school board and other
schools up at James Bay. Just for members who may not have been
here last week to know, they used to attract teachers to the
schools at James Bay by offering accommodation, because it's very
hard to get accommodation in communities like Moosonee or
Attawapiskat or Fort Albany because there's no housing
available.
You've got families where
one house basically houses 18 or 20 people. It's very difficult
for a kid to learn in that kind of environment, very difficult
for families to function. There is no space in those communities.
What the school boards would do is they would get a portable or
build a house or whatever it would be, or rent space from the
band, to offer accommodation to the new teacher coming into the
community. They would also subsidize that unit so that it was a
financial attraction to get the teacher up there.
The teacher said, "I get my
salary the same as I would anywhere else, but I get cheaper
accommodation; there is the draw to get me in." That program is
being phased out, as you well know. It's becoming very difficult,
first, to keep teachers there because there's no place for them
to stay. I visited one of the apartment units in Moose Factory
and I don't think any of us would be very comfortable in the
particular one I saw, not in very good shape. Who wants to live
in that kind of unit? Basically there's no money to upgrade, to
fix, to do the things that need to be done. Second, it's hard to
keep them there, but very difficult to attract them because now
there are no longer any subsidies to offset the accommodation.
The accommodation is very expensive.
School boards are finding
themselves at a disadvantage to attract teachers to the
community. There was a letter. I told you I would give you a
copy. I have it here. It was addressed to the assistant deputy
minister from John McMartin, the superintendent of education. It
lists this issue. I wonder, for the record, if you can tell us if
there's any attempt to address the issue he raises around this
teachers' program.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You're quite right. It's a significant issue for
smaller communities in the north. We have the October 12 letter
to Norbert Hartmann. Thank you for raising it. It was replied to;
Norbert responded on November 22. We are looking at the funding
model. We are looking at the impact on communities, especially on
this particular issue. That is part of the discussion we are
having about where we go from here.
Mr Bisson:
Could we anticipate a positive move in this direction?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I can't prejudge where we'll be on a number of
issues affecting the grant rate next year. This is certainly one.
We've had good feedback from your community on the importance of
this. It is an issue where we are looking at what we can do to
deal with it.
Mr Bisson:
I'm sure the minister understands well the importance of this not
only to the teachers but to the kids and the families. It's very
hard to keep a system of education going without teachers.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I understand that.
Mr Bisson:
The issues are quite different on James Bay. I think you
recognize that. I would offer a visit to any of the members of
the committee from the government side, and to the minister. If
you want to come up, I will arrange to bring you up. I think
you'll get a real education about what happens in those
communities, the lack of services.
It's not all your doing.
I'm not going to sit here and cast stones at the Conservatives,
because the federal government dropped the ball on this years
ago. We need to figure out, as a province, how we make sure that
kids and families and people individually up there get the same
kind of services as we get in other communities. I'll even fly
you myself.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You had me going there for a while until that
last comment.
Mr Bisson:
I'm a qualified pilot. I've got an aircraft. I'll fly you up. It
won't cost you anything.
Mr
O'Toole: Who pays? I thought the federal government
would pay. I thought the first nations came under the federal
government.
Mr Bisson:
We have provincially run schools at James Bay. There are some
federal dollars in regard to the band in Moose Factory, the
Dolores Echum school. But there are a number of schools that are
paid by the province, as well as hospitals and a number of other
services.
Mr
O'Toole: Do we pay the whole bill?
Mr Bisson:
No, just part.
Hon Mrs Ecker: I appreciate the
honourable member's invitation. We have responded to Mr
McMartin's letter.
Mr Bisson:
You were going to add something?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes. On special education, we spend $1.2 billion
for special ed and that is the most that any Ontario government
has ever spent. That money is split roughly into two pots, if you
will, what they call the ISA grant, which is the monies that go
to the higher needs children, and also what is called the SEPPA
grant which is money that is provided to boards in a much more
flexible fashion. It is important to note that special education
was increased last year by $127 million and again this year by
$32.5 million. There are considerable monies there. It has
increased. We've also been hearing input from the boards about
future changes that may be necessary in this to better meet the
needs of special education students.
Mr Bisson:
I want to raise one issue. I think I've only got about four or
five minutes left.
The
Vice-Chair: That's rather generous. You've got two
minutes.
Mr Bisson:
I want to raise an issue that's really important. It's something
that I imagine the Conservative members have heard as well.
Funding for special needs is always based on your enrolment the
year before, as I understand it. School boards are telling me
they're quite concerned about that because their needs change
from year to year.
What ends up happening is
that if, let's say, last year you had 10 kids who needed special
needs education, and for whatever reason-demographic change in
your community-you end up with 15 kids, you're funding is based
on what you had last year. They're finding that quite stifling in
some areas. It puts them in a situation where, I'm being told-I
don't have this documented so I'm not going to make
allegations-there are kids in our community who are going without
special needs education because of the way the funding is set up.
It may not be an issue of the dollars that we have in but that
we're basing it always on last year's numbers.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's an important question. It's based on current
enrolment. There's no question that we are in a transition. That
is why there were additional monies provided to boards this year
this year under what we call the SEPPA grant, which is much more
flexible, so that they could use it for high-needs children if
they wanted to support additional high-needs children. That's why
it was put out there for the boards. It is based on current
enrolment. I think that's an important point.
Mr Bisson:
With respect, I don't discount what the government is trying to
do in special needs education. It's been a problem that has
plagued every government: my government, yours and the Liberals
before that. None of us have got it right. We need to try to do
something to address it. It seems to me, just looking from the
outside, that I'm getting a lot more calls from parents to our
constituency offices these days about their kids not getting the
kind of special-needs education they need.
That's always been a
problem, but it seems to be getting a lot worse. I'm being told
by the school boards that part of the problem is the way we do
the funding, based on last year's funding. I haven't done enough
research on this. I might be a little bit off. I'm afraid to go
out on a limb here. We need to take a better look at this.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's a very valid point. We are looking at it. We
knew and we said very clearly to boards that, because of the
importance and the sensitivity of special education funding as we
moved into a new way to support, both policy and dollar-wise, we
wanted to be very careful that boards were not experiencing big
decreases or increases, that we weren't getting big swings in
money.
They got more money in the
two years. Last year and this year, there was more money than
what they had the previous year to help them change to a new way
of financing special education. We understand that, for some
boards, they've never had so much money in their special
education budget. For other boards, it has been a change. Some
boards have told me that they used to use money for high-needs
students to finance other students. We have said, "No, high-needs
dollars are for high-needs children." There's no question there
are some restrictions. If we're giving them a dollar for a
high-needs child, that's where that dollar should go.
The other reason that
almost half of the special education grant to the boards is done
in a flexible way is that this was to respond to their need for
flexible money as well. We are looking at how we can improve
this, and I think it is fair to say that if there were any simple
answers here, we would have done it yesterday. On the one hand,
I'm hearing from boards that they want more flexibility-"Give us
more flexibility." On the other hand, I'm hearing from parents
that they don't trust the boards, rightly or wrongly, with more
flexibility; they want more restrictions on the dollars.
1720
Mr Bisson:
They want provincial guidance too.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There is.
Mr Bisson:
They want more provincial guidelines.
Just on a point of order,
on a separate matter, Mr Chair. I'm not going to take long. In
regard to the French-language issue and translation, maybe it
would be appropriate at one point to have a bit of discussion at
estimates about how we can deal with that, because I find myself
in a situation where I'm going to raise them in French, but it
puts you members who don't understand French at the disadvantage
of not knowing what it is I'm talking about. We need to provide
some form of translation at estimates to be able to deal with
this more adequately than we did today.
The
Vice-Chair: Yes. Under these circumstances, if we knew
ahead of time, we could have made this kind of provision. I think
your point is well taken.
Mr Bisson:
I just want to put the committee on notice that I'm the regular
member at estimates and I will be raising, at most of the
meetings, a number of issues in French, and I think we need to provide
translation services for other members.
The
Vice-Chair: That's good to know. But I know we're going
to suspend ourselves at about the second of this month-
M.
Bisson : Si je parle lentement, vous allez
comprendre? Vous êtes Monsieur Un?
Mr R. Gary Stewart
(Peterborough): Thank you, Mr Chair. Stewart's my name;
I won't tell you my game.
Before I ask a couple of
questions, Norbert was talking about the various grants and so on
and so forth, I realize they're all in this book. Is there a
document that lays out what both the province and the
municipalities are putting into each particular grant that we're
giving to the boards? We keep hearing, and you have said,
Minister, today that we're putting more money here and more money
there and more money elsewhere. Is there a simple way that we can
get something that allows us to look at it at a glance and see
the kind of dollars that are being increased and the various
categories they're in, because I heard about some grants today
from Norbert that I don't know whether I totally understand. Is
that a possibility?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, it is, Mr Stewart. Good question. I am
taking the ministry's word that we're making this more simple
than it was before and-
Mr
Stewart: I'm a simple kind of a guy.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, I know. I must confess, when I've had
briefings, they sort of talked to me about the way it was and the
way it is now. I think we are heading in the right direction
towards a simpler, more equitable formula, one that is more based
on students, on classroom, and one that is more transparent.
There are documents that list what boards are getting and we can
make those available to you.
The other point I should
make is that next year boards will be filing, for lack of a
better term, what I would describe as financial report cards,
which will give us an even better sense of where the dollars are
going so that we can all, taxpayers, parents and everyone, track
that.
Mr
Stewart: Might we get this new, compiled, one-page,
whatever it might be, in the next few weeks?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We could certainly get that to you, I would
think, fairly quickly.
Mr
Stewart: I think all caucuses might be-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Certainly.
Mr
Stewart: I've got a couple of questions. One, of course,
relates to the new curriculum. Certainly there are those in our
society who support it; there are those who don't support it. I'm
a great believer in the four R's. The latter one, respect, is as
important as the others. Times have changed and technology is
changing. It used to be that everything was geared, I believe, to
your becoming either a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher. I think
that there are a lot of other professions out there in a lot of
other areas that need to have students coming out of school,
trained to be able to go into various programs, whether they be
apprenticeship programs or whatever, that they can learn those
particular trades.
I guess my question to you
is that certainly the curriculum has changed. How do you feel it
has made improvements over what we had before?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Very good question. I think one of the most
significant changes has been the improvement in curriculum. Even
people like Marshall Jarvis who, as you know, used to head the
Catholic teachers' federation, not known for his support of this
government, has said that it is a "good curriculum," that "the
government has moved in the right direction," the "curriculum
gives our students the opportunity to achieve very favourable
results."
Maret Sädem-Thompson,
whom Mr O'Toole may well remember since we were all on platforms
together some years ago, described the elementary curriculum, for
example, as an "excellent document," that "it's good for
children," the science curriculum and math and all of those
things are good, particularly for kindergarten students as well.
The quotes go on and on in terms of our curriculum. I did not
realize how significant, far reaching and good, if I may say, our
changes had been in the curriculum until I got more detailed
briefing as minister.
First of all, this is the
first comprehensive change in curriculum since Egerton Ryerson,
back in the 1850s, designed the public school system. For the
first time, the curriculum is being built from kindergarten right
through to grade 12 so that every year what a child learns in one
year is built on the knowledge they were to acquire the year
before. The curriculum was never designed that way before. That
allows materials, training, textbooks, all to be written in
support of that specific curriculum. That, I think, is a
significant change and a significant improvement.
It is more rigorous. It
does have clear expectations about what children are expected to
learn and to know. Curriculum guidance from past governments was
very vague and not consistently applied. When you look at these
skimpy, little documents that came out before and compare that to
the documents that we're putting out, you can see that there are
many more expectations that are much clearer and more rigorous.
It's also results-oriented so that the testing that we've brought
in is clearly going to be showing us whether these children are
acquiring the knowledge and skills that they need. That's another
important change.
The other point again, as
Mr Stewart said, and I think it's quite valid, is that
unfortunately the system had tended to lean towards those who
were perhaps going to university. When you look at the majority
of our students who leave high school, they do not go on to
university. They go on to many other good and productive things,
either directly into the workforce, into apprenticeship and
training, into colleges-there's a number of different
destinations. The secondary school curriculum which is being
phased in now-it started in grade 9 this year, grade 10 next year
and on through-is based on the destination of that student. If
they're going to go to university or college, if they're going to
go directly into the workforce or apprenticeship or training
courses, they can take
courses that are geared to getting them there. It's very clear
what they are. They know what they need to learn.
The other point that I
think is really important for parents and for students-because we
all remember, I think, how tough it was back there in grade 9
trying to decide what we were going to do with our life-is that
it also recognizes that students need the flexibility to change
so that if they start off in one stream and they find that's not
appropriate for them, they want to go into a different kind of
destination, the curriculum is designed to help them make that
shift, which again is another important change.
We have here four examples.
Take a look at this little document called The Formative Years.
It was put out in 1975, and this was the elementary book. That's
it. It's only a couple of pages, 20 pages; that's it. For those
of you who may remember and it's too bad we're still not on TV,
the elementary curriculum now is this high in terms of the
expectations. So it's an important change. It is allowing us to
give our students more of what they need.
We are also helping
teachers in a way that the provincial government had never done.
Usually you would just take a document such as this, send it out,
send it to the boards, and say: "Here it is. Have a nice day."
What we're now doing is to ensure that the curriculum is put in
place in a consistent way across the province. We have what we
call course profiles and exemplars like sample lessons for
teachers. We have examples of how to assess a student. We have
things like CDs and training courses and summer institutes. There
are literally millions of dollars that we have spent, not only to
provide materials for the new curriculum but also to help
teachers learn how to teach the new curriculum because it is
certainly a change for them as well. They are having to teach
more rigorous material and we are prepared to take and have been
taking steps to support them in doing that.
1730
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Wettlaufer.
Mr
Wettlaufer: Thank you. Mr Chair, I want to compliment
you on the way you've been handling this meeting. You've done
very, very well. I think you should get some of the extra stipend
that goes to the Chair because you sit in here so often, but
that's just my opinion.
The
Vice-Chair: Very supportive of you.
Mr
Wettlaufer: I know you would. As to why the hearing is
not being conducted on television today, I accept full blame for
that. We could have done so.
In my riding, for the last
umpteen months there have challenges, there have been
accomplishments, and we've had compliments and we've had
criticisms. Our critics have concerns-some valid, some not so
valid. Our supporters have some concerns. We've had so many
accomplishments in the past few years, but there still is so much
to be done. I wonder if you could give us some idea what the
priorities will be for your ministry for the coming 12
months.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There's no question that there have been
considerable changes in the last four years, and I guess my first
priority as Minister of Education, first of several but one of
the first ones, is to finish what we started, finish the
phasing-in of the new curriculum, as I mentioned. Grade 9 has
just started; we have 10, 11 and 12 to go through. We want to get
that in place and we want to continue the expansion of testing to
make sure that we are indeed giving our students what they need
to have. That's one important priority: finishing the curriculum
changes and constantly looking at how we can continue to improve
the way it's being taught and the outcomes we're getting.
The second piece of
finishing what we started is to make appropriate changes where
required in how we finance and fund education-you've heard me
talk in this forum about special education, for example-so we're
looking at ways we may need to change how we fund education to
better meet the needs of students. That's in the finishing what
we started category.
In doing what we said we
would do during this mandate category, there are several things
but I think the two most important priorities would be getting
more respect and responsibility in the school system, so that
students and teachers are safe, and also so that students know
what behaviour is expected of them and get taught the values of
good citizenship.
One of the initiatives to
achieve this will be a code of conduct where there will be clear
behavioural expectations for students. As to those who are doing
things like bringing alcohol or drugs to school, or harassing or
swearing or assaulting teachers, there would be clear and tough
penalties for that kind of behaviour.
We quite recognize that
students can't learn and teachers can't teach if they're not safe
in a classroom. As a layperson, if you will, I've been quite
shocked at some of the stories I've heard from parents, students
and teachers about some of the lack of safety, or some of the
violence even, that has occurred in some schools, unfortunately,
across the province. So that's one very important initiative.
The second one is to have
an appropriate teacher testing program. As I've said earlier and
on many occasions, testing students, for example, testing boards
in terms of how they are spending the money, that's the way we
ask the tough question, are we doing the job we need to do?
Testing gives us results that we can say: "Is there a problem? If
there is, let's go fix it." So we want to expand into an
appropriate testing program for teachers, because excellent
teaching is one of the foundations of a good, quality education
system. While we have many, many excellent teachers out there,
whom I've had myself or that I continue to meet in this
particular capacity, we also know that we need to do a better job
of ensuring that the profession as a whole can stay up to date,
is meeting the increasing challenges teachers are facing. I think
an appropriate teacher testing program will allow us to do
that.
We have started the consultations on this. We
understand that this is a significant step, that there are a
great many teachers who feel uncertain about this. This is not an
unusual feeling for them, but this is also, as I've said, not a
challenge unique to teaching. Many professions are wrestling with
how they put in place mechanisms to have their members, both
individually and as a group, constantly get better, constantly
meet the challenge of new changes, new technology, new learning,
new strategies, whether it's healing or teaching.
I have some familiarity
with what has been going on in the health sector for the 24
health professions. They have a piece of legislation, the
Regulated Health Professions Act, which has a whole section that
is a mandatory quality assurance program they are subject to, all
the 24 professions, not only doctors and dentists and nurses, but
chiropractors, dieticians, chiropodists-all 24 of them.
So the challenge is very
similar to many professions. The mechanisms may vary from
profession to profession, but the challenge is the same. We want
to make sure we can effectively test, evaluate, assess the
ability of teachers. I must stress too, because I know a lot of
misinformation has gone out on this, that we're not simply
talking about measuring knowledge. Knowledge certainly is one
component of excellent teaching, as it is of excellent
professional service in any area, but simply having knowledge as
a teacher doesn't mean you can teach it. We understand that it's
not only knowledge that must be tested and assessed, but also
abilities, training, all of those factors that make up a very
competent teacher.
It is a big challenge, but
it is important if we are serious about having the best education
system we can have. If there's one thing I think we've proved it
is that we are very serious as a government about improving the
quality in the education system. This is one mechanism by which
we can do that.
Mr
Wettlaufer: Thank you, Minister.
The
Vice-Chair: That's it? No further questions here?
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I want to ask you about what you just
finished saying, alluding to teacher testing. It's just a bit
remarkable, and I wonder if you'd like to comment. You and I were
both in attendance-I think you were the honoured guest-at the
Teacher of the Year awards. At those awards, former Premier Davis
seemed to give you an indication that teacher testing should not
be done with a paper test. I would agree that he endorsed a lot
of other things he felt you as an individual were doing, but I
wonder, are you sticking with your plan to have a written test as
a component of this teacher testing?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, Mr Kennedy, we never said we would
have a written test of any form. Our commitment was to test
knowledge, skills, training and abilities. I would be quite happy
to give you the wording, not only in Blueprint, but also in press
releases and statements that we recognize, and we've said this
very clearly from day one, that simply having knowledge doesn't
mean a teacher can teach it. Assessing knowledge is a piece of an
appropriate testing and evaluation mechanism, but we also must be
measuring skills and abilities. There are many factors that make
up a competent teacher. Mr Davis and I, quite frankly, had a good
discussion before that speech, and he and I agree.
So we've had no change in
our objective, no change in our intent. We have asked, as you
know, the College of Teachers for advice. The Ontario Teachers'
Federation is providing advice. There are many groups. The
Education Quality and Accountability Office also has advice for
us on how we can effectively measure these things.
1740
Mr
Kennedy: That's seems very unequivocal. So there will be
no written component of a test when it's finally realized?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, I didn't say that, Mr Kennedy. I said that we
have stated what we wish to assess, why it's important to assess
those things.
Mr
Kennedy: Oh, I see. You haven't said it. OK.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Knowledge is part of that and we are seeking
advice from all of our education partners as to how we can
effectively assess knowledge and the other factors that need to
be assessed.
Mr
Kennedy: I appreciate the clarification, Minister.
I'd like to turn now to the
Toronto board and the situation that is facing them over the next
number of years. I know there are parents in Toronto specifically
who would like to know your ministry's perspective. The Toronto
board is looking at significant cuts. They were imposed by your
government, and that's why I'm hoping you won't just say, "It's
the Toronto board's responsibility and we'll help them if they
ask us," and so on. They are saying these are impossible to
manage. The EIC has identified some areas that they also agree
have to be changed.
What I'm wondering is, do
you recognize that some of these challenges go against some of
the things that you've been saying here today and in earlier
sessions? For example, they are looking at cutting a large number
of professionals and paraprofessionals, some $29 million worth of
professionals and paraprofessionals. You know about the huge cuts
in teacher preparation time.
I wonder if you would speak
to me first about the paraprofessionals that they have to get rid
of. Do you think they're surplus now, the various psychiatrists,
psychotherapists, child care social workers, attendance
counsellors, guidance counsellors, a lot of whom contribute to
safety in the school? These are front-line people. I know that
attendance counsellors, for example, in the former Etobicoke
board are all going to be taken away, and there will be fewer of
them replaced, probably less qualified from a teacher perspective
but certainly less qualified overall. So can you address the
reduction in paraprofessionals? Is there anything you're
intending to do to ensure that this doesn't harm the classroom
conditions for children?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, I'm yet again quite pleased to
answer this question. The Toronto board is being asked to live
within its budget. The Education Improvement Commission has said
there is more work this board needs to do and has made some
recommendations to them about how they can do that. We have
expressed our willingness, and the board has agreed. We are
working with them to meet these challenges. We have retained the
services of an independent management consultant to work with the
board who can identify additional opportunities for efficiencies.
I think it's important to note that there are many forecasts and
many predictions that are out there. That doesn't necessarily
mean they will come to pass. I think that's a very important
message.
We understand that we will
continually need this year, next year, the year after that, for
however many years all of us are in this business, to work with
the board to make sure they're meeting the challenge of providing
quality education. But I would also like to point out that the
Education Improvement Commission made some other very relevant
recommendations for how the board and-
Mr
Kennedy: But-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Just a second. You've asked me an important
question. Let me finish. There are other sources of revenue here
that the EIC also said needed to be worked on with the board.
This is where, for example, the responsibility of the city of
Toronto comes in.
Mr
Kennedy: But, Minister, they're not here-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Some $15 million-just a minute-
Mr
Kennedy: But it's subtracting from the time we have for
you to answer the question I'm putting to you.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Some $15 million could be there for this board if
the city of Toronto and the board could change the way-it's an
administrative procedure. So there's a lot of work that needs to
be done as we help the Toronto board deliver good quality
education within their budget.
Mr
Kennedy: But, Minister, you now collect all the taxes in
Toronto that are for education. You set the mill rate for them
and you determine that this board gets $250 million less. No
other outside entity is doing that. There may be other things
that could help to mitigate that, but you're the one
cannibalizing the Toronto board to the tune of $250 million.
They've come back and
presented proposals that say they're going to lose important
services, including paraprofessionals and psychologists and so
on, that don't fit within your classroom model. You've had no
comment on that.
Now, I wonder, would you
comment on the learning opportunities fund? Would you say whether
you'll be acting on that? The programs, Minister-and you may well
have been in the schools to see that the nutrition supplements,
the before- and after-school programs have already been cut in
most of the places I've visited in Toronto. Already they've been
cut back from five days to four. After-school attendance, because
of lack of resources, is in many schools cut in half. These are
the programs that are special in Toronto and other urban boards
that the EIC said your funding model does not accommodate. I can
tell you it's happening now that those children are less
supported than they were last year. Will you take some of the
responsibility along the lines the EIC suggested and look at and
come to some conclusions about this learning opportunities grant
in time for it to have some effect even this school year? Will
you do that?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, yet again we have said we are
certainly looking at not only the learning opportunities grant
but how we help support financially the Toronto board in its goal
of trying to deliver quality education for our students. So we
are quite prepared to look at those recommendations from the EIC,
but also the EIC said the board has some steps that it must take.
We've lost precious time because of the way things have been
conducted with this board in the past-that's according to the
EIC-but that's water under the bridge, unfortunately. We are
working with the board; we have a management consultant. But
you've dismissed very lightly a simple administration change, the
way-
Mr
Kennedy: No, Minister, what I've dismissed is-you're not
giving me the answers. Mr Chair-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, I know this isn't the answer you
want, but you've asked me a question and I'm prepared to answer
it.
Mr
Kennedy: Wasting time is the minister's prerogative, but
there are at least-
The
Vice-Chair: Order. Just give the minister a few minutes
to respond and we can go back to that.
Mr
Kennedy: If she has the time to reasonably answer the
question, I would like to be able to put questions and not have
the time wasted.
The
Vice-Chair: The minister will come to it. Minister?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Just as a way to illustrate the work that needs
to be done in the next couple of years with the Toronto board is
that a simple administration change in terms of how the city of
Toronto allocates its monies to the board could give them an
additional $15 million in revenue. So there is a lot of work here
that needs to be done and we are working with the board to do
that.
Mr
Kennedy: But, Minister, you have had for a number of
weeks the EIC report, you've had your own information directly
from the Toronto board, and from other boards, I might add, and
you seem to have no concrete plans to make changes. You seem to
be resolute to stick with what you're doing. I'm wondering why
you can't share with us today at least some progress, or, more
importantly I think at this stage, some recognition that what the
EIC says is not just $7 million a year wasted but that there's
actually something concrete that you're doing about that. Is
there something at all that you can share with us today around
learning opportunity grants or the funding structure that you're
responsible for? Stop pointing fingers at other levels of
government, Minister, because you're here to account for your
part of this.
Now, will you say what you
and your ministry will do about Toronto? If there's something
specific, could we hear that? If there isn't, could I move on to
another question? It would be unfortunate if there isn't
something. I'd be
happy to give you the time if there is something specific.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, no one is pointing fingers at any
other level of government here. You keep putting this
interpretation on it.
Mr
Kennedy: You just did, Minister, but that's fine.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not what I said, and you clearly were not
listening.
Yes, we are looking at how
we fund the Toronto board, as we are other boards. Yes, we are
looking at the EIC recommendations. Yes, we are trying to
determine how we can continue to work with this board; we've
already provided them with $700 million in additional monies to
help get them through the challenges they are facing. We have
already retained the services of a management consultant to
assist. We have taken steps. We provided additional monies to
them in terms of accommodation and things last year. We've been
quite prepared to work with this board as they go through the
challenges, and we've said we are looking at how we finance.
There'll be announcements that if there are to be changes in
funding we will be quite prepared to make those. But as I said, a
lot of work needs to be done and will continue to be done
here.
Mr
Kennedy: But when might you actually have some actions
that you're going to take to ameliorate the situation of the
board? Do you recognize that the Toronto board will need
additional funding and additional assistance in order to do its
job, or is that still a question in your mind?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, when will the board finish the steps that
they are supposed to take, the recommendations they had from the
EIC to find the savings they are supposed to find?
Mr
Kennedy: The EIC told you that the most important
recommendation was your definition and your inadequate funding
for-this is the EIC that said this, Minister. The most important
recommendation was the learning opportunities grant. That's the
most important one.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes.
Mr
Kennedy: I'm just wondering, do you acknowledge that
there is a shortage of funding? Do you at least acknowledge that,
so that we all know, the people in Toronto know, that the
Minister of Education for the province of Ontario is working on
this problem, not just talking about it? If you acknowledge the
problem, that's at least a step forward. Do you see that there's
lack of funds?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, I don't know where you've been for
the last several weeks. You were at the press conference where
the EIC report came out. The EIC has flagged that there may be a
gap three years from now-
Mr
Kennedy: They did not say three years from now,
Minister.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, you'd better go back and read your
report.
Mr
Kennedy: I have. I have it here.
1750
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Anyway, we understand that the EIC has made
recommendations to us, to the board. We are looking at those. We
are working at solutions. I don't know how much clearer I can be
than that. Anyway, that's what we need to say on this, and if Mr
Kennedy wants to go out and twist and misinterpret that, I guess
he is certainly free to do it.
Mr
Kennedy: I gave you the opportunity to answer in a more
positive way that would be helpful to the board and to the
students, and I don't think it happened. You obviously stand by
your answer.
In the ESL programs,
particularly, they're looking at a $37-million reduction over the
next two years. At other times, when this has been raised in the
Legislature, you've gone on and on about the federal government.
You've cut the program. This is your decision specifically, to
reduce the amount of money they have available. I want to know,
will you be addressing the cuts in ESL from the provincial
perspective? This is having a dramatic effect. I can cite you
cases today where less ESL instruction is there, and that
becomes, like special education, an issue for every student in
the school because those students then require time. You know you
reduced the formula so that they only get three years of English
as a second language. You don't recognize children who may have
lived at home and not learned English. There are lots of problems
with this formula. Is this somewhere near the top of your
priority list? Will this be dealt with? Can you give us any
specifics about how you might do so, if you are going to deal
with it?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, the ESL change is because there's
been a decrease in enrolment in the program. I'm sure he would
not want us to be paying for services that are not being
offered.
Secondly, the Toronto
board, because-
Mr
Kennedy: Well, Minister-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Let me finish the answer, Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: That's just silly, though, Minister, with
respect. That's not what's happening.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's a fact.
Mr
Kennedy: Are you saying the whole reduction is because
of reduction in enrolment?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, let me finish my answer here. Because
we understand that the Toronto school board faces significant
challenges in ESL, that's why they get 42% of all the monies in
the province given to ESL services, because we understand that
that is indeed a challenge for them. We'd be quite happy to have
Nancy Naylor talk about the changes in that and the decline in
enrolment, because we'd certainly want to make sure that accurate
information is here on the record for the honourable member.
Mr
Kennedy: Here's what Carla Kisco at the TDSB finance
office says. She says that the funding model is only
providing-that they are $117 million short for special needs; a
$37-million reduction in English-as-a-second-language programs
and services. You may be giving 42% of what you're prepared to pay for
ESL, but it doesn't relate to what they have always discovered is
the need for ESL students. You've cut back, through your
criteria, the amount of English-as-a-second-language training
you're prepared to offer: only one year full and then two years
graduated, where it used to be five to six to seven years,
depending on the circumstances, and for a much smaller pool. So
they're paying $37 million. That's what they maintain. You can
tell me it's not true, and if so, then you can please provide the
figures today in writing that would support that, because that is
the contention of the Toronto board and I think it's important
that you take that contention seriously.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, we do take all of these issues very
seriously. Nancy Naylor is here, who has the expertise to talk
about what is happening with this particular dollar amount.
Ms Naylor:
In terms of the ESL funding, the intention is very much to
protect that funding as one of the components of special-needs
funding going into the new funding model. The grant for that was
based on the best possible proxy for the need for ESL funding;
that is, the number of students who enrol in a board from a
country where English is not a first or standard language. We had
been tracking that consistently for a number of years with
boards. We ensured that money was available for that, and that is
still the basis on which money is available.
A couple of factors: One is
that money is provided over the first three years-you're
correct-in a graduated way. That's to ensure that the money gets
into the board's hands in the first three years a student is
enrolled in an Ontario school board and to ensure that they can
use that money in as flexible a way as possible to provide the
programs that are of assistance to the children.
The second point is that in
1999-2000, we did enrich a component of the grant that's intended
to provide funding for Canadian-born students who may enrol in
the school board's programs without a working knowledge of
English. That funding was doubled in this year.
Mr
Kennedy: I'm sorry, Ms Naylor, could you address for me
the contention of the Toronto board that they get $37 million
less than they currently expend as they see fit to improve the
educational prospects of the students who need
English-as-second-language training? Is that accurate?
Ms Naylor:
That doesn't sound right to me. We'd be happy to analyze any
figures they would like to provide to the ministry.
Mr
Kennedy: Do you know the figures and can you provide
them today? In their absence, Ms Naylor-the ministry stands, in
my estimation, not accountable unless it does provide us those.
These are crucial issues for the ability of the board to function
and, frankly, for the ability of Toronto to function.
Does the ministry have
those figures? Can they provide them today so we can compare them
to the Toronto board's figures, which I have put into the
record?
Ms Naylor:
What we can show you is the amount of money that was projected
for the Toronto board in 1998-99 and 1999-2000, the amount of
money that they've claimed. The figures you mentioned are not
consistent with our figures, so we'd be happy to analyze any
figures the Toronto board would like to provide the ministry.
Mr
Kennedy: Have you analyzed their figures? These figures
have been public for a month. Has your ministry analyzed these
figures? Do they have a reasonable explanation for the variances?
Have you, in other words, taken an interest in this very
difficult situation within Toronto schools?
Ms Naylor:
I have not seen those numbers in writing and I have not heard
that figure from that particular analyst. If they are provided to
the ministry, we would be happy to analyze them, but they are not
consistent with our projections for ESL funding for the Toronto
school board, which shows a very stable level of funding
eligibility.
Mr
Kennedy: That simply is not what is borne out. In school
after school, we're finding that children cannot-we have children
sitting in kindergarten classes who cannot access English as a
second language. They are having to stand on their head in the
various boards and individual schools to find access to them.
Can I get an undertaking
from the deputy that these figures could be provided, that a
comparison could be done between the ministry's figures and the
board's figures? If we're going to talk apples and apples, that
should be done in a published way. Is that possible, to actually
have those figures-
Ms
Herbert: Certainly, if the board gives us those numbers,
we will be happy to do that.
Mr
Kennedy: I'll ensure that it happens.
I know my time is limited.
I wonder if I could re-ask, because I want to make sure that
these things get read into the record-I had asked before for the
ministry figures for the impact of the reduction in
commercial-industrial taxes on the putative spending on
education. I had asked for that, and it wasn't provided
today.
I'd also asked for the
impact of the reduction in residential taxes, because, as we
established in the first session, that shows up as an artificial
expense in education.
I would also like to know
what happens, specifically, from the conversion of capital from a
capital expense to an operating expense, because that also puffs
up the amount of money that the ministry appears to be spending
on education.
I would also like to know
what the impact is from property tax valuation, so that when the
valuation goes up-I would like to know specifically, and I'll
refer again to what used to be available from the ministry, which
is a multi-year review showing how much money is property tax and
how much is in provincial operating grant. You have the
information to make that equivalent.
Mr
Wettlaufer: On a point of order, Chair: Mr Kennedy has
used his 20 minutes. We have an item on the agenda that has not
been covered yet, and that is the consideration of the
subcommittee report.
The Vice-Chair: I have a bit of
a dilemma here. It seems to me there might be a vote.
Furthermore, this committee adjourns at 6 o'clock. I know the
item is on the agenda. It could be deferred until tomorrow, when
the committee meets again. I don't think we have to vote on that
right now.
Mr
Wettlaufer: It looks to me like we have a couple of
minutes, Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: The minister has a point to make?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, just very quickly, Chair, since Mr Kennedy
wishes to get things on the record, I'd also like the record to
clearly show that we had staff prepared to discuss this on the
record here at committee and he didn't wish to avail himself of
that. I think it's important for the record to say that as
well.
Mr
Kennedy: With the greatest respect, Minister, that is
not correct. Hansard will show that at the last discussion we
had, I spoke to Mr Peebles, I believe his name is, from the
ministry. The record does need to show it accurately. It will
show it, in any event, Madam Minister, and I'm sure you wouldn't
want to be seen in contradiction.
The only thing I would like
to reconcile is, can this information be available?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Of course.
Mr
O'Toole: Mr Chair, are you the Chair here, or what?
The
Vice-Chair: We've got one Chair, OK?
Your time is up, Mr
Kennedy. It is 6 o'clock, and this meeting will be adjourned.
There is a matter, of course, that was on the agenda. It can be
deferred until tomorrow for the estimates. Is that OK?
Mr
Wettlaufer: Chair, may I have your assurance that we
will discuss it first thing tomorrow?
The
Vice-Chair: It will be discussed the first thing
tomorrow. You have my assurance on that.
Minister, may I just thank
you for coming-I know this is the end of your session of
estimates-and thank the staff for coming and the excellent work
that you're doing. Thank you very much for your support.
