Hon Janet Ecker, Minister of
Education
Mr Norbert Hartmann, assistant deputy minister, elementary and
secondary
business and finance division
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 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 Steve Peters (Elgin-Middlesex-London L)
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Mr Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina ND)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Ms Anne Marzalik, research officer,
Research and Information Services
The committee met at 1603 in room 151.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
The Acting Chair (Mr
Steve Peters): Welcome, Minister, members. We'll call
the meeting to order. Right now, it is with the NDP. Mr Marchese,
you have 15 minutes from now.
Mr Rosario Marchese
(Trinity-Spadina): Minister, it was really cold in this
room, I've got to tell you.
Hon Janet Ecker
(Minister of Education): Between the three of us, I
think we'll heat it up.
Mr Marchese:
We'll warm it up. Yes, that's good. It takes a bit of time,
though. It's so hard in a cold room just to heat up.
Let me pursue the idea of the
playgrounds again. You must have thought about it a little bit
after I'd asked you that question about playgrounds. I'm worried
and parents are worried. They don't know quite what to do, and
many of them are tired of fundraising. They are tired of
fundraising because they've had to do more of that in the last
four or five years than ever before, we argue to make up for your
cuts, but you argue who knows what. That's what they've been
doing, and some of the parents are saying, "We're sick and tired
of doing that. We don't want to do it because we have other
things that we should be doing, and governments ought to be there
to responsibly look after those particular problems such as the
playgrounds." Many parents really are not looking to blame, and
even if they want to blame someone, at the end of the day they
are saying, "We still have a problem on our hands. We don't have
the playgrounds that our children deserve and ought to have."
If the board isn't able or
isn't finding the money for those playgrounds, those kids are
without playgrounds. Then I, as a politician, come to you and
say, "Are you concerned about that and are you willing to do
anything to fix this particular problem?" I'm looking to you to
find a way to mediate or to be helpful in fixing this problem,
and I want to know what you're doing about that, por favor.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, I'm extremely concerned about what
happened in Toronto. School board trustees have a very
significant responsibility. A lot of responsibilities and
decisions, quite rightly, are on their plate. One hopes that in
all circumstances they will exercise as much care and judgment as
you or I in our provincial role, or as our federal colleagues
would in their role.
Sometimes, and in this case
obviously, there have been some decisions made that are creating
problems for the community. We have provided additional monies to
this school board in a number of different capacities. I find it
extremely difficult. We're either going to say that we have
school board trustees who are elected to make decisions and to be
accountable for those decisions or we don't. What is of concern
to me is that, on the one hand, some on your side of the House
and some in other sectors say we are not allowing trustees to
exercise their authority, and yet on the other hand, when they
make a decision, which some parents agree with and some parents
don't agree with, it's, "Oh, well, now we have to come and
overrule them. Now we have to come and fix it."
It's certainly a difficult
position for everyone, but I don't think it's appropriate for us
to come in and provide, as I said earlier, special treatment for
this board where other school boards are managing issues in
varying degrees. As you know, one of the things we said we would
lay out in our student-focused funding was that there would be
equitable monies, clear criteria and accountability for all
boards that would be transparent. I can't now walk in and
cherry-pick: "Oh, well, we like this board; therefore we'll give
them extra," or, "This trustee made a dumb decision; therefore
we'll move in and give them extra." We have provided this board
with flexibility.
Mr Marchese:
Yes, I hear you.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The boards are coming forward this fall with
their recommendations for funding for the next school year. We're
looking at that. I can't prejudge whether that might be of
assistance, but they do know very clearly the process for funding
for their accommodation and equipment.
Mr Marchese:
OK, thank you. I think you've answered it. Frankly, my worry-I
know you don't want to intervene on the basis that they have a
responsibility and ought to be accountable for the decisions they
have made. They are elected people, so they should do whatever is
right on the basis of what you give them and on the basis of what
they're elected to do.
They made a decision about
the playgrounds, and what we now have are schoolyards without
playgrounds. What I hear you saying is, "We can't intervene.
Certainly you don't want us
to intervene, on the basis that you don't want us to intrude on
their powers." In the meantime, those kids are without
playgrounds, and, "It's sad. What can we do?" So kids don't have
a playground, and it's too bad.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I think the school board and the community are
taking steps to try and remedy the situation. It's unfortunate to
see, if I can believe media accounts, that at the same time the
community is expressing concerns about this, there were still
schools where equipment was being torn down. The board said they
found $3 million in a surplus. That was news to the ministry,
which has been hearing a very different kind of message from the
school board for quite some time, and the word "surplus"
certainly wasn't in it. But there are steps they are trying to
take to remedy this situation.
One of the other things
school boards said to us is that they want predictable, stable
funding, clear criteria, transparent rules, that it happens on a
regular basis so they know that and can plan. We had done that.
To come back and now all of a sudden say, "We're going to do"-I
understand the frustration that is there.
1610
Mr Marchese:
This is the frustration: boards are saying they have less money
than ever before. You claim differently. I'm not going to get
into the debate you had with Mr Kennedy about that, because I
think it's a very elusive discussion, certainly very murky to get
into, because we make one claim, you make the other. That's why I
said to you that ultimately I have faith in the electorate to
know the level of funding they're getting or not. Rather than
debating that-they're saying they don't have the money. Yes, they
did find $3 million, they argue, and they're $9 million short. If
we're lucky, maybe next year they'll find more money. Maybe
they'll have less money. In the meantime, they'll be without
playgrounds. That's all I wanted you to remember-and those
watching, all I want them to remember-that the kids are without
playgrounds.
My argument is, somebody has
made a decision. You're all interconnected with those decisions.
You're saying at your level, "They made it." Maybe next year, who
knows? Hopefully the board and communities are talking about it
to solve it. Your answer is, "Well, we give them the money." God
bless. In spite of what you say, I hear boards have gotten
millions and millions less. By the time this support from the
government ends in a couple of years, it'll be, in my view, a
disaster.
So I don't have much
confidence in the arguments you make. You took the financial
power of boards to be able to have the flexibility that they
required. I think it was foolhardy. It's contrary to your own
ideological Conservative inclinations, yours and the party's, in
terms of less government and more power to the lower levels. In
this particular instance, as it relates to the board, you
effectively took all the power away from the boards, to the
extent that they have no more flexibility any longer.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: With all due respect, they made this decision.
There's no issue here of flexibility or anything like this. This
was their judgment call. As I said, some parents agree and some
parents don't. As you and I and all of us in elected office
understand, that's not a unique circumstance. They made that
judgment.
Mr Marchese:
I heard you answer. I agree. They made that judgment, and now the
kids are going to be punished. You will not be a help toward
resolving it is the argument I'm making. I'm also making another
argument now in terms of accountability, and that is that they
don't have any fiscal powers any longer, other than being
accountable to you.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Do you think it's any fairer for them? In the old
regime, if they had done this, the way they would have gotten
themselves out of it would be to go out and raise the property
tax on, for example, a senior citizen living on a fixed income on
a property down the street. Is that fair to her or him in terms
of that circumstance? There is no wonderful never-never land
where everything was solved.
As you know, I've been
involved in political things for many years, not as an elected
official, and I've asked this question. I've never yet heard of a
school board that said, "Thank you very much, we have enough
money." That has always been a pressure in the system.
Mr Marchese:
There is pressure in the system. The scenario you paint is
interesting because under the old system trustees would have had
the flexibility and the power to correct a wrong if a wrong was
made.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: They have flexibility now to correct things.
Mr Marchese:
No, Minister.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Otherwise they never would have found this money
from this surplus they seem to have.
Mr Marchese:
But, Minister, I'm arguing with you that you have taken financial
powers away. There is no flexibility left, is what I'm saying,
other than finding dollars from one pocket to possibly put into
another, which means somebody else will be hurt in order to deal
with a-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Marchese, what pocket would you like them to
pick? There is no pot that is no one's pocket. There is always
somebody's pocket.
Mr Marchese:
OK, for the sake of the argument-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There are people out there, the taxpayers, who
fund that in every school board. That's the pocket.
Mr Marchese:
I hear you. You were worried about the seniors, weren't you, you
just said a moment ago?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, I used that as one example.
Mr Marchese:
But it's a good example.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I think someone who's perhaps on a disability
pension may well be another one.
Mr Marchese:
Perfect example. You're quite right.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There are many people who are paying property
taxes out there and one of the things our government said, based
on many reports and recommendations, much feedback from many
people out there who paid property tax, from municipal
councillors, who wrestled
with their municipal budget to make sure the property tax
increase was minimal-
Mr Marchese:
Yes, I hear you.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -overall and they watched school boards who
didn't have that kind of discipline in some communities.
Mr Marchese:
OK, let's get into the subject as quickly as we possibly can.
The Vice-Chair (Mr
Alvin Curling): You have one minute to get into it.
Mr Marchese:
I beg your pardon?
The
Vice-Chair: You have one minute to do all of that.
Mr Marchese:
You're kidding.
The
Vice-Chair: Yes. No, I'm not kidding.
Mr Marchese:
Are we in the wrong-
The
Vice-Chair: I'd love to give you half an hour more, but
you've got a minute.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Welcome back, Mr Chair.
Mr Marchese:
We couldn't have spent that much time chatting here.
The
Vice-Chair: Your discourse was very interesting. You've
got 30 seconds now.
Mr Marchese:
Thank you, Mr Curling. Madam Minister, no problem. We need more
time. We'll come back to it. We have another turn. Thank you, Mr
Chair. Welcome back.
The
Vice-Chair: Well, thank you very much.
Mr Gilchrist? The member has
20 minutes. It'll make my job much easier if when I cut people
off they could stop too.
Mr Steve Gilchrist
(Scarborough East): I won't be taking anywhere near the
full 20 minutes, Mr Chair. I'd like to follow up just as a
preamble to the question that I did have for the minister on some
of the things Mr Marchese was asking you, because I find it quite
incredible that he, just in his addressing the question to you,
is prepared to gloss over this $5-million to $8-million surplus
they've discovered. Astounding. That's 200 teachers we're talking
about, Mr Marchese, and yet all year we've heard nothing from
this board except how shy they are when it comes to resources,
how desperate times are, how any cut had to be blamed exclusively
on our level of government.
The other thing I'd reflect
on is that even here in Toronto I don't recall reading any news
reports about the Catholic board savaging their playgrounds.
Surely their staff are just as adroit at looking at the
publications that come from the CSA. Surely the staff at 70 other
school boards all across Ontario care just as much about the
safety of their kids. But if you were following the aftermath to
this fateful board decision, you may recall reading a number of
trustees saying, "I simply followed the chair. I didn't even read
the report." They didn't read the report, and if they had read
the report the TDSB staff member who drafted it said that the
rules were not to be applied retroactively. There is no
playground that should have been destroyed on the basis of these
new rules. He pointedly said this is for new construction.
I understand the minister's
frustration in trying to answer your question. Every one of us is
elected with certain specific responsibilities. The only thing
that changed with the TDSB is they lost the power to tax. They
have all the same powers to spend. I for one am utterly shocked
that you would so blithely disregard $8 million in surplus
and accept, on the flip side, all of these cries of poverty that
have come from a board with a chair who was doing nothing more, I
am convinced, than making sure she had lots of headlines in the
preamble to her bid for higher office. We'll see if her
replacement is as keen to deal with a number of issues that had
nothing to do with school boards, but I, for one, think that is
not a particularly good issue to find as an example of provincial
inappropriate spending-far from it.
My first question to you
though, Minister, following up on that: can you tell me what the
timing is for the transfer of the bulk of the money to the school
boards? We know that the TDSB got $38 million last year. Could
you hazard an idea of whether that number will change appreciably
this year for the fund that they have to deal with the servicing
of capital needs?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, as you quite rightly point out, that's just
one piece of the $2 billion-if I'm correct; someone here will
correct me-that actually the Toronto public board gets for total
funding.
We're in the process this
fall of doing the work with boards that will drive the decisions
for funding for the next school year. One of the improvements
that I was able to make last year, and I certainly hope we can do
it again this year, is that we do all of that this fall so that
we can do our budget process and whatever that, as you know, we
go through in the provincial level of government so I can come
out next spring-we were out the first week of March last year and
I hope I can be out in a similar kind of time frame this coming
year. So that work is being done.
1620
Boards said they wanted a
rational, predictable, transparent, regular process of funding
instead of the kind of grant process they had before, which
actually created more problems than it was trying to solve. We're
doing that work this fall, and one of the issues we're looking at
has to do with accommodation, school capital. Those are issues
that we've asked boards for significant information on so that we
can say, "Do we need to make changes in how we fund this for
school boards so that it works better for them?" We can point to
things that are working extremely well in the accommodation area,
but we also know there are boards that have challenges that we
may not necessarily be dealing with the way we should. So that
work is happening this fall. If we are able to meet the
timelines, I hope we're going to have early decisions out of the
door next spring.
Mr
Gilchrist: I'm encouraged to hear that to some extent we
will now be seeing from boards like the TDSB their list of
priorities up front so we won't see these sort of ex post facto
problems that we've encountered with the playground issue. As an
extension of that, I recall, right at the very outset of our reforms, there
was built into the legislation a requirement that the school
boards would return to you every year an audited statement of how
they had in fact spent the money.
I know some of our opposition
colleagues continue to suggest that we aren't spending what we're
spending. I've never heard any of them suggest the Provincial
Auditor is inept or corrupt or a partisan Conservative, so
hopefully these financial report cards will give us, once and for
all, the definitive statement. I'd like your thoughts on when you
expect we're going to see this sort of detail, and what you
envision as the consequences if we find that, for example, 70
boards out of 72 are following the funding model and are
delivering quality education. If there are only two deviating in
spending, for example, too much on administration and not enough
in the classroom-in other words, if they're violating the funding
model, what will the consequences be to that?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Good question, Mr Gilchrist. The first step is
going to be what I would describe as a board financial profile,
as opposed to the judgment, if you will, or the quality analysis
of a report card. So it's sort of a board financial profile. I
hope to have those out by the end of this year.
We're taking time because one
of the things we want to make sure is that the boards agree that
we're comparing apples to apples. We're taking a lot of time to
do that work with the boards. So those will be out.
The second piece of this is
to have the data so trustees, taxpayers, parents, and teachers
can decide when they see-it might well be that a board decides to
use money from this pot to address a priority in that other pot
and that the community is very supportive of that, that is
something locally elected trustees feel is important for their
community. They will have the information to be able to judge
that, and I think that's an important improvement.
The financial profiles,
hopefully in the next couple of months. The report card piece of
it, the sort of evaluative piece of it, would be something that
would be coming further.
The other thing I should say
is we haven't shied away from the use of auditors. For example,
one of the things I think the Toronto school board is to be
congratulated for is that they did-they have worked with the
ministry and brought in a team of auditors, management
consultants, to take a look at the money, where it was being
spent, how they could manage it better. The Education Improvement
Commission also was in to make some recommendations and some of
the things the commission recommended that we do in terms of
enhancing money that would benefit Toronto, we indeed did. For
example, the learning opportunity grant, which deals with boards
that have inner city needs for children, the Toronto school board
benefits significantly from that funding. It was something EIC
said we should increase, and we did indeed increase that.
Mr R. Gary Stewart
(Peterborough): Minister, I want to talk for a minute
about the testing situation. I know that basically every board
across the province will be participating in the education
quality and accountability testing for grades 3 and 6. Students
are being assessed in the areas of reading, writing and
mathematics. I understand that this year we'll also be testing
grade 9 math and grade 10 literacy, which will be administered
for the first time.
I want to comment that last
Friday I had three grade 10 students come to my office to do an
interview on the very famous Bill 74. One of the students
suggested to me that he couldn't understand why he had to be
tested in grade 9. He felt that for some of the students who had
a failing grade in that test, or somewhat less than it should be,
their self-confidence would deteriorate and they would feel very
down and many of them might quit and so on and so forth. I
suggested to him, "When you leave school and go out and get a
job, can you tell me the first thing that employer will probably
do for you?" He didn't know. I said, "I'll tell you what he'll do
for you. He'll do a test to find out whether you're qualified to
get the job, and in your working career he'll test you many times
to see how you progress." The concern I have, after chatting with
this young fellow, is that there are those in the system who are
suggesting they don't need to be tested, because they are
confident that what they're learning and being taught is exactly
what we need out in the real world. I do have concerns.
Can you tell us basically why
the government has chosen to initiate these province-wide
standardized tests?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The reason we told the voters, both in 1995 and
again in 1999, that standardized testing would be part of our
education quality reforms is that if you don't do the testing,
you don't know how well the system is working. You may recently
have seen a number of media stories expressing concerns about
students' literacy skills. There have been national studies
looking at how well students are reading and writing. There have
been other media reports about concerns that little boys in the
earlier grades are not doing as well as they should be. They're
not coming out as well as little girls, and perhaps that's going
to set them up for failure later.
None of those stories would
have existed and none of those parents or the educators and
teachers who are working so hard to fix it would have known if
standardized testing wasn't going on. So it's an important
commitment and an important part of our reforms. That is how you
ask the question, "Are we doing the job we should be doing?" If
we're not, then we have the information to fix that. That's why
those tests are so important. The Education Quality and
Accountability Office is the arm's-length, independent
organization that is responsible for the testing policy: putting
it in place, making sure the process is valid and that we have
data that actually means something.
The other thing I think is
important to recognize about the testing is that this kind of
testing is not done to assess how an individual student is doing.
That information is certainly available to that student, that
teacher and that parent, so they can use it. But that is not the
only way that student is
evaluated. There are many other ways a teacher evaluates a
student, as there should be. So while the data is available for
the student, what is of interest to school boards, principals,
the teaching team, parents in general and the government is what
those tests are saying about the whole system. For example, we've
heard the concerns about how, because it is a more rigorous
curriculum-it was designed to be a more rigorous curriculum-we
need to take further steps for remediation to help students deal
with the new curriculum. The marks in some areas in boards and
schools have shown that. So we are indeed taking those steps, and
I think we need to take more and are prepared to do that.
The other thing I think is
one of the concerns you hear from some critics of testing is that
this is going to do something to that young person's self-esteem.
I can't think of anything more devastating to anyone's
self-esteem than to walk out of high school with that little
piece of paper that says it means something, and to walk into
your first university course or your first job and discover it's
a hoax, that it doesn't mean something. At that stage in their
lives, it is very difficult to fix the problem. We need to be
fixing that problem before they walk out the door, so that piece
of paper does mean something. The grade 10 literacy test that is
happening starting tomorrow is another step that will ensure our
students are getting what they need when they walk out the
door.
1630
Mr Frank Mazzilli
(London-Fanshawe): In the Blueprint, we made a
commitment to enhance the parental role in the education system
and the role of school councils. I've met with several parents'
groups in my riding that represent Wilton Grove public school. In
some cases, parents' groups feel they have not been brought into
enough decision-making around a particular school. In the spring,
I also followed the debate in some high schools where parent
councils voted for uniforms, and I thought this was a long time
coming, three or four years, that they've had that progress to
make decisions on whether there should be uniforms at that
school.
Minister, can you explain how
the parent councils are working across the province and if there
seems to be any benefit as a result of that?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The school councils, wherein parents have an
opportunity to participate, and clearly participate, in what's
happening in their school, are something we have not only
instituted and made mandatory from school to school-every
school-but are also in the process of actually enshrining that in
law. The regulations that will clearly lay out the advisory role
of school councils, the guidelines to follow, will be very
important in making sure the parents' voice is heard in the
decisions around the school.
The role that council plays
is important. For example, we were just talking to Mr Stewart
about testing results. One of the things we require is that if a
school's testing results are very poor, that school put in place
a turnaround plan, a school improvement plan: "How are we going
to do better? How are we going to help our students do better?"
One of the significant roles of the parent council or school
council is to participate in the development of that school
improvement plan.
Also, the code of conduct,
setting policies for safer schools: the province has legislation,
the Safe Schools Act, which sets penalties for serious
infractions-bringing drugs, alcohol or weapons to school. But
there are many other policies that school boards or schools wish
to have in place and, again, the school council's feedback is a
very important piece in that.
The dress code, the uniforms:
as you say, parents will have the authority to make the decision
whether they want to have a dress code or a uniform in their
school. That's another important role for them.
The selection process for
principals and vice-principals: one of the important leadership
roles in a school, one of the roles that makes a school a good
school is the principal and vice-principal and how good a job
they do. So selection criteria are something school councils need
to be part of.
The regulations clearly spell
that out. They also clearly say when school boards and principals
must consult, and they must report back to those councils the
result of that consultation.
The other steps we're taking
answer the concern that many school council members had about
needing more information so they could judge for themselves and
so they could do a good job of providing input. We've done that,
first of all, by providing much more information, using all the
communication tools we have to communicate with school councils.
I think it's important for the minister or the ministry or the
government to actually be reporting to school councils, because
we believe in accountability at all levels. I think we need to be
reporting directly to school councils on the status of change and
reform in the system, and that's an improvement I'd like to
see.
We're also organizing
regional forums for school councils, and developing resources so
they can do their work. TVOntario, for example, has a wonderful
communications hub, a Web site that has the 4,800 school councils
able to communicate with each other, something they really wanted
to do.
We're also restructuring the
Ontario Parent Council which, as you know, is an advisory body
that gives the government and the minister advice from parents.
We want to make sure there's regional representation, so that
those school councils have a way to communicate more directly
with the government through regional representation on the
Ontario Parent Council. That will also be a way to make sure the
parents' voice is heard in the policy decisions broadly,
province-wide, board-wide and school by school.
Mr Mazzilli:
If we can go back to testing for a moment-I brought this up the
other day.
The
Vice-Chair: You only have about a minute.
Mr Mazzilli:
Just a minute?
The
Vice-Chair: Yes.
Mr
Marchese: How much more time do you want?
Mr Mazzilli: I will try to be like
Mr Marchese. I will defer my question to Mr-
Interjection: No, keep going.
Mr
Mazzilli: OK, in a minute then. With the American
election-again what they do is obviously for prosperity and
economic growth, and obviously bipartisan. They totally support
the idea of testing their children, to ensure they have the
proper tools to contribute to their economy, and testing
teachers. I wonder why there's such opposition to these things in
Ontario. Do you believe the testing of teachers and students will
produce a better-educated or more educated workforce-
Mr
Marchese: Yes or no.
Mr
Mazzilli: -to contribute to our economic prosperity in
the future?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, I see it as a non-partisan issue. Student
testing and teacher testing-all those assessment processes-are
going to enhance student achievement, and we're going to have a
better education system because of it.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Kennedy.
Mr Gerard Kennedy
(Parkdale-High Park): Madam Minister, I want to check
with you again. We've now been a couple of weeks in estimates and
a number of things have been referred to. I'm wondering if you're
bringing them forward today for all the committee members. Are we
going to have any versions of funding reports that show the
impact of inflation enrolment or any information your ministry
has collected on extracurricular activity?
There was some indication
that you are always in touch with the schools and that you would
be prepared to share that. The details of the advertising you
said you might table with us, and the cost of the six out of
eight-it was suggested that with some time that would be
forthcoming. I'm just checking now: do we have that information
in writing? Could it be distributed to the committee so we could
make the best use of the time we have left with you in
estimates?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I certainly asked for written material for many
of the questions. It's my understanding that it will be tabled
either late today or tomorrow.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you, Minister. It's certainly helpful if
we can get them before the estimates are done.
I want to ask you: right
about where we left off, I was hoping to get from you on the
record whether you see a role for yourself in terms of morale of
teachers around the province. It's widely reported, it's evident
if you go into a school, a staff room, if you talk to students,
if you talk to teachers, that a variety of factors, some of them
at least attributed to your government, are making this a bad
jurisdiction to teach in for a very large number of teachers. I'm
just wondering, do you recognize this? Do you find them
acceptable costs? Are there things you are now prepared to do to
look at that issue? Has the morale of teachers, their willingness
to belong, been looked at by your ministry?
I want to say, perhaps for
the benefit of some of your caucus, that other jurisdictions,
like California and Florida, are now in feverish pursuit of
teachers, because they haven't been able to sustain them. It's
not just about how the teachers feel; it's about whether we have
enough qualified teachers to teach kids. I'm just wondering, is
there a plan on your part? Do you have some apprehension of this
problem? Is there some acknowledgement that your government may
be responsible for this and may, therefore, be in a position to
do something about it?
1640
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There are two very important issues. There's
morale, and the second issue is supply. They're not necessarily
the same. There's no question they can be impacted, but they're
not necessarily the same.
Just quickly on supply,
like every other profession in the western world, we are seeing a
potential shortage down the road with the teaching profession
because of demographics. That is why we've already begun to
expand spaces in teachers' colleges, because we're seeing that
more people want to be teachers, which is a wonderful, positive
thing for the profession. We've increased spaces by 6,000. When
we're looking at the potential numbers down the road, we think
that should be helpful in making sure we don't have shortages.
Also, those 6,000 are directed toward some of the key areas; for
example, language and technology.
In terms of the morale-
Mr
Kennedy: I anticipated that break, and I want to ask
you: on the supply side, on the number of teachers, could your
ministry furnish us with up-to-date figures on the number of
teachers teaching in Ontario? The table you gave us last time
omitted those figures for the last three years. Could we know
your ministry's understanding of the number of teachers, on a
comparable basis, so we can look at the number of teachers who
are actually teaching, particularly those in full-time equivalent
positions? Again, because we have such large numbers of dollars
that we're recommending to be spent here, it would be helpful to
know, in as much detail as you may have access to, the number of
teachers we have in Ontario, so we can gauge some of that.
I will come back to that
question. I'd be happy to hear you on the teacher morale
question.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, we certainly can get some numbers to you
about that.
On the morale issue, as an
individual with leadership in the education sector, I see my role
very much as being important to help teachers understand their
role in the system, to make clear to teachers that it is a role
that is important and that is valued. One of the things I do
every public opportunity I have, whether it's in speeches or
media interviews or in the Legislature, and I have found
opportunities here, is talk about the excellent teachers that are
out there, the hard work they do, the dedication you see in so
many of them in doing things to help their students. I think that
is a message I need to continue to say, and I will continue to
say that.
Mr
Kennedy: I want to ask you a small thing about what you
just said, because I know it's repeated often by some teachers.
In fact, in a school that I visited, an award-winning teacher who was one of the
teachers of the year last year, by OISE and the Toronto Sun,
picked it up. You often say "many of the teachers." For the sake
of clarity, do you believe the vast majority of teachers are
dedicated, hard-working contributors to a positive learning
environment for students in Ontario?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes.
Mr
Kennedy: Because you often seem to qualify-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I was at the Toronto Sun awards ceremony, where I
got an opportunity to meet and talk to those teachers. I was at
the TVOntario awards for excellence for teachers. I have written
and communicated with those teachers, because I think it's
important for them to hear that from the Minister of Education. I
will continue to say and do that.
Mr
Kennedy: As you know, Minister, at the OISE awards, a
former Minister of Education-someone I understand you once were
in the employ of-looked down his rather venerable glasses and
said to you, "Don't do teacher testing."
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, that's not what he said.
Mr
Kennedy: I understand you may have-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: He and I have had many discussions about
this.
Mr
Kennedy: I was in the room-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Do not distort his position, please.
Mr
Kennedy: I want to tell you that's one of a litany of
things. I hear, and have to accept, your good faith in terms of
what you intend to be the effect of your praise and
encouragement, and some words I understood to be around the
definition of role for teachers. But do you understand it's not
working? Do you understand there's a level of problem out there
with teacher morale that has an impact, right now, on the
classroom, on their ability to cope, and that some of the
measures you've put in place may have something to do with that?
Do you recognize there is a problem, and do you recognize a
connection to some of the measures your government has made in
the recent past?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The reason we have such a problem is because
everything this government does or says is interpreted by our
critics of various kinds to be an attack on teachers.
Standardized testing is not an attack on teachers. A more
rigorous curriculum is not an attack on teachers. Teacher testing
is not an attack on teachers. Setting an instructional time
standard is not an attack on teachers. But they constantly hear
that from some individuals. And when that is the constant refrain
they hear, it's not surprising to think that many teachers have
some difficulties holding their heads up.
Mr
Kennedy: Don't you think that's a 35,000 foot answer?
Isn't that something that looks, from your vaunted position at
Queen's Park-you're looking out on the land and you want to
believe somebody's telling the teachers the wrong goods.
I know you go to a lot of
schools. I don't know how much time you get to have one-to-one
opportunities with teachers; I assume it's reasonable. But I can
tell you, in my somewhat parallel experience, that teachers are
thinking for themselves. They are finding that the measures you
are taking undermine their ability to provide excellent
education. It's not about something they take personally; it's
not about something they imagine. You are putting a workload on
them; you are putting a new curriculum on them. You have taken
away preparation days. You have taken away some of the
flexibility they used to have. You have, yes, brought in a new
curriculum but not given them sufficient resources, and you have
been part of a government that has attacked teachers. In fact, we
saw some of the members opposite playing that kind of game today.
Minister, do those factors-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, when have I-
Mr
Kennedy: Are there any factors-I want to make it
clear.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, this is important. When have I ever
said or done anything that would attack the hard-working teachers
who are out there, the teachers who are doing what kids need? I
find that highly objectionable.
Mr
Kennedy: Here is your opportunity, Minister. Is there
anything your government has done that you would understand as
having had that effect, undermining the morale of teachers, and
are you prepared to change any of those things-there's a list of
those things-to help build a more positive morale for the
teachers of this province? Is there anything at all? You gave me
a list of what wasn't. Is there anything there is?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, are you interested in my answering
the question or not?
Mr
Kennedy: Yes, I am.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I said last year that one of the first priorities
the teachers' federations said we needed to fix was special-needs
funding and the special-needs program. I stood up publicly and
said, "I hear you, and that's what we will do." I can go through,
again, all the steps we did. I heard from teachers' federations
that one of the things we needed to do was have more remediation
for students who were struggling with the new curriculum. We are
indeed doing that. I heard from teachers' federations-
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I'm sorry, you're not answering my
question. I wonder if there is a problem here.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I heard many concerns from the federations in the
regular meetings I have with federation leaders and with
individual teachers and I am quite prepared to continue to take
steps to deal with concerns they have. We've slowed down
curriculum implementation. We've put more money out to help
teachers on new curriculum. We doubled the size of the summer
institutes this year. There's been a list of issues they've given
me and I am working my way through that list. You can say it's
not fast enough, I understand that, but do not say that we are
not hearing those concerns.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I've given you ample opportunity to
answer fairly simple questions. Maybe, by implication, there's
something in your latest response. But I would ask you to be
blunt and clear: are there things-for example, do you understand
that the staffing model
you adopted is undermining teacher morale? Do you accept that may
be one of the consequences, unintended or not? I'm not imputing
your motives, Minister. Do you understand that is how it is
affecting teachers in Ontario today?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: But we don't set a staffing model.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, six out of eight in your Bill 74?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not a staffing model.
Mr
Kennedy: Let's talk about six out of eight, then. If you
want to quibble, Minister, I would appreciate a direct answer to
a direct question.
The
Vice-Chair: Order.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'm trying to give you a direct answer.
The
Vice-Chair: Minister, could you give me a minute,
please.
Mr
Kennedy: It's not working well, Minister, and I was
trying to help you.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Kennedy, give me a minute, please. I just
want to hear one person speaking at a time. Mr Kennedy, if you
want the minister to answer, let me know that too, or if you just
want to ask the questions, because sometimes I get a response
from the minister and then I'm hearing two voices at the same
time. May we proceed now and just hear one voice at a time?
Otherwise I may have to ask you to direct all your questions and
answers or your statements or comments to the Chair.
You may proceed.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you, Mr Chair.
I'm not sure, Minister, and
I'll leave it up to you in your next response, if there's
something specific that you acknowledge in your role in
undermining morale. I think it makes it hard for you to be the
agent of fixing things if you don't recognize the basic list, not
of complaints but of real difficulty that teachers find with your
agenda. A large number of teachers would like to reconcile that.
But unless you're prepared, in this public forum, on the record
to say what those things are, I think it's very disheartening to
teachers to know that somehow you're avoiding the things they
seem to find central to their inability to do their work.
I'd like to ask you
specifically again about the funding.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Obviously you didn't want an answer to that, but
that's OK.
Mr
Kennedy: I've tried a number of times, and if there's
something direct, I'd be happy to hear from you. Is there a
direct answer to that?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, I didn't talk about complaints; I
talked about issues and problems the federations identified that
we have been moving to fix. So I don't think it is fair for you
to somehow say that we are ignoring problems.
Mr
Kennedy: I asked you a direct question, Minister: six
out of eight. I asked that question.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I'm not setting a staffing model. It is up to the
local union and the board, because some have semester systems and
some don't.
Mr
Kennedy: Right. But you know what I mean. Why play
games?
The
Vice-Chair: Order. Through me, please.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Just a second. Mr Chair, we do not set how the
teacher's day is allocated. We set a board-wide average for
instructional time in the classroom based on the national
average. How that gets interpreted is something between the union
and the board in terms of how they can do that. It's their
responsibility to implement that within that framework.
1650
Mr
Kennedy: If I may, there's not a lot of syncronicity
with what you've just said and what's happening in the real
world. But again, I guess that's the point of this line of
questioning.
I want to ask you about the
funding because I think it is fairly fundamental. You talk about
having concerns for what's happening out there. When the member
opposite tried to talk about a surplus in the Toronto board, I
guess that meant by implication he was approving of the $1,345
cut you've effected to students in Scarborough, in fact that you
approve the $662-per-student cut to the boards in Durham when
enrolment and inflation are factored in. In other words, that by
itself is a productivity aspect you're asking of teachers that
you don't even acknowledge. I assume, when they table them, that
we'll substantially agree with those figures, but in the absence
of them I'll ask you to accept them.
I just wonder, again-I
asked this once before but I think maybe there's a better
prospect in this conversation: if it comes down to funds being
needed to help bring peace to the schools out there, to help the
students receive their extracurricular activities, to help get at
some of the chaos of some of the new staffing model, however
derived from your Bill 74, that has come about in many of the
boards, is it possible that you will add funding to the funds
that are already available to boards in schools this year? This
is on behalf of parents. Parents have asked me to ask you this
question.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: One of the things the honourable member seems to
like to ignore is that based on the consultation meetings I had
last fall that identified a series of problems with funding, we
did indeed put in significantly more monies to address those. We
heard concerns about class size, we heard concerns about fewer
teachers, we heard concerns about special needs, we heard
concerns about pay raises and we heard concerns about
remediation. All those things have been dealt with through
policy, regulation or legislation and more money. But I
categorically reject, while resources are very important, the
honourable member saying that the only thing that predicts how
well a teacher does in the classroom is how many bucks are
around. I value a teacher's contribution more than that because a
good teacher teaching is more important for the quality of
education than the bucks the accountants like to kick around.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, if you were able to sit there and
agree, claim credit for your government and say, "I cut $918 per
student and I don't think it's affecting students," at least then I think there could be
some respect conferred on your office. But instead you dodge
around it. You try to say you gave money back. You've given
nothing back compared to what you took away.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We didn't give money back. We gave new money, Mr
Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, with your funding formula, you took
money away.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No. That's not fair. That's not accurate. We can
have this debate again, if you want it.
Mr
Kennedy: You cut money from boards.
Mr Joseph N.
Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): On a point of order,
Mr Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: Order. We're getting those two voices again.
Mr Kennedy, direct your statements to me, then.
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Chair, I'm always happy to engage you
in-
The
Vice-Chair: First, it makes me feel very important, as
I'm presiding. Next, it will bring some order to the whole
thing.
Mr
Tascona: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I'm getting very
tired of Mr Kennedy in his line of questioning. At least Mr
Marchese has respect for the minister.
The
Vice-Chair: That's not a point of order.
Mr
Tascona: The point of order is this: I have a right to
hear an answer when a question is being put out. I cannot hear
any responses by the minister because Mr Kennedy is
interrupting.
The
Vice-Chair: That's not a point of order.
Mr
Tascona: It is a point of order. I have a right to hear
the question answered.
The
Vice-Chair: If the answer is not to your satisfaction, I
can't help you.
Mr
Tascona: I can't hear the answer.
The
Vice-Chair: The answers are there. May we proceed?
Mr
Tascona: I can't hear the answer.
The
Vice-Chair: It's not a point of order.
Mr
Tascona: What are we here for if I can't hear the
answer?
The
Vice-Chair: You may not have the right answer. May we
proceed?
Mr
Kennedy: I'd like to proceed to one area around funding
to garner the minister's true intention. I raised in the House
the other day this document, which basically summarizes the
results of the review that the government undertakes of every
single application for special needs: ISA, funding 2 and 3. What
it shows, Minister, is a very large discrepancy headed for the
school boards. When we look at the rules that you circulate to
the boards, you've told them in your so-called legislative grants
for this year that their special-needs funding is going to be
determined by this review. That review comes up with amounts
varying board by board, but it's $174 million less than what
you've come up with this year. So, Minister, I have two questions
for you.
The
Vice-Chair: She has to respond within a minute.
Mr
Kennedy: They're very succinct answers, I hope. Will you
scrap your review model that is wasting so much time out there?
The principals have already identified some 20% of the time,
which would be $60 million to $80 million worth of teachers'
time, that should be spent on the most vulnerable kids. Will you
scrap it, given the huge discrepancy between what you think
you're prepared to fund and what the review comes up with as the
allocated dollars? Second, will you guarantee here today to these
boards that they will receive the same money they received this
year for next year; this review model, whatever it is and however
it came up with these results, and the huge amount of energy and
effort spent and perhaps wasted. Will you guarantee that they
will be the same as this year? So those two questions, Minister:
will you scrap the review and will you guarantee the funding?
The
Vice-Chair: Madam Minister, I think you should take
those under consideration and when it comes back around you can
respond.
Mr
Marchese: Madam Minister, just to go back to some of the
questions I raised earlier about playgrounds and trustees making
a mistake, I just have a couple of questions and then we'll move
on to this other topic here.
My point is that if the
trustees had the financial responsibilities and power, they would
have been able to correct a wrong and/or a mistake that may have
been made. As a result of your financial central control at
Queen's Park, they can't remedy that because they don't have any
powers to raise money. You were quite rightly concerned that if
they were trying to correct a wrong, they would have to raise
property taxes, and then what would happen to poor seniors if
they can't afford it and what would happen to poor people with
disabilities? Quite rightly I agree with that.
My question to you is, if
you're worried about seniors and worried about people with
disabilities, why haven't you removed completely the load of the
property tax burden from those groups?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: As you will recall, we had attempted to remove
the entire cost of education from the property tax. The
municipalities did not agree with the only way that could be
done. So in the interests of the consultation we compromised on
that based on the feedback we had from municipalities. Half of it
comes off the property tax and half of it does not. We've also
brought down property taxes in this province and we still have,
if I recall our campaign commitment, another step or two to take
in bringing property taxes down further.
Mr
Marchese: If you remove the education portion
completely, that would be a relief for property taxpayers,
particularly those who have disabilities and seniors. But you
haven't done that. What you've done is to essentially download
other social responsibilities onto the municipalities, what
you've called the zero sum gain, where you take out education but
you download other responsibilities. So the same load remains on
the property taxpayer. How does that help them again?
Hon Mrs Ecker: First of all, as I
said, when we said we would look at local service realignment,
there was no ability for the province to assume more than a
$5-billion liability on its own hook and at the same time keep
the lid on provincial taxes. So what we did with the
municipalities was to reallocate the responsibilities they have
and we have and the funding responsibilities. They have had
significant opportunities for savings. For example,
municipalities have saved literally hundreds of millions of
dollars across this province with the reduction in the welfare
caseload.
Mr
Marchese: OK. Thanks, Minister.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: So we are very concerned about the impact on
property taxpayers. That's why we've made the changes; that's why
we've put in place reductions in property taxes, because we are
concerned about any increase in taxes.
Mr
Marchese: Thank you. I'll make a statement and then move
on to the other questions.
The fact of the matter is,
you make the claim that you're worried about seniors and people
with disabilities. The fact is, it's not backed up by any
substance and/or law. The point is, as a statement-I don't want
your reaction because I have other questions for you-you haven't
helped people with disabilities; you haven't helped seniors.
You're not really concerned about them because the load for them
remains the same.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No. We've brought down property taxes, Mr
Marchese.
1700
Mr
Marchese: The load remains the same. It may be that,
because of Mel Lastman's claim not to raise property taxes, taxes
have remained relatively stable for the last couple of years,
except your changes have increased them somewhat. But in the next
election you'll see property taxes going up, because the download
isn't entirely even, the cities say, so they're going to be
loaded with other responsibilities that will cost property owners
more-seniors, people with disabilities, young people who are
buying a home and so on. You can think of incorporating whatever
you want to say into other questions I might have of you, but
that's the reality. I wanted to put it out. I just wanted to hear
how you would deal with the fact that you care so much about
people with disabilities and seniors, and that would be the
reason you've stripped the trustees of their responsibility to
raise money.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There was another reason too.
Mr
Marchese: I know.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That was because-
Mr
Marchese: I didn't ask you a question.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -it was two-tier education, Mr Marchese, which I
know you don't support.
Mr
Marchese: But I didn't ask the question yet. Chair?
The
Vice-Chair: That's the problem when you start speaking
that way and put your comments and thoughts to me.
Mr
Marchese: I like to look at you when I need to-
The
Vice-Chair: Maybe you like looking at me, but I am the
Chair.
Mr
Marchese: Thank you. Do you see how it works? It's so
simple. I'm with you, Chair.
So that's the point: we've
taken away the responsibilities of trustees, they have no more
power, they're powerless.
In terms of your compliance
Bill 74-I don't want to get into that now-it used to be that you
as minister had the power to appoint an investigator and enforce
compliance as it relates to deficits boards might have had. So
boards couldn't have a deficit, otherwise-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's the same authority you had when you were in
power, Mr Marchese.
Mr
Marchese: No problem. You're quite right. Then you
decided that wasn't good enough, and so you included other areas
of compliance. So those poor trustees have no financial
responsibility any more.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not accurate, Mr Marchese.
Mr
Marchese: Hold on. Let me ask a question.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You do them a disservice when you say that.
Mr
Marchese: No. I was a trustee for eight years; I do them
no disservice. But let me move on.
By the way, I was a
full-time trustee. I quit as a teacher to do that full time.
That's why we had more time to read documents. Now they have no
time, because they're part time, very part time.
Compliance now includes not
just deficits, but compliance on curriculum, co-instructional
activities, class size, instructional time, trustee honorariums,
expenses and violations of the funding formula.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: So you think it's OK for a school board to take
special-needs money and spend it on something else, and we should
sit back and say, "Sorry"? Do you think that's OK? Is that your
policy?
Mr
Marchese: No.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I don't agree with that.
Mr
Marchese: I'm just wondering-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: If you think it's OK for a school board to take
money designed for smaller classes and spend it on something else
when teachers and parents are saying, "We need more for smaller
classes," I don't agree with that and I don't think parents
do.
Mr
Marchese: Mr Chair, I thank her for those questions. I'm
going to ask a few of my own now.
The
Vice-Chair: Go right ahead.
Mr
Marchese: It seems that sometimes you want them to be
responsible, and sometimes you don't want them to be responsible;
sometimes you want to make them accountable, and sometimes you
don't. Now you're saying to me, "You think it's all right for
them to have the flexibility to move around, and it's not. As a
result, we had to centralize not just education financing but
literally control of the entire educational system because we
don't trust trustees."
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, that's not our policy.
Mr
Marchese: Normally you say to me, in answer to other
questions, "Don't we trust trustees?" Here you're putting forth an argument that
says, "Do you think it's OK for trustees to move money around?" I
happen to think that, yes, trustees ought to have certain powers
to be flexible, to make decisions according to what they think is
correct for their communities, because they got elected. But now
your compliance under Bill 74 says they will comply not just to
issues of deficits, but to issues of all those other areas, which
essentially includes everything.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, Mr Marchese, actually it does not. They still
have considerable authority and responsibility, as they should.
But in 1995, and again in 1999, we said we would set certain key
province-wide standards for education quality in this province,
and that is indeed what we have done. We set those standards
province-wide because we believe they are important for enhancing
student achievement. I'm sure you would agree that we need to
ensure those commitments are kept.
Mr
Marchese: OK. I asked a question, and I got an answer.
It's the way it works. You ask questions and you get answers, and
we might not like them. Right, Frank? You're right.
All I'm arguing, by raising
that question, is that obviously you don't trust the trustees to
make decisions, because in Bill 74 you make compliance a matter
to cover all sorts of issues, which includes everything, and then
you said, "No, that's not quite right."
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, Mr Marchese, one example of the very
important issues is class size. We have some teachers and parents
who say they don't think their school board is using the money
they've been given for class size appropriately. Don't you think
there should be an ability for a provincial government that hands
out that cheque to know if it's being used appropriately and, if
it's not, to be able, after due process, to take appropriate
steps?
Mr
Marchese: You're quite right. I don't disagree. But I'm
just asking you a question as to what powers they have left, and
your way to answer my question is not to answer but rather to ask
me a question: "Don't you think class size is important?" Yes, it
is.
I'm asking, do you think
trustees ought to have certain flexible powers to make certain
decisions, because they are elected? You say yes-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, I do, and they do.
Mr
Marchese: And I'm telling you they have no more powers
left, because under Bill 74 they're compliant to everything in
terms of compliance.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No.
Mr
Marchese: What powers do they have left?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Marchese, there are certain key quality
indicators which we think are important to the sector. That's
what we expect. Trustees make decisions about accommodation. They
make long-term plans on accommodation. They make policies around
safe schools. They make all the policies about curriculum
implementation. There is a whole list of things that trustees
have responsibility for.
Mr
Marchese: Thank you, Minister. I'll make a point and
then move on to another question. You passed a whole heap of laws
in the last four years, and in the coming years in your second
term, and trustees are simply instruments of your policies and
your will, because you've centralized everything. I don't need a
response, because I've already got it.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I don't agree with your comment.
Mr
Marchese: Obviously. It's quite obvious from your
answers that you don't agree. I just want to let the good public
know, the ones who might be watching. The trustees are powerless
now. They don't have any financial control now. You've passed
laws to which they need to abide. In Bill 74-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Marchese, you and I as provincial members have
laws from the federal government that we have to abide by, so
there's no difference.
Mr
Marchese: Hold on, I've got a question for you.
You're quite right, except
I'm saying to the few people watching that trustees have no
flexibility any longer and that they're almost puppets of your
will because they don't have any decision-making power any more,
and you're saying, for the benefit of the few watching, "Yes,
they do." That's great. We're having this dialogue, and we're
going to give the electorate watching us the ability to say, "We
have two points of view here."
On the issue of
extracurricular activities, I find it astonishing, because you
said this to me the last time, and I find it interesting that you
say this is not a staffing model to teach 6.67 courses. It's
interesting how you could define that. It used to be that
teachers were obliged to teach 1,250 minutes per week, and boards
negotiated that.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No.
Mr
Marchese: Yes, they did.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, no, that's our standard, 1,250.
Mr
Marchese: Well, you redefined instructional time to 6.67
eligible courses. You changed the definition.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Because we were asked to be clearer.
Mr
Marchese: Yes, of course. So it's staffing model, and
they have to teach more than before. I don't know how you define
that, but teachers in the field-I used to be one-and other
teachers I know, including a brother who happens to be there, are
telling me they're teaching the extra course. I don't know how
you and your staff-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's interesting, because some say it's an extra
course and some say it's half a course.
Mr
Marchese: Well, is it or isn't it?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It depends on the board and the union. We've
said, and the legislation is very clear, that we're talking a
board-wide average. Yes, the workload standard that was set two
years ago is more classroom time than was set before; it works
out to 20 to 25 minutes-there was no standard for instructional
time in Ontario. So more classroom time is required because, as
you know, we fund boards based on a whole range of standards.
That's one of them. They have flexibility within that standard as
to how they allocate staffing. It doesn't mean every teacher has to do 6.67 or
four hours and 10.
1710
Frankly, the other thing is
that we heard the concern that the previous definition had meant,
for some teachers, that they ended up doing seven out of eight.
They said that was too much. So we modified significantly to try
and make it easier for boards to implement. That meant more
money, so more taxpayers' money went out to indeed do that.
Mr
Marchese: It's fascinating to hear your answers. The
answer from teachers is that they're teaching more, and parents
know it. However you define it, I don't know, but they're
teaching more as a result-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, but, Mr Marchese, the instructional time
standard is 20 to 25 minutes more.
The
Vice-Chair: Order. Mr Marchese, you're not really being
helpful to me at all. If you direct your questions or comments to
me it's much easier. I'd ask the minister too to direct her
response to me. I'm getting these two voices and I'm not hearing
anything. None of the people outside, who we are all trying to
impress, are understanding it.
Mr
Marchese: I agree with you. I'm just asking the
questions, and when I ask questions I expect an answer. If not,
I'm speaking, right?
The
Vice-Chair: But also give some time, if you expect an
answer, for comments.
Mr
Marchese: I'm trying.
What I'm getting, Mr Chair,
from the teachers I'm talking to is that they're teaching longer
than ever before. They're all teaching longer, as a result of
Bill 74. It's nothing magical. I think I heard the minister say
at one of these meetings where she met with teachers, "Get on
with the job," as if Bill 74 didn't affect them somehow.
She passed Bill 74.
Teachers are affected by an extra load in addition to the clause
that says, "If you don't do the extracurricular activities we're
going to force you to do it." The trustees are now having to
comply with all sorts of things that weren't there before. These
are the three elements that, first of all, infuriated trustees,
and secondly have upset a lot of teachers because the workload is
a bit more than they can bear. So a lot of them are deciding to
make a choice: to teach more and not do the extracurricular
activities.
So we establish a
connection between Bill 74 and the effect it has on teachers. I'm
fascinated to hear your answer saying Bill 74 hasn't had that
effect or ought not to have had that effect and teachers should
just move on. Is that correct?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Marchese, the instructional time standard, 20
minutes' difference, was set two years ago, based on the national
average. We made significant changes this year, in answer to the
concern that it was difficult to implement. That included more
money and a different-for example, we included, in the definition
of "instructional time," remediation work, which many teachers
were saying they were doing, and I have no reason to disbelieve
them. We included the teacher adviser program, which again was
something teachers said they were doing.
No one is trying to duck
the fact that that is an increase in high school. For some
elementary teachers, the standard that was set has actually meant
a decrease, depending on what their local agreement was.
Mr
Marchese: Thank you. Again, a statement, not a question,
Mr Chair. The teachers and the unions that the minister speaks
of, quite often derogatorily, used to have the flexibility to
move around the various boards in a way that I thought was
respectful of their situations. Now, through the new definition
of the instructional time that teachers did not request, they
have an extra load. That's what I want to say to the good public
that's watching, through you.
You talk about teacher
testing as a positive, as if somehow people asked for it. The
reason teachers-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Your government did, actually. The Royal
Commission on Learning, teacher recertification-your party
supported it.
Mr
Marchese: Sorry. The fact that we did the royal
commission doesn't say we did it.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You supported it.
Mr
Marchese: The fact that the royal commission-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You said the initiative was needed. We agreed.
We're implementing it.
Mr
Marchese: That's nice of you to say that the NDP is all
implicated, whether we like it or not, because we did the royal
commission.
I'm interested in your
comments about teacher testing, because you make it appear like
"I don't know why anybody should be upset, except somebody's
stirring that pot." Teachers certainly aren't upset, you're
saying.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, that's not what I said.
Mr
Marchese: Oh. What did you say?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I said there are critics who turn everything this
government does-for example, teacher testing-into an attack on
teachers. It is not an attack on teachers.
Mr
Marchese: Let me tell you why it is.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, it's not. I understand they disagree.
Mr
Marchese: Let me tell you why teachers think it is.
The
Vice-Chair: If you do that, do it through me. Also, you
have about a minute and a half.
Mr
Marchese: OK, through you, the reason teachers are
opposed to teacher testing and the reason they don't like what
you're doing is because teacher testing hasn't worked anywhere in
the world that I as a former teacher am aware of.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not accurate.
Mr
Marchese: There was a thick study done that shows that
teacher testing hasn't worked anywhere in the universe that I'm
aware of. The reason teachers are upset at you is because they
say, "If it hasn't worked anywhere and these people want to
introduce something that hasn't worked, then it's an attack on
teachers." You haven't shown anything to me, or anyone, that says,
"Yes, we have a testing model that works."
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You don't think there should be an internship for
new teachers? You don't think there should be professional
development for teachers?
Mr
Marchese: Is that teacher testing? Is internship-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: You don't think there should be qualifying tests
when a teacher leaves teachers' college?
Mr
Marchese: She's asking the some questions? I'm saying to
her that internship-
The
Vice-Chair: That's what happens when you start speaking
crossways like that.
Mr
Marchese: But she asked me a question about internship.
That's not teacher testing.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Yes, it's part of our teacher testing program.
We've announced it. We're working on implementing it.
Mr
Marchese: But it's not testing a teacher; it is helping
a teacher. Internship is a helpful thing. It isn't called teacher
testing.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Now you're upset because our program is going to
help teachers?
Mr
Marchese: No. I'm angry at you, and let me tell you why.
To teachers you say, "We're not doing teacher testing," and to
the public you say, "Yes, we are," so you can have it both
ways.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, Mr Marchese, I have said-
Mr
Marchese: So when we're talking to teachers, we are
saying-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I have said consistently-
The
Vice-Chair: Minister-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -that we are going to have a comprehensive
teacher testing program to measure, assess and tabulate
knowledge, skills and ability-
The
Vice-Chair: Order, please.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -publicly, privately, and that's our
understanding.
The
Vice-Chair: Order. Thank you. Mr Marchese for 30
seconds.
Mr
Marchese: That's the problem I have with all this. It is
an attack on teachers, because it hasn't worked anywhere. The
attack is on teachers, because to teachers you say, "We're not
testing you," and to somebody else you're saying this, and to the
parents you're saying, "Yes, we are testing, because they need to
be tested." I'm saying it's pure politics, Minister. Obviously
it's worked with some, but I'm happy to report it's not working
with many of them.
The Chair:
Mr Tascona.
Mr
Tascona: Talking about pure politics, I think I just
heard it across the way. Anything to assist teachers is
considered an attack. I guess we can resolve that.
Minister, the opposition
consistently makes improper allegations that the government has
cut special education funding since it came to office. The member
from Parkdale-High Park has thrown out several misleading numbers
that are simply inaccurate. I know this government has been
working to improve special education in this province. Could you
please let us know the facts with respect to special education
funding and how you are working to improve special education
across the province?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: As I said earlier, special-needs funding was one
of the first priorities our education partners asked me to work
on when I had a series of consultation meetings last fall. We
have indeed been doing that, first of all on the resource issue,
by increasing the funding province-wide by 12%-it's the third
year in a row that that money has been increased-also by setting
better program standards so that school boards know what the best
practices are. They can share that. They can make sure all those
programs, all the steps that are being taken, are meeting quality
standards, quality programming that's required for special-needs
students, and that parents know what to expect. We're in the
first year of a three-year process, and I must say we've had
significant input, which we are responding to, to make sure we
all can do a much better job with our special needs students,
both at the school board level and at the ministry level.
The other thing I should
say is that when we were putting together the special-needs
funding mechanism, we sought a lot of advice to do that. When we
were looking at where we started dollar-wise, we went to school
boards and said to them, "What are you spending on special-needs
funding?" That's where we started, where the school boards said,
"This is what we're spending on special needs-special education."
We heard concerns that it wasn't enough, so we topped it up in
the first year, we topped it up in the second year and we've
topped it up again for the third year in a row, on top of what
they originally said they were spending, at the same time as
making sure that money is being allocated in a better fashion for
all those students.
1720
Mr
Tascona: I think you've answered the question that the
government has not cut special education funding and is looking
for greater accountability. Province-wide standards and
additional funding for special education are key parts of the
quality special education approach.
With respect to our new
student-focussed funding formula and enhanced special education,
can you comment on what the government is contemplating with
respect to further enhancements?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Further?
Mr
Tascona: Special education grant.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's the work we're doing this fall with our
education partners. We heard two things. We heard they wanted a
funding mechanism that was flexible, that allowed them to use
monies as they saw fit within the special-needs envelope. At the
same time we heard feedback that we needed a special process for
high-needs students, which we indeed have. We heard, on one hand,
that they wanted funding to reflect that need; in effect, to be
flexible, to go up or down. If they had more students, they had
more money; if they had fewer students, they had less money. But
we also heard concerns about predictability and stability. That's
why we have the guarantees in there, if you will, so they have
some predictability in
terms of monies and how to plan for that.
If you'd like, we could
have staff here go through what this means for some boards. We
could walk you through last year and this year, in terms of the
increases some boards have had, if you'd like.
Mr
Tascona: That would be helpful.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: This is Norbert Hartmann, one of our assistant
ministers, who can describe for you the information that's being
tabled.
The Acting
Chair: Could you state your name and your position when
you start speaking?
Mr Norbert
Hartmann: I'm Norbert Hartmann, assistant deputy
minister, business and finance, for the Ministry of
Education.
The information you have in
front of you provides an overview of the funding that has been
allocated to special education in the year 2000-01, and compares
that allocation to the 1999-2000 allocation that was produced by
the combination of SEPA grants and the ISA validation
process.
If you turn to the bottom
of the table, you will see that in 1999-2000, the ministry
allocated roughly $1.2 billion of funding to special education
throughout the province. That varied by board, depending on
enrolment. You can see that it ranged from a high of $213 million
for the Toronto board of education to a low of around $472,000
for the smallest board in the province, based on enrolment and
ISA.
In the year 2000-01, the
total allocation was $1.352 billion, again produced by a
combination of the SEPPA grants and the ISA grants. As you see in
the final column, we then report on the variance between the two
figures in 1999-2000 and 2000-01. That shows an additional
$146,986,000 allocated to special education. It also shows that
for every board in the province there was an increase in total
special education funding between 1999 and 2000.
Mr
Tascona: The document we're dealing with here is special
education allocation. In the riding I represent, I notice the
amount for the Simcoe County District School Board has increased
by $6 million-plus and for the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District
School Board it has increased by over $2.2 million in terms of
special education allocations between 1999-2000 and 2000-01. Is
that correct?
Mr
Hartmann: That's correct.
Mr
Tascona: Is there anything else you want the deputy
minister to expand on with respect to that document?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, Mr Tascona. I think that answers your
question.
Mr
Tascona: I certainly think it confirms that the member
from Parkdale-High Park has his figures wrong and, in fact, that
the government has been working to improve special education
significantly. It reinforces my view on this matter and should
lend comfort to my constituents and to parents across the
province.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli.
Mr
Mazzilli: Minister, my question is in relation to the
infrastructure formula. Certainly that was not an issue in the 10
lost years of the Liberal and NDP governments, because there was
no infrastructure improvement in Ontario. Since the Mike Harris
government came to power, as you know, over 700,000 new jobs have
been created and over 550,000 people are now not collecting
welfare and have the dignity of having a job. In essence, what
that's done is brought people back to Ontario with many young
children, and many of those children are in portables. What are
you and your ministry doing to correct that problem?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: If there's one area where funding changes have
helped school boards in high-growth communities, it is certainly
around the issue of portables and new school construction. The
problem with the old way it was done was that need had to build
up and then the school board had to apply for a grant for the
whole school. They had to join the queue. Maybe they got it that
year and maybe they didn't, depending on the will of the
government of the day. It could be selective; it could be
arbitrary. It was not a predictable or transparent process.
What we have done, by
giving school boards financial incentives to do long-range
planning and financial support to do that, is that they are
looking down the road at what's happening in their communities
and putting in place long-term plans for the expansion of schools
and classrooms, and they don't need to wait until there's this
pent-up demand. What we're starting to see, as this funding has
taken effect in the last two years, is that we're starting to
catch up on that incredible backlog. In some communities in my
region, for example, we had more portables than classrooms in
some schools, an absolutely unacceptable position. In the last
two years, we have seen 1,250 fewer portables. That's about a 9%
reduction in the number of portables. We've seen the construction
of 214 new schools and 193 new school additions and expansions. I
think we're probably going to see that pace pick up even more in
high-growth communities. It's one of the biggest expansions of
school construction we've seen in many years in this province.
Frankly, for some communities it's long overdue, and the new
funding helps make that possible.
Mr
Mazzilli: Some people want to go back to the old way,
where school boards have the authority to do direct taxation
through mill rates. I brought out in estimates committee that in
the Thames Valley District School Board, the superintendent in
charge of their business operation said he would have had to ask
for a double-digit rate increase to get essentially what they got
directly from the ministry, and we've heard about the roles of
school trustees and so on. In your view, wouldn't trustees now
have time on their hands to dedicate to education issues as
opposed to what rate they have to increase taxes by?
1730
Hon Mrs
Ecker: There's no question that school board trustees
now do not have to handle decisions around setting mill rates or
increasing property taxes. One of the reasons we changed the funding and
took away the ability to raise property taxes, if I may phrase it
like that-you can see it when you look at how Bill 160 actually
ensures that can be done in a legal fashion. What it does is
eliminate two-tier education. Frankly, one of the things I always
find slightly ironic is that some of our critics like to accuse
us of trying to have two-tier education. Yet it was our funding
change that actually removed that, because it was a problem. If
you were in a community that had a very rich tax base or a school
board that was reckless in terms of their tax increases, there
was lots of money to spend. If you were in a school board that
did not have that tax base, there wasn't the money to spend. A
student's education should not have to rely on the luck of where
that student was born. So the formula is transparent, and it is
equitable for all school boards and for students wherever they
are in the province.
I think it has been a
significant improvement and responds very much to the work and
the recommendations. There were many reports done. Previous
governments had examined this issue, and the recommendations were
there. We said we would do it, and we indeed have done it. As
long as I remain in this chair, I have said that every year I
want to make it better. We made significant improvements this
year. I'm hoping to make significant improvements next year, as
we all get more information with boards and the ministry, and we
find even better ways to support important quality education
initiatives.
Mr
Mazzilli: Has Dalton McGuinty been supportive of the
present funding formula?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That would be an interesting question to ask him.
Some days it is difficult to figure which side he would be on on
this. But we've been very clear. We are doing what we said we
would do. For example, the Education Improvement Commission
examined this issue very carefully-they have done a number of
board-by-board reviews and studies-and said that the policy that
is driving the funding is indeed accurate and sound.
Mr Marcel Beaubien
(Lambton-Kent-Middlesex): First of all I'll make a
comment, for Mr Kennedy's interest. I can't remember if Mr Peters
was there, but I know one of his representatives was. Minister,
I'd like to inform you that the best thing that's ever happened
to the Thames Valley school board was the funding formula, and
that was stated by one of the directors at the board level at a
meeting a couple of months ago.
I'd like to zero in on my
own-I'll be somewhat selfish here; I do represent two boards. In
the special education allocation you just circulated, I see that
even though the Lambton Kent school board has a decreasing
population-we closed six or seven schools in my riding last year,
and I sympathize with some of the problems they have-they did
receive $1.2 million.
I'd like to quote from an
article which appeared in a weekly newspaper. It's called the
Spirit of Bothwell, and it's the Wednesday, September 20,
edition. The title is "Why he's running for school board
trustee." If I may quote a paragraph, this individual states, "By
closing seven schools, this board supposedly was to save $1.7
million. They said they would be able to balance their budget by
doing this. A couple of weeks ago, this board received some
additional funding worth almost $3 million. This amount was to be
used to reduce classroom sizes, yet no schools were reopened.
This amount was just swallowed up."
Minister, we keep hearing
this throughout the province. I don't think there's a board
across the province that received less money with regard to
special education this year as opposed to last year. But we keep
hearing that there's no money for special education, there's no
money for this.
When the ministry allocates
money for special projects, and if the board does not spend that
money in those projects, what measure do you take to make sure
that money is spent properly to educate the kids, to answer the
needs that they may need or the special needs that they may
need?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: It's a very good question, Mr Beaubien. It's
something that both trustees and parents and teachers continually
ask for more information to judge how the money's being spent,
where the money is being spent. So we are asking boards to do
reports to make sure that they are reporting and that the
reporting is accurate. There certainly are mechanisms within Bill
74 that if a board were to not use the money appropriately, one,
we have the ability to find that found out. Parents, for example,
would have an ability to ask for a review of that. We have the
ability to find that out, and in the extreme circumstance we
would have the ability to issue an order to a board for that to
be remedied. We do have that authority now. It's something we
didn't have before.
Mr
Beaubien: Thank you.
The
Vice-Chair: You've got about 30 seconds, Mr
Gilchrist.
Mr
Gilchrist: I wouldn't presume on the minister-
The
Vice-Chair: With you I know it's very difficult, but
let's try.
Mr
Gilchrist: -to approach something in that brief time, so
I'll pass it back to you, Mr Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Gilchrist. Such
co-operation. I like this. Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and in that
spirit of co-operation, I just want to make a comment for the
record. One of the members opposite, I believe, talking about
Thames Valley, gave an unnamed testimonial. I don't see why that
testimonial would be jumping for joy at a cut of $651 per
student, but obviously Mr Beaubien finds that acceptable and even
desirable. Also, Mr Beaubien obviously is not perhaps looking at
the interests of Lambton Kent, which has lost $790 per student,
but that again perhaps is acceptable to the member opposite. I
don't want to infer any motive, but we heard the testimonial and
I thought it might be useful to see.
I'd like to ask the staff
to circulate for the committee's benefit the rest of the table
that was just circulated. The table that was just circulated
speaks to special education increases last year to this year. It does not
speak to, again, the question that we've put on the table, which
is the review. How much money would they get if the government
actually followed its own policy? About $174 million less, so
I'll return to that question, but I want to make sure everyone
has that. And again, Minister, I challenge you-I don't think it's
a challenge; I think it's a request that's been made before-to
put on the table, so this group of your colleagues and ourselves
can see it, how much money was being spent on special education
before you took it over, because the boards keep saying they were
spending more. You've had many opportunities to do that.
But I wonder if you could
come to the two questions I closed out with, because I want to
ask you again very clearly: we have a situation where your review
comes up with figures for boards. For example, in the instance of
Thames Valley, let's say, it would approve $16.7 million in
intensive support grants versus the $22 million they got this
year. This may be acceptable to Mr Beaubien, but I wonder from
your standpoint, Minister, will you guarantee that the people of
Thames Valley, the people of London and area, will receive the
same money they are getting this year, and secondly, will you
scrap this review that is taking so much time away from the kids
you purport to be helping with this whole special education
arrangement?
So if I could ask the first
question first, will you guarantee the same amount of funding
next year? This is causing a lot of concern out there in the
community.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Well, Mr Kennedy, do you or do you not agree that
funding for education should be based on enrolment?
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, your own formula is based part on
enrolment and part on the intensive support amounts that you are
putting forward.
I'm asking you a question,
Minister. It's a fair question, and I would ask that you answer
it in the spirit in which it's intended. Will you, for the
purposes of the parents and the students and the teachers out
there involved with these special-needs kids, guarantee they get
the same money for next year?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Why would I guarantee a board that needs more
money that they're not going to get more money? Why would I issue
a guarantee like that? You either believe in enrolment-
Mr
Kennedy: Because, Minister, your review-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Chair, he asked me a question. I'm prepared to
answer, but there he goes again.
1740
Mr
Kennedy: I asked the question. I'm looking for the
answer, Mr Chair, because it's fair to ask for the answer.
The
Vice-Chair: Here we go again. If you'll direct your
questions to me, then, and the response to me, it may be a little
bit more orderly. And I'm asking the government side, please let
them get their interaction in, you know; it's estimates time.
Sometimes I will allow a little interchange because sometimes
it's much more refreshing and enlightening.
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Chair, I'm sorry. Mr Chair, to you-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Chair, if I could answer?
Mr
Kennedy: The minister was asked a question and has
declined to answer it. If that's the case, if the minister can't
tell us whether she will guarantee the funding next year to these
boards as a minimum-I didn't say this is all she can give them;
as a minimum. Is she prepared to make that commitment today? I
think it would bring a lot of relief to the parents, to the
students themselves and the teachers-
The
Vice-Chair: I think she heard the question.
Minister.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Thank you very much, Mr Chair.
First of all, the reason we
are spending the time with school boards now is to inform the
decisions for future funding needs. If the honourable member is
asking us to make a guess, to just sort of pick a number out of
the air, I'm sure we could do that, but I don't think that's an
appropriate way to fund special-needs education in this province.
When we have done the work with our school board partners, when
we have the information, we will make an intelligent and informed
decision about funding that is required for next year, as we did
this past year.
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Chair, with respect-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: The second thing he asked, Mr Chair, was whether
we would scrap the ISA funding formula. I would like to inform
the honourable member through you, Mr Chair, that in all of the
meetings I have had with school board representatives, with
teacher representatives, with the representatives of the
special-needs community, not one of them has said, "Scrap the ISA
funding formula."
Interjection.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Chair, he's interrupting me again. What they
have said is that there need to be improvements. We've made
improvements this year, we're making improvements next year and
over the next two years, but I specifically asked that question:
do you want to scrap this and start again? They have all said
no.
The third point: he likes
to claim that somehow or other we are not living up to what the
funding formula says, that we're not following our own policy. He
says that because he is deliberately distorting what is being
done. Claims are submitted to the ministry. Those claims are
judged based on criteria. They are assessed. That is the policy;
that is the process. Some of those claims are approved and some
of them are not. That is the approved policy, but that does not
mean that that individual student does not get educational
services, because the school boards know that they are to provide
educational services for those students. That's why we have what
is called the SEPPA money, which again has increased, so that
they have the flexibility to meet the needs of all their
students.
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Chair, I'm sorry. The minister declined to
give the guarantee to those students and also apparently approves
of a formula that is out by at least 32% this year, that is a source of huge
consternation and takes at least $60 to $80 million worth of
teaching time out of the classroom.
I want to move on, Mr
Chair-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Again, Mr Chair, that's not accurate.
Mr
Kennedy: I want to ask a question directly, Minister. I
want to bring you down from 35,000 feet, from skirting around
issues, and I want to ask you directly what you're going to do
for these students here. Students are here from Rockland school.
They met with you earlier. They have no extracurricular
activities. They're telling you that their teachers are tasked,
that they have too much on their plate, that they're not able to
get that level of extracurricular activities in their schools.
Their school year has been compromised, Minister. There are three
students from that school sitting behind you. You know who they
are; you met with them earlier.
Minister, I want to know,
what are you prepared to do to ensure that they have the full
benefit of their educational year? What responsibility are you
prepared to take, or are you simply prepared to take out the
hammer and cause chaos in the school system?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, are you suggesting we proclaim Bill
74?
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I'm asking you. You're the minister.
What are you prepared to do for these kids in terms of the school
year? I've asked you already. I've made several suggestions. Are
you prepared to be flexible? You've said no. Are you-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, Mr Kennedy. We have been-
Mr
Kennedy: I'd like to raise my question, Mr Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: Order. Mr Kennedy, and then the minister's
response.
Mr
Kennedy: Madam Minister, I have made proposals to you
before. I have said, will you be flexible? Will you allow-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We have been.
Mr
Kennedy: Will you allow them-Minister, it will behoove
you to answer the question, I'm sure.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I've tried.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I've asked you to be flexible; you've
said you will not be. You've said you passed Bill 74-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, I just said we have been, Mr Kennedy-
Mr
Kennedy: Secondly, Mr Minister, I asked, having
extracted-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -to the tune of significant millions of
dollars.
The
Vice-Chair: Madam Minister, let him complete. If he
wants to take his 20 minutes to do that, that's his prerogative.
Let him complete.
Mr
Kennedy: In their particular board, the Upper Canada
board, you have extracted from them, from these kids-nowhere
else-$836. That's what you say they're worth less than the kids
who were being educated five years ago.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Those are your figures, Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: We've asked for your figures, Minister, and in
three weeks you have yet to produce them, so we'll take these
figures for now. That's an 11% reduction.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not accurate, Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: It's an 11% reduction. Yet you're saying in
these proceedings that you're not prepared to put money in. You
won't even say how much money it would take to return this school
and that board to the situation they had last year, where they
successfully had extracurricular, before you passed Bill 74.
Through you, Mr Chair, I
put to the minister, not in an indirect question but very
specifically, what is the minister prepared to do for these
students from Rockland school to make sure they have restored to
them the school year they deserve?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: First of all, what we have said to our education
partners: we made significant investments this year in priorities
that teachers said were important. For example, concerns were
expressed about job loss. We put in $263 million for smaller
classes to make sure we were minimizing any potential job loss,
more money for remediation, more money for all kinds of
things.
We moderated significantly
the workload standard so it would respond to the concerns
teachers put forward. In addition, we did not proclaim the
section of Bill 74 which said a principal could assign, because
teachers said they didn't think that was appropriate.
Thirdly, I had said for
many, many months before the introduction of Bill 74 that using
extracurricular activities every time there was a fight with a
board or with a provincial government-because this is not a new
problem; this didn't get invented under a Mike Harris government.
These issues have been before other governments as well. I said
that using extracurricular was not acceptable. Parents said, "No.
Stop it."
I said that if it was not
stopped, the government would have to take steps. It was not
stopped. The government introduced legislation. A great
kerfuffle: the legislation was going to make it mandatory;
teachers did not agree. I said OK, and we did not proclaim that
section of the legislation. One teacher apparently said to one of
the students I met with earlier today, "I want to do
extracurricular and I've got time to do extracurricular, but I
won't do it if I'm forced." While the legislation is not forcing
that teacher to do extracurricular, that teacher is not doing
extracurricular.
There are thousands of
teachers across this province who care about the kids and do it
because they see it as part of the job. Thousands of schools are
doing this. We have other schools where teachers are choosing to
work to rule. It is catching the students in a way that is unfair
to them. It should not be happening to them. We have said we
respect the collective agreement process. In communities where
those agreements are being reached, we're starting to see a
resumption of extracurricular activities. But if it does not
resume, we are prepared to take further steps, as we should, to
make sure students are not unduly or unfairly penalized because a
local union has a
fight with a school board or with the provincial government. It
is not fair to the students.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, I see where you have neglected to
take any responsibility for the current state of affairs in
Rockland school, where you have said over and over again that you
are basically blaming teachers for having made the choice. You're
not recognizing that your staffing formula has created a
situation where they can't provide the same kind of thing, and
where you've created a climate of fear on the part of some
people. In the schools I was in, people who are contributing
teaching extra classes at noon hour are afraid to do so because
they think you're going to make it mandatory.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, you talk about a climate of fear.
Mr
Kennedy: Mr Chair, I want to rephrase the question-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: We have teachers out there-
The
Vice-Chair: Order, order.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: -who are being threatened by union leadership in
some communities. That's the climate of fear, Mr Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: I allowed you to respond to Mr Kennedy, and
I'd like you to give him the same courtesy.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you, Mr Chair. All the noise in the world
isn't going to change the fact that the minister has yet to put
on the table one constructive measure to help these kids or any
other kids have a normal school year.
Minister, either you have
your head in the sand or you don't recognize what the principals
have told you and what a number of separate school boards have
told you: that they are unable to provide the same level. You say
"thousands and thousands." You haven't put one single piece of
paper here, handwritten or otherwise, to show us the status of
extracurricular. So you're guessing, Minister. I think that's
shameful. But more shameful is that you can't-
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, Mr Kennedy. We are providing you with
information that school boards provided to us.
The
Vice-Chair: Order, order.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, as you know, we tabled information at
this committee that shows that 94% of school were disrupted.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: And I told you that figure dealt with public high
school. It did not deal with Catholic and it did not deal with
elementary. If we're going to use figures, I would caution you to
use accurate ones.
1750
The
Vice-Chair: Madam Minister, could I have some order,
please. Mr Kennedy has the floor. I don't need interruption over
here. I think I can handle it all right. There's only one
Chairperson here, and that's me. I don't want you all to be
chairing it. Mr Kennedy's got the floor.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you, Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: You may not like what he says. Let him
continue. Then the minister, if she has time, may comment.
Mr
Kennedy: The minister has made reference to several
steps she's prepared to take. I would think, Minister, to show
some respect for the students here today, that you would outline
for us, explicitly, in ways that everybody will understand, what
your intent is, what your conditions are, for what you are
prepared to do. If you're prepared to take out your 80-pound
hammer and cause chaos in the schools by forcing extracurricular,
I think you owe it to us to tell us today that that's your
preferred option.
Minister, you've mentioned
several steps, so my question is, Mr Chair, can the minister tell
us specifically what the several steps are that she's prepared to
take on behalf of these students to make sure they get their
school year?
Hon Mrs
Ecker: Mr Kennedy, we have asked those students, as I
did in this meeting-I'm meeting with other student trustees; we
have been communicating with boards. We are looking at the
options we have available to us-we have many-to restore
extracurricular activities in those schools where it is a
problem.
Again, I think it's
important for the honourable member to recognize, since he
deliberately chooses not to, that there are many, many
schools-all he has to do is pick up a local newspaper, and see
where they're covering school sports, for example, in many
communities. So we do know that there are thousands of teachers
out there who do provide it because they see it as part of the
job. In those schools where collective agreements are not
resolving this issue, then we are looking and we will take
appropriate steps.
The feedback I've received
from students today and from the discussions we continue to have
with school boards and parents and students-and I'll be meeting
with student trustees again-will inform the decisions we
take.
I don't think it's
appropriate, given the fact that in some of those communities
they are doing collective agreements-I'm assuming the honourable
member thinks we should let that process occur, unless he's
advocating that somehow or other we should disrupt it. I think
that local solution is the best one, if it's available. If it's
not, we'll deal with that.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, you're prepared to let local school
boards and, I guess, federations choose their poison but are not
willing to give them something more palatable to chew on to take
all of this tension away. None of this was happening in the
school last year.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: No, that's not correct.
Mr
Kennedy: You've brought it on.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not correct, Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: If you're not prepared to share with us, I
guess that's the message the students have to bring back to their
school board, that you don't think it important enough to tell us
at this committee what it is you're prepared to do.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: That's not what I said, Mr Kennedy.
Mr
Kennedy: Minister, this is a rural school-
Interjections.
The Vice-Chair: Order. Here we
go again. Mr Kennedy has the floor.
Mr
Kennedy: I met with the board of the Upper Canada school
board, and the board tells me that one of the things they suffer
from, and it may be a factor in their, up to now, inability to
reach their contractual conclusion, is the way you treat rural
schools. For example, in ridings of some of the members
opposite-I think Mr Beaubien and I have spoken on this-they
receive in the order of $10 per student, on average.
Mr
Beaubien: You refuse to debate it publicly. And by the
way-
Mr
Kennedy: Any day, any time.
The
Vice-Chair: Order.
Mr
Kennedy: If Mr Beaubien would like to debate this in
public, I'm glad he's finally surfacing on the issue. Let me just
outline the issue that we can debate.
Interjection.
The
Vice-Chair: Order.
Mr
Kennedy: Ten dollars per student in his riding. And yet,
over in the Premier's riding and the Treasurer's riding-just
coincidentally, I'm sure; near-north boards and so on-they're
receiving something in the order of $400 per student.
My question to you,
Minister, is that you have a designation for rural schools,
section 30 of the legislative grants here. In it you basically
exclude most of what most people would believe are rural schools
in this province. You don't provide the funds to the majority of
rural schools, for example, in southern Ontario, in Mr Beaubien's
riding and in many ridings across the province.
I invited Mr Beaubien-I
think he's going to express agreement when his turn comes-that we
should rectify this. This should be fair. This funding model
doesn't have regard and respect for the fact that certain schools
in rural areas are under certain disadvantages. That should be
reflected accurately in the formulas.
I'm wondering-
Interjections.
Mr
Beaubien: On a point of order, Mr Chair.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I have an answer for the honourable member. I'd
like to share it.
The
Vice-Chair: Order. A point of order? Make it quick.
Mr
Beaubien: Mr Kennedy has just made a statement with
regard to requesting that he meet with me. Mr Kennedy, on two
occasions, refused to debate publicly with me.
The
Vice-Chair: That's not a point of order.
Mr
Beaubien: I want this on the record, Mr Chair.
The
Vice-Chair: You may want it on the record, but it's not
a point of order. You and he can discuss it quietly outside.
Mr Kennedy, you've got
about a minute to wrap up.
Mr
Kennedy: Thank you. I'm sure Mr Beaubien and I can clear
that up very quickly.
Minister, I'm sure you can
anticipate the question, and I understand you have an answer. I'd
like to know, are you flexible on this point? Will you reconsider
the funding formula for rural schools? Will you make it fairer to
include more of the rural schools that find themselves
disadvantaged, some of whom find themselves having their doors
shut prematurely, as boards in places like Avon Maitland and
Lambton Kent tell me, were they able to fairly access the rural
funding, which exists in the funding formula but is out of their
reach? Minister, are you flexible enough and are you willing to
change the rural funding formula? Last fall you said you might
look at it. Can you tell us now whether you are looking at it and
whether it will change?
The
Vice-Chair: The disadvantage you have, Madam Minister,
is there's about half a minute to respond.
Hon Mrs
Ecker: I would like to know where Mr Kennedy has been
for the last year. I said we would look at it. We were doing the
work to change it, and that's exactly the work we are doing.
First of all, there are
literally millions and millions in money that a rural board gets.
There are criteria for what a rural board should be. They were
clearly established in consultation with the boards. We recognize
there needs to be further work on it. We are continuing to work
with the boards to see if it needs to be adjusted for the next
funding year. I have stated that publicly on more occasions than
I could count, and it's wonderful to see that the honourable
member has finally listened.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Your time is up, Mr
Kennedy.
Madam Minister, just for
the record, there's about an hour and a half left.
This committee stands
adjourned until tomorrow after routine proceedings.
