Government Proposed Changes in K-12 Education
Teachers, education workers, parents and students demonstrate outside
Conservative Party fundraiser, Etobicoke, February 27, 2019.
The Ontario government claims that all its changes are
aimed at "modernizing" Ontario classrooms. The mantra of modernization
hides the overall direction in which it wants to take Ontario. The
government proposes to remove billions from the public education system
through increasing class sizes and attacking the working conditions of
teachers and education workers, while permanently handing over portions
of the education of the youth to private interests on a centralized
basis.
Class Size
The government announced that changes would be coming
to average class sizes in Ontario. Average class sizes do not actually
determine how big classes are or must be, but rather determine the
funding a school board will receive for teachers and support staff.
Thus, going from an average class size of 22 to 28 in grades 9 to 12
for example,
means that for every 28 (instead of 22) students the school board will
obtain funding for one teacher. The board then allocates teachers to
ensure the overall average across the entire school board is at or
below the average set by the government. (TML Weekly will deal
further with how education is funded in Ontario and the relationship
between average class sizes and class composition in future articles.)
As for class sizes, the government announced that the
limit for the number of students in full-day junior and senior
kindergarten will remain at 29 students. However, the funding for early
childhood educators (ECEs) who work alongside teachers in these classes
when they have more than 16 students will be reduced from 1.14 to 1.0
full-time
equivalent (FTE). This will result in greater pressure on school boards
to attack the number of ECEs and/or their working conditions. In
addition, in January, the government made it clear that full-day
kindergarten is guaranteed for only one more year.
Average class sizes for students in grades 4 to 8 will
be
increased from a school board-wide average of 23.84 to 24.5 students.
As noted above, the government intends to increase
average class sizes in grades 9 to 12 from a school board-wide average
of 22 to 28 students. The average will be calculated across the entire
school board and all grades of that assigned average (grades 4 to 8 or
grades 9 to 12). The Minister of Education has self-servingly claimed
increasing
class sizes in this manner is "evidence-based" and will better prepare
students for work and university and even build "resilience." This is
equivalent to an abuser claiming that their abuse was only to make the
victim tougher.
Along with changes to average class sizes, the
government is changing the way schools are funded. It is eliminating a
number of discretionary funds that previous governments used to fund
education. This will result in overall cuts to the supports students
require in their schools. These changes include the elimination of the
Local Priorities
Fund, Cost Adjustment Allocation, and Human Resource Transition
Supplement. It will also change "Classroom Loading Factors" to reflect
the new class averages it wants to impose, increase Utilities Funding
to reflect increased cost, increase and "review" Student Transportation
Funding that funds busing and other forms of transportation to
schools.
E-Learning
The government plans to "centralize the delivery of all
e-learning courses" and require students in grades 9 to 12 to take a
minimum of four e-learning classes to graduate high school with
"exemptions for some students on an individual basis." These e-learning
classes will have an even higher average number of students per class
than the
proposed increased average of 35 students to be raised from 28.
Currently e-learning courses are delivered by school boards. A central
hub for all e-learning courses being offered by boards across the
province into which students can register already exists. The
government may well seek to hand the delivery and content of e-learning
over to a
private e-learning company financed by public funds and use this to
remove thousands of courses from the requirement of having to be
delivered by teachers employed by school boards and represented by
unions. No explanation as to how such a direction would benefit the
youth was provided. The government's own e-learning site, prior to the
announcement, clearly pointed out that e-learning is not beneficial for
all students; a claim that was removed after it was pointed out by many
on social media.
"Up to the Minute" Curriculum Changes
The Minister of Education announced in her press
conference that the government plans to put in place new arrangements
to permit itself to change what is taught in schools on an "up to the
minute" basis. She presented the measure as a money saving move to save
on printing and distribution of new curriculum documents, something
that is
currently the practice when curriculum is updated so that educators and
the public know what is expected to be taught and learned in the
classroom. By the next school year, the government plans to "bring in a
new digital curriculum platform" where curricula will only be available
online and there can be "up to the minute" changes made. The
Ontario curricula is already available on the Ontario government's
website and is accessible anywhere and downloadable, including onto
smart devices.
These measures are very similar to changes made at the
Federal level by the then Harper Conservatives to how regulations made
by Ministers were promulgated to the public. The Harper government was
harmonizing many Canadian regulations with those of the United States
and slipped within an omnibus budget bill, including a law that it
would no longer have to print new regulations in the Canada Gazette
when passed. The new regulations were typically sent out to public
institutions and legal firms that needed to know the laws under which
they were expected to operate.
The Harper government claimed that it was simply making
things more efficient and less costly by having it solely on-line. In
fact, the aim was to hide from view changes to regulations that were
being enacted to serve the biggest North American monopolies. These
regulations establish the entire way of life in Canada and the
standards that
individuals, public institutions and businesses are expected to uphold.
The move to have the government make changes to curricula "up to the
minute" will no doubt be part and parcel of efforts to tie what is
taught to the short term with the narrow demands of high-tech and other
monopolies for trained employees paid for by the public purse. It
may also be used to criminalize teachers based on claims that they did
not follow the most up-to-date curriculum.
Changes to How Standardized Tests are Used
The Minister of Education announced that the Education
and Quality Assurance Office (EQAO) will be given a "stronger, broader
mandate." The Board of Directors for the Office has had a new full-time
chair imposed on it, replacing its previous part-time chair David
Cooke, the former Minister of Education under the Ontario NDP
government of Bob Rae. The new chair, Dr. Cameron Montgomery, is being
tasked with working to modernize "what and how [EQAO] evaluates."
This is likely linked in part to the government's
announcement that it intends to change the way teachers are hired and
placed. The government claims that teachers are currently hired and
placed based mainly on seniority and this prevents teachers that would
be a better "fit" from being selected. This is to fool the gullible, as
experience in
teaching is a key factor in the quality of how content is delivered.
What the government is trying to do is to divide new teachers from more
experienced teachers to bring in new regimes of tying teacher promotion
and possibly even pay to standardized test scores or what the
government calls a measure of "student achievement."
In the name of promoting better teachers, the
government hopes to introduce greater competition amongst teachers for
jobs and promotion to attack their unity to defend their working
conditions, which are students learning conditions. The McGuinty
Liberal government too began its assault on teachers and education
workers in this manner
during the 2011-12 contract negotiation period. The McGuinty government
imposed through regulation a system of seniority for hiring teachers
for full-time contracts and long-term appointments, while at the same
time imposing contracts onto all teachers and education workers in
violation of their rights. In both the case of the Liberals then and
the PCs now, the aim is not to defend younger teachers but to divert
them from defending the teaching profession as a whole from the attacks
of narrow private interests.
New Law and Order Measures
The government is prohibiting cell phone use in schools
during instructional time by adding it to the provincial code of
conduct, "unless teachers use their professional judgement to decide
otherwise." What this shows is that the government does not recognize
teachers' professional judgement on a whole, but only when it comes to
whether or
not to criminalize student behaviour. It shows that the government will
empower teachers only when it comes to how they will enforce arbitrary
rules that they had no say in establishing. These changes do not
empower teachers' professional judgement when it comes to the direction
of education. In fact, it further reveals the attempts to
disempower teachers in the name of affirming their professional
judgement only in specific instances.
This article was published in
Number 11 - March 28, 2019
Article Link:
Government Proposed Changes in K-12 Education
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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