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Resistance to Anti-Social Reforms to Education in Ontario Disingenuous Public Relations Campaign to Hide Degradation and Privatization of Public Education
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The Ontario government appears now to be making further changes, which it claims are concessions on its part to the unions so they stop their ongoing strikes. On March 3, Education Minister Stephen Lecce held a press conference where he presented as "concessions" new arbitrary changes to the government's imposed measures.
These changes made without negotiating with the unions involved include:
- a grade 9-12 average class size increase to
23:1;
- mandatory e-learning with an option for
parents to opt-out their children; and
- the re-establishment of the local priorities
fund under a new name but with the elimination
of any input on the use of the funds from the
unions representing teachers and education
workers.
Besides proving that the strikes of teachers and education workers have forced the government to try new schemes to impose its agenda, the government's latest announcements again show that one of its main aims is to make clear that it does not think teachers and education workers have a right to negotiate their wages and working conditions, which are their students' learning conditions. Even in retreat, the government struggles to assert its unilateral control over decision-making and the direction of education to the exclusion of education workers, students, parents and other concerned Ontarians.
The announcement by Lecce came just days after the government faced a challenge to its arbitrary one-year-ago announcement on class size changes from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA). OECTA asserts that the government is not bargaining in good faith as it is ruling through regulatory changes instead of negotiating these matters with those who will be forced to work under the changes. Clearly, these new arbitrary changes are an assertion that it does not need to negotiate and is a signal to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) Chair who is hearing the case that he had better affirm the government's will.
The government has often cited
public consultations it held prior to its March
15, 2019 announcements to claim it has a mandate
for all its anti-social changes. Ironically, the
government has been tireless in keeping the
content of those consultations secret. Once the
results were finally revealed, thanks to OECTA's
challenge at the OLRB, they put the lie to the
government's claims that it is acting on what
parents told it during the consultations. The
results of those consultations reveal that
despite the government's best efforts, it has
not been able to destroy public opinion, which
sees increased class sizes and mandatory
e-learning as attacks on the society and the
youth in particular. Now, instead of backing
down and conceding to public opinion, the
government is attempting to divert from what is
being revealed by making further arbitrary
announcements.
The announcements are clearly a reaction to the government's crisis of its own making. It thinks that a public relations campaign will save it from reality. Through these tweaks to its original attacks on education, the government is seeking to hide its direction to undermine education. Its proposals to allow parents to opt out of mandatory e-learning, for example, hide a reversion to plan B -- to impose e-learning through the number and kind of classes that will be funded. School boards will be required to offer more e-learning courses, which have a class size average of 35 students to one teacher. Parents will then be presented with the "choice" of opting their children out of mandatory e-learning only to find that the courses their children want or need to graduate will not be offered in a physical classroom. This method of using its control over funding to force school boards to more consistently adopt e-learning was leaked by the Toronto Star recently as the government's initial plan A, which is now presented as a plan B "concession."
As for its claims to be maintaining existing class size averages by moving to 23:1, this too hides what the government is actually doing. It has shown in negotiations that it wants to eliminate local class size caps that exist in some but not all local collective agreements. An increase in class size averages for next year to 23:1 without capping the maximum class size at 23:1 enshrines what it has done since March 15 of last year. This average does not address the issue of capping the size of individual classes. Only through imposing a maximum class size can manipulation of averages be prevented. To have some small classes and some large ones, which in combination meet a required school board-wide average of 23:1 defeats the initiative and desire to keep the size of all classes under an agreed upon maximum number of students.
Lastly its
re-introduction of a previously negotiated fund
called the "Local Priorities Fund" under a new
name "Support for Students Fund" hides that the
education unions fought for and won this funding
initiative over which they had some control. The
desire of teachers and their unions was to put
this funding towards supporting the most
vulnerable students with special needs through
the hiring of educational assistants, child and
youth workers, and other support staff who are
the lifeblood of special education. The "Support
for Students Fund" removes the unions and
teachers from having any role over how the funds
will be deployed, which means school boards will
be able to use them as they see fit, outside of
any requirement to negotiate with those who
provide the education.
The resistance of teachers and all education
workers is the main factor forcing the
government to shift tactics in its public
relations campaign. Public relations is not
politics. As practiced by the current government
it is a form of manipulation to try to disinform
existing public opinion and present "down" as
"up." It is a dark art, which seems to be the
profession of this government of Ontario and its
Minister of Education. However, no matter how
slick the Minister appears, he is fighting
against a growing tide of human beings who will
not accept backwardness as progress because they
know from their own experience what is required
to improve education and are speaking for
themselves.
"Cut the Clowning" by Megan Simon-Beaudoin
(Photos: WF, OSSTF, G. Barrister Clarke)
This article was published in
Number 11 - March 12, 2020
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca