As Election Looms, Ontario Gets Education Update
With a June election looming, Premier Doug Ford’s government has started trying to resell themselves to Ontario by releasing their education plan for the upcoming year. The plan is costed to provide $26.1 billion dollars in funding through the Ministry’s Grants for Student Learning. Approximately $660 million of that is dedicated to the Ministry’s learning recovery plan which hopes to close the gaps that have developed in student learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan also confirms the province has increased funding for mental health supports for students, school nurses, and allotted some funds to make sure the Ministry has enough to renegotiate agreements with unions whose contracts expire this summer. While the plan overall doesn’t seem so bad overall, it’s always nice to see education receive record levels of funding, a few things do stick out more than others:
The province has committed $11 million dollars to go towards eliminating academic streaming. The fact that the provincial government is still pushing de-streaming is problematic enough, if they truly are going to go through with it, $11 million dollars is not going to do much in terms of making the transition manageable. While research correctly indicates that streaming in Ontario is problematic for several reasons, I am not sold that combining students of different abilities in a single classroom will have a positive effect on their self esteem. In fact, after spending time in a TCDSB high school, I would argue that it would have the opposite effect and would materialize any achievement gaps that students perceive been themselves. I would argue that the money would be better spent on figuring out ways to fix the inherent problems with streaming that often have a disproportionate impact on minority students. Earlier intervention while students are in elementary schools, curriculum reform, and a concerted effort to destigmatize the different streams would all have a much more positive effect on student learning outcomes.
It’s not anything drastically new. It is encouraging to see Minister of Education Stephen Lecce recognize the need for mental health supports and supplemental tutoring, but a $1.6 billion dollar increase is ultimately not enough to be truly meaningful. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a policy paper earlier this month that called for a $4.3 billion dollar increase in education funding as part of a 13-point plan to increase our education system’s capacity to improve student learning outcomes. Having the provincial government walk back proposed cuts to education and instead reveal a plan that increases funding is always a good thing. But a $300 dollar increase in funding per student is not enough to make a meaningful difference in that student’s education outcome. It’s not nothing, but it’s nowhere close to being enough.
A lot of it is temporary. Several of the grants and plans for funding do have time-limited tags attached to them, including funding that is dedicated to increasing staffing. This means that once the impact on student learning caused by COVID-19 is deemed resolved, and it’s really anyone’s guess what resolved will look like, these supports will be deemed extraneous and will be removed from funding. This leaves the door open for the provincial government to reduce funding in future years under the guise of it no longer being needed. It is also entirely possible the Ministry of Education and the provincial government at large realize these supports and funding are long overdue and make them permanent. These funds will help now but switching them from temporary to permanent will help later too.
EQAO is back. After a 2-year hiatus, the Ministry is reintroducing the standardized provincial assessment. With COVID-19 causing such unprecedented developments in teaching and education, it is a bit of a mystery why the Ministry would choose to reimplement EQAO, which has been skewered by parents, students, and teachers alike, instead of rethinking their approach to standardized testing. Perhaps this was a chance to think of new ways to measure students to a province-wide standard. Perhaps this was a chance to rethink the standard itself. Perhaps these chances were wasted due to a desire to get back to normal and restore the status-quo. It seems like the Ministry was gifted an opportunity to reflect on its policies and methods. Instead of critically reflecting on how they could help students succeed, teachers succeed, and make assessment more meaningful and representative, the Ministry believes they have had it right all along.
We’ll see in June if this education plan is enough to convince voters that Premier Ford and his cabinet really believe that the education system needs more support. I believe that it’s a good start, but they should know by now that they need more, and they should be doing more.