A Message from Education Action: Toronto April 19, 2009 Dear Friends, In many ways, the big issues of our school system are back again "with a vengeance," as Michael Fullan (the premier's education guru) likes to say -- the continuing money squeeze, the ongoing provincial power grab and the destructive experience of so many of our kids in school. On each of these issues, the powerful corporate (or neo-liberal) agenda in our province continues to dominate. In response, we have to dig in harder to resist this agenda: in our local schools, at our school boards, and in dealing with the provincial government. Finance On the financial front, not only are we looking at cuts of $23.9 million at the TDSB for 2009-10 – our 13th year of cutbacks, expressed as illegal "deficits" – but there is a growing gap in resources between the schools in poor neighbourhoods and those in wealthier ones. A recent story by Patty Winsa in the Toronto Star ("New Math: The rich schools get richer," April 11, 2009) -- shows a school like Flemington P.S. (#7 from the top of the TDSB list of poorest schools, the LOI) is facing the possibility its lunch program may have to close while a well-off school like Blythwood P.S. (#474 on the LOI list, the second richest school in the city) doesn't need to provide lunch and can offer its students "an after lunch menu that includes Irish dancing, music IQ, beadology, basketball and Artstart .... programming organized by the school council and paid for by the parents." The differences in parent fundraising, says Winsa, are "creating a two-tier public education system. One GTA elementary school generated $200,000 in fees and fundraising – the highest amount in the province – a sum that could inject enough privately raised money into a publicly funded elementary school to double, triple and even quadruple its annual budget, not including teacher salaries." Winsa goes on to write -- using statistics from People For Education -- that "while most elementary schools raise $10,000 or less, a fifth of them are raising at least double the amount. This means they have considerably more money to pay for library books, extra textbooks, computers, sports, classroom supplies, field trips, and arts and music programming." "High schools," she says, "can generate even more. In 2007-08, the top secondary school in the province brought in $500,000. The amount – collected from fundraising, vending machine proceeds and fees that are charged for all kinds of student activities – marks a 200% increase in only four years. And there is no limit to the amount of money schools can raise." Furthermore, "it's not only school councils drumming up proceeds. Northern Secondary School Foundation, a registered charity, is working with the school council and the community to raise more than $900.000 to build a $1.64 million Astroturf football field and rubberized track behind the school on Mount Pleasant Blvd, just north of Eglinton Ave." In a related story by Patty Winsa and Kristin Rushovwy ("The unregulated costs of a public education") shows that not only is there a growing divide in resources between rich and poor schools, but there is a serious rise in activity fees, which makes life even harder at school for poor students. These fees have "increased more than 50 per cent since 2001 and there are no rules on what – and how much – students pay." These fees are charged for "everything from purchasing paints and supplies for art class to fees for participating in drama productions." Jonathan Scott of the Ontario Student Trustees Association says "the school year begins with an annual activity fee – which can be as high as $85 – then quickly bumps up to as much as $1000 a year." This fiscal squeeze on our schools, we have to remember, isn't just the policy of the old Mike Harris government, which sucked "about $12 billion in funding from the public and Catholic boards" of the province when it "took away the right of school boards to set tax rates to raise the cash they needed for programming." It's now Liberal policy. The bulk of the Tory financial formula remains in place, the school boards still have no right to raise taxes, and the squeeze continues. As People for Education reports (Newsletter, v. 10. i. 4, April 4, 2009) while there are some budget increases for teachers and school board worker salaries, for "things like fuel, transportation and electricity," for "a few more staff to reduce class sizes in Grades 4 to 8, and, because of increases in preparation time, [for] increases in funding for specialist teachers in elementary schools," there have also been very significant cuts. Recent provincial budget announcements "included over $100 million in cuts for the coming year" for our school boards. "Funding for text books and computers will be reduced by $50 million, and grants for professional development are cut by $44.5 million. Some boards will also receive cuts in their busing funding, depending on how well they're doing in their partnerships with conterminous boards. The temporary funding that helps school boards adjust to declining enrollment has also been cut by $5.8 million." How does the most recent $23.9 million cut to the TDSB play itself out? While the final decision will be made in June, we are starting to get an idea of what's involved. At a recent meeting, the Board agreed on a $8.8 million slice of this $23.9 million -- getting rid of 36 teacher librarians and 150 education assistants while raising class size by 1 student in the city’s poorest areas – with cuts of more than $14 million yet to be announced. It now seems the Board has pulled back on the class size increase, but that just leaves it with more cuts to impose. Don Higgins, executive superintendent of the TDSB, is reported (Moya Dillon, North York Mirror, April 16, 09) to have said that the upcoming deficit/cutback "was partly caused by vast reductions in the Ministry of Education’s annual Grants for Student Needs (GSN). These reductions included a $3-million cut to textbook funding, $2.7 million in cuts to professional development funding as well as cuts to transportation and computer replacement funding. Altogether, the declining grants result in a decrease of $15.7 million in available funding for the board." Moya Dillon goes on to report that the Ministry of Education "is currently reviewing its curriculum as well, which means that the board may have to invest in new textbooks for course that undergo curriculum changes." "Other areas," Ms. Dillon continues, "that may be scaled back include the board’s standard seven-year refreshment cycle for school computers. With 60,000 computers across the TDSB, that means between 6,000 and 7,000 computers are replaced on an annual basis, [Superintendent] Higgins said. With the new permanent reduction of $3 million in funding for computer replacement, that schedule may switch to eight or nine years." "In addition to absorbing the grant cuts, the board also needs to find areas to cut in order to present a balanced budget to the province. Some areas identified as preliminary targets in the Draft Budget include reductions in professional development programs, $2.4 million in cuts to school budgets and $1.5 million in cuts to central board administration, which they hope to meet by keeping vacant positions empty and maintaining freezes put on some positions during the last budget year." In all of this, it's worth remembering the Board has somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1.5 billion in back maintenance to look after. These cuts have to stop. They will only stop if the Toronto Board feels enough pressure from parents, teachers, school board workers and communities to say no to the $23.9 million cut (or yes to a deficit for this amount), force the province to impose a supervisor, and fight that supervision every step of the way -- with continuous streams of protest at local schools, at the local board and at Queen's Park. The same holds true for the cuts coming at the Catholic Board. The Liberals have to know they don't have a safe seat in Toronto if they continue to hammer our schools. Governance and Program On the governance front, we are looking at increased micromanaging from the Ministry of Education, now pushing a harder agenda on test score production. We have to come up with a realistic alternative that strengthens the power of our local schools and our local boards and organize around it. We are attaching again a piece by Dudley Paul to remind us just what we are up against. On the program side, we are attaching a piece by George Martell, who stresses the need to build a great curriculum for all our kids in opposition to the "bottom-streaming process" imposed on so many working-class children (especially those who are poor, who are immigrant, and who are children of colour). We also hope you'll have time to check out Doug Little's website The Little Education Report: Education and Politics in Ontario http://www.inner-image.ca/demohome.html. A former school board trustee and a former elementary and secondary teacher, Doug has been writing about the Ontario school system for many years now with insight, clarity and boldness. His weekly blog is the best thing we have on understanding what's happening in the politics of our publicly funded schools. Finally, don't forget to put down June 8, 6:30 pm, New College, University of Toronto, on your calendar for our next EA:TO policy meeting. We'll have policy drafts out to you by June 1 and, hopefully, will have a website by that time in which all of these drafts can be placed. We'll have a second policy meeting in October, 2009, to finalize a policy summary for the trustee elections in November, 2010. We want this summary to go out to our communities for discussion for a year prior to this election -- to raise a number of key issues and to get the response of trustee candidates. In solidarity, George Martell and Faduma Mohamed Co-chairs, Education Action: Toronto
Please click here to download "It's the bottom streaming that matters most" by George Martell Please click here to download "Asking for the answers they want: A ministry survey to promote standardized testing and increased provincial control" by Dudley Paul |
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