The Budget Crunch at the TDSB
Chris Glover

As you have probably seen in the media, the TDSB is facing a severe financial shortfall this year and is making a number of cuts to staff in our schools. I have written these notes to explain what is going on.

It is about a budget, so there are a lot of numbers. To orient you, here’s an overview:

In any large organization the budget is divided into two sections, operations and capital. The operations budget covers the day-to-day operation of the school. It includes staff salaries and benefits, utilities, cleaning, textbooks, computers, etc. The capital budget covers buildings, additions, and major renovations. This document is primarily about the operations budget, although I do mention the capital budget when discussing the potential closure and sale of schools and in the recommendations at the end.

You may have noticed that there have been conflicting messages in the media over the school budget shortfall. On the one hand the Minister of Education was quoted in the Sun saying, “Since 2003, the government has increased funding to the TDSB by 34%, while enrolment is down 12%” (Toronto Sun Tuesday April 3, 2012). On the other hand, the media has also stated that the TDSB is facing a $110 million shortfall and has to make severe cuts to our schools in order to fulfill its legal mandate to balance the budget.

An Open Letter to All Parents in the TDSB
Katie McGovern

Dear Parents,

There is no way to talk about the loss of our members’ jobs without talking about the programs and services that no longer will be available for your child(ren) due to the overwhelming cuts that are being rolled out NOW to meet the needs of the budget, not the learners. You may choose to believe “the Union” or not, but we feel ethically obligated to let you all know about some ‘hard truths’ about cuts that have been made without consultation with anybody.

The 430 Regular Program Educational Assistants’ positions and 134 full time equivalent positions in the school offices (more than 200 people, most of whom are women) are just the first step. To meet a budget that has to be trimmed by at least $110 million, a lot more services and programs will be gone. This first round only accounts for about $50 million.

Austerity in the Mind Factory
Alan Sears

It is not an accident that education is looming so large in anti-austerity struggles. Education is a costly item at a time governments are looking to slash expenditures, and full-time teachers or profs are an ideal target in campaigns to vilify and attack unionized public sector workers with decent job security, benefits and pensions. But that's only part of the reason. Education is about the formation of the population, and changes in workplace organization, labour market practices and models of democratic conduct require a reorganization of the schools, colleges and universities. Education systems are designed to develop particular kinds of worker-citizens, and current government policy documents, supported by statements from employers' organizations, argue that the mind factory is still turning out last year's model.

For example, the “three-cubed” position paper prepared for the Ontario government and recently leaked to the press argues that today's students need to be prepared for work in the “new creative economy.” The paper argues that there is a need to: “redefine the role of higher education to serve the foundational needs of the new creative economy.” Students need to be prepared to be more entrepreneurial in this context:

There are lots of debates about whether this really is a “creative economy” given that most workers simply face new kinds of drudge work, only now it often involves a computer screen. There is, however, no doubt that significant changes are underway in the workplace and state policy, changes that have real impact. One important example is the deliberate shift from security to precariousness as a way to motivate worker productivity. At the height of the welfare state, management strategies sought to motivate some sections of the working-class to work hard through expectations of security – sustained employment, benefits to protect against adverse circumstances, pensions for a decent retirement, etc. Now, they are opting for precariousness as a strategy, so that no one feels their job is safe or that they can rely on benefits or services to help them out in times of need. Of course, many workers – and particularly women workers of colour – never won security and have always faced precariousness.

Politics trumps friendships and fairness
Robert Smol

Ontario teachers would do well to look at what is happening to their counterparts in B.C. Given what we have heard in Ontario from the McGuinty Liberals around salary and grid freezes, reductions of sick days and changes to pension plans I think we can definitely say the friendship with Ontario teachers is over. What has happened in B.C., and could potentially happen in Ontario, is a sober reminder to all of us of that politics trumps all and we always need to be steadfast in our determination to protect the rights and working conditions of our members.

High-stakes testing
Stephanie Silvester-Keating

One day in January, I was on deck to follow up the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) preparation activity conducted just before the Christmas break. For one full class period, Grades 9 and 10 teachers had been directed to have their students complete a three to five paragraph opinion piece assignment that was designed to model material they would encounter on the OSSLT. Their efforts were assessed and returned. My job with the students that day in January was to examine the results of their opinion pieces, to model effective pre-writing and writing strategies and then to launch the students into their second attempt at crafting the ideal OSSLT opinion piece response.

The task is straightforward enough, so why was I feeling so paralyzed trying to prepare for it?

Teacher Evaluations in New York
Nathaniel Brooks

New York State education officials and the state teachers’ union reached an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system … , just hours before a deadline imposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had threatened to break the impasse by imposing his own way to judge the quality of a teacher’s work….

The agreement, announced at a news conference in Albany, allows school districts to base up to 40 percent of a teacher’s annual review on student performance on state standardized tests, as long as half of that portion is used to analyze the progress of specific groups of students, like those who are not proficient in English or have special needs. It also offers other options: base 20 percent of the score on state test results and the other 20 percent on exams developed by the districts or by a third party, provided that the exams are approved by the state.