Coveting their neighbours' EDCs

Once again, Canada's largest publicly funded school board is pushing to get more money so that it can avoid the difficult choices it's largely failed to make over the past 10 years.
I speak of the Toronto District School Board and its press conference Sept. 4 asking the province to change the Education Development Charges (EDCs) regulations so it can qualify for them and use them to fund badly needed repairs and renovations to its existing schools.
In a nutshell, the last revision to EDCs set up a system where these growth-related construction fees could be put into place in municipalities where the district school board's facilities were over capacity and projected to remain so for a set period. They follow the municipal development charge philosophy where growth pays for growth -- DCs are charged when a building permit is taken out and put into reserve funds where they are used by municipalities to pay for growth-related costs such as new facilities, roads, or expansion of existing infrastructure to accommodate the added people/businesses.
School boards can't have EDCs if, as a whole, they have vacant spaces in their buildings. This has in essence prevented most every public board from using these building fees as a way of collecting revenue that can be used to fund new schools in growing neighbourhoods. Whereas many Catholic boards were over-enrolled when these fees were last tweaked and have used EDCs as revenue to buy land for new buildings.
The EDC structure should be examined, but not to reward the TDSB for failing to make significant decisions when it comes to how many vacant spaces it has across its schools. There is no other board across Ontario that has been able to afford to avoid making the significant decisions on closures and consolidations to deal with vacant spaces. Step outside the GTA and every board has been making multiple rounds of these difficult, controversial decisions for almost 10 years now.
When I first began writing about school capacity and closures in 2003-04, the TDSB had more vacant pupil spaces in its system than any other board. Eleven years later, I'd eat crow if that's changed.
The problem is a real one -- money spent on maintaining vacant pupil spaces today (even if the hope is they'll be needed in 20 years) is money taken away from servicing the pupil spaces that are occupied today. Meaning it's not being spent on repairs and renos to facilities with higher enrolments. It's not being spent on the programming and staffing. It's being spent on keeping that vacant pupil space available in the inventory.
The point that EDCs should be available for renovation and expansion of existing facilities is a valid one -- if that work is being done in growing areas. An EDC collected for a condo downtown shouldn't be available as a source of funding for renos in a 50-year-old school in Etobicoke. Municipalities are allowed to use their DCs to fund growth-related expansions of facilities and services, that school boards should be able to do so is reasonable.
Before we get there though, a school board's ability to tap into these revenues should be evaluated against its enrolment and whether there is any opportunity to free up funds by rationalizing its vacant pupil places. Absolute zero vacant pupil places is perhaps unreasonable, but until the board with the largest number of these vacant places takes serious action on them, those EDCs should remain out of reach.

Asking a leopard to change its spots

It's getting to the point that when I read things about those who challenge Catholic school boards on the instruments of how they administer faith-based schools, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Witness today's article in the Globe by Katie Hammer on Ontario Catholic boards forcing their students to take religious education credits as part of their high school studies. This in a world where high schools are open to all, regardless of whether they're part of a publicly funded Catholic school board or a public school board. There are no restrictions on enrolment in Catholic secondary schools, unlike for elementary schools in many boards that still require the child and/or one or both parents to be baptized Catholics.
The number of requests has increased since the court decision earlier this year that allowed a non-Catholic student to opt out of religious education courses at the Catholic high school he attends. As the Globe explains today, boards are turning down exemption requests from those students whose parents have (on their property tax forms) declared themselves to be Catholic school supporters. This was a distinction that mattered more when school boards set tax rates in each municipality -- today, it matters not a lick other than in principle since the education portion of a property tax bill is sent to the province and then doled out by the ministry.
Let's set something straight. Catholic high school religious education courses are not four years of Bible study. I could stand to be corrected since it's been 18 years since I had personal knowledge of this, but religion credits in Grade 9/10 may continue to be mostly Bible/Catholicity based. Back in the day, the Grade 11 credit was a world religions course (social sciences credit) and the Grade 12 credit was a "man and society" course. Our OAC course was a half-credit, most of which was volunteer hours that have since been replaced by the diploma requirements for the same service.
The Grade 11/12 credits are ones available to any student studying in Ontario at any high school. Catholic boards, as a measure of showing how they continue to instruct their students in matters of faith, make the two senior-level credits mandatory. The requests for exemptions in senior grades are not to be exempted from sitting down and rote-learning the Bible, chapter and verse.
For a system trying to defend itself against being dissolved, the response to requests for exemption is a pretty smart move by the Catholic boards. Your guess is as good as mine on whether it will succeed.
The boards are simply pointing out the contradictions in intent-- as a parent and taxpayer, making the conscious choice to declare oneself as a Catholic school supporter but then turning around and saying you do not want that same school system to continue to instruct your child(ren) in the very faith you've declared yourself to be. If Catholics supporting Catholic school boards stop wanting their schools to teach their kids about faith all the way to graduation, then the only valid reason for a faith-based publicly funded school system in Ontario begins to evaporate.
For the non-Catholics who attend Catholic high schools, I can't say I've understood how the earlier court case was successful either, but that's another post.
We can't keep asking the Catholic school system to change its faith to suit our changing mores and understanding of who should be able to do (or not do) what within those schools. As long as we keep supporting the full funding of a faith-based system, it's ridiculous to keep asking that system to stop instructing its students in its faith under certain circumstances.
Parents who send their kids to Catholic schools for whatever reasons who don't like the faith-based elements of what's in that school always have an easy choice -- pull your kids from the school and register them in public schools.
As for the rest of us, if we're really that uncomfortable with what a faith-based school system looks like, then work to stop funding it and work towards the establishment of a single publicly funded school system.
Don't keep asking the leopard to change its spots.

Is anyone dusting off the dance floor?

I'm a little surprised I've seen so little discussion, ruminating, etc. on this so far this summer.
Every single K-12 education-sector contract in Ontario expires on Aug. 31.
Why aren't we more people talking about this?
I don't want to sound naive on this matter. I'm well aware that in every round of negotiations known to us in the past 15 to 20 years, nothing serious gets tabled until well after the last agreement has expired. Preliminary discussions on what the discussions will be about along with notices of intent to bargain likely haven't even been have been sent out yet (see here, here, with a H/T to Caroline Alphonso) across Ontario, given it's summer and all. Negotiations are a dance and so far I don't see anyone on the dance floor or even pushing the dust mop around to get it ready.
However, that shouldn't stop more of my media colleagues. Should it?
Let's consider a few things, aside from the fact B.C. teachers are on the picket lines over many of the same issues that could rear their heads in Ontario in the year ahead.

1. Bill 122 passed before the May election and it's now governing how the pending round of collective agreements will be negotiated. Which means a legislated and regulated series of central bargaining tables where all the big-money questions will be negotiated.
2. With the Liberals' election as a majority government, sanity may prevail and we won't see a resumption of the silliness that happened with the fall 2012 byelections and Bill 115 in an attempt to win a single seat. However you also didn't see an enthusiastic, blanket endorsement of the Liberals in the 2014 election as happened in 2011 and 2007.
3. Since re-election, the government has been quite clear (see its Metrolinx response) that no collective agreement will include more money. If there are wage and benefit increases, those amounts need be negotiated out of monies found elsewhere in the system.
4. Declining student enrolment has not disappeared as a real factor-- while most boards are seeing small rebounds in their youngest grades, all will still feel the real impact of fewer students. Particularly within a four-year high school program. Despite over a decade of declining enrolment, education funding in Ontario has continued to grow. There will be caps on spending and part of that may include job losses and rationalization of programs and services to match lower student populations. We need to let go of the false assumption there will be no job losses in our schools -- within a per-pupil funding and allotment system, there's no way to avoid these changes when the number of pupils drops. This is already happening and if you don't believe me ask your closest high school teacher how many surplus "lines" they have at their school for September.

This is a quick list. There are many other things to take into consideration with this round. Fro example, ETFO was given back (sort of) the wage parity its officers pissed away in 2008-12.
Given how ugly contracts were for the 2012-13 school year, is Ontario up for a repeat of this in 2014-15?  What levers get moved in which direction to keep K-12 sector spending within the government's own stated caps while rationalizing the system (particularly in secondary schools) for continued declining enrolment? Are both sides prepared for a Sunshine List release in 2015 that will show the largest-ever number of educators earning over six figures?
We need to start talking about this and the sooner the better.

The problem with most single-system analyses

Saw this tweeted by a trusted source Sunday morning, but HuffPo published an op-ed by Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner on March 15 regarding merging Ontario's four publicly funded school boards into two.
As readers here would know, I support this, with the full disclosure I am the product of a Catholic school system. However since becoming a ratepayer in southwestern Ontario, I am an English public school system supporter (for whatever that's worth in a single-funder system).
Schreiner's POV in this latest piece hasn't changed since the last Ontario election. He's consistently been a single-school system supporter since taking the mantle of the GPO. The challenge, however, is that Schreiner leads with the financial argument. That argument in this case is based on a 2012 study by the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods of Ontario Inc.
There are some assumptions in that report upon which the estimated $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion (my rounding) in annual savings are based that are false. They appear to be based on a presumption that many of the students currently in Catholic schools would leave the publicly funded system.
That's the only guess I have as to how the study identifies efficiencies of scale to the extent it does. It pegs $164.9 million in savings from the elimination of school board and governance grants if the province's Catholic district school boards were eliminated. This assumes the public systems taking over management and governance of the physical assets and students would be willing to have that added to their existing workloads.
I don't see that happening.
So you wouldn't see 100% of those governance and admin costs evaporate.
It pegs $169 million in student transportation cost savings-- by increasing walking distances across the province and the elimination of duplication. Again, I don't see the savings fully realized as school board transportation consortium shotgun weddings started taking place over five years ago and are pretty much fully implemented.
Which isn't to say some of the estimates presented aren't valid-- savings will happen in capital and facilities as we use the existing stock of school buildings more efficiently instead of having wide discrepancies between public and Catholic schools that lie within blocks of each other.
Where the financial argument falls apart is the economies of scale line, where it estimates $487.9K to $813.2K in annual savings.
If the number of students in the system remains stable after the merger of Catholic and public boards, the overall costs of running the system are not going to dramatically drop. Yes, there will be savings in some areas where there is duplication-- but overall you're not going to suddenly have 40% fewer principals or superintendents. The number of teachers and support staff would remain relatively static.
It surprises me neither party in this example has bothered to look at Quebec or Newfoundland and Labrador, where systems were merged. What sort of savings have materialized? You might find some concrete examples there instead of assumptions built on false premises.
It's an argument that side-steps the conversation that should be happening around publicly funded faith-based education in Ontario. Which is whether it should be publicly funded at all. Arguing it shouldn't be funded because of potential, flawed estimated savings is a weak foundation because those "savings" simply won't materialize to the stated degree should Ontario move to a single system.
Ontario is no longer part of a dominion where a minority of Christians need to have their faith protected from being extinguished by the majority of Christians. Those days have long passed-- defense of any faith should be a matter of instruction and practice within individual families and whatever congregation they choose to associate with, not a publicly funded educational system.
That -- and not money -- should be the No. 1 reason for a single system in Ontario. I've not yet heard a politician frame it in those terms, which is unfortunate because the other arguments only distract from what should be discussed.

Changes ahead

As faithful readers here will remember, I was laid off from my most-recent job at the Expositor in Brantford, Ont. in December after 28 months as that outlet's primary city hall reporter.
In January, I accepted an offer to work at the Brant News, a Metroland weekly newspaper based in Brantford-- the general manager and editor moved quickly to offer me a position within their organization that would begin with a maternity leave contract and then carry the potential for full-time, permanent employment within the chain. I was set to return to Brantford and covering city hall starting March 3.
On Feb. 21 however, I accepted another offer of employment with the Standard-Freeholder in Cornwall, Ont. Starting March 17, I will be the managing editor of this daily news organization, overseeing its newsroom and the digital and print content it produces.
It's another role taking me in a different direction than I'd anticipated over a decade ago when all I wanted to be was the best education reporter anywhere.
This topic is still a passion of mine, as is the sharing of clips and analysis of its issues and coverage elsewhere in the media. How I will manage this space is still somewhat unknown, but I hope to be able to continue to use it.

Three thoughts on Bill 122 committee hearings

Having read through the transcript of last week's committee hearing into Bill 122, there are only a few things that percolate to the surface for me as the legislation continues its move through the House.
The transcript is part of the bill's bundle of pages on the legislative website-- French-language skills will be useful as two of the deputations' remarks are in French as are a few of the questions asked afterwards. Kudos to the Globe and Mail and QP Briefing (owned by the Star) for having their reporters in the room. The focus of the Globe piece was heavy on conflict, of the potential for it even with this proposed bill in place.
With one exception (Clegg), I found the deputations' comments to be reasonable and pointed out the three things that percolated to the top for me.

1. That Bill 122 enshrine the Crown as one of the parties in any provincial negotiations. Most every deputation spoke to how the Crown ultimately sets the terms of how this bargaining will look and feel like but doesn't define itself as a member at the table. Given the province, through its ministry and budget, funds the vast majority of the monies used by boards to pay their employees and run our publicly funded school systems, this appears as a glaring oversight. I don't know if its omission was an attempt to keep the Crown from being defined in any way as an employer around those tables-- but given the school board associations (for better or worse) represent their members and the unions represent the employees to be covered the people at the table with the money to make it all happen work for the Crown. It should be a defined member of those negotiations.
2. That the central bargaining created by Bill 122 include all unionized employees who work within Ontario's schools. OSSTF, OECTA and CUPE spoke most strongly to these points, although they diverge slightly on the nuts and bolts of how each of the various smaller unions in the education sector could or should participate in central bargaining. Again, this is an oversight-- teachers' federations (who represent more than teachers) often steal the education-sector bargaining limelight. We in media tend to overlook and ignore the support workers, their contracts, their working conditions and such unless and until there's any job action. If central bargaining on key issues will be the law of the land for teachers' federations, then it should be so and include other unionized employee groups as well.
3. What should be discussed locally and centrally? Bill 122 proposes the government/Crown make this definition. The unions all pointed out that in free collective bargaining, the first item for discussion is to decide what is to be discussed. I'm undecided on where to sit on this question. Given the sole-funder question, I see a day where it wouldn't be too far-fetched a premise to have central bargaining deal with 100% of education sector agreements. We're a long way from this, but Bill 122 is an important step. If school board associations become more structured and transparent, government remains accountable to its citizenry and the unions remain accountable to their members, then you have three equal partners making decisions that are consistently applied in every publicly funded school. Unless funding control were to return to local boards and unions de-amalgamated, there wouldn't be two equal partners at the table in local bargaining-- which in part was what happened from 1998-2002/3, when provincial table officers from headquarters were assigned to every district for bargaining to achieve provincewide objectives while school boards had no similar support.

All of the above, and anything else to be said about Bill 122 whether you agree with this assessment or not, is moot unless the bill actually makes it to royal assent. Given the larger chess pieces at play, I don't have the confidence that will happen before the spring budget which may lead to an election. Further, the government isn't out there pumping up the fact this is one of the key bills it wants to see passed before the next budget.
If left on the order paper, what happens in a post-election scenario? In a change of government scenario, how would the impending round of collective agreements be dealt with? If the Liberals are returned to office in whatever form (minority/majority), do they pick up 122 and re-introduce it with the goal of a quick passing?
Unless there are some big changes, the next Ontario election won't be about education, it will be about the Liberals' track record on other files. Neither opposition party has yet shed its timidity when it comes to challenging this government on its education track record in a way that will resonate with voters. Their final platforms will prove otherwise, but overall silence from the third party, countered with a pledge to halt implementation of full-day kindergarten from the official opposition are not going to make education the ballot question.
Clause-by-clause consideration is scheduled for March 11-12 to start March 5 In the midst of a few other things going on, I'll read through those transcripts and come back with any additional thoughts afterwards.

Bill 122 in committee

By the time I hit post on this, the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly will have begun its single day of hearings into Bill 122.
Looking to the agenda, the folks who've signed up to speak to legislators are mostly from the groups most affected by the bill-- unions representing those in the sector and school boards. Missing is the trustee / school board association for French-language Catholic schools in Ontario, though it may have submitted something to the committee in writing.
It's speaking in committee on Bill 122, but noting in my social feeds today that CUPE is reminding us they are angry the deals imposed under Bill 115 aren't being honoured by school boards.
The speaker who tweaked my curiosity is the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). I don't know who represents every employee group across all 72 publicly funded boards, but I'm not familiar with OPSEU representing any employees in K-12 in the province. Please comment below with an example should I be wrong on this. (Note comments below on OPSEU's role in some boards)
I'll post some additional thoughts on this in the days ahead as the Hansard transcripts become available. Also quite curious on whether there are any media in the committee room and whether anyone cares outside of those speaking. I certainly hope so, given this bill will define labour relations for the next round of contracts and will set the board for the game of chess expected to start later this year.

Bums in seats means dollars in the bank

An increasing reality across K-12 in Ontario is school boards marketing themselves to potential students.
I've noticed it, not so subtly, in my own district where the public school board has ramped up its promotional budget and materials to tell potential students "they belong" in the public system. All social media accounts are being used to push out marketing statements to enroll more often than push out items to inform.
It's not seen too often for K-8 programs, but at the high school level the competition -- and yes, it's a plain-out competition for bums in seats -- is getting fierce.
Witness the two-step by the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association on a promotional video for Catholic publicly funded schools featuring Mark Kielburger. He's a Catholic high school graduate, which is why the association had approached him in the first place. For some time now OCSTA has encouraged its member boards to highlight the Catholic graduate expectations, to differentiate its students from those who graduate from other schools. Highlighting Kielburger is a good example of that kind of promotion.
The association was called on the carpet by its public counterpart, whose spokesperson wasted no time in slamming OCSTA for crass marketing when they should be focused on working with their counterpart associations -- a pot/kettle sort of thing given many of the Ontario Public School Boards Association are engaging in the same sort of marketing. President Michael Barrett spoke of wasting time and public dollars on promoting one system over another, neglecting the fact his own members spend dollars doing the same things
The pitches are driven because parents and students can choose which school board to enroll in for grades 9-12 and each student brings with them per-pupil dollars. Post-1998, as per-pupil funding was implemented and Catholic school boards largely benefited from the formula (after, I would note, being forced to live off only residential property taxes from Catholic school supporters for decades) and the new school in most every community was the Catholic one.
In my own community, at one point, 25% of the incoming Grade 9 class at the local Catholic high school had come from public elementary schools. Why? Bigger school, newest facilities, better reputation academically. Despite what gets said in the midst of considering accommodation issues, parents and students tend to consistently vote with their feet to get the programs and facilities they want and need.
Declining enrolment -- and the largest cohort of students is now exiting high school -- has changed all this. Now Catholic school boards are more aggressively marketing themselves to maintain their student populations. Public school boards are responding in kind. It's an all-out battle, leading to another round of questioning the very existence of a publicly funded Catholic school system in Ontario.
For the record and in the interests of full disclosure as I've stated in the past, I am a graduate of a Catholic high school. That being said, I support a single publicly funded system administered according to language as has been successfully accomplished in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Critics are treating the Catholic-school marketing as another reason why the system shouldn't exist-- but if those critics come from public school boards, then they're the pot calling the kettle black. As mentioned above-- an increasing number of boards are marketing from both sides of the secular barrier.
If we're ready to have a mature conversation about a single publicly funded school system then let's have that conversation, not start throwing spitballs over marketing campaigns.

A trend afoot on Bill 122?

There was little if any coverage of the step back from Bill 122 taken by the education sector of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario on Jan. 13.
CUPE announced it was pulling its support for the bill due to ongoing frustrations with the manner the 2012-14 Memorandum of Understanding and subsequent contracts are being inconsistently handled across the province. I've seen this frustration first-hand and covered it as it pertained to how the support-staff members' contract was (or rather, wasn't) being implemented at a local Catholic district school board. The school board's response in this case was that it wasn't going to implement something it wasn't being funded to cover.
It's a common error made in covering K-12-- all the focus is on teachers and their unions with comparatively much less attention paid to the support staff members in our schools and the unions representing them. The size of the teaching component ensured MOUs from the disastrous 2012-14 contracts were funded based on what was in each subsequent agreement.
For support staff members, the situation has been a different one. Some boards have found the funding and consistently applied the changes to sick days, payouts of banked days (if any, since few boards offered this to support staff), tapping into short-term disability plans, etc. Others did not apply those items in a consistent way.
CUPE, which represents the vast majority of custodial, administrative, maintenance, classroom-support (EAs, IAs) and specialist positions in Ontario schools, said Monday it's had enough with how an agreement reached provincially is being implemented locally. Per the language it's using, the party it's holding primarily responsible is the government.
It's fearing Bill 122 will only formalize a scenario where this sort of 'provincial agreement doesn't get implemented properly at the local level' experience will happen again, and again. For anyone catching up, Bill 122 is heading into line-by-line review by committee later this year with the government's stated goal of having third reading of the bill reach the floor of the legislature before the March break.
The bill would formalize in law a two-tier setup for bargaining in the education sector-- at a central table with the Crown present alongside reps from unions and school boards, along with the traditional union-and-employer bargaining.
CUPE is urging its members contact MPPs across Ontario to express their concerns and lobby for their member to withdraw her or his support from the bill.
When I grabbed the link Monday, there was some casual social-media chatter other unions might follow CUPE's lead on this front. Doing a tour of their websites before typing this, I couldn't see any similar statements alongside each union's Bill 122-related content. What I did see were commitments to speak before the legislative committee to ensure their concerns would be heard.

Make that a numeracy and literacy secretariat

My feeds were full of math talk today, as Ontario Minister of Education Liz Sandals announced a series of responses to concerns over stagnant and declining assessment results on math.
The angst has been rising since the release of the 2012 PISA results late last year, showing that stagnation in achievement in math. It's existed longer than this however, as anyone paying attention to the full spread of EQAO results has been noticing for a number of years.
The Globe and Mail kicked off a recent spotlight on this angst by highlighting a series of petitions started across Canada to bring attention to the concern over how math is being taught and learned in K-12. I was sent a link to an Ontario petition last week. As of typing this, it still hadn't met change.org's threshold.
It's too easy to go too basic on this. Far too easy to call upon a few curmudgeonly people inside the ed sector and parents on its periphery, griping about how things aren't taught the way they used to be, how kids today are getting dumber, etc. That's low-hanging fruit and I would challenge my journalist colleagues to reach a little higher on this issue.
Unlike Sandals, I would say the curriculum in Ontario does need a refresh. Curriculum review is never a bad thing because we constantly evolve-- we learn more about how people learn, different and new ways of teaching to meet the increasingly varied needs of school-aged kids in our classrooms today (not to mention tomorrow and the year after that). I'm not saying the curriculum is broken, but keeping it current is never a bad thing.
I support the added investment in training teachers how to be better when they teach math-- it's one of the areas where the inadequacy of Ontario's teacher education shines through. I witnessed this first-hand three years ago while on my fellowship and auditing teacher-education classes at OISE. One of the courses I audited was a masters of teaching junior-intermediate cohort's trip through a 12-week course on literacy and numeracy. The first block was all numeracy and of the class of just over 25, only a few had math as their teachable subject.
The professor kept insisting and encouraging the remainder of the students not to tune her out, imploring them to challenge their own biases on math, the poor way they'd been taught and and to realize in today's job market, the first, second and third jobs they might get in a school could very well involve teaching math.
With a move to a two-year program in Ontario, teacher-education programs would serve their candidates and those candidates' future students well by spending far more time on math-teaching strategies for primary, junior and intermediate panel candidates. 
When I was working on my EQAO series in 2008, I also saw first-hand how the emphasis was on literacy and not numeracy. The provincial and local investments in literacy far, far outnumbered (ha!) what was being put into math. If you've had a kid in elementary school since the Liberals took office in 2003, you've likely heard of a literacy coach at your child(ren)'s school. Have they had a math coach? Probably not, since there are few of them.
I've told various Ministry of Education communications staffers over the years the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat was full of untold stories on how an investment in a particular area generates results over time. How it's done well with targeted investment and support of existing teachers through their school boards.
Despite its dual name, the LNS has been primarily focused on literacy.
The details of today's announcement don't specify whether the LNS will be a conduit for any of the money pledged by the minister. It exists and already has the structure to deploy this training and new resources-- it would be foolish to set up a completely separate body to administer this.
As to results? They won't be visible overnight as it takes time for any changes spurred by this announcement to be seen. If the investment is targeted correctly, those results should show it in the coming years.

Let the ignored races begin

Jan. 2 was the opening of the nomination period for municipal elections in Ontario, as you've no doubt heard by now.
Media across the province have already reported on the first folks who filed their nomination papers when clerks' offices at municipal offices across the province opened for the day yesterday. The nomination period continues until Sept. 12-- clerks will finalize the list of candidates for the Oct. 27 election by 4 p.m. on that day.
What didn't you hear a lick about?
How these are the same elections where voters (municipal elections have a very poor turnout) choose their next crop of trustees for the province's 72 publicly funded public and Catholic district school boards.
Any early filers for these trustee positions across Ontario.
Despite how, in any municipality, these candidates file their paperwork at the exact same desk, often with the exact same people, as you would if running for a seat at the municipal council table.
As an advocate for more and better reporting on the K-12 sector in Ontario (and by extension, Canada), it's always my hope the next election period is the one that includes more information on those running for trustee.
While the role of trustee has changed dramatically since it was first created, it remains an important one. They're the corporate governors of district school boards. Charged with setting policy and passing budgets, serving two masters of the policies and spending rules set by the Ontario Ministry of Education while attempting to address local needs within that same framework.
District school boards are often, in many parts of this province, the largest public-sector employer and owner of real estate. Despite demographic changes, there are still almost two million school-aged children in Ontario, with the vast majority of them attending publicly funded schools.
Regardless of all the changes over the years, trustees remain the only ones who decide on two things that have a huge impact on a child's experience in a K-12 school in Ontario.
No. 1? The budget. Despite how little they can actually move around from line to line thanks to provincial funding formulae and rules, trustees pass the budget. They're the ones who authorize what the funds are spent on within each district.
No. 2? School / facility condition and location. Despite an oft-misunderstood review process, the province has been consistently and exceedingly clear it wants nothing to do with deciding the exact location of schools in Ontario. Its funding and rules often force the need to make a decision on what schools are built, which are closed and moved, etc., but the details of the decision remain exclusively with school board trustees. Not accommodation review committees, not school board staff members. Trustees.
Given the budgetary and accommodation challenges facing each of the 72 Ontario school boards today, not to mention into the next five-to-10 years, a full slate of trustee candidates could be fielded on those two matters alone.
But they won't.
What we'll likely see on Sept. 12 is a slate of acclamations for trustee races across Ontario.
In those places with races, it'll be rare to see a broad spread of candidates in any particular ward.
I'll be keeping an eye out for trustee election-related coverage in the months ahead. It'll be sparse, but let's see what comes along. If you see any, link to it in the comment section.

2013 in review

Though it's been the sparsest year on record for new posts in this space, I have been paying attention to the K-12 sector in Ontario over the past 12 months. You can get a flavour of that from the Tumblr page where I aggregate the coverage of the sector from things I trip across while muddling through my social feeds or other news alerts.
Easily and without hesitation, bargaining (or lack thereof) again dominated the landscape in 2013. From the implementation of contracts under Bill 115 to the subsequent repeal of massive portions of the bill in late January. Not forgetting the resumption of extra-curricular activities across all high schools in time for the third of the three high school sports seasons.
Summertime offered no respite, as boards individually worked to implement the provisions of the mandated contract while pushing back to the ministry on those elements whose real costs they'd not been truly funded to cover.
Then in the fall, the new minister brought her first substantive piece of legislation to the floor that could actually alter the bargaining landscape when it comes to the next round of contracts that are coming due in 2014. Bill 122 was just sent to committee for its line-by-line before the legislature rose for the Christmas break, setting it up for a potential third reading and final vote prior to the spring budget.
Other items that are worthy of reflecting upon from the year in education in 2013, in no particular order:

• Accommodation, again: This one will not so easily leave the sphere of coverage or importance. While many of the easier (and by no means are any of these decisions easy) decisions when it comes to school accommodation have already been made, it was another year of headline-grabbing decisions. Be it in Kingston (pending any reviews there) or Toronto (delay delay delay) or London, school boards are still facing important and tough decisions on what sort of spaces students should be learning in as we enter 2014. With virtually no money provincially to support projects (outside of FDK, but more on that below), school boards have to be smarter about these decisions. Do they make decisions that benefit the greatest number of students? Or do they make decisions that benefit the most vocal constituency? Those are often different decisions.
• Stagnant results: I have pondered this over the years in this space, but more are now questioning why / whether Ontario's students have peaked when it comes to the large-scale standardized assessments such as the EQAO testing at Grades 3, 6, 9 and 10. Witness the panic this fall when the much-lauded PISA results showed Canadians (including Ontario, but interestingly, not Quebec) had been languishing in math results in these international sample-based assessments. The far-too-easy answer? We've poured a lot more money into literacy skills than numeracy. This is the result.
• FDK's final two years of implementation: This year had the first lauded and criticized study on the early success (or lack thereof) of the program. Of course, the province's ongoing deficit and debt leads to this program constantly being targeted for cuts. What I didn't see a lot of in media coverage this year? Parents whose kids are in the program or were in the program dissatisfied with the results or still insisting on calling it babysitting.
• Toronto, Toronto, Toronto: A few reminders throughout this calendar year that Toronto still pretty much makes its own rules when it comes to its school system. Particularly at the public school board, where money for capital was questioned, the province threatened (again!) to withhold money and then later backtracked and where it was found that like many other boards, they'd found a way to skirt wage-freeze regulations being applied to the broader public sector. The board remains the one with the largest inventory of vacant space and the greatest need for school renewal and potential consolidation.
• New minister: After the brief term of Laurel Broten (since resigned from politics altogether) we had a new minister with the new premier in Liz Sandals. Politically experienced in education, Sandals has made a few missteps on accountability measures (once admitting she hadn't read a briefing, only taking the summary from her staff members). By and large, she's helped Premier Wynne with bandaging relationships and she and her parliamentary assistant will shepherd the next generation of bargaining in the sector through the legislature.

Predictions for 2014?
I think bargaining will again be at the forefront as Bill 122 sees its day at third reading and royal assent. If it's passed, it will guide how the next round of contracts within the sector is settled. Look for the unions to try and catch up for two years of less-than-ideal wage and benefit provisions. Look for the government to continue its austerity push-- regardless of which party politically sits on the other side of the table.
The real question is whether it leads to a repeat of 2012-13 or whether it provides a more fulsome solution.

Changes

This space has, unfortunately, become what I increasingly referred to as my "oft-neglected" education blog over the past year.
There are no excuses other than neglect and a lack of drive for why this is only the fourth seventh post of the year to this space. I've not made the time for it and there was no push to do so professionally as I was focused mainly on municipal affairs.
As of a few days ago, I was laid off as a result of corporate downsizing within the chain of newspapers I've worked in since 2003.
The bonus? Theoretically, I may have more time to dedicate to this space now that I find myself between jobs. Of course, the length of that period of time is unpredictable.
If you're still out there, still waiting for something to read, stay tuned.

Illusions on testing illusions

About a month ago my eye was drawn to "Real accountability or an illusion of success?"
It's 14+ page call to action is worth a read regardless of your personal / professional views on large-scale assessments such as the standardized tests used by Ontario's Education Quality and Accountability Office.
The call to action is to review standardized testing. The authors chose Ontario, the first of some interesting choices they've been making since releasing the report. According to the very chart provided, only Manitoba and Prince Edward Island use standardized testing less than Ontario does. One might of thought they could have called for a review of the practice in provinces where it's used across more grade levels than in Ontario (B.C. and Saskatchewan) or a greater number of subjects (B.C., Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador). The Ottawa-bylined but multi-based crew behind this chose to zero in on Ontario, perhaps because that's where they were exposed to a greater level of scrutiny over this form of testing.
All the main issues / critiques of testing are summarized in the call to action. I actually don't have any issues with the recommendations either— though the questions asked do presuppose this review of standardized testing in Ontario would conclude they should become sample-based or eliminated. It includes more questions of testing from its critics than from the agency tasked with administering the tests and holding all that data.
I've come to the conclusion however, reading the tweets sent out by the authors, that their anti-standardized testing bias is quite evident. Read 'em for yourself. Not one pro-testing or neutral tweet, they're all anti-testing or questioning the use/validity, etc.
Tweets by @TestingIllusion
As a result, I've come to the conclusion their goal is worthy, but this group should not be the ones leading the work that may lie ahead. Another Royal Commission may be the only way to ensure a balanced approach. The chances of that happening are small given other items before government right now, but if this group carries forward I'm not confident at this point the end result will be a fair examination of the questions.

And the next minister is?

With Kathleen Wynne's swearing in scheduled for Feb. 11, I haven't seen too much chatter on her choices for cabinet, other than some backing away from the cabinet table. With only 10 MPPs who supported her candidacy, if the premier-designate sticks to backroom-style politics those 10 could be up for some promotions.
In terms of those with cabinet experience under this government, here are some thoughts. Of the list, I would imagine, if I were in Wynne's shoes, I'd keep London North Centre's Deb Matthews at the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. Perth-Wellington's John Wilkinson barely kept his seat in 2011 thanks to his term as environment minister coupled with rural reaction to wind-farm developments. However he could land back in cabinet in some other portfolio. I would imagine Glen Murray would slide back into research and innovation, if that ministry continues to exist. If not, Murray's strengths could see him in municipal affairs and housing or perhaps back at training, colleges and universities. Kingtson and the Islands' John Gerretsen has held a number of portfolios since 2003. Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale's Ted McMeekin only made it to cabinet in McGuinty's last shuffle, but Wynne has already indicated she wants to serve as premier and minister of agriculture and rural affairs for at least the first year.
Of course my interests are in education.
Given the current state of things due to Bill 115, education will continue to be a key political post. Many have said current minister Laurel Broten will be axed from the post and either demoted to a less-glamorous cabinet post or to the back bench. Broten didn't support Wynne in the race, but Wynne has said she won't rip up the contracts imposed under Bill 115. There could be merit in keeping Broten in the post at the beginning of this refreshed cabinet's term-- the education sector unions won't like it, but Broten might deserve the opportunity to find a way out of the mess that is in place right now.
Of the rest on the list of supporters, only Guelph's Liz Sandals draws my eye. Another former trustee turned MPP, Sandals was also the MPP who served as parliamentary / legislative assistant for a good chunk of the time that Wynne was minister. She then followed Wynne to transportation after that shuffle. She's not yet been in cabinet and this might finally be her time.
Outside of the list of supporters, Ottawa Centre's Yasir Naqvi has also done the parliamentary assistant gig (under Leona Dombrowsky) and as OLP president I've seen other writers muse his time in cabinet is due. The current PA is Mississauga-Streetsville's Bob Delaney, who like Sandals was first elected in 2003.
Any other suggestions?

Thoughts on the PCPO white paper

The paper came out with some aplomb by the party as it rolls out various policy papers on different issues to build the foundation for any pending electoral campaign. You can read it for yourself here-- though I would recommend downloading the PDF and reading the whole paper as the online version only includes the "paths."
(As an aside, the bulk of this white paper was launched at the Ray Friel recreation centre in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans, which happens to be the very first pool I worked at as a lifeguard/instructor.)
I'm struck by two main thoughts after reading through this white paper.

• Does the party know what the current government is actually doing in education? The paper mentions changes and implementing policies that are already underway -- take community use of schools as an example. Would a PC government do much more than what is already in place? They commit to increasing after-hours use of school buildings yet those policies (and subsidies for non-profit groups) are already in place. Another example is what it says on the Specialist High Skills Major programs-- again, what would a PC government do that's different than what's already being done? There were a couple of other "paths" where I was also left wondering whether the party was admitting it would just continue current practices or setup something dramatically different than what has been developed over the last nine-plus years.
• The money questions could kill any effectiveness in this platform. There are many mentioned in here-- from implementing full-day kindergarten (the party has flip-flopped on this program so many times I've lost count), to class-size averages and programs to the ubiquitous reduction of "non-teaching" staff. Some come right out of the Drummond Report, which made good points that should be addressed but also showed a bean-counter's approach. There needs to be more detail provided by all parties on whether there could be a determination of some standards in staffing levels / non-teaching support levels and then ensure those standards are implemented and staffing adjustments made relevant to declining population. The white paper suggests too many of the increases in spending were irrelevant to improving student experiences and outcomes, but neglects to take into account many of these investments were added after being cut or drastically reduced by previous governments.

Coverage of the launch focused on the "defining a teacher's job" section of the report, given the current state of extracurricular activities in public schools as a result of Bill 115. But like always, there's other substance to this policy paper. From school organization to new standardized tests (Grade 8 science) and new school construction there's enough to chew on here.
I'm curious to see what the other platforms would look like heading into any pending election. As a casual observer of such things, I'd say this is the strongest policy document on K-12 I've seen from the PC Party of Ontario in some time. With former minister Kathleen Wynne set to be sworn in on Feb. 11, I'll be equally curious to see whether any eventual Ontario Liberal Party platform expands on what she mentioned in her leadership platfom.
Which leaves the Ontario NDP-- will they have an education platform? Rather, when will they tell us about it?

Choosing an education premier

Ontario Liberal Party members will choose this province's next premier starting Jan. 25 in Toronto. As I did with the selection of a new Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leader back in 2009, it's time to look at the six candidates for OLP leader and what their outlook on the government's second-largest expense is.
Straight off the top, this campaign's candidates feature experience in the portfolio not seen in any recent leadership campaigns provincially in quite some time. Gerard Kennedy was the Liberals' education critic before they won the election in 2003, jumping into the minister's seat until he stepped out of provincial politics to run for federal positions. Sandra Pupatello slid into the seat -- the leadership candidate education minister who ended up spending the least time in this portfolio. Then Kathleen Wynne, who has been the longest-serving education minister of this government's mandates.
Enough familiarity with the ministry to know its importance and how it runs, but at the same time each of those three has some distance from the government's more recent track record relating to things like Bill 13 and the painful round of contracts.
Summaries are based on keyword searches of each candidates' websites, as well as whether they've made any specific statements on education that have received coverage. The debates have dodged direct questions on Bill 115, which has left candidates to address that on their own terms and time. With the pending repeal of the bill, it also changes a little bit of the dynamic.
Anyway, onto the candidates, in alphabetical order.

Eric Hoskins

•  Hoskins has no particular education platform, other than motherhood and apple pie-type statements scattered throughout his various addresses and speeches.
• The most specific thing he says of interest to K-12 is a statement from back in December asking the government to hold off on implementing any contracts under Bil 115.

Gerard Kennedy

• Kennedy came out of the gate with perhaps the strongest education content as part of his campaign. As the first of the Liberal education ministers, it was under his tenure the first provincial discussion tables were held leading to the 2004-08 deals for teachers' unions. For those who forget, that was the Campaign 200 round of negotiations. He's not afraid to remind everyone of this since education was the only portfolio he held in the government.
• Kennedy has not shied away from saying Bill 115 was a mistake.He has a whole section (OK, one page) of his campaign site dedicated to his "plan for peace," which would tear up Bill 115. It was written back in December, but Kennedy is still saying this bill would be repealed and that bargaining between locals and their school boards would replace it, with provincial discussion tables being struck. I haven't seen, lately, whether he has strayed from this position now that contracts were imposed on OSSTF and ETFO. I'm not aware of whether or not he's committed to tearing up the imposed contracts (or all of them) and re-opening negotiations.

 Sandra Pupatello

• As Kennedy's successor in the portfolio, I've been surprised she doesn't tout her education experience more often than she has. As the only candidate I've personally seen speak (I covered her appearance in Brantford in December) during the campaign up to this point, she leads with jobs and economy and follows with community and social services, the portfolios she held after and before education. Her various "plan forwards" address education only in the Northern Ontario section, but address post-secondary more than K-12.
• Her only statement on the labour strife came in January, a plea to teachers to continue volunteering for extra-curricular activities. In its content, Pupatello states the circumstances leading to Bill 115 were regrettable, but doesn't convincingly state either way whether she'd repeal it or how she would deal with its continuing impact. It's a carefully worded statement that doesn't indicate how she'll handle the file if she wins the leadership.

 Charles Sousa

• Sousa actually has an education section to his platform, though I wish it said more on K-12. He mentions only encouraging entrepreneurship and labour-market focused career planning for high school students, as well as "protecting the integrity" of the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Both of which could mean entirely different things depending on who you ask.
• He does, however, kick off his education page by thanking McGuinty's leadership on the file.

 Harinder Takhar

• I hadn't expected to find as much K-12 content as I did on his campaign website. Scouring through the place however, Takhar has some pointed, interesting elements that touch on K-12, more than the candidates alphabetically ahead of him on this list.
• From the fiscal side, on his road map to eliminate the deficit, Takhar picks up on the declining student enrolment vs. increasing numbers of non-teaching / non-classroom staff in the system (straight out of the Drummond Report), saying he'd find $600 million a year in reducing this number through attrition and retirements over three years. He also would find $200 million in rationalizing full-day kindergarten through student-staff ratios and staffing based more on Pascal's recommended model than the one that's being implemented. That was also, more or less, straight out of Drummond.
• In a few sections, such as the Northern Ontario one, he mentions school accommodation guidelines to accommodate smaller populations-- which I thought many already did.
• On the labour front, he commits to meeting with unions, "while keeping in mind the financial realities faced by the province at this time."

Kathleen Wynne

• As the candidate who's spent the longest period of time in the education minister's portfolio, one should expect she would have a beefy section in her platform on education. Let's remember that full implementation of the primary class size initiative, the negotiation of the 2008-12 round of education-sector contract (and standing up to ETFO when it stayed away from the PDT for too long, losing its members wage parity with their colleagues) and the start of FDK all came under her term as minister. She's also the only candidate who has experience as a trustee and school board chair (TDSB, prior to her election as MPP).
• Her "The way we learn" section, while brief, contains substantive points on curriculum review, student achievement, parental engagement, early learning, experiential education (co-ops, apprenticeships, etc.), school board governance and most interestingly to me, establishing a Premier's Youth Advisory Council -- a concept not seen in Ontario since Bob Rae was premier. Also, a commitment to Aboriginal education by working with the feds to share the province's experience in K-12.
• There's a commitment to sit down with "education partners" to strengthen the bargaining process at provincial and local levels, but that's not enough detail for someone wondering how she would handle the impact of Bill 115's imposed contracts.

 Overall, with a few surprises, I'm quite disappointed at the lack of substantive material posted to candidates' websites or public statements regarding education. In many cases, education commentary focuses on post-secondary, not K-12. I'm not surprised by this, as K-12 is not the sexy element you sell your platform with in the midst of a headline-grabbing dispute between the current administration and its unions.

More importantly, the lack of substance on K-12 is troubling. Elementary and secondary schooling is the province's second-largest expense after health care costs. It's a government-funded service, like health care, that everyone uses at some point in their lives, often at multiple points (first as students and then as parents).
To those who are part of the process of selecting the new leader and who care about K-12, choose carefully. I hope the information above helps.

On sick days

I'm taking an opportunity to flush out the position I have when it comes to the sick-day issue. While I've often expressed it in bursts of 140 characters, it deserves more space than that.
Why? Obviously driven by the reduction of annual sick days from two per month to one a month that was in the government's objectives from the start on the 2012-14 contracts. It was tied to a the elimination of the ability to bank unused sick days that still existed within many (but not all) boards.
Context often lacking from much reporting on this subject is that banked days are not lost-- they're vested. Employees simply cannot add to the bank from September 2012 onwards.
As I've understood it, in those areas where it exists, this large a number of annual sick days and bankable days were negotiated into agreements as a means of accomplishing a number of items.
First, the sheer number recognized that teachers are both exposed to a higher degree of illness due to the vectors of illness they move amongst every day (ie: kids get sick a lot and spread illness easily), are more likely to become sick themselves as a result and for the sake of their students, not keep spreading illness.
The bankability also accomplished another element-- it became a de facto short-term disability plan where, in situations where a teacher needed to use their annual allotment but still was not healthy enough to return to work, s/he could dip into their bank of unused days without financial penalty. If an employee used all their days, I'm pretty sure every school board had long-term disability plans that would kick in after that.
Along the way however, the bankability was also negotiated into a payout. Depending on the board, on departure or retirement and in some cases also length of service, any banked days would be paid out. In most places there was a cap on the number of days that could be banked in order to limit the employer's future financial liability.
Somewhere along the way, that bankability became a part of some teachers' retirement planning. They'd let days accumulate (by nature of good health or by working when they could have been off sick) and in exchange on retirement have a nice little nest egg to tap into.
This arrangement is not exclusive to teachers. It exists in many areas -- particularly within the public service -- and off the top of my head some of the more egregious sick-day bankers are in the emergency services, police and fire more so than EMS.
To be clear, my position on bankability applies to all those publicly funded folks who can bank days. I'm not just being critical of the practice in education-- it's topical to education now because of being a government goal in these contracts.
Let's consider the above clearly. Let's also consider what sick days should be for-- illness. If you're sick (or tending to someone who is, as parents and caregivers often do), take your sick day(s). That's what they're for. They're not holidays. They're not floating days off. They're not meant to be taken (or banked for a gratuity) just because they exist. They're for when you're too ill to be at work.
Employers (school boards) were clearly showing that for whatever reason, most of their staff members were only using about half of their allotted sick days in a year. Averages (with all their foibles) by board spanned between nine and 12 days taken a year. Of course, there are always exceptions, individuals who for valid reasons needed two days a month (or more) to be away from work and put themselves in a position to return to work healthy. However, averages are what they are and most boards were giving employees their days and then watching as 40% to 50% of those days became a long-term liability as they got banked.
Though the methods were more than haphazard, the goal of both reducing the number of allotted annual days and eliminating the ability to continue to bank days were not. Budgeting for closer to actual expenses involved in sick days doesn't create a long-term liability. It's always going to be in the employers' interest to limit these long-term liabilities.
I acknowledge banked days do remove a substantial variability from the annual costs of sick days to an employer. Get a year where more sick days are used than what you've budgeted for without a bank and you're caught where you didn't want to be in the first place. Whereas with a bank in place, you know whether used or unused, your overall budget including any transferred liability will be static.
So in ending bankability and lowering the number of days allotted to closer to the average, the move eliminates any further growth in that existing liability. Recognizing the short-term disability use of banked days, the government also now mandates all in the education sector to be covered by short-term disability plans. This is common practice in the private sector (when this benefit is offered) as it provides some, albeit reduced income to someone who has used all their allotted sick days so they can take the time needed to return to work healthy.
What if that's not good enough compared to past practice? Negotiations didn't happen for public school sector employees (and those in Catholic schools represented by OSSTF or ETFO)-- I recognize the ability to do something there is likely lost. But in future negotiations, be honest about what your members and employees need and bargain for that.
Is the short-term disability plan not good enough? Bargain for a better one.
Is the retirement plan not good enough (recognizing teachers have great pensions, support staff not so much)? Then bargain for a better one.
Is there nothing or not enough in the short- or long-term disability plans for critical illnesses
that require long-term treatment and recovery? Then bargain for that coverage.
In the past, all those needs were met by bargaining for more sick days and the ability to bank 'em and have them paid out on departure. That wasn't the way those needs should have been met.
Keep sick days for when people are sick. Bargain for what's needed to cover the rest.

2012 year in review

As I noted at the end of my summative post for 2011, bargaining would be a huge issue in 2012 and as the year unfolded that proved to be true. It wasn't an exceedingly difficult prediction to make -- the 2008-12 contracts would expire, the government's new tack on fiscal austerity and a Liberal bench finding its way through minority government.
As of midnight yesterday, there was no overall resolution to dozens of contracts between elementary and secondary teachers working in public school boards, not to mention those support staff working across all school boards. not to mention some support staff working in schools (a template agreement was reached with CUPE on Dec. 31). With the new year now well underway, the question many are pondering is whether this minister and government will use the powers in Bill 115 to impose contract conditions on those in the sector who haven't settled or whether she will call any striking folk back to work as permitted under the same bill.
Personally, I'm left scratching my head as to how anyone gets to a resolution in this mess.
The unions are slowly painting themselves into a corner where their actions will only further alienate the public support they will need in order to minimize the impact of this battle on their members. If this province heads into an election in 2013 without some sort of resolution and job action continues, despite all their bravado the unions won't gain enough support to elect a government friendly to their demands.
Even if the contentious portions of Bill 115 are repealed, the government's fiscal goals haven't changed. It will still want to contain the massive liability of banked sick days and retirement gratuities for those school boards that offered them up to this point. It will still seek to eliminate the two-day-a-month sick day provisions and replace it with an amount closer to what people actually take, backed up by a short-term disability program.
It will still also seek to move towards provincial bargaining -- which, frankly, should have happened back in 1998 when the current district school boards were created and educational funding consolidated at the provincial level.
The government doesn't get off scot-free either. 
By poisoning bargaining right from the start, it did make it quite clear it wasn't willing to budge on its goals. It joined the unions in the war of rhetoric, making it easy to get distracted. This wasn't about wages. It's about long-tail liabilities and controlling the sector. Yet, to this day, the government line remains about teachers not wanting to take a pay cut, which is beyond false.
Caught in the middle, as always, are students. Being used as pawns, being abused as those impacted by any job action.
Bargaining would be the defining matter in education for the past 12 months, but that's not to suggest there weren't others. Here are a few to provide some fodder for reflection and discussion:

• Accommodation: This one does not go away. In 2012, another high-profile attempt -- this time in Peterborough -- to derail the decision made by a local school board. Another failure to understand that ministry reviews and judicial reviews are not appeals and cannot reverse a decision made by a group of local trustees. The rebound in declining enrolment is just getting underway in many districts. Many will point to this rebound as justification for maintaining the status quo-- but to do so is ignorant of what any good demographer will tell you. This rebound (which will take another eight to 10 years to begin hitting secondary schools) will be longer and smaller than previous baby booms. Which means it won't make up for the existing vacancies in our schools that will need to be rationalized sooner than this increase will start hitting high schools. This won't go away in 2013 either-- keep an eye on brewing situations in Kingston, London and maybe even, finally, in Toronto.
• GSAs: Long forgotten by now due to the labour unrest, this was a defining issue for the first quarter of the year. One of the only bills that received Royal assent before the summer break, Bill 13 was supposed to fix all bullying in our schools. Or something like that, I now mutter facetiously. The government started the year battling some faith-based groups and parents who objected to having gay straight alliances become a mandatory part of schools. Lost in the bigger discussion over what these support groups should be called was whether the name alone makes any real differences in school cultures and how they deal with harassment.
• See ya later, education premier: In a move that surprised many at the time, Dalton announced in October he will step down as party leader and premier once the Ontario Liberal Party elects a new leader in late January. So comes to an end a nine-year stretch where, for the most part, the government was quite friendly to the sector-- increasing funding by billions as student enrolments dropped by about six per cent. The legacy's being defined by his last few months, but as I argued when the announcement was made, McGuinty's legacy is larger than that. I would think in time, his term will be compared to that of Bill Davis. 

The past year was an exceedingly quiet one for this blog. It's my oft-neglected labour of love, supplemented somewhat by a tumblr feed but a shade of what it was in its first year. I do much of my opining on educational issues over Twitter, which provides an instant-gratification vehicle to express thoughts. I'm not a big new year's resolution person, but I would like to make carving out more time to write in this space a goal for the coming 12 months.
In the meantime, this tiny little blog approaches 100,000 page views as it enters its fourth year in March. Thanks to those who've stopped by and particularly to those who have been longtime readers.

Time to reconsider extracurriculars

As the fallout from Bill 115 continues across Ontario, I've had this conversation a number of times with colleagues and friends. It's time to reconsider how extracurricular activities are offered in our community schools.
Currently, running an extracurricular requires the presence of a paid school-board employee. That's usually a teacher, but can also be a support staff member depending on the activity. This applies whether it's in the elementary or secondary panel, whether it's a sports team or other athletics, after-school club or something that usually takes place during school hours at lunch or recess breaks. Even if the employee isn't directly running the activity in question, her or his presence is required even in an advisory role for the activity to be able to function.
In contractual disputes -- legitimate or otherwise -- education-sector unions usually push their members to withdraw from these voluntary activities. In one swift move, there are no extracurriculars in schools across the province. No sports, no clubs, no after-school help, etc.
Here's the part that doesn't make sense and should really be addressed.
There are plenty of other qualified adults in school communities who could run these activities just as competently (or even more) than school staff members. In many places, these people are already involved in those activities. It's not at all uncommon in high school sports, for example, to see community volunteers coaching or assistant coaching with the presence of a teacher adviser.
Currently, with the work-to-rule campaigns and other moves, these activities are defunct-- even in those situations where there are qualified volunteers willing and able to run them.
The most-often cited reason for these activities being cancelled even with willing and qualified volunteers is liability for school boards and supervision requirements that are built into school board policies. However, these activities, as any union is only too quick to remind us, are voluntary. Even the Education Act does not make them a mandatory part of the job description.
So a voluntary activity, through policy and a lack of momentum to think about other ways of organizing it, can only be run, de facto, by the very same people whose unions remind us again and again their members volunteer for the activity.
What a brilliant way of controlling these activities so they can be cancelled during a labour dispute, only hurting the very students everyone keeps saying they care so much about.
Given we appear to be far from a scenario where these activities are made part of a school board staffer's paid work day, let's open them up to all qualified volunteers in our communities. Screen them, make them sign a piece of paper if you need to deal with liability concerns, make them accountable to principals (where community volunteers are in schools they already do report to administrators).
Aside from allowing these activities to carry on regardless of contractual issues, it also removes a huge bargaining chip from unions and firmly places these activities into the voluntary field, where withdrawal of service has not one iota of influence over contracts.
Do 'em if you wish, don't do them if you don't. By truly and meaningfully opening them up to qualified community volunteers it wouldn't make a difference.